The night my childhood best friend, bankrupt and broken, was about to have her virginity auctioned off, I didn’t raise a single paddle for her. I just sat there and watched. Then I canceled our arranged marriage and flew halfway across the world. I did it because, in my last life, I saved her, and she accused me of holding it over her head. After we got married, she treated me like a stranger for years, only to have twins with the man she truly loved. She even let their children poison me. As I lay dying, her perfect little family of four stood over me. “Finally,” she’d said, “our family can be together.” I died full of hate. This time, I decided to get out of their way and let them have their happy ending. 01 “Next up for auction, the virginity of the former heiress to the Sinclair fortune, Ms. Clara Sinclair.” The burning in my stomach vanished. I snapped my eyes open. I was back at the auction. The night they sold Clara’s virginity. Looking around at the familiar, opulent room, I realized I’d been reborn. On the stage, Clara’s eyes found mine, pleading for help. This time, I didn’t meet her gaze. I just looked down at my phone and scrolled. In my last life, the second she was brought out, I bought out the entire auction just to save her. We’d had an arranged engagement since we were kids, and the Sinclair family, grateful that I’d saved her from public humiliation, pushed for us to get married immediately. I’d been in love with her my whole life, so I’d happily agreed. But after the wedding, Clara’s face was a permanent mask of cold indifference. I thought it was just the trauma of her family’s downfall, so I tried to be even more loving, more patient. I was wrong. It wasn’t until I was on my deathbed, poisoned by her twin children—children she had with her one true love, Ethan—that I finally understood. She didn’t just not love me; she despised me. “If it weren’t for you and your moral grandstanding,” she had sneered, “Ethan and I would have been together years ago.” “Do you know why I never let you touch me? Because every single second I had to spend in the same room as you made my skin crawl.” “Now that you’re dying, our family of four can finally be together.” That’s when I knew. She hated me to her very core. “Two hundred thousand!” “Three hundred thousand!” The shouts from the bidders pulled me back to the present. Most of them were old, greasy CEOs, their eyes devouring Clara on the stage. She looked like she was about to cry. Her eyes met mine again, this time filled with the desperation of a drowning woman clinging to a piece of driftwood. I remained perfectly still, making no move to bid. Her virginity finally sold for a million dollars to Mark Sterling, the fifty-something CEO of Sterling Corp. She collapsed onto the stage floor. Everyone in our circle knew about Sterling. He was old, but his tastes were notoriously depraved. He had a reputation for taking beautiful young women and breaking them. Sterling sent his men to collect her. As they led her past me, her eyes burned with a hatred I recognized. It was the same look she’d given me as I died in our last life. I just hadn’t expected to see it so soon this time around. “Why didn’t you save me?” Her voice was laced with an entitled sort of fury. I knew then that she remembered, too. She was reborn, just like me. “Sorry,” I said, a smirk playing on my lips. “Not interested in your virginity.” I gestured to the diamond necklace that was now being displayed on the stage. “This, however, I am interested in.” With a casual flick of my wrist, I raised my paddle and bought it for a ridiculous price, just to make a point. Clara’s face contorted with rage. “We grew up together! We were engaged! You’d rather buy a stupid necklace than save me?” I let out a short, sharp laugh. “Your virginity? What’s that worth? This necklace, on the other hand, is a solid investment.” “You!” She was sputtering, her eyes blazing. The idea that I, who had always been at her beck and call, would speak to her this way clearly short-circuited her brain. “Julian, stop this,” she pleaded, her tone shifting. “It’s not too late. Just save me, and we can pretend this never happened.” It’s true what they say: the ones who are loved unconditionally are always the most reckless. I felt a cold sneer form in my heart. In my last life, everyone knew I adored Clara. I stood by her even after her family lost everything. And how did she repay me? She ignored me, refused to consummate our marriage, and secretly started a family with another man. The memory was a bitter pill. “Mr. Sterling,” I called out, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Aren’t you going to collect your prize for the evening?” 02 Sterling, looking bemused, finally registered that Clara was still standing by my table. He gestured for his men to take her away. Clara shot me a look of pure contempt before being led out. After the auction, I went to her parents’ house. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair’s eyes were filled with worry. The moment they saw me, they both fell to their knees. “Julian, please, you have to save Clara,” Mrs. Sinclair begged. “She’s our only child. This is all our fault.” Looking at the two of them, I felt a pang of sympathy. In my last life, when they found out I’d been poisoned, they were the ones who called the ambulance. They were too late, but they tried. They had known me since I was a boy and had always treated me kindly. After Clara and I married, they treated me like their own son. I told them what had happened and gave them a debit card with a million dollars on it, telling them to go get their daughter back themselves. Sterling, for all his vices, wasn’t a monster. The Sinclair family had once been powerful, and he would likely give them that much courtesy. Then, I told them I wanted to break the engagement. I also made them promise not to tell Clara where the million dollars came from. “Julian, you and Clara have always been so close,” Mr. Sinclair said, confused. “Why the sudden change of heart?” “She’s in love with someone else,” I explained. “And they’ve been together for a long time.” Their eyes widened in shock. “Is there some misunderstanding? Clara has never mentioned a boyfriend to us.” “I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” They were reluctant, but my sincerity must have convinced them. They agreed to talk to Clara when she got home. Clara was brought home safely, and I started the process of applying for a visa. I was ready to leave this whole mess behind. But while I was waiting for the paperwork to clear, I ran into her at a party. Everyone there had heard about what happened at the auction, but no one dared to bring it up. They just shot nervous glances between me and Clara. The second she saw me, her eyes filled with that familiar hatred. “Julian, playing hard to get has its limits. Don’t come crying to me when you want me back.” I didn’t understand. I was stepping aside, giving them what they wanted. Why was she still trying to humiliate me? I just smiled faintly and said nothing. She seemed to lose interest and walked away. Later that night, as the party was in full swing, Clara’s great love, Ethan, stormed in. He marched right up to me and punched me in the face. I stumbled backward, crashing to the floor. “Julian, what kind of a man are you?” he roared. “Your fiancée’s virginity is being sold, and you just sit there? You bought a stupid necklace instead!” “Clara’s life would be ruined if she married someone like you!” I glanced over at Clara, who was watching from a corner. The moment she saw Ethan, her eyes lit up with a tenderness I had never seen before. My mind drifted back. In our last life, she had never looked at me with anything but disdain. The only time she ever smiled at me was when she needed my help—and even then, it was a pained, forced expression. And the only time she needed my help was when Ethan was in trouble. She would humble herself, play the part of the loving wife, all for him. I used to think that if I was just good enough to her, one day she would see me. I forgot that you can’t melt a block of ice. My silence seemed to enrage Ethan even more. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and hauled me to my feet. “Are you deaf? I’m talking to you! Are you even human? You just watched your fiancée get sold off like cattle!” The other guests started whispering. “Julian is usually so obsessed with Clara. How could he not even be willing to spend a million to save her?” The taste of blood filled my mouth. I finally snapped back to reality and shoved his hands off me. “Why do you seem more concerned about my fiancée than I am?” I countered, my voice dangerously low. “Why didn’t you save her at the auction?” 03 The room went quiet. Everyone in our circle knew about my engagement to Clara. They also knew how she had always accepted my devotion as her due. Everyone had assumed we were already a couple. The sudden appearance of Ethan threw everything into question. All eyes were now on him and Clara. Ethan stammered, caught off guard. “I… I just couldn’t stand by and watch you do nothing! I don’t have that kind of money! If I did, of course I would have saved her!” Clara’s face paled as she looked at me. “You knew.” In my last life, I didn’t find out about her and Ethan until our wedding day. Ethan showed up, his eyes red from crying, and Clara’s eyes filled with tears, too. Her parents were there, so the wedding went on as planned. But on our wedding night, she ran off to be with him. She told me I owed them that, that if it weren’t for me and my “hero complex,” they would have been together. But when I finally couldn’t take it anymore and asked for a divorce, she refused, claiming she didn’t want to break her parents’ hearts. I loved her, so I waited, hoping she would come around. But my patience only made her bolder. She went abroad for a “business trip,” had his children, and then brought them home to live with us. When I found out the truth and confronted her, her reply was ice-cold. “I’m married to you, so what if I have Ethan’s children?” And when I finally decided to leave her for good, her twin children poisoned me. A bitter smile twisted my lips. “If I didn’t know, were you planning on playing me for a fool forever? After all, your true love couldn’t afford to save you, could he?” I shot a provocative glance at Ethan. Before he could speak, Clara jumped in. “You’re lying! Ethan was the one who scraped together a million dollars to save me from Sterling!” At that, I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud. The audacity of some people was truly something to behold. I had specifically told her parents not to mention my name, because I didn’t want her to feel indebted to me again. I never thought Ethan would swoop in and take the credit. “What are you laughing at? You think that money came from you?” Ethan sneered, trying to sound confident. “Julian, you’re a heartless bastard. You don’t deserve anyone’s love.” I chuckled. “You’re right, it wasn’t me. But it’s pretty impressive that you managed to come up with a million dollars in just a few hours. Especially for a guy who usually can’t even scrape together ten thousand.” 04 A flicker of panic crossed Ethan’s face. Clara froze, her eyes widening slightly. “Clara, don’t listen to him,” Ethan said quickly, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a series of track marks on his arm. They looked horrifying. “I got the money by volunteering for a high-risk medical trial.” The crowd gasped. Clara’s face hardened as she glared at me. “You do nothing to help, and now you’re slandering the person who did! I want you to apologize to Ethan!” Ethan was a scholarship student Clara had sponsored through college. His family was poor. In my last life, he never worked a day after graduation because Clara supported him. Even after her own family went bankrupt, I gave her a huge monthly allowance, enough to maintain her old lifestyle. Most of that money went to him. The whispers started again. “No wonder Clara loves this guy. He really stepped up when it mattered.” “A million dollars is nothing to Julian, and he wouldn’t even lift a finger.” “Clara, we support you! You can’t marry Julian.” “If he’s like this now, imagine what he’d be like after you’re married!” They all condemned me, as if I were the villain. But in my last life, I had cared for Clara for years, and in the end, she let her children murder me. What had I done to deserve that? I frowned. It was such an obvious lie, but everyone seemed to be buying it. What medical trial pays a million dollars, and pays it out in a matter of hours? These rich kids had no idea how hard it was for a normal person to earn that kind of money. Just then, Clara took Ethan’s hand and looked at me defiantly. “Julian, I’m officially breaking our engagement!” Then she kissed him, and he kissed her back passionately. Even now, she thought she was irreplaceable to me, that this would be the ultimate threat. “You can’t break the engagement!” Just as I was about to respond, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair burst into the room. “Clara, we thought you and Julian were just having a little fight,” her mother cried. “Julian was the one who gave us a million dollars to save you! That proves he still cares about you!” “He told us you were in love with someone else, and we didn’t believe him. But it’s true.” Her father pointed a trembling finger at Ethan and threw a stack of photos at his feet. “This man is a drug addict!” Clara seemed to barely register what her father had said. She just stared at me in disbelief. “Was it really you who gave them the money?” I didn’t answer her question. I just said, my voice cold as stone, “I agree to break the engagement. From now on, you and I have nothing to do with each other.” Then I turned and walked out of the room. That night, Clara stood outside my house for hours, but I didn’t even look out the window. I sent a text to both our parents, formally ending the engagement. The next day, my visa came through. I was on the first flight out.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384993”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

In the tenth year of my stand-in marriage, my sister came back from the dead. The entire family stared at her in silence. She yawned, running a hand through her perfectly messy hair. “Thirteen countries,” she said, her voice dripping with manufactured boredom. “God, I’m exhausted.” She scanned the room. “Where’s Leo? He must be in elementary school by now. Shouldn’t he come say hi to his real mom?” Leo is my sister’s son. Ten years ago, she gave birth, then faked her death on her wedding day, leaving behind her newborn and her fiancé. The Hayes family is old money. East Coast royalty. My parents, terrified of the consequences, decided to package me up—fresh out of college—and deliver me to the wedding in her place. For the last decade, I have been a perfect wife. A devoted mother. Now, watching my sister’s breathtaking entitlement, my parents’ eyes shifted to me. I offered a faint, placid smile. “Leo and his father are in the Cayman Islands for the week.” … At my words, my sister Vivian’s brows knitted together in annoyance. “I told you I was coming home. Didn’t you tell Julian I was back?” I took a calm, deliberate sip of my coffee. The last ten years had forged me into someone new. I was no longer the transparent girl living in my sister’s dazzling shadow. My silence infuriated her. She shot to her feet, her voice sharp. “Nora Chen! What is that supposed to mean? Don’t you forget, I’m the one with the marriage contract. Now that I’m back, do you really think you can keep your spot as Mrs. Hayes?” I glanced up at her, a small smile playing on my lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Vivian. My husband and I have a very strong relationship.” It was true. For ten years, I had stood by Julian Hayes’s side at every charity gala, every business dinner, every weekend retreat. We were known as the golden couple. Julian’s reputation as a devoted husband had won him the admiration and trust of countless business partners. There might not be a sweeping romance between Julian and me, but we are bound by something far more resilient than love. Mutual benefit. An empire. That is the source of my confidence. Vivian’s face was a mask of disbelief. She pointed a trembling finger at me. “Nora! Have you no shame? He’s your brother-in-law!” I set my coffee cup down, my posture poised and unyielding. “No,” I said, my smile never wavering. “He is my legal husband.” My gaze was firm. I stood up, ready to end this farce. My parents stood by, wringing their hands, utterly useless. Vivian rushed to my mother, grabbing her sleeve. “Mom, she’s lost her mind! Julian and I were college sweethearts! If it wasn’t for me, if it wasn’t for the Hayes family, would our company be where it is today?” My parents have always favored Vivian. But now, my mother risked a glance in my direction before answering in a weak, wavering voice. “But… you ran away, Vivi. You faked your own death. We didn’t hear a word from you for a decade.” “The wedding was happening! There was no bride! If your sister hadn’t stepped in, the public humiliation would have destroyed the Hayes family, and they would have ruined us!” Vivian’s face froze for a second. “I… I just wasn’t ready to get married yet! But I’m back now, aren’t I?” she stammered. “Besides, you know how snobby the Hayes family is. They already looked down on us. And I’d just had a baby. If I had married him then, they would have treated me like dirt!” My expression was cold as I asked, “Why did you come back?” Her answer was a masterpiece of self-absorption. “Well, they’ve accepted you, haven’t they? Which means they’ll accept me now. It’s perfect!” “I can marry Julian, his parents will have to be nice to me, and Leo can finally have his real mother. It’s a win-win for everyone.” She closed the distance between us, grabbing my hands, her eyes wide and sincere. “Nora, you’re free! You can finally go find your own happiness.” I stared into her eyes, expressionless. In their depths, I saw the profound, unthinking innocence that comes from a lifetime of being spoiled and adored. An innocence so pure it was cruel. She was so certain that I, the overlooked younger sister, existed only to sacrifice for her. I let out a cold laugh and pulled my hands from her grasp. “I am perfectly happy with my life, Vivian. You’re the one who needs a reality check.” With that, I turned and walked out of the house that had never felt like a home. I didn’t know how Vivian was feeling, but I was sure it wasn’t good. And knowing her, she wouldn’t give up this easily. I returned to the Hayes estate, a deep exhaustion settling into my bones. For the past week, I’d been consumed by a new project, working late into the night every day. I stepped inside, rubbing the bridge of my nose. An hour ago, my parents’ text had arrived: Your sister is back. My body had gone rigid. I always knew this day might come, but the reality of it still left me stunned. I hung my purse on the hook and glanced down. A pair of men’s dress shoes sat neatly on the mat. I froze for a second before schooling my features into a pleasant, welcoming smile. “You’re back?” a warm, smooth voice asked. I turned. Julian Hayes stood there in a simple black silk pajama set that did little to hide his broad shoulders and narrow waist. He was tall, handsome, his gentle eyes framed by gold-rimmed glasses. He frowned slightly, a flicker of concern in his gaze. “You look exhausted. Haven’t you been sleeping?” I smiled. “Just a lot going on at work. Did you have a good trip? How’s Leo?” Julian stepped forward, pulling me gently into his arms. His chin rested on my shoulder, his warm breath ghosting across my neck. His long, elegant fingers traced soothing patterns on my back. “Leo had a blast,” he murmured. “He’s already crashed. The only thing missing was you. Next time, all three of us will go.” His voice dropped lower, a thread of husky intimacy weaving through it. “I missed you.” I felt the warmth of his chest against my back, but a chill spread through my core. A soft pressure, his lips, touched the back of my neck. My body went stiff. All I could hear were Vivian’s words from earlier, echoing in my head. I didn’t respond the way I usually did. I pushed back, just slightly, creating a space between us. “I…” My voice trailed off. I felt it—the barest hint of a flinch, a sudden tension in his body. I sensed his displeasure immediately. After a beat, Julian finished my sentence for me, his voice smooth again. “You’re exhausted. Go take a hot bath and get some sleep.” He had given me an out. He leaned in and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead. I nodded and turned to go upstairs. Behind me, the man stood in the shadows, his expression unreadable, the atmosphere in the room turning heavy and cold. His eyes were locked on my retreating back, a back that was suddenly burdened with secrets. The next morning, I left for work as usual. Just as I was pulling out of the gated community, a familiar figure appeared. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Vivian saw my car and darted in front of it, forcing me to slam on the brakes. The car behind me laid on its horn. It was the middle of the morning rush hour. A security guard rushed over, trying to pull her away. But Vivian was relentless, screaming even as he dragged her back. “Nora Chen! Stop ignoring me! You have no shame, sleeping with your sister’s husband!” Her shrill voice attracted stares from every direction. I pulled my car to the side of the road and got out. I faced her, my expression like ice. Vivian gave a triumphant smirk, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “What’s wrong?” she purred. “Embarrassed? Or just scared Julian will find out I’m back and kick you to the curb?” My voice was frosted over. “Vivian, you are seriously disrupting my life. This is your last warning. Stay away from me.” She ignored me completely, her smile widening. “Don’t pretend, Nora. You’re terrified. You’ve lived in my shadow your whole life. It’s only natural you’d be jealous and want to take my place.” She took a few steps closer, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “But a cuckoo in the nest always gets kicked out eventually. I’ll wait right here for Julian. When I explain everything to him, I know he’ll forgive me.” “And Leo,” she added, her voice hardening, “is the child I gave birth to. We have a bond you can never break. Don’t you ever think you can replace me.” I didn’t say another word. I just got back in my car. This time, she didn’t stop me. In the rearview mirror, I saw her standing there, a smug smile on her face. A chill ran through me. Vivian had been spoiled her entire life. She operated without rules or consequences. If anyone crossed her, she would throw a tantrum of epic proportions, a grown woman acting like a giant toddler. I took a deep breath, trying to force her from my mind. For ten years, I had painstakingly built this life, this career, this marriage. If we divorced, it wouldn’t just be me who suffered. Julian would too. Our entire empire was built on this partnership. Julian, at least, had a safety net. I had no one but myself. I sat in my office, my thoughts drifting back. When we were in elementary school, Vivian would spend every summer running wild, never touching her homework. On the first day of school, terrified of being scolded, she would demand to copy mine. My parents would always justify it. Nora’s such a good student, the teacher won’t mind if she doesn’t turn it in. But if Vivian doesn’t, she’ll be humiliated in front of the whole class. For the sake of Vivian’s pride, my work was always hers for the taking. Eventually, I just started doing two sets of homework every holiday. In high school, she discovered boys. She chased the captain of the football team, got into fights, and charmed her way into every teacher’s good graces. Her grades were terrible, but she was popular and vivacious. There was always someone to clean up her messes. I had to be careful. Every step I took was calculated. In college, she met Julian at an off-campus music festival. They started an indie band, performing in smoky bars. For two months, while I was juggling three part-time jobs to pay for tuition, they were on stage, basking in the glory of their reckless youth. I thought that after graduation, I would finally save enough money to escape my family for good. Then came the night Vivian stumbled home late, her face caked in makeup, wearing a crop top and shorts that were barely there. She was drunk. She started feeling sick, and my parents, frantic, rushed her to the hospital. The test results came back. Vivian was pregnant. A heavy silence fell over our house. My parents were in a state of shock. I was busy working a summer job to save for my senior year. The only calm person in the house was Vivian herself. It was as if the new life growing inside her was a complete abstraction. Because of the pregnancy, my parents made her stay home, stuffing her with supplements and fresh fruit. Meanwhile, they negotiated with the Hayes family. The plan was set: once the baby was born and a paternity test was done, the wedding would take place. The Hayes family, backed into a corner and desperate to avoid a scandal that could tank their company’s stock, reluctantly agreed. The night before the wedding, I took a four-hour drive home from college. The next morning, the wedding cars arrived, but Vivian was gone. All that was left in the room was a swaddled, sleeping Leo and the stony-faced members of the Hayes family. Julian’s expression was thunderous. My parents stood there, fidgeting, until their eyes slowly landed on me. My mother’s face lit up as if she’d found a lifeline. “We still have another daughter! She’s never even had a boyfriend!” My father immediately chimed in. “Yes! Nora! Quickly! Your sister’s gone. You’re the only one who can do this!” I stood there, stunned, my mind unable to process their words. Before I could react, they were on me, each grabbing an arm, trying to drag me into the dressing room to put on the wedding gown. I fought back, a cold dread washing over me. Disbelief warred with a volcanic anger. The first twenty years of my life had been spent in Vivian’s shadow. Was the rest of my life going to be a sacrifice for her, too? The injustice of it all filled my chest, and my nose began to burn. It was the first time I had ever truly broken down. I screamed, shoving their hands away. “Why?! Why should I be responsible for her selfishness? It’s been like this my whole life!” My father’s hand cracked across my face. “She is your sister!” I staggered back, my cheek stinging. My mother was sobbing. “What your sister did was terrible, we know. But you can’t just let our family be destroyed! The guests are all waiting for the bride!” My face was a numb mask. I finally squeezed the words out through my teeth. “I will not get married.” No matter how much they pleaded or how they tried to physically force me, I refused. I grabbed a fruit knife from a nearby platter and held it to my own throat, my eyes wild. “If anyone tries to make me, I’ll kill myself!” Everyone froze. I don’t know if they were afraid I would die, or just afraid that a dead body would be even more inconvenient than a missing bride. Either way, I didn’t care. I had graduated. Once I found a job, I would be free. The standoff was broken by Julian. He suggested he and I speak alone. The room cleared. In the bridal suite, it was just me and Julian Hayes.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384992”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was broke when I was in college, but I was dating a guy who was anything but. He was Leo Rhodes, of the New York Rhodes family. An heir to a fortune so old it was practically woven into the city’s DNA. Everyone in his circle called him by his last name, a title in itself. No one, from my world or his, saw our relationship as anything more than a temporary spectacle. Even he said it once, his voice a casual murmur over the rim of a whiskey glass: “We’re just having fun, Willa. Don’t make it serious.” So when I ended it, I did it for my pride. I lied and told him I’d fallen for someone else. That I didn’t want him anymore. The fury in his eyes was eclipsed only by the raw hurt that turned the edges of them red. He told me if I walked away, I’d better not live to regret it. I never looked back. Five years later, we met again. And the man the tabloids now called the cold, imperious head of the Rhodes Corporation cornered me on a dark film set. His voice was a raw whisper. “I told you to go, and you just… left?” He took another step, trapping me against the wall. “How could you be so goddamn cruel?” A tremor ran through his powerful frame, and his voice broke. “I’m the one who regrets it, Willa. I am.” 1 When the director announced that one of our investors was visiting the set, the name Leo Rhodes never even crossed my mind. At that moment, I was standing with my back to him, running lines with another actor. I could feel his presence more than see it, a gravitational pull surrounded by a hushed entourage of producers and executives. He was just a few feet away, standing behind the monitors. I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. My fingers tightened on my script, the cheap paper crinkling into permanent folds. Thankfully, the lead producer, a man named Stan, scurried over to greet the star of our film. He gestured grandly in Leo’s direction. “Mr. Rhodes, I’d like you to meet our leading lady. She’s one of the hottest rising stars right now.” The woman, her makeup a flawless mask of ambition, turned a brilliant, practiced smile on Leo. “Mr. Rhodes, we met once at a gala at the Met. I don’t know if you’d remember?” Leo barely acknowledged her. He lifted his gaze for a fraction of a second before it dropped back to the monitors, his expression unreadable. He stared at the screen, his eyes dark and intense. For a split second, I saw a storm gather in their depths—a tidal wave of something fierce and unnamable—before it was gone, leaving behind only a calm, chilling surface. The producer, flustered by the dismissal, glanced at the monitor, trying to see what had captured the titan’s attention. He cleared his throat. “Mr. Rhodes? Is everything alright?” A slow, cool smile touched Leo’s lips. “Everything’s fine,” he said, his voice a low murmur that still managed to cut through the set’s low hum. “I just saw someone I know.” The words were casual, but they hit me like a physical blow. The back of my neck prickled. My heart began to pound a frantic, panicked rhythm against my ribs. “Oh! You have a friend in our cast? That’s wonderful! Who might that be?” Stan’s voice was slick with manufactured delight. In that instant, I felt a dozen pairs of eyes sweep over the set, searching. And then, I heard Leo’s voice again, as cool and sharp as ice. “Her.” 2 “Her. Maya.” The young actress standing in front of me, whose lines I had been running, gasped. I blinked, my mind struggling to catch up. For a disorienting moment, I had been certain he meant me. Stan practically shoved me aside as he rushed forward, enthusiastically guiding Maya toward Leo. Watching them interact, a wave of dizzying relief washed over me, and the breath I’d been holding escaped in a silent rush. Thank God. Thank God it wasn’t me. All these years, and this was how we met again. The idea of some dramatic reunion of old flames wasn’t just cliché; it felt… rude. Disrespectful to the lives we’d built separately. Besides, they looked like old friends. Maya, completely unfazed by his reputation, playfully swatted his arm. “Leo! What are you doing here? I’m trying to run lines!” A lazy, familiar grin spread across his face, softening the hard edges of the man he’d become. “Your brother sent me,” he replied, his voice a low rumble. “Said to tell you to stop messing around and come home.” He looked nothing like the volatile, short-tempered man I remembered. And from the sycophantic grin on Stan’s face, it was clear this reunion was a welcome one. So welcome, in fact, that the director and producers immediately suggested they continue their conversation over dinner at a nearby restaurant. Leo, surprisingly, didn’t refuse. I watched their retreating figures, a small crowd parting before them like the Red Sea. I clutched the script, now mangled beyond recognition, and let out another slow breath. I had survived. The day was finally over. But just as the group was about to round the corner, Maya suddenly turned back. Her bright, youthful voice echoed across the now-quiet set. “Willa! Hey, Willa! You want to come to dinner with us?” 3 For a heartbeat, time froze. The world went silent, and every face on set turned to look at me. When my brain finally rebooted, my first instinct was to hide. I ducked my head, letting my hair fall forward to shield my face. “No, thanks! You guys go ahead. I’ve got plans tonight,” I called back, my voice sounding strained and unfamiliar. I didn’t wait for a reply. I turned and walked away, my steps quick and clumsy, bordering on a run. I had no idea if he’d recognized me. The lighting on set had been dim, chaotic. Maybe he never got a clear look. Or maybe he did, and the woman he saw now held no significance for him. The girl from five years ago was a ghost, and he had no interest in acknowledging her. After all, our breakup had been a public humiliation. I had wounded the pride of a man who had never known anything but victory. I had dumped him, coldly and decisively, in a way that had shocked everyone in our orbit. I was the one who walked away. But I was also the one who cried myself to sleep for months afterward. I could still hear his voice from that day, laced with a pain so deep it had curdled into rage. “Willa Hayes, if you walk out that door today, don’t you dare regret it.” His jaw was tight, his eyes burning. “Because if I ever see you again, I swear to God I will not let you go.” I knew he was capable of making my life a living hell. So I packed my bags that night and disappeared. I never looked back. Until now. Five years later, and we were breathing the same air. I chewed on my thumbnail, a nervous habit I thought I’d kicked years ago. A cold dread seeped into my bones. Surely, after all this time… he wouldn’t still want revenge, would he? 4 Leo Rhodes had a bad temper. That wasn’t just my opinion; it was a universally acknowledged fact by anyone who knew him during our college years at NYU. He was the crown prince of New York City, the kind of guy who commanded respect and fear with a single glance. He had the family name, the looks, and a mind so sharp he never seemed to have to try. If it weren’t for the fact that I was drowning in my mom’s medical bills, forcing me to take a gig as a promotional model at a luxury car event, our paths would never have crossed. I met him for the first time in a private, members-only club in SoHo. He was perched on a high stool at the bar, legs crossed, lazily propping his chin on one hand as he watched me on a small stage, trying to smile my way through a Q&A with the event’s host. The friend who got me the gig had said there was a bonus—a big one—for staying for the “private viewing” afterward, an exclusive showcase for the city’s young and wealthy elite. The word “bonus” was a siren song I couldn’t resist. So there I was, in a borrowed cocktail dress that was a size too small, teetering on heels and smiling at million-dollar cars until my face felt like it would crack. I knew I was pretty. My roommates always said I had the face of an ice queen but the eyes of a lost fawn, a combination that disarmed people who didn’t know the steel underneath. But I was naive. I had no idea how predatory their world could be. Before I had even stepped off the stage, a man with a fleshy, red face and a leering grin called out to me. “You’re one of those NYU girls, right? Need a little extra spending money? I can help with that.” A hot wave of shame washed over me. I wanted to scream, but the thought of that bonus kept my mouth shut. I pretended I hadn’t heard him. But in a place like this, a den of gilded excess, silence was encouragement. The murmurs around him turned into jeers and laughter. Just as the man lurched forward, his hands reaching for my waist, a barstool sailed through the air from the second-floor mezzanine. It crashed into him with a sickening thud, sending him sprawling to the floor, blood instantly matting his hair. He scrambled to his feet, clutching his head and roaring, “What the fuck? Who the hell threw that? You got a death wish?” That’s when Leo Rhodes descended the stairs. He calmly stubbed out a cigarette in a nearby ashtray, the smoke curling around him like a shroud. He scanned the room with a look of bored indifference until his eyes finally landed on me, cowering in the corner. He turned his gaze to the bleeding man. “That would be me.” His voice was quiet, but it silenced the entire room. His lips were pressed into a thin, merciless line. For a wild second, I was terrified they were going to brawl, right there, because of me. But the man, who seconds ago had been a raging bull, suddenly transformed. His face went pale, and a sycophantic, terrified smile stretched his lips. He started bowing and scraping, his hands wringing together. “A misunderstanding, Mr. Rhodes! A complete misunderstanding!” he stammered. “My apologies, sir!” He looked like a grotesque, bobble-headed doll. It was pathetic. And terrifying. That was the moment I understood. “Crown prince” wasn’t just a nickname his friends used. It was his reality. And it was the first time I saw his legendary temper up close. He completely ignored the man’s apologies. He simply nodded to the two security guards who had materialized at his side. “Break his arm,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “The one he was about to touch her with.” After it was done, he sank into a chair, lit another cigarette, and rested the sole of his expensive shoe on the man’s chest, pinning him to the floor. “Do me a favor,” Leo said, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Try to keep the filth in your head from now on. Otherwise, I might just have to arrange a little procedure for you. To make sure your particular brand of stupidity doesn’t get passed on to another generation.” 5 A cold night wind whipped around the trailers. I waited until I was sure they would have finished dinner, then pulled on a jacket and slipped out of the RV. The film set was blessedly quiet during the lull before the night shoot. I walked down the familiar path toward the small diner I frequented, a comforting routine in a chaotic world. As I rounded a corner, I saw a silhouette standing in the narrow, moonlit alley. At first, I thought it was a crew member returning from a break. But as I got closer, a jolt of recognition made me stop dead in my tracks. Under the stark glow of the moon, dressed in all black, Leo Rhodes was almost one with the shadows. A cigarette dangled from his lips. He looked up as I approached, his eyes meeting mine across the short distance. In the ethereal light, surrounded by a halo of smoke, his dark, painted-on eyes looked exactly as they had the first night we met. The night he saved me. The night he ruined me. 6 The wind rustled through the trees, the only sound in the unnerving silence. My body went rigid. My first instinct was to turn and run. But his voice stopped me. “You’re an actress on this film?” I froze, my back still to him. I managed a small, tight sound. “Mmm-hmm.” “What role?” “The third lead.” “Going to get dinner?” “Yes.” “You know who I am?” “Yes.” The investor. The man who holds my career in the palm of his hand. His rapid-fire questions made my palms sweat. I had no idea what he was doing, what game he was playing. Before I could process it, he asked another. “Are you afraid of me?” … “No.” “Then why are you looking at the ground?” “The… the wind is strong tonight.” A low chuckle, raspy from the smoke, rumbled in his chest. “You look like someone I used to know.” My heart leaped into my throat. “Is that so?” I forced a lightness I didn’t feel. “What an honor. I guess I just have one of those faces.” “Maybe,” he mused. “Happens all the time in your industry, right? People looking alike.” I had nothing to add, so I just nodded into the darkness. Silence fell again, thick and heavy. I watched him light another cigarette, the flare of the lighter briefly illuminating the hard lines of his face. He seemed to be holding something back, a dangerous energy simmering just beneath the surface. A chill ran down my spine. I couldn’t understand the point of this conversation. I’d been in the entertainment business for three years. I looked different now, of course—more polished, more guarded. But I hadn’t changed that much. The dim light and his strange line of questioning left me utterly confused. Had he truly not recognized me? Or was I simply so insignificant to him now that I wasn’t worth remembering? Either way, it didn’t matter. This kind of casual, heart-to-heart chat was not something we were capable of. Not anymore. I pulled my jacket tighter around me. “Mr. Rhodes,” I said, my voice muffled. “I have a night shoot soon. If you’ll excuse me.” I stepped around him and started to walk away, my stride purposefully fast. “Willa Hayes.” The sound of my full name, spoken in his voice, made my heart stop. … 7 “Willa Hayes.” He said it again, tasting the syllables. “That’s your name, right? Maya mentioned it at dinner.” He paused, then added, as if it were an afterthought, “Same name as my ex-girlfriend.” “…” For a moment, my usually quick mind went completely blank. “What a… what a coincidence,” I stammered. “Yeah, a real coincidence,” he said, and in the darkness, I could almost see the ghost of a smile in his eyes. “Except she wasn’t as beautiful as you, Miss Hayes. Or as talented.” “…” The glint in his eyes, the subtle shift in his tone—it was like looking through a tear in time, seeing the boy he used to be. The boy I had loved. I was raised by a single mom. Her life was a sad, unlucky story. A cheating, gambling, abusive husband when she was young. She finally got a divorce, raised me on her own, and then, just as I was getting to college, she was diagnosed with brain cancer. So when people whispered that I was only with Leo for his money, I never denied it. Because it was true. I was desperate for money. And money was the one thing Leo Rhodes had in infinite supply. We were from two different universes. My world was scholarships and part-time jobs. His was trust funds and reckless freedom. The only things I had going for me were my grades and a face that people called beautiful. Everything I fought tooth and nail for, he possessed without a second thought. Even in academics, he could glance at a textbook once and ace an exam that I’d pulled all-nighters to study for. No one believed our absurd, mismatched love story would last. “He’s just