My sister, Ava, and I are twins. She was born brilliant, the sweet, lovely girl who got into a school like Duke. I was the problem child, the one our parents sent to a behavioral academy to be reformed. Later, when Ava was hospitalized because of her college classmates—the same ones who laughed and said they could cover the damages if they each skipped a meal—I put on her clothes, picked up her backpack, and practiced her innocent face in the mirror. This time, my parents didn’t try to stop me. 1 The academy only let us go home once a month. I had been waiting for this day for a long, long time. When I pushed open Ava’s bedroom door, my palm was sweating around the gift I’d brought her. It was a butterfly specimen I’d made in art therapy. I could already picture her expression—the way her eyes would go wide with surprise before she launched herself into my arms. But the gift never left my hand. I found her unconscious on her bed, not moving. Ava was rushed to the hospital. A doctor took one look at her injuries, and his face went grim. “Get her to an OR. Don’t wait. Now!” The heavy steel doors of the operating room swung shut, and that was all we saw for hours. Every time they opened, it was only to deliver more bad news. Mom was a heap in a plastic chair, sobbing. Dad stood rigid, signing what felt like a hundred forms with a shaking hand. “What has she done to deserve this?” Mom wept. “My beautiful, good girl.” When a team of surgeons finally came out, their faces were etched with defeat. “We did everything we could,” one of them said. “She’s unlikely to ever be able to have children.” The only comfort he could offer was this: “If her recovery goes well, she’ll need to use a colostomy bag for the rest of her life.” He paused, letting the weight of that settle on us. “And if it doesn’t go well…” 2 Mom’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted. Dad, his composure finally shattering, grabbed the surgeon’s arm, his voice cracking. “Please, Doctor, you have to save her. She’s just a kid. Her whole life is ahead of her. This can’t be her life.” The surgeon could only shake his head, his expression grim. There was nothing more to say. A vibration from my pocket. It was Ava’s phone. I’d grabbed it from her nightstand in the chaos. Notifications were popping up, one after another, like relentless taps on a coffin lid. I typed in her birthday and the screen unlocked. It was a group chat. Eighteen members, including my sister. A girl named Ashley seemed to be the ringleader. She and a few others were tagging Ava over and over again. “Don’t forget our lab reports are due tomorrow. Bring them done.” “Breakfast tomorrow is bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll. Extra bacon on mine. Don’t forget the hot sauce.” And in that sterile, silent hallway, I realized the truth. I had always thought Ava was the one living in the sun, the golden child who had it all. But she had been living in a darkness deeper than any I had ever known. Unlike Ava, I was never the good one. I was never obedient. When I was eight, my parents took me to my grandparents’ farm for the summer, hoping the “country air” would fix whatever was broken in me. 3 Every time I acted out, Mom would come at me with a leather belt. “Why can’t you just behave?” she’d cry, her own face streaked with tears. “You have to learn to control that anger! If you don’t, you won’t be our daughter anymore!” Ava would always throw herself in front of me, taking the blows meant for me, until Mom would just collapse, hugging us both and sobbing. So I learned. I buried it. At Blackwood Academy, I was a model student. A ghost. But now, standing in that hospital corridor, a thousand angry voices were screaming inside my head. And deep down, in the quietest, darkest part of me, one voice rose above the rest, clear and cold as ice. Hush now. Not a single one of them is getting away. Ava was finally moved from the OR to the ICU. She was alive. That was the only victory we had. Dad spent hours on the phone, getting transferred and disconnected, until he finally reached the principal of her high school. The man offered a perfunctory, “I’m sorry to hear that,” before launching into a well-rehearsed damage control script. “Our security cameras in that wing were unfortunately down for maintenance,” he said smoothly. “But I’ve asked around. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I assure you.” He cleared his throat. “It was likely just some minor roughhousing between students. Nothing as serious as you’re suggesting. I’m sure an apology will clear this right up.” Dad exploded. “The cameras just happened to be broken? Are the cameras broken, or is your goddamn conscience broken? Not one person from your school has even bothered to show up here, and you have the nerve to call it ‘minor roughhousing’?” To my shock, the principal sounded offended. 4 “Sir, the students at Northwood High are exemplary. We don’t have these kinds of problems. Perhaps you should be asking what your daughter did to provoke this. I was trying to help you, but if you’re going to be abusive, then this conversation is over.” The line went dead. Dad tried calling back, but he’d been blocked. I pulled out my own phone, opened a browser, and searched for a picture of the school’s principal. I memorized his face. If he were the one lying in a hospital bed, facing a lifetime with a colostomy bag, I bet an apology would be more than enough for him, too. Through the glass panel of the ICU door, I watched my sister. Ava, who was always smiling, always laughing, lay perfectly still, tangled in a web of tubes and wires. She looked like a flower that was about to wilt. And on her phone, the messages kept coming. The group chat was furious that she wasn’t responding. “Ignoring us now?” “Guess she didn’t learn her lesson.” Then they started posting videos. Videos of them tormenting my sister, laughing as they did it. I clicked play. In a corner of the athletic fields, a dozen girls had Ava surrounded. Their laughter was sharp and cruel as they filmed her terror. 5 Ashley’s voice was laced with venom. “I hear all the guys on the football team think you’re hot. Tell us, Ava. Just how pretty are you?” My sister was trembling. “I’m not. No one likes me.” In the chaotic footage, I saw it clearly. A security camera mounted on the corner of the building, its lens swiveling, tracking their every move. The camera wasn’t broken. They just weren’t protecting my sister. The humiliation wasn’t over. A glint appeared in Ashley’s eye. “Hey, girls, I have an idea…” A few of them exchanged vicious smiles. A moment later, Ava let out a scream of agony that was cut short. The sound drew the attention of the principal, who had been walking across the field. My sister looked at him, her eyes pleading. He was her salvation. The principal glanced at the scene, took in the circle of girls and my sister on the ground, and simply waved a dismissive hand. “The bell’s about to ring. Everyone get back to class.” And he walked away, leaving her there alone. I still don’t know how she found the strength to make it home. I showed the video to my parents. I had never seen them look so broken. 6 They had worked their entire lives, scraping by, playing by the rules, being good people. Sending Ava to the best public school in the district was supposed to be their crowning achievement. And it had led to this. The detective who came to the hospital was named Miller. Dad latched onto him like a drowning man grabbing a life raft. “This is evidence, right?” Dad asked, his voice raw. “We can sue them? We can press charges?” “I understand your anger, sir,” Detective Miller said gently. “Let me start by contacting the other students’ parents.” It turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Even with a detective calling, most of the parents refused to engage. Their indifference was a wall we couldn’t break through. This was just another Tuesday for them. Settle it with money and make it go away. Dad’s eyes were bloodshot. “We may not have money, but we’re not taking a payoff. I want them to pay for what they did.” He spent the whole morning calling the numbers Miller gave him. He only got through to a few, and each conversation was more insulting than the last. “It was just a joke between kids.” “She’s alive, isn’t she? She’s being dramatic.” One of them, a lawyer, was the worst. “You’re just trying to shake us down for cash, aren’t you? What do you want, a few hundred bucks? You try to ask for more, and I’ll sue you for extortion. See how that works out for you.” 7 With so many of them involved, the blame was diffused. Spread it thin enough, and no one feels the weight of it. That’s why they were so bold. Dad finally gave up. I found him in the hospital stairwell, the air thick with smoke, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He had spent his life teaching us to be good, to be kind, to turn the other cheek. He believed that being the bigger person was a virtue. Now, that entire worldview had been burned to the ground. He was mourning the death of his own faith. I stood in the shadows and spoke into the darkness. “Dad. Ava has school the day after tomorrow. She can’t be late.” He looked up, his face hollowed out by grief. After a long moment, he nodded slowly. He brought the cigarette to his lips one last time, then crushed it against the concrete floor, extinguishing the final, glowing ember.

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I was on the Acela Express, heading north out of the city, when I saw him: the kind of handsome that makes you stop breathing for a second, watching porn on his phone. He wasn’t even using headphones. “Hey,” I whispered, leaning over the armrest. “You might want to turn that down.” He didn’t look up. “It’s my home security feed.” “Oh. My bad.” I sank back into my seat. “Sorry about that… man.” What else do you say to a guy watching his own cheating partner? He finally glanced at me, and his eyes were pure murder. Still, I felt a pang of sympathy for him. That is, until I saw the tattoo in the video. A familiar, intricate design of a succubus, its wings wrapped around the man’s bicep. My blood went cold. No. Fucking. Way. 1 “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit!” I snatched the phone from his hand, my face so close to the screen I could feel the static. My fingers were trembling. It wasn’t possible. The universe couldn’t be that cruel, that specific. But the lean, muscular man on the screen, naked from the waist up with a stomach I knew better than my own—that was Liam. We grew up together. We’d been together for eight years. I’d know him anywhere. We were supposed to get married next month. The thought hit me like a physical blow. My eyes instantly flooded, and my chest felt like it had been split wide open, a cold wind howling through the new, empty space. He was cheating on me. Liam was cheating on me. “Someone’s excited,” the guy next to me drawled, a smirk playing on his lips. He was watching me now, his chin propped on his hand. “First time seeing the main event?” He was right. It was the first time I’d seen Liam from this angle. Right now, my fiancé was kneeling before a pair of legs in black stockings, a gleaming silver chain fastened around his neck. The raw, explicit image slammed into my brain. The woman’s ecstatic moans filled the air from the phone’s tiny speakers. It was all too much. My stomach lurched, my throat tightened, and a wave of nausea crested over me. I turned and threw up, the contents of my stomach landing squarely in the handsome stranger’s lap. Oh, wow. That’s… vivid. “Agh—!” He let out a strangled cry, clamping a hand over his nose and mouth as he shot up from his seat, scrambling for the restroom. A few minutes later, he returned, a dark, wet patch staining the front of his expensive-looking jeans. The murderous look was back in his eyes, tenfold. But I didn’t give him a chance to tear into me. The train was pulling into the station. My station. I had to find Liam. I had to get an explanation. I needed to slap his face until my hand went numb and then I needed to—well, let’s just say I had plans for his “equipment.” I grabbed my bag and stood over the guy. “Where do you live? Take me there. Now.” He raised an eyebrow, a look of incredulous disgust on his face. “What, you didn’t get enough of the show? You want a front-row seat?” “Don’t you?” I shot back. He studied me, his suspicion warring with a dawning realization. “Look, I obviously do, but what’s it to you? If you’re into this stuff, I can give you some websites, you don’t have to get… weird about it.” Right. I was being weird. It was my own fault. I was trying so hard to hold it together, to be angry and strong, but the tears were streaming down my face now, hot and unstoppable. His expression softened slightly as he took in my red, swollen eyes. Comprehension finally clicked into place. “Oh, fuck. No way. You’re telling me that’s your…?” “He’s my fiancé,” I choked out. “The one I’m supposed to marry next month.” He sucked in a sharp breath. For a moment, all the animosity vanished, replaced by a flicker of something else. He looked at me, dead serious, and said, “My condolences.” “Save it,” I sniffled, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “We’re in the same goddamn boat. So, are you coming or not? We have a cheating to catch.” A slow, dangerous grin spread across his face. “Catching them? Oh, we’re going to do a hell of a lot more than that.” 2 On the way to his house, I learned his name was Rhys, and the woman in the video was his fiancée. He was supposed to be in Boston for a business trip but had decided to come back a day early to surprise her for her birthday. Looks like the surprise was on him. “So what were you coming here for?” he asked, his tone casual as he navigated the highway. My heart was a lead weight in my stomach. The last thing I wanted was small talk. I just wanted this nightmare to be over. “A psychic told me I had a dark cloud over my head today,” I mumbled. “Came to see if she was right.” The truth, of course, was much more mundane. I was coming to finalize wedding details with Liam. The caterer, the seating charts—all the little things you can’t sort out over text. He’d been on this consulting gig for weeks, too busy to come home, so I’d decided to come to him. I was supposed to be surprising him, too. “Holy shit, they’re still going at it,” Rhys said, his eyes flicking down to the phone mounted on his dashboard. He let out a low whistle. “I’ll give him this, your boyfriend’s got stamina. Is he… always this adventurous?” I forced a smile that felt more like a grimace. I didn’t know what to say. Because the Liam I knew, the man I slept next to, was a completely different person from the one on that screen. It was like I’d never met him at all. “Oh, look at that. He’s brought out the candles and the whip. Check out the arch on your boyfriend’s back… Damn, makes you just want to smack it.” He held the phone out to me. I recoiled. “Stop it. Aren’t you embarrassed?” “Embarrassed? Are you kidding me? This is exhilarating!” He threw his head back and laughed, a wild, unhinged sound. “What a rich and beautiful life experience!” I decided not to engage. The man was clearly unhinged. I stared out the window, watching the green blur of the suburbs fly by. My heart was pounding against my ribs, my palms slick with sweat. Was I really ready for this? What would I even say when I saw Liam? Forget saying anything. I’d just act. The rage was already simmering, a pressure building inside me. To not let it out now would be like holding in a sneeze. Unnatural. Unhealthy. I took a deep breath, steeling myself. The car turned into a private, gated community, the kind with sprawling lawns and houses the size of hotels. So, Rhys was rich. Which meant his fiancée… Stop it, Clara, I scolded myself. Focus. “Don’t be nervous,” Rhys said, his voice strangely calm. “The first time catching a cheater is always the hardest. It gets easier.” He glanced at me. “I’ll go in first when we open the door. I’m worried the shock might make you… projectile vomit again.” “Okay. I’ll follow you.” I was wringing my hands in my lap, a bundle of nerves. “You, uh… you seem to have a lot of experience with this.” “Don’t ask,” he said with a wry grin. “Let’s just say I’m a man with a past.” There was no time to ask for more. We were here. 3 He parked in the driveway but didn’t immediately get out. Instead, he pulled out his phone and dialed. “Hey, babe. I’m home. Can you come down and open the door for me?” The voice on the other end was a flurry of panic. “Rhys? What… why are you back so early? I thought you weren’t coming until next week.” “Change of plans. What, not happy to see me?” “Of course I am! Just… just give me a second.” “What are you doing? You sound out of breath.” “Oh, you know. Just got off the Peloton.” “Alright. Well, I’m waiting. Hurry up.” He hung up and glanced at the security feed on his other phone, a wicked glint in his eye. “You’re being childish,” I said, my voice tight. “Just open the door.” “Where’s the fun in that?” He smirked. “Look at them scramble.” On the screen, two naked bodies were frantically pulling on clothes. I watched, mesmerized in horror, as Liam—my Liam—scrambled out of sight, disappearing under the bed. A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I pulled out my own phone and dialed him. After a few rings, he picked up. “Where are you?” I asked, my voice dangerously sweet. “You didn’t answer before.” He whispered, his voice hushed and urgent. “I’m with a client, Clara. I told you this morning, it’s a huge meeting. Please don’t call unless it’s an emergency. I’ll call you when I’m done.” He hung up. Okay, Liam. Let’s see how you finish this meeting. Let’s see if you get out of there in one piece. “Ready?” Rhys asked. I took a shuddering breath. “Ready. Open it.” Click. The smart lock disengaged. A woman in a pink lace robe appeared in the doorway. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair a messy halo around her head. My eyes scanned the room behind her, instantly catching the black stockings peeking out of a half-closed dresser drawer. The ones from the video. The air in the room was thick with a cloying, fishy smell that made my stomach turn. I thought of the frantic images from the security feed, and the nausea returned. Breathe, Clara, breathe. The woman was wiping at her smeared lipstick, forcing a bright, flirtatious smile. “Silly, you could have just let yourself in. Making me come all the way downstairs. Honestly, honey.” Then her eyes landed on me. “And… who is this?” “Her?” Rhys said, stepping inside. “She’s here to catch a cheater.” “Wh-what?” “I said,” Rhys repeated, his voice dropping an octave, “she’s here with me to catch a cheater. Sloane, I think we can drop the act now, don’t you?” The woman, Sloane, was visibly panicking, but she held her ground. “What act? Rhys, what the hell are you talking about? Are you accusing me of cheating on you?” “Am I wrong?” “Where’s your proof?” Rhys let out a cold laugh. He held up his phone, the video playing in a loop. “I installed cameras weeks ago. Did you really think I was that stupid, Sloane? After last time? After everything you promised me?” He didn’t wait for an answer. In one fluid motion, he strode to the bed, grabbed the edge of the mattress, and flipped it into the air with a deafening thump. And there he was. My Liam. Curled up on the floor, still wearing that ridiculous silver chain around his neck, exposed to the world. 