To get a divorce, I told my husband I was having an affair. Liam, who had always been a man carved from ice, suddenly shattered. “Then break up with him! Why are you divorcing me?” “This is between you and him. What does it have to do with me?” “Did some asshole on the outside put you up to this?” “No. It’s impossible. As long as I don’t agree to this, he’ll never be anything more than the other guy. He can keep dreaming!” Wait. I thought this was just a business arrangement. 1 My marriage to Liam Sterling was a merger, pure and simple. A union of two families, not two people. On our wedding night, I laid it all out for him. “Don’t worry,” I said, pulling the pins from my hair. “I won’t develop any… inconvenient ideas. We can have our own lives. As long as we keep up appearances, we’re good.” He blinked, probably surprised by my pragmatism. He gave a short, decisive nod. “Okay. Whatever you say.” I wasn’t surprised. I’d heard the rumors for years: Liam Sterling’s heart already belonged to someone else. Who she was, where she was, what she was doing now—I genuinely didn’t care. As long as he didn’t parade her in front of me, I could live with it. For the kind of money I now had access to, money I couldn’t spend in ten lifetimes, I could accept almost anything. And so, our married life unfolded in a quiet, unremarkable rhythm. We lived under the same roof, a sprawling minimalist mansion that felt more like a museum, and our daily conversations rarely went beyond “Morning,” “Afternoon,” or “Good night.” And most of the time, I was the one saying them. Liam would just nod, offering a clipped, “Hm.” Occasionally, a flicker of guilt must have moved him, because he’d add a perfunctory warning. “It’s supposed to rain. I’ll have the driver pick you up tonight.” Or, “Are you going to that same place today?” “That same place” was the chic downtown lounge where my friends and I held our weekly court. Liam had been there exactly once. My friend Maya had immediately started in on him. “Getting a meeting with the Liam Sterling is harder than getting tickets to the Met Gala. Who knew he played the part of the doting husband for afternoon cocktails?” Liam, who was used to boardrooms and not this kind of playful teasing, actually stammered. “Chloe is my wife. Being with her is… where I should be.” He didn’t last long. A call came through, and he was on his feet, his expression a mask of apology. An urgent matter at the office. I knew a convenient excuse when I heard one. He was off to see his real love, wasn’t he? I waved a dismissive hand, playing the part of the magnanimous wife. “Go, go. Work is important.” Before he left, he didn’t just settle our tab; he covered a blank check for whatever shopping my friends and I did for the rest of the afternoon. The moment the door swung shut behind him, Maya leaned in, her eyes glinting. “Okay, spill. Is Mr. Ice King just as frosty in the bedroom?” I nearly choked on my Aperol spritz. How could I tell them that, a year into our marriage, Liam and I had never even… done that? He was a workaholic. He’d come home late and disappear into his study, and by the time he emerged, I’d be fast asleep. I mumbled something noncommittal. They all shook their heads, a chorus of worldly advice. “Chloe, a man who’s all looks and no action is a tragedy,” Maya said. “Anyway, it’s a business arrangement, right? Everyone in our world has their own thing going on. I guarantee you Liam has someone on the side. Let me call up a few… distractions for you.” “You’re gorgeous, you’re rich. Don’t let yourself be trapped on a glacier.” “You’re young. You need to live.” One comment after another, they wore me down. The idea, once unthinkable, started to shimmer with possibility. My friends were women of action. That very night, they arranged for eight male models to appear at my penthouse suite at The Carlyle. It was a sea of broad shoulders, long legs, and lean, sculpted abs. Each face was uniquely, devastatingly handsome. I pointed vaguely at one with a tiny beauty mark just below the corner of his eye. “You.” The others departed with theatrical sadness. The chosen one, whose name was Leo, knelt before me. He took a sip of champagne, cupped my face in his hands, and leaned in to kiss me. The moment I saw my own reflection in his dark eyes, a different face flashed in my mind. Liam’s. I snapped back to reality, pushing the young man away. “Never mind,” I said, my voice hollow. “You can go, too.” My mind a blur, I went home. 2 Liam Sterling had been a legend in our circles since we were kids. First, because he was brilliant. He excelled at everything effortlessly, earning praise from our parents and sparking jealousy in our peers. Second, because he was beautiful. A sharp jawline, intense eyes, the kind of face that could sell whiskey or break hearts. If he’d gone into acting, he’d have been a superstar on his looks alone. So when I found out he was my intended, my first question was, “Why our family?” The Vances and the Sterlings had never been particularly close. But the word was that it was Liam’s grandfather, the old patriarch, who had pushed for the match. I understood immediately. It was a classic move to anchor a grandson, to keep him from running off with some unsuitable girl—his “one that got away.” I wasn’t exactly losing out on the deal, so I agreed. Why not? It was just that… seeing that face every day, it was hard not to feel a certain stirring. I decided my rejection of the male model stemmed from a simple, stubborn thought: if I was going to sleep with someone, it had to be someone on Liam’s level. So, I chose our one-year anniversary. I gave the household staff the day off and set up a candlelit dinner. I changed into a silk slip dress that clung to every curve. The woman in the mirror was elegant, sensual. I couldn’t believe Liam would be indifferent. But when he came home, his initial surprise quickly hardened into a frown. He scanned the rose petals scattered across the floor of the dining room and asked in a low, tight voice, “You did this? Where did you learn this from?” He glanced at me, his expression unreadable, but I knew it wasn’t pleasure. A cold sweat prickled my palms. My voice was barely a whisper. “I…” Liam took a deep breath, visibly reining in his anger. “Go change,” he said, his voice sharp. “You should get some sleep. I have to go back to the office. I’ll call someone to clean this up.” He turned and left. He didn’t come home for the next two weeks. The embarrassment of that night, the raw humiliation, coiled around me, squeezing the air from my lungs. One night, I woke with a start, my hand instinctively reaching for the other side of the bed. It was empty. Cold. In that moment, I made a decision. “You want a divorce?” Liam stared at the papers on the coffee table, his voice trembling slightly. “Why?” Why? The list was a mile long. He never talked to me, he never slept with me, he cared if my trust fund was solvent but not if I was happy… But most importantly, I knew that if this continued, I would inevitably fall for him. And I refused to waste my heart on someone who didn’t care about me. I searched for a reason, then plucked one out of thin air. “I’m seeing someone.” A man like Liam Sterling, I reasoned, couldn’t possibly tolerate the flagrant infidelity of his wife. I doubled down, my voice firm. “I’m in love with someone else. I want to be with him.” Silence. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Liam’s face was a tight mask. After a long moment, he spoke, his voice laced with acid. “In love? That’s not what you call it. You call it a home-wrecker.” Huh? I guess he had a point. I nodded. “Okay, yes, you’re right. So I don’t want him to be the other man anymore. I want to make it official.” I’d say anything to get this over with. His eyes widened in disbelief. “You love him that much?” Before I could answer, Liam just… broke. “Cheating is between you and him! What does that have to do with me?” he burst out, his voice cracking. “You should break up with him! Why are you divorcing me for it?” “Did he put you up to this? Men out there are scum.” “Wake up, Chloe! What kind of decent guy agrees to be the other man?” “No! This is impossible. As long as I say no, he will never be anything but your dirty little secret. Let him dream!” His eyes were red-rimmed, as if he were about to cry. I held out a tissue. “Liam, calm down.” “Look, I know what I did was wrong, but… don’t just say no. Think about it. I won’t ask for a dollar more than what’s in the prenup. We don’t have kids. It’ll be clean.” I tried to reason with him, my voice soft. “Think about it. Once we’re divorced, you’ll be free to be with your true love. No one in your family can force you into a marriage ever again. Isn’t that a win-win?” He wasn’t buying it. He snatched the papers and ripped them in half, the sound echoing in the silent room. “Impossible. I’m not making room for him.” Well, shit. The negotiations had failed. 3 How had that gone so wrong? I was baffled, but it didn’t take long to come up with a theory. Over the past year, the Vance and Sterling corporations had launched several joint ventures. They were probably in a critical phase right now. A divorce would rock the boat, spook investors. The potential losses would be astronomical. I cursed myself for being so impulsive. Liam was clearly the more rational one. His presence at home increased dramatically. Suddenly, he was everywhere. If I was on the sofa sipping a smoothie, he’d be at the dining table with his laptop, pretending to work. If I was watching a show on my tablet, he’d wander over, glance at the screen, and then walk away, seemingly satisfied. When I tried baking some macarons, he stood guard at the kitchen entrance like a sentinel. “Are those for him?” I frowned at the slightly browned edges of one tray. “This batch is a little burnt. Want one?” He gritted his teeth. “So I only get the rejects?” What was his problem? Of course I was giving him the burnt ones. I wasn’t going to eat them myself. I’m not an idiot. “Fine, don’t eat it.” I moved toward the trash can, but he shot forward, intercepting my hand. He popped the macaron into his mouth. “Did I say I didn’t want it?” he mumbled, chewing furiously. “Whatever he gets… (chew, chew)… I get too…” He was eating so fast I was afraid he’d choke. I handed him my glass of juice. “Here, drink something.” He took it, his eyes locked on mine, and drained the glass. A few drops escaped the corner of his mouth, tracing a path down his neck, over the bob of his Adam’s apple, and disappearing beneath the collar of his crisp white shirt. He suddenly waved a hand in front of my face, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. “So? I’m better looking than him, right?” I blinked, snapping out of a trance. “Huh? Oh. Yeah, yeah.” What did he just say? I had no idea. Just agreeing was the safest bet. That night, when he got into bed, the mattress dipped. I instinctively shuffled away, only to meet his wounded gaze in the dim light. “Do you have to be so far away?” he asked, his voice laced with hurt. “Do you hate me that much?” What was he talking about? We had to get divorced, yes, but there was no need for bad blood. Our families would still have to interact. I quickly moved closer, trying to placate him. “No, of course not. Don’t overthink it. I’m not disgusted by you or anything.” He turned off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. I held my breath, only to realize the man beside me was doing the same. The thought of us both lying there, silently suffocating, was so absurd that a laugh escaped me. A moment later, Liam shifted. “Chloe?” he asked, his voice soft in the dark. “Can I… can I hold you?” I hesitated. But he didn’t wait for an answer. He shifted closer, sliding an arm around me. It was stiff, almost robotic, and he held me loosely, as if I were made of glass. He rested his head near my shoulder, his voice thick with emotion. “Goodnight, Chloe.” For the first time in a long time, I slept through the night. I’ve always been resilient; I can eat and sleep even if the world is ending. When I woke up the next morning, his side of the bed was empty. But on my nightstand, there was a note, his handwriting a powerful, elegant scrawl: Urgent meeting at the office. Don’t go running around. Wait for me to come home. 4 I decided that meeting someone for coffee didn’t count as “running around.” So I went, my conscience clear. The text had arrived that morning: It’s Leo. I wanted to see you. Is that okay? It took me a minute to place the name with the face from that night. The young, clean-cut model with the mole by his eye. I called him. His voice on the other end was electric with excitement. “You called me! You actually called me!” “I got into college,” he rushed on. “NYU. Thank you so much for the money you gave me last time. Without you, I wouldn’t have even been able to take the SATs. I just… I want to thank you in person. Please?” Leo was only eighteen. Cursed with a gambling-addicted father, a mother who’d died too young, and a little brother to care for. Loan sharks were harassing him constantly, and in his desperation, he’d turned to modeling. The night I’d picked him was his first time. After I’d pushed him away, his eyes had filled with tears. “If you send me back, they’ll kill me,” he’d whispered. Getting rejected meant his fee would be docked, and he’d be in even deeper trouble. My heart softened. I transferred him a sum of money large enough to solve his immediate problems and told his agent to leave him alone and let him go back to school. A boy that beautiful could easily be pulled into a much darker world. Hearing he’d gotten into a good school filled me with a sense of genuine warmth. “Of course,” I said. “And congratulations.” He chose a coffee shop downtown. As I arrived, I realized with a jolt that the Sterling Corp tower was just a few blocks away. But Liam had left in such a hurry this morning. He wouldn’t have time for a casual coffee, right? I shook my head, trying to dislodge him from my thoughts. We were getting a divorce. Why was I still thinking about him? Leo had picked a table by the window with a great view. Dressed in a simple white t-shirt and light-wash jeans, his legs long and lean, he radiated a youthful energy that made me feel younger just by being near him. “I didn’t know what you like, so I didn’t order,” he said, his cheeks flushing as he pushed the menu toward me. He was adorable. I pointed to the cheapest coffee on the menu. He noticed immediately. “Oh, please, order something else. Don’t worry about the price, I can afford it.” “I’m working part-time,” he explained, his voice earnest. “I’m tutoring, and I wait tables. You don’t have to drink that. For someone like you to even come here is… I know this place is beneath you…” His voice trailed off, and he looked down at the floor, mortified. I patted his arm. “Don’t be silly. This is my favorite. And please, stop with the formal address. You can call me Chloe.” His eyes lit up. “Really? Okay… Ch-Chloe.” “Chloe Vance! You’re meeting him again!” I spun around. It was Liam. His face was thunderous, and behind him stood a procession of people in business suits, several of whom I vaguely recognized from his company. Oh, great. I’d stumbled into their corporate coffee break. A wave of guilt, completely unwarranted, washed over me. Liam closed the distance in three long strides, pulling me behind him. He leaned down, his voice a low hiss in my ear. “We have an audience. Play along. Please?” I glanced at the executives still frozen in place. As soon as my eyes met theirs, they quickly looked away, but not before I saw the undisguised hunger for gossip on their faces. I understood. We couldn’t let them see any cracks in the facade. “Okay,” I nodded meekly. Liam’s glare was fixed on Leo. I quickly made an introduction. “This is Leo. He’s, um, a friend of mine.” Liam actually laughed, a short, sharp sound. “A friend?” He seemed to process something, and the tension in his shoulders eased slightly. He turned a condescending smile on Leo. “You hear that, kid? She just thinks of you as a friend.” “And what’s a friend? A revolving door. You get it? Sooner or later, she’s coming home to me.” “Don’t think you can fool her by playing cute. It won’t work.” “So, tell me. How much will it take to make you disappear?” I was stunned. Leo was stunned. “What?” 5 What in the world had gotten into him? Before I could say anything, Liam’s hand found mine, his grip tight and possessive, like a mother hen protecting her chick. Leo, who had clearly never been in a situation like this, went bright red. His eyes started to well up. “I… I wasn’t trying to fool her. I just wanted to say thank you.” I couldn’t stand it. I pulled my hand free from Liam’s. “Would you stop talking nonsense? Apologize to Leo. Now.” Now it was Liam’s turn to look shocked. “Chloe, he’s playing the victim card. It’s manipulative.” He was unbelievable. “Are you going to apologize or not? If not, I’m leaving with him.” “Don’t.” Liam conceded, his cheeks puffed out like a goldfish. He mumbled a reluctant, “Sorry.” Then, as if a thought just struck him, he straightened up. “Wait a minute. He’s trying to steal my wife. Why am I the one saying sorry?!” This was getting more ridiculous by the second. Leo, finally catching on, started bowing repeatedly. “It’s okay, no, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Chloe, I should go.” Before he left, he pushed a small, wrapped box into my hand. “This is for you. Really, thank you so much.” With me acting as a shield, Leo made his escape. I looked at Liam’s employees, their faces alight with the thrill of corporate gossip, and sighed. The damage was done. They’d all seen this deeply dysfunctional scene. Giving up, I dropped into a chair and looked up at him. “What are you doing here? I thought you were busy. Busy drinking coffee?” I huffed, my annoyance clear. So, he had been lying to me. The “urgent meeting” was a sham. Just as I thought. A business arrangement, and a husband full of lies. The coffee in my cup suddenly tasted bitter. But Liam, inexplicably, seemed to be in a fantastic mood. “The meeting’s over. I was treating them to a break.” He waved his team over, but when they approached, he said, “Go on, order whatever you want. I’ll expense it later. My wife missed me, so I’m staying with her.” Excuse me? Who missed him? Definitely not me. An employee gushed, “Mr. and Mrs. Sterling are so devoted to each other.” “Haha, thank you, Mrs. Sterling! Looks like we’re going to run up quite a tab on the boss’s card.” Why were they thanking me? I wasn’t paying. Although, I guess half of Liam’s money was mine, so it made sense. “Mrs. Sterling is so beautiful. No wonder the boss talks about you all the time.” “It’s true! We’re all so envious of you, Mr. Sterling.” What did they just say? Liam talks about me all the time? Liam cleared his throat loudly, cutting them off. “Ahem, alright, that’s enough. Get going, your adoration is blinding me.” After they scattered, I stared at Liam’s clearly guilty face, and something clicked into place. He started to fidget under my gaze. “Chloe, I, uh, I mention you because…” “Liam,” I said, my voice flat. “Is the person you’re in love with working at your company?”