playing with her,” they’d say. “There’s no way a Rhodes would ever get serious with a girl from her background.” Even I believed it. This was just a diversion for him, a way to kill time between parties and trips to Europe. But Leo… when Leo gave you three ounces of affection, he made it feel like a pound. I mentioned once, just in passing, that I missed the fall colors back home. Two days later, after flying for twenty hours straight from a business trip in London without any sleep, he showed up at my dorm, exhausted and rumpled, just to take me for a drive upstate. When I was delirious with the flu, he, a man who had probably never made himself a piece of toast, stayed by my side, clumsily trying to take care of me, on the phone with his family’s doctor one minute and trying to make me soup the next. He constantly made fun of my taste, calling it childish and boring. But he was always the one who showed up with a carefully chosen, ridiculously expensive gift that was exactly what I’d secretly wanted. He was the one who took me to the top of the Rockefeller Center, to the private observation deck, and attached a lock engraved with our names to the railing, right in the most prominent spot. He had a way of making you feel like you were the only person in his world. That he saw you, and only you. With my complete lack of romantic experience, I fell. Hard. I even let myself start to believe that maybe, just maybe, I was different. Maybe I was special to him. All of those illusions shattered the day a girl named Sloane appeared. … 8 “Willa! Willa, snap out of it!” “Huh?” I blinked, yanked back to the present. Maya was tugging on my arm, and I realized it was my cue. The director was waiting. I shook my head, forcing myself to focus, and dove into the scene with Maya. During a break, her face suddenly scrunched up in annoyance. She muttered under her breath, gesturing toward the director’s chairs, “Ugh, why is she here?” I followed her gaze. Standing next to Leo, who was holding court like a king, was a woman smiling demurely. Sloane. Five years had passed, and she looked even more polished, more expensive. Standing next to Leo, they looked like a perfectly matched set. A power couple. Even the crew members were sighing. “They look so good together.” I tuned back in to Maya’s bitter commentary. “She’s like his shadow. Everywhere Leo goes, she’s right there. Why doesn’t she just have a house built on his belt?” “Look at her, smiling and smiling. Her mouth is going to crack from all that fake, innocent-little-princess crap.” I listened with a small smile, amused by the sheer force of her dislike for this woman. Perhaps sensing her vitriol, or maybe just feeling our stares, the couple looked over in our direction. Suddenly, my eyes met Leo’s. Remembering our tense conversation from the night before, the unspoken things hanging in the air, I quickly looked away. But my gaze landed directly on Sloane. Her brow furrowed in displeasure. Her eyes raked over me, up and down, with an undisguised hostility that hadn’t faded one bit in five years. It was the exact same look she’d given me the first time we met. … 9 It was three months into my relationship with Leo. My mom’s condition was stable, for the time being. The money from my part-time jobs, combined with our meager savings, was just enough to get by. As my boyfriend, the guy who could solve any problem with a checkbook, Leo handled it with a surprising amount of grace. He never just threw money at me, the way people assumed he would. He respected me. He had asked once, his voice gentle, “Do you need my help?” I said no. He nodded. “Okay. But when you do, you come to me.” He wanted me to turn to him not because he was a bank, but because he was my boyfriend, the first person I should think of when I needed someone. I remember he used to come with me to my waitressing job. I was stunned that he never complained about the grime or the long hours. He’d just slouch in a booth, looking bored, and then without a word, he’d take the heavy crate of beer bottles from my hands. “What can I say?” he’d mumble through a yawn, his voice raspy with fatigue. “You’re my girlfriend, aren’t you?” The words were a complaint, but the tone was laced with an undeniable, baffling tenderness. I’d watch him, with his pouting lips and weary eyes, and think that maybe he wasn’t the spoiled brat everyone made him out to be. That illusion was shattered on a rainy night, when I was cleaning up the last table. Sloane appeared out of nowhere. “So you’re the new girlfriend.” Her eyes, full of a strange mix of confusion and disgust, scanned me from head to toe. “His taste really has gone downhill.” She didn’t wait for me to respond. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Leo’s fiancée.” She let that hang in the air. “Yes, one of those old-fashioned family arrangements you see in the movies. A merger of dynasties. There’s no love between us, but let me be honest with you. Even if it weren’t me, it would never be you. Your… situation? Their family would never allow it. You’re not from the same world.” She smiled, a sharp, cruel thing. “Do you know why he isn’t here with you tonight?” She pulled out her phone and held it out to me. “Because he’s out street racing. You know what that is? Driving a car that costs more than your mother’s life.” I looked down at the screen. Leo’s defiant, handsome face filled the frame. The boy in the video was a stranger. Wild, reckless, and drenched in the kind of casual wealth I couldn’t even comprehend. It was exactly as Sloane had said: a world I could never touch. “Is he being patient with you right now? Gentle?” she cooed. “Don’t be a fool. You think you’re special to him? Everyone in our circle knows. He’s like that with everyone.” Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, making my skin crawl. But I still went to him. I had to ask. When I asked him about Sloane, he ran a hand through his hair in frustration. After a long moment, he told me she was just some obsessed girl who was in love with him, that she wasn’t mentally stable, and that I shouldn’t believe a word she said. At the time, I chose to believe him. 10 Then my mother passed away. I was lost in a fog of grief for over a month. I barely saw Leo. When I finally picked up my phone, it was flooded with messages from him. A one-sided conversation of his growing worry. Sweetheart, are you feeling any better today? I miss you. I’m at a bar with some friends. If you see this, can you come get me? I sighed, a hollow ache in my chest. I took the cash I had scraped together from working nonstop since the funeral and went to the address he’d sent. I found the private room, but I stopped outside the door. I could hear their voices, loud and boisterous. “Rhodes, it’s only been a few days since your girl stopped calling. You look like hell. Don’t tell me you’ve actually fallen for her.” “That Willa girl is gorgeous, no doubt,” another voice chimed in. “But you’re about to be engaged to Sloane. Don’t you dare bring that one home. Your old man would skin you alive.” Then I heard Leo’s voice, low and raspy. “We’re just having fun. Don’t make it serious.” Laughter. Then another question. “She’s so broke. You’re just throwing money down the drain lending it to her. You think she’s ever gonna pay you back?” Leo’s reply was impatient. “I never expected her to.” His words, so clear, so casual, pierced through me, one after another. My hand, clutching the wad of cash in my pocket, tightened until my knuckles were white. I knew Sloane had been trying to manipulate me. But I couldn’t deny the truth in what she’d said. The gap between Leo and me wasn’t just about family background. It was about worlds. So I borrowed money from everyone I knew, scraped together every last cent, and paid him back. And to salvage the last shred of my pride, I lied. I told him I’d fallen for someone else. I told him I didn’t want him anymore. His face contorted with rage. He demanded to know who it was, swore he would kill him. I couldn’t tell him a name because there wasn’t one. I never expected what happened next. Leo Rhodes, the proudest man I had ever met, grabbed my hand in front of all his friends, the edges of his eyes red with unshed tears, and begged me not to go. “Willa, please. Please don’t like someone else.” His voice was a broken whisper. “Please don’t leave me.” But I was cold. I pulled my hand away. “I have to.” The hurt in his eyes hardened into something dangerous. He spat the words at me, the final blow. “Fine. Go. But if you walk out that door, don’t you dare regret it.” And so I left. And I never looked back.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384991”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The first time I saw my biological mother in eight years, I was handing out juice boxes at the St. Jude’s Home for Children. A procession of black cars, the kind that usually only appears in movies, had purred to a stop on the gravel driveway, looking completely alien against the backdrop of the worn-out playground. A woman in a cream-colored pantsuit stepped out of the lead car. “Maya,” she said, her voice smooth but unfamiliar. “I told you, didn’t I? As soon as Chloe was accepted into college, as soon as she was emotionally secure, I would come for you.” She smiled, a tight, rehearsed expression. “Her acceptance letter from Georgetown arrived yesterday. So, here I am. I’ve come to take you home.” I just stared at her, a carton of apple juice still in my hand. The name she used—Chloe—meant nothing to me. She sighed, a theatrical puff of air. “I know you must hate me. But Chloe… well, she always felt so insecure, knowing she wasn’t our biological daughter. You, on the other hand, were born to have everything. We were just asking you to wait a little longer to enjoy it.” She took a step closer, the scent of expensive perfume washing over me. “You’ve had a hard eight years here, I know. But once you’re home, we’ll make it all up to you.” The woman kept talking, a stream of words about not causing friction with this Chloe person. I held up my free hand, cutting her off. “I’m sorry,” I said, my brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Who are you?” The whole situation was utterly bizarre. A complete stranger was telling me she was taking me “home,” but I already had a home. My real parents had found me eight years ago. 1 The woman froze, pinned by my blank, unrecognizing stare. Then, a strange laugh escaped her lips. “Eight years in this place, and you’re still as stubborn as ever,” she said, shaking her head as if appreciating a private joke. “I suppose that’s a good thing. Chloe was… coddled, by her father and me. At least I know you won’t let her walk all over you.” Her expression quickly sobered, her tone shifting to one of stern warning. “But Chloe is sensitive. When you get home, you are not to mention a word of this biological nonsense. You are both my daughters. Do you understand?” She looked at me, expecting a nod. “From now on, you’re her older sister. You will look out for her, protect her. In my heart, you are both equally important.” Listening to a statement so transparently biased it was almost comical, the fog in my memory finally began to clear. I knew who she was. Eleanor Pierce. My biological mother. Eight years was a lifetime. She was a stranger to me now, and a stranger’s words held no weight. “Mrs. Pierce,” I said, my voice even. “When you left me at this children’s home, did it ever occur to you that I might find a new family?” In the system, a healthy ten-year-old is a prime candidate for adoption. Eleanor reached out, as if to stroke my hair, but I instinctively recoiled. Her hand fell awkwardly to her side. “I spoke with the director,” she said, her voice tight. “I made it very clear that you were only being fostered here. That you had parents. Who would possibly adopt a child who wasn’t an orphan?” She looked me up and down, a critical glint in her eye. “Besides, you were already ten. A child raised in the mountains, behind in school, with no skills, no polish. You were practically feral. No one would have wanted you.” Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion, as she cataloged my supposed shortcomings. “Now you’re eighteen with no elite education. What other option do you have besides coming home? Do you plan to die in this place?” Her words were a dull echo of the past. When they first discovered the hospital mix-up, Richard and Eleanor Pierce had brought me to their mansion. For one single day, they held me and cooed about how much I must have suffered. The very next day, their precious Chloe—the girl they’d raised as their own—threw a tantrum and threatened to run away. Just like that, I was shipped off to St. Jude’s. It wasn’t that I had some deep, abiding love for them. But they were my blood. They were supposed to be my parents. And they wouldn’t even grant me a corner of their home. I fought. I screamed. I pleaded. All it earned me was their disgust. “This mix-up wasn’t Chloe’s fault,” they’d said. “She’s the one who’s been by our side, who has loved us all these years. If you move in, people will start asking questions about her parentage. It would be devastating for her mental health.” Then came the final, hollow promise. “You are our daughter. Everything that should be yours, will be yours. Just wait. Wait until Chloe goes to college, until she’s no longer so insecure. Then we’ll bring you home.” That speech severed the last thread of connection I felt to them. I walked into St. Jude’s without looking back. I didn’t expect that Leo Monroe, the son of the wealthiest man in the state, would decide he wanted a sister and pick me out of a lineup. At that moment, I was pinning down a boy who had been bullying me for weeks. Leo had pointed at me, a wide grin on his face. “That one,” he’d declared. “She’s got spark. She’s definitely my sister.” And just like that, I became a Monroe. “You’re such a headstrong child,” Eleanor was saying now, pulling me from my memories. “You haven’t called us once in all these years. But I know, deep down, you were still thinking of your mother and father.” She smiled, a knowing, self-satisfied look on her face. “Otherwise, why would you have knitted this scarf and sent it to me? You do still care.” I almost laughed out loud. St. Jude’s was heavily funded by charitable donations, the Monroe family being the largest benefactor. The Pierces were donors, too. Every year, the children here made handcrafted gifts as a thank-you to the patrons. I did knit a scarf my first winter here, but it was just an assignment. The director must have passed it off as a personal gift from me, a gentle nudge hoping they might finally take me back. I realized I had nothing more to say to a woman I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. Eleanor, however, interpreted my silence as shyness. “You’ve waited eight long years for this reunion. You must be ecstatic,” she prattled on. “Your father and I have been looking forward to this day for so long.” She paused, looking at her watch. “Chloe’s graduation party is next week. As soon as it’s over, I’ll be back to pick you up.” The home’s director, Mrs. Gable, had rushed over and was hovering nearby, trying and failing to find a moment to interrupt. Eleanor ignored her, signaling for her driver to unload gifts from the trunk of the car. Piles of glossy boxes and bags were placed on the gravel. “And do try to dress up a bit,” she said, her eyes flicking over my comfortable, dirt-smudged track pants and t-shirt. “You look like a beggar.” I glanced down at my clothes, perfect for playing with kids and gardening. A beggar? The motorcade finally purred away, leaving a cloud of dust behind. Mrs. Gable let out a long breath. “Didn’t Mrs. Pierce get my messages? I sent her the official adoption notice years ago.” I shrugged, continuing to hand out the last of the snacks. “It doesn’t matter. She’s a stranger.” I turned to our director. “Mrs. Gable, can we put all these gifts in the pantry? The kids could use the extra treats.” After finishing my volunteer shift, I remembered that the custom birthday gift I’d ordered for my mom was ready. There are only a handful of truly high-end jewelers in the city. I never imagined I’d run into Eleanor Pierce at Belmont Jewelers of all places. She was seated on a velvet sofa, listening to the store manager present a tray of diamonds. When she saw me walk in, her face lit up with a surprised smile. “Maya, darling! Were you thinking about me? Are you afraid I won’t come back for you? Did you follow me here for reassurance?” I felt a headache coming on. Had she developed this habit of narrating her own strange reality recently? Had she seen a doctor? I decided the best course of action was to ignore her and walk directly to the counter to pick up my order. She moved to block my path. “Maya, we need to talk about your presentation,” she said, her voice low and conspiratorial. “When you’re in a place like this, you must pay attention to your attire. Why aren’t you wearing any of the clothes I brought you this morning? Coming here dressed like that… it’s embarrassing for me. It shows a complete lack of proper upbringing.” A hot flash of anger shot through me. No one, in my entire life, had ever questioned my upbringing. My voice went cold. “What I wear is my business. My family doesn’t have a problem with it, so why should you? Now please, move. I’m here to pick up a piece of jewelry.” Eleanor’s face tightened, her pleasant demeanor cracking. “So, you are still bitter about us leaving you at the home? We already explained the situation. There’s no need for this passive-aggressive attitude. It’s so… ungracious.” She shook her head slowly. “You’re nothing like Chloe.” “Mom.” A perfectly manicured hand linked through Eleanor’s arm. A striking young woman appeared at her side, radiating the effortless confidence that comes from a life of privilege. “So, this is my sister, Maya?” Chloe’s eyes scanned me from head to toe. “I was just wondering, what school do you go to? What are your talents? I’m not a prodigy or anything, but I’ve dabbled in piano, ballet, painting… you know.” She paused, a small, pitying smile on her lips. “Oh, my goodness, I completely forgot. You grew up in a children’s home. It must have been a struggle just to get into any college at all.” Her tone was a masterclass in feigned sympathy and overt condescension. “I don’t recall having a sister,” I said flatly, looking at the woman who was a stranger to me, yet wore a face that held a faint, unsettling echo of my own. “You might want to be careful who you claim as family.” Just then, the manager emerged from the back room with a velvet-lined box. I pushed past Chloe to get to the counter. I didn’t use much force, but she stumbled dramatically, crying out in pain as she crumpled to the floor. Eleanor looked at me, her face a mask of disbelief. “After eight years, your temper has only gotten worse! You’d push her before you’re even officially back in the family. If we had let you come home eight years ago, would you be a murderer by now?!” This was insane. They were the ones blocking my way, spouting nonsense. “Mrs. Pierce, I was adopted by another family eight years ago. Today, I am simply here to pick up a piece of jewelry. I did not come here looking for you,” I stated clearly. “My parents are wonderful to me. They treat me like their own daughter. I have absolutely no desire to be yours.” Eleanor’s face went rigid. “Don’t say such ridiculous things. Your mother is standing right here. There’s a limit to these jokes.” But I could see a flicker of panic in her eyes. For the first time, she seemed to realize she had no control over this daughter she hadn’t seen in eight years. Something was slipping from her grasp. Seeing she was being ignored, Chloe climbed to her feet. “Mom, maybe I shouldn’t be at home anymore,” she sniffled, her eyes welling up. “The Pierce family isn’t my real family. I’ve stolen everything that should have been my sister’s. I should give it all back.” She began frantically removing her jewelry. “Here, take it,” she said, her voice trembling. “This is all yours. I only ask for one small thing… can I please, please still be your daughter?” Her performance was worthy of an Oscar. Eleanor’s expression melted into pure, unadulterated sympathy. “That’s enough,” she snapped, turning her fury on me. “Chloe is humbling herself like this, and what more do you want? She just wants to be part of our family, she can’t bear to leave us. Why can’t you find it in your heart to accept her?” Her voice rose. “You haven’t even called me ‘Mom’ once! I’ve tried to be patient with you, but you show Chloe no respect! I can see you’ve been thoroughly ruined!” Chloe rushed to Eleanor’s side, grabbing her arm as if to restrain her. Then, with a look of profound sorrow, she held out the collection of discarded earrings, necklaces, and rings to me. “Sister, you’ve probably never seen such beautiful things before,” she said, her voice dripping with pity. “Any one of these pieces is worth more than you could earn in a lifetime of working. I’m not trying to show off how much Mom and Dad love me. I just… you’re coming home soon. You shouldn’t make Mom so angry.” The implication was clear: I was just a gold-digger making a scene for money. I glanced down at the pile of jewelry. My brother, Leo, could buy me a roomful of better stuff. This wasn’t worth fighting over. I motioned for the manager to hand me my package. I opened the box. Inside, nestled on a bed of silk, was a custom-made brooch: a delicate, openwork design of gold leaves entwined around a magnificent, deep green emerald. I nodded, satisfied. It had taken me visits to several auctions just to acquire a stone of this quality—a true imperial emerald. The intricate openwork design was incredibly difficult and wasteful of the raw material. It had cost me years of my allowance, but my mom deserved the absolute best. “Ms. Monroe,” the manager said with an enthusiastic smile, “are you pleased with ‘The Evergreen,’ custom-designed for your mother?” He slid the receipt toward me. Just as I was about to sign, a hand snatched the brooch from the box. “So, it was for me,” Eleanor said, her mood miraculously improving. Chloe chimed in immediately. “I’m surprised this store works with glass now. It looks almost real.” She turned to me. “Mom, even though my sister’s gift is… inexpensive, it’s the thought that counts.” I was stunned. My flawless imperial emerald… was glass? Was it so perfect it looked fake? Chloe reached for the brooch, intending to pin it on herself. There was no way I was letting her touch a gift meant for my mother. “Give it back!” I snapped. In the ensuing struggle, Chloe, with her back to her mother, shot me a sly, triumphant smirk. Then, she let go. Years of reflexes kicked in. I lunged forward and caught the brooch an inch before it hit the marble floor. “Oh, I’m so sorry, sister,” she began, her eyes wide with fake innocence. “I didn’t mean to lose my grip—” Her words were cut short by the sharp crack of my palm against her cheek. A tooth flew from her mouth. The smirk was gone. Eleanor lunged at me, her hand raised to strike, but I shoved her back onto the velvet sofa. “It’s just a pin! What’s the big deal if your sister wears it?” she shrieked, all pretense of the graceful socialite gone. “It was meant for me anyway, and what’s mine is Chloe’s!” I took the silk cloth offered by the manager and began carefully polishing the brooch. “Is your name engraved on it? No? Then stop being so delusional.” Eleanor stared at me, bewildered. “But he said it was custom-made for your mother. Who else could your mother be but me?” I didn’t answer. My phone rang, and I picked it up. “Hey, Mom. I’m on my way home now. No, don’t worry about picking me up.” I quickly signed the receipt, took my package, and turned to leave. “Maya Pierce!” Eleanor grabbed my arm, her grip like a vise. “You called someone else ‘Mom’? Did you really find new parents? Why didn’t the director tell me? Looking at how you dress, they must not be wealthy. A working-class couple making five thousand a month, barely scraping by?” She was practically seething, her eyes filled with a strange hatred. “You will cut ties with those… people immediately. It’s utterly humiliating. Including those peasants in the mountains, you’ll have had three sets of parents. What respectable girl has three sets of parents?” Her voice dropped, cold and menacing. “If you don’t end it cleanly, don’t blame me for using other means to set things right.