4 “Honey, it’s not what it looks like, I can explain!” Sloane grabbed Rhys’s arm, her voice pleading. “The bed was broken, he’s… he’s a handyman! I don’t even know him! I love you, you know I would never—” SLAP. The sound echoed in the silent room. I had yanked her away from Rhys and struck her across the face, my palm stinging. “I am so fucking sick of this!” I screamed, my voice raw. “There are cameras! We just told you there are cameras! Are you that stupid? Do you think we’re idiots?” She stared at me, stunned into silence. Rhys and Liam were frozen, their eyes wide. I had snapped. Something inside me had just completely and utterly broken. I was done talking. Done thinking. Why waste my breath? The words were just getting stuck in my throat anyway, choking me. Eight years of my life, our wedding next month, the man I loved hiding under another woman’s bed… The blood roared in my ears, a hot, violent rush to my head. My eyes met Liam’s, and the fury inside me exploded. I’d unconsciously grabbed a golf club from a bag leaning against the wall. Now, I swung it, the heavy iron connecting with his cheek with a sickening crack. “Weren’t you with a client?” I shrieked, swinging again. “So this is your client? All this time, and I never knew you moonlighted as a fucking gigolo? You make me sick, Liam! You’re disgusting! You don’t deserve to live!” I hit him again and again, screaming and crying, lost in a red haze of pure rage. Sloane, snapped out of her stupor, tried to pull me away. I shoved her back with my free hand and, in a blind fury, swept my arm across her vanity, sending a cascade of expensive perfumes and makeup crashing to the floor. I snatched a piece of the shattered mirror and lunged at her, scratching it across her face. She screamed, collapsing to the ground, a bloody mess, and didn’t move again. “Clara, calm down! Just listen to me, please!” Liam grabbed my wrist, his grip surprisingly strong, forcing me to look at him. “It’s not what you think!” “Not what I think? I saw it, Liam! I saw everything! You played me for a fool, and now you want me to be calm? Calm this!” I wrenched my arm free, grabbed a broken perfume bottle from the floor, and drove the jagged edge straight into his crotch. A gut-wrenching scream tore from his throat, a sound of pure agony that echoed off the walls. He collapsed, clutching himself, and didn’t get up. “You’re insane, Clara!” he gasped from the floor. “Yes! I am! You fucking drove me to this!” “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” “I know exactly what I’m doing! I want you gone, you piece of shit! Isn’t it obvious?” I stood over his writhing form, my whole body shaking. “Eight years, Liam! I gave you eight years of my life! Do you have any idea what that means? We were getting married! Married! I was going to give you everything, and this is how you repay me?” The memories—the good ones, the ones I had cherished—flashed through my mind, and the anger finally gave way to a wave of gut-wrenching sorrow. I sank to my knees and sobbed, the sound raw and broken in the wrecked room. Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up to see Rhys, holding his phone up. “Hey,” he whispered, “try not to cry. I’m live-streaming this. It ruins the power dynamic.” “You’re… what? A live-stream?” I looked at his phone screen. The viewer count was ticking rapidly past one million. The world went dark at the edges, and I thought I was going to faint.

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Four years of long-distance. I flew a thousand miles for our concert date. But she gave my ticket to her “friend” from school, and I watched them walk in, holding hands. They framed me as a scalper. I was beaten by the crowd. She just stood there, watching coldly, even backing their story. Afterward, her call was breezy and dismissive. “You’re such a good guy, you won’t blame me, right? Now be good, fly down to my city, and we’ll get married.” I laughed. Then I turned around, bought a ticket home, and blocked her on everything. Years later, she returned—a world-famous scientist—and stood before me, demanding I take her back as if it were her right. I just introduced her to my wife standing beside me and the son in my arms. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Have we met?” 1 The tickets were gone. After a four-year, long-distance relationship, my girlfriend Ava had suggested we finally meet in the middle, at a reunion concert for The Wanderers. I’d flown a thousand miles to a city I didn’t know, and when I got to the will-call window, the attendant gave me a pitying look. “Sorry, sir. These tickets have already been picked up.” I figured Ava must have grabbed them. But when I called her, it went straight to voicemail. Again and again. A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. Dejected, I was drifting toward the main gate when I saw her. She was standing in the security line, her hand laced through the fingers of some handsome, clean-cut guy I’d never seen before. Something hot and sharp flared in my chest. I walked straight up to them. “Ava?” Before she could answer, the guy with her shot me a wounded look. His eyes were actually turning red. “Dude,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I paid you ten times face value for this ticket. What, you think you sold it too cheap? Today’s my one-year anniversary with my girlfriend. I’ll give you another twenty bucks, just leave us alone, man.” I stared at Ava, waiting for her to clear this up, to laugh it off as a crazy misunderstanding. Instead, she just looked at me, her expression hardening, and backed him up. She let him slander me. Suddenly, I was the enemy. The crowd around us, smelling blood, turned on me. “Scalper!” someone yelled. “Trying to rip the kid off on his anniversary?” another one shouted. Voices rose, people shoved, and before I knew it, a fist connected with my jaw. Someone kicked me from behind. They were all screaming about calling the cops, about parasites like me ruining everything. The concert ended hours later. Only then did Ava finally call, her voice breezy and casual, as if nothing had happened. “That was Ethan, a guy from my program. He just went through a really bad breakup, and The Wanderers are his all-time favorite band, so I just… let him use your ticket. You’re such a good guy, Caleb. I knew you’d understand, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Anyway, listen! I just have this one summer project left and then I’m done, I graduate. You should book a flight down to Miami, come to campus. I’ll show you around, and then… we can go home together. Go to the courthouse. What do you think?” “Okay,” I said, my voice flat. “Sounds good.” Then I hung up and bought a bus ticket. The destination wasn’t Miami. It was Maine. She had no idea that I never wanted to marry her again. “Caleb, I checked for you,” Ava’s voice had said through the phone, tinny and distant. “There’s a seat on the midnight Greyhound. You should book it now. It’s too loud to talk here with everyone leaving the stadium, I’m gonna go.” Click. I sat in the fluorescent hum of the bus station, my phone dead in my hand. I laughed, a bitter, hollow sound that pulled at the fresh cut on my lip. After she’d let a mob of strangers beat me up, I’d stormed off to the airport, intending to leave immediately. But a sliver of foolish hope kept me there, a fantasy that there was some noble, complicated reason for her betrayal. I’d sat in that sterile waiting area all night, waiting for an explanation that would make it all make sense. All I got was an excuse about some lovesick kid from her program. That was her reason for holding another man’s hand, for joining him in painting me as a greedy scalper? And her suggestion… her school was in Miami. The only way to get to my hometown in Maine from there, besides a flight, was a grueling three-day bus journey. She knew I got violently motion sick. The last time I took a long bus ride to save money, I was pale and useless for a week. The old Ava would have stayed up all night trying to find me a cheap flight. The old Ava, if she couldn’t find one, would have cried, apologizing over and over for making me endure that kind of misery. This new Ava didn’t even seem to care. Her carelessness was a shard of ice in my gut. I didn’t hesitate anymore. I booked the next bus heading north, back to Maine. It was leaving in twenty minutes. The bus had been on the road for a few hours, deep into the black of night, when she called again. “Ethan and I have to go out of town for that summer project,” she said, her voice rushed. “It’ll be at least a week. When you get to Miami, just find a hotel or something. It’ll give you a chance to heal up.” Right before she hung up, I heard his voice in the background, syrupy sweet. “Ava, I’ve got the whole road trip planned out…” My mouth twisted into a sneer. How thoughtful of her to invent a cover story for their little vacation. How considerate of her to remember that I was, in fact, covered in bruises and bleeding because of her. While strangers were screaming at me, calling me a scumbag, threatening to have me arrested, she had just stood there, watching, her expression as cold as a winter morning. The memory of it still chilled me to the bone. I opened my messaging app, my thumb hovering over the keyboard, ready to tell her I wasn’t coming. That’s when a friend request popped up. The username was “Ethan_G.” I froze. Ava’s username, for as long as I’d known her, was “Ava_My_Guy.” The request message read: Hey man, sorry about that. You just looked so much like the asshole who stole my last girlfriend, I just lost it for a second. I just said whatever to get you to leave, I never thought people would actually believe it and jump you. Ava made me text you to apologize! Then, a five-dollar transfer notification from a payment app popped up. For your medical bills. Get some ointment or something. Don’t worry about paying me back the change. It was him. Every word, dripping with condescending sarcasm, felt like another slap across the face. Until tonight, he had just been a name, a phantom in Ava’s stories from school. At first, she’d complained about some clueless junior in her lab group. Then, slowly, it shifted. When I’d ask what she was up to, she’d be having dinner with Ethan, playing tennis with Ethan. Soon, she was calling him ‘E.’ I’d admitted it bothered me, said I wanted to see a picture of this guy she spent so much time with. She’d brushed it off. “Oh, come on. He’s not as handsome as you. Besides, he has a girlfriend. Don’t be jealous.” I remember one time I called her on video, feeling low after my scholarship application was rejected. She was in the middle of an experiment but picked up anyway. Seeing my face, she immediately put on a goofy dancing bee filter to try and cheer me up. Then Ethan had popped into the frame. He’d snatched the phone from her, switched the filter to a kitten one, and said with a smirk, “Ava, that filter is lame. The one I picked for you is way better.” She’d laughed, calling him a pest as they playfully fought over the phone, the filters flashing wildly between bees and cats and aliens. I just watched, a silent, awkward third wheel. I couldn’t get a word in. When she finally won the phone back, her face framed by the kitten filter Ethan had chosen, she’d smiled at the screen. “E is so ridiculous. Caleb, why are you so quiet?” A sour, indescribable knot had formed in my throat. She must have sensed I didn’t like him, because she stopped mentioning him as much after that. Until tonight. At the concert. I finally put the face to the name. He was good-looking, I guess. But he wasn’t as handsome as me. But he had something I didn’t. He had the swagger, the unshakeable confidence of someone who knows they’re backed up by the person they love. And suddenly, the whole thing just felt… exhausting. I didn’t bother replying. I just blocked him. I turned my head and stared out the window. The endless black of night slowly gave way to the soft, grey promise of dawn. I’d taken hundreds of flights and bus rides over the past four years, but I’d never once noticed how beautiful the scenery was. I was always so consumed with the journey being over, with just seeing Ava again. The next morning, at seven o’clock, I was home. I tried to slip in quietly, but my parents were already awake. They were sitting in the living room, studying a neon sign I’d ordered that spelled out the word “MARRY ME?” in bright pink letters. They looked from the sign to my bruised face. “Honey, what happened to your face?” my mom asked, her voice tight with worry. “Why are you back alone? I thought you were going to the concert with Ava… and proposing? We were about to decorate the house to surprise her… Where’s Ava?” My hand instinctively went to the small, velvet box in my pocket. I’d bought the ring weeks ago, a simple, perfect diamond, convinced this trip would mark the end of our four years apart. I was going to ask her to marry me under the stadium lights. Instead, I was a joke. And the ring would never leave its box. Faced with their gentle concern, the dam inside me broke. A wave of humiliation and grief washed over me. I placed the ring box on the coffee table, my voice a raw whisper. “Just… return all this stuff, okay? We’re not getting married.” I escaped to my room before they could ask anything else. We’d been together since high school—seven years. My parents already thought of her as a daughter. I had no idea how to explain this to them. They must have understood. They left me alone until lunchtime, when a soft knock came at my door. “Caleb? Come on out and eat something, son.” The table was filled with all my favorites. Halfway through the meal, there was a knock at the front door. “Carol! It’s me! Can I borrow your car for a bit?” That familiar, booming voice belonged to Ava’s mom. Our families lived next door to each other; we’d been borrowing cups of sugar and lawnmowers our whole lives. My mom opened the door. Ava’s mom saw me sitting at the table and stopped short. “Caleb? Weren’t you two supposed to come back together?” I just stared at her, confused. She looked just as baffled. “Ava called. She said she’s coming in on the afternoon bus today. She asked me to pick her up from the station.” 2 I was stunned. Wasn’t she on a road trip with Ethan? Ava’s mom, oblivious, just smiled. “Well, since you’re here, Caleb, why don’t you come with me to get her?” The last thing I wanted was to worry our parents. I nodded. At the bus station, I smoked two cigarettes back-to-back, trying to find some semblance of calm. I decided I would face her, be civil, and get this over with. I wasn’t prepared for the sight of them walking out of the terminal, two figures leaning into each other, their hands intertwined. The moment Ava saw me, she dropped his hand like it was on fire. Her mother’s brow furrowed. “Ava, who is this with you?” Ava didn’t look at her mother. She stared straight at me, her voice sharp and defensive. “He’s a junior from my program. It’s too hot back home for him, and he doesn’t have the money to travel. What’s the big deal if I bring him to our town for the summer?” I didn’t say a word. I just dropped my cigarette, crushed it under my shoe, and got into the driver’s seat of the car. Ava’s mom smacked her lightly on the back. “What is wrong with you? The way you speak… Only Caleb is patient enough to put up with your temper!” Ava, furious, banged on my window. “Caleb, what the hell is this? Are you following me? I told you to go to my school in Miami!” Her mom cut in before I could. “He got back this morning. How could he have followed you?” The anger seemed to drain out of her, replaced by confusion. She did the math. It was impossible. Her lips parted, then pressed into a thin line. She pulled Ethan into the back seat without another word. The ride home was heavy with a strange, suffocating silence. When we parked, her mom, trying to salvage the situation, suggested a big family dinner. It was what we always did. I had no reason to say no. By dinnertime, nothing had changed. Usually, our parents would save two seats next to each other for me and Ava. Tonight, Ava sat down and pulled Ethan into the seat beside her. Every eye at the table flickered toward me. I kept my face neutral and took an empty chair on the other side. Ethan shot me a smug look, then launched into a loud, animated conversation with Ava about inside jokes from their campus, laughing obnoxiously. The whole spectacle turned my stomach. Halfway through the meal, I excused myself and went upstairs to my old room. I didn’t expect him to follow me. He walked in without knocking. With a single, deliberate motion, he swept the framed photo on my desk to the floor. It was a picture of me and Ava from our high school graduation, our arms around each other, making a heart shape with our hands. The glass shattered. I turned and looked at him, my voice dangerously quiet. “Wandering into someone else’s room? Breaking their things? Is that what they teach you at home?” Ethan just smirked, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket and slapping it down on the desk. “Cut the crap, Caleb. Do you really think she’s going to spend the rest of her life in this frozen wasteland with you?” “Sorry to break it to you, but she’s already applied for the graduate program at our university. She’s staying in Miami to take care of me, make sure I adjust to my senior year okay. But hey, if you want to keep being a pathetic leech, you can stick with her. Enjoy another three years of long-distance.” On the desk was a graduate school application. It was already filled out, signed by Ava at the bottom. My chest tightened. It felt like the air had been punched out of my lungs. I remembered Ava, years ago, crying into the phone. “Caleb, just give me four years. I promise. The second I graduate, I’m coming home. Even if I go to grad school, I’ll apply to the one back home!” The last ember of hope in my heart died out. I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “If you’re so desperate to have a mommy take care of you at school, nobody’s stopping you. But don’t worry, I have no interest in being this kid’s stepdad.” Ethan’s face turned crimson with rage. He pointed a trembling finger at me, speechless. Suddenly, the soft creak of footsteps sounded on the stairs. His ears twitched. Seizing the moment, he shoved me hard. Caught off guard, I stumbled back against the desk. He grabbed my head and slammed it down toward the sharp corner. As I fell, my hand instinctively shot out, grabbing the desk lamp and pulling it down with me in a chaotic crash of metal and broken glass. When Ava burst into the room, she saw me on the floor, my vision blurring, blood trickling down from my forehead.

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We were on a reality show when my husband and his brother both fell into the lake. My wife, Cassandra, a strong swimmer, didn’t hesitate. She dove in and saved her childhood friend, my brother-in-law, Leo. I watched as she, frantic and tender, had her security detail lift him from the water, wrapping him in blankets and whisking him away without a single backward glance. I was left behind, sinking. The production crew pulled me out just as my lungs gave up. The next day, when I placed the divorce papers on her desk, Cassandra’s face hardened. “Leo can’t swim, River. That’s why I went for him first. Are you seriously going to be jealous about this?” I looked her straight in the eye, my own heart a placid, dead sea. “Yes. Sign them.” 1 We signed the papers with a quiet efficiency that felt more like a business deal than the end of a marriage. Cassandra’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows were knitted together, a look that once would have sent a pang through my chest, but now stirred nothing. She slipped the documents into an exquisite, limited-edition Hermès bag. “I’ll give you a ride.” I shook my head. “No, thank you.” A flicker of irritation crossed her face. “River, you don’t have to be like this. We were married for three years. A divorce doesn’t mean we become strangers.” I was genuinely shocked for a second. I couldn’t believe those words were coming from her. Now that Leo was back—her golden boy, the one that got away—I thought she’d be thrilled that I was so gracefully stepping aside. “For me, Mrs. Sterling, a divorce is exactly that. It means we’re done. We’re not family. We can’t be friends.” “You…” “And since we have no children, no real ties, there’s no reason to stay in touch.” Stung, she turned on her heel and walked away. I watched her go, a long, weary sigh escaping my lips. But then I thought of the balance in my bank account, and the sadness evaporated. Though I was technically a Harrison, the eldest son, I’d never seen a dime of the family fortune. It was the divorce that finally made me a wealthy man. The Sterling family would never have agreed to a 50/50 split, so when my lawyer drafted the agreement, I asked for a clean twenty million. Cassandra agreed without a fight. She also signed over two sprawling properties in New York and L.A., three other houses across the country, and six commercial condos in prime downtown locations. It was enough to live on for the rest of my life, comfortably. Staring at the cold, hard numbers on my banking app, I started to laugh. It was real. I could finally start living for myself. The day after the divorce was final, I moved into a sleek downtown loft that was already in my name. The feeling of ownership, of having something that was truly mine, gave me a sense of security I’d never known. I had braced myself for an avalanche of grief. I thought leaving Cassandra would destroy me. For three years, despite everything, I had loved her. But that night, I had the best sleep of my life. A profound, long-overdue relaxation settled over me, and I didn’t wake up until noon the next day. 2 Cassandra and I were a product of a corporate merger in human form. Her grandfather and my own had been friends, business partners who had sealed a pact with the promise of a marriage between their families. But that promise was originally meant for Leo. He was, after all, the Harrison family’s little prince, cherished for eighteen years. I was the biological son they’d discovered by accident. The changeling. Before I was a Harrison, a girl like Cassandra—class valedictorian, campus queen, heiress to a billion-dollar empire—was in a different universe. We would never have met, let alone fallen in love. Then, at eighteen, my biological parents found me. They showed up in a black town car at the group home where I lived, weeping about a hospital mix-up, a careless nurse, a stolen life. I saw their expensive clothes and imagined a future of ease. A future where I wouldn’t have to collect cans to pay for textbooks, where I wouldn’t have to worry if the underfunded home could afford to send me to college. But the reunion didn’t bring the tearful apologies and lavish affection I’d read about in novels. It brought a polite, cold distance. That’s fine, I told myself. As long as I can go to school, that’s all that matters. They told me Leo’s biological parents had passed away, so he would be staying. He was their son. But their treatment of us was night and day. I wasn’t the son of the house; I felt more like the chauffeur’s kid. The reason they finally needed me came in the form of a catastrophe. Cassandra, the brilliant, untouchable girl Leo had been trailing after for years, had a horrific car accident. The doctors said her leg was permanently damaged. She would walk with a limp for the rest of her life. For a woman like her, it was a devastating blow. It wasn’t just about the loss of grace, but the inability to ever again wear the beautiful heels and short dresses she loved. Leo, upon hearing the news, had a screaming tantrum. He would not, he declared, marry a “cripple.” And so, the duty fell to me. I could have refused. But the image of that cool, stunning face, a face I hadn’t seen in over a year since starting college, flashed in my mind. On a strange, self-destructive impulse, I agreed. I was twenty, about to start my sophomore year at Columbia. My new parents had me withdraw from my classes and, at an age when most guys are figuring out their majors, I married into the Sterling dynasty. When I went to see her before the wedding, she was a storm of fury. She hurled a vase that shattered at my feet. “Get out! Tell Leo to come see me!” she screamed. But Leo was already gone. My parents had given him a black card and sent him off to study abroad, far away from the inconvenient reality of his “damaged” fiancée. The Harrison family business depended on the Sterlings, and while Leo refused to marry Cassandra, someone had to maintain the alliance. I was the placeholder. The spare part. It was the first and only time my mother, Mrs. Harrison, showed me anything resembling kindness. She cried, telling me how much the family was struggling, how pitiful poor Leo was, how my father’s hair was turning gray from stress. I was unmoved. Why all the drama? I was marrying Cassandra because I wanted to. Not for them. For her. 3 During my freshman year, Cassandra was a senior. She was a legend at Columbia—the brilliant campus beauty, with a confession page full of anonymous love letters and a line of wealthy suitors she consistently ignored. Back then, the only person she ever had by her side was Leo. His association with her made him a campus celebrity. He would boast about his unique place in her life, the unshakable position he held in her heart. I’ve always appreciated beauty, but it was her mind that truly captivated me. Her passion for mathematics, the way she could lose herself in complex theories, led to a series of papers published in prestigious academic journals. I read every single one. Her work clarified several problems that had stumped me for months. I was enthralled by her intellect. The slide from admiration to love was short and steep. On our wedding day, Cassandra didn’t smile once. I was so nervous my hands wouldn’t stop sweating, and I kept wiping them on my trousers. When I took her hand at the altar, I nearly stumbled. A ripple of laughter went through the guests. I felt like a cheap, clumsy impostor. I heard someone whisper Leo’s name, and Cassandra’s expression darkened even more. She loves him, I thought. Of course she does. Otherwise, why would she hate me so much? In that moment, I regretted everything—the marriage, my silent, stupid crush. That night, she was in control. I lay passive as she moved above me, her commands sharp and clear. I wasn’t to touch her, wasn’t to do anything that might displease her. Her injured leg made her movements awkward, and my own frustration grew. I wanted to flip her over, to take the lead, but the raw pain in her red-rimmed eyes stopped me. This wasn’t about pleasure for her; it was about release, about reclaiming some kind of power. Soon, our breathing grew heavy. A flush crept up her neck, and in the midst of her calculated control, I felt a flicker of genuine connection, a shared, unexpected pleasure. 4 Life within the Sterling family was surprisingly peaceful. There were no power struggles or family dramas. I was more at ease there than I ever was at the Harrisons’. I loved to read, to lose myself in the academic problems I’d left behind at Columbia. I may have dropped out of school, but I never stopped learning. Cassandra, in turn, began to change. The nights she spent away from home grew less frequent, until she was coming home every evening. Even on her busiest days, she’d send a text letting me know her schedule. I found an old Chinese medicine practitioner and learned therapeutic massage techniques. I thought, maybe, I could help her leg heal. I remember the first time I suggested it. My voice shook. But I started, and I persisted. For six months, I worked on her leg every single night. I became an expert, memorizing the entire map of the human body’s pressure points. My hands grew strong and sure. Cassandra went from protesting, to tolerating, to finally, eagerly anticipating our nightly thirty-minute sessions. Life was simple. To break the monotony one day, I went to deliver a file she’d forgotten to the Sterling Tower. In the lobby, a casting director for a web series stopped me. He said they were looking for an actor to play a brainy supporting character, a “nerd-type,” and that I had the perfect look. On a whim, I said yes. Cassandra didn’t object. To everyone’s surprise, the series became a viral hit. My character, the nerdy best friend, gained a small but devoted following. It was a strange new world, this entertainment business I’d stumbled into. Sterling Industries owned countless ventures; Rainfall Entertainment was just a tiny subsidiary. Cassandra’s only rule was that I never use the Sterling name for leverage. She said I was free to “play around” as I wished. So, I got an agent, Maria, and a small assistant. I started landing minor roles in bigger projects—the fourth, fifth, sixth supporting character. I became a B-list actor, and I found a strange joy in scrolling through comments on social media. One night, I was lying in bed, reading funny fan messages to Cassandra while my other hand worked on her leg. Lost in the moment, my hand drifted higher up her thigh. She let out a soft gasp. I thought I’d hurt her and immediately dropped my phone. But when I looked up, her face was flushed, her eyes wide with a different kind of emotion. The kiss that followed felt inevitable. What came after was natural, a seamless union. We found a rhythm, a deep and satisfying intimacy we had both been craving. From that point on, our relationship blossomed. She would bring me complex Lego sets she knew I’d love, buy me clothes and watches, and sometimes, she’d pull me out of the house for a movie or a quiet walk by the lake. We were like any other married couple. And her leg, under my constant care, was improving. Her doctor called it a miracle. Now, as long as she didn’t walk too fast, you could barely notice her limp. Then, in our third year of marriage, Leo came back. 5 The day he returned was the first time in a long time that Cassandra didn’t need me close. It was also the first time in three years my parents called, summoning both of us to the Harrison estate. Leo had been gone for three years without a single visit home. At the rare holiday gathering, my parents would awkwardly explain that his studies were too demanding. Cassandra would sit in stony silence, her thoughts a mystery. I, their biological son, had barely set foot in that house since my wedding day, yet the Sterling family’s generous support of the Harrison businesses had never wavered. When we arrived, we saw him—a handsome young man, rushing like the wind and throwing himself into Cassandra’s arms. I stood beside them, invisible, as Cassandra made no move to push him away. Nestled against her shoulder, Leo looked more mature, but he still called her “Cassie, Cassie,” his voice thick with emotion. Fat tears fell from his eyes, darkening the fabric of her white silk dress. Watching them, I felt a sharp, needle-like pain in my chest. I regretted coming back here more than anything. Finally noticing me, Leo straightened up. “Sorry, man. I was just so happy to see her. Cassie… oh, wait. Should I be calling you sister-in-law now?” A muscle in Cassandra’s jaw twitched. She shot him a cold look, took my hand, and led me to the dinner table. Leo stared at our joined hands, his eyes wide with shock. The meal was excruciating. My parents didn’t ask me a single question about my life. Instead, they focused all their energy on Leo and Cassandra, reminiscing about how he had always thought of his “Cassie-sis” while he was away. It felt like they were pimps, and Leo was their prized commodity. From that day on, Leo was a constant presence, a buzzing fly in our lives. And Cassandra, after less than a month of initial resistance, accepted it. Leo wanted to be an actor, so Cassandra assigned Rainfall Entertainment’s top agent to him. He started waltzing into the Sterling Tower like he owned the place. Everyone assumed he was the true son-in-law. My own identity at Rainfall was a secret; no one knew about my connection to Cassandra. But Leo was different. He’d call her from the lobby, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear as he flirted and wheedled, before taking takeout up to her executive office. After Cassandra had once coldly told me not to visit her at work, I never went back. Most people there thought I was just another desperate actor trying to sleep my way to the top. Leo was handsome and charming. With Cassandra’s backing, he skyrocketed to fame. The company’s resources were funneled directly to him. When my agent, Maria, asked if I knew him, I lied and said the shared last name was a coincidence. She launched into a tirade of gossip about him—how he was a diva on set, how he used his connection to the CEO to steal endorsements from other actors. It wasn’t until he’d stolen three major campaigns from me that I realized he was targeting me specifically. Cassandra, who had never given me a single advantage in my career, would walk past me in the hallways as if I were a stranger. Even then, I didn’t think about divorce. I really, truly loved her. Until something happened that, to her, was a small thing. But for me, it was the moment I knew we were over. 6 It was on the set of a popular wilderness survival show. They had invited both me and Leo. For the most part, it was fine. Leo played the part of the cheerful, energetic college kid, and I pulled my weight in the challenges. One afternoon, Cassandra made a rare visit to the set. The directors and producers swarmed around her, fawning. And that’s when the accident happened. We were on an old bamboo bridge over the lake. It was rotten, and when both Leo and I stepped onto it at the same time, it snapped. We both plunged into the cold water. Chaos erupted. Crew members started scrambling to help. But before anyone could move, Cassandra, the CEO of Sterling Industries, dove into the lake herself. Swimming was the only exercise she enjoyed after her accident; she was incredibly skilled. I can’t swim. When I saw her slicing through the water, I thought she was coming for me. Her husband. But then I watched as she reached past me, grabbed Leo, and started pulling him toward the shore. In that single, clarifying moment, my heart didn’t break. It simply went still. Three years, I thought. And she still doesn’t love me. It was as if she didn’t even see me struggling. She screamed for her bodyguards to get Leo, and then a whole entourage surrounded him, carrying him to her waiting Maybach. The panic on her face, the fierce protectiveness—it was all for him. As I slipped beneath the surface, the last thing I saw was the glint of her car driving away. By the time the crew realized I was still in the water and pulled me out, I was unconscious. It was a cruel twist of fate. Everyone had assumed someone else was saving me. In the commotion Cassandra had created, I had been completely forgotten. It was only when the assistant director screamed my name that they remembered I existed. I was rushed to the hospital. The show was put on hold. When I woke up, the only person by my side was my agent, Maria. She looked terrified, her eyes red and puffy. I tried to sit up. My body ached, but I seemed to be in one piece. “Maria, I didn’t die.” “Don’t you dare say that!” she scolded, her voice thick with emotion. “You scared the hell out of me, River. It’s all her fault, showing up like that, making a big show of saving that little brat. They just forgot about you. Does it… does it hurt?” “No,” I said, and it was the truth. “I don’t feel a thing.” My heart was calm. I had foolishly believed that being husband and wife made us a single entity. Reality had just delivered a brutal correction. Our story, I knew, was over. That afternoon, as I was being discharged, I saw them. Cassandra was supporting Leo, and walking beside them, beaming, were my parents. They looked like a perfect, happy family. Leo was leaning his full weight on Cassandra, completely oblivious to her bad leg, while my mother gently draped a coat over his shoulders. It was as if I didn’t exist to any of them. I watched them walk away, then pulled out my phone and dialed the number for the lawyer Maria had recommended. I told him to draw up divorce papers.