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The day I was supposed to choose the suit for my wedding, a stranger rushed into the VIP lounge and stabbed me. “Stealing my woman,” he snarled, “and you think you deserve a suit that costs more than a car?” He ripped my shirt, the fine fabric tearing with a sound that seemed impossibly loud. A grotesque smile twisted his face as he brandished a bottle, splashing its contents at me. The acrid smell of chemicals hit me before the liquid did. Acid. The cold steel was already buried in my gut. Pain, white-hot and absolute, forced me to my knees. He grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back. “Ava is my wife, you understand? So what the hell are you? You’re nothing. Just a dirty little secret she keeps on the side.” Blood, warm and slick, dripped through my fingers. And in that moment, I understood. Ava. My fiancée of seven years. The woman I was about to marry was keeping another man. And I wasn’t the husband; I was the affair. “What are you looking at?” he spat, his face flush with manic pride. “Even if I kill you right here, with my wife’s power, no one will touch me. No one.” Staring at his arrogant face, I used my blood-slicked hand to pull out my phone. I found my sister’s number. “Sloane,” I said, my voice terrifyingly calm. “Come get me. The tailor’s shop in SoHo.” A pause. Then, “And let the Monroe family know—the engagement is off.” 1 I ended the call. The suit, a bespoke masterpiece worth a fortune, was now a ruin of blackened, smoldering holes. My exposed skin screamed in protest as the high-concentration acid seared it, a foul yellow ooze mixing with the red of my blood. I glared at the man, the rage in my eyes hot enough to incinerate him. But the boutique staff and the few other clients, drawn by the commotion, only laughed. “Hah, can you believe it? He messed with Ava Monroe’s husband. He’s so screwed.” The man, Caleb, jabbed a finger at my face. “You piece of shit! Still trying to act tough? You think calling someone is going to make me back off? What a joke. The ‘Sterlings’? Never heard of them. I’m calling the cops to have you arrested for stealing this suit, you pathetic homewrecker!” I pressed my hand to the weeping wound in my side, hot blood pulsing between my fingers. The world was beginning to blur at the edges from the blood loss. I glanced at the thugs standing behind Caleb, regretting my decision to come out today without my security detail. My eyes scanned the crowd, a silent plea for help. They just stared back, whispering amongst themselves, their faces a mixture of morbid curiosity and scorn. No one moved to help. No one dared. Gritting my teeth against a wave of pain, I locked my gaze on Caleb, my eyes red-rimmed and murderous. “I don’t care who you are, but you need to understand something. My name is Sterling. Leo Sterling, of the New York Sterlings. Now, get the hell out of my sight before I change my mind about letting you live.” My stare only seemed to enrage him further. He kicked me, hard, right in the stomach. “The hell do I care about some ‘Sterlings’? You think I’m scared of you?” The impact tore the gash in my abdomen wider. A fresh surge of blood and fluid soaked through my ruined clothes. But in that moment, I barely registered the pain. His words echoed in my ears. Ava Monroe’s husband. Then who was I? A bitter laugh escaped my lips. It was all horribly clear. Ava… she was cheating on me. The woman chosen by our families, my high-school sweetheart, the love I’d built my life around for seven years… had a secret husband. Knowing this wasn’t the time to fall apart, I forced the rage down. “Caleb, is it?” I said, my voice a low growl. “You’re going to get me to a hospital, right now. And then you’re going to tell Ava to get her ass over there.” He looked at me with genuine surprise. I shot him a look of pure venom. “Because if anything happens to me today, the first person my family will destroy is you,” I whispered. “And Ava… she’ll be buried right alongside me.” For a second, there was silence. Then Caleb burst out laughing. He grabbed my hair again, slamming my head against the floor. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, ordering my wife around! Even if I kill you, the Monroes have plenty of money. I can afford to pay for a life like yours.” My head rang, my vision swimming in a red haze. He ground his heel into the stab wound, and a tide of pure agony and despair washed over me. Just then, the screech of tires cut through the air. A familiar Maybach sedan pulled up to the curb. The breath I didn’t know I was holding finally left my body. I looked at Caleb and managed a cold, bloody smile. “I told you,” I rasped. “My name is Sterling. Sloane is here. Are you ready to die?” “Leo!” My sister, Sloane, took in the scene, and a storm of fury erupted in her eyes. She rushed to my side, shrugging off her designer coat and wrapping it around my shredded, half-naked body. She pulled me into an embrace, her fierce protectiveness a tangible thing. “Are you okay, Leo? Don’t worry, I’m here now.” A hard knot of emotion clogged my throat, and tears I hadn’t realized were there finally fell. She gently wiped the blood and grime from my face before turning her wrath on Caleb. “You’re the one who did this to my brother?” Her voice was dangerously low. “You have a death wish.” Caleb looked at her as if she were a joke, laughing so hard he doubled over. When he finally caught his breath, he shot Sloane a dismissive glare. “Big words. Let’s see if you’re still talking so tough in a few minutes. Boys! Show her that I, Caleb, am not someone you mess with.” His thugs charged forward. Sloane’s security detail moved instantly, forming a protective barrier around us while efficiently taking down the first wave of attackers. But more men poured out from behind Caleb, and our guards were quickly outnumbered. “Sloane,” I asked, my voice weak with worry, “is this everyone you brought?” Her face was grim. She squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. Dad’s on his way with the main team. Let’s see who has the nerve to touch Sloane Sterling’s brother.” Caleb was growing anxious as he watched his men get systematically dismantled. He shot us a venomous look and pulled out his phone. “You just wait! I’m calling my wife to come and destroy you!” He put the call on speaker, and as soon as it connected, he started wailing. “Honey! This woman, some psycho named Sloane Sterling, is attacking me! She says I hurt her brother and she’s going to kill me! You have to come, now!” The voice on the other end, Ava’s voice, was suddenly sharp with alarm. “Sloane? Which Sloane?… Where the hell are you?! Don’t you move a muscle!” Even after seven years, I would know that voice anywhere. And I could hear the tremor of pure panic in every syllable. Good, I thought. Let her come. Caleb hung up, a triumphant, piercing laugh echoing in the room. “Hah! My wife is on her way to end you! She said she doesn’t know any Sloane! She’ll just pay for the damages after you’re dead!” He pointed at his remaining men. “Listen up! A million dollars to whoever takes these two out first!” Greed lit up their eyes. One of them snatched a fruit knife from a nearby refreshment tray and lunged at us. “Leo, close your eyes!” Sloane spun around, shielding me with her body. I felt a warm, strong hand cover my face. A choked gasp from Sloane. The coppery scent of fresh blood filled the air. A terrible premonition seized me. I clawed at her hand, my voice cracking. “Sloane! What happened? Are you okay?” When I pulled her hand away, my vision cleared to the sight of a deep, grotesque gash on her forearm, blood dripping onto the pristine floor. Then came a brutal kick, and she collapsed on top of me with a thud. She coughed, a spray of red misting the air. “Sloane!” I screamed, my heart shattering. I was untouched, but my sister’s white dress was rapidly turning crimson. Hate, pure and undiluted, consumed me. My face, streaked with blood and tears, twisted into a mask of rage. I scrambled for the heavy, cast-iron tailor’s shears on a nearby worktable and launched myself at Caleb’s smug face. Shhhnk. The blades sank deep into his abdomen. “Aaaargh!” he shrieked. I held onto the handles, twisting them savagely in his flesh. “You piece of trash! You dare to touch me!” He gripped the shears, kicked me away, and roared in fury. I landed hard on the floor, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. Caleb, now completely unhinged, screamed at his men, “Kill him! Kill him now!” They swarmed me. The next thing I saw was a wooden chair swinging down toward my head. “Don’t you touch my brother!” a hoarse voice cried out. Through my horrified, widening eyes, I saw Sloane stumble to her feet and throw herself in front of me. The chair crashed down on her head with a sickening crack. “SLOANE!” Her body went limp, falling heavily against mine. She twitched once, twice, and then was still. I went insane, scrambling to lift her, but two of the thugs pinned me to the floor, grinding my face into the cold marble. Pinned and helpless, I thrashed and screamed, my cries choked with blood and tears. Caleb just smiled. He brought the pointed heel of his designer shoe down on my fingers, grinding it slowly. “Is this too much for you?” Pain exploded through my hand. I curled into a ball, my body trembling, cold sweat drenching my skin. My vision began to fade, the world dissolving into the sound of Caleb’s maniacal laughter. “Don’t you worry,” he cooed. “I have one more special gift for both of you.” A final blow landed, and the world went black. When I came to, we were in a glass-walled walk-in freezer. The skin touching the metal floor burned with a piercing cold. I was shivering violently. Sloane’s face was already tinged with blue, a delicate frost forming on her eyelashes. I rubbed my hands together, trying to generate some warmth, and pressed them to her cheek. My tears fell, hot against her icy skin. “Sloane, stay with me. Don’t fall asleep. Dad’s coming, he’s almost here. Please, just hold on…” I felt her breathing grow shallow, and my heart sank into a black pit of despair. I looked out at Caleb, my eyes so red they felt like they were bleeding. “Caleb! If my sister dies, I will kill you with my bare hands!” He just chuckled, pulling his cashmere coat tighter as he stepped into the freezer. “You talk way too much.” He shoved a rag into my mouth, then kicked me hard in the chest. “Feeling a little hot-headed? Let’s cool you off.” With that, he kicked over a large bucket of water. The icy liquid spread quickly beneath me, and in the sub-zero temperature of the freezer, it began to turn to ice, freezing my tattered clothes and bleeding skin to the floor. The cold was a physical thing, a deep, gnawing pain that shot straight to my bones. “So? How do you like my gift?” Caleb sneered, admiring his handiwork before turning and leaving us to freeze. I looked at Sloane’s still form, a wave of crushing regret washing over me. I hated myself for being too weak to just get up and kill him. And then, a vibration. My phone, somehow still in my pocket, was ringing. My pupils contracted. The caller ID read: Ava. Ignoring the searing pain of tearing my own skin, I dragged my body across the icy floor until I could reach the phone and answer it. “Leo! Where are you?” Ava’s voice was frantic. “I can explain about Caleb later! Just let him go! Or else…” She hesitated. “Or else I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.” The blood-tinged ice steamed faintly beneath me. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. My face contorted with a mixture of insane hatred and utter despair. Hate me? From the day we made our relationship official, Sloane had been secretly helping me build Ava up so that my father would finally accept her. In just three years, Sloane’s guidance had turned Monroe Industries into a market leader. And this was how she repaid us? By taking my money to support her secret husband, and then letting him do this to us? That monster. It was Caleb trying to kill us. The rag in my mouth turned my furious screams into muffled sobs. Just then, Caleb returned. Hearing Ava’s voice on the phone, he froze, then snatched it from my hand. “Hello? Honey? Why are you calling him?” Ava, hearing only silence from my end, sounded panicked. “Where’s Leo?” “So his name really is Leo,” Caleb said dismissively. “I’m just teaching this little homewrecker a lesson. Showing him that you don’t mess with the Monroe family.” There was a dead silence from the other end. Then, Ava’s furious scream tore through the speaker, so loud it was distorted. “CALEB! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO LEO? HE’S LEO STERLING!” A pause, filled with her ragged breathing. “YOU’RE TRYING TO GET ME KILLED!” Clatter. Caleb’s body went rigid. The phone slipped from his grasp and hit the floor. His eyes were wide with a dawning, horrified disbelief. After a few seconds of stunned silence, his head snapped around to look at me. His expression was one of pure terror. He ripped the gag from my mouth. “Are you… are you really Leo Sterling?” he stammered, his voice an octave higher than before. Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. I gave him a weak, cold smile. “Starting to believe me? Now go get my sister to a…” SMACK. His open palm connected with my cheek. “You shut your mouth! I’m Ava’s husband! What are you?!” His terror was morphing back into a desperate, defensive rage. “So what if you’re Leo Sterling? That doesn’t change the fact that you’re the other man!” He fumbled for his own phone, unlocked it, and shoved the screen in my face. It was a photo of a marriage certificate. Ava Monroe and Caleb Vance. And when my eyes focused on the date, a loud ringing started in my ears. I started to laugh. A wild, unhinged sound. I finally understood why, starting five years ago, Ava was always so “busy with work.” She had married Caleb then. And I, like a fool, had felt sorry for her, begging Sloane to send some of her best people to help ease her workload. All those nights she claimed to be pulling all-nighters at the office, she was with him. Of our seven-year relationship, Caleb had been a part of five. It turned out I really was the homewrecker he’d called me. I laughed until tears streamed down my face, my body convulsing so hard I coughed up a mouthful of dark, clotted blood. “My wife loves me too much to ever yell at me like that! It was you, wasn’t it? You seduced her!” Caleb grabbed me by the throat, his face a mask of frantic denial. “Talk! Say something!” I sank my teeth into his wrist. The coppery taste of his blood filled my mouth, so sickening I wanted to vomit. I spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the floor and looked at him with pure contempt. He didn’t even flinch, his eyes wild with a crazed idea. “You should just die! If you’re dead, then Ava will be all mine again!” He scrambled out of the freezer. When he returned, he was carrying a large canister. He tipped it over, and a cold, pungent liquid splashed all over me. The acrid smell hit me instantly. Gasoline. He was going to burn me alive. Primal survival instincts kicked in. I started dragging Sloane’s unconscious body toward the door, but it was too late. He flicked a lighter and tossed it onto my soaked clothes. The world erupted in flames. The smell of burning flesh filled the small space. I rolled on the ground, screaming in agony, but the fire clung to me, feeding on the gasoline. The pain was beyond anything I had ever imagined. Perhaps my screams were loud enough to pierce through her unconsciousness, because Sloane’s eyes slowly fluttered open. “Leo!” Her eyes widened in horror. A surge of desperate, adrenaline-fueled strength allowed her to break the thin ropes binding her wrists. She stumbled towards me, her movements clumsy. Through the searing pain, I shook my head, my voice a shredded wreck. “No! Don’t save me! Sloane, you’ll die too! Stay back!” But she ignored me, slapping at the flames on my body with her bare hands. “Leo, I’m not going to let anything happen to you!” she choked out, trying to comfort me even then. The moment her hands touched the fire, her skin blackened and peeled back, revealing raw, pink flesh underneath. Her face contorted in pain, a sight that shattered what was left of my heart. Tears welled in my eyes, only to be instantly evaporated by the heat. Sloane didn’t stop, forcing a pained smile onto her face. “Don’t cry, Leo. It doesn’t hurt.” I had never seen my sister, always so poised and powerful, look so broken. And it was all my fault. If it wasn’t for me, she would never be in this position. Regret was a poison, eating me alive. I pounded my fists against my chest, glaring at Caleb with all the hatred in my soul. It was all my fault! I had ruined everything because I was blind enough to fall for a monster like Ava! “Caleb!” I roared through the flames. “When my father gets here, you are a dead man!” He just laughed, his face a terrifying rictus of glee. He began splashing the rest of the gasoline all around the glass-walled freezer, then played with the lighter in his hand. “Still talking tough? I’m about to send you two on a little trip to hell together!” Just as the flames were about to consume us completely, two roars echoed through the building, arriving at the exact same time. “STOP!” It was Ava, her face as white as a sheet. And another, deeper voice, laced with absolute authority and earth-shattering fury. “Who dares to touch my children?” My father, Arthur Sterling, flanked by a small army of his elite security team, strode into the room. The moment his eyes fell on Sloane and me, his expression transformed into something apocalyptic. Ava’s legs gave out, and she collapsed to her knees. Caleb just stood there, frozen, his face a perfect picture of idiocy.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384831”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I’m the daughter of the villain, from nine years in the future. On the very day he was supposed to abduct the woman he loved, I beat him to it and locked a bleach-blond kid in his own basement. He stared at the boy writhing on the concrete floor, his lips trembling. “Lila! Who is he?” I blinked, feigning a shy blush. “He’s my soulmate.” In the weeks that followed, I used his basement to hold the captain of the soccer team, the school bully, and a couple of dropouts from the neighborhood… Until the day I decided to go for a big score. I went to push the door open and found it welded shut. 1 I stood at the front door, my little backpack slung over my shoulders, and stretched onto my tiptoes to press the doorbell. The door swung open, revealing a face that was both intimately familiar and yet a complete stranger. Cole Blackwood. My father. Nine years younger. His eyes were brighter than I remembered, but the storm clouds of gloom were already gathering in his brow. The sleeves of his black button-down were rolled to his elbows, showing off powerful forearms that were still missing the jagged scar he’d get protecting me from a knife. “Which one of the neighbors are you? Wrong house, kid.” He frowned, his voice a low, cold rumble. I tilted my head back and beamed at him. “Daddy, it’s me, Lila. Your daughter. From nine years in the future.” The expression on Cole’s face froze solid. His eyes swept over me, morphing from confusion to sharp suspicion. His right hand was already reaching for the phone in his pocket. “Kid, you can’t just go around calling strange men ‘daddy.’ Did your actual father approve this little field trip?” “You need to leave. Now,” he threatened. “Before I have the cops haul you away for fraud.” I was prepared for this. I pulled a folded copy of a DNA test from my backpack and waved it in front of his face. “The police don’t arrest minors. This is a paternity test. If you don’t believe it, we can go get a new one right now.” His hand paused its journey to his phone. His gaze fixed on the paper, his frown deepening. I could see the gears turning in his head, trying to work out the angle of the scam. While he hesitated, I ducked under his arm and slipped into the house. “Out!” he barked, lunging for me. I dodged him easily and did a quick scan of the living room. “The house looks pretty much the same as it did nine years ago,” I noted. “Just missing my toys and all your whiskey bottles.” I pointed. “Behind that TV console, you keep a safe. The combination is 0-9-0-5-2-4.” Cole froze, his expression turning to one of genuine shock. No one else knew about the safe, let alone the combination. “Who the hell are you?” His voice was laced with a dangerous edge now. “Your daughter,” I said simply. I sighed, knowing he still wasn’t convinced, and pulled a small notebook from my bag. “May 20th, 2013. You were ambushed during a deal with the Vipers at the southside warehouse. You took a bullet in your left shoulder.” “Christmas, 2014. You snuck the newest game console under my pillow and told me it was from Santa Claus.” I held the notebook out to him. “Do I need to mention the time you sang ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ so off-key in the shower?” The tips of his ears turned a visible shade of pink. He snatched the notebook from my hand and flipped through the pages, his face growing darker with every entry he read. “This is impossible…” he muttered. “It’s very possible. If you still don’t believe me, we can go get that DNA test.” His gaze flickered over my face, a storm of conflicting emotions in his eyes. Finally, he pulled out his phone and dialed. “Alex, get a doctor over here. Now. Someone who can run a rush paternity test.” He hung up and glared at me. “Until those results come back, you’d better not try anything funny.” I just shrugged, trotted into the dining room like I owned the place, and plopped down on a chair, my short legs swinging. “Daddy, I’m hungry. Can you make me dinner?” Cole looked at me as if I’d just asked him to build a rocket to the moon. “You want me to cook? I don’t cook. I have never cooked.” “Liar,” I said, ticking off items on my fingers. “You can make sweet and sour ribs, Coke-braised chicken wings, pan-seared sea bass… and your special pineapple and shrimp fried rice is my absolute favorite thing in the world.” His frown deepened. “I don’t set foot in the kitchen. We have Mrs. Gable for that.” “That’s just because you haven’t learned yet,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes. “Turns out, you’re a natural. A total prodigy. Besides, Mrs. Gable could never make it taste the way you do.” 2 Cole’s jaw twitched. His eyes darted unconsciously to the clock on the wall. I knew what he was thinking. According to his original schedule, he was supposed to leave in three hours to drug and kidnap Claire. If he started cooking now, it could throw his entire plan off schedule. Right on cue, my stomach let out a long, pathetic growl. “I haven’t eaten in three days… My tummy is all empty.” Cole’s head snapped toward me. “What do you mean? The future me… he doesn’t feed you?” “No, it’s not that. It’s because you died, so they sent me to an orphanage. And there… only the good kids got to eat.” I dropped my head, my voice sinking to a whisper. “And I was not the good kind.” The Sunshine Home was a front, a pipeline for supplying children to predators. I had waited until the middle of the night, unlocked all the doors so the other kids could run, and tried to set the whole rotten place on fire. But they caught me before the flames got very high. The director and his men, they beat me with belts. They put out their cigarettes on my skin. If the police hadn’t shown up for a surprise inspection, I probably would have died right there. It was in that moment, hovering on the edge of death, that I finally understood. My father, Cole Blackwood, was just a villain in a story. In his desperate fight for the heroine, he had hurt others, and he had destroyed himself. And my mother? She was a woman who had loved him from the shadows. At a gala, a rival drugged my father and locked him in a room with the heroine. But my mother secretly let the heroine go… and took her place. She got pregnant with me and died from a hemorrhage giving birth. By the time my father found out about any of it, it was too late. He was consumed by regret, by grief. He tortured himself. My existence was the only flicker of light in his world of darkness. But when I was five, he died too. The Blackwood fortune was carved up and stolen by vultures, and I was thrown into the orphanage. After my escape and the fire, the hospital authorities were planning to send me to another facility. I didn’t want to be passed around again, so I just grabbed my little backpack and ran. I didn’t expect that the little alley I escaped down would lead me here, nine years into the past. Cole’s fingers clenched into a fist. “And your mother? Who is she?” I bit my lip and shook my head. “I don’t know.” “You don’t know? How can you not know who your own mother is?” His voice was sharp with disbelief. Because in the flashes of memory I had, my mother was only ever mentioned in two simple sentences. One, she was in love with Cole Blackwood. Two, she died after giving birth to me. I held up my small hands. “I never met her. She died from a hemorrhage… Besides, shouldn’t you be the one I’m asking?” The question hit him like a physical blow. His Adam’s apple bobbed. His voice was unsteady when he spoke. “You said… your mother… bled to death when you were born?” His face was growing paler by the second. I asked softly, “Daddy, are you okay?” Cole didn’t answer. He turned and walked to the window, his back to me. He stood there for a long time, shrouded in an aura of profound sadness. I was about to say something else, but my stomach roared again, demanding attention. I really was starving. I’d left in such a hurry I hadn’t even had a sip of water. The sound seemed to pull him back to reality. He turned, his eyes a swirling mix of emotions. “I can’t be sure I believe anything you’re saying right now,” he said, his voice strained. “Why don’t you let me make you dinner first? After the paternity test comes back, you can ask me whatever you want.” I pouted, my lower lip trembling pitifully. A muscle in Cole’s jaw jumped. He hesitated for a moment longer, then finally took out his phone and started searching for recipes. 