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384990”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The heir I was arranged to marry was flaunting his new pet project, a canary-bright influencer he’d spoiled into a state of exquisite, irritating vanity. I was on the phone with my lawyer, finalizing the dissolution of our engagement, when a voice whispered in my head. It was the Narrator, the syrupy, all-knowing voice that had taken up residence in my mind for the past few weeks, spinning our lives into a cheap romance novel. 【What has our poor hero done wrong?】 it crooned. 【He’s just trying to get your attention.】 【Don’t call it off, sweet girl! Just shed a single tear and he’ll lay the world at your feet.】 I glanced out the window of the quiet SoHo café. Across the street, the canary, Lexi, was dripping in Cartier, her laughter echoing as she clung to Liam Blackwood’s arm. He looked down at her, his expression a lazy, practiced mask of indulgence. The kind of look that was meant to be seen. I smiled, a tight, bloodless thing, and typed my reply to the lawyer: 【Proceed with the draft.】 1 The moment the thought solidified, the Narrator in my head had a full-blown meltdown. 【How can she be so cruel? Now the poor, heartbroken heir will have to drink himself into a stupor at some velvet-roped club…】 【Sigh. He’s just proud and bad with words. And for that, he loses the love of his life.】 【It’s fine. He’ll just run her family’s company into the ground. Then she’ll have no choice but to come crawling back to him.】 【Imagine it! Her, forced to fight with his other women for a scrap of his attention! He’ll be in heaven!】 I stared at the dregs of my espresso, my jaw tight. A fresh wave of disgust washed over me. When I looked up again, my eyes met Liam’s from across the street. He raised a single, perfect eyebrow. No guilt. No shame at being caught. He let Lexi hang off him, a living accessory. As he registered the cold fury on my face, the corner of his mouth ticked up into a smirk. Liam’s canary was some mid-tier influencer, and together they were a publicist’s dream. The brooding heir and the bubbly blonde. A crowd of phone-wielding onlookers had already formed, snapping pictures. The café had floor-to-ceiling windows; I prayed I was just an anonymous blur in the background. I muttered a curse under my breath, grabbed my Saint Laurent bag, and called my driver. I needed to wait for him somewhere else. But as I pushed through the door, I nearly collided with Liam. He was standing right there. “Weren’t you just walking the other way?” I asked, my voice flat. “You’re keeping that close an eye on me?” He smirked, his eyes lazy and hooded. The girl beside him, Lexi, shot me a venomous look, a territorial glare from a woman who knew her position was precarious. The Narrator’s words echoed in my head, fueling a dull, throbbing headache. I tried to step around them, but his hand shot out, his fingers closing around my wrist. I turned back. “You’re not happy,” he stated, his voice a low murmur. It wasn’t a question. My gaze drifted from his face to the girl clinging to his arm, then back again. “I’m not anything,” I said. “I hope you two are very happy together.” He didn’t let go. Lexi finally found her voice, a high, nasal whine. “Who even are you? Can’t you see you’re interrupting our shopping trip?” She shook her wrist, flashing a ridiculously expensive bracelet. She looked at Liam with a pout. “Is she just jealous that no one buys her pretty things?” I kept my voice even, my eyes on Liam. “Do you know he has a fiancée?” She faltered for a second, then scoffed. “A family arrangement. There are no feelings involved. If Liam actually liked her, would he be with me?” Liam let out a short, humorless laugh. He just stood there, his dark eyes fixed on me, waiting. I gave a small, sharp nod, my expression unreadable. I glanced down at the hand still wrapped around my wrist, his long fingers cool against my skin. “Let go.” He didn’t move. Instead, he said, “The gala is the day after tomorrow. Find another date.” Lexi’s eyes widened, first in shock, then in dawning, smug triumph. She sized me up, and a slow, malicious grin spread across her face. “Oh. You’re the fiancée. Well, so what? Liam is taking me to the gala.” I did a quick calculation. The dissolution agreement should arrive at the Blackwood estate by tomorrow. “Fine,” I said. “Now can you let me go?” His grip tightened. His jaw clenched. “Who are you taking?” My mind cycled through a list of eligible men from families I actually respected—good-looking, well-educated, not emotionally stunted sociopaths. “I haven’t decided yet,” I said honestly. “But I’m sure I can find someone suitable once I get home.” The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the distant sounds of Manhattan traffic. I could feel the stares of passersby. The Narrator was back, practically hyperventilating. 【Oh my god, he’s going to lose it.】 【Liam: Can’t you just look at me with tears in your eyes and tell me you need me? Why must you provoke me?】 【Just flirt with him! Cry a little! Don’t let that beautiful face and his all-consuming love for you go to waste!】 【Seriously, Sloane, just give in. You have no idea what he’s capable of when he snaps… He’ll bankrupt your family and lock you in a tower just to have you.】 “Sloane Sinclair. You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Liam ground out, his voice dropping to a dangerously low temperature. He released my wrist. I started to walk away, then stopped. My eyes landed on the necklace around Lexi’s neck. I looked directly at Liam. “You once told me you were saving that necklace for me.” Then I turned and left. He was beside me in an instant, his tone unreadable. “You remember that?” “Yes,” I said, not breaking my stride. “And I don’t want it anymore.” “She knows how to charm me,” he said, his voice a low growl. “She’s always around… She calls me ‘baby’.” So that’s why he gave her the necklace he’d promised me? A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. The Narrator swooned. 【He’s telling you what he wants!】 【He’s finally breaking! Just call him ‘baby’ once, Sloane, and he would die for you.】 【He dreams of you calling him that. He wakes up in the middle of the night from it…】 I stopped walking and turned to face him, meeting his intense gaze. I spoke each word with deliberate, ice-cold clarity. “You’re right. From now on, I’ll charm another man. I’ll call another man ‘baby’. And I’m sure he’ll give me anything I want, too.” “Say that again,” Liam hissed, a chilling fury in his voice I had never heard before. His hands clamped down on my shoulders, his grip so tight I felt like my bones might splinter. Just then, Lexi scurried over, her voice a timid whimper. “Liam? What’s wrong?” He didn’t spare her a glance, his eyes still locked on me, burning with a dark fire. She pursed her lips and glared at me. “Did you make him mad? Liam is never unhappy when he’s with me.” The nausea intensified, acidic and bitter. I turned my head away, refusing to say another word. After a long, tense moment, Liam’s hands dropped. He closed his eyes, a muscle feathering in his jaw. A grim shadow fell over him. “She knows better than to make me angry, Sloane,” he said, his voice flat and cold. He turned on his heel and walked away. Lexi immediately rushed after him, her voice a sweet, cooing poison, trying to soothe the beast. Their retreating figures looked like a perfectly matched set. The Narrator sighed dramatically. 【She just refuses to bend. Pushing away the one man who truly loves her.】 【All she had to do was say a few nice words. Instead, she let that little snake win.】 【Oh, for fuck’s sake, check Twitter! Someone already posted the photos and video.】 2 The moment I sank into the leather seats of the Escalade, I pulled out my phone. My screen was already lit up with notifications. 【Oh my God, Sloane, why are you trending? Do you know that girl with your fiancé is an influencer?】 【Are you okay?? My cousin just sent me the pics. Why is Liam parading his mistress in front of you? That absolute bastard!】 【That influencer with him, she’s always on her livestreams talking about some rich guy who is obsessed with her and buys her everything… I guess we know who that is now.】 【I can’t believe this. Liam Blackwood used to be a complete monk. We all thought he was so disciplined. What happened? Why is he suddenly sponsoring an influencer?】 I carefully composed my replies, one by one, before navigating to Twitter. The photos and videos were crystal clear, capturing every second of the tense confrontation. And the comments, almost unanimously, were defending Lexi. 【Can this woman just leave them alone? It’s obvious she’s just jealous of our Lexi.】 【Did you see the way Lexi’s boyfriend looked at her? He was so pissed. Compare that to how he looks at Lexi, he’s always so sweet to her.】 【This chick just lingered around them. Even after they walked away she just kept staring. So pathetic, pretending to be heartbroken.】 【Ugh, get lost, gold digger. Stop trying to steal someone else’s man.】 So. My fiancé was now officially someone else’s boyfriend. I leaned back, closing my eyes and letting my mind go blank. For this to be trending so hard, for it to not have been taken down, Liam had to be behind it. Did he really love me, as that insane Narrator in my head claimed? Was this his idea of love? Allowing the entire internet to get the story backward and hurl insults at me? A knot of pain tightened in my chest. I took a deep breath, and after a long moment, I dialed a number. “Get that trending topic taken down,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Now.” The Narrator piped up, its voice now tinged with a manufactured sympathy. 【Poor Sloane, she can’t take it. If she’d just soften up a little, none of this would be happening…】 【These idiots online just follow the mob. Lexi is the other woman! This makes me so mad.】 【Liam definitely went too far, but Sloane is just too independent. He wants to see her rely on him, to see her fall apart without him.】 【This won’t be easy to kill. People are already trying to dox her. Once the board at Sinclair Corp sees this, it’s going to hit the stock.】 My eyes locked on that last comment. Sure enough, my phone rang a few minutes later. “We’re trying,” the voice on the other end said, “but someone is actively buying engagement to keep it trending. We take down one post, ten more pop up. It’s like trying to put out a forest fire with a water pistol.” I said nothing. He sighed. “Did you piss someone off? This is a major, coordinated effort. A lot of money is being thrown at this. Isn’t your fiancé doing anything? Is he just going to sit back and watch?” Because the person buying the engagement is my fiancé, I thought. Well… not for much longer. My father’s call came next. His voice was a roar of pure fury. “Sloane! What the hell is going on? If people hadn’t been calling me, I’d still be in the dark!” I waited a beat. “Liam is cheating on me. Is that my fault, too?” “Plenty of men cheat! But how could you let this become a public spectacle? How could you let that woman stand in front of you and get away with it?!” his voice boomed, cracking with rage. “Liam bought the trending topic, and he’s the one with the mistress,” I explained patiently. “This has nothing to do with me. I’m already having my team work on taking it down.” My father scoffed. “If you can’t keep your man’s attention, it’s your own damn fault.” He hung up. The car glided to a stop. “We’ve arrived, Ms. Sinclair,” the driver said, his eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. I moved like a zombie, pushing the door open and stepping out into the evening air. The family townhouse stood before me, dark and imposing. If you can’t keep your man’s attention, it’s your own damn fault. How incredibly noble of him. Those were almost the exact words he used when he cheated on my mother, blaming her for getting older, for losing her charm. He’d conveniently forgotten that it was her dowry that funded his first venture, her tireless work behind the scenes that built his empire. 3 That night, I called Liam. He picked up on the first ring. “What?” His tone was lazy, bored. “Stop buying the engagement,” I said softly. There was a pause on his end, then his voice lifted. “You sound exhausted. Are you upset?” “What is it that you want, Liam?” I couldn’t control it anymore; my voice cracked, a raw edge of despair creeping in. He didn’t answer. “Are you happy now?” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Watching them tear me apart online, revealing my identity, calling me a homewrecker, seeing the Sinclair stock dip? Are you satisfied?” I was shaking, a tremor starting deep in my bones. How could anyone be so senselessly cruel? After a long silence, he finally spoke, his voice smooth as velvet. “Don’t cry, baby. Do you want to see me? I can be there in twenty minutes.” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I was standing on the balcony, and the cool night air felt like ice against my tear-streaked cheeks. I was a joke. An absolute joke. Finally, I managed to choke out two words. “Don’t come.” He repeated the words slowly, his tone unreadable. “Don’t come?” Then his voice hardened. “What does that mean, Sloane?” “I don’t want to see you,” I said, using the last of my strength to end the call. I stumbled back to bed, my body numb, but sleep wouldn’t come. The topic was still trending, a wildfire raging on my phone. The family group chat was lighting up. Relatives were tagging me, their messages dripping with passive-aggressive blame. Then my younger cousin chimed in. 【Honestly, Sloane, if you can’t keep Liam-ge happy, you should just step aside. Do you have any idea how much damage this is doing?】 That opened the floodgates. The other cousins, my peers, jumped in. 【This is so embarrassing. Letting some cheap influencer walk all over you. If I were you, I wouldn’t be able to show my face in public.】 another posted with a laughing emoji. 【Liam-ge is spending all his money on that influencer. Has he ever bought you anything, Sloane?】 【Maybe they should just give the engagement to someone else. It’s not like Liam likes Sloane anyway.】 The chat fell silent after that last message. A bitter smile touched my lips. I wished they could just give it to someone else. But my father was still in charge of Sinclair Corp, and I was his only daughter. He would never let go of this connection to the Blackwood dynasty. I muted the group chat and numbly scrolled through my Instagram feed. The first post was a group photo from some trust-fund kid. And right in the center… were Liam and Lexi. Liam’s arm was wrapped possessively around Lexi’s waist. He was smirking at the camera, a lazy, arrogant look in his eyes. His circle of friends flanked them, raising their glasses in a toast. It looked like an official announcement. I liked the photo. Then I turned off my phone. The Narrator’s voice flooded my mind, a tidal wave of delusion. 【Don’t be sad, sweet girl! It’s all an act! We know you’re the one he truly loves.】 【You know, after his friend posted that, he’s been checking his phone every minute to see if you liked it.】 【He really wants to see you. When you rejected him tonight, it nearly broke him.】 【Call him, Sloane! Tell him you’re jealous! He’ll drop everything and come running to you!】 I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to banish the voice, to banish all of it. I don’t know how much time passed before I sat up, my body cold and stiff. I sent a text to my lawyer. 【Send the dissolution agreement to me first. I’ll find a way to get it to Liam later.】 I needed one full day to move my assets without anyone noticing. After the gala, I would be on the first flight out of the country. By the time I landed, two copies of the agreement would be delivered: one for my father, and one for Liam. If I stayed, even if I refused to marry Liam, my life wouldn’t be my own. My father would just sell me to the next highest bidder. 4 Everything went according to plan. … I’d even chosen a stunning mermaid-style gown for the occasion. As I stepped into the grand ballroom, a confident smile fixed on my face, my friends immediately flocked to my side. “How are you holding up?” one of them, Maya, whispered, linking her arm through mine. “I see you came alone. Want me to lend you my little brother for the night?” I considered it for a moment. “No, I think I’m fine. There’s nothing shameful about being on my own.” “Damn right,” she grinned. “Besides, a man would only get in the way of our gossip.” Suddenly, a ripple of excitement went through the crowd near the entrance. We turned to see what the commotion was. Liam. He stood there in a custom silver-grey suit, a lazy smile playing on his lips. On his arm was Lexi, who was also smiling, her expression a mix of awe and smugness. Ah. So when Liam said he was spending the day with Lexi, he didn’t just mean a shopping trip. He meant he was bringing her here. To this. My gaze fell to Lexi’s dress. It was the exact same mermaid gown I was wearing. When I’d had mine fitted, I was told it was the only one in the country. He must have had hers flown in overnight from Paris or Milan. Liam was intentionally trying to humiliate me. Sure enough, the moment Lexi saw me, her face fell. She turned, bit her lip, and whispered something to Liam. Only then did he slowly, deliberately, turn his gaze toward me. Lexi marched over, her heels clicking angrily on the marble floor. “Did you have someone spy on me?” she hissed, her eyes flashing. “Did you find out what dress Liam ordered for me so you could copy me on purpose?!” The commotion was drawing a crowd. People were starting to gather, their faces alight with curiosity. “Don’t be ridiculous…” Maya started, stepping forward. “Whatever,” Lexi sneered. “It’s just pathetic jealousy because Liam treats me so well! You’re disgusting, and it doesn’t even look as good on you.” Maya muttered under her breath, “It looks better on her.” Lexi’s face flushed with anger. She spun around and ran back to Liam, shaking his arm. “Liam, look at them!” Liam’s dark eyes were fixed on me, an unreadable expression on his face. He watched me for a long moment, and then, the corner of his mouth curved into a slow smile. The Narrator erupted in my head. 【Ahhhh, he’s smiling! He thinks Sloane wears it better!】 【See? His eyes don’t lie! Liam and Sloane forever! I’ll bet a bag of popcorn on it.】 