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I put Carter’s girlfriend in the hospital. Again. This time, though, he didn’t do what he always did. He didn’t fly back overnight to soothe my temper, to broker a fragile peace. Instead, he called. “Her birthday is next month. I promised her I’d marry her before she turns thirty.” A pause hung in the air, thick and heavy with unspoken history. “It’s been years, Sienna. Haven’t you had your pound of flesh?” The implication was clear. He wanted me to stop torturing them. He wanted a divorce. I looked around our apartment—the one his decorator had called a “masterpiece of minimalist harmony”—now a landscape of shattered glass and overturned furniture. A cold laugh escaped my lips. “I’d rather burn.” He wanted it all, didn’t he? The respectable divorce and the devoted mistress. The clean break and the clear conscience. The world doesn’t work that way. I hung up. Then I drove to the West Village and personally put a brick through the front window of the new restaurant he’d just bought for her. 1 Six years of marriage to Carter Prescott. Five years of him keeping another woman. It’s almost funny, in a tragic sort of way. We were the golden couple, the kind of childhood sweethearts that people write stories about. Everyone assumed we were destined for a perfect life. But just one year after we stood at the altar, Carter cheated. And the woman was three years older than him. When I first heard the rumors, I took two of my more intimidating friends and stormed the little bistro where she worked. We didn’t just make a scene; we orchestrated a symphony of destruction. Carter arrived to find me standing amidst the wreckage. He was immaculate in a Tom Ford suit, a stark contrast to the chaos. His first glance wasn’t for Ava, who was sobbing in a corner. It was for me. His eyes held a familiar mix of exhaustion and resignation. “Sienna,” he said, his voice low. “Don’t do this.” I couldn’t understand it. Where had I gone wrong? How could I have lost him to a line cook? “I had one of my stomach episodes that night,” he explained later, his voice soft, almost pleading. “The pain was… it was tearing me apart. But it was late, you were already asleep. I didn’t want to wake you… She noticed. She just… quietly made me some broth and sat with me for hours until it passed.” A light flickered in Carter’s eyes then, a warmth I hadn’t seen directed at me in a long, long time. “In all these years, she was the first person to make me soup when I was sick.” Carter hadn’t had an easy climb. The endless networking dinners and high-pressure deals had chewed through his stomach lining. But still. It was absurd. He was captivated by a bowl of soup? What about the foul-smelling herbal remedies our housekeeper brewed for him every morning, from a recipe I’d spent years tracking down from a specialist in Traditional Chinese Medicine? The regimen he’d been on, without fail, for six years, thanks to me. Did all of that mean less than a single bowl of chicken broth? 2 By the time Carter got to the restaurant, there was nothing left to break. Shards of porcelain and glass littered the floor like fallen stars. He froze at the door, his face a mask of disbelief. Then, with a sharp gesture, he ordered his security detail to handle the guys I’d hired. He scooped the trembling Ava from a corner, his voice devoid of any emotion as he looked at me. “Sienna, didn’t I tell you there wouldn’t be a next time?” Of course, he had. He said it every time I found a new way to torment Ava, every time I created a five-alarm fire that he had to exhaust himself putting out. I watched them, a cold smile playing on my lips. “You’d better make it stick this time, Carter. Go all out.” I lifted my chin, gesturing at the ruined restaurant. “Because otherwise, every time you build her a new dollhouse, I’m going to burn it to the ground. And I won’t just stop at the property. I’ll hire a PR firm to plaster her face all over the city. ‘Meet the chef whose specialty isn’t coq au vin, it’s stealing husbands.’” I leaned in, my voice dropping to a vicious whisper. “Let’s see who makes a reservation at the homewrecker’s table.” In his arms, Ava’s small sobs turned into ragged, suppressed whimpers. “Sienna, that’s enough! Keep your voice down,” Carter snapped, his voice sharp. “I was the one who pursued her. It has nothing to do with her. If you have a problem, you take it up with me.” I froze. I let his words sink in, turning them over and over in my mind. A laugh bubbled up, raw and painful, and soon, tears were streaming down my face along with it. “Fine,” I choked out. “You and me.” In the next instant, over Ava’s startled cry, I moved. My hand swung through the air. The sharp crack of my palm connecting with his cheek echoed in the ruined space. His head snapped to the side. He didn’t move, didn’t turn back, as if the force of the blow had short-circuited his brain. It was true. Since taking the reins of Prescott Holdings, no one had dared to lay a finger on him. After a long, charged silence, he slowly turned his head back to face me. His face was a thundercloud of fury, the words practically ripped from between his teeth. “I think a night in a holding cell is exactly what you need to cool off.” I watched, stunned, as he pulled out his phone and made the call, telling his contact on the other end to process it by the book. No special treatment. My voice trembled, but my gaze was defiant. “You’d better hope they can keep me for more than one night.” “Don’t worry,” he said, pocketing his phone, his eyes flat and cold as they met mine. “I’ll make sure of it.”

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The news broke on a Tuesday, splashed across every screen like a chemical spill. Oscar Winner Liam Carter: Secret Wife and Child Revealed. My first call was to my daughter. “Did you two have a baby without telling me?” The voice on the other end was a shattered wreck. “Mom,” she sobbed, each word a painful gasp. “I want a divorce.” 1 By the time I arrived at Claire’s penthouse, the place looked like it had been ransacked by a storm. The housekeeper had wisely locked herself in her room, a silent refusal to be caught in the crossfire. No one was cleaning this up. Liam was sitting on the sofa, his handsome face a blank mask, watching my daughter destroy their life together. Claire was hysterical. “Nine years, Liam! We’ve been together for nine years! Since you were a nobody waiting tables, I was there. I told you to chase your dream, and I paid the bills while you did.” She gestured wildly around the opulent room. “My own mother refused to even meet you for three years. I fought with her, I starved myself, I tried to kill myself twice just to make her accept you. And when she finally did? She bankrolled your career. She opened every door.” Her voice cracked, raw with betrayal. “The TV shows, the movies, that awful pop album you wanted to make… what have you ever wanted that my family didn’t hand you on a silver platter? How do you think you got that Oscar, Liam? Do you have any idea?” The dam of her rage finally broke. She sagged against the wall, the fight draining out of her, leaving only ragged sobs. Liam finally moved, rubbing a hand over his face. “Claire, just let me explain. I swear, it was just that one time. I was drunk, I was stupid… it was a mistake.” He glanced at me, then back at her. “She wouldn’t… she refused to get rid of the baby. What was I supposed to do?” I let the sound of my heels clicking on the marble floor announce my presence. I dropped my Birkin on the table with a thud and fixed him with a cold stare. “Talk. Now.” Claire collapsed into my arms, weeping. I held her for a moment, stroking her hair, then guided her toward her bedroom. “Go lie down, darling. I’ll handle this.” Once she was gone, Liam’s composure crumbled. He looked at me, his eyes filled with a pathetic sort of guilt. “Eleanor… I’m so sorry.” The story tumbled out of him, as predictable as it was sordid. It happened a little over a year ago, the night he won the Oscar. The entire studio celebrated until dawn. Claire was in London at the time, finishing her doctoral thesis, and they hadn’t seen each other in months. The combination of champagne, adrenaline, and loneliness, he claimed, led him into a “moment of madness” with his agent, Anya Reed. He said he’d been terrified of it coming out. He gave Anya a substantial sum to leave the agency and disappear. He thought that was the end of it. But she was already pregnant. She had the child in secret and then, a few months ago, reappeared, baby in tow, spinning a tale of a helpless single mother. Out of some misplaced sense of obligation to the child, Liam had been supporting them in secret ever since. The whole thing blew up a few nights ago when the baby developed a fever so high it triggered a seizure. He was rushed to the hospital. Liam, worried, snuck in for a visit. That’s when the paparazzi caught him. The photographer, a man named Vince Ray who ran a sleazy gossip site, had a personal vendetta against Liam after being publicly humiliated by him years ago. Ray didn’t even bother trying to negotiate a payout; he just ran the story. I listened to the entire pathetic saga without interruption. When he finished, I simply nodded. “Fine. My assistant will draw up the divorce papers. You and Claire are done.” To my surprise, Liam’s face crumpled. “No, Eleanor, please,” he begged, his voice cracking. “I never wanted to divorce Claire. I love her. I truly love her.” 2 A celebrated actor, Hollywood’s golden boy, adored by millions. And this is what he amounted to. I’ve always known the entertainment industry is a sewer. That’s why, when Claire first brought Liam home, I vetted him for five years before I allowed them to get married. Even then, my instincts screamed caution. I insisted they keep the marriage quiet, terrified of a day just like this, a day my daughter would be turned into a public spectacle, a laughingstock. Claire was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. For thirty years, she’s been coddled and cherished, her path through life paved with gold. But a flower raised in a greenhouse is fragile, and hers had grown a hopelessly romantic heart. You could say Liam Carter was the only storm she had ever known. And now, the secret marriage was out. Only the wife in the picture wasn’t my daughter. Claire, who had apparently been listening from her room, burst out, her face swollen with tears. “Mom…” “I told you from the beginning he wasn’t right for you,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. “You complained that the heirs I introduced you to were shallow. You said my world, the world of business, was soulless. Well, now you see. The entertainment industry is just a playground for capital. Did you really think their morals ran any deeper?” She bit her lip, her eyes flashing with a familiar, stubborn resentment. Liam seized the opening. “That’s not true, Eleanor. This was an accident. My feelings for Claire have never changed.” He wrung his hands. “It’s just… the child is innocent in all of this. That’s why I didn’t know what to do…” I held up a hand, cutting him off. “I don’t care about your process. I only care about results.” Just then, the doorbell chimed through the apartment. This was a high-security building in a gated community. Unannounced visitors were impossible. My eyes snapped to Liam. His jaw tightened. He clearly intended to ignore it. But my daughter, never one to let a confrontation pass her by, stalked to the door and flung it open. Standing in the hallway was a young woman with a deceptively innocent face. In her arms, she held a baby boy, perhaps six months old. The moment her eyes met mine, her own filled with tears. I didn’t have to say a word. “Mrs. Croft,” she began, her voice trembling. “Please, don’t blame Liam. This is all my fault. It was my idea, I seduced him that night. I’m the one who decided to have the baby, and I’m the one who used the child to pressure him. It has nothing to do with him!” She was a performer, I had to give her that. The tears streamed down her cheeks, a perfect picture of tragic beauty. I could almost see how Liam had fallen for it. Almost. A slow, cold smile spread across my face. “Child, don’t you worry,” I said, my voice dangerously sweet. “You just give me a few days. I promise I’ll have the baby’s father right back where he belongs.” Liam’s face went pale. He started to speak, but Anya cut him off with her next move. She gently placed the baby on the expensive Persian rug in the entryway, stood up, and looked at us with a heart-wrenching sob. “Whatever I did, it was my mistake alone. The baby is innocent. Please… I beg you, raise him. I’ll disappear. I promise you will never, ever see me again.” And with that, she turned and fled down the hall, her silhouette vanishing around the corner before anyone could react. 3 The baby couldn’t even sit up on his own, yet she had abandoned him on a stranger’s doorstep. The audacity was breathtaking. I raised an eyebrow and looked back at my own daughter. Claire, who had never faced a crisis more complicated than a canceled flight in her thirty years, was frozen in shock. The infant lay on the rug, waving his tiny fists and wailing. He was, I had to admit, a pitiful sight. I knew my daughter. Her impeccable upbringing, her soft heart—it wouldn’t allow her to simply cast the child out. Liam knew it, too. He quickly recovered, rushing past Claire to fetch the housekeeper from her room, instructing her to take the baby inside and quiet him down. And my daughter just stood there, watching it happen. “Are you just going to stand there?” I asked, my voice sharp. “Mom, I… what…” She stomped her foot in frustration. Liam, sensing an opportunity to smooth things over, opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “The woman brought her illegitimate child into your home. Are you not going to pack a bag and leave with me?” The words finally pierced through her shock. A spark of anger ignited in her eyes. “He’s right,” she said, her voice laced with venom. “How do I know what else in this house has been… used by someone else? I have a thing about germs. I can’t stand it.” She turned on her heel. “I don’t need to pack. There’s nothing here I want. Let’s go, Mom.” I nodded. A glimmer of her old fire. Good. Of course, once we were home, she dissolved into tears again. But by the next morning, her sorrow had sharpened into a towering rage. I was having breakfast downstairs when Claire came storming down, looking haggard but energized by fury. She slammed her iPad down on the table in front of me. “Mom! Look at this!” I glanced at the screen. It was Vince Ray’s gossip site, Spill, with a new headline. They claimed to have identified Liam Carter’s secret wife: Claire Croft, heiress to the Croft Holdings fortune, a highly educated beauty just returned from her studies abroad. If I hadn’t pulled her out of that apartment yesterday, she would now be trapped, besieged by a wall of cameras and reporters. By then, it wouldn’t matter if the child was hers or not. The world believes the first story it hears. Once the public decided the baby belonged to Claire and Liam, any attempt she made to deny it would just make her look like a liar. The illegitimate child would be laundered into their legitimate son. I took a slow sip of my coffee. “Liam’s former agent,” I said with a thin smile, “is a very clever woman.” I met Claire’s confused gaze. “They’re not just trying to drag your name through the mud, darling. They’re trying to make you wallow in it.” 4 That same day, Croft Holdings’ official social media account posted a three-word statement: There is no child. Within thirty minutes, it had over a hundred thousand comments. “The shorter the statement, the bigger the scandal!” “Give me a break, you really believe the tabloids? Liam probably doesn’t even know who this Claire person is. This is obviously the woman’s family trying to create buzz for their company.” “Are you in middle school? Do you have any idea what Croft Holdings is? They’re a top 3 company on the NYSE. In front of Claire Croft, your precious Liam is barely qualified to polish her shoes.” I paid no attention to the pointless online squabbles. Liam himself was standing in my office, along with the head of his talent agency, who was practically bowing. “Eleanor,” the man said, forcing a smile, “look, this has all gotten out of hand. It’s really not necessary. No matter what, Liam and Claire have been together for so many years…” “Get to the point,” I said, glancing at my watch. I had a meeting with our European distribution head in ten minutes. Their presence in my office was undignified. Liam knew my temper. He knew that if I was sufficiently annoyed, I would have security physically remove them. He stepped forward, his expression one of profound remorse. “Eleanor, I know I was wrong. I’ve already spoken to Anya. I’m going to send them both abroad, and they will never be allowed to come back. As for the child, we’ll just say Vince Ray was lying, that it was a child from my extended family…” “That story might work for your fangirls,” I cut in, my voice dripping with ice. “But what about my family’s reputation? Do you truly believe everyone in our circle is a gullible teenager?” In the end, I had them escorted out. When I got home, Claire told me Liam had called her, too, promising her the world. “What do you want to do?” I asked her. “Mom.” She covered her face with her hands, her voice muffled. “I honestly don’t know what to do anymore.” Nine years. Her first love. It was never going to be an easy break, especially not for a hopeless romantic. Finally, I gave Liam two options. One: He retires from acting, moves into our home, and lives under our family’s complete control. His life and career would be dictated by us. Two: Divorce. He would leave with nothing but the clothes on his back. Claire thought I was being too harsh, but I made her re-watch the security footage of Anya abandoning the baby on her doorstep three times. After that, she fell silent and acquiesced to my decision. But the next day, Liam made his own move. He posted their marriage certificate online, accompanied by a long, saccharine caption full of ambiguous, romantic drivel. It was a calculated strike, designed to cut off any path of retreat for Claire. By confirming the marriage himself, he was cementing the lie that the child was theirs, painting a false portrait of a happy, unified family. A bold, preemptive strike. I hadn’t thought he had it in him. Claire was stunned. The shock seemed to jolt her out of her melancholy. She rushed into my office, her face a mask of disbelief. “How could he do this?!”

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I woke up in a trashy romance novel on the day of my divorce. Just as I was about to sign the papers, a series of glowing text boxes floated in front of my eyes: 【HIGH-STAKES DRAMA AHEAD! GET READY FOR THE GROVELING ARC!】 【LMAO, I can’t wait to see this scumbag refuse to sign, then break down and beg the female lead for forgiveness! Make him suffer!】 【He won’t sign. This is the moment he’s supposed to wake up and realize his one true love was framed by the other woman, right?】 I glanced at the comments, smirked, and signed the divorce papers without a moment’s hesitation. I’m not the actual main character. Why the hell would I want to grovel my way through a redemption arc? 1 I’d been transmigrated. Dropped right into the body of Damien Blackwood, the male lead of a cliché-ridden, melodramatic novel called The CEO’s Captive Heart. You know the type: cold, cruel, pathologically blind to the truth, and destined for a long, painful journey of groveling to win back the woman he’d wronged. A classic scumbag CEO. And right now, I was at City Hall, finalizing my divorce. The woman sitting next to me was beautiful, but her face was as pale as parchment. That was Evelyn, my wife—for the next five minutes, anyway. According to the novel, we’d been married for three years, during which I, as Damien, had been a textbook monster. I’d neglected her, humiliated her, accused her of cheating, and even caused her to have a miscarriage. Pure, unadulterated trash. But of course, underneath it all, I was supposedly madly in love with her. My cruelty was just a product of being manipulated by a two-faced schemer—my supposed “one true love” from the past—and provoked by Evelyn’s own suspiciously close male best friend. The plot was simple: the hero acts like a villain, the heroine suffers, the hero has a sudden epiphany, and then the groveling begins. A long, drawn-out redemption arc. The original Damien ends up with a broken leg, bankrupt, and nearly dead. And the best part? Evelyn still doesn’t forgive him. He goes through hell for nothing. It’s a tragedy. As I was mulling this over, those colorful, translucent text boxes started popping up again, obscuring my view. 【HERE IT COMES! THE GROVELING IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!】 【Wake up, Damien, you idiot! Look at everything Evelyn has sacrificed for you! If you sign those papers, it’s all over!】 【I’ll bet you fifty bucks he’s about to rip up the agreement and yell ‘I DON’T AGREE!’ It’s a classic!】 Live-chat comments? I got it. They were the audience, watching from another dimension. They were here for the show, waiting to see me suffer, to watch me crawl back on my hands and knees. I almost laughed out loud. A groveling redemption arc? What’s that got to do with me? I wasn’t the real Damien. Why should I suffer for some fictional idiot’s mistakes? A broken leg? Bankruptcy? Begging for forgiveness? You’ve got to be kidding me. Isn’t freedom better? A powerful, primal survival instinct kicked in. I had to get out of this story. Now. The clerk slid the divorce agreement in front of me and pointed to the signature line. Evelyn didn’t look at me. Her gaze was fixed on the tabletop, her eyes empty. She was already signing her copy, her pen moving quickly, forcefully, as if she were escaping a prison. The pen was right there. I picked it up. The comments were scrolling by in a frenzy. 【His expression is so cold. Is he really going to sign? No way!】 【He’s faking! He has to be! The explosion is coming any second now!】 【Getting my screen recorder ready for the iconic scene!】 I ignored the noise and brought the pen to the paper. The tip glided across the smooth surface. Damien Blackwood. My signature was clean and decisive. Not a single tremor in my hand. I put the pen down and pushed the document back to the clerk. “Done,” I said, my voice surprisingly light. The hall was silent except for the low hum of the air conditioning. The clerk looked stunned, glancing from the papers to me, then to Evelyn. He probably hadn’t seen many divorces go this smoothly, especially from a CEO with a reputation for being obsessively in love with his wife. Evelyn had finished signing too. She finally looked up, her vacant eyes meeting mine. The emptiness was gone, replaced by something else. Shock. Utter disbelief. 2 The comments section imploded. 【!!!!!!!!!!】 【WTF???? HE SIGNED???? HE ACTUALLY SIGNED???】 【This isn’t in the script, director! Where’s the part where he rips up the papers?! Where’s the dramatic epiphany?!】 【AAAAAHHHH WHERE’S MY GROVELING ARC?! THIS ISN’T WHAT I PAID FOR! REFUND!】 The clerk, recovering quickly, processed the paperwork. A few minutes later, two crimson booklets were handed to us. The divorce certificates. It was done. I was emotionally, and now legally, a free man. I stood up and stretched. Evelyn was still sitting, staring at the certificate in her hand as if it were a branding iron. I didn’t spare her another glance. I turned and walked away. My steps were long and quick, eager to leave this place behind. The comments went berserk. 【He just left??? He really just left??? Didn’t even look back!】 【My redemption arc! My groveling! Did the writer just give up?!】 【DAMIEN! YOU GET BACK HERE! GET ON YOUR KNEES!】 【Wait a second… does he seem a little too… relieved?】 Stepping out of City Hall, I was hit by the bright sun. The air felt cleaner out here. The driver pulled the black luxury sedan to the curb. I got in, sinking into the plush leather seat. It was comfortable. “Back to the office, Mr. Blackwood?” the driver asked. “Yes.” I leaned back and closed my eyes. A dull ache was still throbbing in my head, but the weight in my chest was gone. I felt light. Lighter than I had in a long time. The car pulled into traffic, leaving City Hall behind. My phone vibrated. I pulled it out. The screen lit up with a name: “Vivian.” The other woman. The manipulative schemer who framed Evelyn and caused the miscarriage. The catalyst for the entire groveling arc. The comments instantly perked up. 【Here we go! It’s the other woman!】 【She’s definitely calling to ‘comfort’ him! Damien’s gonna go cry on her shoulder now!】 【Let the trashy couple rot together! Leave our Evelyn alone!】 Just seeing the name made me feel sick. I declined the call, then dragged the contact into my block list. The world instantly felt 50% cleaner. Another explosion in the comments. 【??? He hung up???】 【AND BLOCKED HER?? HOLY CRAP???】 【What the hell is this plot twist?!】 【This isn’t how the story goes! Damien, snap out of it!】 【Wait… does he know? Does he know Vivian framed Evelyn?】 【So what if he knows! It’s too late! Scumbag!】 The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Sir, that was Miss Sterling.” “Don’t mention her name again,” I said. My voice was quiet, but cold. The driver immediately shut up. “Yes, Mr. Blackwood.” The phone rang again. My assistant this time. I answered. “Mr. Blackwood, is everything finalized?” he asked, his voice hesitant. “Yes. It’s done.” “Should I arrange a settlement for… Miss Lin?” “Not a single penny. Stick to the prenup,” I cut him off. I remembered the prenup. Evelyn had signed it. She left with nothing. The original Damien had forced her to have the abortion and then kicked her out penniless because Vivian convinced him the child wasn’t his. “Have her things packed and thrown out of the house. Don’t send them anywhere. And get the keys back.” My assistant audibly choked. “Understood, sir. And… what should I tell your father? He’s always been very fond of her.” My father. The one person in the book who was decent to Evelyn. He’s also the one who eventually disowned Damien. “I’ll handle him.” “Now, head back to the office. I want a meeting with all department heads in one hour. I need to see the latest financial reports and project statuses. All of them. Anyone not in that conference room in thirty minutes can submit their resignation.” “Yes, Mr. Blackwood! Right away!” My assistant’s voice was suddenly sharp and efficient. He hung up. The comments were flying so fast they were a blur. 【Is this a divorce or a scorched-earth campaign?!】 【Cold-blooded! So damn cold-blooded! Evelyn wasted three years of her life on this monster!】 【Blocked Vivian, kicked out Evelyn, and now he’s going back to work? What the hell possessed this guy?】 【Did his business brain just activate? He’s all about the money now?】 【The groveling arc has officially been shredded and set on fire! LMAO (crying)】 3 I strode into my office at Blackwood Corp. A figure lunged at me, enveloped in a cloud of perfume. It was Vivian. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her voice cloying. “Damien! Why did you block me? What did I do wrong?” I sidestepped her. She stumbled, catching herself just before she fell. “Damien?” she whimpered, her face a mask of wounded confusion. I walked past her and sat down behind my desk. I looked up, my gaze like ice. “Who let you in?” “My assistant told me about the divorce. I was worried about you.” She started to move closer. “Get out.” “What?” Vivian froze. “Right now. Get out of my office.” I pointed to the door. “And don’t ever come near this building again.” Her face flushed, then drained of color. “Damien, how could you…” “Security!” I buzzed the front desk. The comments were losing their minds: 【Damn, that’s harsh! He’s treating the ‘love of his life’ like this?!】 【Vivian’s face is priceless! HAHAHA!】 【That was a slap in the face! So satisfying!】 【Did Damien take the wrong pills this morning?!】 【It’s like he hates everyone now?】 Two security guards appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Blackwood?” “Escort Miss Sterling out. And from now on, she is not permitted in this building without my express approval.” I looked down at a file, dismissing her completely. “Yes, sir.” The guards turned to Vivian. “Miss Sterling, please.” “Damien! You’re a bastard! I hate you!” she shrieked as the guards firmly led her away. The office was finally quiet. The comments kept rolling: 【He really kicked her out! Savage!】 【The main love interest just got demoted to a random extra? The plot is in shambles!】 【I don’t understand this development, but I am thoroughly shaken!】 【Is the scumbag turning over a new leaf? No, wait, this isn’t redemption, this is a complete personality transplant!】 I ignored them. My phone rang again. It was the butler from the family estate, informing me that my father demanded my immediate presence. I drove to the old Blackwood mansion. The old man was on the sofa, his face livid. To my surprise, Evelyn was there too. She was standing in the middle of the living room next to an open suitcase, methodically packing a few items of clothing. She paused when she heard me enter but didn’t turn around. The old man saw me and slammed his hand on the armrest. “You insolent whelp! You’d better explain yourself!” “Father, you see for yourself. It’s done,” I said calmly. “She’ll be gone as soon as she’s finished packing.” “Gone?” He shot to his feet. “Who said she’s leaving?!” He strode over to Evelyn and slammed the suitcase shut. “Evelyn, you stop that right now! You’re not the one who’s leaving!” Evelyn’s hands hovered in mid-air. The old man whipped around, his finger practically in my face. “You’re the one who’s getting out! Damien! I have no son who is so heartless, so blind!” Another explosion in the comments: 【Whoa! Go, Dad! Put him in his place!】 【Damien must be terrified now! Time to beg for forgiveness!】 【Here it comes! The breakdown! The pleading!】 4 The old man turned back to Evelyn, his voice softening. “Evelyn, don’t go. Damien has changed, really. I just got word he blocked that Vivian woman and had her banned from the company. He still loves you!” Seeing that I wasn’t reacting, my father’s chest heaved with rage. “Damien! I’m telling you right now! If you dare to go through with this divorce, you can get the hell out of this family! The Blackwood fortune will have no heir named Damien Blackwood! Evelyn is a wonderful woman, and you’ve done nothing but torture her! Without her, you are nothing!” He glared at me, waiting. Waiting for me to break, to beg, to have the great epiphany the novel had promised. I looked at him. Then I looked at Evelyn. She was watching me too, her lips pressed into a thin line. The air was electric. I nodded. My voice was perfectly calm. “Alright.” The old man froze. Evelyn’s eyes widened, just a fraction. A flicker of some unreadable emotion crossed her face. It looked like pure, unadulterated shock. Maybe even a hint of curiosity. The comments stuttered, then erupted. 【????????????】 【What did he say?】 【‘Alright’? That’s all he said?】 【Wait… hold on… did he get the wrong script?】 【His father just disowned him and he said ‘alright’?】 【He’s lost it! Damien has completely lost his mind!】 【Look at Evelyn’s face! Even she didn’t see that coming!】 【HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP! WHAT IS THIS PLOT TWIST?!】 【He didn’t just shred the groveling script, he set it on fire and pissed on the ashes! He’s giving up his family for this?】 My father stood there, speechless, his face turning purple. Evelyn’s gaze was fixed on me. I ignored them both and turned, heading upstairs to my room to pack. The taste of freedom was intoxicating. The comments were still going wild: 【He’s giving up his inheritance? Just to get a divorce?】 【This guy has achieved a new level of scumbag? An iron-willed scumbag?】 【Evelyn: I spent three years preparing for a tragic romance, and you give me this?】 【My world is crumbling! I can’t watch this show anymore!】 Just then, Evelyn stepped in front of me, blocking my path. Her expression was flat. “Damien, I’m the one who should leave. But I need you to know, the baby I lost was yours. It wasn’t Idris’s. I never cheated on you. You can stop playing these push-and-pull games. I’m not coming back.” I squinted at her, a lazy grin on my face. “I’ll personally drive you to the airport. Your words are music to my ears. By the way, there’s a corporate gala tonight. Please, whatever you do, don’t show up. I really don’t want to see you there.” Her brow furrowed, a flash of anger in her eyes. I examined my fingernails. “If you don’t go, then Idris won’t go. I’m not inviting Vivian. Everything will be perfect. I’m begging you, stay away.” She just stared at me, confused. I’d read the book. I knew the cliché scene that was supposed to happen tonight. At the gala, Damien sees Evelyn arrive with her “best friend” Idris Vance. Consumed by jealous rage, Damien grabs Vivian and kisses her, escalating the drama. He then gets into a fistfight with Idris, pushing Evelyn away for good. Finally, his father publicly disowns him, and the groveling arc officially begins. By telling her not to come, I was trying to avoid all of that. A clean break. Everyone wins. But if they did show up, I wouldn’t be playing by the book’s rules anymore. I already had evidence the original Damien never found. Freedom felt too good. Who had time for their pathetic love-hate games? I didn’t need to chase anyone, bow to anyone, or be a puppet for some trashy plot. I wanted my own time, my own space, my own future. Screw the groveling. Screw the melodrama. I was here to make money, build an empire, and live my own goddamn life. But Evelyn, in a complete break from her usual character, lifted her chin, a stubborn glint in her eye. “I’m going. Who are you to tell me what to do?” As expected, the comments went wild. 【Evelyn: You want me to listen? Sorry, my rebellious phase just started!】 【The story of how my ex-husband told me not to go to a party, so I obviously had to go.】 【Damien vs. Idris! Place your bets!】 【Tonight is gonna be a war zone! Can’t wait to see Damien break down and beg!】 【I’ve read the book, a massive showdown is coming! If the male lead doesn’t suffer, I’ll eat my own shoes!】

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My coworker found out my boyfriend was a trust fund kid and crawled into his bed. Two months later, she sauntered over to my desk, nose in the air. “I’m pregnant with your boyfriend’s baby. You should back off now, before things get ugly.” Whose baby? I froze. The “rich boyfriend” she was talking about… is a woman. So whose baby was it? 1 The moment I walked into the office, my coworker, Amber, slid up to me with a sly grin. “Mia,” she purred, “who was that dropping you off downstairs?” I played along. “My boyfriend, of course.” Her voice dripped with a sour mix of envy and teasing. “Well, well, keeping a secret boyfriend from us, are we? I saw the car. It was gorgeous.” She nudged me. “So, when do we all get to go out for dinner and meet this mystery man?” My best friend, Alex, is tall, has an androgynous look, and recently chopped her hair short. So, half-jokingly, I call her my boyfriend. She’d let me crash at her place last night and gave me a lift to work this morning. I never thought anyone would see. But Amber had taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker. Now she wanted a double date. I couldn’t help but smile, brushing it off. “Maybe some other time.” Her face instantly soured. She rolled her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean? You think just because your boyfriend has money, you can hide him away? So much for being ‘besties’.” The passive-aggressive tone was grating. She wasn’t done. “Are you afraid we’ll steal him away? Worried you don’t quite measure up to his status?” she sneered. “Don’t get too comfortable. Rich guys like him stick to their own kind. You’ll probably be dumped before you know it.” That was it. “My relationship is none of your business.” I was about to swing my Chanel bag right at her smug face. Jessica, who shared our office space, saw the storm brewing and quickly stepped between us. “Mia, calm down. Amber’s just having a bad day.” Our other colleague, Gita, moved to hold Amber back, who looked ready to lunge. “Alright, Amber, that’s enough.” I lowered my bag, a cold smile on my face. “Apologize. Right now. Or I swear I’ll rip that gossiping mouth right off your face.” Amber knew she’d crossed a line, and with both coworkers telling her to back down, her eyes welled up with tears. “I wasn’t wrong! Why are you all taking her side?” With that, she shoved Gita aside and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her. Jessica gave me an awkward smile. “Mia, don’t mind her. Amber’s fresh out of college, she doesn’t have a filter. Just… maybe be careful she doesn’t get too close to your boyfriend.” I didn’t say anything, just sat down and buried myself in my work. My best friend is a woman, and she’s very, very straight. Amber would need to sprout some new anatomy to have a chance. 2 After that day, Amber started watching me. Secretly. Sometimes, I’d feel her presence and find her standing right behind my desk, trying to read my phone over my shoulder. Just then, a message from Mr. Evans, one of the general managers, popped up. Mr. Evans: Ms. Kim, The Grand Astoria is doing a new buffet brunch. Would you care to join me? Mr. Evans must have figured out who I am. Ever since I started this internship at one of my family’s subsidiary companies, he’d been engineering “chance encounters” and asking me out. I was typing out a polite refusal when I felt that prickling sensation on the back of my neck. I whipped my head around. Amber. Peeking at my screen again. I instantly locked my phone and stared her down. She just picked up her water bottle and walked away as if nothing had happened. Once she was gone, I texted Mr. Evans back, telling him to focus on his work. Then I replied to a message from Alex. As luck would have it, a friend from college was having a birthday party at an event space right next to The Grand Astoria. She’d invited both me and Alex. Alex was texting to coordinate a time to pick me up. Before leaving work, I touched up my makeup. Gita winked at me. “Getting all dolled up for a hot date?” she teased. “Guess we won’t be seeing you tomorrow morning, huh?” As I applied my lipstick, I realized we might be out late, maybe even hit an after-party. I nodded. “I might be late tomorrow. Could you do me a huge favor and clock in for me?” “You got it.” The second the clock hit five, I was downstairs, sliding into the passenger seat of Alex’s Aston Martin. From her electric scooter, Gita watched us go, sighing wistfully. “A rich, handsome boyfriend. Some girls have all the luck.” A few feet away, Amber watched us pull away, a thoughtful expression on her face. Then she hopped on her own scooter and pulled up a map on her phone. We partied until almost 11 PM before a few of us decided to hit up a karaoke bar. As Alex went to get the car, I glanced across the street and saw a familiar figure emerging from The Grand Astoria. It was Amber. Was she having dinner there? Alex pulled up to the curb, and the thought vanished. I got in the car, and we drove off. 3 The next day, Amber was back to her old self. The constant staring stopped. Without her eyes boring into the back of my head, I could finally breathe—and use my phone—in peace. But something else had changed. Amber’s makeup and outfits grew more elaborate by the day. Rumors started flying around the office that she must have snagged a boyfriend. One morning, she walked in swinging a Louis Vuitton tote, casually flashing a new Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet on her wrist. Jessica gasped. “Amber! You look amazing! And that bag… spill! Your new boyfriend bought it for you, didn’t he?” Gita leaned in, her eyes wide. “That bracelet looks super expensive, too. Is it real?” Amber lifted her chin, basking in the attention. “You like it? It’s Van Cleef. Cost over three thousand,” she said, feigning nonchalance. “My boyfriend knows I love nice things. He saw it and just bought it for me, no questions asked.” Jessica and Gita fawned over her, admiring her new trinkets. I glanced over once and lost interest. You could spot the cheap knockoffs from a mile away. Suddenly, Amber was standing in front of my desk, reaching into her bag. Just then, Mr. Evans appeared at the office door. His eyes darted to me for a second, then settled on Amber. He scanned her new bag and bracelet, his expression darkening. “Amber,” he said, his voice flat. “My office. Now.” Amber’s voice went sugary sweet. “Okay, Mark!” She shot me a triumphant smirk before sashaying out. I watched the bizarre little performance, shrugged, and went back to my work. I never could have predicted what would happen when she returned. She slapped a piece of paper down on my desk—a lab report. Then she stood over me, looking down her nose with an air of absolute victory. My eyes snagged on the bold letters at the top. 【PREGNANCY: CONFIRMED】. “I’m pregnant,” she announced. I blinked, stunned. “Uh…” was all I could manage, before blurting out, “It’s not mine.” The whole office went silent. Everyone was staring. My response threw her off for a second, but she quickly recovered, her smugness returning. “Sorry to break it to you, but your boyfriend fell for me the moment he saw me.” Her voice turned sharp. “I’m pregnant with his child. You need to back off now, before things get really ugly.” Jessica and Gita were frozen, their mouths hanging open in shock. “I told you you’d get dumped, didn’t I?” Amber continued, her hand drifting possessively to her bracelet. “And look at you now. I’m carrying his baby. It won’t be long before I quit this dead-end job and become a trophy wife.” 4 A trophy wife? Unwed, pregnant by another woman’s man, and scheming to marry into wealth? No family with real money would ever let a woman like that through the front door. And she kept saying it. My boyfriend. Good Lord, I was single! What boyfriend? I frowned, mentally rewinding through my entire life. No “boyfriend” to be found. “Just to be clear,” I asked carefully, “which one of my boyfriends are we talking about?” Gita let out an audible snort. Amber’s brow furrowed, taking me completely seriously. She actually started defending my non-existent man. “Wow. So you’re a cheater, too. A woman like you has no right to compete with me.” She was on a roll now, lost in her own fantasy. “Once I have his son, his family’s entire fortune will belong to us.” Her voice was a giddy, nonstop stream of delusion. “Remember The Grand Astoria, two months ago? I knew I was destined to marry rich. It only took one time.” The Grand Astoria? My mind flashed back to my college friend’s birthday party. But my “boyfriend” is a woman. And we never even set foot in the hotel. So whose baby was it? She’d been watching me, spying on my phone for weeks. Could she have… gone to the wrong room? Mistaken someone else for my “boyfriend”? This was a disaster, but a pregnancy was no small thing. I couldn’t let my stupid joke ruin her life. “Look, that baby definitely isn’t—” She cut me off. “Don’t you dare try to talk me out of this! I am not getting rid of this baby. You need to break up with Mark, now. If you don’t, I’ll tell him what a cheater you are!” I almost laughed out loud. Then I saw the bracelet and bag again. If this “Mark” had bought her things, they were obviously still in contact. He had to know about the baby. Why was I trying to be the hero here? She’d made her bed. So I played along. “If he wants to be heartless, then so can I. I’m blocking him right now.” I put on a show of furious tapping on my phone. “And I hope you have a whole litter of boys for him!” She smirked. “Glad you know when you’re beaten.” With the swagger of a conquering hero, she strutted back to her desk. Across the room, Jessica and Gita exchanged a look and quietly went back to their work. 5 Once the pregnancy was out in the open, Amber began acting like the office princess. She was constantly ordering people around, even pawning off her work on others. “Gita, sweetie, could you get me some water? The break room is so crowded, I’m afraid someone will bump into my tummy.” “Jessica, could you print this for me? The printer is so far, and my legs are aching.” She started wearing oversized maternity clothes, even though she wasn’t showing. She’d wander the office, one hand protectively on her flat stomach, sighing dramatically. “Oh, everyone was right, pregnancy is so hard. Being a mother is the toughest job in the world. I’m barely a few weeks along, and I just feel so… delicate.” Then, she turned her attention to me. “Mia, I’m not an unreasonable person. I know you and my boyfriend had a past, but that’s over now.” She paused, then snapped her fingers. “I’m craving one of those gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches from that place downtown. Go get one for me.” She patted her stomach. “And make sure it has extra bacon. For the baby.” I was already swamped with work, and now this? The incessant chatter was one thing, but treating me like her personal assistant was another. I ignored her, pretending I couldn’t hear over the clatter of my own keyboard. She marched right up to my desk and shoved my keyboard aside. It slammed into my water glass, sending a wave of water across my desk, soaking a stack of documents. “Are you deaf?! I’m talking to you! I want a grilled cheese!” Pregnancy had turned her into a monster. Ordering Jessica and Gita around was their business, but did she really think she could push me around? Frantically, I righted the glass, my face darkening with fury. “You want one? Go get it yourself! Are you looking for a fight, you idiot?” Her face contorted. “How dare you talk to me like that?” I picked up the half-empty glass, ready to douse her with the rest of the water. Gita rushed over and grabbed my arm. “Mia, stop! Think about it! If something happens to her, it’ll be a nightmare for you. It’s not worth it.” Fuming, I slammed the glass down, shot Amber a death glare, and went to reprint my ruined files. 6 When I got back, Amber was waiting, her eyes fixed on my empty hands. “Where’s my sandwich?” she demanded. I ignored her. And so, the drama continued. “I’m so hungry,” she whined to the room at large. “I just asked for one little sandwich, and she couldn’t even do that. How did I end up with such a useless, uncaring coworker during my pregnancy?” I slapped the fresh stack of papers onto my desk. “If I’m so ‘uncaring,’ then quit. Find a new job with a new set of maids—I mean, coworkers—who will wait on you hand and foot.” I smiled sweetly. “All I’ve got for you here is a slap. You hungry for that?” Humiliated and sandwich-less, Amber shrieked, “You can’t talk to me like that! I’ll have Mark fire you right now, you see if I don’t!” I raised an eyebrow. My name is Mia Kim. My father is the founder of this corporation. The office I was “interning” in was just one of our many branches. Who the hell was this “Mark” that he thought he could fire me? The King of England? “Please do,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Go find your Mark. Tell him to fire me immediately. I’d love nothing more.” “You just wait! Don’t come crying to me when you’re out on the street!” She stormed out, slamming the door again. A little while later, she came back, looking as if nothing had happened, though she couldn’t quite meet my eye. I crossed my arms. “So? When am I getting fired? Did your Mark give you a date?” Her confidence was gone, but she tried to bluff. “Mark is a very busy man! He doesn’t have time for petty things like you! You should be grateful! The second he has a free moment, you’re done!” I watched her performance with amusement. “Good. I’ll be waiting.” It was becoming clear her boyfriend was probably some middle-manager in this branch. All it would take was a quick search for Amber to find out who I really was, but she hadn’t bothered to do her homework. She was so blinded by her fantasy of marrying rich that she thought her “Mark” was more powerful than me. It was pathetic, really. Unwed and pregnant, trying to leverage a baby to climb a social ladder that didn’t even exist. But still, I was curious. Who exactly was this “Mark”? Then I remembered her snooping on my phone, and a name flashed in my mind. Oh. I think I knew. 7 My birthday was approaching, but Alex had been dragged out of town by her father for a business deal. Worried she wouldn’t make it back in time, and knowing I was stuck at the office all day, she had my birthday present delivered directly to me, cash on delivery. I carried the box back to my desk. The sender’s name read: “To Mia, from your loving husband.” Alex, you goof. I smiled and tore open the package. Gita, who had been peering over my shoulder, let out a low whistle. “Wow, Mia, what is that? It’s beautiful! I want one!” Inside the exquisite box lay a watch with a white face and an 18k rose gold case. A Patek Philippe. The receipt was still inside. Gita glanced at the price and gave a weak laugh. “Never mind. A good knockoff will have to do.” Hearing Gita’s comment, Amber hurried over. “A corporate drone like you could never afford a watch like that,” she muttered under her breath. Then her eyes fell on the shipping label. Her face changed in an instant. She snatched the box from the desk and ripped the watch from my hands. Gita instinctively tried to shield it. “Amber, what are you doing? That’s Mia’s! It’s incredibly expensive, be careful!” My face hardened. “I don’t remember telling you to touch my things. Give it back.” Amber inspected the watch, a satisfied smile spreading across her face. Then she glared at me, her voice rising to a shout. “Your things? Mia Kim, you have no shame! Did you even read who sent this?!” “You swore to me you’d break up with Mark, and now you’re seducing him into buying you gifts? What is wrong with you?!” Jessica and Gita were stunned. They scrambled to pick up the discarded shipping label. Jessica looked at me, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Mia,” she whispered, “it says it’s from your ‘loving husband’… You didn’t actually…” I sighed. “Seriously? It’s from my loving best friend husband.” I put heavy emphasis on the words “best friend.” Jessica nodded in understanding. She had a friend like that, too; they were so close they joked about being a couple all the time. I reached for the watch. Having this idiot’s hands all over my gift from Alex was making my skin crawl. I was not being gentle. When she realized she couldn’t win the tug-of-war, Amber let go and burst into loud, theatrical sobs. Someone walking past the office heard the commotion and poked their head in to see what was happening. Seeing an audience, Amber seemed to have an idea. She ran out into the main office area, her wails attracting a crowd of coworkers. “Mia Kim is sleeping with my husband!” she shrieked. “She gets him to buy her designer bags! I’m pregnant with his child, and I begged her, I begged her to leave our family alone!” She pointed a trembling finger back at me. “And today, he sent her a watch worth tens of thousands of dollars! I confronted her, and she denied everything!” She held up the shipping label like a trophy. “But the proof is right here! It says it’s from my husband!” Tears streamed down her face. “I’m pregnant! What am I supposed to do?” Most of the people out here were junior employees who had no idea who I was. Seeing Amber’s pathetic, tear-streaked performance, they immediately took her side. A few of the older women, trapped in their own unhappy marriages, looked at me with daggers in their eyes. “So that’s the kind of person Mia is. A homewrecker! She deserves to die alone!” “Shameless. Stealing a coworker’s husband.” “I always thought she came from a good family. Turns out all her nice things came from being a mistress.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “384542”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I awakened to my family’s Serpentine Bloodline. Upon reaching adulthood, we are granted a choice: to choose our gender once more. In my last life, to be with the man I loved, I chose to remain a woman. I became a devoted wife and mother. I helped him grow from a small business owner into one of the wealthiest men in the city. I raised our son and daughter and saw them into Ivy League schools. But on my fiftieth birthday, I ate a slice of cake my husband had baked for me with his own hands. And I began to spit out mouthfuls of black blood. My children stood by and watched. They made no move to call for an ambulance. “Just let go, Mom,” my son said calmly. “Auntie Sylvia will take good care of us and Dad.” “Yeah,” my daughter added, her voice flat. “Honestly, being your kid is a total embarrassment.” Everything they had, they owed to me. Yet they cast me into the abyss without a second thought. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in the family sanctum. The clan elder held out the ceremonial parchment, the one that would seal my choice. “Elara,” he said gently. “It’s time to decide.” 1 I took the parchment from the elder’s hands and, stroke by stroke, wrote down my new name. When the final stroke was complete, the decision would be irreversible. The elder looked at me, his eyes wide with surprise. “Are you truly certain? You wish to live the rest of your life as a man?” “And what of your young man, Joey? Can he accept you after… the change?” As he spoke, Joey himself was standing just outside the sanctum’s doors, watching me with an eager, hopeful expression. As an outsider, he could neither enter nor hear our words. I reverently lit the parchment, letting the smoke carry my choice to our ancestors. I offered the elder a small smile. “Grandfather, my mind is made up. But until the transformation is complete, I ask that you keep this a secret for me.” “As you wish. It is your life to command,” he sighed. “The ritual will be complete in one week. Your new identification will be delivered then.” One week. I mouthed the words. In one week, I would have a new life, a future so bright it felt like a dream. But first, I had to deal with Joey. As I stepped out of the sanctum, he rushed to my side, grabbing my hand. “Elara, I know what you’ve sacrificed for me. I swear, I will never let you regret it.” He looked deep into my eyes. “Will you forge a pact with me?” I froze. He never mentioned a pact in our last life. Could he have been reborn, too? I decided to test him. “A pact isn’t like a marriage, Joey. Once it’s forged, we can never be parted. Can you truly promise to love me for a lifetime, and never fall for another?” “Of course,” he vowed, his gaze intense. But I could see it, hiding behind the performance—the same cold, ruthless ambition I saw in his eyes as he watched me die. “Elara, the very thought of losing you is agony,” he pleaded, his voice thick with emotion. “Please, say you’ll do it. Say yes.” A phantom pain twisted in my gut, as if the poison from my last life was still coursing through me, tearing me apart from the inside. I suppressed the bitterness and smiled brightly at him. “Alright, Joey. I accept.” “I don’t want to be apart from you either. Let’s forge the pact right now.” I snipped a lock of his hair and bound it together with one of my own. We took it back to the elder, who burned the offering in the sanctum’s sacred brazier. “I, Elara, and Joey, bind our hair and our hearts as one, our love true and eternal.” The elder opened his mouth as if to protest, “But Elara, aren’t you…?” He caught himself, remembering my request. He gave us both a long, complicated look before letting out a heavy sigh. As I watched our hair turn to ash in the flames, a genuine smile finally touched my lips. That night, Joey sat down with my parents to discuss the wedding. The gentle, adoring man from the sanctum was gone. He sat at the head of the table and, without even looking up, addressed my mother. “So, when are you transferring the deeds for the houses and cars to my name?” My mother’s face darkened. “What did you just say?” “Let’s be blunt,” Joey said, finally meeting her gaze. “I don’t have any money. You’ll have to cover all the wedding expenses. Or we can skip the wedding, I don’t really care.” “But once we’re married, Elara is my wife. Her property will be my property. What’s the difference if you transfer it now or later?” He casually placed a drumstick on my plate, a smug look on his face. “Isn’t that right, Elara?” My parents turned to me, their expressions grim. They knew the final decision was mine. “You hear that, Elara?” my mother said, her voice tight. “You’re not even married, and he’s already trying to seize our family’s assets. What kind of life will you have with him? Even if you remain a woman, we can find you a good man. Just say the word, and we’ll throw him out this instant.” My father silently picked up a heavy wooden cane. Joey yelped. “You can’t! We’ve already forged the pact! If she doesn’t marry me, she will die!” My parents looked as if they’d been struck by lightning. Seeing my silence, they began to scold me, calling me a fool, their anger so great I feared my mother would have a heart attack. I placed a calming hand on her shoulder. They had yet to witness the true depths of Joey’s depravity. Fate had given me this second chance to show me what a true abyss looked like. I turned to Joey. “All of our family’s assets, except for the house my parents currently live in, are in my name. That’s sixteen villas, two historic townhouses, seventy commercial properties, thirty-four cars, and about six hundred million in savings.” “If you want it, I’ll transfer it all to you. We’ll just leave this one house for my parents. Do you agree?” A fire ignited in Joey’s eyes. In his last life, he had become a tycoon with only a fraction of my support. He knew I was wealthy, but he never dreamed I was this wealthy. “Deal,” he said instantly. “But your parents have to write their wills now. When they die, this house must be in my name only.” His greed didn’t surprise me. I agreed to his terms. As the final transfer of funds went through, a single, iridescent serpent’s scale materialized on his left forearm. “What is this?” he asked, startled. “A mark of our pact,” I explained calmly. “When all three scales have appeared, the pact will be complete and unbreakable.” “Why didn’t I have this before?” he muttered to himself, then quickly fell silent. He looked at me, stripped of my entire fortune, yet still watching him with a serene, untroubled gaze. He looked away, a flicker of guilt in his eyes. “Don’t be upset,” he said, trying to sound magnanimous. “My money is your money, right? I’ll take care of you. It’s better for the man to hold the assets. It keeps the family stable.” In my last life, I was the one who initiated the pact. When he swore to be good to me then, his performance was far more convincing. And what did that get me? A cup of poison and an early grave. With my money, Joey first bought himself his dream motorcycle. Then he went on a shopping spree, buying mountains of jewelry, designer clothes, and luxury skincare—all things for a woman. The transaction notifications flooded my phone. His gift to me? A nine-ninety-nine, gold-plated bracelet from a cheap online store. I accepted it with a smile, without a single word of complaint. Four days before the ritual was to be completed, Joey dragged me from my bed in the middle of the night. Clad only in my pajamas, I was pulled into his car and driven to the hospital. “My sister was in a car accident,” he said, his voice tense. “You have the same blood type. You have to donate.” When we entered the emergency room, I knew. His “sister” was Sylvia. The “Auntie Sylvia” my son had spoken of. The woman Joey and my children had truly loved. He grabbed a nurse who was heading into surgery. “Take her blood,” he commanded. “You have to save Sylvia, no matter what it takes.” The nurse drew 400cc of my blood. Joey’s brow furrowed. “Don’t you need 1000cc? Why are you stopping?” The nurse looked at him, flustered. “Sir, drawing more than 400cc at once is dangerous. If we take 1000cc, this woman could go into shock. Besides, the patient’s injuries aren’t life-threatening, and we have a blood supply on the way.” “I don’t care. Her blood is better. Use hers.” He gestured at me. “She’s my wife. You think I don’t know what her body can handle? A measly 1000cc of blood is nothing to her.” Onlookers began to murmur. “What a monster. Is he using his wife as a walking blood bag?” “Seriously, all blood is the same. I think he’s just trying to kill her.” “Honey, don’t do it,” a woman whispered to me. “It’s not worth hurting yourself for someone else.” I just smiled and extended my arm to the nurse. “It’s fine. Draw the blood. This is what Joey wants from me. I have to give it to him.” The nurse stared at me as if I were insane. The people who had just defended me now muttered that I was an idiot, that you can’t save someone who’s determined to die. I didn’t flinch. I watched as the life drained out of me, tube by tube. How did Joey know my blood was “better”? In our last life, he had been in the ICU with a severe case of pneumonia. The doctors had given up on him. It was my blood, brewed into a special medicinal draught, that brought him back from the brink. So this time, even though the hospital had plenty of blood, even though Sylvia’s life wasn’t in danger, he was still determined to drain me dry for his one true love. I faded into unconsciousness. When I awoke, Joey was by my bedside. I lifted the sleeve of his shirt. There, on his left arm, was a second serpent scale. He saw the scale, a complex emotion in his eyes. He spoke softly. “Elara… I never realized how much you loved me. I was wrong. I’m so sorry.” “The doctor said you lost too much blood. You had a miscarriage. They couldn’t save your uterus. You won’t be able to have children again.” I smiled faintly. “Is that so? Well, what’s gone is gone. I don’t mind.” “You’re not angry?!” Joey stared at me, his expression shifting from remorse to rage. “That was our child! Why aren’t you sad that it’s gone? Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?!” As if it would have made a difference. Besides, why would I want Joey’s child? I had raised two of them already. I gave them the best life, the best education money could buy. My son was brilliant but rebellious. My daughter was obedient but dull. Did he think they got into the Ivy League on their own merit? It was all due to my family’s influence and my own tireless efforts. And did those two vipers ever show me an ounce of gratitude? They watched me writhe on the floor, my fingers digging bloody grooves into the hardwood from the pain. And they calmly discussed where they should take Sylvia on vacation. At that thought, I reached out and took Joey’s hand. “Joey, what’s done is done. What can we do now? The important thing is that your sister is safe. If you want children in the future, we can just adopt hers.” “You’d… you’d do that?” Joey was stunned by my apparent generosity. He couldn’t seem to comprehend how I could be so utterly devoted. But my proposal offered him nothing but benefits. He pulled me into an embrace. “Elara, I’m the luckiest man in the world to have a wife like you. We’ll raise Sylvia’s children as our own. You’ll teach them, and they’ll grow up to be amazing. They’ll be good to you. If they ever disobey you, I’ll set them straight.” He said all the right things. But I knew, in the future he was imagining, I was the one who would be “set straight.” Joey brought Sylvia home for me to care for. As I was washing fruit for her, she tossed her underwear into the bowl. “My doctor said I can’t get my hands wet while I’m recovering, darling,” she said with a smirk. “Be a dear and take care of this for me.” My hand paused for a fraction of a second. Then I took the lacy underwear and began to wash it under the tap. Sylvia raised an eyebrow, a cruel smile playing on her lips. “Joey was right. You’re completely bound to him. Pathetically so. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for him?” “Not quite,” I said without looking up, concentrating on my task. “The ritual will be complete in two days.” “This is the last favor I’ll ever do for Joey.” “What ‘last favor’?” Joey asked, walking into the kitchen. He saw what I was washing and shot Sylvia a mildly disapproving look. In a few days, he wouldn’t even have that flicker of guilt. He’d just see me as the help. Sylvia smiled at me. “Well then, I’d better make the most of it.” The night before the ritual was to be completed, Joey and Sylvia tied my hands and feet and shoved me into a large birdcage. “Joey, what are you doing?” I cried out. “Where are you taking me?” The car ride was long and bumpy. Finally, they stopped, and the cloth covering the cage was ripped away. Blinding light flooded in. I found myself staring into a pair of lecherous, greedy eyes. The man was at least seventy, drool gathering at the corner of his mouth as he stared at my chest. “Fresh,” he rasped. “So fresh. You’re sure I can do whatever I want with her tonight?” A fire ignited in the pit of my stomach. I locked my eyes on Joey. “What is the meaning of this?” He wouldn’t meet my gaze. Sylvia draped herself over his shoulder. “We had a little accident on the motorcycle the other day. We hit Don Marco’s dog, and it died.” “Don Marco said if we couldn’t bring his dog back to life, he’d take one of Joey’s arms as payment. So, I suggested that you could spend the night with him, to apologize on our behalf. You love Joey so much, I’m sure you don’t mind, right?” I almost laughed. I kept my eyes fixed on Joey. “I want to hear it from you, Joey. Are you really giving me to another man? To pay for a dead dog?” “Elara, don’t be scared,” he said, finally looking at me. “It’s just one night. It’ll be over before you know it. Besides, I’m your husband. If I don’t mind you being ‘soiled,’ what do you have to worry about?” His depravity knew no bounds. My chest heaved with fury. I dug my nails into my palms, telling myself to endure. Just a little longer. The old man grew impatient. “What do you mean, ‘just a dog’? I could have taken your lives for killing my dog. It seems to me the lady isn’t willing. Get over here and tie your wife to my bed yourself before I change my mind. You don’t want to find out what happens when you get on my bad side.” The color drained from Joey’s face. He opened the cage and, without untying me, hoisted me over his shoulder and threw me onto the bed. I spit in his face. “You are pathetic, Joey. I gave you a fortune, and you can’t even handle something this small.” “Say whatever you want,” he muttered, grabbing my wrists and tying them to the bedposts. “Remember this, Elara. After tonight, I’m the only one who will ever want you. Don’t you even think about leaving me. You’ll behave, you’ll live with me and Sylvia, and I’ll be good to you.” I bit down on his hand, hard. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. He yelped, trying to pull his hand free, and then slapped me hard across the face. “Crazy bitch,” he hissed. “Just wait until tomorrow.” He gave the old man an obsequious smile and backed out of the room with Sylvia. She gave me one last look, a mixture of pity and triumph in her eyes. The old man lunged, tearing at my clothes. The stale, musty smell of him was suffocating. Just as his hand reached for me, the clock began to chime. Twelve o’clock. A searing pain shot through my body. My limbs contorted, pulling the ropes taut. The old man frowned. “What are you doing? What kind of trick is this?” He shouted towards the door. “Joey, get in here! What’s wrong with this broad?!” At the same moment, Joey looked down at his left arm. A third serpent scale had appeared. How? He had always believed the scales represented Elara’s love. The more scales, the deeper her love, the stronger their bond. But right now, she clearly hated him more than anything in the world. So why had the third scale appeared? A primal, overwhelming panic seized him. It was an animal instinct, a terror in the face of an apex predator. He threw open the door. “Don Marco, what’s wrong?!” As he stepped into the room, he heard a voice. It was young, male, and both strange and terrifyingly familiar. “Kneel.” With a sickening thud, Joey’s knees slammed into the floorboards, completely against his will.

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The world snapped back into focus with Caleb Vaughn walking toward me. And in that instant, I knew I hadn’t made it home. The ninth failure. The tenth beginning. He stopped a few feet away, a lazy, cruel smirk plastered on his handsome face. “You just don’t give up, do you? I’ve never met anyone so pathetic. Now, be a good girl and go…” His words blurred into a meaningless drone. I was done listening. I looked up, my gaze locking onto his, and for the first time in a long time, it was perfectly clear. My hand moved, a fluid motion, pulling the pin from the knot of my hair. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the sharpened metal point was buried in his throat. He gasped, his hand flying to his neck, his eyes wide with a question I had no intention of answering. A spray of warmth misted my face. “You’re the pathetic one,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “You don’t even deserve to live.” I had been reborn nine times to win Caleb Vaughn’s heart. Success was my only ticket back to my own world. But it didn’t matter what I did—the outcome was always the same. Failure. This was the tenth time. I was done trying. I just wanted Caleb Vaughn dead. 1 My eyes opened again. Caleb was walking toward me, a storm cloud of irritation on his face. A familiar, sterile tone chimed in my head. Ding! New objective issued: Successfully win the affection of Caleb Vaughn and ensure his happiness. Upon completion, the Host will be returned to their original world. The tenth time. The first seven loops were a masterclass in dying. Car accidents. Cliff falls. Drowning. Some were the result of his cruel pranks, some happened while I was trying to save him, and once, he killed me with his own two hands. On the eighth loop, I considered a new strategy: maybe he just hated me. For his “happiness,” I tried to disappear. I left the country. But he hunted me down, dragged me back, and locked me in a basement to starve. All so I would stay by his side. On the ninth loop, I endured. I swallowed his insults, bandaged the bruises from his rage, and stayed. I became his perfect, docile wife. I held his hand as he died of old age, having devoted my entire existence to him. I had suppressed every urge to run, to fight back, to end my own life or his. I thought, finally, that had to be it. As I closed my eyes for the last time in that life, I let myself dream of my real parents, of the joy on their faces when I reappeared. God, I was so tired. I missed them so much. I would have killed for a plate of my mom’s cooking. But the universe had other plans. And now, seeing Caleb’s face again, I felt nothing. A complete and total void. He stormed toward me, his voice a low growl. “Ava, you are so fucking pathetic. Can’t stay away, can you? One call and you come running.” I remembered this night. He’d made a bet with his pack of jackal friends. He bet that I’d drink three bottles of champagne for him, even though he knew—everyone knew—I had a deadly allergy to alcohol. Behind him, his buddies were laughing. “Damn, Caleb, you’ve got her trained. Didn’t even change out of her pajamas.” “Guess she was in a hurry to get into your bed.” “The girl’s desperate. No way she doesn’t drink it. Shit, looks like I owe you a G-Wagon.” I have a severe alcohol allergy. In my real life, a bad stomach ulcer from my college days meant my mom had spent six months consulting with nutritionists and cooking special meals just to heal me. In my last life, my ninth life, I drank the champagne. I wept while I did it, apologizing to my mom in my head, but I had to. I wanted to go home so badly. They ended up removing half of my stomach. Caleb’s face was a mask of impatience, his handsome features twisted with a familiar, simmering violence. “Are you deaf? Go drink the champagne. And don’t give me any of that allergy bullshit. The bet’s for my car. I’m not losing.” Last time, when I tried to explain, he’d slapped me so hard my ears rang. He’d grabbed my hair and dragged me to the table. He’d shattered a bottle and held the jagged neck to my throat. “Don’t be a bitch, Ava. You came here, so you’re going to drink. Don’t embarrass me, or I swear to God I’ll kill you.” I drank it all. His only comment was, “Pathetic.” After that night, in that ninth life, he married me. Our life together was a special kind of hell. My skin was a constant patchwork of bruises. He was a monster. He hit me when he was drunk, he hit me when he was angry, and sometimes, he hit me for no reason at all. My fists clenched at my sides. I ground my teeth. This time, I wasn’t going to endure it. This time, he was going to die. Seeing my silence, his brow furrowed. He took a step closer, raising his hand. It was moving toward my face, an all-too-familiar trajectory. My eyes narrowed, my focus absolute. My hand shot up to my hair, pulling the metal pin free. With all the force I could muster, I lunged forward and plunged the sharpened end deep into his throat. Blood erupted, hot and wet against my skin. His eyes bulged, his hand clawing at his neck, a look of pure disbelief on his face. “Ghk! Ghk! You… you…” He tried to speak, but only a torrent of red spilled from his lips. 2 Gritting my teeth, I pushed the pin in deeper. “You’re the pathetic one,” I whispered, the words like acid. “You don’t deserve to live.” That sterile, digital voice only ever spoke once per lifetime. I wished I could ask it, just once, why a monster like Caleb Vaughn deserved happiness. He didn’t. He deserved to die. His body slid to the floor, his eyes wide open, frozen in a mask of indignation. Screams finally erupted around me. People scrambled, knocking over chairs and tables in a chaotic rush for the exits. The world dissolved. When it reformed, I was standing in an airport terminal, the air thick with the murmur of a thousand conversations. In the distance, I saw him. Caleb, his face a thundercloud, flanked by two imposing bodyguards, stalking toward me. I had been reborn. This was the eighth life. This was the life I had finally accepted he would never love me, that he was a monster. I’d decided to leave the country to escape his torment. But he was a demon you couldn’t outrun. He found me, dragged me back to a cellar, and pulled my hair until my scalp screamed. “You can never leave me, Ava. You’ll die by my side, and nowhere else.” And I did. I starved to death in that darkness. Now, he was getting closer. I calmly reached up, my fingers closing around the hairpin in my hair. I watched him approach, my expression a perfect blank. He spread his arms wide, a mocking, triumphant smile on his face. “Ava, Ava. Did you really think you could leave without my permission? Be a good girl and come home with me. If you do, I promise I’ll go easy on you.” A faint smile touched my own lips. I said nothing. I just took a step forward, grabbed the front of his expensive silk tie, and with a motion that was becoming second nature, drove the pin into his throat. Blood sprayed across my face. Again. “Aahh!” Panic exploded around us. He clutched his neck, his eyes filled with genuine terror this time. I looked down at him as he collapsed, my voice flat. “You will never have the chance to hurt me again. Just die.” Caleb Vaughn choked on his own blood and lay still. 3 The world twisted, and I blinked. I was standing beside a shimmering pool, soaked to the bone and shivering violently. Caleb stood before me, looking impossibly handsome and utterly contemptuous. “Well? Get back in there and find my ring.” The woman clinging to his arm, a girl with a deceptively sweet face, pouted. “Oh, Caleb, be nice. I mean, Ava’s your girlfriend now, isn’t she? And I don’t think she can swim. This seems a little mean.” A cruel smirk played on Caleb’s lips. “Girlfriend? Please. She’s a pathetic stray who follows me around. She’s my girlfriend when I say she is, and she’s trash when I say she is.” I remembered. This was the seventh life. The woman was his childhood friend, a snake named Maddy. A few days earlier, Caleb had cornered me and told me he loved me. Desperate for a new angle, a new path to success, I had agreed to be his girlfriend. It had all been a bet, of course. In this life, he killed me. I couldn’t swim, so I refused to jump back into the pool. He kicked me in. As I thrashed in the water, screaming for help, he forbade anyone from moving a muscle. He let me drown in front of a dozen people. He found me, he pursued me, I did nothing, and he still murdered me. Now, seeing me just stand there, shivering and silent, his patience snapped. He strode toward me. “What the hell, did my words stop working? I told you to get back in the goddamn pool and find it. You’re not leaving here until you do.” My eyes, red-rimmed and burning, stared up at him. As he reached out to grab me, my hand darted to a nearby cocktail table. I snatched a small paring knife left on a fruit platter and lunged, burying it in his stomach. Once wasn’t enough. I ripped it out, the sound slick and wet, and plunged it in again. And again. And again, with all the strength I had, driving it to the hilt. Blood splattered across my face, obscuring my vision, but the more I saw, the more satisfying it felt. Caleb clutched at the wound, his face a mask of agony and rage. He staggered back, crashing into a lounge chair, a river of red pouring from his designer shirt. He stared at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You… you…” The party guests were screaming, running in every direction. A cold, harsh laugh escaped my lips. I didn’t want to hear his pathetic last words. “You’re the pathetic one, Caleb. You’re the one who told me you loved me, then you told everyone I was a slut who chased you. You lied.” “I did nothing to you,” I screamed, my voice cracking, “and you were still going to kill me! Just die! Die!” My strength gave out, and I collapsed onto the blood-soaked pavement. Caleb’s body slid from the chair, his blood turning the crystal-clear pool a sickening shade of crimson. 4 My eyes stayed open for this transition. The world warped, colors bleeding together, until I found myself standing in the center of a grand ballroom. A string quartet played an elegant waltz as couples glided across the polished floor. The sixth life. Tonight was the annual Vaughn family gala. Caleb had personally invited me. He’d even sent a dress to my apartment. He would force me to dance in the center of the room. The moment I raised my arms, the entire dress, held together by a single, dissolving thread, would fall to the floor. Wearing nothing but pasties, I would try to run, but Caleb and his friends would block my path, their phones held high. They would film everything. The pictures and videos would be online before I even made it home. I would become the laughingstock, the slut of the city. I remember Caleb holding his phone up to my face, a vicious grin splitting his face. “Well, well, Ava. Who were you trying to seduce with this little number? Damn, nice tits. So white.” Overnight, the entire world had seen my body. I barricaded myself in my apartment, and a week later, I swallowed a bottle of pills. Now, across the crowded room, I saw him. He was leaning against a marble pillar, the picture of bored arrogance, watching me. He looked like a predator, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce and tear me to shreds. Our eyes met. I mouthed the words silently. Long time no see, Caleb. He saw me standing frozen in the middle of the dance floor and muttered a curse under his breath, pushing himself off the pillar to stalk toward me. I lifted the hem of my gown slightly and moved toward a passing waiter, deftly plucking a heavy dinner fork from his tray. Caleb reached me, his face tight with anger. “What the hell are you waiting for, you bitch? Start dancing. How long do I have to…” My gaze was locked on his, unwavering, as if he were the only person in the universe. “Go to hell.” “What?” Before he could process it, I lunged. I drove the tines of the fork deep into his eye. I ripped it out and, in the same motion, plunged it into the soft flesh of his throat. Once again, that familiar hot spray. He stared at me, his face a canvas of horror, trying to pull my hand away, but I only pushed the fork deeper. “Aaargh!” A choked, agonizing scream tore from his throat. The guests scattered, their own screams echoing in the vast ballroom. He clutched his neck, his one good eye bulging. “Why… why would you…” I looked at him, my expression cold as ice. “Because you’re a monster. And you deserve to die. This dress? The one you were going to humiliate me with? You gave it to me. You thought this was all a fun game. Well, I decided to play, too.” I twisted the fork. Up on the mezzanine, Caleb’s parents were rushing toward the staircase, their faces panicked. They were monsters, too. In that life, after the video went viral, I had gone to them. I had knelt on the floor and begged them to make him take it down. I told them he had given me the dress, that it was a setup. His mother had looked down at me with pure disgust. “That sounds like your problem. Maybe you should have thought about that before acting like a whore.” “For all we know, you wore that dress on purpose, hoping to trap a rich man,” his father had added. “Don’t come here playing the victim.” Everyone looked at me with that same contempt. They all saw a gold-digging slut. That was the moment my last hope had died. Of course. Only monsters could raise a monster. This wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. They all deserved to die. 5 In a blink, I was in a dark, grimy room. A heavy shovel was in my hands. On the floor lay a man with a bloody head. Across from me, Caleb stood, his face pale with fear. The fifth life. A business rival of the Vaughn family had kidnapped Caleb for revenge. I’d been with him, so they took me, too. The man on the floor had been about to cut off Caleb’s arm. I’d snuck up behind him and knocked him out with the shovel. As we were escaping, Caleb used me as a diversion. I’ll never forget it. We were almost at the door, my hand in his, when he suddenly shoved me to the ground, scrambled outside, and slammed the heavy door shut. I heard his muffled voice from the other side. “Ava, they’re coming back! You have to stall them! I’ll get help, I promise!” Then his footsteps faded, and he was gone. Of course, they caught me. They weren’t just kidnappers; they were animals. They took me back to their hideout and… I will never forget that pain. Never. I don’t know if Caleb ever came back with help. They killed me on that filthy mattress before I could find out. Now, in this dark room, I took a deep breath. I glanced at the unconscious man on the floor, then raised my eyes to meet Caleb’s. He crept forward and checked the man’s pulse. “He’s alive. Come on, let’s go!” He ran to the door and peeked out. “Damn it. I swear, nothing but bad luck ever happens when you’re around, Ava. When we get out of here, I’m going to kill you.” I almost laughed. A bitter, broken sound. I’d just saved his life, and the animal thought I was the problem. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t getting out of here. He was going to die right here. Suddenly, the synthesized voice screeched in my head, frantic. “Warning! Warning! Host must complete the objective. The death of the target will result in a loop reset and mission failure. The Host will never return home.”

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