3 “What do you want to eat?” he asked gruffly, his eyes glued to the screen. “Sweet and sour ribs! And the Coke-braised chicken wings! And…” I rattled off a list of his future culinary masterpieces. Cole raised an eyebrow. “And you’re sure I know how to make any of this?” “I’m not sure,” I said with unwavering confidence. “But I know you’re a fast learner.” He let out a short, humorless laugh, but he started gathering ingredients according to my menu anyway. Just then, the doorbell rang. Mrs. Gable, the housekeeper, stood on the porch, holding bags of groceries. Her eyes traveled past Cole to where I was sitting, and they widened. “Mr. Blackwood… who… oh, my goodness, doesn’t this little one look just like you!” “Mrs. Gable.” Cole cleared his throat, a hint of awkwardness in his voice. “This is… a child who’s staying here temporarily. She was hungry, so I was just about to…” “Oh, heavens, sir! You don’t know how to cook. Let me do it!” Mrs. Gable immediately set down her bags and headed for the kitchen. I looked at Cole expectantly. He hesitated, then surprised me by saying, “That’s alright, Mrs. Gable. Tonight… I’d like to try myself.” Mrs. Gable’s jaw dropped. She looked back and forth between the two of us. “Sir, are you saying… you’re going to cook?” “Yes.” Cole was already rolling up his sleeves, revealing his muscular forearms. “You can just teach me as I go.” Mrs. Gable looked from Cole to me, and then a look of sudden understanding dawned on her face. Her eyes crinkled into a joyful smile. “Of course, of course! I’ll be your sous chef! And what’s your name, little darling? What’s your favorite dish?” “Sweet and sour ribs!” I cheered, hopping in my seat. The scene that followed was a culinary disaster zone. Under Mrs. Gable’s guidance, Cole fumbled his way through preparing the ribs. He stared at the recipe on his phone so intently you’d think he was trying to set it on fire with his mind, not even noticing when he spilled soy sauce on his hand. Still, he stubbornly refused to let Mrs. Gable take over, insisting on completing every step himself. “Rice wine… soy sauce… dark soy sauce…” he muttered, his brow furrowed in concentration. I sat on a high stool by the kitchen entrance, swinging my legs and acting as commander-in-chief. “Daddy, the heat is too high! …Now add the sugar! …Flip them, flip them!” “Quiet, I know!” he shot back without turning, but there was no real anger in his voice. By the time the first platter of sweet and sour ribs was finally plated, the kitchen was a complete wreck. A sheen of sweat covered Cole’s forehead, and his black shirt was splattered with oil, but the glistening, reddish-brown ribs on the plate smelled absolutely divine. “Try it.” He pushed the plate toward me, his face a stern mask that couldn’t quite hide the flicker of anticipation in his eyes. I eagerly picked up a piece and took a bite. It was the perfect balance of sweet and tangy, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. It was eighty percent there. Eighty percent him. “It’s so delicious!” I exclaimed, my mouth full. “Daddy, you’re a genius!” The corner of Cole’s mouth ticked upward before he forced it back down. “Stop with the flattery.” Mrs. Gable was beaming beside us. “Sir, your talent is just incredible! To cook this well on your first try!” He cleared his throat and turned to get the rice, but not before I saw the tips of his ears turn a faint shade of red. The discovery thrilled me. The nine-years-younger version of my dad was so easily embarrassed! The DNA results came back before evening. 4 When Mrs. Gable rushed in with the envelope, I was on the living room floor, assembling a Lego set Cole had bought for me. He’d insisted it was only a temporary loan, of course. “Sir! The results are here!” Cole strode out of his study. I noticed his fingertips were trembling slightly as he took the envelope. I put down my Lego piece and sat cross-legged, my heart starting to pound. Even though I already knew the outcome, watching him tear open that envelope made me chew on my lower lip with nervous energy. He pulled out the thin sheet of paper, his eyes jumping straight to the bottom line. He froze, looking as if he’d been struck by lightning. “99.99%…” Cole whispered, his voice barely audible. Mrs. Gable was already dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I knew it! I said she had your eyes, your nose… she’s the spitting image of you, sir!” Then, a thought struck her. “Sir, who is the missus? When do we get to meet her?” Cole’s expression became impossibly complicated. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I… I don’t know.” Mrs. Gable’s smile froze. Her gaze darted between Cole and me before she tactfully retreated. “I’ll… I’ll go start on dinner…” The room fell silent, leaving just the two of us. Cole slowly crouched down to my level, his eyes—so much like my own—swirling with emotions I couldn’t decipher. “Lila…” He used my name, a rare occurrence, his voice raw. “Your mother really… bled to death?” I nodded. “My mom must have loved you so much, Daddy. To risk everything just to have me.” Cole went rigid, as if someone had hit a pause button on the world. His Adam’s apple bobbed a few times, and a film of moisture seemed to cloud his eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, he just raised a hand and gently rested it on the top of my head. “Go take a bath. Mrs. Gable laid out some pajamas for you.” After my bath, I tiptoed to Cole’s bedroom and, without knocking, pushed the door open. It was a privilege my future self had earned; I wondered if it would still work now. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a photograph. He immediately flipped it facedown on the nightstand when he heard me. It was a picture of Claire. “What is it?” he asked, his brow furrowing with a hint of panic. I padded over to him, my bare feet silent on the rug. I looked up at him. “I can’t sleep. You haven’t sung me my lullaby yet.” Cole stared. “…What?” “My lullaby. The song to help kids sleep.” I climbed onto his bed and burrowed under the covers as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I don’t know any,” he said flatly. “You didn’t know how to cook, but you learned. You’ll learn how to sing, too.” I blinked up at him. Cole’s mouth twitched. I think he was starting to regret his culinary adventure. He stood up, towering over me. “Go back to your own room.” “No. It smells better in here.” I pulled the covers over my head. “Li-la.” He enunciated each syllable, but there was no real force behind it. He was helpless against me. I peeked out from under the blanket. The expression on his face shifted from annoyance to resignation, and finally to a strange kind of surrender. “…I really can’t sing,” he said, his voice low. I revealed half my face. “Then just hum something. You smell so good, Daddy…” His body went noticeably stiff. After a long moment, he cleared his throat and began to hum a simple, wordless melody. It was a little off-key, but it was gentle. I closed my eyes. It was the same song he always sang to me after a nightmare. When the humming stopped, I was drifting in the space between sleep and wakefulness. Through the haze, I felt a pair of hands gently lift me into the air. 5 As he adjusted his hold, my pajama sleeve slid down. Cole’s breath hitched. I forced my eyes open and saw him staring at the scars on my arm, his face as white as a sheet. “Who did this?” “The director at The Sunshine Home… but it’s okay, I set his office on fire later…” I mumbled, my eyelids too heavy to keep open. Cole’s arms tightened around me, holding me securely against his chest. His eyes looked red. “It will never happen again,” he promised, his voice thick with emotion. “I swear it.” I snuggled into a comfortable spot in his arms and let sleep take me. To help Cole fully embrace his new role as a father, I dragged him through a series of classic bonding activities. “Daddy, let’s go to the amusement park!” I announced on Monday morning, sprawling across his desk and pushing aside the contracts he was reviewing. Cole didn’t even look up. “No time.” “What about the Natural History Museum? I heard they have a T-Rex.” “Not going.” “The circus, then? It’s right downtown!” He finally lifted his head, his brow so furrowed you could get lost in the lines. “Lila, I’m very busy.” I pouted and slid a photograph from my backpack across the desk. It was from a trip to Disneyland when I was three. Cole was wearing Minnie Mouse ears, holding me in one arm and an ice cream cone in the other, a huge, genuine smile on his face. He stared at the picture for a full ten seconds, the tips of his ears glowing red. “…This is photoshopped.” “No, it’s not! It was your first time on the carousel, and you almost threw up when you got off.” I pointed at the photo triumphantly. Cole looked like he’d been struck by lightning. He rubbed his temples, defeated. “…Fine. One place.” “The amusement park!” I shot my hand up. “The museum,” he countered. “Deal!” And so began our week-long crash course in father-daughter activities. At the museum, Cole stood stiffly in front of the T-Rex skeleton while I gave him an enthusiastic, detailed account of the epic battle between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Godzilla—a story he himself would tell me years from now. “Godzilla fought a T-Rex?” he asked, skeptical. “That’s what you told me! You also said Snow White married the Beast.” At the circus, when a clown bounded over for some audience participation, Cole’s instincts kicked in, and he nearly threw the poor man over his shoulder. I had to grab his arm. “Daddy, calm down! It’s part of the show!” Afterward, he actually took me to the amusement park. “Well, we’ve already been to two places. What’s one more,” he grumbled, though his heart clearly wasn’t in the complaint. He was as rigid as a board on the carousel. He almost sent our bumper car flying off the track. And in the haunted house, he was the one whose face went pale when the actors jumped out, while I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. “Li-la!” He clamped a hand over my mouth the second we were out, his teeth clenched, but I could see the ghost of a smile in his eyes. In all this time, he seemed to have completely forgotten about Claire. But I knew the peace wouldn’t last. According to the original timeline, Claire was about to have a major fight with her boyfriend, Ethan. She would run off to a dangerous part of town, and Cole would go to save her, only to be wrongly accused of being her attacker. That incident would send him into a deep depression, and he’d start drinking heavily. I had to do something to stop it. 6 So the next day, after Cole left for work, I used my allowance to hire a few local troublemakers to tie up the bleach-blond kid who’d been extorting lunch money from the younger students. “Little boss, we brought him like you said. Where’s the cash?” the leader of the group asked, rubbing his hands together. I handed him the bills Cole had given me. “Don’t you dare tell my dad!” “Our lips are sealed!” They snatched the money and vanished. I looked at the gagged and bound kid. “Don’t worry, it’s just for one night. You stole that first grader’s lunch money last week, right? Consider this your punishment.” The kid mumbled incomprehensibly through the cloth stuffed in his mouth. With a great deal of effort, I dragged him into the basement. I had just locked the door when I heard a car pull into the driveway. Crap. Why was Cole home so early? I scrambled to the sofa and pretended to be engrossed in a cartoon. Cole walked in and saw me sitting there, a little too perfectly behaved, and a look of suspicion crossed his face. “Lila, have you eaten?” “Not yet. I was waiting for you, Daddy.” He came over and ruffled my hair. “I’m just going to change.” As he headed upstairs, a loud thump echoed from the basement. That stupid kid was ramming the door. Cole paused on the stairs and glanced at me. Then he changed course and started toward the basement. My heart leaped into my throat. I shot up and ran to block his path. “Daddy! Go change! I’m starving!” I tugged on his sleeve, my voice deliberately loud and whiny. Just then, another heavy thump came from below, followed by a series of muffled cries. Cole pulled his arm free. “Lila, who is in there?” “I don’t know! Probably a rat? A really, really big one!” I said, my eyes wide with innocence. He snorted. “Do I look like a three-year-old to you?” The moment he opened the door, Cole froze. The bleach-blond kid had managed to give himself a bloody nose. His mouth was still gagged, and he was sobbing as he wriggled across the floor. When he saw Cole, his eyes lit up as if he’d found his long-lost mother, and he started desperately humping his way forward. The silence was heavy. Cole turned to me, his face a blank mask. “Explain. Who is this?” I puffed out my chest. “My soulmate!” He looked like he’d misheard. “…What?” “You know… the older boy… who bought me a lollipop at the convenience store last week… I thought he was so handsome…” I said, trying to look shy. The kid’s eyes went wide. He shook his head frantically, smearing blood across the floor. Cole’s face went from pale to dark thunder. He took a deep breath and rubbed his temples. “Lila, did you just kidnap your… soulmate?” “It wasn’t kidnapping! I just… invited him over! I didn’t know he’d be so shy…” I defended myself weakly. Cole closed his eyes, visibly forcing himself to stay calm. He walked over and ripped the tape off the kid’s mouth. The boy let out a terrified yelp. “Mister, I swear I didn’t do anything to her! I don’t even know this little monster! That lollipop last week? She stole it from me!” He was right. He had stolen a kid’s lunch money to buy snacks, and I had simply relieved him of the lollipop. Cole turned to look at me, raising an eyebrow. “Hmm?” I shrank back. “The details aren’t important…” He sighed, untied the kid, and ordered him not to say a word about this to anyone. After swearing on his life, the boy scrambled out, tripped on the stairs, and knocked out a tooth on his way. Once he was gone, Cole turned to me with a cold expression and demanded to know why I’d done it. Tears welled in my eyes. “Why are you being so mean, Daddy? You’re the one who taught me. If you see something you want, you take it.” I looked him straight in the eye. “I wanted this big boy. Why couldn’t I just take him?” 7 He was clearly at a loss for words, blindsided by my logic. “When did I ever teach you that?” “In the future.” The truth was, Cole had never directly taught me such things, but I knew his methods. I was just following his example, leaving him with no ground to stand on. His expression softened, becoming more complex. He was silent for a long time. “Lila… that’s not right. You can’t just take what you want by force. Do you understand?” “Okay.” I understood. But why didn’t he? Cole gently took my chin, making me look at him. “I’m serious. No matter what the… future me becomes, the me standing here now is telling you that forcing people is wrong.” “But… what if you like something so, so much?” I asked in a small voice. “You can work hard to earn it, but you can’t hurt others to get it. Truly strong people don’t need to use force to get what they want.” Hearing those words from his lips felt strange. But… he wouldn’t lie to a child, would he? He wouldn’t go back on his word and lock Claire in the basement, would he? I decided to trust him. For now. That evening at dinner, as Cole was carefully picking the bones out of my fish, he asked, “Lila, what grade are you in?” I froze, my fork hovering over my rice. “I don’t go to school.” He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “Why not?” “After you died, I went to the orphanage. The director said I was pretty and could fetch a high price. He said school makes kids know too much, and the buyers don’t like that.” The air in the dining room turned to ice. I didn’t dare look at his face. “The first buyer he set me up with was a movie director. He said he’d make me an actress. But he locked me in a cage and told me to get on all fours and bark like a dog.” The chopsticks in Cole’s hand snapped in two. “He didn’t like the look in my eyes. Said I was too fierce, not obedient enough… Later, when I got a chance, I bit one of his fingers off.” “And then what?” His voice was a terrifyingly low growl. “They sent me back. I got a beating. With a hot iron poker.” I pushed up my sleeve, revealing the winding, raised scars on my arm. Cole shot up from his chair, his eyes red and frightening, filled with a raw, murderous intent. “I’m going to kill them. Right now.” I jumped down and grabbed his trembling hand. “Daddy, that’s in the future. Right now, The Sunshine Home is just a normal orphanage.” “Lila… I’m so sorry…” His face was a mask of self-loathing and regret. I shook my head. “It’s not your fault, Daddy. It’s their fault for being bad people.” Cole pulled me into a fierce hug, promising me that nothing like that would ever happen again. “Tomorrow… I’ll take you to look at schools. The best one…” The next morning, Cole drove me to school himself. It was even more beautiful than I could have imagined. I heard it was funded by the Blackwood Corporation. I was placed in the first grade, class three, at Sunlight Experimental Elementary. Most of the kids were friendly, especially my desk mate, Daisy, who shared her stickers with me. When school let out, just as I’d expected, Cole was the first person waiting at the gate. “Did you like it?” he asked, taking my backpack and wiping the sweat from my forehead. 8 “I loved it! Daisy taught me how to fold paper airplanes, Mrs. Davis said my handwriting was beautiful, and the chicken wings at lunch were so good!” I chattered excitedly, waving my arms. A genuine smile touched Cole’s lips. “Good. I’m glad.” That night, a breaking news story caught my eye on the television: “Blackwood Corporation officially announced the acquisition of The Sunshine Home today, pledging a multi-million dollar investment to improve its facilities and educational standards…” My head whipped around to look at Cole. “Daddy! The Sunshine Home!” He didn’t look up from his newspaper. “Mm.” A week later, another news story aired during dinner: “Famed director Arthur Vance arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment and child abuse. Sources say police discovered… in his private villa…” The middle-aged man being led away in handcuffs was him—the monster from my past who had told me to bark like a dog. Cole was looking over my homework. “Lila, 3 + 5 = 10?” “Daddy…” My voice cracked. He didn’t look up. “Even I know that 3 + 5 doesn’t equal 10.” I… Just when I thought he might finally be able to let Claire go, Ethan’s call came through. Cole glanced at the caller ID, then answered. “Blackwood, where the hell have you hidden Claire?” Ethan roared through the phone. A flicker of tension crossed Cole’s face. “What are you talking about? What happened to Claire?” “Cut the crap! She told me she was going to see you last night, and now she’s missing!” “I haven’t seen her recently. What’s going on?” There was a pause on the other end, and then the line went dead. Cole stared at the dark screen for a moment, then finally looked at me. “Lila… do you know where Claire is?” My heart sank. Even after everything, he couldn’t let her go. “Daddy, if you go, you’ll only get hurt. Auntie Claire will be okay. Uncle Ethan will save her.” Cole was silent for a moment. “If… if you know something, can you please tell me?” “I don’t want you to get hurt! Just because I’m from the future doesn’t mean I know everything! I don’t know! I wasn’t even born yet, how would I know?” I angrily pushed away from him and ran upstairs. A moment later, I heard the front door close. He had gone anyway.

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You know the type—the titan of industry, the kind of man who could make the stock market shudder with a single phone call? The kind they write sensational biographies about? I’m his daughter. And from what I can tell, I’m the girl in the story who’s destined to lose. The childhood sweetheart who never stood a chance against the new, exciting girl who falls into the hero’s life like a lightning strike. Case in point: when my fiancé and his new favorite person were kidnapped, and the kidnappers told him he could only save one of us. “Let her die,” he said. Without a moment’s hesitation, he pointed at me, ready to send me to my death. And in that instant, something inside me snapped. I went dark. 1 I was kidnapped. But I was surprisingly calm about it. This sort of thing had a way of happening at least once a year. It’s one of the delightful perks of being the daughter of Magnus Sterling, a man whose favorite pastime is hostile takeovers. This time, however, I had company. Chloe, the precious new secretary of my fiancé, Liam. The two kidnappers had found some clean plastic forks and were trying to get us to eat something out of Styrofoam containers. Chloe was crying, turning her head away in a theatrical display of defiance. By comparison, I was a model hostage. The taller of the two goons didn’t even have to try hard with me. “Well, look at this. The little princess knows how to behave.” “Of course,” I mumbled around a mouthful of lukewarm rice and beans. “Survival of the fittest, right? You adapt, or you die.” 2 After what felt like an eternity, Liam finally arrived, his face a mask of practiced distress. “What do you want?” he demanded, clenching his fists. “Name your price. I’ll pay anything.” “We don’t want your money!” the shorter kidnapper yelled, his voice cracking. “We want a choice! You pick one. The one who stays behind dies!” “Her,” Liam said, pointing a finger straight at me. “Let her die.” He didn’t even blink. He just pushed me forward, an offering to save his own skin. I said nothing. But in the frozen silence of that warehouse, I broke. 3 The tall kidnapper gave Chloe a little shove. She stumbled toward Liam, collapsing into his arms like a damsel in a silent film. He immediately started cooing over her, stroking her hair, whispering sweet nothings. What a touching reunion. If you could ignore the fact that the man holding her was my childhood friend, my fiancé, and had just sentenced me to death. I spat the gag out of my mouth and yelled at the kidnappers behind me. “Hey! You gonna untie me, or what?” Then I turned my attention back to Liam, and the floodgates opened. “You sanctimonious, two-timing cliché! You’re juggling a fiancée your family approved of while playing footsie with your secretary under the desk? Even an octopus doesn’t have that many legs to stand on! “You feed me lines about how much you care, blurring every boundary we have, then you turn around and whisper the same tired poetry to her? God, your mouth must be exhausted, running two different scripts at once. It’s a masterclass in hypocrisy! “What, did she suck out your spine? Put a hex on you? If you had hesitated for even one second, I wouldn’t feel this overwhelming urge to send your entire family a flaming bag of dog shit! “Come on, get over here!” I snarled. “I want a closer look at that shameless face of yours!” I tried to lunge forward, only to be reminded of the ropes binding my wrists. I whipped my head around to face my captors, my expression murderous. “What are you waiting for? Get these things off me!” The shorter one flinched and scrambled to untie me. The second my hands were free, I marched straight up to Liam and slapped him hard across the face. The sound echoed in the cavernous space. Perfect. A perfect ten. “And you,” I jabbed a finger at Chloe, who was cowering behind him. “Stop hiding. Do you really think you can solve every problem by crying? The second I open my mouth, you turn on the waterworks. What were you in a past life, a sprinkler system?” I went on like that, a non-stop, creative tirade of insults, for a solid ten minutes. Every time Liam tried to leave, I’d grab his arm, haul him back, and slap him again. He didn’t seem to know how I’d gotten so strong. But he also didn’t dare try to leave again. He just stood there, his face turning a blotchy red, and took it. “God, I’m thirsty!” I fanned my face with my hand and then stuck it out behind me. “Water? A little help here?” The tall kidnapper respectfully placed a bottle of water in my hand. He clearly didn’t dare direct his anger at me, so he turned on Liam and Chloe instead. “Look what you two did! You got her all worked up!” 4 I kept the verbal assault going for another twenty minutes. Finally, I was out of breath. “Tired?” a low voice spoke from directly behind me. I hadn’t even heard him approach. A man wearing a dark, simple half-mask that covered one side of his face stood there. “Have some more water.” He put a hand on the small of my back, his body close to mine. He leaned in, his voice a murmur against my ear, like a lover sharing a secret. “Need me to make them disappear for you?” I actually had to think about it for a second. “Could you… not kill them?” The man raised an eyebrow. “Why not?” “Murder is a felony,” I said with a shrug. “But making their lives a living hell? I’m open to that.” A low chuckle escaped him. “Consider it done.” Liam’s face had turned a sickly shade of green. “Ava, don’t you dare go too far!” “Are you barking at me?” I flipped him the bird. “I think we both know who went too far. Now get out. The sight of you is ruining my mood.” “You’ll regret this, Ava!” he shouted. I kicked off one of my heels and hurled it at his head. “Regret what? Not dying for you? Get lost!” Liam grabbed Chloe’s hand and they practically sprinted out of the warehouse. The masked man gently touched my hair. “Shall I take you home?” “Sure,” I said, patting his shoulder. “Thanks, man.” It wasn’t until he pulled his sleek, black car up to the gates of my family’s estate that the absurdity of the situation hit me. Is this the new standard for hostage situations? No ransom, and a personal chauffeur service home? “Okay, what’s your angle?” I asked, my brow furrowed. “This whole kidnapping felt like a joke.” “Then maybe you should—” The man’s fingers tapped rhythmically on the steering wheel. “—think of it as a game.” A psycho. Great. I rolled my eyes. Whatever. It’s not like I lost anything today. In fact, I felt like I’d gained something. “Goodbye,” I said, shutting the car door. He lowered the window. “We’ll see each other again, Ava.” 5 I walked into the house to a familiar scene. She runs, he chases, and their dramatic love knows no bounds. My mother, Catherine, was dragging a suitcase toward the front door as I entered. “Hey,” I said with a wave. She nodded, then did a double-take, the theatricality draining from her face. She dropped the suitcase with a thud. “Ava, darling! What happened to you? You’re filthy!” My father, Magnus, stormed out from his study, right on cue. “Catherine Sterling, if you dare take one step out of this house…” His line was cut short by my mother kicking him sharply in the shin. “Magnus, can’t you see our daughter is in distress?” Dad’s demeanor shifted instantly. He rushed over, his face etched with concern. “Sweetheart, what is it? Who hurt you? I’ll ruin them.” “It’s fine,” I said, giving them the condensed version of events. “I already yelled at them.” “Don’t you worry, sweetheart,” my father soothed. “That Liam Prescott wanted the best of both worlds, did he? We’ll see how he likes having no world at all. Don’t worry, Dad will find you someone a hundred times better. I think it’s about time for a hostile takeover. The Prescott Group is about to go bankrupt.” A week passed. The Prescott Group was fine. Two weeks passed. Still fine. Three weeks passed. Annoyingly, stubbornly, fine. “Daddy,” I whined, grabbing his arm. “Don’t you love your little girl anymore?” A smile spread across his face, a deeply unsettling, “benevolent” smile that made my skin crawl. He patted my head. “There, there, sweetheart. The engagement is still on. There’s a big surprise waiting for you.” In his dreams. I played the part of the dutiful daughter, but secretly, I was planning my great escape. One dark and stormy night, I was halfway over the garden wall when my father, who had apparently been waiting for me, had his security team nab me. They bundled me into a car and drove me straight to a wedding venue. I spat out the cloth they’d stuffed in my mouth for dramatic effect and screamed at the heavens. “Dad, you have no honor!” 6 I got married. But the groom wasn’t Liam. It was a man I’d never seen before. I tugged on my dad’s arm while he was chatting with the stranger at the altar. “Dad, who is this?” “Your husband,” he said, slinging an arm around the man’s shoulders like they were old college buddies. “Handsome, right? Your dad has great taste.” The man looked like he was about to be strangled. I quickly intervened. “Hi, I’m Ava Sterling.” He coughed, straightening his tie. “Ethan Cole. A pleasure.” I leaned in close, lowering my voice. “How much is my dad paying you?” “Excuse me?” Ethan looked genuinely confused. “What do you mean?” “Oh, come on, I get it. My dad strong-armed you with a pile of cash to stand in for the groom and save face, right?” “What makes you so sure I wasn’t a willing participant?” he asked, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. There was something familiar in that smile. I shook my head. A man who looked like that? I would have remembered. I glanced to the side and saw my father practically leaning on top of us, shamelessly eavesdropping. “Dad!” He didn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. He just straightened his suit jacket. “I’ll just… go check on the guests. You two kids talk.” Before he walked away, he leaned in and whispered, “He’s the sole heir to the Cole fortune. He doesn’t need my money.” I froze. If he didn’t need money, and he looked like a movie star, what could he possibly want from marrying me? My charming personality? My talent for creative insults? “What I want isn’t important.” I slapped a hand over my mouth. Damn it. Did I say that out loud? “The real question,” Ethan continued, his voice low and persuasive, “is what you want. Don’t you want to see that man utterly humiliated? I have to say, my credentials are… significantly better than his. “Don’t you want to see Liam Prescott become the laughingstock of the entire city?” he pressed on. “Don’t you want to join forces, crush his company, and watch him lose everything?” “I do!” I blurted out, grabbing his arm and linking it with mine. “Honey!” Either way, I came out on top. Only a fool would turn down a deal that good. Years later, I would look back on this day and want to scream at the sky. “Ethan Cole, you magnificent liar!” 7 Halfway through the ceremony, Liam and his parents walked in. No one had bothered to inform the Prescott family about the change in grooms. The smile on Liam’s face froze, then curdled. “Ava, what is the meaning of this?” I rolled my eyes. “Are those two things above your nose just for decoration? Use your eyes.” Liam’s father, his face turning a furious shade of purple, confronted my dad. “Magnus! This is hardly appropriate!” “Hold on,” my father said, his voice dangerously calm. “Are you sure you want to talk to me about what’s appropriate? Because I have a list of your son’s dirty little secrets. We can discuss them right here, in front of everyone, if you’d like.” Liam’s face flushed. “You’re lying!” “How dare you speak to my father that way!” I snapped. “Look at you, you pathetic excuse for a man. I must have been blind to ever put up with you. Not only were you cheating on me, but you were ready to let me die to save your little girlfriend!” “Say whatever you want,” Liam sneered, trying to regain some composure. “You’re the ones who broke the engagement and switched grooms at the altar.” “Enough,” Ethan’s voice cut through the tension. It was quiet, but it carried the weight of absolute authority. The room fell silent. He took a thick envelope from his pocket and tossed it onto the floor in front of Liam. A cascade of glossy photographs spilled out—candid shots of Liam and Chloe, their arms around each other, kissing, looking far too intimate. “You can’t hide what’s done in the dark, Prescott,” Ethan said, his smile laced with ice. Liam’s face went white. He lunged for the photos, but my father casually kicked them, sending them scattering across the marble floor. A few of the guests picked them up, their eyes widening. Suddenly, my accusations carried a lot more weight. Ethan was still smiling that cold smile. “Now, if security could please remove the irrelevant parties, I have a wedding to get back to.” My father signaled his security team, and a few large men efficiently escorted the sputtering Prescotts out of the hall. The ceremony continued. Ethan and I exchanged rings. “The groom may now kiss the bride,” the officiant announced. My toes curled in my shoes. This was mortifying. I didn’t know this man. “Don’t be nervous,” Ethan whispered, leaning in. “We’ll just angle it for the cameras.” As he turned his head, his profile silhouetted against the light, something clicked in my brain. A flash of memory. The half-mask. The low voice. The car. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I gasped, grabbing the lapels of his suit. “You were the one who kidnapped me.” A slow, knowing smile spread across his face. “You finally remember,” he murmured, his lips brushing against my ear. “Wife.”

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I was a professional stay-at-home daughter, a champion of doing absolutely nothing, when a horror game snatched me up and made me a player. I never expected the first level to be my own neighborhood. For me, this wasn’t a death trap. It was a homecoming. 【Welcome to the S-Rank level: Harmony Creek.】 The moment the game started, the audience in the livestream chat was already writing my obituary. An S-Rank level, with a 0.01% survival rate? A rookie like me was dead on arrival. But then I saw a familiar figure with a grocery basket and waved enthusiastically. “Hey, Mrs. Gable! Just back from the market?” I skipped over to play with a little girl who was using a string of bloody intestines as a jump rope. 【LOL, I’ve never seen a newbie this bold. She’s making friends with the monsters.】 【Wait, is she eating a human hand?】 【Hold on… who did she just call ‘Mom’!? That’s the final boss!】 I was leaning against my mom’s arm, gnawing on a spicy pickled chicken foot Mrs. Gable had given me. Huh? Boss? Human hand? Where? 1 【Welcome to the S-Rank level: Harmony Creek.】 【Survive for three days to clear this level.】 【For the next three days, you must embody your assigned role. Be good sons and daughters to your parents.】 【Initial Players: 10. Current Players: 10.】 【We wish you a pleasant game.~】 The system’s voice echoed in my ears, and my mind was a total blank. One second, I was at home playing cards with my grandparents, and the next, I’m a contestant in a real-life horror game? As a professional daughter, my income consisted of strategic allowances from my grandparents’ retirement funds and my parents’ generosity. My primary job was just to be there, providing emotional support and company. It’s not that I never tried to be ambitious. I took the ten thousand dollars my parents gave me as seed money for a startup and came back six months later with twenty thousand dollars in debt. My mom had just sighed, patted my head, and said, “Grace, honey, you staying home is the biggest contribution you can make right now.” And now I’d been drafted into a horror game. My soft, cushy life was over. I was toast. I lay down on the pavement, curled into a ball, and started sobbing. “Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma… I’m a goner. Please remember to water my succulents.” A guy with full sleeve tattoos spat on the ground and grabbed the old security guard by the collar. “What the hell is this? You think some stupid broadcast about a horror game is gonna scare me?” he snarled. “I run with the Breakers. Give me a couple hundred grand for the trouble and I’ll forget this ever happened.” A man in a sharp suit tried to intervene, but he was too late. The security guard, Mr. Henderson, opened his mouth—wider, and wider, and impossibly wider—and bit the tattooed man clean in half. There wasn’t even time for a scream before both halves were swallowed whole. Several people collapsed to the ground in terror. The broadcast was real. The man in the suit, the one who’d tried to stop it, introduced himself as a veteran player. He’d cleared five levels already, he said. You have to clear ten to get back to the real world. Apparently, half of us were rookies. With the tattoo guy gone, that left nine of us. We all had an identity card. The suit’s face was grim. Let’s call him Mark. “Our mission is to play the part we’ve been assigned,” he said, his voice tight. “And survive for three days.” 【Damn, so many newbies on an S-Rank level. The survival rate on this one is only 0.01%.】 【I’ve never seen such a pathetic rookie. She’s literally just rolling around on the ground crying.】 【Hey, didn’t you piss your pants your first time? Wait… what is she doing now?】 I had cried myself out and was slowly getting up, ready to accept my fate, when I finally took a good look around. This eerily familiar neighborhood… wasn’t this my home? Mr. Henderson, the security guard, was already back in his booth, waving cheerfully at me. “Gracie! What are you doing out here? Thought you’d be inside with your grandma.” Stunned, I pulled out my identity card. The role I was supposed to play? It was me. 2 Mark, the self-appointed leader, gathered the rest of us and led us toward the main gate. Mr. Henderson stepped out to check everyone’s identity. “You kids,” he said, his voice raspy as he let us through one by one. “Work is important, but you can’t forget your families. Look at you all… besides little Gracie here, I don’t recognize a single one of your faces.” He beamed at me. “Not like Grace. Always at home with her folks. Such a good girl.” I offered a weak, guilty smile. My status as the neighborhood’s resident homebody was well-known. No one thought it was weird; in fact, most people were a little envious of my parents for having their daughter around all the time. Mr. Henderson slowly flipped through a worn notebook, his gaze landing on a terrified kid with bleached-blond hair. “Name? Parents’ names?” The kid blurted out his real name, then realized his mistake and tried to correct himself, but it was too late. In an instant, Mr. Henderson’s body swelled, stretching and distorting until he was a two-story tall monstrosity. A massive claw shot out and snatched the kid. He was crushed into a pulp before he could even beg for his life. “He’s a liar,” the monster rumbled, the voice echoing through the street. “He doesn’t belong here. He can’t come in.” Blood and viscera rained down on the pavement. A few of the more timid players were already soaked in urine. The remaining players frantically double-checked their identity cards, terrified of suffering the same fate. Strangely, the gruesome scene didn’t frighten me. Instead, a wave of sadness washed over me. Mr. Henderson shrank back to his normal form, acting as if nothing had happened, and continued his check-in. When he got to me, he just waved me through. “Gracie, don’t cause a fuss. Everyone in Harmony Creek knows you.” Once we were all safely inside, a collective sigh of relief went through the group. We followed Mark, running until we were well out of Mr. Henderson’s sight, stopping in a small park. “Okay, it’s clear we can’t make a single mistake,” Mark said, catching his breath. “From now on, we are the people on these cards. You all saw what happens if we slip up.” He paused, then looked at me with suspicion. “Why was he different with you? Why did he praise you?” I held up my identity card innocently. “Maybe because my assigned role is ‘professional daughter’?” He seemed to buy it, nodding slowly. “Alright. I assume no one here has more experience than me, so I’ll take the lead. Call me Mark. You listen to me, and I’ll get you through this.” I was already tuning him out. My stomach was growling. I just wanted to go home and see my mom. Before I could sneak away, a familiar voice called out to me. “Grace, honey! Perfect timing.” It was my neighbor, Mrs. Gable, carrying several grocery bags. Trailing behind her was her little girl, Penny, who was cheerfully using a string of bloody intestines as a jump rope. Mrs. Gable was thrilled to see me. She held out one of her hands. “Here, sweetie, take this basket for me, will you? Saves me a trip to your house.” Our families were close. She was always dropping off extra vegetables or leftovers. “Sure thing!” I chirped, happily taking the basket. It was the perfect excuse to finally go home. The other players, however, didn’t look so happy. A pale, delicate-looking girl, who looked like a strong gust of wind could knock her over, covered her mouth and started to gag. The livestream chat was flying. 【The basket is full of a severed head and a dismembered arm. Is cannibalism part of this level?】 【That player’s got nerves of steel. She just ran right over and took it.】 【Could she be a master player in disguise? A wolf in sheep’s clothing?】 3 From the other players’ perspective, I knew the scene was horrific. Mrs. Gable had only half a head, the missing part swarming with maggots. Her daughter, Penny, had skin covered in angry, scorched patches, and one side of her cherubic face was just bare, grinning bone. Penny ran over, grabbed my hand, and pulled my head down to give me a loud, wet kiss on the cheek. “Gracie! It’s been so long! Come play with us!” The system’s cold, mechanical voice suddenly cut in, making everyone jump. 【New Mission: Play a game with Penny.】 Penny looked up at the other players, her one good eye twinkling innocently. “You guys have to play too.” Mark forced a smile, crouching down to her level. “Sure, kiddo. What game should we play?” Penny clung to my arm, giggling. “I wanna play soccer! Mister, can I borrow your head?” Cold sweat beaded on Mark’s forehead. I gently poked her cheek. She just giggled and snuggled closer. “Just kidding! You’re no fun, mister,” she pouted. “Let’s play Hawk Catches the Chicks! I’ll be the hawk!” The players instantly understood the subtext. A frantic scramble began as everyone tried to be the “mother hen,” the safest position in the game. No one wanted to be the last little chick. Penny stomped her foot, annoyed. “Stop fighting! You,” she said, pointing at the tallest guy in the group. “You’re the mother hen. Everyone else line up behind him, tallest to shortest.” The tall guy looked relieved, having snagged the safest spot without even trying. I ended up at the very back of the line, indignantly clutching the shirt of the person in front of me. This was height discrimination. I still had time for a growth spurt. The game began. Thanks to my fancy footwork and Penny clearly going easy on me, she never even came close to catching me. The other players started to relax. Then, with a fake roar of frustration, Penny lunged forward. But instead of going for the chicks, she grabbed the “mother hen” and tore his arm clean off. She chewed on the bloody limb, nodding thoughtfully. “This hen is too tough. Chewy,” she mumbled. “I’m full now. I don’t want to play anymore.” The tall guy’s eyes were bloodshot with pain and rage. He started screaming, all caution thrown to the wind. “You little bitch! You were supposed to catch the chicks, not me!” My expression went cold. I quickly covered Penny’s ears. So what if they were monsters? I’d known them my whole life. They were more family to me than these strangers I’d just met. I’d choose their side any day. Mrs. Gable appeared in a flash in front of the screaming man. With one swift motion, she reached into his mouth and ripped out his entire tongue. “If you can’t speak nicely,” she hissed, “then you shouldn’t speak at all.” She turned back to the rest of us, her form shifting back to that of a kindly neighbor. “Alright, it’s getting late. Your parents will be looking for you.” As if on cue, a group of adults appeared in the distance, heading our way. The woman leading the charge, walking with fierce determination, was unmistakably my mom. My eyes lit up. I broke from the group and ran towards her like a happy puppy. “Mom! My dearest, most wonderful Mom! I missed you so much!”

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Katherine was drunk when she got home, pushing me down on the bed and kissing me with an urgency I hadn’t felt from her in years. Anything resembling a sex life between us had died a long time ago. Ever since the company went public, she was barely ever home. So this sudden heat caught me off guard, and I let myself get lost in it. But just as I was about to lose control, she pulled me in tight, her voice a desperate whisper against my ear, “Oh, Caleb…” A bomb went off in my head. For her, the fire was instantly out. She rolled off me, her back to me as she sat on the edge of the bed. The bedroom was dark, the only light a pale wash from the streetlamp outside. Katherine smoked a whole cigarette in silence. When she finally stubbed it out, her voice was flat and hollow in the dark. “Leo, let’s get a divorce.” “Caleb doesn’t care about my money,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “He just wants to make it official. I owe him that.” 1 We had been together for eleven years, from college to this cold, dark bedroom. To the outside world, Katherine was the perfect wife: a brilliant CEO, a loving partner, a dedicated mother. Before tonight, the thought of her cheating had never even crossed my mind. A heavy stone settled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. “When was the first time?” I asked, my voice a dry rasp. Moonlight, as cold as frost, sliced through the blinds and fell across her bare shoulders. She flinched, almost imperceptibly. “Two years ago. That business trip to Chicago.” I remembered that trip. She was there to save a massive contract, the one that would make or break the company. The pressure on her had been immense. “I was at my lowest point,” she continued, her voice still a monotone. “And Caleb just… showed up at my hotel room door. He was soaked from the rain, like this lost, pathetic puppy. He just collapsed into my arms.” I stared at the black ceiling, silent tears tracing paths down my temples and into my hair. What was I doing that night? Her mother had slipped in the shower and broken her leg. I’d gotten the call from the ER, dropped our daughter Lily at my dad’s place, and rushed to the hospital to be with her. I didn’t tell Katherine. I didn’t want to add to her stress. I even found a moment between talking to doctors to send her a text. Don’t lose hope, babe. You’ve got this. I believe in you. No matter what happens, Lily and I are always here for you. We can sell the house and use the money for the company if we have to. As long as the three of us are together, that’s all that matters. It was the first time she never replied. I was naive. I told myself she was exhausted, that she’d fallen asleep. But she was in another man’s bed. Tangled in his sheets. That was two years ago. Two years. Katherine had hidden it so well. Just last month, we celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. In front of our entire family, she handed me a bouquet of roses and a gold watch. “Honey, thank you for taking care of everything at home all these years,” she’d said, her voice warm. “Happy anniversary.” She had pulled Lily and me into a hug. My dad insisted on taking a picture of the three of us. That photo is still pinned to the top of my social media profile. The silence in the room was crushing, a tide of pressure building around me. “Katherine,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “If you weren’t a CEO with a nine-figure net worth, would that boy still be with you?” She didn’t answer right away. Outside, the wind picked up, and a flash of lightning briefly illuminated the room. In that stark, momentary light, her face was a mask. “Leo, I know you love me,” she finally said, her tone unnervingly calm. “But Caleb isn’t like that. He’s not after money. He’s been with me for two years with no titles, no promises. He’s been through so much shame for me. I can’t betray his trust.” So you’ll betray mine instead? Back when we started in San Francisco, we were so broke we crammed ourselves into a basement studio apartment, less than two hundred square feet. We lived there for three years. No heat in the winter, no AC in the suffocating summer. I’d wake up some nights with cockroaches crawling on my arm. I thought our love could conquer anything. Turns out, it just fizzles out. “Did you forget, Katherine?” My voice cracked. “When we got married, you cried and swore you’d love me for the rest of your life.” She paused, considering my words as if they were a line item in a budget. “We were young, Leo,” she said, a weary sigh in her voice. “We mistook the thrill of being young and struggling together for love.” “We’re thirty now.” “And after meeting Caleb, I finally understand what real love feels like.” I thought I would scream. I thought I would lunge across the bed, grab her by the collar, and shake the lies out of her. Instead, a strange, horrifying calm washed over me. Tears burned in my eyes, but I let out a choked, bitter laugh. On the nightstand, Katherine’s phone lit up, the screen a harsh glare in the darkness. The silence was so absolute that I could hear the tinny, cloying voice from the speaker. “I know I’m not supposed to call when you’re home, Kat… but there’s a thunderstorm, and I’m really, really scared…” The pressure in my chest was suffocating me. Katherine’s voice, however, softened into a gentle coo. “It’s okay, baby. I just told him.” “You just pull the covers up tight and wait for me. I’m on my way.” 2 It was two in the morning. I was sitting in Katherine’s home office. She always backed up her chat histories, terrified of losing a single message from an important client. Luckily, her laptop password hadn’t changed. It was still Lily’s birthday. I scrolled through her messages with Caleb. 26,893 of them. Last week: Caleb: Babe, I made dinner tonight! It’s my first time ever cooking, I learned just for you. You have to tell me I’m a good boy. Katherine: You don’t have to do things like that to please me, Caleb. You’re perfect just the way you are. Katherine: I love you for your innocence, for that beautiful soul. Caleb sent a string of crying emojis. Caleb: omg Kat you’re going to spoil me. Katherine: My man, my rules. I’ll spoil you all I want. My hand trembled as I scrolled further back. Last month. The day of our seventh wedding anniversary. She had slept with him that afternoon. She was texting him on the drive home to our family dinner. Katherine: It still looks a little red. Make sure you put some more cream on it tonight, okay? Be good. Caleb sent the blushing emoji. Caleb: I know, you worry too much. Caleb: It’s your fault anyway. I’m never letting you do that again. Caleb: But Kat… can you promise me you won’t let him touch you? The thought of you kissing him… it literally feels like my heart is breaking. Katherine: Little fool. After eight rounds with you this afternoon? I’m not made of steel. I kept scrolling, my stomach churning. Finally, I found it. The first messages after they slept together, two years ago. He wasn’t calling her Kat back then. Caleb: Ms. Reyes, you don’t have to feel responsible for last night. I wanted it to happen. Caleb: I know you were just drunk and upset. I get it. Just having that one night with you was more than enough for me. Caleb: But I wanted you to know. You were my first. I could see Katherine’s conflict in the timestamps. She didn’t reply until the dead of night. Katherine: The wine had nothing to do with it. Katherine: I kissed you because I couldn’t stop myself. I felt sick. I couldn’t read anymore. I backed up their entire chat history to a thumb drive. Then I hugged myself, curling into a ball in her expensive leather office chair, a strangled sob caught in my throat. I wanted to howl, but I forced it down, terrified of waking Lily in the next room. My heart felt like it was being shredded by a million tiny blades. For so many years, Katherine had been the center of my universe. The thought of cutting her out, just like that… it was an agony I couldn’t have imagined. Once the initial wave of grief passed, a cold calm took its place. I called my mother in London. It was evening there, eight hours behind us. “Mom,” I said, my voice steady. “Katherine is cheating on me. We’re getting a divorce.” “I need you to pull your investment from her company.”

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When my rival sneered that I was probably a thirty-year-old virgin, I dug my nails into my own neck until four red crescents bloomed on my skin. “See this?” I purred, tilting my head. “My boyfriend has a thing for biting.” He let out a short, derisive laugh. “Please, Sloane. What man would ever want you?” Later, when I was sobbing outside an OB/GYN clinic, that same rival appeared, his face a thundercloud. “Who’s the bastard? I’ll kill him.” He clenched his fists. “Stop crying. You and the baby… I’ll take you both.” 1 I woke up tangled in silk sheets with a man. A very naked man. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that the man wasn’t just anyone. It was Carter Hayes, my sworn enemy. In the elite circles of New York’s Upper East Side, it was common knowledge that the bad blood between the Astor and Hayes heirs could fill the Hudson River. Last night, at a penthouse party, we’d lost a round of stupid drinking games and the forfeit was a kiss. After it was over, Carter had leaned back into the velvet couch, a lazy, arrogant smirk playing on his lips. “A little clumsy for a pro, Sloane. First time?” Fueled by rage and three too many martinis, I’d slipped into the bathroom and pinched my own neck, hard, creating a makeshift hickey. I made sure he saw it when I came back out. “See this? My boyfriend’s handiwork,” I’d lied through my teeth. “He’s… incredible. A million times better than you.” For a fleeting moment, Carter’s easy confidence had faltered. His eyes, dark and unreadable, had locked onto the mark on my skin. Then he’d scoffed. “Please, Sloane. What man would ever want you?” Maybe losing to me stung his pride, because for the first time in his life, Carter Hayes—a man who prided himself on control—drank himself into oblivion. I’d volunteered to get him home, planning to snap a few humiliating photos for future blackmail. Except the tables turned. The predator became the prey. I was the one who got devoured all night long. Dammit. I bit my lip, trying to inch away from the arm slung possessively around my waist. The moment I moved, he pulled me tighter, his handsome face nuzzling into the curve of my neck. His voice was a low, sleepy rumble. “Mila, baby, be good… just a little longer…” Mila? Oh, that is just perfect. He’s still half-asleep from our marathon of sin, and he’s whispering another woman’s name. Asshole. It took every ounce of strength I had to slip out of his grasp and off the bed. The moment my feet hit the floor, my legs buckled, a dull ache spreading through me. I nearly collapsed right there. The room was a disaster zone. A testament to a wild night. There was the ghost of a champagne spill on the balcony railing, a silk stocking caught on a chair leg… my silk stocking. Flashes of the night replayed in my mind—hot, fragmented, and dizzying. Carter’s hands on my ankles, his grip on my waist, the way he’d lifted me… I was about to slap myself, to ask myself why the hell I hadn’t fought back, when my gaze fell back on the bed. On him. My hand froze mid-air. That body, those muscles, that… size. Honestly, who could resist? I’d just pretend I’d hired a ridiculously expensive, top-shelf escort for the night. And I hadn’t even had to pay. 2 There’s an unwritten rule among the women in my circle: when you pay for it, you keep it quiet. You can show the abs, never the face. If word got out that I’d slept with Carter Hayes, I wouldn’t be able to show my face in Manhattan again. Ignoring the soreness in my body, I moved with methodical precision, erasing every trace of my presence. I wiped down surfaces, collected my scattered clothes, and plumped the pillows. Carter started to stir once, and I panicked, leaning over to kiss him, murmuring soothing nonsense until he fell back asleep. It was a purely strategic move. Mostly. I slipped out of his penthouse and found refuge in a 24-hour deli, a wave of relief washing over me as I sank onto a stool. Then, my phone buzzed. It was him. His voice, raspy with sleep, was a magnetic hum. “Sloane, where are you?” The sound of it sent an involuntary shiver down my spine, my mind immediately flashing to him whispering in my ear last night, telling me to relax. My face grew hot. “What… what do you want?” I stammered. “Did you bring me home last night?” “Yeah, well, I was on my way home anyway. I just wanted to see what a mess you were drunk.” He didn’t trade barbs with me like he usually would. His voice was low, serious. “Did you sleep here?” I steeled myself. “…Yeah. I was dizzy, so I crashed in your guest room. I left this morning.” “You weren’t in my bed?” “…No,” I said, my grip tightening on my phone. “In your dreams, Hayes! Why would I ever want to sleep in your bed?” “…” Silence. Just then, a couple of NYU students jostled past me, bumping my shoulder and making me yelp. Carter’s voice cut through the line, sharp and sudden. “Are you with a guy?” I seized the opportunity. “Oh, yeah, my boyfriend. We’re about to have a very romantic breakfast. What did you want?” His tone was flat, devoid of emotion. “Nothing. Must have been a dream. Forget it.” A dream? A wet dream, more like. Good. It was better this way. There was no way he’d figure it out. After all, I had a decade of experience cleaning up the evidence of my father’s affairs for my mother. I was a pro. Still, just to be safe, after I hung up, I opened Instagram. I found a stock photo of a generically handsome, muscular guy, photoshopped a picture of my own face next to his, and posted it with a caption of three lipstick-kiss emojis. My little performance worked perfectly. The next month was blissfully quiet. Carter didn’t suspect a thing. He didn’t even call or text. I finally let my guard down, throwing a party to celebrate my freedom. But as I raised a glass of champagne to my lips, a wave of nausea hit me, and I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up. 3 The paper in my hand felt flimsy, unreal. But the words were stark and undeniable. Pregnant. Was Carter Hayes some kind of fertility god? One shot, one goal? The doctor’s question echoed in my head: “Have you thought about whether you want to keep it?” My head throbbed. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and pretend this wasn’t happening. But life had other plans. As I sat on a bench outside the clinic, my phone rang. My mother. “Sloane! I just got a call from Katherine. She said she saw you at an OB/GYN. Are you pregnant?” A strange mix of shame and a desperate need to confide washed over me. My voice cracked. “Mom, listen, I think… I think I want to keep…” She cut me off, her voice like ice. “Get rid of it. Immediately.” “I’ve already found the perfect match for you. You’ll come home, you’ll get married, and we will secure that East Side property deal. We need to stabilize your father’s position before…” I flinched, as if she’d slapped me. It was like a bucket of ice water over my head, a cold that seeped past my skin and into my bones. “Mom… you didn’t even ask how I am? Or who the father is? You just want me to get rid of it?” “Who the father is doesn’t matter. Your half-brother is climbing the ranks at the company. I will not let that woman’s son steal what is rightfully ours.” “Is that all I am to you? A pawn in your war with Dad’s mistress for his affection?” “Don’t be dramatic. If you had been a boy, do you think I would have had to fight so hard? It’s not my fault I had a daughter. But I’ve never let you want for anything, have I? All I’m asking is for you to marry someone. How can you say such a thing to your own mother?!” “‘Just marry someone’? Mom, do you have any idea how I feel?” My hand holding the phone was trembling with rage. “Just like every time you needed money, you’d stage a scene, catching Dad with one of his women. You’d pretend to let me comfort him, to help him clean up his mess, and he’d pay me a fortune in hush money that always ended up in your account!” “Mom, I’m done. I don’t want this sick, transactional life you’ve chosen for yourself.” There was a beat of cold silence on the other end. “I don’t care what you think you want. You have one week to terminate this pregnancy and come home to sign the marriage license. If you don’t, you can consider yourself disowned. You won’t see another dollar from this family.” The line went dead. A sob tore from my throat. I crumpled over, burying my face in my hands, not caring who saw me. My phone slipped from my grasp and clattered onto the pavement. Through the blur of my tears, a pair of gleaming leather dress shoes entered my vision. “Well, well. The great Sloane Astor. I never knew you could look this pathetic.” A familiar, taunting voice, laced with something that sounded almost like amusement, drifted down from above. I looked up, my vision swimming, and met the intense gaze of Carter Hayes. Why was he here? Mortified, I scrubbed at my tear-streaked face and turned away. “Leave me alone.” He didn’t move. He stood there, one hand casually tucked in his pocket, a smirk playing on his lips. “Where’s that muscle-bound boyfriend you’re always posting about? Didn’t he want to come with you? Or did he finally dump you?” He gestured vaguely at the clinic door. “Crying alone outside an OB/GYN… it gives people the wrong idea.” “I’m not pregnant!” I shot up from the bench, my voice raw. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!” At that exact moment, a nurse stepped out. “Ms. Astor? Are you still wanting to schedule that termination procedure? We have an opening this afternoon, but you need to decide now.” The world stopped. Carter’s smirk vanished. His eyes snapped to mine, suddenly sharp and piercing. “Sloane. How far along are you?” Before I could answer, his gaze dropped to the crumpled lab report on the bench beside me. He bent down to grab it. 4 My heart hammered against my ribs. I lunged, snatching the paper just before his fingers could close around it, and hid it behind my back. Close call. If he saw that report, saw the date of conception, he’d know. And he would absolutely force me to get rid of it. “What the hell, Carter! A woman’s uterus is… private! You can’t just look at that!” I puffed out my chest, staring him down. “You want to know? Fine. I’m pregnant. Nine weeks. Are you happy now? You came here to laugh at the unwed mother, right?” My voice was shaking, but my gaze was defiant. Years of performing for my father had honed my acting skills to a razor’s edge. He stared at me for a long, silent moment, his eyes searching my face for a crack in the facade. The words “nine weeks” seemed to land like stones, and his expression grew colder, harder. The timeline didn’t add up to our night together. He knew that. “It’s your gym rat boyfriend’s?” he asked, his voice low. “…Yeah,” I mumbled, my heart pounding. “And he doesn’t know?” “Why… why should he?” I forced a casual shrug. “Call him,” Carter said, his face a mask of cold fury. “Call him right now. Tell him to get his ass down here.” “…” How was I supposed to call a man who didn’t exist? “He… he blocked me,” I lied. “Blocked you?” Carter repeated the words, his voice dangerously quiet, like the air before a storm. “Sloane, you’re usually so loud, so arrogant. A man walks all over you, and this is how you react? This pathetic, whimpering mess?” His words were laced with a讥讽 and a strange, simmering anger. Wait, why was he so angry? Even for a lifelong rival, this felt personal. It was just plain cruel to mock me like this. I bit my lip, anger surging past my fear. “He didn’t dump me, I dumped him!” Carter’s laugh was cold. “Oh yeah? Then why are you crying?” “They’re… they’re tears of joy! Obviously!” He fell silent. I thought he’d finally had his fun and would leave me alone. But after a moment, he spoke again, his tone unreadable. “What are you going to do about the baby?” The words came out before I could even think. “I’m keeping it.” In that moment, I knew it was true. My mother’s phone call hadn’t just broken my heart; it had clarified everything. If I didn’t go back and play by her rules, she was done with me. For her, I was a tool, and a broken tool gets thrown away. When you’ve never truly been loved, you develop a terrifying kind of clarity. This baby… this baby might be the only family I ever really have. “Keeping it?” Carter scoffed, his voice dripping with disdain. “Sloane, are you that obsessed with that piece of trash? You’d ruin your life to have his kid? I never took you for the type to lose your mind over a man.” See? He was just here to gloat. The bastard. I couldn’t let him see me like this, so vulnerable and broken. I turned my back on him and walked away. 5 It turned out I had overestimated even the conditional love my mother had for me. I went home to pack a bag, to grab my things. I wasn’t even allowed through the front door. The butler brought my suitcase out and left it on the curb. I stared at it, numb, before kneeling to stuff the clothes that had spilled out back into the case. As I zipped it shut, the sky opened up. A cold, miserable rain began to fall. I didn’t get far before the rain turned into a torrential downpour, the sky growing dark and menacing. I was soaked to the bone, shivering, desperately looking for some kind of shelter when a pair of blinding headlights cut through the gloom. A black sedan screeched to a halt in front of me. The window rolled down, revealing Carter Hayes’s impossibly handsome face. He had one hand on the steering wheel, his gaze flicking from my drenched form to my suitcase. I instinctively tried to hide it behind me. “…Fancy meeting you here,” I managed, my teeth chattering. “I’m just, uh, heading on a little trip.” He didn’t say a word. He just pushed his door open and got out of the car. As he walked toward me, a wave of humiliation washed over me. I stumbled backward. “Carter, don’t. Don’t come over here to mock me. I don’t have the energy to fight with you today… just leave me alone, please…” My plea was cut short as the ground disappeared from beneath my feet. He’d scooped me up into his arms as if I weighed nothing, hooking my suitcase with his other hand. “You’re keeping the baby, and this is how you take care of yourself? By standing in a freezing rainstorm?” His voice was a low growl. “Are you an idiot, Sloane?” There he goes again… He deposited me in the backseat of his car, grabbing a towel from somewhere to roughly dry my hair and face before cranking the heat to full blast. I felt dizzy and exhausted. I wanted to say something, to argue, but my body gave out. I leaned my head against the leather seat and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in Carter’s bed. I was tucked under two heavy comforters, and my feet were wrapped in a separate blanket. No wonder I was sweating. I could hear sounds coming from the kitchen. It was Carter, cooking. When he saw me emerge, he strode over, his long legs covering the distance in seconds. He pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. “No fever. Do you feel sick?” I shook my head. He led me to the small dining table. “Eat this first. Then go take a hot shower.” “…Okay.” I was starving. I didn’t have the energy to question his sudden kindness. I just picked up the bowl of porridge and started eating. “Slow down. No one’s going to steal it from you. You look pathetic.” He reached out and wiped a grain of rice from the corner of my mouth. I slapped his hand away, glaring at him. “Stop calling me pathetic!” “Alright, alright. You’ve got some food in you, you’ve got your energy back. You know how to glare again.” He smirked, that familiar, infuriating smirk. He pulled out a cigarette, but just as he was about to light it, he paused. He looked at me, then at the cigarette, and then he tossed the entire pack into the trash. I blinked, a flicker of warmth spreading through my chest. “You don’t have to do that. I can leave…” He ignored me, sliding my phone across the table. “I silenced it while you were sleeping. It’s been blowing up. Your mother.” He had seen the texts. The vile, manipulative messages about the forced marriage. Humiliation washed over me. I snatched the phone and shoved it under my thigh, pretending it didn’t exist. But karma, as they say, is a bitch. A few moments later, his phone rang. “You little bastard, you finally answer! Where is my granddaughter-in-law? If you don’t bring her to me this instant, what good are you…” Carter held the phone away from his ear, a roguish grin on his face. “Grandpa, I’m a little busy making a new grandchild with her right now. Gotta go.” He hung up. The air felt thick with awkwardness. I finished my porridge in record time and stood up. “Thanks for the food. I should get going…” “Sloane.” He stopped me. His voice, usually dripping with sarcasm, was suddenly serious. I turned back. “What?” “Marry me.” “Okay… wait, what?!” 6 I was still in a daze when we walked out of the City Clerk’s office, marriage certificate in hand. I, Sloane Astor, had married Carter Hayes. If this news got out, half of Manhattan’s elite would drop dead from shock. Oh, and I was pregnant with another man’s baby. That would probably take care of the other half. Carter finished a video call with his grandfather and walked back over to me. Seeing me standing precariously at the top of the steps, he wrapped an arm around my waist, his touch surprisingly natural. “Pregnant women shouldn’t stand so close to the edge. Don’t you know that’s dangerous?” The casual intimacy felt foreign. I stiffened, trying to pull away. “Don’t… don’t touch me.” “Mrs. Hayes,” he murmured, leaning in so close his lips brushed against my nose. “It’s legal now. This is called ‘cherishing my wife.’ It’s commendable behavior.” His voice was a low, warm rumble, and the way he said “wife” sent a strange heat spreading through my cheeks. My mind flashed back to that night, to the things he’d whispered, the way his body had trembled against mine… “What are you daydreaming about? Who are you thinking about?” His fingers squeezed my waist, a playful punishment. The word “who” sent a jolt of panic through me. “The baby isn’t yours!” I blurted out. The words hung in the air. I looked up and met his gaze. His eyes had gone dark, his expression thunderous. He looked like he wanted to eat me alive. “Sloane, we just got married, and you’re still thinking about that muscle-bound deadbeat?” “Well… just a little. Casually,” I mumbled. His eyes got even colder. Did I say something wrong? Ugh, my life was a mess. My mortal enemy was now my benefactor. We had signed a contract: a one-year marriage in exchange for fifty million dollars. He got his family off his back, and I got… well, I got fifty million dollars. For the money, I could endure. I puffed out my chest. “This is just a contract marriage. It’ll be over in a year. I’ll take my baby and go. I promise I won’t cause you any trouble.” I added, for good measure, “And you know I could never, ever fall for you.” His expression, which had been cold, now looked like it was carved from ice. God, this man was impossible to please. He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “You seem to have it all figured out, don’t you?” “Of course! I’m a professional! I’ll fulfill all my duties to the letter!” I chirped, trying to sound enthusiastic. “All your duties? Including the basic ones?” “Which are?” “Sleeping with me.” My eyes went wide. “I’m pregnant! How am I supposed to—!” He smirked. “Does being pregnant affect your mouth?” It took me a second to understand. When I did, my face burned. “Carter Hayes, you are a shameless pig—” My words were cut off as his mouth crashed down on mine. It was a fierce, punishing kiss, fueled by a strange anger that made my lips ache. I whimpered in protest, but he held the back of my head, deepening the kiss until I was breathless. I finally managed to bite his lip and push him away, gasping for air. “Carter! Your kissing is still as terrible as it was that night—” Shit. Freudian slip. His eyes narrowed. I quickly backpedaled. “—as terrible as it was compared to my ex-boyfriend! He was a much better kisser!” Between confessing and digging a deeper hole, I chose the hole. A slow, dangerous smile spread across his face. “An ex-boyfriend this, an ex-boyfriend that… right in front of your new husband. You’ve got guts, Sloane. You really think I can’t find him?” Of course you can’t, I thought. How do you find someone who doesn’t exist? I couldn’t imagine he had that kind of power. 7 I was wrong. He had exactly that kind of power. Three days later, when Carter dragged a man into our living room, my jaw hit the floor. “Him… he’s…” “Hudson Pierce,” Carter said, his voice flat. “Third son of the Pierce family. A spoiled, useless trust-fund kid. A regular at every nightclub south of 14th street. Has a list of conquests long enough to circle Central Park. At least thirty women have claimed to have attempted suicide over him.” An assistant placed a photo on the coffee table in front of me. It was the full, uncropped version of the picture I’d posted. “This is the photo you posted on your Instagram, isn’t it? The one with the face conveniently cropped out.” “….” Shit. I’d just grabbed a random photo off some obscure blog. How did I manage to pick an actual person from our social circle? Carter’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong? Don’t recognize your old flame?” The evidence was irrefutable. I had no way out, unless I told him the truth. And to protect my baby, I couldn’t do that. So I gritted my teeth and nodded. The moment I did, Carter’s demeanor shifted. He kicked a chair out of his way and stood up, a dark, violent energy radiating off him. He slowly unwound his tie, wrapping it around his fist, knuckle by knuckle. The movement was elegant, but the intent was brutal. “Man, I’m sorry, I don’t know who this chick is!” Hudson Pierce yelped. It was the last thing he said before Carter grabbed him by the collar and slammed a fist into his jaw. “‘Chick’? Who gave you permission to call her that?” Carter’s voice was a low growl. “Who gave you permission to even look at her?” Punch after punch landed with a sickening thud. I could hear the impacts from across the room. It was terrifying. He’s going to kill him. “Carter, wait—” He froze, turning to look at me, his eyes dark and wild. “Feeling sorry for him?” His voice was a dangerous whisper. “Sloane, you are now Mrs. Carter Hayes. You say one more word in his defense, and I swear to God…” “…” Fine. The guy was a known womanizer. This was probably just karma. When it was over, Hudson Pierce was a blubbering, bruised mess on the floor. “Mr. Hayes, please! I swear I never slept with her! I don’t remember her!” Carter crouched down in front of him, patting his swollen cheek. “You think she’s just some girl you can sleep with and forget? You think you’re worthy of her?” He leaned in closer. “She is my wife now. And she will be my wife for the rest of her life. If you ever so much as breathe in her direction again, if a single hair from your head comes anywhere near her… I will chop you into pieces and feed you to the dogs.” … When Carter came out, there were specks of blood on his shirt. I was waiting by the door, an umbrella held over me by a bodyguard. “Are you… okay?” I asked tentatively. Did you actually kill him? “What, you want to ask about him?” “No, no! I’m worried about you! I don’t care about him at all!” I said, my eyes nervously darting past him, trying to see into the room. In the next second, I was airborne. He swept me into his arms and deposited me in the back of the car. “Still say you’re not worried about him? I saw you peeking.” He pinned me against the seat, his eyes blazing with a fierce, possessive light that made my heart race. “I… I wasn’t looking…” “Still lying. Sloane, what do you see in a piece of garbage like that?” “You’re… you’re too close…” I tried to push him away, but he caught my wrists, pinning them above my head. His hot breath washed over my face. “Once the baby is born, it will have my last name. Hopefully, my genes can counteract some of the damage from yours or his. Either way… a total loss.” “But we’re getting a divorce, remember?” The hand on my waist tightened. “A divorce? Don’t tell me you’re still planning on marrying that asshole.” “I…” “Sloane, you’re hesitating?” He let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh, and then his mouth was on mine, biting and kissing. “Right. You give me the cold shoulder, but you let him sleep with you. I’m better looking than him, I’m stronger than him, am I not? Sloane, are you blind? What kind of screwed-up taste do you have?” He sounded so… angry. My nose started to tingle. A sudden, overwhelming wave of self-pity washed over me. “Carter, you’re being mean to me again!” He froze, looking genuinely taken aback. “You’re crying now?” But his surprise only made the tears fall faster, streaming down my cheeks. He completely panicked. “Okay, I’ll stop. I’ll stop, okay?” “Waaaaah, you’re just making fun of me! I’m pregnant and you’re still so mean to me…” “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I was wrong. Your husband was wrong. I’m an asshole. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry, okay?” He leaned in, gently kissing the tears from my cheeks, his voice dropping to a soft, coaxing murmur. “You and the baby, I want you. I’ll take care of you both forever.” He said it while his hand slid up my thigh, his long fingers finding the hem of my dress. “Be good, Sloane, be good… let me take care of you, make you feel good, hmm?” My vision was still blurry with tears. By the time I realized what was happening, my dress was already on the floor. “Carter, what are you doing—ah…” 8 Never trust a man. One minute they’re comforting you, the next they’re… doing that. When I woke up, I was back in the bedroom of our apartment. My fingers were so sore I could barely make a fist. My collarbones and shoulders were covered in embarrassing marks. After cursing Carter’s name for a solid five minutes, I dragged myself out of bed. In the kitchen, a thermal container held a nutritious, freshly cooked breakfast. Tucked under it was a note in his distinctive, elegant handwriting. Eat this before 10, or I’ll have a fresh meal sent over. Don’t forget your prenatal vitamins. No ice water. For such an asshole, he was surprisingly thoughtful. I went into the bathroom and found that he’d lined the entire floor with non-slip mats. Even the toilet seat had been replaced with one in my favorite shade of pastel blue. I couldn’t help but smile as I stomped on the mat a little. Maybe the asshole wasn’t so bad after all. Perhaps because of his meticulous care, the first trimester of my pregnancy was a breeze. I had no morning sickness at all. Though we kept our marriage a secret, my family inevitably found out. My mother started calling three times a day. Even my arrogant half-brother, who had always looked down on me, came to me, practically begging for an audience. I knew why. Carter Hayes was the heir to two of the most powerful families in the country, one with old money in New York, the other with a global empire based in London. His influence was unparalleled. I wasn’t about to let that advantage go to waste. I went straight to my father and negotiated. Believing our marriage was real, and desperate to curry favor with the Hayes family, he signed over a significant portion of his company stock to me. I took it without a moment’s hesitation, along with several properties and a few pieces from his art collection. For “good faith,” I told him. To show the Hayes family our sincerity. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt for using Carter like that. But only a tiny one. Considering my hands and mouth were sore every single day from “fulfilling my marital duties,” I figured he was getting his money’s worth. I was beginning to suspect he only married me for my looks, or maybe he had some weird pregnancy fetish. I rubbed my belly. “Baby,” I murmured, “your biological father may be an ass, but he’s taking pretty good care of you. Maybe Mommy should reward him.” I sent Carter a text. [Hey Dog-face, I want to design a custom shirt for you. Send me your measurements.] He replied instantly: [10.15 inches.] I stared at the screen. [?] [Are you a pervert? Not THAT measurement!] Carter: [3.15 inches wide. Can send a pic of current status if needed. Reply 1 for yes.] I typed back, furious: [In your dreams! It’s probably one millimeter!] 9 I paid dearly for that one-millimeter comment over the next month. But I finished the shirt. I designed it, drafted the pattern, cut the fabric, and stitched it myself. I planned to give it to him tonight, at his birthday party. But when I walked into the private room at the club, gift bag in hand, the atmosphere was all wrong. Carter was sitting on a couch, swirling a glass of whiskey, his face dark. “What’s wrong with…” I started to ask, then I saw her. The beautiful woman sitting near him. Mila. My high school classmate. And, according to rumor, the only girl Carter Hayes had ever written a love letter to. His “one that got away.” The “Mila” he’d whispered in his sleep that first morning. So that’s why he was in a mood. Love trouble. Serves the bastard right. I should have felt triumphant. But for some reason, my appetite vanished. I found an empty seat in a far corner, tucking the gift bag behind me. I shouldn’t have made him the shirt. I shouldn’t have stayed up all night embroidering his initials on the cuff. What an idiot. Sloane, get a grip. As I’d expected, Carter didn’t treat me with his usual possessive affection. He didn’t even look at me. Instead, I got a text. [Something’s come up. Stay where you are for now. I’ll have the driver take you home early.] Fine. I didn’t want to sit next to him anyway. I was planning on making a quiet exit, but things got complicated. One of the guys at the party had brought a date who’d had a little too much to drink. “…and that guy, Hudson Pierce?” she slurred, laughing. “He offered to pay me to be a surrogate for him! Can you believe it? So I took his sample to the clinic, and you’ll never guess what they told me!” She paused for dramatic effect. “The doctor said he has a genetic condition. His sperm is non-viable. He literally can’t get a woman pregnant… ever!” The table erupted in laughter. But across the room, Carter’s head snapped up. His eyes, sharp and intense, found me in my corner. I kept my head down, pretending I hadn’t heard. Two words echoed in my mind. I’m screwed.

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Hayden Shaw came to St. Jude’s Home for Children to choose a sister. Every other girl scrambled to be seen, praying they’d be the one. I was the only one hidden away, fast asleep in a wardrobe. I thought I could escape it this time. Escape the fate of becoming a Shaw, and eventually, becoming Hayden Shaw’s wife. I thought I could finally live a life that was my own, free and happy. But when I woke up, the first thing I saw was Hayden, standing before the open wardrobe door. He smiled and asked me, “Cora, how would you like to come home with me?” 1 When Hayden Shaw’s face swam into view, my first thought was that I was still trapped in the nightmare. It wasn’t until the director’s sharp voice cut through the haze that I knew it was real. “Cora, what are you doing sleeping in there?” The fog in my head cleared. This was happening. Seeing me frozen, the director, Mrs. Davison, reached in and pulled me out of the wardrobe. The smell of mothballs and old wool clung to me. She straightened my collar, her fingers rough, and then nudged me forward, towards the Shaws. “You were asleep. Mr. Shaw was kind enough to ask us not to wake you.” Her voice was tight with an unspoken reprimand. “We’ve all been waiting for you.” Hayden stood just in front of his parents, a faint, unreadable smile on his face as he looked at me. He was different from the cold, distant Hayden I remembered. Softer. Younger. He spoke first. “Hi, Cora.” For some reason, hearing my name from his lips felt deeply, unnervingly strange. I frowned, my gaze dropping to the floor to avoid his. A question burned in my mind: they could have picked anyone else. Why wait for me? “Waiting for me? For what?” Mrs. Davison crouched down, her usual stern expression replaced by a rare, strained smile. “They want to adopt you, Cora. You’re going to have a family. A mother, a father… and a brother.” I think she was trying to be happy for me. For any child at St. Jude’s, being chosen was like winning the lottery. But Mrs. Davison didn’t know my secret. I’d lived this life before. I knew Hayden Shaw was coming today. That’s precisely why I’d hidden in the wardrobe. “Cora, sweetheart, won’t you come home with us?” Mrs. Shaw took my hand. Her touch was soft, her voice gentle. “Hayden has always wanted a little sister. You could be his sister.” The scene was a perfect, horrifying replica of the last time. The past flickered through my mind like a broken film projector. I snatched my hand back. I looked up, not at them, but at the director. “Mrs. Davison, I don’t want to be adopted by them.” A collective, sharp intake of breath filled the room. Everyone was stunned. Hayden’s reaction was the strongest. His smile vanished, his brow furrowing. “Why?” “Because I don’t want to be your sister.” Despite my rejection, no anger appeared on his face. Instead, his voice became even gentler, laced with an unnerving thread of indulgence. “Then don’t be my sister. Just come home with the Shaws. Live with us. Is that okay?” Mrs. Davison gave my sleeve a sharp tug, a silent, desperate plea. It didn’t stop me from refusing him again. “No.” I thought that would be the end of it. But when the director, flustered, asked the Shaws if they’d like to see the other girls, Hayden’s voice rang out, loud and clear. “Mom. I want her.” He looked straight at me. “Only her. She’s the one who looks the most like my sister.” 2 Last time, that was the reason he’d given, too. I looked like his dead sister. Back then, when I learned I was chosen, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I was taken to the Shaw’s sprawling estate, given a new name—Cora Shaw—and my very own room in their enormous house. I didn’t care that the room wasn’t truly mine. I was just grateful to have it. “Girls from the system can be… unpolished,” Mrs. Shaw had said. “Their manners aren’t fit for our world.” So, I shed my old self like a snake sheds its skin, molding myself into someone I no longer recognized. Mrs. Shaw was exacting. I was forced to practice the piano for hours upon hours every day. Even when my teacher insisted I had no natural talent, Mrs. Shaw would sit with me, a constant, smiling presence. But you can’t force a flower to bloom in barren soil. “I’m sorry, Mom. I still can’t get it right,” I’d apologize, my fingers aching. And every time, she would look at me with that same indulgent expression and soothe me. “It’s alright, darling. As long as you keep trying, you’ll be wonderful one day.” It was much later that I learned her deceased daughter had loved the piano. All of Mrs. Shaw’s affection was just her projecting a ghost onto me. I was a stand-in. I didn’t care. A drowning fish doesn’t question the purity of the water; it only gasps for a breath. Her love was my water. I would take it, clean or not. I tried harder at the piano, harder at pleasing her. We grew closer, our relationship blurring into something that felt real. Until Hayden’s engagement party. He was drugged. I was the one who stumbled into his room. When Mr. Shaw found us, the shock sent him into a fatal collapse. Mrs. Shaw slapped me across the face, her eyes blazing with a hatred I’d never seen. “I should never have brought you into this house.” Hayden just watched me, his expression unreadable. But I knew. I knew he was regretting it, too. Regretting the day he chose me to be his sister. “I don’t know what happened,” I pleaded, my voice raw. “I didn’t drug him. I swear.” No one believed me. Later, for years, during every betrayal, every public humiliation in our forced marriage, he would sneer, “You drugged your own brother to marry him. Don’t you dare play the victim now. This is your karma.” Hayden hated me. He took pleasure in shaming me, in making sure everyone in our circle knew I was beneath him. They all placed bets on how long our marriage would last. “A year, tops,” they’d whisper. “The second that baby is born, he’ll kick her to the curb.” They were all wrong. Hayden and I were tangled together for nineteen years. Even after I died, the words carved on my tombstone were: Beloved Wife of Hayden Shaw. … “Cora, tell me. Why don’t you want to be adopted by the Shaws?” After his parents left, Mrs. Davison called me into her office. I was silent for a long time before offering a weak lie. “I don’t want to leave you and everyone here.” She sighed, a heavy, tired sound, and urged me to reconsider. I knew she meant well. She wanted a better life for me. But I refused to walk that path again. I would not have anything to do with Hayden Shaw. That night, a fire broke out, and all my plans went up in smoke. 3 “Did you set the fire?” I stared at him from my hospital cot, my voice cold and flat. “No,” Hayden said, his denial swift and earnest. “The fire department investigated. It was old wiring.” He let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh. “Cora, you think I’m a monster.” In this life, we’d only met a handful of times, yet he spoke to me with a disturbing familiarity. “I just want to help you,” he said, his voice low. “If you agree to come home with me, I’ll cover all of Mrs. Davison’s medical bills.” She had been badly burned trying to get us all out. I let out a cold laugh. “Taking advantage of a tragedy. Does that make you a good person?” He didn’t try to defend himself. He just said, “Cora, you don’t have to be my sister. You can just be a foster child. Living with us.” He was persuasive, relentless in his compromise. But it only made me more suspicious. “Why are you so desperate to have me at your house?” “My mother… she’s been missing my sister a lot lately. And you look so much like her,” Hayden said. “I thought bringing you home might comfort her.” I was only half-convinced. His behavior was too strange, too intense. I pressed him. “Is that all?” He hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding. “That’s all.” I didn’t want anything to do with him, but Mrs. Davison was lying in a hospital bed, her life hanging in the balance. I had no choice. On the drive to the Shaw estate, Hayden kept trying to talk to me, but I remained silent, staring out the window. He must have sensed my hostility, because his tone softened, became almost pleading. “The Shaws can give you a better life. It’s better than the group home, no matter how you look at it,” he said. “Cora, don’t be angry with me. I’m doing this for your own good.” I’m doing this for your own good… He’d said that in our last life, too. After hating me for more than a decade, his attitude had softened in my final days. But by then, the cancer was untreatable. My only companion was a small stray cat I’d taken in. One day, on a whim, Hayden came to visit me at the villa. The first thing he did was have someone throw the cat out. I’d asked him, my voice weak, “Why?” He’d looked down at me, his expression cool. “I’m doing this for your own good.” I knew then what it meant. It was never about my well-being. It was an excuse he used to satisfy his own selfish desires, his need for control. Or maybe it was just another way to torture me. He’d always been like that. Whatever I cherished, he destroyed. … As the car pulled up to the house, I saw Mrs. Shaw waiting at the front door. Hayden had called ahead. A room on the second floor had already been prepared. “Cora, this will be your room,” she said, taking my hand with a cloying familiarity. “Do you like it?” I looked down at our joined hands for a moment before pulling mine away. I was no longer the desperate, love-starved girl from my past life. “Mrs. Shaw,” I said, my voice even. “This was your daughter’s room, wasn’t it?” I gestured to the perfectly preserved space. “You’ve kept all her things. You clearly treasure them.” I met her eyes. “If I stayed in here, I might accidentally break something. I wouldn’t want to cause you any pain.” I finished, “I saw there’s a guest room downstairs. I’ll stay there.” Mrs. Shaw looked at me, about to argue. “But…” “Mom,” Hayden cut in. “If Cora wants to stay downstairs, just have the housekeeper prepare it.” I glanced at him, the one who was supposedly speaking up for me. He had no idea. The real reason I refused to stay on the second floor was because his bedroom was right next door. In our past life, before the engagement party, we’d had a harmonious relationship, or so I thought. I was a teenager with a crush. I remember Mrs. Shaw asking me, “Cora, what kind of boys do you like?” I’d looked over at Hayden, flushed and sweaty from his morning run, and smiled. “Someone like my brother.” That innocent, offhand remark later became evidence in the trial of my character. Proof that I had plotted to drug my own brother. Every time I tried to defend myself—“I didn’t drug you”—Hayden would grab me, his fingers digging into my neck. “You told my mother you liked me when you were sixteen,” he’d hiss. “You were obsessed. You drugged me to force my hand, and now you don’t have the guts to admit it?” 4 Perhaps it was being back in this house, but that night, my dreams were filled with memories of the life before. In my final days, my oncologist had suggested, “You shouldn’t be alone all the time. Call your family, your friends. Have them visit.” “I don’t have any family,” I had told her. As for friends… my best friend used to be Hayden’s fiancée, Scarlett Jensen. She returned to the country five years into my marriage with Hayden. He picked her up from the airport himself and threw a lavish ‘welcome home’ party for her. Someone deliberately recorded a video at that party and sent it to me. It showed the two of them in a dark corner, locked in a passionate kiss. It was only a few seconds long, but I watched it on a loop all night. That was the night I made a choice. I gave up on our second child, and I asked Hayden for a divorce. He asked me, “On what grounds?” I showed him the video. “Hayden, I know you were forced to marry me. But Scarlett is back now, and it looks like she’s forgiven you. Let’s divorce. We can go our separate ways.” I had asked for a divorce many times before, and he had always refused. I thought, with Scarlett’s return, he would finally agree. But Hayden just tore up the papers I’d prepared and deleted the video from my phone. … “Cora? Cora?” I woke with a gasp, my hand lashing out, connecting with a sharp crack against Hayden’s cheek. He looked at me, a boy’s face, his eyes wide with something that looked like hurt. “I heard you crying from the hall,” he said softly. “I just came in to check on you.” He turned to leave, then paused at the door. “You should get up. We’re going to be late for school.” Just like last time, the Shaws had enrolled me in Hayden’s high school. As I followed him into the classroom, someone called out, “Hey, Hayden, who’s that?” He introduced me. “This is Cora. She’s staying with my family for now.” A flicker of memory. In our past life, before everything went wrong, he always introduced me with pride. “This is my sister, Cora Shaw.” I looked at Hayden, standing just a foot away from me, and a strange realization dawned. He wasn’t the same as the boy I remembered from my first life. But he wasn’t the cruel, vengeful man he became, either. He was… something else. My heart hammered against my ribs. A terrifying thought began to form. “Hayden.” “Hayden.” Another voice called his name at the exact same moment as mine. He glanced at me, then looked past me, towards the classroom door. I turned to follow his gaze. It was Scarlett Jensen. “Hayden, wait for me after school. I need to talk to you,” she said, her eyes fixed on him. Only then did she seem to notice me standing beside him. Her expression soured instantly. She sized me up, a quick, dismissive scan from head to toe. “So you’re the girl staying at the Shaws’?” She was my best friend in my past life. I knew her tells. And right now, the hostility rolling off her was unmistakable. This was completely different. Back then, when Scarlett learned I was Hayden’s sister, she had looped her arm through mine, called me Cora, and welcomed me into her inner circle. Now, she looked at me the way she did the very last time I saw her. It had been an ugly confrontation. I had asked her, “The security footage shows only you and I went into Hayden’s room that night. I didn’t drug him. So it was you, wasn’t it?” I couldn’t understand it. She loved him so much. Why would she ruin their own engagement party? “Her name is Cora,” Hayden answered for me. Scarlett forced a tight smile, then said nothing more. Throughout the morning classes, I could feel her eyes on my back. As much as it unsettled me, I forced myself to ignore her, to focus on the words in the textbook in front of me. 5 In my past life, I was a terrible student. Mrs. Shaw never cared. In fact, the worse my grades were, the happier she seemed. “Cora is becoming more and more like my little girl,” she would say. “She never cared for books either.” A parent who truly loves their child plans for their future. What mother wishes for her daughter to be nothing more than a beautiful, empty shell? In the end, she never saw me as her daughter. I was just a toy, a comfort object to ease her grief. This time, I refused to live that way again. I wouldn’t spend the first half of my life as a substitute for a dead girl, and the second half as a useless, gilded canary, wasting away in a cage. Education was my only way out. But it wasn’t easy. Frustrated by my inability to understand the material, I pushed my chair back and stood up. Hayden, who had been talking with some friends, noticed the movement immediately. He turned to me. “Where are you going?” “The restroom,” I snapped, my patience worn thin. I remembered the girls’ restroom being perpetually crowded during breaks, but today, it was eerily empty. The moment I pushed the door open, I knew something was wrong. A group of girls inside all turned to look at me in unison. The one closest to me was Scarlett. She dropped a cigarette butt to the floor, grinding it out with her shoe. She glanced at another girl, crumpled on the wet floor and soaked with grimy water, before turning her attention to me. “Just messing around,” Scarlett said with a lazy smile. “You’re not going to tell Hayden, are you?” I looked from the cigarette to the girl on the floor. I realized then that I had never known Scarlett at all. I never knew she smoked, or that she was a bully. After a moment, I said, “Hayden and I aren’t that close.” “Really?” she asked, though her expression had already relaxed. “I thought you were living with him.” I met her gaze directly. “Living in the same house doesn’t mean we’re close.” Scarlett nodded. “Good.” With that, she and her friends filed out. Once they were gone, I looked at the girl on the floor. After a moment, I walked past her into a stall. When I came out, she was standing at the utility sink, her back to me. She was only in a thin camisole, washing her school-issued button-down shirt under the faucet. Hearing the door, she quickly wrung out the shirt and slipped the damp fabric back on. Head down, she made a dash for the exit. As she passed me, I reached out and grabbed her arm. The girl looked up at me, her eyes wide with confusion. We stared at each other for a long moment before I remembered her name. Leah. I took off my own cardigan and pushed it into her hands. “Your shirt is wet. Wear this.” Leah ducked her head, mumbling, “No, it’s okay.” “It’s see-through,” I said bluntly. “You can see your camisole right through it.” Her ears turned a deep shade of red. She clutched her arms across her chest, hesitating for a long moment before finally taking my cardigan. As Leah went into a stall to change, I let out a quiet breath of relief. I wasn’t the type to get involved. But I remembered her. In my last life, not long after I transferred here, Leah had jumped from the roof of the school. The official explanation was family problems and academic pressure. But seeing this now, I suspected there was more to her story. It was a life… a young life. “Thank you.” Leah’s voice was soft when she came out, now wearing my sweater. The words “you’re welcome” were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them. An idea was forming. “You get good grades, right?” I asked her. I remembered that before she died, she had been first in our year. She looked surprised, then nodded. “They’re okay.” “Leah,” I said, glancing at the cardigan she was wearing. “I’ll lend you my sweater. In return, you can tutor me.” I didn’t give her a chance to refuse. “After the next pop quiz, they’re rearranging the seating chart. We’ll be desk mates. It’ll be easier for you to help me.” Leah hesitated for a long time before finally agreeing. After school, Hayden insisted I ride home with him. The moment I got in the car, Scarlett ran up to the window. “Hayden, can we talk?” I had no interest in their drama and tried to tune them out. But the parking lot was quiet, and Scarlett’s voice was high and emotional, carrying on the wind. It drifted right into the car. “Is it because of her? Is Cora why you’re breaking up with me?” she demanded. “Hayden, we’ve been together for so long. The minute she shows up, you end things. What other reason could there be?” Hayden’s voice was weary. “It’s not about anyone else, Scarlett. I just… I suddenly realized that what I feel for you isn’t romantic. I’ve always seen you as a sister.” In that instant, everything clicked into place. I finally understood why Scarlett had been watching me all day, why she saw me as a threat.

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Hurricane Isabel, the strongest storm in a century, was tearing our city apart. I was a week from my due date, and a contraction seized me so violently I nearly dropped the phone. I was about to call my husband, Ethan, the head of OB/GYN at St. Jude’s University Hospital, when a voice echoed in my head. A voice that was not my own. [Mommy, don’t call him.] I flinched, thinking the pain was making me hallucinate. But the thought was too clear, too specific. And it had a reason. [Daddy’s with her. The girl he never got over. If he comes to you now, she’ll die in the storm.] My blood ran cold. On the other end of the line, my husband’s voice, smooth and professional, finally came through. “Is this an emergency, Claire? I’m a little busy.” [He’ll kill us, Mommy. He’ll let us die to make it up to her.] The tiny, frantic voice in my skull sent a tremor of pure animal fear through me. I found my own voice, making it flat, unemotional. “No. It’s nothing. I can handle it myself.” Let him stay with his ghost. I was choosing to trust my child. 1 After I hung up, the shriek of the wind outside intensified, the sound of a beast trying to claw its way in. The floor-to-ceiling windows in our penthouse living room, a feature Ethan had been so proud of, were bowing inward, the glass warping like a sheet of plastic wrap under the assault of the Category 5 winds. I stared at them, a primal dread coiling in my gut. Another contraction, this one a low, grinding pressure, pulled my focus downward. I clutched my belly, trying to heave myself off the couch to get the hospital bag I should have packed weeks ago. The small, urgent voice returned, clearer this time. [Mommy, get out of the living room! Now! Daddy let Ava talk him into this apartment, but he cheaped out on the glass. It’s not rated for a storm like this. It’s going to break!] A jolt of adrenaline shot through me. There was no time to question it. Driven by pure instinct, I half-crawled, half-dragged my heavy body toward the small, windowless guest bathroom behind the building’s main support wall. I had just managed to pull my weight inside, my breath coming in ragged gasps, when the world behind me exploded. BOOM! I whipped my head around to see the entire wall of windows disintegrate, sucked out into the storm as if by a giant’s hand. A tidal wave of glass shards and torrential rain blasted into our home, instantly shredding furniture, art, our entire life together, into a maelstrom of debris. My strength gave out. I collapsed onto the cold tile, the phone slipping from my sweaty palm. A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my abdomen. A moment later, a warm gush of fluid soaked through my leggings. My water had broken. [I’m sorry, Mommy… I think… I think I’m coming out.] The baby’s voice was thin with fear, laced with a sob. I remembered a video from a birthing class—once your water breaks, you don’t move. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, fumbling for the phone, my fingers slick with amniotic fluid. I managed to dial 911. “911, what is your emergency?” a calm dispatcher’s voice said over the chaos. I steadied my breath and gave her the address. There was a pause. Her tone shifted. “Ma’am, are you Dr. Ethan Cole’s wife? I’m transferring you to Dr. Evans in the ER. He’s coordinating our storm response and knows your area best.” Mark Evans. Ethan’s best friend, the hospital’s head of emergency medicine. A wave of relief washed over me. I was saved. The call connected instantly. “Claire, what the hell?” Mark’s voice was sharp, impatient. “Ethan already gave me a heads-up. Stop messing around. You need to cut it out.” My heart stopped. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It wasn’t a hallucination. Ethan truly believed my call for help was just a petty, jealous game. Remembering my baby’s warning, a new wave of fear, colder and sharper than any contraction, washed over me. “I’m not,” I begged, my voice cracking. “My water broke, Mark. Please, you have to send someone.” He scoffed. “In this weather? Are you serious? Besides, every ambulance in the city is on standby for critical emergencies. Ethan told me you were fine, just looking for attention.” His voice dripped with condescension. “We’re in the middle of a natural disaster, Claire. Medical resources are stretched to the limit. Don’t waste them because you’re feeling jealous.” Click. He hung up without a second thought. I stared at the dark screen, the last flicker of hope extinguished. The hurricane slammed against the flimsy bathroom door, again and again. With every gush of fluid, I could feel my body’s warmth seeping away, taking my baby’s with it. I placed a hand on my belly, no longer feeling the familiar, reassuring kicks. I had to get up. I had to crawl out of this death trap if I had to. But as I tried to move, a contraction of unimaginable force seized me. The world went black, and I fell hard against the wet tile, the impact jarring every bone in my body. I was lying in a spreading pool of my own fluids and blood. I didn’t have the strength to get up again. 2 [Mommy, don’t give up. Post in the residents’ group chat. Ask for help!] On the edge of consciousness, the tiny voice sparked back to life. It was the last thread I had to hold onto. With trembling fingers, I found my phone, my vision blurring the blood smeared across the screen. I opened the building’s Facebook group. “This is Claire Cole in Penthouse 1901 in Tower 12. I’m pregnant and my water just broke. Is there a doctor in the building? Please, help me and my baby.” I added, “The living room windows are gone. I’m trapped in the guest bathroom.” The response was immediate. “Oh my God! In this storm!” “I can’t help, but I’ve already called 911 and the fire department rescue squad for you. Sister, you have to hang on!” “Don’t be scared, honey! We’re your neighbors, we’ll figure something out!” A flood of messages poured in. Then a voice message from a man whose profile picture was of him in military fatigues. His voice was calm and steady. “This is Dave from Tower 11. I’m a combat vet. When the eye of the storm passes over, I’m going over. Any other able-bodied men want to come with me?” The group went silent for a second, then erupted. “I’m in.” “Count me in.” “My husband will go!” Tears I didn’t know I had left streamed down my face. In my darkest moment, strangers were offering me the hope my own husband had denied. I don’t know how long I lay there, but eventually, the apocalyptic roar outside ceased, replaced by an eerie, deafening silence. The eye of the storm. At that exact moment, I heard the frantic pounding of footsteps outside my apartment door. “Claire? Are you okay? We’re here to get you out!” I choked back a sob. “I’m okay!” I yelled, my voice hoarse. “Roger that! We’re breaking down the door!” the man shouted back. CRASH! CRASH! CRASH! With a final, deafening boom, the reinforced steel door was smashed open. Several figures rushed in, led by Dave, the retired Marine. His face was grim, but when his eyes fell on the pool of blood beneath me, his expression turned to one of alarm. “Shit. Okay, find a plank, something sturdy! We need to carry her down!” Hands were all over me, carefully lifting me onto what looked like a splintered piece of a door. As they carried me through the wreckage of my home, my gaze fell on the entryway. On the console table, the glass on our wedding photo was shattered. But the picture itself was untouched. Ethan had his arm around me, his smile so full of warmth and adoration it looked like he was holding the most precious thing in the universe. What a fucking joke. I stared at his lying, hypocritical smile, and a pain sharper than any contraction squeezed my heart. [Don’t look at him, Mommy. He thinks you’re messy.] The baby’s tearful voice cut through my haze, severing the last thread of affection I had for that man. I closed my eyes, the heartbreak absolute. Down in the relative safety of the underground parking garage, the neighbors tried 911 again. This time, Mark Evans answered the speakerphone. “This is St. Jude’s ER, Dr. Evans speaking.” “Doctor, we’re in the Azure Tower garage. We have a pregnant woman whose water has broken! Where the hell is your ambulance?” Dave roared. “The eye of the storm is going to pass any minute!” On the other end, I could practically hear Mark roll his eyes. He said my name with weary disdain. “Is this about Claire Cole again? How many people did you get to play along with this little drama of yours?” Dave exploded. “Are you fucking kidding me? We’re talking about two human lives here! What kind of doctor are you? I swear to God, I’ll have your license for this!” Mark seemed taken aback by the fury. He paused, then sneered. “You want to threaten me? Fine. Prove it. Put her on video and show me she’s really in labor.” The phone’s camera was immediately pointed at me. A face, pale as death. Clothes soaked through with blood. The undeniable, steady trickle of fluid from between my legs. Mark went silent. The neighbors, thinking they’d finally gotten through, pressed him. “So? Can you send a car now?” “…It’s already on its way,” he said, his voice strained. But I heard a different voice, my baby’s, frantic and fading fast. [He’s lying! He didn’t send anyone!] [Mommy, the access road at the front of the complex… it’s going to collapse in five minutes! If we don’t leave now, we’ll be trapped!] 3 My baby’s voice was terrifyingly weak. My heart seized. I grabbed Dave’s arm, my grip surprisingly strong. “He’s lying,” I rasped. “We have to use your car. We have to go now!” My voice rose to a desperate cry. “The main road… it’s about to collapse!” The neighbors stared at me, confused. Through the phone, Mark laughed, a sound full of derision. “Wow, Claire. You’re really committing to the bit, huh? You came up with a whole collapsing road subplot just to get Ethan’s attention?” I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. I locked my eyes, raw and bloodshot, onto Dave’s. “Please,” I begged. “Please, trust me. We have to drive. Now!” Dave looked at my terrified face, then made a split-second decision. “You heard her! Get her in my truck! Let’s go!” He scooped me up as others opened the door to his lifted Ford F-150. They maneuvered me into the back seat just as he gunned the engine. The truck shot forward out of the garage. The phone line was still open. Mark was still talking. “I really have to see how this little play of yours ends…” He never finished the sentence. Just as our tires hit the public street, a deafening groan echoed from behind us. CRUUUUNCH! The entire stretch of road we had just driven over buckled and then collapsed into a newly formed sinkhole, swallowed by the earth. Everyone in the truck gasped. On the phone, Mark’s voice was choked with horror and disbelief. “You… How did you know that?” Before I could answer, a pain unlike anything I had ever felt tore through me. My whole body arched, and a hot, primal torrent erupted from between my legs. On the screen, Mark could see my belly contracting into a rigid peak. He finally understood. This was real. A doctor’s duty, long overdue, finally kicked in. He began directing Dave to pull over to a sheltered spot, his voice a remote guide as he started talking me through the birth. The waves of pain were endless, drowning my senses, pulling me under. My world narrowed to the shaking roof of the truck and the bloody haze in front of my eyes. I was losing consciousness, ready to give up. [Push, Mommy… I want to live… I want to see you…] The baby’s voice, a faint, desperate whisper. I want to see you. The words were a lightning bolt, shattering the fog in my mind. My baby. He had never seen the world. He had never seen me. He had fought so hard, warned me, stayed with me, all because he wanted to live long enough to see his mother’s face. I gripped the leather seat beneath me, summoned every last ounce of strength in my body, and screamed a raw, guttural cry that ripped from my soul. And then, through the sound of the wind and rain finally starting to die down, another cry answered mine. “Waaaaah!” A clear, strong, beautiful cry. My son was born. A woman in the car, another neighbor, deftly wrapped him in a clean blanket from her own go-bag. Dave handed her a bottle of water. As the first light of dawn broke through the clouds, the hurricane passed. In the distance, the wail of a siren grew closer. The ambulance had finally arrived. Mark was with them. “Claire, I am so sorry,” he said, his face pale with guilt. “If Ethan hadn’t told me you were faking, I never would have let it go this long.” I couldn’t speak. I was freezing, shaking uncontrollably. I just blinked. Before Mark could say more, the heart monitor they’d hooked me up to began to scream. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeep—! The paramedic’s head snapped up. “She’s hemorrhaging! BP is dropping fast! Get her family on the phone, now!” Mark’s face went white. He fumbled for his phone and dialed Ethan, his voice shaking. “Ethan! It’s Claire, she’s bleeding out! You have to get over here! We need you to sign for emergency surgery!” The line was silent for a few seconds. Then came Ethan’s voice, laced with an impatient, amused cruelty. “Mark, you fell for that? She got to you, too?” “It’s real, you asshole! Her blood pressure is 60 over 40! She’s going to die if we don’t get her into an OR right now!” Mark screamed, veins bulging in his forehead. Ethan’s reply was as cold as the grave. “So what?” “Claire needs to be taught a lesson.” “Let her lie there for a while. Once she’s had a good scare, maybe she’ll learn not to bother me with this kind of drama.” Mark was shaking with rage. “Ethan, what the fuck is wrong with you? That’s your wife! That’s your son’s mother!” “My son?” Ethan laughed, a short, ugly sound. “Who gives a damn about the son she had?” The line went dead. I lay on the cold stretcher, feeling the life draining out of me, my warmth and my blood becoming one and the same. As my vision tunneled, I saw them wheeling me through the hospital doors, toward the operating room. Doctors and nurses were scrubbed, ready. Everything was prepared. A nurse rushed out. “Where’s the family? I have the consent for surgery and the notice of critical condition! We can’t proceed without a signature!” Mark stood frozen, his phone clutched in a white-knuckled fist. His face was ashen. “The family… he refuses to sign.”

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In my third year of being dead, I came to Cole in a dream. “Honey,” I said, “could you burn one of those little paper-craft cats for me? It gets lonely down here.” Cole just smiled. “How about a hot ghost with a six-pack instead?” “Yes! Oh my god, yes! Abs are a must.” Then he pulled out a rope. “Okay, hang on,” he said, his smile turning wicked. “Let me just go die real quick.” 1 It was the third year of my death. As he did every year on this day, Cole came to visit my grave. He used the flame from the burning offerings to light a cigarette, the smoke curling into the cold air. “Fuck, you died young,” he muttered. Tsk. Such a charming man. He kept rambling, a one-sided conversation with a block of granite. “It’s Valentine’s Day, you know. Of all the days to pick for a death anniversary. A real power move, Ava. What am I supposed to do when I start dating again? Bring my new girlfriend here to meet the old one? Talk about a mood killer.” The word “girlfriend” echoed in the space where my heart used to be. A jealous fury, cold and sharp, whipped through me. I gathered a gust of wind, sending a spiral of ash from the offering bowl straight into his perfectly styled hair. Cole froze, watching the miniature cyclone. He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not actually here, are you?” Yeah, I am. Happy now? You’ve pissed me off so much you almost brought me back to life. Of course, he couldn’t hear me. So he just clasped his hands together in a mock prayer, raised his eyes to the sky, and yelled, “Ava Ross, if you’re listening, help me make a billion dollars this year!” I touched his hair, and the man asks for a billion dollars. Unbelievable. In your dreams, asshole. I went silent. The fun was over. Cole seemed to sense it, the energy shift leaving him bored. He took one last drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out on the corner of my headstone, the cherry glowing red against the gray stone before dying. His long, elegant fingers traced the outline of my photo etched into the marble. He stood there for a long time. “Ava,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “I don’t think I’m going to come back after this.” A tremor went through me. Cole and I… we were a tempest. Most of our time together was spent at war, but in the lulls, there were moments of impossible tenderness. I remember the year I was at my most reckless, biting his lower lip until he winced. “Cole,” I’d whispered against his mouth, “if one of us dies, how long does the other one have to wait before they can move on?” He’d started tickling me then, deflecting. “You’re already planning on replacing me?” “With a handsome older man. Silver fox. Eight-pack abs are non-negotiable.” He had sighed, pulling me closer. “Three years, I guess. That’s the traditional mourning period, right? Three years.” And now, here we were. The three years were up. I guess I couldn’t blame him. 2 Cole sank to one knee, his gaze fixed on my photograph. “You look so young, Ava,” he murmured. “But I’m getting old. I’ve already got gray hairs.” He was still painfully handsome. But the last three years had been a relentless grind of building his empire, fueled by sleepless nights and too much whiskey. At least the eight-pack was still there. I’d checked. “We really don’t match anymore, do we?” he said to the picture. As he started to get up, a single white chrysanthemum flew through the air and smacked him squarely in the face. Cole frowned, plucking the flower from his cheek and turning to find the culprit. It was a little girl, no older than seven or eight. Her hands were clenched into tiny fists, her face flushed with righteous anger. This was new. Cole looked intrigued. “Hey, kid. Didn’t your mom ever tell you it’s not nice to throw—” “You’re a bad man!” she squeaked. “I am? How so?” “You put your cigarette out on the lady’s gravestone!” Ah. So that was it. A slow smile spread across Cole’s face. He walked over and crouched down, bringing himself to her eye level. His voice was pure, playful mischief. “You don’t get it,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. “That was our thing. She used to…” He paused, then covered the girl’s ears with his hands, his expression turning strangely innocent. “She used to put her cigarettes out on me all the time.” I swirled around him, a frantic, invisible storm. He’s slandering me! It was one time! The little girl wriggled free. “What are you saying? I couldn’t hear you!” Cole stood up slowly. “Nothing you need to hear, kid.” He glanced around the empty cemetery. “Where’s your mom?” The girl’s voice was small but proud. “Mommy says I’m seven now. I’m a big girl, so I should learn to come visit the lady by myself.” A bitter, humorless smile touched Cole’s lips. He started walking away, his voice so soft I almost thought I’d imagined it. “Yeah,” he whispered to the wind. “If she hadn’t saved you, she’d be twenty-five now.” 3 Back in the Administration office, I was slogging through my afterlife paperwork when my fellow spirits drifted over. “Ava, are you seriously not going to reincarnate? You’d rather take the spectral civil service exam?” I offered a faint smile. “You guys don’t get it.” With birth rates what they are, you could end up anywhere. And while my own life was cut tragically short, I at least had one major asset: a rich ex-boyfriend. In the beginning, Cole sent offerings by the truckload. Flowers, champagne, letters… he was single-handedly causing a spiritual overflow. The Warden himself had begged me to visit Cole in a dream and tell him to tone it down. That was the first and only time I’d done it, until tonight. It was about three months after I’d died. Cole was in the brutal early stages of his startup, running on fumes and sheer will. Finding a moment when he was actually asleep was a challenge. When I finally found him passed out on his office couch, I didn’t enter his dream right away. I just watched him for a while. For all his talk, Cole didn’t seem heartbroken by my death. I never saw him shed a tear. Dying in a car crash is an ugly business. My head had been… well, it was bad. The mortician had done his best, piecing me back together, applying makeup to hide the worst of it. But when it came time to dress me in the traditional, modest burial gown, Cole, who had been stone-faced through the whole process, finally spoke up. “No,” he’d said, his voice raw. “She would have hated that. Put her in something beautiful. A sundress.” I’d been there, weeping invisibly. The floral one, please. But I’m getting off track. His company was taking off, but he looked haggard. Thinner. Still ridiculously handsome. When I finally slipped into his dream, he was on that small sofa. His eyes fluttered open, and he saw me pulling the corners of my mouth into a ghoulish face. He blinked, unimpressed. “Oh. A ghost.” “Seriously?” I huffed. “Could you at least try to be scared?” A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. He threw an arm over his eyes. “Ava, you couldn’t scare a fly even when you were alive.” So I straddled him. “How about now?” I whispered, shifting my weight. Cole went still. A slow grin spread across his lips. He brought his hands to my waist. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.” I leaned down and kissed him. We spent the rest of the night like that, lost in a dream. It was only at the very end, as the sun began to rise in the living world, that I remembered my mission. “Cole, ease up on the offerings. You’re causing an inflation problem.” I vanished. A moment later, Cole woke up. He sat up, a dazed look in his eyes. Then he glanced down at his lap, a dark blush creeping up his neck. He ran a hand over his face and swore. “Fuck.” Then he stumbled toward the bathroom. After that, the sheer volume of offerings did decrease. But as his business boomed, the quality skyrocketed. He started sending the spiritual equivalent of entire seasonal collections from Chanel, Dior, Hermès. I became the best-dressed ghost in the underworld. 4 An empty, aching void opened up in my chest. A familiar sourness stung my nose. Cole wasn’t coming back. No. That wasn’t acceptable. Sure, every time he visited, I put on a brave face. Floated around him with an air of detached coolness. Still thinking about me? Can’t get over this, huh? You’re just another chapter in my book, baby. You have no idea. The line of hot ghosts wanting to date me stretches all the way to Paris. But I only had that kind of bravado because I knew he couldn’t hear me. Now that he was actually leaving for good? I was panicking. I paced back and forth, my ghostly feet wearing a groove in the ethereal floor. I scribbled down a list and, with a deep breath, dove back into his dreams. He was not happy to see me. “Well, well,” he said, his arms crossed. “If it isn’t her royal highness, Ava Ross. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Okay, so three years without a single dream visit was probably a bad move. I’d been too busy haunting the girls who bullied me in high school. Priorities. I put on my most charming smile. “Cole…” He just sneered. “Oh?” I tried a different approach. “Babe?” “Tsk.” I froze, then mumbled something under my breath. “What was that?” he mocked. “Did you leave your voice back in the land of the dead?” “Honey!” I finally blurted out. That seemed to please him. A corner of his mouth twitched. “Spit it out.” Since he was planning on finding a replacement, I figured I deserved a little something to ease my own loneliness. “Could you maybe burn a little paper-craft kitty for me? You know, for company? To ease the solitude?” “You’re lonely?” “Mhmm. And I prefer orange tabbies, just so you know.” Cole tilted his chin up, a dangerous glint in his eye. “How about a ghost boyfriend instead? The kind with a pulse?” My jaw dropped. “You’re finally getting it! I have needs, you know. I’ve been celibate for three years. I’m losing my mind.” He clapped his hands together, a look of pure delight on his face. “Great! What’s your type?” I pretended to think, tapping a finger to my lip. “Definitely needs a six-pack. And young. I don’t date anyone over twenty-five.” I was just getting started on my list of demands when the dreamscape shifted. Suddenly, Cole was holding a thick rope. A sturdy beam materialized overhead. I swallowed hard. “Honey?” He gave me a smile so bright it was blinding. “Just wait right there,” he said cheerfully. “I’m on my way.” Oh, hell no. I frantically shoved my shopping list into his hands. “I DON’T WANT A BOYFRIEND ANYMORE!” I shrieked. “JUST REMEMBER TO SEND THE BAGS!” 5 I was admiring the mountain of packages at the spectral post office. “That’s enough new clothes to last me a few decades,” I mused. “Though, the latest Birkin still hasn’t arrived.” I was happily tearing into a Chanel box when one of my ghost-friends drifted through the wall in a panic. “Ava! Your ex-boyfriend was in a car accident! He’s dying!” My what? By the time I rushed to the scene, it was bad. Cole was barely breathing, slumped over the steering wheel. And clutched in his hand was a delicate, exquisitely crafted paper cat. Beside the wreck, Cole’s spirit was already detaching from his body, his ethereal form flickering. He stared at me, his eyes wide with confusion. “Ava…?” There was no time to think. I flew at him and shoved his spirit with all my might, forcing it back into his broken body. “YOU BURN THE NEW BIRKIN BEFORE YOU DIE, YOU ASSHOLE!” Inside the mangled car, Cole’s bloody fingers twitched. 6 After a long night of surgery, Cole’s vitals stabilized. But he didn’t wake up. I stood by his hospital bed all night, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. I reached out and gently traced the line of his nose, my ghostly finger passing right through him. As expected, he didn’t stir. When I returned to the underworld, I was greeted with news: I had passed my exam. I was officially a member of the Administration. But before I could even celebrate, I was summoned by the Review Board. The Warden sat at the head of a long table, taking a slow sip of tea. “Ava Ross,” he began, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. “Due to your recent interference, your ex-boyfriend, Cole Miller, who was scheduled to die, is now alive. However, our projections show that in three months, he will become a serial killer.” I slammed my hands on the table, a thunderclap of spectral energy. “That’s impossible! Absolutely not! My Cole is a gentleman! He’s kind and gentle. He wouldn’t even kill a spider! And you’re telling me he’s going to kill people? That’s bullshit!” The Warden choked on his tea, coughing violently for a moment before composing himself. “If you’ll direct your attention to the screen.” A large monitor flickered to life, displaying a scene from three months in the future. Cole, wearing a clear rain poncho, his eyes cold and disdainful, looking down as if at a piece of trash. A spatter of blood hit his cheek, tracing a path down his neck. The camera panned to the victim. A man. His familiar gold-rimmed glasses were shattered, his nose broken, the mask of cultured civility gone. He was on the ground, weeping and begging for his life. I frowned. How dare that man’s filthy blood touch my beautiful Cole’s face? I sat back down calmly. “Okay, so maybe murder is a little extreme,” I conceded. “How about a stern warning?” “The entire purpose of this board,” the Warden said, his voice dripping with gravitas, “is to prevent this exact kind of nepotism from staff members! Any employee with a first-degree relation to a violent felon will have their credentials immediately revoked.” I shot to my feet again. “So what happens to me?” “We’re giving you a chance. Return to the mortal plane. Stop Cole from committing these crimes.” “How? He can’t see me. He can’t hear me.” “Ah,” the Warden said, a faint smile on his lips. “But thanks to you, he had a near-death experience. And now… he can.”

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