【But wait… to push her over the edge, to make her finally run to him, broken and desperate, he’s about to…】 Before I could puzzle out that last cryptic thought, the ballroom’s sound system crackled to life. Everyone turned. A senior executive from Blackwood Enterprises was on the stage, holding a microphone and a card. “Thank you all for joining us this evening,” he announced. “We have one very special announcement to make. By a resolution of Mr. Blackwood and the board of directors, two percent of the voting shares in Blackwood Enterprises will be gifted, unconditionally, to Ms. Lexi Vance.” The entire room gasped. I looked up, my heart pounding in my chest. I couldn’t believe it. Liam held a certain number of shares himself, I wasn’t sure of the exact figure. But there was another two percent, held in trust, that was designated for his future wife. Even at just two percent, in a behemoth like Blackwood Enterprises, the annual dividends were astronomical. He gave them to Lexi. And he had it announced here. In front of everyone.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384989”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The night Mia was broken, I was there. I watched it all happen. I even filmed it. Eventually, the horror shattered her mind. She was admitted to Mercy General. A few days later, her mother found me. She fell to her knees on the pavement in front of my apartment. “Ethan,” she pleaded, her voice cracking. “Mia said she was going to meet you that night. The night she was… attacked. She said you were nearby. You must have seen who did it. Please.” I looked down at the woman clutching my jeans, her body shaking with sobs. Then I kicked her hand away. “Sorry,” I said, my voice flat. “I didn’t see anything.” 1 Mrs. Miller sprawled back on the concrete, stunned. “You’re lying, Ethan.” Her voice trembled, but she bit down hard, refusing to let the tears fall. “Ever since Mia was admitted, she does nothing but clutch her pillow and whisper your name.” “She says she saw you that night, standing at the end of the alley. She keeps asking why you didn’t save her!” I pulled a cigarette from my pocket. It took three clicks of the lighter for the flame to catch. “Look, I told you,” I said, taking a long drag. “I wasn’t there. Mia’s not… well right now. You can’t take her word for it.” She scrambled to her feet, lunging for my arm. I sidestepped, and she stumbled, catching her balance at the last second. “My daughter has always been honest. She’s never told a lie in her life! Even now, confused as she is, she wouldn’t make up something like that!” My fingers tightened around the cigarette, the heat searing my skin. The sudden pain brought me back. Of course, I knew better than anyone. Mia wasn’t lying. The rain was coming down in sheets that night. I was waiting it out under the awning of the Quick Mart, and I saw them. I saw someone drag her into the dead-end alley next to the store. “I was in my dorm all night,” I said, my voice hard. “I never went near that alley.” I dropped the cigarette and crushed it under my shoe. “Ethan, I’m asking you one last time. Who was it?” Before I could answer, a car pulled up. Mr. Miller got out. He’d taken a bad fall when he heard the news about Mia, and he still walked with a heavy limp. “You and Mia were together for two years,” he said, his voice strained. “She loved you. How can you watch her go through this and not even tell us the truth?” Seeing him like that, frail and limping, felt like a stone in my stomach. But I forced the words out. “I honestly don’t know, sir. If I knew, I would have called the cops myself. I wouldn’t be wasting my time here with you.” “Wasting your time?” His voice erupted in a roar of anger. He shoved me, hard. The force of it threw him off balance, and he crumpled to the ground. Mrs. Miller screamed and rushed to his side. “David! Are you okay? Ethan, you monster!” A small crowd was starting to form. Murmurs rippled through the onlookers. “Isn’t that Ethan? He’s Mia Miller’s boyfriend, right?” “I heard what happened to Mia. Something about a breakdown… So he knows who did it and won’t talk?” “Jesus, what a coward. His own girlfriend gets attacked, and he won’t stand up for her? Then he pushes her dad over?” Mia’s best friend, Chloe, suddenly appeared, pushing her way to the front. She pointed a trembling finger at me. “Are you even a man, Ethan? Do you have any idea how many guys envied you when you and Mia got together?” “She was the girl every guy on campus was in love with, and she chose you! How can you do this to her? Has your conscience been eaten by dogs?!” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. Of course, I knew they envied me. At last year’s Founder’s Day ceremony, Mia gave a speech as the student representative. Every man in that auditorium was glued to her. “What good is envy?” I shot back. “You all saw how good she was to me. You have no idea what I did for her. Now that something’s happened, you all line up to point the finger. Do any of you have a clue what really went down?” “It’s because you’re scared, isn’t it?” Chloe spat. “You’re afraid to piss off her attacker. I heard the guy comes from a powerful family. You’re afraid of what they’ll do to you, so you’re keeping your mouth shut.” Her words hit their mark. A raw nerve. I saw Mia again in my mind, curled on the wet asphalt after it was over, her clothes torn, her face a mess of rain and tears. The look of utter despair in her eyes as she grabbed my arm. Mr. Miller, helped to his feet by his wife, was shaking with rage. “You remember this, Ethan. You refuse to talk today? Fine. But I will search this entire city if I have to. I will find the man who did this. And when I do, I don’t know how you’ll ever face Mia again.” “Do whatever you want.” I turned to leave, but Chloe grabbed my arm. “You’re not going anywhere! We already called the police. They’re on their way. Let’s see you tell your story to them!” I yanked my arm free, sending her stumbling back. The crowd’s muttering grew louder, a chorus of “coward” and “bastard.” I glanced toward the Quick Mart at the end of the street. Next to it was the alley where her life fell apart. Mia used to come here all the time. She’d stand right there by the entrance and call me. “Ethan, I got you something special.” Her smile back then… it could light up the whole damn world. A dry, painful laugh scraped its way out of my throat. Because I knew the truth better than any of them. I was hiding everything. 2 “She’s my only daughter, Ethan.” Mr. Miller’s anger had dissolved, replaced by a raw, aching despair. In front of everyone, the big man started to weep. “Mia was always such a good kid. A straight-A student. Never gave us a moment of trouble.” “And now? She’s in a psychiatric ward. Half the time, the only name she says is yours. The rest of the time, she just holds a pillow and cries. She doesn’t even recognize us anymore.” “As her father… seeing her like this… I don’t even want to live anymore.” The eyes of the crowd on me hardened with contempt. Mrs. Miller sniffled, her voice thick with emotion. “The only reason I’m still going is to find out the truth. To find the person who did this and clear her name. Then, even if I die, I can face her in the afterlife.” “You were with her for two years. Even if you have no feelings left, you can’t just stand by and let this happen without saying a single word of truth, can you?” I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms. Just then, my academic advisor, Dean Evans, arrived. After a quick briefing from Chloe, his face grew grim. He turned to me, his voice stern. “Ethan, withholding information makes you an accessory. If the perpetrator gets away because you stayed silent, you could be charged with a crime. Do you understand?” “You’re a university student. Do you know what a criminal record means? It’s a permanent mark on your file. Forget about grad school, forget about a decent job. It’s over.” I met his gaze. “Dean Evans, if you think I’ve committed a crime, then by all means, call the cops.” “When they get here, I’ll tell them the same thing I told everyone else. I didn’t see anything. What are they going to do to me?” My defiance left him speechless, his expression darkening. Mr. Miller, however, trembled with renewed fury. “How can you be so cold-blooded, Ethan? Mia is in the hospital, talking about you day and night. She says you were right there. She couldn’t have been mistaken!” I let out another cold laugh. “Sir, with all due respect, your daughter doesn’t even recognize her own parents right now. Can you really trust what she’s saying?” “Maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe she saw someone else and thought it was me. If you really want to help her, you should be at the hospital, not here harassing me.” My words detonated in the small crowd. “Are you even human, Ethan? Mia’s in that state, and you talk about her like that?” “Yeah, even if she’s not lucid, you don’t have to slander her!” Mr. Miller’s face went white with rage. He lunged forward and slapped me across the face. The sting was sharp, electric. “I’m going to kill you, you heartless piece of scum!” he roared. “Mia must have been blind to ever love you!” The students around us murmured their agreement, that a bastard like me deserved it. I stared back at them, a cold smile on my lips. They didn’t give a damn about helping Mia. They’d always been jealous. From the day Mia and I got together, I’d heard the whispers in the hallways, the talk about how a guy like me didn’t deserve a girl like her. This was their chance to tear me down, and they were loving it. I took a deep breath and let the smile spread across my face. “You think I wanted to be with her?” “The truth is, I’ve wanted to break up with her for a long time.” “She’s a goddamn curse!” 3 The moment the words left my mouth, the murmuring exploded into chaos. Mr. and Mrs. Miller looked as if I’d just stabbed them, their faces drained of all color. Mrs. Miller was the first to react, clawing at my hair. “You ungrateful monster! How dare you! What did my daughter ever do to you but love you?” “When you had that terrible flu, she stayed up all night making you broth from scratch! She knew your family didn’t have much, so she was the one helping you pay for things these last two years!” Mr. Miller landed another punch, this one square on my jaw. I stumbled back, my spine slamming into the brick wall behind me. A sharp pain shot through my back. “I used to think you were a decent kid,” he seethed. “I was happy Mia was with you. Now I see I was blind. You call her a curse? You’re the one who’s an animal in human skin!” I rubbed my aching back. As I started to form a retort, Mr. Miller’s eyes narrowed, a strange look clouding his features. It was a mix of suspicion and dawning horror. He took a shaky breath, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. “Ethan, tell me something. Was it because she wouldn’t sleep with you? Is that why you did it?” I froze. I never imagined he would think that. The crowd quieted, all eyes on me, waiting. “Mia has always been… a good girl,” he continued, his voice thick. “Did you get angry because she said no? She went to meet you that night… and when you couldn’t have her, you took her by force!” Beside him, Mrs. Miller began to sob, nodding frantically. “It must be! Oh, Ethan, you are a devil!” “We already agreed. We were going to let you two get married right after graduation. How could you do this to her?” I looked at them, a feeling of grim, hopeless absurdity washing over me. They would rather believe this insane theory than accept the simple fact that I hadn’t seen the attacker. I fumbled for another cigarette and lit it. “Married?” I let out a puff of smoke and a cold, cruel laugh. “Please. A girl like Mia? Even if you offered her to me for free, I wouldn’t want her now. She’s dirty.” A dead silence fell over the street. Every single person stared at me, their faces a mixture of shock and pure, unadulterated fury. Mrs. Miller was shaking so violently I thought she would collapse. But just then, a weak voice cut through the tension from behind me. “Ethan… why are you saying that about me?” It was Mia. Hearing her voice, my entire body went rigid. 4 Everyone turned. Slowly, I did the same. Mia was standing there, flanked by a relative and a doctor from the hospital. She was so much thinner. Her cheeks were hollowed out, making her eyes seem huge and vacant, all their former light extinguished. A dark, bruised purple shadowed the skin beneath them. The oversized hospital gown hung on her frame like a sheet on a scarecrow, as if a strong gust of wind could carry her away. The sight of her was a punch to the gut. Mrs. Miller ran to her, sobbing, and threw her arms around her daughter. But Mia’s gaze was fixed on me. Tears welled up in her haunted eyes and began to trace silent paths down her pale cheeks. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Ethan… I loved you so much. I was so good to you. Why would you say that? Why would you call me dirty?” I looked at her, and the words caught in my throat like gravel. I wanted to turn and run, but my feet felt nailed to the pavement. Seeing my silence, her tears fell faster. “That night… someone pulled me into the alley,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I saw you. I thought you would save me. Why didn’t you save me?” She paused, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, a new wave of despair washing over her face. “And… I saw you. You were holding your phone. You were filming it.” “Ethan, the proof is on your phone. Why won’t you just admit it?” Her words were like gasoline on a fire. The crowd erupted. “What are you still standing there for, you bastard? Hand over the phone!” “Mia remembers the details! What else can you say?” “He did it on purpose! He has the video and he’s protecting the attacker!” I gritted my teeth, my eyes locked on Mia. It took all my strength to force the words out. “She’s talking nonsense! She’s mentally unstable. How can you believe a word she says?” But the doctor accompanying her immediately stepped forward. “Ms. Miller suffers from intermittent psychosis, not total delusion,” he explained calmly. “During her lucid periods, her logic and memory are intact. What she has just said has a high degree of credibility.” The doctor’s words demolished my only defense. Mr. Miller charged at me, his hands grabbing for my pocket. “Give me the phone, Ethan! Give it to me!” I instinctively recoiled, pushing him away. That was the signal. Several of Mia’s male relatives closed in, their faces tight with rage. “You’re going to pay for what you did to Mia.” A fist slammed into my face. I felt a hot, wet crack in my nose, and blood streamed down my mouth. “Get him! Make him talk!” “Beat the hell out of that bastard!” More people surged forward. Fists and feet rained down on me from every direction. I curled into a ball on the ground, covering my head, my body screaming in protest. Every bone felt like it was about to shatter. Blood filled my mouth, metallic and salty. I tried to shout, but a kick to my stomach stole my breath, leaving me gasping in silent agony. A pool of blood spread on the pavement beneath me. My vision started to blur at the edges. Through the haze of pain, I saw Mr. Miller finally snatch my phone. He grabbed my hand, forcing my thumb onto the sensor to unlock it. But a moment later, as he looked at the screen, he froze. The color drained from his face, leaving it a ghastly, bloodless white. The crowd pressed in, desperate to see what was on the screen. Suddenly, Mr. Miller snapped back to reality. With a guttural roar, he hurled the phone to the ground.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384988”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The day of my son’s christening, I found a sonogram in my husband’s phone. The woman’s texts were arias of despair, a constant drain that siphoned off half of Ethan’s income every month. I didn’t choose quiet acceptance. I laid the phone on the mahogany desk in his study and demanded an explanation. Ethan sat in that leather chair all night. When he finally emerged in the pale morning light, his face was a gray mask. “I admit it,” he said, his voice raspy. “I owe her. But there’s nothing between us. No feelings.” 1 Ten years together, and now he was asking me to sacrifice our family for a child that wasn’t even real to me. I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t. I put on my dress, a silk sheath the color of cream, and let the christening party begin. And then, in the middle of the reception, his best man, David, burst through the doors of the hall. He was clutching a blood-stained medical transport cooler. “Ethan!” he yelled, his voice echoing in the sudden silence. “It’s Chloe! She saw the pictures you posted of the party… she miscarried at the hospital. The baby’s gone!” The champagne flute in my hand, raised for a toast, slipped from my fingers and shattered on the polished floor. Ethan moved like a lightning strike, a blur of motion toward the door. My voice, sharp with tears, cut through the air behind him. “Ethan, if you walk out that door today, you are no longer this child’s father!” He paused for a single, agonizing beat at the threshold. Then, without a backward glance, he was gone. I stood frozen, our one-month-old son nestled in my arms. Noah was asleep, blissfully unaware that his father had just vanished from his life. The soft jazz music ground to a halt. The murmur of our guests died. The emcee stood on the small stage, microphone in hand, utterly lost. Ethan’s parents rushed to my side, his father’s face livid with rage. “Sophia,” he growled, “that animal! I’ll break his damn legs!” I just shook my head, numb, and handed Noah to the nanny we’d hired. “Let him go, Dad,” I said to my own father-in-law, my voice strangely calm. My own parents hurried over, my mother already weeping. “What is this? At his own son’s christening! He’s humiliated our family!” I stepped down from the dais. “I’ll take you home,” I told them. The grand hall had dissolved into chaos. David, Ethan’s friend, approached me, his face a mess of guilt. “Sophia… I’m so sorry. Chloe… it was an emergency. The baby… it was already formed…” I stared at him, saying nothing. David knew Ethan, but he also knew Leo, the man who had died in prison. And Leo’s sister, Chloe, had become their collective “responsibility.” But responsibility doesn’t choose the middle of a baby’s christening party to make an entrance, holding a dead fetus like a trophy. I grabbed my purse and walked out, leaving the whole farce behind. My phone buzzed in my bag. Again and again. I didn’t look. I knew it was Ethan. He’d be explaining, apologizing, telling me that Chloe was on the verge of death and he couldn’t possibly have stayed. We’d been together for ten years. I knew him. He had a hero complex, a desperate need to be a savior. Leo’s case was the only one he’d ever lost. After Leo died, that guilt became a set of chains Ethan draped around his own neck. He told me he had to take care of Chloe for the rest of his life, to honor his failure. I used to believe him. It was only today that I understood. Some ways of “caring” are just another word for betrayal. Back home, I peeled off the silk dress and changed into sweats. I’m a forensic pathologist. The hospital where Chloe had her… procedure… it was one where I had colleagues. I grabbed my car keys and drove. Outside the OB/GYN emergency room, Ethan was slumped against a wall. His suit was wrinkled, his hair a mess, his eyes shot with blood. A moment later, Chloe was wheeled out of the recovery room, an IV drip taped to her wrist. Her face was bloodless, her eyes closed. Ethan immediately rushed to her side, grabbing her hand. I walked toward them. When Ethan saw me, he straightened up, his eyes swimming with apology. “Soph… you’re here. I’m so sorry about today…” “How is she?” I cut him off, my gaze fixed on the woman in the bed. “The doctor said she hemorrhaged. The baby’s gone, but she’s stable. She’s just… emotionally, she’s a wreck.” I nodded. “Good.” As I turned to leave, Ethan grabbed my wrist. “Sophia, don’t be like this. I lost Leo’s case. I owe them this. I can’t abandon her, not now when she’s lost her only hope.” I pulled my arm free. “I’m not being like anything, Ethan. I’m just realizing that my son’s christening was apparently less important than a woman who just had an abortion.” “That’s not it! You and Noah are the most important things in the world to me! But she was dying! And that was my child, too!” “The doctors said she’s not going to die,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “And another thing. That wasn’t your child.” His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Just then, Chloe’s eyes fluttered open. When she saw me, tears instantly welled. “Sophia,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault. I didn’t mean to, I just… I saw the pictures of the christening, and it made me think of my brother, of Leo, and…” She broke down into ragged sobs. “I lost control. I’m so sorry I ruined everything.” Ethan immediately sat by her side, his voice a soft murmur. “It’s okay. Don’t think about it. It’s over. Just rest.” He looked back at me, his eyes now holding a hint of reproach. “Look at her. She’s shattered. Can’t you have a little compassion?” I didn’t answer. I just turned and walked away. It wasn’t until the cold night air hit my face outside the hospital doors that I realized my hands were shaking uncontrollably. 2 The next day, Ethan came home with a folder in his hand. I opened the door but didn’t let him in, blocking the entrance. He held the folder out to me. “Sophia, I’m apologizing on Chloe’s behalf. She had an emotional breakdown yesterday. She didn’t mean for any of it to happen.” “She can’t apologize for herself?” Ethan flinched. “She’s still very weak.” “Let’s not talk about her,” I said. “Let’s talk about us. What about the christening? What do I tell our friends, our families?” He was silent for a long moment. “We’ll throw another party once this all blows over.” “Another party?” I looked at him, incredulous. “You think this is something you can just… redo?” “What else can we do? It happened, Soph. I know you’re hurt. But Chloe… she lost her brother, and now she’s lost a child. Can’t we just try to be understanding?” There was that word again. Understanding. I took the folder from his hand. It was a share transfer agreement. He was signing over twenty percent of his stake in the law firm to me. “It’s compensation,” he said. “Please, don’t be angry anymore.” Seeing me take the papers, Ethan visibly relaxed, mistaking my action for acceptance. “You’ve always had a soft heart,” he said, a weak smile touching his lips. “Don’t worry. Once she’s back on her feet, I’ll make it all up to you and Noah. I promise.” He left. I tore the agreement into tiny pieces and dropped them in the trash. Then I went to work. I had a colleague pull yesterday’s records from OB/GYN. Chloe Vance. Gestational age, 24 weeks. Procedure: Induction of labor. Not a miscarriage. A scheduled, voluntary induction. An abortion. Then I called a friend in the ER. “Hey, remember that pregnant woman who came in yesterday? Hemorrhaging? Chloe Vance.” My friend thought for a second. “Oh, right, that one. Some guy carried her in, frantic, screaming about a miscarriage.” “And the situation?” “Please,” she scoffed. “It was standard post-induction bleeding. Completely within the normal range. We all knew what was up. The whole drama was for the guy’s benefit.” My heart sank like a stone.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384987”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The call came in on Memorial Day. An accident at the MegaWorld Fun Park. A child, a fall, a severed artery. Halfway there, siren screaming, the Head of Emergency Medicine told the driver to pull over. She wanted to take a picture. I begged her to keep going. A child was bleeding out. She gave me a look cold enough to freeze blood. “Don’t think that fancy degree gives you the right to question me, Maya. In this department, my word is final.” I couldn’t force her. All I could do was sit there, my own heart bleeding with every tick of the clock. When she finally got back in, I thought we were leaving. Then she told the driver to open the gas cap. “Siphon some into the canister for me,” she said. “My personal car is running on fumes.” 01 “Lauren, the father’s called three times already. If we don’t get there soon, that little boy might…” My voice trailed off. A cold sweat was starting to prickle my neck, but Lauren Pierce, my new boss, looked as relaxed as if she were on a Sunday drive, aiming her phone at a ridiculous, newly erected statue of a superhero. “What’s the rush?” she snapped, her face tightening as she glanced at me. The phone, however, didn’t lower. “Maya, don’t think because you waltzed in here from some Ivy League medical school that you can tell me how to do my job. Let’s get one thing straight: I run this ER.” “Dr. Pierce, Lauren, that’s not what I meant at all,” I pleaded, my voice softer than I wanted. “It’s just… the kid can’t wait. The last call, the dad said he was unconscious. It has to be massive blood loss.” She cut me off before I could finish. “‘Massive blood loss’,” she mocked. “You have no idea. People like that always exaggerate. A tiny cut becomes a gaping wound.” She finally lowered her phone, but only to sneer at me. “It’s a manipulation tactic. They think if they sound hysterical, we’ll magically teleport there. They don’t get that we’re doctors, not gods.” She shook her head, a world-weary sigh escaping her lips. “I’ve been doing this for fifteen years. You’re a rookie. You’ll learn.” “But…” I tried to interject, but she put up a hand, a final command. “One more word out of you, Maya, and you can find your own ride back to the hospital. You’re my subordinate on this call. Act like it.” The words hit me like a slap. I bit my lip, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth, and slumped back into my seat in the ambulance. Today was my first official day on the job. And this is how it was starting. Lauren and I weren’t just colleagues. We’d been in the same pre-med program years ago. My rival, she’d called herself. She competed with me over everything, from grades to lab placements. She even competed for my husband, Alex. He was the one that got away for her; the guy she’d spent three years trying to win over in college. After graduation, she’d used family connections to land a cushy residency at Providence General. I’d gone on to get my M.D.-Ph.D., and by a twist of fate, had been assigned to the same hospital for my fellowship. Her department. As if on cue, my phone buzzed again. An unknown number. “Doctor! Are you here yet? My son… Oh god, my son… I don’t think he’s breathing…” The father’s frantic, choked sobs sent a fresh wave of ice through my veins. From the first call, I knew the situation was dire. The boy had fallen from the Ferris wheel. Multiple lacerations, and the gushing blood suggested a major artery—likely the femoral. The park wasn’t far from the hospital, a ten-minute drive at most. But we’d been on the road for twenty-five minutes, twenty of which had been spent parked here so Lauren could get a snapshot of the new Marvel Universe exhibit for her own son. My insides felt like a tangled knot of wires. I’d tried urging her along at least ten times, each attempt met with a glare of pure contempt. I had no choice but to try and calm the father. “We’re almost there, sir. It’s the holiday traffic. In the meantime, find a piece of cloth—a shirt, a towel, anything—and press down hard on the bleeding point. As hard as you can. We’re coming.” I clicked off the phone, my scrub top now damp with sweat. This child was going to die. He was going to die right here, on the phone, while we sat less than a mile away. I didn’t think. I just moved. The side door of the ambulance slammed open as I jumped out and stalked over to Lauren, snatching the phone from her hand. “Lauren, are you coming or not?” my voice was shaking, but it was loud. “Because if you don’t get in this vehicle right now, I swear to God I will report you for criminal negligence.” 02 I stood there, trembling, pointing a shaky finger at the ambulance. My shout had attracted attention. Passersby were starting to slow down, their curiosity piqued. “Hey, isn’t that an ambulance?” someone muttered. “What’s a paramedic doing taking pictures?” “Right? They blast their sirens for us to get out of the way, run red lights, and then they stop to admire the view? Talk about abusing their power.” “Guess their emergency wasn’t so urgent after all. Next time I hear a siren, I’m not pulling over.” The murmurs grew, a chorus of judgment aimed directly at us. Lauren’s face flushed. She hadn’t expected me to push back this hard. She wanted to put me in my place, but the growing crowd of onlookers made that impossible. To save face, she swallowed whatever venomous retort was on her tongue. Honestly, I didn’t want to cause a scene. But when I pictured that child, bleeding out on the pavement, I knew I had no other choice. It didn’t matter if this was some power play, some attempt by Lauren to sabotage my first day. A life couldn’t be the price of her pride. Pressured by the stares, Lauren finally stowed her phone and climbed back into the ambulance. I checked my watch. We had wasted nearly thirty minutes. But we were moving. A few more minutes and we’d be there. The boy still had a chance. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. But my relief was short-lived. Lauren, her face a mask of resentment, barked a new order. “Rick, pull over at the corner up ahead.” My heart seized. I didn’t know what fresh hell she had planned now. The driver, a man I now recognized as her cousin, didn’t question it. He steered the ambulance to the curb. I looked out the window. It was a fish market. Before I could process it, Lauren spoke to the driver, her eyes deliberately avoiding mine. “Wait here. I need to pick up some shrimp. My son wants garlic shrimp pasta for dinner tonight.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. With a child’s life hanging by a thread, she was thinking about dinner. I thought the public shaming had gotten through to her, but I was wrong. Her connections ran deep; a complaint from a rookie fellow meant nothing. As she started to get out, I grabbed her arm. “Lauren, the boy is unconscious. His blood pressure has probably bottomed out. We don’t have any more time to waste.” My voice was raw with desperation. I tried a different tactic, appealing to the one thing I thought we might share. “Lauren, you have a son. Imagine if it was your boy lying there. Wouldn’t you be frantic?” It was the wrong thing to say. My attempt at empathy ignited her rage. “Shut your mouth, Maya!” she shrieked, her face contorted with fury. “First you yell at me, then you threaten me, and now you’re cursing my son? Is that it?” “Let me tell you something,” she spat, her voice low and dangerous. “My son is perfectly fine. My husband has him at the fun park right now, having a wonderful day.” She leaned in closer. “And you? You just want to steal the spotlight, same as you always did in school. Well, not this time. Not a chance.” With that, she wrenched her arm free and disappeared into the market. As I watched her go, a cold dread settled deep in my stomach. After a few seconds of stunned silence, I made a decision. I climbed into the back of the ambulance. “Let’s go, Rick! Now!” It was a long shot. I didn’t have years of field experience, but I’d graduated at the top of my class. I’d run dozens of trauma simulations during my residency. I could handle this. I had to get to that child, with or without her, because if I waited any longer, he would be gone. But the driver didn’t move. He stretched, yawning, and didn’t even bother to look back at me as he picked up his phone to scroll through videos. And then he said two words that sealed the child’s fate. “Not moving.” 03 The two words echoed in the small space, each one a stone thrown at my hope. They landed with a thud, shattering what little composure I had left. I stared at the back of his head in disbelief. “What did you say? Why won’t you go? Didn’t you hear me? That child is dying!” My voice cracked, rising to a desperate shriek. He just kept scrolling, his thumb flicking across the screen. “I heard you,” he said, his tone flat and bored. “But the department head didn’t give the order. I’m not moving this vehicle.” He finally glanced at me in the rearview mirror, his eyes cold. “Something goes wrong, who’s responsible? Not me.” A fragmented conversation I’d overheard in the breakroom earlier that morning clicked into place. Two nurses gossiping. The new driver, Rick? That’s Lauren’s cousin… Of course. He wasn’t just an employee; he was family. He would never defy her. I wiped a bead of sweat from my temple. My chest felt tight, like it was packed with cotton, thick and suffocating. My phone rang again. “Doctor! He’s gone cold… My whole shirt is red, it’s all blood… We have ten minutes, maybe. Please…” The man’s voice dissolved into ragged, desperate sobs. Each gasp was a knife twisting in my gut. I paced the small confines of the ambulance, a caged animal, wishing I could sprout wings and fly there myself. I tried to calm him down again, walking him through the basic steps of applying pressure, my own voice trembling. After I hung up, my first instinct was to call the hospital dispatch, to beg them to send another ambulance. Maybe there was still time. Just as I raised my phone, the side door slammed open. Lauren was back. For a split second, I saw a savior. I rushed toward her, the words spilling out of me in a torrent. “Lauren, the situation is critical, the father said…” But she wasn’t listening. Her attention was on the plastic bag in her hand. A small, satisfied smile played on her lips as she passed the shrimp to Rick, watching intently as he placed it carefully on the passenger seat. Only when her precious cargo was secure did she deign to look at me. “Dr. Pierce, the child is in critical condition. Based on the father’s description, it’s almost certainly a femoral artery bleed. He’s likely in hypovolemic shock. We have ten minutes, tops.” I was on the verge of tears. To my horror, Lauren just chuckled. A small, condescending puff of air. “Maya, you haven’t changed a bit,” she said, patting my shoulder with mock sympathy. “Still so desperate to be the hero.” She gave me a look a seasoned general might give a terrified new recruit. “I told you, people exaggerate. Especially parents.” “No,” I said, my voice firm. “I don’t think this is an exaggeration. I think the reality is probably much worse.” Lauren just shook her head, a placid, infuriating calm on her face. “Well, if it is, then that’s just fate, isn’t it?” she said breezily. “You know what they say: life and death are preordained. If he doesn’t make it, I guess it was just his time to go. Who are we to argue with that?” I stared at her, my jaw slack with disbelief. The words, coming from the Head of Emergency Medicine, were so monstrous, so utterly devoid of humanity, that my blood ran cold. The sweat on my back felt like ice. But this wasn’t the time to argue philosophy. The ambulance engine finally roared to life. A tiny spark of hope rekindled within me. We were close. Five minutes, maybe less. I watched the seconds tick by on my watch, each one a lifetime. The iconic silhouette of the MegaWorld Fun Park’s roller coasters appeared in the distance. My heart hammered against my ribs. I closed my eyes, offering a silent prayer. Hang on, little boy. Please, just hang on. We’re here. But just as hope began to bloom, the ambulance slowed. And then, it stopped moving altogether. 04 “Rick, what’s going on? Why did we stop?” “Are you blind?” he grunted. “It’s a traffic jam.” I looked up and saw it. Of course. Memorial Day weekend. The main road to the amusement park was a parking lot. A solid, unmoving river of cars stretched out before us. I threw the door open and peered ahead. We were so close. I could see the main gate. Thinking of the child inside, waiting, bleeding, I turned to Lauren. “Dr. Pierce, he’s just up ahead. We can’t drive through this, but we can walk. Let’s get the gurney and…” Before I could finish, Lauren ignored me completely and called Rick out of the driver’s seat. And then, she said the words that shattered my entire understanding of medical ethics, of human decency itself. “Rick, my car is on empty. Grab the canister. Since we’re stuck here anyway, let’s use the time to siphon some gas. I need to fill up when I get home.” My hand, which had been gesturing toward the park, froze in mid-air. My whole body went rigid. I couldn’t process it. At this moment, with a child’s life extinguishing just a few hundred yards away, Lauren Pierce was worried about stealing gas from the hospital. Her mind wasn’t on her patient. It was on herself. It had always been on herself. She didn’t see the small life hanging in the balance. She didn’t see the family on the verge of being destroyed. A tremor of pure rage shot through me. I stood there, paralyzed by it. Rick, ever the loyal cousin, obediently retrieved a plastic canister from a storage compartment. From the looks of it, this wasn’t the first time it had been used for this purpose. “Lauren! What the hell are you doing?” I finally found my voice. “We have wasted forty minutes! That child has no more time! If he dies, his parents… how will they go on?” I was losing it, screaming at her, wanting to physically drag her toward the park entrance. But she stood her ground, immovable, a smirk playing on her lips as if she were enjoying my breakdown. Finally, I gave up on her. I turned back to the ambulance, deciding to go alone. I grabbed the trauma kit and the oxygen tank. The moment my fingers closed around the kit’s handle, a shadow fell over me. The world exploded in a flash of white-hot pain as something heavy slammed into my forehead. A warm, sticky liquid began to pour down my face. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Lauren’s voice was a venomous hiss. “Always have to be the star. The hero. You are the most pathetic, attention-seeking bitch I have ever met.” Before I could react, another crushing blow landed on my back. The pain was sickening, my legs turned to water. The world tilted, spinning into a dizzying vortex of black. As I fell, my fading vision caught a figure running toward us from the direction of the park. He was shouting, his voice a distant, desperate cry. “Help! Doctor! Please, help my son!” It was the father. He was here. And then, everything went dark. … When I came to, my head was throbbing with a dull, heavy ache. I was lying on the hot asphalt of the road. The dried blood on my face had formed a tight, cracking mask. A sharp pain radiated from my lower back. The street was no longer clogged. Cars moved in an orderly flow, the earlier chaos vanished as if it had been a dream. I struggled to my feet, my head swimming. A jolt, like an electric shock, shot through me. The boy. The child who needed me. Was that man his father? Had they found him? Was the boy okay? A thousand questions flooded my mind. My eyes darted around frantically, searching. And then a horrifying realization dawned on me. The ambulance, which should have been parked right beside me, was gone. 05 Had they left me here? Panic seized me. I fumbled for my watch, my hands shaking. The display showed that I’d only been unconscious for three minutes. Three minutes. For the child on the brink of death, each of those one hundred and eighty seconds was an eternity. If the father had found Lauren and they had gone to help, there was still hope. But if not… My mind spiraled. I was a desperate, frantic mess, scanning the street for any sign of the vehicle. I ran to a man walking by, grabbing his arm. My voice trembled. “Please, did you see an ambulance? Where did it go? There’s a child, he’s badly hurt, we have to find him!” The man recoiled, pulling his arm away as if I were diseased. “How should I know?” he snapped, glaring at me. “You’re the paramedic. You can’t even keep track of your own vehicle?” Ignoring his scorn, I stumbled toward another pedestrian. “Ma’am, please, the ambulance… a little boy’s life is at stake!” She just gave me a wide-eyed look and hurried away. Sweat poured down my face, mingling with the blood. My heart felt like a fist clenched tight in my chest. I weaved through the crowd, a ghost in a blood-stained uniform. Finally, a street vendor pointed down a side road. “Saw it pull in there a minute ago.” I ran. I ran with everything I had left, my only thought that the vehicle held the supplies, the equipment, the last chance that boy had. I rounded the corner, gasping for breath, and saw it. The ambulance. Through the back window, I could see Lauren’s form, bent over a small figure. A wave of relief washed over me, so powerful it almost buckled my knees. “Thank God,” I whispered. “They found him.” But as I got closer, the relief curdled into confusion, then into cold, hard dread. The boy Lauren was attending to… he had a few scrapes on his knees, maybe a bump on his head. He was crying, but he wasn’t dying. There wasn’t a drop of blood on him that wasn’t his own. This wasn’t the child from the fall. Overhearing their conversation, the truth hit me with the force of a physical blow. This was the son of Dr. Coleman, the Deputy Chief of Medicine at our hospital. I froze, the world narrowing to a single point of nauseating clarity. The hope that had flared just moments before was extinguished, leaving nothing but ash. Anger, despair, a profound sense of helplessness—it all crashed over me at once. I stood there, my mouth opening and closing, but no words came out. I had thought, for a moment, that I had misjudged her. That her humanity had finally won out. But this… this was worse than anything I could have imagined. Somewhere, not far from here, a little boy was dying, and she was putting a cartoon band-aid on a VIP’s son. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I wrenched open the ambulance door. “Lauren!” I yelled, my voice raw. “There is a child over there who is bleeding to death! We’ve been here for almost an hour! He’s not going to make it!” Without looking up, she waved a dismissive hand. “Can’t you see I’m busy? This is Dr. Coleman’s son. If something happens to him, do you want to be the one to explain it?” “His life is a life, too!” I screamed, my control shattering. “This is all because of you! He could have been saved by now!” Lauren shot me a venomous glare. “Don’t interfere, Maya. If the Chief gets angry, we’ll both be out of a job.” A woman who looked like the boy’s nanny chimed in. “Exactly. We need to take care of the child right in front of us.” I looked from their faces to the scraped knee, and I wanted to tear my hair out. The crowd that had gathered, drawn by the commotion, began to murmur. They didn’t know the context; they just saw a hysterical doctor and a calm one. “What’s wrong with her? She’s a doctor, she should be helping.” “Look, she doesn’t want to treat the kid just because it’s not a big injury. What kind of person is that?” “Someone should get her name. Report her to the hospital.” Phones came out. Cameras were pointed at me. I was being judged, condemned by a jury of strangers who had no idea what was happening. I was dizzy with anger and helplessness, tears stinging my eyes. But I couldn’t back down. If I gave up now, the boy had no one. “Lauren, I’m not asking you again,” I said, my voice low and shaking with fury. “Either we go to that child right now, or I’m calling the police. And when this blows up, we’re all going down with it.” 06 A flicker of panic crossed Lauren’s face. She knew I wasn’t bluffing. But just as she seemed to waver, a fresh wave of cars surged down the street, locking us in place. The holiday gridlock had returned with a vengeance. The ambulance was trapped. Lauren’s confidence instantly returned. “Well, look at that,” she said with a triumphant sneer. “Even if I wanted to go, I couldn’t. Now will you please shut up? Your whining is giving me a headache.” I stared through the windshield at the park entrance, less than five hundred yards away. It felt like it was on another planet. I could almost feel the boy’s life slipping away, and a wave of despair and guilt washed over me. Just then, a car door slammed nearby. Dr. Coleman, the Deputy Chief himself, had arrived. His eyes scanned the scene and landed on me, on the blood caked on my forehead. “Warren,” he said, his brow furrowed. “What happened to your head?” I instinctively touched the tender wound, my throat tight. “I… I fell, sir. But Dr. Coleman, I have an urgent situation to report…” Before I could continue, Lauren’s voice cut through the air, sharp and false. “That’s right! Dr. Coleman, you won’t believe it. She insisted on stopping to buy groceries on the way here, said she needed to make soup for her mother in the hospital. Then she tripped and cracked her head open. Utterly unprofessional!” She jabbed a finger into my back, her nail digging into my skin through my uniform. I spun around, met by the triumphant malice in her eyes. People in the crowd started whispering again. “So selfish. Thinking about her own family at a time like this…” “Totally irresponsible.” I gripped the handle of the trauma kit, my knuckles turning white. “Dr. Pierce, you were the one who insisted we treat your son’s scraped knee first, while the other child has been waiting for forty-five minutes!” “And what if he has?” Lauren suddenly snatched the clipboard with the dispatch report from my hands and slapped it against my chest. She leaned in, her voice a venomous whisper. “Dr. Coleman could have us both fired with one phone call. Is that what you want?” She lowered her voice even more. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing, trying to climb the ladder by impressing the brass. It’s pathetic.” “That’s enough!” Dr. Coleman’s voice boomed. He looked at me, his expression stern. “Warren, where is this other injured child you mentioned?” I fumbled for my phone. “He’s inside the park, sir, near the Ferris wheel. His father called, he said he fell and now he’s…” “He’s fine now!” Lauren snatched my phone out of my hand. “That’s not true!” I tried to grab it back, but she shoved me away. “Sir,” Lauren said, her voice a model of calm professionalism. “I already checked on that child myself. The parents took him home. It was a false alarm.” She said it with such conviction, but I knew she was lying through her teeth, desperate to cover her tracks. Suddenly, a voice cut through the crowd. “I saw him! I saw the kid! His insides were… they were coming out!” It was the delivery guy from earlier, the one who had pointed me toward the ambulance. He was clutching his helmet, his hand shaking. Lauren scoffed. “Oh, and who’s this? Some random busybody?” She raised an eyebrow, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “What’s your connection to Maya here? Is this some kind of scam to shake us down for money?” That was it. To be slandered, to be publicly humiliated while a child was dying… I snapped. I lunged forward and grabbed the front of her white coat. “Lauren! We are going over there. Now. It will take two minutes!” I turned to the Deputy Chief. “Sir, once we’re there, you’ll see the truth!” I grabbed the trauma kit and tried to pull her with me. The slap was so hard my ears rang. I tasted blood in my mouth. “A thief who steals medical supplies has some nerve,” she hissed. The next thing I knew, she had stomped on the latch of the trauma kit I’d dropped, popping it open. “You see, Dr. Coleman? She’s lying about everything. Her real goal was to steal these imported hemostats!” “You… you are insane!” A hot, coppery rage filled my throat. “You tried to steal medication earlier, Maya,” she said loudly for the benefit of the crowd. “I stopped you then, but I guess you just can’t help yourself.” As the onlookers gasped, I felt the buttons of my uniform pop as she yanked on my coat. At that exact moment, my phone, still in my pocket, began to vibrate violently. It was the father. With trembling hands, I answered it. The man’s scream, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, tore through the speaker. “Doctor! Help my son! He… he’s not moving! His body… it’s getting cold!” Lauren’s eyes widened. She snatched the phone from my hand. “Sir, please calm down…” She spoke only a few words before her own voice died in her throat. Her pupils dilated, her face draining of all color. The hand holding the phone began to tremble violently. She was listening to the faint, gasping sounds from the other end, and a flicker of something incomprehensible crossed her face. “That voice…” she muttered to herself, her own voice barely a whisper. “It sounds so much like my husband…” She shook her head, as if to clear it. “No, it couldn’t be…”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384986”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

September 8th The day I divorced my cheating husband. The final, signed papers felt hot in my hands. As we stepped out of the courthouse, into the unforgiving sunlight, I turned to Grant Emerson. “I’m pregnant.” He stopped dead, feet bolted to the pavement. He stared at me, his eyes churning with something I couldn’t decipher. His voice was a tremor. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” “Tell you,” I said, my gaze level with his, “and let you use a child to chain me to you?” “Grant, remember this.” “This baby is mine. Mine alone.” 1 My marriage to Grant Emerson was a hand-me-down from my sister. Poppy was effervescent and impulsive, a firefly in a jar who refused to be pinned down by something as archaic as a family alliance. So, she took a check for two million dollars and vanished. My mother, Eleanor, doting on her youngest while simultaneously terrified of losing a son-in-law like Grant, shoved me forward to take her place. She acted as if any daughter from the Pierce family would suffice, as if we were interchangeable parts. And Grant Emerson? In a city like New York, where old-money names are carved into library walls and hospital wings, his was etched the deepest. Poppy jilting him was a public humiliation. And now they were offering him… me? It was delusional. But I met with him once anyway. I made my pitch, a business proposal in the guise of a life partnership. And to my unending shock, he agreed. This year marked our fourth anniversary. To the outside world, we were a model couple. In private, we were courteous strangers who shared a bed with the same polite distance we shared a dinner table. Even sex was an exercise in decorum. My mother was constantly in my ear, nagging me about children, about my “uselessness.” If I didn’t secure him with an heir, she’d hiss, what was to stop him from running off? I always wanted to say, Grant isn’t a dog. And even if I wanted to leash him, did she really think he would allow it? But I never said that. I would just nod, my expression placid and agreeable. My meekness always infuriated her. She’d roll her eyes, her lips pursed in disgust, and sweep out of the room. The irony, then, was that I actually did get pregnant. 2 My period was late. First by a week, then two, then a month. Last night, I took a test. Two stark blue lines. This morning, I went to a clinic for a blood test to be sure. The doctor held the report. “You’re nine weeks along. Are you planning on keeping it?” “I think so.” But I hesitated. Grant didn’t know. This child was never part of our meticulously crafted agreement. I had to ask him. So I took the report and went straight to his office downtown. Grant was in a board meeting when I arrived. His assistant, a man of impeccable poise, showed me into the sweeping corner office, furnished me with a coffee and a plate of delicate pastries, and told me it wouldn’t be long. I lifted the porcelain cup to my lips, then paused. Could I drink coffee while pregnant? I had no idea. A quick search on my phone said it was fine in moderation. Good enough for me. I took a small sip, the rich, bitter warmth a familiar comfort. I let out a soft sigh of satisfaction, but it was cut short by a commotion from the reception area—a rising tide of voices and a woman’s sharp, piercing cry. I opened the office door a crack and found myself looking directly at a woman being held back by security. Her eyes, red-rimmed and furious, locked onto the space behind me. “Get Grant Emerson out here!” she screamed. “He knocks someone up and thinks he can just ghost them? Is he going to take responsibility or not?” The volume. The spectacle. The sea of staring faces. The humiliation was a physical blow. I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. This has nothing to do with me, I wanted to scream back. And then Grant was there, a sudden calm in the storm. He moved through the crowd, his face a cold mask, and his eyes found me peeking through the doorway. In two long strides, he was in front of me, his large, elegant hand covering my eyes, blocking out the scene. I flinched back instinctively. With a soft click, he closed the door, shutting me inside. I blinked into the sudden quiet. Wait. My husband cheated on me, got another woman pregnant, and the woman was now staging a coup in his lobby. And I wasn’t supposed to be involved at all? 3 As it turned out, I was to be involved. Just not in the way I expected. Grant dismissed the crowd with a single, cutting glance. He murmured something to the woman, then opened the door and ushered her into the office, right in front of me. Watching his cool, unruffled demeanor, I had the absurd urge to applaud. To have an affair and handle the fallout with such brazen composure was, in its own way, a masterpiece of audacity. The woman was striking. Dressed in simple sweats, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail under a baseball cap. She dropped into a leather armchair, crossed her legs, and radiated an aura of “don’t mess with me.” She was also undeniably beautiful, with sharp, exquisite features and a cool, defiant gaze. It was the kind of beauty that made her hard to hate. A shame she had to open her mouth. “So this is your wife?” She didn’t even look at me. Her words were for Grant. “Divorce her.” “I’m pregnant. You have to take responsibility for me.” I felt a wry smile touch my lips. Well, I’m pregnant too. Who’s going to take responsibility for me? By all societal logic, as the wife, I should have had the upper hand. But when a marriage becomes a battlefield, it’s often the one with the least morals who shouts the loudest. “Sigh.” I sighed out loud, reaching for a small, buttery cookie from the plate. It was perfectly crisp, with a hint of vanilla. Delicious. “Want one?” I offered, holding it out. The woman stared at me, her expression one of pure disgust. She pointed a finger in my direction. “Is she insane?” she asked Grant. For the first time, a flicker of something—annoyance? frustration?—crossed Grant’s perfect facade. He frowned, took my hand, and pulled me into the adjoining private lounge. He lit a cigarette and smoked it down to the filter in tense silence. “It was one time,” he said finally, his voice low and gravelly. “I was drugged at a fundraiser. It was an accident.” “Audrey.” He met my eyes then, his gaze unnervingly direct. “This is my fault,” he said. “Completely. So you get to decide what happens next.” “If you can forgive me, we’ll move past this. We’ll make it work.” “If you can’t, we’ll get a divorce.” The word, divorce, hung in the air. My heart skipped a beat, then began to hammer against my ribs. I dug my thumbnail into the soft flesh of my palm, an old, grounding habit. “It’s your fault, right?” I asked, my voice small. “If we get a divorce, you’ll admit that it was your fault, won’t you?” 4 Grant watched me, his expression unreadable. He was a handsome man. More handsome than any man I’d ever met. I liked looking at him. Especially in bed, from below, watching the way his eyes would glaze over with pleasure, listening to the raw, unguarded sound of his breathing. Moments like that, I could forget everything else and just feel. A divorce. It was a shame. But it wasn’t impossible. “So, your choice is divorce?” he asked, his voice flat. I nodded, gesturing vaguely toward the office beyond the door. “After all that? It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a choice, is there?” “It’s just… my mother. You’ll tell her it was your fault, right?” I needed to hear it again. His expression shuttered. A cold, unfamiliar distance crept into his eyes, and it made my chest ache. But I was an expert at managing that particular ache. A deep breath in. A slow breath out. And it was gone. Grant stood, brushing invisible dust from his tailored suit. “Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “I’ll handle it.” Phew. That was a relief. “About the divorce,” I began, my mind already shifting gears. “I don’t need much, but I want Helios Pharmaceuticals.” “Fine.” “And a house would be nice. If it’s not too much trouble.” “Okay.” “Could I also have, say, fifty million?” Grant turned back, his eyes narrowing. “You want everything, and you still want a divorce?” He took a step closer. “Don’t divorce me, and it’s all yours anyway.” I looked away, suddenly fascinated by my own shoes. That’s a nice sentiment, I thought. But you’re the one who cheated. If you hadn’t cheated, we wouldn’t be getting a divorce. If we weren’t getting a divorce, your wife and your child would both be yours. …Wait. Even with a divorce, he’d still have a new wife and a new child waiting for him. Damn. He really was a businessman. He’d done the math. No matter what, he came out ahead. 5 Grant took care of the woman. What they said, what he promised her, I never found out. By the time I emerged from the lounge, she was gone. The delicious pastries were gone too. Not a single crumb left. I eyed the empty plate mournfully. As we were leaving, I couldn’t help but grab his assistant’s arm. “Those little cookies from earlier,” I whispered. “Could you possibly pack some for me?” His expression was a masterclass in controlled bewilderment. Behind me, Grant let out a short, cold laugh. “Pack them for her,” he ordered. The scandal was too big to contain. By evening, my mother’s name was flashing on my screen. The first call, I ignored. The second, I let ring out. On the third, I stared at the screen for a long moment before walking to the kitchen and dropping my phone into the sink full of water. Finally. Peace. In the silence that followed, a single thought crystallized in my mind: I was going to have this baby. This child, a being formed from my own body, nourished by my blood, would grow into a new life. A life inextricably linked to mine. My own flesh and blood. My family. Why wouldn’t I keep him? Yes. I was going to keep him. The decision filled me with a giddy, unfamiliar excitement. I went to the wine cellar and opened a bottle of Screaming Eagle I’d been saving. Could you drink while pregnant? Probably not. But the internet said moderation. So, cheers. 6 At eight o’clock, my mother descended. The pounding on my front door was loud enough to be a public disturbance, but in this neighborhood of sprawling, isolated houses, there was no one to report it to. I put on my headphones and turned the stereo up, letting the music wash over me. Still, I could faintly hear her muffled shrieks through the bass. I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew the script by heart. It would be a familiar tirade: “The Uselessness of Audrey” and its companion piece, “The Pointlessness of Audrey’s Existence.” No new material, nothing innovative, yet still profoundly exhausting to hear. After what felt like an eternity, the pounding stopped. Some time after that, the door to my study opened. Grant stood there. He plucked the headphones from my ears. In one hand, he held my waterlogged phone. In the other, a brand new one, still in its box. His face was impassive, his voice cold. “Put your SIM card in this.” “The lab couldn’t reach you, so they called me. Call them back.” I tilted my head back to look up at him. “You know, Grant, you weren’t wrong.” “What?” “You cheated, and that’s why we’re getting a divorce. And my mother still came here to blame me.” He stared down at me, his jaw tight. He took a deep breath. “I know. I’ll handle it.” Grant’s method of “handling it” was, to put it mildly, a catastrophic failure. I was tempted to leave him a one-star review. My mother stormed his office building and was stopped by security in the lobby. I had just come from the lab, having pulled an all-nighter on a sample that was yielding disappointing results. My whole team was demoralized. Grant would say this was a moment for encouragement, for a rousing speech about hope and perseverance. “But they’re human,” I’d argued. “It’s normal to be frustrated.” “Anyone who chooses this work has the courage to fail a thousand times and start over.” It was that resilience that I found so captivating. But my thoughts were interrupted by Grant’s secretary informing me that my mother had arrived, demanding to see me, and vowing not to leave until she did. The truth was, if I didn’t want to see her, she couldn’t make me. I took the private elevator down to the garage, got in my car, and was about to make a stealthy exit when she materialized in front of my vehicle like a phantom, her eyes glaring with feral intensity. There was no escape. I resigned myself to buying her a coffee. As we sat in a sterile cafe, I did a quick mental calculation. It had been 372 days since we had last seen each other. We were so close to a new record. A shame to have it broken. “You’re divorcing Grant Emerson?” she began, no preamble. “Yes.” “Are you mentally ill?” The attack came out of nowhere, a zero-to-sixty of maternal rage. The tirade continued. “Do you have a single functioning brain cell in your head? Who do you think you are, Audrey? What makes you so special? Every man strays, every single one. What, you think you’re different? You’re going to throw this all away over some trivial little thing? You’re not just embarrassing yourself, you’re embarrassing me.” “It’s your fault, you know. You couldn’t hold on to him. You couldn’t manage him.” “I told you, being smart isn’t enough! You have no social graces, no common sense. You’re stubborn, inflexible…” “Everyone always said I favored Poppy, but if you were even half as considerate, half as thoughtful as she is—” “You would still favor her,” I cut in, finishing her sentence. She froze, speechless for a second, before her voice rose to a shriek. “Audrey, must you always be so contrary?” No. I was just tired. I wanted to sleep. I was pregnant, and the tiny cluster of cells inside me needed to grow. I stood up to leave. But it was like I had flipped a switch. She lunged, grabbing my arm, her face contorted with rage. Just as she had done countless times when I was a child, she raised her hand to strike me. In that instant, a cold terror seized me. I could have dodged. I could have blocked her hand. I could have even fought back. But my body refused to obey. It was as if my neural pathways had been severed. I just stood there, frozen. A statue. A puppet with its strings cut. I couldn’t even breathe. 7 “Mom!” The voice was bright and musical. My mother’s hand stopped mid-air. She turned, her angry expression melting into one of delighted surprise. Standing in the doorway was a girl so full of life she seemed to vibrate. Even out of breath, her smile was radiant. “Poppy?” “When did you get back? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Poppy bounced over and squeezed between us, linking her arm through our mother’s and leaning her head on her shoulder. “I wanted to surprise you! Oh, Mommy, I missed you so much.” Eleanor preened, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening with pleasure. I took a small, subtle step back, giving them ample space for their mother-daughter reunion. My back hit something solid and warm. A wall of muscle. “Poppy, how did you get here? Who picked you up from the airport?” “Grant, of course!” Both of them turned their gazes to the man standing behind me. He had a steadying hand on my back. “Are you okay?” he murmured, his voice low. I took a shaky breath. “When exactly,” I asked, my voice tight, “did you reconnect with your former fiancée?” A muscle feathered in Grant’s jaw. “Right now, she is still my sister-in-law.” “Oh, my mistake. How did you reconnect with your sister-in-law?” He didn’t like that. I could see it in the clench of his jaw. Someone else didn’t like it either. Poppy pouted, stepping between us to take Grant’s arm. “Grant, what are you guys talking about? I called your name and you didn’t even answer.” She clung to her brother-in-law’s arm as naturally as she had clung to her mother’s. Eleanor’s eyes darted between them, a speculative gleam entering her expression. “Poppy, you two…” Poppy’s cheeks flushed a delicate pink before she even spoke. She stamped her foot playfully. “Mom, don’t be ridiculous.” “Grant and I, we’re just… we’re…” “Oh, I can’t talk to you people, you’re so annoying!” The unspoken words, the flustered denial—it was classic Poppy. A slow smile of dawning realization spread across my mother’s face, deepening the wrinkles around her eyes into canyons of delight. “Wonderful, wonderful!” “This is a happy day. Grant, you come with Poppy. We’ll all go home and have dinner together.” Everyone in the room was suddenly very busy. Only Grant spared me a final, fleeting glance. But in the end, he allowed himself to be led away by Poppy. And my sister, from the moment she arrived to the moment she left, never once looked at me. 8 With Poppy’s return, everything suddenly accelerated. That evening, my mother found the time to send me a text. [If you’re so determined to get this divorce, then get it over with.] [But since you’re the one asking for it, you’ll leave with nothing. Don’t be greedy. Our family can’t afford that kind of embarrassment.] At ten, Grant came to the lab. He brought late-night food for the team, and we had a short debrief. As he was leaving, I stopped him. “Is the divorce agreement being drafted? Helios Pharmaceuticals—that’s the one thing I won’t budge on. You can promise me that, right?” “Is there nothing else you want to ask me?” he said, his voice quiet. Actually, there was. “Are you about to be demoted to my brother-in-law? And what happens to the mother of your one-night-stand baby?” Grant let out a cold, humorless laugh. “What’s this? Divorcing me but still concerned about who’s taking your place?” I pursed my lips. He was clearly angry. “I’m just giving you a heads-up.” “If Poppy has her sights set on you, you’d better protect that woman and her child. When my mother gets desperate, even Poppy is afraid of her.” He didn’t respond. I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me. “Audrey.” “Yes?” He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he hesitated. After a long moment, all he managed was: “She has a name. It’s Sloane.” … “Oh.” 9 I never imagined that just hours after learning Sloane’s name, I would run into her. After deciding to keep the baby, I had my first official prenatal visit and a battery of tests at the hospital. As I was leaving, I got a frantic call from a former mentor who now ran a private clinic. “Your mother just dragged someone in here, trying to force an abortion. Do you know anything about this? She’s threatening to ruin my career!” What is the absolute limit of a person’s cruelty? This. This was it. To completely disregard another person’s will, their fundamental human rights. Because my family were major donors to that clinic, my mother believed she held the power of life and death in her hands. I didn’t hesitate. I called the police. Then I called Grant. No answer. After a moment’s thought, I turned my car around and headed for the clinic. The scene I walked into was pure chaos. Two groups of people were in a standoff, one restraining my mother, the other holding back Sloane. “You shameless homewrecker!” my mother screeched. “Destroying my daughter’s marriage, carrying a bastard child! If your mother didn’t teach you how to be a decent human being, I will!” “Who the hell do you think you are?” Sloane shot back, her voice dripping with contempt. “Yelling at me? I’m terrified. I was bitten by a rabid dog once as a kid.” “Who are you calling a dog?” “You, old woman! Get over here and I’ll show you what I can do!” “Ha! You seduce a married man and you think you’re righteous? Why don’t you just strip naked and put on a show for the whole street?” “Is that what you did? Speaking from experience?” … My mother was a storm of fury. Sloane was a hurricane, matching her blow for blow. If not for the people holding her back, she would have launched herself across the room. Then the police arrived. And so did the patriarch of the Pierce family, my father, Arthur, a man perpetually too busy for anything. The police tried to mediate. My mother and Sloane continued to trade insults. My father, ever the decisive executive, strode forward and slapped my mother across the face. “Shut up,” he snarled. “Haven’t you made enough of a scene?” Instantly, Eleanor fell silent, shrinking like a frightened bird. He turned to Sloane. “Ms. Sloane, I apologize for this incident. Name your terms. I only hope we can resolve this quietly. I’m sure none of us want this to escalate.” Sloane, her hair disheveled, looked ragged but unbroken. She let out a cold laugh. “Resolve it quietly? Not a chance. I’m pressing charges. I’m suing her. I want—” Crack. Another slap, this one on my mother’s other cheek. “Is that enough?” my father asked Sloane, his voice dangerously calm. “If not…” Everyone froze. Especially Sloane, her lips pressed into a thin, white line, her face pale with shock. And me, standing just outside the circle of chaos, my feet felt rooted to the floor. The hand at my side clenched into a fist so tight my nails dug into my palm. One slap. “Is that enough?” Another slap. “How about now? Is this enough?” My mother was dragging me by the hair, forcing me to face the little girl and her parents. “If you’re still not satisfied, how about this?” Another slap. It was that girl. She had torn up my test paper. I had pushed her. She fell and started crying, claiming I’d hit her. My mother arrived and slapped me without asking a single question. Asking them, is that enough? Did it hurt? I don’t remember. I just remember a wave of dizziness, a sudden, warm, spreading wetness. In front of everyone, I had wet myself. 10 When I was little, I could never understand why my parents didn’t like me. I got straight A’s. I learned everything quickly. Teachers praised me, and other adults complimented me. But never my parents. My father acted as if I were invisible. My mother’s gaze was always cold. “So you got another A? Are you showing off? Get out of my sight. The sight of you annoys me.” My accomplishments were never acknowledged. But my mistakes were magnified, scrutinized under her relentless lens. She was a quality inspector looking for flaws, and any tiny error on my part was cause for a festival of her scorn. I was lying on the living room rug, my mind drifting, when Poppy appeared above me, looking down. “Did you see my texts? I called you, too. You ignored me!” she said, her voice accusatory. “That’s really rude, Audrey.” I closed my eyes and rolled over. She plopped down on the rug beside me anyway. “When Dad got home, he laid into Mom. Told her if she lost Grant as a son-in-law, he would bring Rhys home for good.” Rhys. My father’s illegitimate son. Two years older than me. “Mom went ballistic. Smashed everything in the house. Now she’s insisting I have to be the one to marry Grant.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “When are you two finally getting divorced?” I didn’t want to talk to her. I started to get up, but she grabbed my arm. “Play chess with me.” I couldn’t hold back a scoff. “You? Play what? Tic-tac-toe? You’re terrible at chess.” Poppy just grinned, her eyes curving into crescents. We played two games. Each one lasted over forty minutes. She would study the board for a minute or two before every single move. Finally, not even halfway through the second game, I drifted off to sleep. Poppy noticed quickly. She waved a hand in front of my face. Then, moving with uncharacteristic quiet, she found a blanket and carefully draped it over me. She tiptoed out of the room, pulling the door gently shut, leaving me in peace. 11 Poppy had asked a good question. When were Grant and I getting divorced? He’d been away on business for a few days. He flew back today and went straight to the office from the airport. As soon as I heard, I drove over. But I was a step too late. His assistant intercepted me, his expression pained. “Dr. Pierce, the president’s office is… occupied at the moment.” “By who?” “Ms. Sloane.” Ah. She was probably here to settle accounts after the ordeal at the clinic. Nothing to do but wait. I waited for thirteen minutes. Grant did not emerge. Instead, Poppy and my mother arrived. The moment they appeared, I saw the assistant’s shoulders tense. He was going to need a raise. Three different women, all here to see the CEO about a divorce. The instant my mother saw me, her brow furrowed in disapproval. “What are you doing here?” Her face was still slightly swollen, a faint bruising that no amount of makeup could fully conceal. I looked away. “The divorce.” She let out a dismissive huff and sat down opposite me, pulling Poppy down with her. Poppy was absorbed in her phone, oblivious. “You’re the one who wants this divorce,” my mother hissed under her breath. “Besides, Grant was always meant for Poppy. You were just keeping her seat warm.” “And this is all your fault anyway. If you had managed Grant properly, none of this mess with the other woman and the illegitimate child would have happened.” “Audrey, did you do this on purpose?” Deep breath in. Slow breath out. I’d rather deal with the mistress. I stood up and, ignoring his assistant’s panicked expression, pushed open the door to Grant’s office. Behind me, I heard him trying to block my mother. “Mrs. Pierce, you really can’t go in there.” If the reception area was a warzone, the office was the bloody aftermath. Sloane had Grant pinned against the wall, her hands fisted in his collar, her body pressed against his. Grant’s eyes were smoldering with anger, but the edges were red. Whether from rage or something else, I couldn’t tell. I stopped in my tracks. They both turned to look at me, their expressions equally ferocious.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384985”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The divorce proceedings between Grant Harrison and his society-arranged wife finally concluded in their eighth year. I was carrying a thermos of chicken soup that had been simmering for five hours when I went to Grant’s office. The ultrasound picture was folded carefully in the pocket closest to my heart. As I reached his office door, the voice of his best friend leaked through the gap. “Grant, this farce has been going on for seven years. When are you finally going to sign the papers?” “Audrey was twenty when she got with you, you dated for three years, and she’s waited another seven through this sham of a marriage. She’s almost thirty now. If you have no feelings for your wife, then end it and give Audrey the life she deserves.” The smile on my face hadn’t yet faded when Grant’s voice reached my ears. “His wife is pregnant.” I froze. He was talking about the other woman. The one he was divorcing. His friend’s voice shot up, incredulous. “Pregnant again? Your first kid is already five, and you’ve been hiding him from Audrey this whole time, terrified she’d find out.” “You’re about to be divorced, and now there’s a second on the way. What the hell are you going to do?” Grant was silent for a moment. “I’m having her keep the baby. I won’t have children with any other woman. That was one of my conditions for agreeing to the divorce.” My hand clenched the thermos, the searing metal edge digging into my palm. So this is what it felt like to have your heart carved out. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in a very long time. “Aunt Helen? I’ll go to Africa with you.” 1 After hanging up, I hailed a cab and went home. The cityscape blurred past the window, a frantic retreat mirroring the absurd decade I’d spent with Grant. He had said, “Leah, our families are worlds apart. My mother will never approve.” He had said, “Leah, it’s just a strategic marriage. There are no feelings involved, I swear.” On his wedding day, he even brought me before his new wife, Audrey, to lay the cards on the table. That brilliant, vivacious woman swirled a glass of red wine and smiled at me. “Miss Evans, please. Don’t feel burdened by any of this.” “I have someone I love, too,” she’d said. “Grant and I are just… mutually beneficial. A means to an end.” “We’ll divorce when the time is right. You just have to be patient.” And I waited. For seven years. Looking back, there were countless opportunities for them to divorce. Perhaps it wasn’t that they couldn’t. It was that they didn’t want to. I dug my nails into the soft flesh of my thigh, hard enough to break the skin, but I felt nothing. Tears streamed down my face in silence. The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror and passed back a tissue. “Hey, whatever it is, you’ll get through it. Don’t give up on yourself.” “You’re young. You should be out there seeing the world.” I looked out the window, repeating his words in my mind. You’ll get through it. It’s time to go find yourself again, Leah. When I got home, the sound of the shower was running. Grant was home. I turned on the television. My aunt was on a live broadcast from Africa, the great wildebeest migration unfolding magnificently behind her. It was the first time I’d watched her photojournalism segments since college. Seven years ago, Aunt Helen had offered to pay for my graduate studies abroad, to have me join her, flying across the globe. I was tempted, but I couldn’t leave Grant. He held me and cried the entire night, then had my name tattooed over his heart. The Harrisons were an old-money dynasty with strict rules; tattoos were forbidden. He broke the cardinal rule for me. And for that, I loved him with a devotion that left me defenseless. A single gesture from him, and my world would fall apart. 2 Grant walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He came up behind me, and a cool chain settled against my neck. He leaned in, his warm lips pressing against my skin. “Do you like it?” It tickled. I tilted my head away. “I’m a little tired today.” He paid my comment no mind, his hands landing on my shoulders, kneading them gently. “She’s signed the papers. Just three more months, and I’m a free man.” “Then, I’ll take you to Iceland to see the Northern Lights. We’ll go on vacation in Hawaii. We’ll exchange vows at the foot of a snow-capped mountain. A lifetime together, Leah. What do you say?” His voice was light, filled with a palpable sense of relief. I forced a smile. My own voice was calm, flat. “Congratulations.” I wasn’t sure if I was congratulating him on the impending divorce, or on his second child. My detached response seemed to throw him. He turned me around to face him, his handsome brow furrowed. “Leah, aren’t you happy? You’ve waited seven years for this day.” I reached up, smoothing the lines on his forehead, my voice returning to its usual softness. “Of course, I’m happy. Grant, do you remember what you promised me when you first told me you loved me? You promised you would never, ever lie to me.” His arms, wrapped around my waist, went still. I could feel his gaze avoiding mine. He let go of me, kissed my forehead, and said, “Leah, I love you. Everything I do is for you, for us. You have to believe that.” I pushed him away gently, gave him a small smile, and walked into the bathroom. Staring at my reflection in the mirror—a woman nearly thirty—I felt lost. From the prime of my youth, my entire world had revolved around Grant Harrison. I never doubted his love for me. But the thirty-year-old Grant couldn’t have a world that contained only love. He had family obligations. He had the responsibilities of a father. Even after ten years, it was clear we could never truly be on the same path. 3 That night, I was scrolling through my phone in bed when Grant wrapped himself around me from behind, his breathing steady and even. A message from my best friend popped up. “OH MY GOD! LEAH! That necklace, ‘The Titan’s Tear,’ that Grant paid an insane amount for at the charity gala the other night… did he give it to you?!” Attached was a high-resolution photo. In the picture, a massive sapphire necklace glittered under the lights, practically blinding. I thought of the one Grant had just placed around my neck. It was exquisitely made, but nowhere near as breathtaking as the one in the photo. So, that one wasn’t for me. A sour, hollow feeling spread through my chest, my limbs beginning to feel numb. I bit my lip to keep a sob from escaping, but the small movement woke the man behind me. Sensing my silent tears, Grant sighed with that familiar, indulgent tone. He turned me over, his lips brushing against my cheek. When he tasted the salt, he apologized instinctively. “I’m sorry. I made you cry again.” That was Grant’s way. Right or wrong, he was always the first to back down, to soothe me. The next morning, the space beside me was empty. A courier delivered a small white cocktail dress. Then his call came, his deep voice on the line. “Morning, sleepyhead. Did you get some rest? I need you to come with me to a gala tonight.” I hesitated. He laughed softly, reassuring me. “Don’t worry. It’s just a birthday party for a friend’s daughter.” I ended up wearing the dress. That evening, as Grant led me from the car, countless probing eyes landed on me. Whispers buzzed around us like flies. “So that’s the one who waited seven years?” “She’s pretty enough, I guess. Must be almost thirty, though. Suppose she finally made it.” My nerves got the best of me, and I nearly tripped. Grant’s hand shot out to steady my waist, his touch firm. He gave me a reassuring smile. I took a deep breath and straightened my back. Grant was quickly pulled away by a few business associates, leaving me standing awkwardly with a glass of champagne. Suddenly, a small commotion rippled through the crowd. I looked up and saw Audrey walking toward me, her arm linked with a handsome man I didn’t recognize. She was wearing a fiery red gown, her pregnancy not yet showing. And around her neck, the massive sapphire from the photo burned my eyes. She stopped in front of me, her gaze dropping to the necklace I was wearing. “Leah, that necklace really suits you. It seems I have good taste, after all.” I was frozen solid, the blood turning to ice in my veins. She continued as if she hadn’t noticed my expression, her tone deceptively sweet. “Grant is hopeless with these things. A complete brute when it comes to style.” “I heard he wanted to get you a gift, so I offered to help him pick this one out.” “You don’t mind, do you?” Mockery, ridicule, pity. A kaleidoscope of expressions flashed before my eyes from the faces around us. I turned and fled. 4 My phone vibrated in my palm, Grant’s name flashing on the screen. I let it ring, and ring, and ring. After the fiftieth missed call, I finally answered. It was his way. He would never stop calling until I picked up. “Leah! Where are you? I’ll come get you.” “I’m so sorry. I had no idea Audrey would be there.” I stood in the middle of a public square, watching the people come and go, my voice as light as the wind. “It’s fine. It just got a little stuffy, I needed some air. I’ll be back soon.” After hanging up, I stood there, letting the evening breeze dry the tear tracks on my face. Leah, this is the last time you will ever cry for him. The moment I pushed the door open, a warm embrace enveloped me. Grant’s chin rested on the crown of my head as he repeated the words over and over. “I’m sorry, Leah. I promise, this is the last time.” “I will never, ever let you face something like that alone again.” He held me so tightly it felt like he was trying to merge me into his very bones. The familiar scent of sandalwood surrounded me. For ten years, this embrace was the only thing I had ever craved. In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a rustling beside me. Grant was tiptoeing out of bed, his phone cupped in his hand, his voice a hushed whisper. “Don’t be scared. I’m on my way.” He threw on his clothes, and his footsteps disappeared out the door. I grabbed my coat and followed him. Outside the emergency room, Grant was draping his suit jacket over Audrey’s shoulders, his movements as gentle as if he were handling a priceless treasure. I hid in the shadows at the end of the hall, holding my breath. Audrey, her face pale, leaned against his chest. “You don’t have to be so tense. I just slipped. The baby’s fine.” Grant’s brow was knitted with worry, his voice thick with a tenderness he couldn’t hide. “You need to take care of yourself. Don’t overdo it.” “I told you I’d handle your family’s business. Even after the divorce, we still have our children.” His hand moved gently to rest on her still-flat stomach. “You had such a difficult birth with Noah, lost a fallopian tube. We have to be so careful now that you’re pregnant again.” Noah. So that was their son’s name. Noah. Audrey shook her head. “The vultures in my family know you’re divorcing me. They’re all circling. I can’t afford to rest.” Grant made a decision on the spot. “Then we’ll wait until after the baby is born.” Audrey looked up at him, her expression unreadable. “And what about Miss Evans?” Grant was silent for two seconds. Two seconds that stretched into two centuries. “I’ll talk to her. She can be childish sometimes. I can calm her down. It’ll be fine.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384984”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel