“ I’m back. Do you still want me?” The text message glowed on my screen, a ghost from another life. Staring at the words, I felt the past pull at me, a current dragging me under. A hand snatched the phone from my grasp. I looked up to see my husband, Grayson, his brow furrowed in a familiar, impatient line. “What are you doing, looking at my phone?” he demanded. “I told you, Chloe is the only one who matters to me.” I didn’t say anything, which only seemed to irritate him more. “Of course,” he added, a dismissive wave of his hand, “I’m not going to divorce you.” My heart gave a sharp, painful little jump. He’d misunderstood completely. “Grayson,” I said, my voice flat. “That’s my phone you’re holding.” The confidence on his face collapsed. It was replaced by a dark, ugly suspicion. “Who is this man?” 1 I’m back. Do you still want me? That was it. No name, no context. But I didn’t need any. I knew who it was from. Just seeing his name in my mind was enough to make the present fade away. I was lost in a memory so vivid I didn’t even hear Grayson walk up behind me. He ripped the phone from my hands, his expression tightening. “Ava. When did you pick up the charming habit of snooping through other people’s phones?” I saw a flash of genuine disgust in his eyes. In the nearly five years we’d been married, he’d mostly treated me with a cool indifference, a polite disregard. I’d never seen such a raw emotion from him directed at me. “I’ve told you,” he said, his voice clipped. “Chloe is the one who matters.” I blinked, the words echoing strangely. Had he told me? Or had I simply overheard that hushed, frantic phone call, and he’d only “confessed” after he knew he was caught? It wasn’t a confession. It was a notification. An amendment to the terms and conditions of our marriage. When my silence stretched on, he sighed, as if granting a great concession. “And I’m not going to divorce you, obviously.” A muscle in my jaw twitched. The depth of his self-absorption was almost impressive. I couldn’t resist. “You’re holding my phone.” He swiped up, his thumb moving across the screen. There was only the one message. The sleek black case, the screen protector… it wasn’t his phone. Grayson’s face soured. “Who is this man?” 2 I knew that in moments like this, any hint of evasion would only feed Grayson’s suspicion. So I gave him the truth, or at least part of it. “My ex, I think.” His hand tightened around my phone, the knuckles white. I had to gently remind him again before he returned it to me. It was an easy mistake to make. We had identical phones, the same models, the same cases. And, ironically, the message was a mirror image of our own drama. His Chloe, his great lost love, had sent him the exact same text a year ago. I’m back. Do you still want me? What a coincidence. The only difference was the date stamp, a tiny line of text easily overlooked. Grayson had been on his way out, but now he seemed to have changed his mind. He sank onto the edge of the sofa, assuming an air of casual inquiry that didn’t fool me for a second. “He’s your ex?” Even though I’d already told him, I nodded. “My ex.” My first love, actually. The boy next door. My fiancé, once upon a time, in a childhood pact that felt more real than this marriage ever had. “How long were you together?” “A little over a year.” If you only count from the first kiss, that was true. “When did you break up?” “2019.” The year before I married Grayson. Time flies. It was hard to believe Grayson and I were approaching our fifth anniversary. I saw the tension leave his shoulders. He was relaxing, deciding this ghost from the past was no real threat. “Our fifth anniversary is coming up, isn’t it? We should go…” “Does your offer to let me see other people still stand?” We both spoke at the exact same time, our words colliding in the quiet room. A stunned silence followed. Grayson stared down at the tips of his expensive Italian loafers, his thoughts a closed book. I decided to break the standoff. “What were you saying? We should go where?” “To the family estate,” he said. “Oh.” Of course. A family obligation. For a foolish second, I’d thought he meant a trip, a celebration for us. Good thing I hadn’t let that thought take root. Silence fell again. I studied his profile, half-cast in the shadows from the window. No expression. No emotion. I took a breath and decided to push. “The offer you made. About us… seeing other people. Does it still stand?” 3 He’d said it two months ago, during a particularly nasty fight. He was tired of my questions, my accusations. He’d finally snapped. “Can you just stop watching my every move?” he’d spat out. “For God’s sake, Ava, go find someone else to keep you busy. We can have an arrangement.” At the time, the words had stolen the air from my lungs. I felt like I was suffocating. Now, strangely, I felt a flicker of gratitude for his cruelty. Time really is a master storyteller. It breaks you, but if you learn to bend with it, it can offer the most unexpected gifts. A dry, mirthless laugh escaped Grayson’s lips. “Yes. Of course, it stands.” He stood up and strode toward the door. His hand was on the handle when he paused. He didn’t turn around, but his voice carried back to me, clear and cold. “I meant what I said. We can have an arrangement.” A beat. “But you are still my wife. Mrs. Hawke. Just… be discreet.” “Okay,” I replied, my voice meek and agreeable. I’d use him as my benchmark. It’s not like I was planning on setting off fireworks across the city for someone, or getting into a brawl at a gala over them. He turned then, his eyes narrowing. “And you’d better make sure he understands the situation. That you’re a married woman.” “The last thing our families need is some messy scandal.” I nodded. He was right. I would tell him. I watched Grayson, but he still didn’t leave. He just stood there, watching me. “Is there anything else?” I asked. His fingers tapped an unconscious, rhythmic beat against the seam of his trousers. “What’s his name?” he asked, adding quickly, “I’m not trying to be… I just don’t want you to get taken advantage of.” I cut him off before he could finish the lie. “Leo Hayes.” “Hayes? From Hayes Innovations? Patrick Hayes’s son?” “I believe so.” I didn’t know if he was the CEO of Hayes Innovations now, but I knew his father’s name was Patrick. This time, Grayson didn’t hesitate. He opened the door and left without a backward glance. 4 I will be reframing this chapter to maintain Ava’s first-person perspective, as per the project’s core instructions for an immersive experience. Sitting alone in the sudden silence of the foyer, I could practically hear the gears turning in Grayson’s head as he walked to his car. A knot of irritation was probably tightening in his chest, a feeling without a clear source. But then he would think of Leo Hayes, and a sense of relief would wash over him. He knew Leo, or at least knew of him. They’d crossed paths once or twice at some benefit or another. Leo had a reputation. He came from old money but had built his own tech empire from the ground up. He had the looks, the pedigree, the ambition—a man who was, in every measurable way, Grayson’s equal. More importantly, a man like Leo Hayes had pride. Principles. He wouldn’t send a message like that if he knew I was married. Men like that don’t become the other man. They don’t involve themselves in sordid affairs that have no winning outcome. And besides, he would tell himself, Ava simply doesn’t have that kind of pull. She isn’t the kind of woman a man like Leo Hayes would risk his reputation for. His phone would buzz then. It would be Chloe. He’d promised to take her to that new restaurant downtown tonight, the one with the six-month waitlist. He’d let it ring three times before answering. “Something came up,” he’d say, his voice softening. “I’ll have to take you next time.” And Chloe, though disappointed, would be understanding. She would tell him to take care of his business and that she’d be waiting. See? he would think, ending the call. That’s the kind of woman I love. Someone sweet and gentle, someone who soothes and supports. Not someone sharp and demanding like Ava, who always has to pick at the seams of things until they unravel. 5 After a long time, I decided to text him back. Leo? Is that you? The reply took so long I was sure it would never come. It’s me. Our breakup had been ugly. He’d seen my choice as the ultimate betrayal. He left the country immediately after and hadn’t been back since. I truly believed we would never speak again, that we would live and die as strangers. It took me a full year after he left to even begin to feel whole again. And then I married Grayson. In the beginning, I was intoxicated by him. He had a gravity, a charisma that pulled all of my attention, making me forget so many of my troubles. I thought, for a while, that I was really falling in love with him. But in the fourth year of our marriage, his great lost love returned. Her name was Chloe. It’s the oldest story in the book. Her family had been paid off by the Hawkes to disappear, to leave Grayson free for a more… suitable match. When she returned and told Grayson the whole tearful story, every rule he lived by evaporated. The day I confronted him about Chloe, he told me without a flicker of hesitation that she was the most important person in his life. That if she had never been forced to leave, I would never have had the chance to marry him in the first place. A single frightened look from her was enough to turn Grayson into a weapon aimed directly at my throat. It was as if our three years of relative happiness had never existed. But we never mentioned divorce. We couldn’t. After five years of marriage, the business dealings between the Hawke and Sterling families were a tangled web six years in the making. The real-world consequences were far more complicated than either of us wanted to deal with. An arrangement, though? That was different. In our circle, affairs were practically a currency. They didn’t threaten the bottom line. Still, my fingers trembled over the screen. I had changed so much. I had no idea who Leo was anymore. I’m married. The words felt like tiny shards of glass as I typed them. The wait for his reply was agonizing. A single question mark appeared. I bit my lip, my mind racing. Finally, I just took a screenshot of the message he’d sent and sent it to him. What did you mean by this? The tension was unbearable. I started typing, my thumbs fumbling. Even though I’m married, my husband and I don’t have that kind of relationship anymore. Before I could finish, an image popped up from him. It was a screenshot of his phone. The screen was empty. There was no “I’m back. Do you still want me?” A wave of nausea washed over me. It was a misunderstanding. I scrambled to delete the humiliating sentence I’d been typing, but my eyes were suddenly blurry with tears. In my panic, my thumb hit send. I wiped my eyes and frantically held down the message, hitting “unsend.” A few seconds later, a new message from him came through. We were playing Truth or Dare this afternoon. My buddy Monk probably grabbed my phone and sent that, then deleted it. I had no idea. I’m sorry if it caused any trouble for you. 6 It wasn’t just disappointment. It was a deep, searing shame. How arrogant was I to think he’d come back for me? That he would want a woman who had shattered his heart and was now trapped in a sham of a marriage? Just because my own morals had been worn down to nothing didn’t mean his had. What was I doing? I typed out an apology, my cheeks burning. Sorry. My mistake. Leo didn’t reply. I couldn’t stand being in this house, this empty museum of a life. I drove to the lounge I always went to and started ordering drinks, one after another. Through a hazy blur, I saw a familiar figure moving toward me. He walked with a purpose, his silhouette cutting through the dim light. It looked like Leo, but it couldn’t be. The man I knew would never look at me with such a cold, impenetrable expression. I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, I was waking up somewhere unfamiliar. I sat up, my head throbbing, and my eyes met Leo’s. He was sitting on the balcony, bathed in the morning light. He was wearing a light gray dress shirt, two buttons undone, offering just a hint of his collarbone. The sleeves were rolled up, revealing tanned forearms with lean, defined muscles. And a long, thin scar that hadn’t been there before. Five years. His face was the same, but time had chiseled away the last of his boyish softness, replacing it with a quiet, magnetic confidence. He was the kind of man who commanded attention even when he was perfectly still. You can tell a lot about a person’s life by looking at them. Leo had clearly done well for himself. He was the first to look away. I realized I’d been staring, far past the point of politeness. I slipped into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. When I came out, he was standing with his back to me, looking down at the city below. “Leo, thank you for not leaving me there last night.” My memories were fuzzy, but I remembered enough to know I’d drunkenly latched onto him, refusing to let go. He’d brought me here because he had no other choice. He turned around. “Don’t mention it. I’d do the same for a stranger.” The meaning was clear: Don’t get any ideas. I managed a weak smile. “Well, I should go. I won’t bother you anymore.” I had only taken a few steps when he stopped me. “You need to settle your tab from last night.” Right. The drinks. He must have paid. I pulled out my phone, but when I tried to scan his code, I realized it was a contact request, not a payment QR. “I have a policy about not accepting money from anonymous sources,” he said, his face impassive as he accepted my friend request. Did he always have that policy? I doubted it. But five years is a long time. People change. “So, um, how much do I owe you?” “Seven thousand, five hundred and sixty dollars.” My fingers froze. That couldn’t be right. As if reading my mind, he added, “That includes the cost of my suit.” The memory sharpened with a cringe. I’d thrown up on him. Our first time seeing each other in five years, and I’d ended it by vomiting on his designer suit. I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. I never wanted to see him again. I rounded the number up and transferred him eight thousand dollars, then practically ran for the door. 7 I was exhausted—physically and emotionally. I got home, showered again, and collapsed into bed. I was hovering in that space between sleep and waking when I heard the bedroom door open. It was Grayson. He was the only one who ever came in while I was sleeping. I heard his footsteps, the sound bringing me to full, alert consciousness. He stopped beside the bed. I could feel his eyes on me, a heavy, scrutinizing gaze. I focused on keeping my breathing slow and even. Every sound was amplified in the stillness. The soft rustle of fabric. The quiet click as he picked up my phone from the nightstand. He knew my passcode; I’d never changed it. It was pathetically easy for him to unlock it. He scrolled for a moment, then stopped. He’d found what he was looking for. I didn’t have any secrets on my phone. I had no idea what he was so desperate to see. After a moment of silence, a low, humorless chuckle escaped his lips. “Just as I thought,” he murmured to himself. “Who does she think he is?” “She really needs a reality check.” He placed the phone back on the nightstand, the quiet thud echoing in the room. He turned and left, closing the door behind him. Only then did I dare to move, curling into a tight ball and pulling the duvet around me. I knew exactly what he’d been looking at. My conversation with Leo. She really needs a reality check. I repeated the words to myself, a bitter taste filling my mouth. I couldn’t name the feeling twisting in my gut. It was like he’d found the most private, vulnerable corner of my heart and ripped it open for his own amusement. I was more proud than I realized, and his scorn hurt more than I wanted to admit. Tears soaked my pillow before I even realized I was crying. My phone buzzed a few times. I ignored it. A moment later, it started ringing. A phone call. It rang, and rang, and rang. Furious, I snatched it from the nightstand. The screen read: LEO HAYES. I wiped my tears, took a few deep breaths to compose myself, and finally answered. “What is it?” I asked. His voice was different. “What’s wrong with your voice?” I lied instinctively. “Nothing, just a bit of a cold. What’s up?” Silence stretched on the other end of the line. “You left something here,” he finally said. “You need to come get it. Tonight.” He hung up and immediately sent an address, not even giving me a chance to refuse. 8 Leo hadn’t done anything wrong. That’s what I kept telling myself. He wasn’t the same boy who had offered me unconditional love and acceptance. I was the one who needed to adjust my expectations. I pulled myself together. Before I got to the address he’d sent—a sleek, modern downtown condo—I checked my reflection in the car mirror and practiced a relaxed, easy smile. We were childhood friends, after all. We knew each other inside and out. Acting like strangers would be more suspicious than just being normal. I brought a gift with me, a peace offering. It was a set of hand-carved alabaster chess pieces. Leo didn’t have many hobbies, but chess was one of them. I knew he’d had his eye on a set just like this before he left the country. I saw the flicker of surprise and delight in his eyes before he could hide it. I knew he’d like it. “For me?” he asked. I nodded, maintaining my gentle smile. He picked up one of the pieces, the cool white stone a stark contrast to his long, tanned fingers. It suited him. “A strategic gift,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. “Are you making a move, Ava?” I looked up sharply. A move? Seeing my expression, he just gave a slight, unreadable smile. I decided I was overthinking it. It was just an offhand comment. “So,” I said, changing the subject. “What did I leave here?” He pulled out his phone and, right in front of me, opened his banking app. He transferred back the extra money I’d sent him. $440 I was completely bewildered. If it was just about the money, why make me come all the way down here? He took a sip of water. “I prefer to handle transactions in person.” Four hundred and forty dollars. He could have made a hundred times that in the time it took me to drive here. Still, I nodded as if this made perfect sense. As I turned to leave, he finally got to the real point. “You have your money back. But now you owe me a favor.” I nodded again. Fair enough. “Come with me to a gala.” I froze, then cleared my throat. “Leo, everyone who matters in this city knows I’m Grayson Hawke’s wife.” He didn’t seem to think this was a problem. “And everyone who matters in this city also knows that you were my childhood sweetheart.” He had a point. If we were open about it, I guess it wouldn’t look like we were hiding anything. The car ride was silent. It wasn’t until we stepped out in front of the grand hotel ballroom that he paused. He looked down at me, then at my arm. I understood. I looped my arm through his. We had barely stepped through the doors when we ran into the last person on earth I wanted to see. Grayson’s face was a thundercloud as his eyes locked onto my hand resting on Leo’s arm. But he wasn’t alone. Chloe was clinging to his other arm, her victory barely concealed. He’d been parading her around at these events for the past year, passing her off as his “secretary” as the thinnest of veils. So why did he look so furious now? He looked like he was seconds away from losing his composure in front of everyone. I didn’t remove my arm. Instead, fueled by a sudden spike of defiance, I gave Leo’s bicep a little squeeze. Definitely more toned than Grayson’s. He blocked our path. “Mr. Hawke,” Leo said, his voice dangerously smooth. “Is there a problem?” Grayson’s eyes were only for me. He reached out to grab my arm, but Leo shifted, blocking him. My husband took a deep, steadying breath. “Let’s go somewhere private,” he hissed. “Unless you want to make a scene that embarrasses both of us.” I glanced around. A few people were already starting to notice. Grayson and Chloe were a known quantity. But this… this was new. He was the man, the powerful CEO. He could get away with it. I couldn’t. I sighed. “Leo and I grew up together,” I explained, my voice low. “Most of the people here know that. It’s not what you think.” Grayson let out a cold snort. “Right. ‘Childhood sweethearts.’” I ignored his sarcasm and tried to steer Leo in another direction. But Grayson moved again, blocking us. He wasn’t going to let this go. Fine. If he wanted a confrontation, he would get one. “Outside,” I said.

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The night Hannah died, her son showed up on my doorstep. “Mommy said if she had to go away, I should come find you.” “Auntie… do you know where my mom went?” His eyes, swimming with tears, were a perfect copy of Hannah’s. And just like hers, they made me want to slam the door. But as my hand tightened on the knob, text flickered in the air, scrolling past my eyes like phantom subtitles. [OH MY GOD, KID, ANYONE BUT HER! YOU’VE GONE TO THE VILLAIN! SHE’S YOUR MOM’S ARCH-ENEMY!!] [But the male lead has already met the new girl. He’s going to fall for her and forget all about his lost love and this kid.] [Ugh, I’m so sick of this trope where the dead wife becomes some untouchable saint.] [Poor Leo. He’s just going to go back to being bullied by the nanny, picked on by kids at school… Mom’s gone and Dad’s a ghost…] [He doesn’t even make it to first grade before he’s kidnapped and killed.] My motion froze. I stepped back, pulling the door open wider. “Get in.” 1 The comments weren’t wrong. Hannah and I were enemies. She was the long-lost Sterling heiress, the real daughter found after years of living in poverty. I was the usurper, the cuckoo in the nest who had grown up arrogant and entitled in her place. Ten years ago, Hannah came home to the Sterling mansion. Not long after, following a series of spectacular flameouts on my part, I was kicked out. The last time I saw her was at her wedding. The groom was the man who was supposed to have been my fiancé. I hated Hannah. “What’s your name?” “Leo Hayes.” The little boy sat across from me on the sofa, looking at me with a shy, blinking curiosity. An itch of irritation crawled up my spine, and my fingers twitched for a cigarette. I caught his wide-eyed gaze and forced the urge down. “Do you even know who I am, kid? Showing up here all by yourself.” Leo nodded, his small hands clutching the straps of his backpack. “I know.” “Mommy said you’re her sister. That makes you my aunt.” He looked up, his voice bright and clear. “Hi, Auntie Quinn!” That innocent, reedy voice. It was a ghost of Hannah’s. I was eighteen when I first met her. I’d just gotten home from school to find a girl in a faded t-shirt sitting on our living room sofa. A high ponytail emphasized the hollows in her cheeks, and the yellowish tint to her hair screamed malnutrition. The moment she saw me, her eyes lit up like candles. “Quinn,” my mother had said, her voice strained. “There’s been a mistake. We… we just found out. You’re not our biological daughter.” She gestured toward the girl on the sofa. “This is our daughter. She’s come home.” What a joke, I thought. Are we filming a movie? That was my first thought. It was followed by a tidal wave of panic, dread, and a white-hot surge of rage. I stared at the girl’s face—a face that was an undeniable, eight-out-of-ten echo of my father’s—and bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. She must hate me, I thought. Just as I hated her for existing. But then Hannah stood up, walked over to me, and timidly tugged at the sleeve of my blazer. “Are you… my sister?” That hesitant voice, those eyes brimming with a strange mix of curiosity and joy. It instantly cast me as the evil stepmother in some twisted fairytale. Because of that one question, I was allowed to stay. A charity case in the home that had been mine, living a life of leisure I no longer had a right to. I wasn’t grateful. I hated her. And when I saw the man I’d grown up with, my fiancé, look at her with an adoration he could no longer hide, I hated her even more. So on the day of their engagement party, I pushed her down a flight of stairs. And just like that, I was finally, officially, cast out of the Sterling family. Which is why I couldn’t understand. Why would Hannah entrust her only child to me? My tongue slid over my back molars. Staring at Leo’s face, so much like his mother’s, was like swallowing glass. I looked away, my voice flat and cold. “Your mother and I were not related. I’m not your aunt.” “It’s late. I’ll take you home first thing in the morning.” 2 Leo was a good kid. So good, it was unsettling. He made the guest bed himself, the sheets pulled taut, and even folded his worn clothes into a neat pile on a chair. I leaned against the doorframe, watching him. I couldn’t help myself. “Hey, kid. What’d your parents do, torture you? Why are you acting like a forty-year-old butler?” Leo’s hands stilled for a second. He looked up at me and offered a bright, practiced smile. “Of course not, Auntie Quinn.” “I just don’t want to be any trouble.” I was about to tell him to stop calling me that, but the phantom text scrolling in my vision caught my attention. [Poor Leo. His parents’ marriage was already on the rocks when he was born. The dad, Carter, barely came home once a week.] [Before the wedding, he thought she was so pure and sweet. After, he called it being reckless and unsophisticated. Men. They’re all the same.] [Carter’s parents looked down on Hannah, too. Said she had no etiquette, no class. They didn’t like Leo, either.] [My heart breaks for this little guy! Please, Villain Quinn, be nice to him! I’ll never curse you again, I swear!] I had assumed Hannah would be happy. After all, she’d gotten the storybook ending: the perfect match of status and a love she’d supposedly chosen. It had never occurred to me that her life would be anything less than perfect. Theoretically, I should have been thrilled. But for some reason, a heavy weight pressed down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. My vision blurred. For a second, the small boy carefully folding his shirt wasn’t Leo. It was Hannah. I saw her, her lips pressed into a thin line, silently pouring tea for guests with her head bowed. I saw her standing frozen in a doorway, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. I saw a dozen other flickering ghosts of her that made my head spin. Leo’s voice snapped me back. I looked at him. “What is it?” “I texted my dad, Auntie Quinn. He said he’ll come get me in the morning.” “…Good.” I knew it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. But my mind was a chaotic mess. The ever-present text floating in my periphery gave me a headache, and I threw myself onto my bed, burying my face in the pillow. In a state between waking and sleep, I felt myself pulled back to the day Hannah died. After I left the Sterling house, I’d lost all contact with her. That day had been completely ordinary for me—work, home, sleep. Simple. Until the phone rang. An unfamiliar number, but a voice I knew instantly. Except I’d never heard Hannah sound so weak, so fragile. “I’m sorry…” “Quinn… I’m so sorry…” Those were the last two things she ever said to me. Then, the line went dead. I turned on the TV later that night and saw her face on the news. The next morning, a sharp knock woke me up. When I stumbled out of my bedroom, the front door was already open. Leo stood there with his backpack on, and beyond him, a man I hadn’t seen in years. Not in person, anyway. I saw his face on business news channels all the time. “Long time no see, Carter.” Carter Hayes frowned, his handsome, almond-shaped eyes filled with impatience behind his designer glasses. “What are you doing here?” Carter and I had grown up together. Before Hannah, we’d been close. In the blush of my teenage years, I’d even had a crush on him. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when we’d arrived at this place of mutual disdain. I suppose it was when he decided he hated my arrogance, and I decided I hated his fickle heart. “I was about to ask you the same thing, Carter.” My voice dripped with the old, familiar sarcasm. “Weren’t you two madly in love? Your wife is barely cold in the ground and your son is already on my doorstep.” His frown deepened, but he didn’t rise to the bait. He just looked down at Leo. “Leo, Dad has a lot of work. Don’t bother me with things unless it’s an emergency, understand?” He straightened his tie. “I’m leaving on a business trip today. I’ll be back in a week.” Leo smiled and nodded. “Okay, Daddy.” But as he smiled, his left hand was unconsciously twisting the hem of his t-shirt. I watched their backs disappear down the hall and let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Hannah, you really raised a piece of work. He even has your habit of lying with a smile.” 3 After Leo left, my life went back to normal. Or it was supposed to. When I was first thrown out, I tried to find a job, but every door was slammed in my face. No one wanted to hire the disgraced Sterling heiress. So, I did the only thing I could: I built something myself. I started a small marketing firm. It wasn’t a global empire, but it paid the bills. But for some reason, the image of Leo’s face kept popping into my head. I blamed it on those damn phantom comments that followed me everywhere. [Leo is so miserable… The nanny made green peppers again. He hates them, but she calls it ‘building character.’] [She finds new things he hates to cook every day. And Leo, who is already the most well-behaved kid, just thinks he’s not being good enough.] [Meanwhile, Carter is off chasing the new girl. The whole ‘she runs, he pursues’ game. Leaving Leo all alone.] [I can’t watch this anymore. Now he’s getting bullied at school. How can little kids be so cruel?!] [WHOA, WHAT IS THAT OLD WITCH DOING?! Is she going to hit him?! How dare she!!!] SCREEECH— The sound of my chair scraping violently against the floorboards silenced the room. My assistant, who had been in the middle of a report, looked up in alarm. “Is something wrong, Ms. Sterling?” “Something’s come up. I have to go out.” I grabbed my car keys and strode out of the office, cursing under my breath. Dammit, Hannah. I swear, I am in your debt for life. I knew Carter’s address by heart. I hadn’t been there in years, but the route was etched into my memory. By the time I parked in front of the sterile modern mansion and banged on the door, the comments were exploding. [HOLY CRAP! The villain is here!? This wasn’t in the original plot!] [Don’t tell me she thinks that with Hannah gone, she has a shot at getting back with Carter!!] The nanny opened the door, her movements slow and lazy. She blinked when she saw me. “Ms. Sterling? What are you doing here?” “Mr. Hayes isn’t home, you…” “Move.” I didn’t have time for her excuses. I shoved her aside and marched into the house. “Ms. Sterling! You can’t just come in here!” she shrieked, scrambling after me. “Ms. Sterling!!” I ignored her, my heels clicking purposefully on the marble floors as I headed for the stairs. Thanks to the comments, I knew exactly where to find Leo. I threw open the door to his room. He was curled into a ball in the corner, hugging his knees, his eyes vacant. Tear tracks stained his cheeks, and a series of bluish-purple marks marred the skin of his exposed arm. Fingerprints. He’d been pinched, hard. He looked like a cornered animal, and something in my chest clenched painfully. I took a deep breath, walked over, and held out my hand. “Come with me.” “But…” “You called me your aunt, didn’t you? Let’s go.” Leo stared, frozen. Then two fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. He reached out a small, trembling hand and placed it in mine. I pulled him to his feet and turned to leave, but the nanny blocked the doorway. “Ms. Sterling, you can’t take Master Leo!” “Get out of my way.” “Mr. Hayes left me in charge, he told me to take good care of the young master, I…” I was done listening to her bullshit. I lifted my foot and kicked her squarely in the stomach. She cried out and crumpled to the floor, clutching her middle. I looked down at her, my voice ice. “Even Carter Hayes wouldn’t dare try to stop me. Who the hell do you think you are?” I glanced down. Leo’s mouth was hanging open, his eyes wide with shock. For a fleeting second, I wondered if I was being a terrible influence. The thought vanished as quickly as it came. I’m Quinn Sterling. I’ve never given a damn what anyone thinks. I led Leo to my car, buckled him in, and peeled out of the driveway. On the road, I dialed Carter. “Carter Hayes. Since you clearly have no idea how to raise your son, I’ll be doing it for you.” “What are you talking about? Quinn, you…” I hung up, cutting off his impotent rage. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw Leo staring at me with pure, unadulterated awe. “What?” I snapped. “Auntie Quinn, you were so cool! Mommy would never dare talk to Daddy like that!” An image of Hannah flashed in my mind—soft, yielding, always trying to keep the peace. “That spineless woman? She wouldn’t dare talk to anyone like that,” I muttered. “Leo. From now on, you’re staying with me.” “Okay! Auntie Quinn.” This time, I didn’t correct him. 4 “Take off your shirt.” Leo clutched the hem of his t-shirt, shaking his head fiercely. I let out an impatient sigh. “Leo. Don’t make me do it for you.” We’d been in this standoff for a good ten minutes. I hadn’t realized a kid so small could be as stubborn as a mule. We stared each other down for another minute before he finally seemed to realize I wasn’t backing down. He lowered his head in silence and slowly pulled the shirt over his head. My mood soured even more at the sight of his thin, fragile frame. The scattered bruises—some old and faded, others fresh and angry—on his arms and back were infuriating. I considered myself many things, but a good person wasn’t one of them. I’d done plenty of awful things in my life, but I’d never, ever, laid a hand on a child. My fists clenched at my sides. I took a deep, steadying breath, furious that my kick hadn’t been harder. Leo peeked up at my face, then quickly looked down again, his hands twisting together in his lap. “I-I’m sorry…” His voice was as thin as a mosquito’s buzz. “What are you apologizing to me for?” I knelt down and began gently dabbing antiseptic on his bruises. He was so skinny. He didn’t look like Carter Hayes’s son; he looked like a child from a Dickens novel. With every bruise I cleaned, the weight in my chest grew heavier. He flinched as I worked, his voice barely a whisper. “Mrs. Gable said… I’m not a good boy. Auntie Quinn, am I being a bother to you?” My hand paused. I looked up. “Why would you say that?” His eyes, Hannah’s eyes, were shiny with tears he was desperately trying to hold back. He balled his little hands into fists. “I… I don’t eat all my food, and it makes Mrs. Gable mad…” His voice cracked. “And Daddy doesn’t like me, or else he wouldn’t always be away… And Mommy… she left because she didn’t like me, either…” He sniffled, trying to suck the tears back in. He wasn’t just the spitting image of Hannah; he had her damn personality, too. I finished cleaning the last cut in silence. The phantom comments were a chorus of pity and heartbreak. [Oh, Leo, sweetie, you’re not a bad boy!!] [My heart is shattered. They’ve completely broken this poor baby’s spirit.] [But she’s telling this to the villain. Quinn won’t get it. She hated Hannah.] [Out of the frying pan and into the fire. This kid has the worst luck.] [I don’t know… Quinn was willing to go get him and clean his wounds. Maybe she’s not all bad?] [Are you kidding? She almost killed Hannah. How can she not be a bad person?!] The debate raged on, but I ignored it. I calmly capped the ointment, reached out, and rested my hand on top of Leo’s head. He looked up at me, confused. “You’re not a bad kid,” I said, my voice even. “She’s the bad one. The one who forces you to eat things you hate just because she can. It’s a pathetic little power trip, that’s all.” “As for your parents…” I paused, trying to figure out how to explain a toxic marriage to a five-year-old. I met his innocent, confused gaze. Screw it. Kids don’t need complexity. “Your dad may not be home much, but of course he loves you. Why else would he have come to get you himself that day? And your mom… why would she send you to me if she didn’t love you more than anything?” Leo blinked slowly, then gave a small nod. I knew it would take time for him to unlearn the damage, but it was a start. That night, Leo slept in my bed. Even in his sleep, his little hand kept a tight grip on the hem of my shirt. I studied his face in the pale moonlight slanting through the window, and I couldn’t help but think of Hannah. The day she first came to the Sterling house, she’d asked if she could sleep in my room. I was so full of resentment and hatred that I refused to even speak to her, let alone share a bed. If I had made a different choice that day, I wondered, would we have had a different future? I didn’t know. Leo’s preschool wasn’t far from my office, so I dropped him off on my way to work. As he got out of the car, he hesitated, looking like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Around noon, my phone rang. It was the school. “Hello, am I speaking with Leo Hayes’s guardian?” “He’s been in a fight with another student! We need you to come to the school immediately!” [Oh no! How could Leo get into a fight with the female lead’s son?!] 5 I was suddenly very glad I’d had the foresight to save my number in Leo’s smartwatch that morning. When I arrived at the school, I found Leo standing ramrod straight, his eyes red and his lips pressed into a stubborn, silent line. Across from him, a little boy was crying his eyes out, a nasty scrape on his elbow. The teacher’s face lit up with relief when she saw me. “Leo’s guardian, you’re here.” “Hello. I’m his aunt, Quinn.” I gave the teacher a polite, tight-lipped smile. “What happened?” “Well… I’m not entirely sure. By the time we got here, Sam was already on the ground.” She wrung her hands. “It was probably just a little scuffle between the boys, so…” “Sam!!” Before the teacher could finish, a woman in a white sundress rushed into the room. She dropped to her knees in front of the crying boy, frantically checking him for injuries. When she saw the scrape on his elbow, her own eyes welled up. “What happened? Oh, baby, does it hurt?” This had to be her. The so-called “female lead.” I studied her face, and I could finally see why Carter was so obsessed. She looked like Hannah. It was uncanny. So that’s what this was. He’d found himself a replacement. A short, bitter laugh escaped my lips. The woman’s head snapped up. “Did your child do this?” Her voice was sharp. “How do you raise your son? He’s so violent at such a young age!” At her shout, Leo flinched, and a tear finally escaped his eye. I moved instantly, stepping in front of him. “Ma’am, you don’t even know what happened, so how can you be so sure it’s our fault?” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “I trust Leo. He is not the kind of child who starts fights.” Behind me, I could feel Leo’s intense gaze fixed on my back. “Are you saying my son is?” she shot back. She turned to her boy. “Sam, tell Mommy. What happened?” Sam hiccupped, wiping his tears with the back of his hand. “I… I didn’t say anything! I just said I was going to the park with Mommy and my new uncle this weekend. And then… and then Leo just went crazy and pushed me down!” he wailed. “I didn’t do anything!” He dissolved into a fresh wave of tears, and the woman hugged him tightly, glaring at me over his head. “You heard him. My son did nothing wrong,” she said, her tone righteous. “I know it’s not easy raising a child alone, but that’s all the more reason to be diligent about their education.” She didn’t look that much like Hannah. Hannah was softer, more fragile, but she had a resilience to her, like a wildflower growing on a cliff face. This woman was more like a birch tree—pretty, but common. “Do you have any idea who he is?” I asked, my voice low. My intent was to remind her that Leo’s father was Carter Hayes. Clearly, she misunderstood. Her eyes went wide, and her voice rose an octave. “What, are you threatening me now?!” I was about to respond when a familiar, chilling voice cut through the air. “Anyone who hurts Chloe’s son will pay the price.”

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During dinner, I browsed a popular forum where a trending post caught my eye: “The woman funding my education is kind, but I want to marry her husband and replace her. Any foolproof methods?” I clicked the top comment: “Create dependency. First, offer to cook and clean at her house to show you’re the perfect homemaker.” “Then, arrange to stay overnight—say the dorms are locked. Wear something subtle. Wake up early and make breakfast.” “Key step: Pretend to be drunk. Cry about being alone. See if he hugs you out of pity.” The manipulative advice sickened me. I looked up at Ivy Chen, the girl I sponsor, sitting across from me. She sweetly placed food on my plate. “You have to try this, Mary! I should cook for you more often!” She suddenly put down her chopsticks, eyes shining. “My dorm has such an early curfew… Next time I clean your house, if it’s late, could I stay over?” 1 I was stunned for a moment. Then I asked her, “Why the sudden request to stay over? I haven’t heard you mention any issues with your dorm before.” “Besides, the guest room hasn’t been tidied in a while. It might not be very comfortable for a sudden stay,” I said, instinctively glancing at my husband, who was eating quietly beside me. I had been sponsoring Ivy’s education for four years, from high school through college. Whenever she’d come over for dinner in the past, she was always impeccably polite, always taking her leave right after the meal, never overstepping any boundaries. This sudden request was deeply out of character. Hearing my hesitation, Ivy immediately turned to my husband, Marcus, her expression a carefully crafted mask of grievance and dependence. Her voice was soft and pleading. “Marcus, it’s… it’s my new roommate. I don’t think she likes me. She’s always trying to exclude me, and if I get back late, they won’t open the door… I really had no other choice but to ask you and Mary for help…” As she spoke, she shot a timid glance back at me. “Just for one night, I promise. I’ll be on my best behavior. I can even help you clean the house!” My suspicions lessened slightly, but I was still hesitant. It took me a moment to respond. “Well… Marcus would have to agree to it as well.” I tossed the decision into his court. At my words, a flicker of triumph, almost imperceptible, flashed in Ivy’s eyes. She turned to my husband with an expectant look. Marcus put down his fork and knife, offering a gentle but distant smile. “Ivy, if you’re having problems in the dorm, you should report them to the university. Having a guest stay over unexpectedly would disrupt Mary’s rest. It’s not very convenient for us.” His refusal was what I expected. He has always valued our privacy and my comfort above all else. Disappointment and embarrassment instantly washed over Ivy’s face. She lowered her head and mumbled, “I’m sorry, Marcus. I wasn’t thinking. It was too much to ask…” The way she acted would make anyone think I was being unreasonable. Just then, that nagging feeling of unease returned, stronger this time. Staying the night? Her reaction after being rejected? This scenario… how was it so eerily similar to the “play the victim to gain sympathy after being rejected” tactic predicted in that forum post? My gaze sharpened as I looked at Ivy’s crestfallen face. A terrifying thought shot through my mind. Could it be… could the person who wrote that post actually be her? But I dismissed the thought a second later. I’d watched Ivy grow up. She came from a poor family but was hardworking and ambitious. She was a simple girl. How could she possibly harbor such deep-seated malice and cunning? I was letting the internet get to me, on the verge of misjudging a helpless young woman. I was about to say something to ease the tension. Just then, Ivy, seemingly flustered by the rejection, hastily stood up to clear my plate in a gesture of appeasement. As she reached for the soup bowl in front of me, the wide sleeve of her loose-fitting blouse fell away from her arm. And in that split second, I saw it clearly— On her slender wrist was an incredibly familiar platinum bracelet. The charm was a small, elegant star and moon. It was the gift my husband had given me for my birthday last month! I had complained at the time that his taste was a bit basic, wore it only once, and then put it away in my jewelry box. Later, I couldn’t find it anywhere! He’d just said I must have misplaced it and promised to buy me a better one next time. I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. The blood in my veins seemed to freeze, my hand holding my fork hovering motionless in mid-air. Could it be… That the bracelet was never lost at all?! And now, here it was, on Ivy’s wrist, hidden so carefully under her sleeve like a cherished secret. Was she really the one who wrote that post, the one who wanted to take my place?! Was she and my husband… 2 The moment Ivy went to the restroom, I unlocked my phone and pulled up the forum post. The original poster had just updated it a few minutes ago: “Got rejected on the sleepover plan. I think the sister is getting a little suspicious, but I played the victim card perfectly, and she’s a total softie. I’ll find another chance soon!” My heart plummeted into an icy abyss. I kept scrolling and saw several new comments. After the update, many users were even more furious: “OP, are you psychotic? She’s paying for your education, and you’re plotting to steal her husband?” “I’m actually sick to my stomach. This isn’t just an ungrateful leech; this is a black widow.” “Please, God, let the sister see this post! This kind of backstabbing monster deserves to burn!” But the original poster showed no remorse. Instead, she replied with smug satisfaction: “What do you people know? Sponsoring me is just her way of feeling superior!” “Why does she get to have everything just by being born? While I have to claw my way up for everything? Her husband is incredible, and she doesn’t deserve him!” “I’m going to take away the most important thing in her life, so she can finally know what it feels like to lose something! Watching her suffer will make me happy!” “Just you wait. It’s only a matter of time before her husband sees how amazing I am. These rich, goody-two-shoes housewife types are so boring.” The more I read, the colder I felt, my fingers trembling uncontrollably. At that moment, I was one hundred percent certain. The person who wrote this was Ivy. Just as she’d said, I came from a wealthy family and had lived a charmed life. Sponsoring her was a genuine desire to help a hardworking kid change her fate. It was because of this unconditional kindness that I couldn’t comprehend her darkness, her resentment, her elaborate scheme to destroy my family. This sudden betrayal was a knife to my heart, leaving me cold and aching. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm. Hearing the toilet flush, I quickly exited the page, locked my phone, and placed it face down on the table, struggling to compose my expression. I made a decision in an instant. I had to not only crush her ambitions but also re-evaluate this entire “sponsorship” relationship. Just as I steadied myself, Ivy returned from the restroom. She sat back down, her face once again adorned with that pure, innocent smile, as if the person spewing venom online wasn’t her. “Mary,” she said sweetly, her eyes darting toward my husband. “Marcus just agreed to help me with my coursework this weekend! Right here, in the study! I might be bothering you again!” She looked at me expectantly, waiting for my enthusiastic approval. But now, her smile and her words sounded like a calculated provocation. Suppressing the waves of nausea and rage, I spoke in a calm voice. “Ivy, I’m afraid this weekend won’t work.” “What?” The smile on Ivy’s face froze, her voice involuntarily rising. She quickly realized her mistake and softened her tone. “W-why not, Mary? It’ll just be for a little while, I won’t take up too much time…” I picked up a napkin and dabbed my lips, avoiding her seemingly innocent gaze. “It’s nothing. Marcus and I just have other plans this weekend. It’s not a good time.” At my words, the smile vanished completely from Ivy’s face, replaced by a look of aggrieved disappointment and simmering resentment. “But… Marcus already promised me…” she mumbled, her tone dripping with complaint. “Mary, why are you… suddenly changing your mind…” In the past, whenever she wore that expression, I would soften and try to accommodate her requests. After all, she was the “little sister” I had cared for for four years. But now, seeing her true colors, I realized what kind of viper I had been nurturing with my kindness. My heart was ice. Without looking at her, I turned to my husband. “Didn’t we have plans to go to that art exhibition this weekend? The tickets were so hard to get.” Marcus paused for a beat, then immediately caught on, nodding in agreement. “Right, we do. Ivy, we can talk about your coursework some other time.” Seeing this, Ivy’s expression grew even more sullen. She opened her mouth to argue. I didn’t give her the chance. I picked up my bag and stood. “It’s getting late, and you have classes tomorrow, don’t you? You should head back to school and get some rest. The driver is waiting downstairs to take you back.” Without a second glance at her instantly pale face, I linked my arm through my husband’s. My tone was light but firm. “We’ll see Ivy out.” It wasn’t until I was home that I opened the forum post again. A notification popped up: “A thread you are following has a new reply…” Ivy had updated it again. 3 “She actually refused! What do I do, everyone?! The plan is stalled!” “I have to get close to the husband! Please, I need ideas!!!” Aside from the usual crowd of gawkers, the original user who had provided the detailed “strategy” reappeared. “Why are you so obsessed with this one guy?” “Can’t you just find a different target? It’s not like he’s the only rich man in the world.” Ivy’s reply was immediate and agitated: “No! I want him! It will only hurt her the most if I take what’s hers!” “You should have seen her at dinner, with that condescending, holier-than-thou attitude, the way she gloated when she talked about her husband. It was disgusting!” “I am going to crush her.” I stared at every word Ivy typed, the last embers of responsibility and warmth I felt for her completely extinguished. After that, the user didn’t reply publicly. Their conversation moved to private messages. After my shower, I checked the post again and saw that Ivy had updated her status, her tone now jubilant: “All set! Thanks to the master for the private message! This weekend is a go!” Seeing this, I was confused. Had she taken the advice and switched targets? As I was pondering this, I noticed over a dozen missed calls and several text messages on my phone, all from Marcus. I had been so engrossed in the post that I’d completely missed them. I opened the messages, and my heart sank. Marcus: “Honey, what’s going on? Ivy just added me on social media. She said you wanted her to come over this weekend to get help with a class project and needed to use the computer in the study. She’s asking if it’s okay.” Marcus: “Why aren’t you answering your phone? She seems pretty insistent.” Marcus: “Look, I know she’s the student you sponsor, and she’s been over before, so I didn’t think much of it. I replied and told her ‘Whatever works for you is fine…’” I was furious. I couldn’t believe Ivy’s audacity—going behind my back to contact my husband directly and daring to lie about my intentions. I was about to call him back when he walked through the door. In the living room, I struggled to contain my anger as I asked him why he would agree without checking with me first. Marcus looked utterly innocent and confused. “Weren’t you the one who always told me how sensible and hardworking she is, and that we should help her out? She said it was your idea, and she sounded urgent. I couldn’t reach you, and it didn’t seem like a big deal, so I just said yes…” Hearing him, a mix of emotions churned inside me. For years, I had indeed painted a picture of Ivy as a diligent, grateful student. Whenever she needed a textbook or study materials, I had Marcus find the best ones for her. Whenever she needed a “parent” to handle minor issues at the university, I often had Marcus take care of it. Looking back, my unconditional trust and support had probably given her the confidence to be so brazen. I took a deep breath and told him everything—about the forum post and everything I had discovered. As he listened, his expression darkened into a mask of cold fury. He immediately took out his phone and, right in front of me, blocked Ivy’s number and all her social media profiles. “I never would have added her if it wasn’t for you. From now on, don’t ask me to help with her problems.” “As for this weekend, you tell her no. I will not have any more contact with her.” “Now that you know what kind of person she is, you need to cut her off completely. All of it—the sponsorship, the contact, everything.” I nodded. I immediately found Ivy’s number and called. The moment she answered, I told her directly that the weekend was not convenient and that she was not to contact my husband again. She was stunned by my firm tone at first, but then she immediately launched into her well-rehearsed act, her voice cracking with tears. “Mary… what’s wrong? Did I do something? I just want to do well in my classes… I really didn’t mean anything by it…” “I’m just so stupid, I’m falling behind, and I have no one to ask for help, so I thought of Marcus… I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault…” I listened to her performance coldly, completely unmoved. When she had nearly finished, I replied with a single sentence: “You’ve made your bed.” Then I hung up.

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Reborn, I ignored my mafia king husband’s calls and texts. I spent days drinking with pretty boys. On the eighth morning, I found Kaelen at my door. “Which part of you did that man touch?” he growled. “My hand,” I giggled. “How else would we roll dice?” “Cut off his hands,” he ordered his men. I pushed past him. “Do whatever.” In my past life, I was his queen for eight years. I won him the city’s underworld casino and stood by him as he rose to power. But he became obsessed with Stella, a fragile shuffler girl he protected. I discovered he’d changed my marital status to “Divorced” to shield her. When I confronted him, he coldly said, “You’re the queen. Why sweat the small stuff?” I slapped Stella publicly. That night, Kaelen had my brother Leo’s legs shattered before my eyes. “This is your lesson for touching what’s mine,” he sneered. I begged until Leo bled out. Then I collapsed. I woke back on the day I found my status changed. This time, I sold my jewelry, bought a ticket, and planned to escape with my brother—away from Kaelen’s gilded cage. … 1 After seeing my status online, I took my papers to the city clerk’s office for confirmation. “Ms. Galler,” the clerk said, not looking up from her screen. “Our system shows your marriage was officially dissolved.” Hearing her voice, I knew my past life had been terrifyingly real. The date of the dissolution was my birthday. That day, thinking Kaelen was just busy, I had booked out the highest rotating restaurant in the Canaan district, complete with a private fireworks display. I waited from sunset to sunrise. He never showed. He was busy, all right. Busy signing a different piece of paper, erasing my existence from his. I shook off the memory. When I got back to the casino, Kaelen’s black Maybach was parked at the curb. In my last life, I had run up to the car, screaming questions at him. He, afraid Stella would see, had kicked me into a dark corner before she could even get out. This time, I melted into the shadows of a nearby pillar. The driver’s door opened and Kaelen emerged. He walked around to the passenger side and opened the door himself, an act of patience and care I had never witnessed before. A girl in a pale blue dress stepped out, looking timid and out of place beside the gleaming, opulent car. It was Stella. Kaelen shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over her thin shoulders, his arm circling her waist as he guided her toward the casino’s grand entrance. “Kael…” she hesitated, stopping. “I have nothing left but you… I can’t afford to lose this bet…” He turned and pulled her into a tight embrace, his voice holding a gentle certainty I had never heard directed at me. “What are you afraid of? From now on, you’re the mistress of this place. No one else deserves that title.” His voice dropped lower. “And if you don’t like it here, I’ll find you a quiet place, build you a resort of your own to play in…” The same men who used to bow and respectfully call me their queen now bent at the waist for Stella, their voices loud and fawning. “Welcome, Ma’am!” They escorted the terrified, fawn-like girl into the glittering hellhole. I pressed a hand to my stomach, a sharp pain lancing through me. Only after they had all disappeared inside did I stumble out of the shadows. I wiped away a tear, my eyes hardening into chips of ice. I went to the hospital alone and scheduled an abortion. The doctor frowned, looking at the ultrasound screen. “Ms. Galler, you have a complicated medical history. You haven’t been able to conceive for seven years. If you go through with this, you may never be able to get pregnant again.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “I’m divorced. I don’t want my child to be born without a father.” As the cold liquid entered my veins, my consciousness began to drift. In the haze, I saw the old Kaelen, his ear pressed to my belly, laughing and saying our son would be a master of the tables, that he’d have to teach him to read cards from the cradle. I saw him calling a fortune teller to pick the most auspicious name. I saw him holding me, promising that as soon as he found a successor, he’d take me and our child away from the casino, and we’d travel the world… Then, all of it shattered into dust with the memory of his voice: “Only you deserve to be the mistress of this casino.” When I came to, I dragged my hollowed-out body to my brother’s hospital room. This time, Leo had only suffered minor injuries on his last job. He would recover quickly. I wasn’t going to be a fool again. I contacted a black market broker and paid a premium for two tickets to a third-world country, leaving in three days. Going through official channels was too risky; Kaelen would know instantly. I then called my one trusted subordinate, gave him a stack of cash, and told him to arrange for Leo’s discharge, secretly. With everything in place, I finally allowed myself to relax. I hailed a cab, giving an address a few blocks away from our villa. It was a habit born of paranoia—in our world, you never let anyone know exactly where you lived. I had just stepped out of the cab when a hand clamped over my mouth from behind, dragging me backward. I fought, kicking and twisting, breaking free for a split second before another man swung something hard and sharp into my back. An explosion of pain. The warmth of blood soaking through my shirt. I didn’t have to guess. It was one of Kaelen’s rivals. He had conquered so much territory, the line of people who wanted him and his dead was long enough to stretch from the casino to the docks. I tried to reach for the knife in my purse, but my arm was twisted behind my back, and my phone was ripped from my hand and smashed on the pavement. “Stay still, bitch!” the man holding me snarled, dragging me toward a waiting van. Just as despair began to set in, a familiar black Maybach turned the corner from the main road. It was Kaelen’s car. With my last ounce of strength, I screamed, thrashing wildly to get his attention. The car hesitated, slowing down. He saw me. He had to have seen me. But in the next second, the Maybach accelerated, speeding past the intersection without a second thought. Through the window, I saw him pull Stella into his arms, turning her face away from the scene, shielding her eyes. As if I wasn’t his wife being dragged away to be tortured and killed, but just some ugly street brawl, unworthy of staining her innocent gaze. All the fight, all the hope, drained out of me. The pain and the cold washed over me in a final, crushing wave as darkness consumed me. 2 I woke up in a private hospital room. The door was ajar, and I could hear hushed voices from the hallway. “Boss, her injuries are serious this time. If she finds out about Miss Stella…” It was Kaelen’s private doctor. He was cut off by Kaelen’s cold, sharp voice. “Watch your mouth. Your job is to fix her. Nothing else.” He paused. “Zoe’s been in this game for years. There’s no dirty trick she hasn’t seen or pulled herself. She’s a master at it.” “Stella is different. She’s a blank page. She can’t compete with Zoe.” His voice dropped even lower. “When she wakes up, if she starts making trouble, go get her brother. He’s the only family she has left. She won’t risk him.” I gripped the bedsheets, my teeth sinking into my lower lip until I tasted blood. The night I won him the Canaan, he had held me and promised, “Zoe, from this day on, in this city’s underworld, no one will ever touch you again.” The same promise, the same protection. But the person he was protecting had changed. I, who he once treated as a treasure, had become a venomous, dangerous woman to be guarded against. Footsteps approached. I closed my eyes, feigning a slow awakening. “You’re awake.” Kaelen tossed a file onto the bed. “We found out who it was. That Thai loan shark whose hand you crippled for cheating last year.” “Sign this settlement agreement. In exchange, they’ll give up their control of the East District.” The East District. The last clean piece of territory in the city, a coastal area with no casinos, no gray-market industries. I remembered what he’d told Stella: “I’ll find you a quiet place, build you a resort of your own to play in…” So my blood and pain had been bartered for the land to build his new love’s golden cage. “Kaelen,” I asked, my voice hoarse, “when did you make this deal?” Was it in the moment he saw me being dragged away? Or had he planned it all along, paving a road for his sweetheart with my blood? His brow furrowed, clearly irritated by my question. I stretched my lips into a semblance of a smile and said no more. The answer didn’t matter anymore. Perhaps to placate me, he stayed with me for the next two days, handling his business from my room. But his phone never left his hand. At meals, he’d take pictures of his food and send them to someone, a gentle smile on his face I had never seen before. Looking at his profile, my mind drifted back eight years. I didn’t meet him in a casino. I met him in a dark alley. He’d been caught cheating, surrounded by seven or eight men with machetes. He was about to lose an arm. I had just won big and was feeling generous. I paid off his debt and took him back to my apartment. Later, my father in another country was killed by drug lords over a massive gambling debt. They came for me to settle it, a dirty needle pressed against my vein. It was Kaelen who burst in at the last second and saved me. By then, he had taken over a small casino. He made me the unseen “Queen of the Cards” behind the golden tables. For him, I devoured one casino after another, bled one rival after another dry. I knew my hands were stained with things that could never be washed away. But if the whole world thought I was dirty, he shouldn’t have been one of them. After I was discharged, Kaelen used the excuse of being busy and never showed up again. I was leaving the next day. While he was gone, I returned to our penthouse above the casino and emptied the safe of my passport and other essential documents. As I stepped out of the elevator, my legs gave out and I stumbled forward. I braced for the fall, but a pair of delicate hands caught me. “Are you alright?” The voice was soft, laced with a cautious kindness. I looked up into Stella’s clear, innocent eyes. She was wearing a dealer’s uniform, but it still looked alien on her. She didn’t recognize me. She thought I was just another gambler who’d lost everything. “I’m fine, thank you,” I said, straightening up, eager to leave. But she didn’t let go. Instead, she gently pulled me toward the staff break room. “You look terribly pale. You should rest for a bit.” For some reason, I didn’t refuse. She poured me a glass of warm water and took a bag of dried mango and a piece of bread from her locker. “Have something to eat. Don’t be too sad about losing. Your family is probably waiting for you at home.” When I didn’t speak, she hesitated, then pulled a few bills from her pocket and pressed them into my hand. “This is for a cab… I wish I could help with your ticket, though.” My throat felt tight. I wanted to scream at her, Stay away from Kaelen. That man has no heart. His gentleness is poison coated in honey. But the words died on my lips. If she knew who I was, she would confront him. And then, I would be the one to blame. I had one day left. I couldn’t gamble my brother’s life, or my own. I accepted her kindness, thanked her, and hurried out the back door. I had just stepped over the threshold when something cold and hard pressed against my temple. A gun barrel. I whipped my head around. Stella was lying unconscious on the hallway floor. Before I could react, the butt of the gun slammed into the back of my neck, and the world went dark.

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The girl my family’s scholarship supported was a master of weaponized incompetence. Before the conference championships, I told her explicitly not to touch my things. So, naturally, she slipped a banned stimulant into my water bottle. I was reported for cheating. My results were nullified, I was banned from the sport for life, and the university expelled me. When I confronted her, she collapsed into a puddle of perfectly formed tears. “Chloe, I swear, I just wanted you to win… I never thought this would happen.” My boyfriend, Liam, wrapped his arms around her, glaring at me. “She was trying to help. Why do you have to be so cruel to her?” I spiraled. I locked myself away at home. Then she showed up, claiming she felt guilty, with Liam in tow and a bottle of expensive tequila. A peace offering, they said. A way to drown my sorrows. After they forced ten shots down my throat, my head was splitting open. I begged her to go buy me something for the pain. She came back with ibuprofen, told me they were hangover pills, and watched as I took them. I died from acute gastrointestinal bleeding. At the hospital, she put on a heart-wrenching performance. “I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault! I’m just so dumb, I can’t even tell the difference between painkillers and hangover cures…” When the police questioned her, Liam provided her alibi. He told them I’d been unable to handle the pressure after the cheating scandal and had intentionally overdosed. A suicide. The next time I open my eyes, I’m back. The day before the championships. 1 “Chloe, I got you a Red Bull! For energy before your race tomorrow.” The familiar words send a tremor through my body. I look around—the scent of chlorine, the echoing shouts in the natatorium, the exact shade of blue on the Northwood University banners. I realize it instantly. I’m back. Before I can process it, Mia shoves the cold can into my hand. My boyfriend, Liam, is watching her with that stupid, adoring look on his face. “You’re so thoughtful, Mia. Chloe’s lucky to have a friend like you.” A bitter laugh escapes my lips. Anyone with half a brain knows that competitive swimming has a zero-tolerance policy for caffeine-loaded energy drinks like Red Bull. It’s practically regulation 101. In my last life, I’d turned her down politely. But just to be safe, I’d specifically warned her not to touch any of my gear. The next day, I was flagged for a random drug test. They found amphetamines in my system and in my water bottle. My entire team’s results were voided. I was banned for life. The university expelled me. It was only later that I learned Mia was the one who had spiked my water. When I went to her for answers, she’d simply dissolved into tears and fallen into Liam’s arms. “Chloe, I swear, I just wanted you to win… I never thought this would happen.” And Liam, my Liam, held her and yelled at me. “She meant well, for God’s sake! Why do you have to bully a girl like her?” That was the beginning of the end. The depression swallowed me whole. Then Mia and Liam showed up with that bottle of tequila to “apologize.” Ten shots later, the world was spinning. I begged her to get me something for the crushing headache. She came back with ibuprofen, calling it a hangover cure, and I swallowed it down. At the hospital, her voice was a fragile, breaking thing. “I’m so sorry… I’m just so stupid, I can’t even tell painkillers and hangover pills apart…” And Liam backed her up, telling the police I couldn’t live with the shame. That I’d killed myself. Thinking of that agony, that betrayal, my hand clenches into a fist. Then, in one fluid motion, I toss the Red Bull into the nearest trash can. Mia freezes, her eyes instantly welling up. “Chloe… you don’t like it? I’m sorry, my family… we don’t have much money. This was all I could afford. I saved up for two weeks to buy it for you. It was the best I could do.” The sight of her shimmering tears sends Liam into protective overdrive. He turns on me, his voice sharp. “What the hell, Chloe? We get it, you grew up with money and you look down on the rest of us, but that was a gift. That was her showing she cares. How could you just throw it away?” The rest of the team starts to murmur, their eyes on me. “That was harsh, Chloe. Even if you didn’t want it, you didn’t have to humiliate her like that.” “This is a team, not your personal kingdom. Mia isn’t your servant.” Mia looks at me, tears streaming down her face. “It’s my fault. Everyone, please don’t be mad at Chloe.” I stare down the ring of her defenders, my voice ice. “Anyone who’s been in this sport for more than five minutes knows energy drinks are banned during competition. So, Mia, are you really that clueless, or did you do it on purpose?” Mia’s face crumples in on itself, a mask of pure, wounded innocence. “I’m so sorry, Chloe. I’m so stupid, I can’t do anything right. I even mess up trying to buy you a drink.” Liam wraps an arm around her shoulder. “Hey, stop that. You’re not stupid.” He pulls her into a hug, then glares at me. “Do you really need to make a big deal out of everything? She was trying to be nice. It was an honest mistake. She’s a little naive, you don’t have to attack her for it.” I’m so full of rage I can barely see straight. I step forward and slap him. Hard. “To hell with her ‘honest mistake.’ Her good intentions were meant to destroy my career. I can’t afford that kind of kindness. From now on, you can have all of it. I don’t want it.” Liam’s eyes go wide, his hand flying to his cheek. “Chloe, are you crazy? You just hit me.” I give him a withering look. “I’m hitting a fool who can’t think for himself.” Mia throws herself between us, her arms spread wide. “Chloe, no! It’s all my fault. I’m the idiot, I’m the one who messes everything up. Hit me if you want, but don’t blame Liam!” I let out a short, sharp laugh. “You want me to hit you? Fine. I’ll grant your wish.” And I slap her, the sound cracking through the humid air. Liam explodes. He shoves me, hard. I lose my footing on the wet tile and go down, my arm slamming against the edge of the concrete bleachers. A sharp, searing pain shoots up to my shoulder, and a dark bruise is already blooming on my skin. I gasp, sucking in a breath through my teeth. A few of the other swimmers flinch, frowning at Liam. “Dude, what are you doing? What if she’s hurt? The championships are tomorrow.” Liam just glares down at me, unmoved. “She started it. She hit me and Mia first.” I laugh again, the sound raw in my throat. “One of them tried to get me disqualified, and the other—my boyfriend—defended her. You’re damn right I hit you. Both of you.” Liam’s face flushes with anger. “Chloe, what the hell are you talking about?” I’m done. I’m done with this conversation, done with him. “Liam, as of this second, we’re over. You and Mia are perfect for each other. Have a great life.” His jaw drops. He looks at me, incredulous. “You’re breaking up with me? Over this? You’re going to regret this, Chloe.” I just scoff, grabbing my swim bag and turning my back on him without another word. The next day, I arrive at the arena. Our team’s relay is the tenth event. As we’re warming up on the pool deck, Mia comes over with a tray of water bottles. “I filled everyone’s up!” she announces cheerfully. The others thank her, taking their bottles. She turns to me, her smile faltering just a little. “Chloe, I couldn’t find your bottle. Where is it? I can go fill it for you.” This was her opening in the last life. The simple, helpful offer that led to my ruin. “Not necessary,” I say flatly. Her eyes immediately start to glisten. “Are you still mad about yesterday, Chloe?” Liam materializes at her side, wrapping a possessive arm around her. “It’s not your fault, Mia. You were just being nice. Chloe doesn’t know how to appreciate it. This water you got me is great. We’re going to win this thing.” Mia blushes, smiling shyly. “I know you will. Good luck, everyone!” Right before we’re called to the blocks, I pull out my own water bottle. As I raise it to my lips, I see it. A faint trace of white powder clinging to the rim of the mouthpiece. My hand trembles. I was so careful. I guarded everything. And still, she found a way. If I had taken that drink, I’d be walking right back into the same nightmare. I look up and meet Mia’s eyes across the deck. She’s staring at me intently. “Chloe, drink up! Your event is about to start.” I screw the cap back on tightly. “Not thirsty. I need to hit the restroom, you guys go on ahead.” Inside the bathroom stall, a strange sense of panic washes over me. Something still feels wrong. Like I’ve missed a step. Thirty minutes later, the race is over. As expected, our relay team took first place. We all just secured a twenty-point academic boost for our grad school applications. The team is ecstatic, a tangle of wet limbs and joyful screams. “We did it! I knew we could do it!” Right in the middle of our celebration, two officials in polo shirts approach our group. “Excuse me, which one of you is Chloe?” Everyone turns to look at me. I step forward. “I’m Chloe. What’s this about?” The official gives me a stern look. “We’ve received a report that you used a banned substance before the competition. Please come with us for testing.” I feel a cold knot form in my stomach as I follow them away. My teammates look at me, their smiles gone, replaced by anxiety. “Chloe, you didn’t, did you? This was a team effort.” I shake my head. “No. I didn’t take anything.” They look relieved, but the seed of doubt has been planted. I go with the officials. They take blood and urine samples. An hour later, the results are in. The lead official holds the report, his face grim as he addresses the event coordinator. The coordinator’s voice booms over the PA system, silencing the arena. “Due to a positive test for a banned stimulant from team member Chloe, the first-place finish for Northwood University is hereby disqualified. Furthermore, Chloe is banned from all future competitions, effective immediately.” My body goes numb. How? I didn’t drink the water. How is it in my system? Every eye in the arena is on me. Liam storms over, his face contorted with rage, and slaps me across the face. “You cheated, Chloe? You actually took something? Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? You’ve destroyed everything we worked for!” Other teammates grab at my arms. “How could you do this to us, Chloe? We trained for a year, day in and day out, and you threw it all away!” The crowd in the stands starts yelling. “If you can’t win clean, don’t compete! Cheater!” “What a disgrace to our school!” “Get her out of here! I’m writing to the dean. We don’t want scum like you ruining our reputation!” People start throwing empty cups and programs down at me from the stands. I clench my fists, my voice shaking but clear as I look at the event coordinator. “I don’t accept this result.” Mia rushes to my side, her face a mask of patronizing concern. “Chloe, don’t make it worse. Just admit it. If you apologize, maybe we can all ask them to be lenient.” I let out a cold, humorless laugh. “I have nothing to apologize for. I didn’t break any rules.” Liam points a finger in my face. “The test results are right there! Are you still going to lie? First you cheat, now you won’t even own up to it? You’ve humiliated this entire team!” The event coordinator looks at me, annoyed. “On what grounds do you not accept the result?” A small smile plays on my lips. “Because I didn’t swim in the race.”

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Before my grandpa died—the man the whole town called crazy—he pressed three walnuts into my hand. On my twenty-fifth birthday, just like he’d told me to, I cracked open the first one. Inside was a slip of paper. 【Go to the overpass on the interstate. Give the first panhandler you see every dollar in your wallet, then ask for his forgiveness.】 My face burned with shame, but I did it. And the panhandler turned out to be an undercover cop. I only found out later that I was the next target for a ring of human traffickers. Asking for forgiveness, it turned out, saved my life. The second walnut, he said, was for the day I got married. Today, standing in my tailored suit, ready to marry the very cop who saved me, I broke it open, my heart overflowing. This time, the shell held a crumpled old photograph. In the photo, my fiancée is smiling as she strangles another groom. 1 In the photo, my fiancée, Maya, the woman I had loved for three years, was smiling. It was a brilliant, brutal smile, and her hands were wrapped tightly around the throat of another groom, choking the life out of him. The tuxedo that groom was wearing was identical to the one I had on right now. My mind went completely blank. The walnut shell slipped from my fingers and clattered on the polished floor. The door to the dressing room swung open. My best man, Ryan, grinned at me. “Leo! It’s time! Officer Evans is waiting for you out there. Let’s go, man!” I stared at him, then at my reflection in the mirror, a ghost in a white tux. My stomach churned. That photograph was a key, unlocking a memory I’d buried deep. My grandpa, on his deathbed, clutching my hand. His eyes were clouded with age, but his grip was like iron. “Leo, I’m no good anymore. Can’t protect you. You’ve got three great trials coming for you, son. Each one worse than the last. They’re gates to hell, and they’re all meant for you.” “These three walnuts,” he’d rasped, “they cost me half my remaining life to get. You remember, you hear me? You open them exactly when I told you.” I never had parents. My grandpa raised me, pulling me out of a dumpster and then pulling a life for us out of other people’s trash. Everyone in our small town said he was a lunatic, but I knew the truth: he was the only anchor I had in the world. I carved his words into my bones. On my twenty-fifth birthday, I opened the first walnut. 【Go to the overpass on the interstate. Give the first panhandler you see every dollar in your wallet, then ask for his forgiveness.】 The instruction was bizarre, humiliating. But I went. The panhandler under the bridge, filthy and reeking of stale beer, suddenly grabbed me after I’d mumbled my apology. He threw me to the ground, shielding my body with his. It was that single, violent motion that saved me from the steel hook that shot out from a windowless van careening past us. The next second, cops swarmed from every direction. The panhandler pulled out a badge, her voice a clear command. “Police! Don’t move!” That was her. That was Maya. It was a trafficking ring that used fake job interviews to lure male college students. I had been their next mark, a target they’d been watching for six months. If Maya hadn’t used her body to shield me, that hook would have snagged me, and I would have vanished from the face of the earth. At the trial, I was the star witness. The ringleader, a woman, was sentenced to death. Her husband sat in the gallery, his eyes drilling into me with pure, unadulterated venom. He screamed, his voice raw and grating. “Leo Carter! I’ll remember you!” Then he pointed a trembling finger at me, his face contorted. “You destroyed my family! Me and my daughter, we’ll never let you go! You’ll never know a moment of peace for the rest of your life!” His curse has been a cold snake coiled around my neck for three years. And Maya, for her heroism, was fast-tracked from a street cop to a detective in the city’s Major Crimes Division. Her future was dazzling. She wasn’t just my hero; she was the floodlight that chased out all the shadows. Our love story felt inevitable, written in the stars. But now, this photograph. This single, impossible photograph had just shattered my entire world. My hands trembling, I tore off the tuxedo jacket, pulled on the simple jeans and t-shirt I’d arrived in, and fled out the back door of the venue like a coward. I didn’t have the courage to confront her, to ask the question. The smile on her face in that picture was too real. So real it terrified me to my core. I left that city, erased my number, and deleted every contact I had. But I wasn’t without hope. My grandpa had left me one last walnut. As long as I had that, I knew I could survive. 2 In a small, quiet city in the South, I met Charlotte. She was the director of a well-known local art museum. Five years my senior, she had a kind of quiet grace, an elegance that felt both classic and comforting. She fell for me, she said, the moment she saw me, and pursued me with a gentle but relentless passion. The first time I went to her home, the chasm between our worlds hit me like a physical blow. She lived in a sprawling modern villa halfway up a mountain, and every painting on her walls was worth more than I could ever hope to make in a lifetime. Her family, especially her impeccably dressed brother, looked at me with a barely concealed disdain. “Charlotte, darling,” he’d said with a thin smile, “you have so many wonderful qualities, but your heart is just too soft. Always picking up strays.” Shame washed over me. I tried to end it. But on her way to my apartment to change my mind, Charlotte swerved to avoid a stray dog, and her car tumbled down an embankment. Outside the ICU, I wept until my insides felt raw and hollow. When they finally wheeled her out, still groggy from the anesthesia, she gripped my hand, her fingers surprisingly strong, and whispered my name over and over. “Leo, don’t leave… If you leave, what’s the point of any of this?” In that moment, my resolve crumbled. After that, her family stopped their objections. And under her incredible, tender care, I slowly began to heal from the shadows of my past. I felt a sense of peace and security I had never known. I even started to believe that this, right here, was the life my grandpa had truly wanted for me. I hesitated for a long time about that last walnut. On the night of our first anniversary, she booked out the most expensive restaurant in the city. She told me she wanted to be with me forever. She had a diamond ring ready, and she looked at me with expectant eyes, waiting for me to slide it onto her finger. At that moment, I felt like the luckiest man on earth. When I got home that night, I finally made my decision. In this moment of pure happiness, I would open the final walnut. I imagined a thousand possibilities. Maybe it would be a blessing. Maybe it would be a note telling me my trials were finally over. It was neither. Inside, there was only a slip of paper. The handwriting was a ragged scrawl, as if written with the last ounce of a person’s strength. 【SMASH EVERY MIRROR IN YOUR HOUSE!】 What the hell was that? I stood frozen. My home with Charlotte was less of a house and more of a private gallery. She had a passion for modern art pieces that incorporated reflective surfaces. There were at least a dozen mirrors, big and small, scattered throughout the rooms. Each one was a precious object she’d acquired from auctions all over the world. And he wanted me to smash them? For the first time, my grandpa’s instructions felt not just strange, but absurdly cruel. My phone rang. It was Charlotte, her warm voice flowing through the receiver. “Leo, are you asleep? I just landed. There’s an emergency art conference I have to be at. It’s out of state. I might be gone for three or four days.” “Oh, and I forgot to tell you,” she continued, “I got you an anniversary present. It’s behind the vanity mirror in our bedroom. Go take a look.” I hung up, my mind a chaotic mess. My grandpa’s warning and Charlotte’s gentle love were at war inside me. I walked to the massive, floor-to-ceiling vanity mirror in our bedroom. The man staring back at me was pale, his eyes wide with fear. For three years, Charlotte had cared for me, protected me, spoiled me to the point where I felt useless without her. My last relationship had been a minefield of terror and betrayal. It was Charlotte who had pulled me from that wreckage, who had given me this beautiful, crystalline life. How could I destroy the things she loved most because of one incomprehensible command? 3 A moment later, a text from Charlotte came through. 【Did you find it? Do you like it?】 Then another. 【Leo, why aren’t you answering?】 【Are you mad that I had to leave? I’m so sorry, baby. It’s my fault. I’ll finish up here as fast as I can and come right back to you.】 【Leo, believe me. No one in this world loves you more than I do.】 I read the messages, and shame burned in my gut. How could I even be doubting her? I took a deep breath, tossed the walnut shell and the note into the trash can, and decided to forget the whole thing. But as I turned to leave, a flicker of movement in the mirror caught my eye. In the reflection, behind me, stood a blurry, dark figure. I spun around. There was nothing there. A cold sweat instantly soaked through my shirt. My heart hammered against my ribs. Was I losing my mind? I forced myself to look back at the mirror. In the reflection, my own face was twisting, my lips pulling back into a grotesque, silent smile as it mouthed two words at me: Smash. It. A scream tore from my throat, and I stumbled backward, collapsing to the floor. No. This wasn’t a hallucination. My grandpa was never wrong. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the chair from the vanity, and with every ounce of strength in my body, I swung it at the mirror. CRASH! The glass exploded, showering the room in a cascade of glittering shards. Behind the mirror, there was no gift. It was a two-way mirror. And behind the glass was a small, hidden room, no bigger than a closet. A man was tied to a chair, a gag stuffed in his mouth. His body was covered in blood, and he was long past breathing. His eyes were wide open, staring straight in my direction, his face a frozen mask of absolute terror. My legs gave out. I collapsed, bile rising in my throat as I threw up all over the expensive rug. I crawled out of the bedroom, my hands shaking so violently I could barely dial 911. The fear was a physical thing, a fist squeezing my heart, making it impossible to form a complete sentence. “Hello… 911… there’s been a murder… in my house… there’s a dead man…” The operator on the other end was calm, her voice a steady anchor as she talked me down and confirmed my address. Soon, the sound of sirens grew from a distant wail to a deafening roar outside. The first patrol car arrived, and the officers who came in turned pale when they saw the scene in the hidden room. They immediately secured the perimeter and called it in to the city desk. It wasn’t long before a team of detectives in dark, severe suits arrived. The person leading them was tall, with a commanding presence and a face that was as beautiful as it was cold. It was the nightmare I had been running from for three years. Maya. 4 When she saw me, her eyes flickered—a brief, violent tremor—but she quickly regained her professional composure. “Leo Carter?” I nodded, my lips trembling too hard to speak. To meet again like this, in a scene of such horror… I didn’t know what to feel. She must have hated me for running out on our wedding. A detective behind her draped a blanket over my shoulders and handed me a cup of hot water. “It’s okay,” he said gently. “We’re here now. You’re safe.” Just then, my best friend, Ryan, burst through the door, having heard the news. He rushed over and threw his arms around me, sobbing. “Leo! Are you okay? Man, you scared the hell out of me! What the hell happened here?” he cried, his words muffled against my shoulder. “I can’t get ahold of Charlotte. She loves you so much! How could something like this happen in your house?” I leaned into him, my body still shaking uncontrollably. Ryan was the only real friend I had in this city. He was a personal trainer—upbeat, optimistic, a ray of sunshine. He was the one who had been there for me during my darkest days, the one who encouraged me to give Charlotte a chance. I clung to his arm now like it was a lifeline. “Ryan, I’m so scared…” Maya’s gaze swept over us, finally settling on my face. Her tone was all business. “Leo, I need you to come down to the station with us and give a detailed statement.” “He’s the victim here! Why are you taking him anywhere?” Ryan immediately stepped in front of me, glaring at Maya. “It’s procedure,” she said, her expression unreadable. I was escorted to a cruiser, and Ryan insisted on coming with me. At the station, they put me in an interrogation room. Maya questioned me herself. “Tell me about the hidden room. And the dead man.” I told her everything. About my grandpa’s walnuts, about the bizarre message in the mirror. The stenographer sitting next to Maya paused, looking at me like I belonged in a psychiatric ward. Maya was silent for a long time, her fingers tapping a soft, rhythmic beat on the table. “So, you believe your dead grandfather guided you, from beyond the grave, to discover all this?” “I know how it sounds,” I pleaded, “but it’s the truth!” She didn’t respond, instead changing the subject. “And Charlotte? Where is she now?” “She said she was out of town for a conference.” “Which conference? Where, specifically?” I shook my head. I realized, with a sickening lurch, that I knew absolutely nothing about her travel plans. The interrogation was paused, and they moved me to a small break room. A few minutes later, Ryan came in with a container of food, his eyes red and puffy. “Leo, don’t worry. I’ve already called the best lawyer in the city. And I finally got through to Charlotte. She’s on her way back right now. She said she’ll handle everything.” He opened the container. It was from my favorite takeout place. He handed me a fork. “Here, you need to eat something. You haven’t eaten all day.” I had zero appetite, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I took the fork, but just as I was about to take a bite, Maya’s phone, sitting on a table nearby where she’d left it, buzzed. She glanced down at the screen, and her entire demeanor shifted. Her face hardened. She looked up, her eyes like daggers, aimed directly at Ryan. A second later, she sent a text message to my phone. The screen lit up. I read the words. 【The trafficker’s daughter had gender confirmation surgery in Thailand a year ago. New name: Ryan.】

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I was once the proudest daughter of a titan of history; I became the disgrace who stained his name. After seven years in the black market, I finally sent our national treasure home, but my own body was left for dead in a foreign land. My soul returned, just in time to hear him roar to the world: “That degenerate daughter’s death is the greatest contribution she could have ever made to our culture!” Dad, the honor you built your entire life upon? Your daughter guarded it for you with her life. 1 On my twenty-fifth birthday, my father told me over the phone that he wished I would die. It was because I had fallen. Fallen from a journalist who wouldn’t bend the truth an inch, to someone who ran with the jackals and thieves of the black market antiquities trade. This was my seventh year in the shadows. Seven years to finally work my way into the core of the smuggling syndicate. My old mentor from J-school had disowned me, calling me a disgrace blinded by greed. My former colleagues scoffed at the very mention of my name, considering me a stain on the profession. I remained unmoved, a solitary figure walking through filth. I hadn’t had a single night of peaceful sleep in seven years. Three days ago, it ended. After sending the final location of a priceless national artifact, I was discovered. My body was dumped at some forgotten ruin in a foreign country. My soul, it seems, hitched a ride back with the recovered artifact, returning at last to my father’s side. I hadn’t seen him in years. Frost had claimed the hair at his temples. The back I remembered as straight as a pine was stooped now, and behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes held a weariness that never left. He was a titan in the field of history, yet he looked as though he were being crushed by an invisible mountain. He was at a symposium. In the audience, his academic rival, Dr. Alistair Finch, saw him and rose to his feet, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes plastered on his face. “Samuel, my dear friend. There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask you.” My father, his expression grim and focused, flinched almost imperceptibly. Finch’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried through the auditorium with practiced ease. “I hear your daughter is making quite a name for herself in the antiquities black market. A real natural, they say. I was just wondering… is that what you’d call ‘a family tradition’?” He drew out the final words, each syllable dripping with unconcealed mockery. The color drained from my father’s face. He gripped the edge of the lectern, his knuckles showing white. He took a deep, steadying breath, and when he spoke, his voice was as cold and hard as frozen earth. “I, Samuel Croft, have built my entire life on two things: scholarship and integrity.” He paused, his eyes sweeping the room. “I have no daughter.” As if that wasn’t enough, he straightened his slightly stooped spine, his voice suddenly raw with a final, desperate hatred. “That degenerate who shamed my name should have died out there seven years ago!” he roared. “Her death would be the greatest contribution she could ever make to my family—and to the world of culture!” A pain, sharper than the cold river water that had filled my lungs, tore through my spectral form. The few times I had tried to come home over the years, I was met with the same venom. “You’re a parasite on the academic world. How dare you show your face here?” “Get out! You don’t belong here!” “Dad, I came all this way. Please, just let me in for a glass of water.” “I’ll leave right after, I promise. I won’t stay.” I would grab his arm, trying to find a flicker of the father I knew, begging for just a few more moments in his presence. But his face would darken, and one time, he snatched the rare 18th-century manuscript rubbing I’d found for him and hurled it into the fireplace. The flames devoured the fragile paper, and with it, the last light in my eyes. “The Croft family does not accept stolen goods!” Guests at his party would stare and whisper. “Poor Samuel. A lifetime of renown, only to raise a daughter like that.” “I know. I heard she deals in all sorts of dirty, back-alley trades. No questions asked.” My face would burn with shame. I would look at my furious father, say nothing, and turn to leave. I’d spend the night on the cold stone steps outside, covered in soot and ridicule. I was hurt, but I never blamed him. My father’s life was his work. He valued integrity and a clean name more than life itself. Growing up, the one thing he always told me was, To be a great scholar, you must first be a great person. You must answer to history, and you must answer to your conscience. To live up to that, I devoured books. I made him proud, graduating from one of the top J-schools in the country, determined to become a journalist who exposed the truth. The sound of snickering in the auditorium pulled me from my thoughts. I looked at the smug faces of my father’s colleagues. They were enjoying this. Everyone in their circle knew the story: Samuel Croft’s brilliant daughter, kicked out of journalism for a falsified report, her promising career destroyed. The man who was once so proud of me had become their favorite punchline. Especially for Finch, who had spent his youth in my father’s academic shadow and had resented him ever since. His words were designed to kill. Hearing my father’s declaration, Finch feigned surprise. “Oh, Samuel, you shouldn’t say that,” he said, his eyes glinting with triumphant scorn. “No matter how she turned out, she’s still your blood. Your daughter. You can’t escape that. It’s in your bones.” My father’s chest heaved. He clenched his jaw, using every ounce of his strength to remain standing. “I have no such daughter. The things she’s done are an insult to our ancestors!” he seethed. “God himself will see that animal punished one day!” He couldn’t stay a moment longer. He turned and practically fled from the stage, his retreat looking almost like a panicked escape. A wave of stifled laughter filled the hall. I floated beside him, my form nearly transparent with grief. In his prime, he commanded respect wherever he went. Now, in his twilight years, he had to endure this humiliation. Because of me. I watched as his tightly pressed lips began to tremble, as the rims of his eyes slowly turned red. It felt like a thousand steel needles were piercing my soul. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but I stood there beside him and whispered the words I had held back for seven long years. “Dad, I’m sorry.” Back home, he collapsed into the mahogany chair in his study, gasping for air. A sheen of cold sweat covered his forehead. The defiant stand he’d taken at the symposium had drained him completely. After a moment, his hand trembling, he reached for the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a locked rosewood box. The keyhole was slightly rusted, a sign it hadn’t been opened in a long time, yet the wood around it was worn smooth from years of being touched. He carefully unlocked it. I froze. It was my first published academic paper, from when I was sixteen. An analysis of oracle bone inscriptions from the Shang Dynasty. Over a decade had passed. The once-crisp pages of the journal were yellowed and brittle. But my father put on his reading glasses, sat up straight, and turned to the title page. There, in his own elegant script, was a dedication written with his Parker fountain pen. The strong, sure strokes were a reflection of the man he used to be. For my daughter, Claire—May your pen be your sword, and may you spend your life guarding the light of history. His voice, barely a whisper, was choked with a sob he could no longer contain. A tide of sorrow crashed over me, my entire being consumed by it, leaving me breathless. The memory was so vivid. A fall afternoon, the sun slanting through the library windows, casting golden dust motes in the air. I had sprinted all the way home, the freshly printed journal clutched in my hand like a holy text. “Dad! It’s published! Dad, they published my paper!” I shouted it all the way up the stairs of the faculty housing, startling the whole building. My father was in his prime then, full of life. He rushed out of his study to meet me, his face alight with a joy he couldn’t hide. He pulled on a pair of white gloves before taking the journal from me, his hands reverent. He looked at it, then looked at it again, the light in his eyes brighter than the autumn sun. “My brilliant girl,” he’d said, his voice thick with emotion. “You are your father’s pride. I am so proud of you.” He had gripped my shoulders, the first time I’d ever seen him so openly emotional. I remember he canceled all his meetings that day. He showed the journal to everyone he met, thumping his chest with pride. “My daughter, Claire. Sixteen years old. Wrote this analysis of oracle bones all by herself.” Every colleague who passed by gave a thumbs-up, their praise genuine. “A lioness from a lion’s den!” “Samuel, she’s surpassed you already. The sky’s the limit for this one.” No one could have imagined that just a few years later, I’d be excommunicated from the world of journalism for one “falsified” report. The day I came home with my luggage, his eyes were bloodshot. It was the first time I had ever seen my father cry. He was holding a wooden ruler. He struck me with it once, then couldn’t bring himself to do it again. Instead, he whipped it down hard across his own palm. “I didn’t teach you right,” he’d choked out. “There is something wrong with the heart of this family!” That night, we sat back-to-back in his study in silence until dawn. From that day on, my father held his head low in the academic world. The straight spine began to curve. He locked himself in his study, no longer attending the salons and conferences he once loved. He was terrified of anyone mentioning me, of hearing their pity or their thinly veiled scorn for how I’d “lost my way.” Seven years passed like that. And I had walked a path in complete opposition to his dreams, mingling with criminals in the dark underbelly of the world. At first, he yelled, he hit me, he quoted every classic text he could think of to try and make me repent. But when he saw I was “unrepentant,” he fell into despair. He changed the locks. He cut off all contact. Even when I waited all night on his doorstep, all I received was a look of pure hatred. We were no longer father and daughter. We were strangers, colder than ice. So, to see that he had kept this paper, treasured it all these years… I couldn’t believe my eyes. A bitter sorrow, one my father had buried for seven years, wrapped itself around me. I could see him, in the dead of countless lonely nights, holding this paper and weeping in silence. My fall from grace had shattered his pride; the image of his secret tears was like a bullet to my soul. He stroked the line of his dedication again and again, until his own tears blurred the lenses of his glasses and he could no longer see the words. He took off the glasses, squeezing his eyes shut in pain as he leaned back. After a long time, he opened them again. From a hidden compartment in the box, he pulled out a newspaper clipping. It was an op-ed he had written a few years ago, denouncing the chaos of the black market and publicly calling me out by name—a greedy, soulless disgrace to my ancestors. He placed the clipping next to my award-winning paper. One was the beginning of his pride. The other was the end of it. He stared at the two artifacts, his clouded eyes filled with an unspeakable, wrenching conflict. I knew then: the depth of his hatred for the woman I had become was born from the unwavering love he held for the girl I once was. Time ticked by. He sat there, motionless, from dusk until deep into the night. It was the rumbling of his own stomach that finally broke the spell. He rose unsteadily and went to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator. It was empty except for a few withered vegetables. I stared. Those were the ones I had secretly bought for him three days ago. Maybe it was a sixth sense, but three days prior, I’d been overcome with an intense, inexplicable urge to go home. I bought a trunk full of his favorite foods and, while he was out giving a lecture, I stocked his fridge. When he came home and saw me, his face twisted into the familiar mask of disgust. “Take your things and get out!” he had roared. “The Croft name stands for integrity and learning! I don’t want these things in my house! They’re dirty!” His words were harsh, but I was used to it. “If you think they’re dirty, just wash them a few times,” I’d replied quietly. “They’ll come clean.” I carried the groceries into the kitchen and cooked him a meal of all his favorite dishes. Then I forced a smile. “Dad, we’ve never really had a drink together. Have one with me tonight?” For some reason, that day, he didn’t throw me out immediately. He sat down at the table, his face a thundercloud. Father and daughter, closer than anyone, yet separated by a wall of ice. I poured the wine myself, glass after glass, until my head started to spin. Then I looked at him. “Dad, it’s been seven years. I know I’ve been a disgrace to you.” My voice was thick. “But whether you believe me or not… I have never done a single thing… against my conscience. I… I really had my reasons.” His hand, holding his wine glass, froze. Before the rim could touch his lips, he slammed it down on the floor. It shattered. “Reasons? I may be old, Claire, but I’m not blind!” he spat. “What reason could make you abandon your journalistic ethics to write false reports? What reason could make you stay away from home for seven years, running with scum in the black market? What reason could make you a dealer in stolen history, a degenerate who has forgotten everything she was taught?” Shame made my blood run cold. I couldn’t utter a single word of defense. I wanted to scream that I wasn’t fallen, that I was undercover. But the oath of my mission was a lock on my lips. His hand, withered and thin, slammed down on the table. A glint of moisture, a final flicker of hope, shone in his eyes. “Tell me! If you have a reason, can’t you even tell your own father?” My silence was my confession. He took it as guilt. With a roar of fury, he flipped the table. Food and sauces splattered all over me. He glared, his eyes burning with betrayal, his voice cracking with every word. “I ask you, what did I teach you when you were a child?” he cried, his voice breaking. “‘To build a heart for the world, to secure a destiny for the people, to carry on the lost teachings of the past, and to create peace for all generations!’ Have you forgotten it all?” He pounded his own chest, the thuds echoing in the silent room. “And what have you done? Can you truly say you have no regrets? That your conscience is clear?” Then, he slapped me. Hard. A ringing filled my ears, and seven years of buried grief erupted. I shot to my feet, screaming, losing control for the first time. “I, Claire Croft, have no regrets about anything I’ve done! My conscience is clear!” My father stared at me, his body trembling, his eyes filled with utter disappointment. He staggered back. I moved to steady him, but he shoved me away. “Dad…” He just shook his head, looking at me as if I were a monster. “Don’t call me that. You are not my daughter,” he said. “My daughter died seven years ago.” He looked right through me, and with every ounce of strength he had left, he forced the final words through his teeth. “You killed her.” Then he pushed me out the door and slammed it shut. My vision blurred. I ran, fleeing into the darkness below. My hand, cold and shaking, dialed the number I knew by heart. I didn’t wait for him to speak. “Chief, please,” I sobbed into the phone. “I don’t want to be undercover anymore. I just want to be a real journalist again. After this mission is over, please, can you give me my life back?” A heavy sigh on the other end. A long pause. “Claire, you know you’re the only one who’s gotten inside the syndicate’s core…” “Just one more year. We’ll wrap this up in one more year…” “One year, then another year, then another!” I shrieked, my voice filled with despair. “I was twenty-two, Chief. I’m twenty-nine now. It’s been seven years. I’m so tired.” I hung up before he could reply, collapsed under a tree, and wept. … The memory faded. Watching my father pull those shriveled tomatoes from the fridge, about to cook a sad, lonely bowl of noodles, my heart ached. A sudden, sharp knock echoed from the front door. He glanced at the door, then at the pot on the stove, and quickly dumped the tomatoes into the trash. He took a few deep breaths, straightened his clothes, and walked over to open it. “You degenerate! I told you, you are not a Croft anymore!” he yelled as the door swung open. “Don’t you ever come back here again!” He stopped. Standing on his doorstep were several uniformed police officers and a solemn-faced, middle-aged man. My father blinked in confusion. The man in the lead—my Chief—snapped to attention. His eyes were red. His voice was heavy. “Dr. Croft,” he said. “We’re… we’re here to bring Claire home.” My father’s brow furrowed at the sight of the police. “What has she done now?” he demanded, trying to peer past them into the hallway, searching for me. “I’ve already disowned her. The Croft family has no place for such a stain on its name. You don’t need to bring her here. This isn’t her home.” His face was flushed with anger, and he tried to slam the door. The Chief gently blocked it with his hand. He shook his head. He tried to speak, but his eyes welled up first. He looked at my father, his voice trembling uncontrollably. “Dr. Croft, we’re… we were Claire’s colleagues.”

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The ninety-ninth time Carter’s clinically depressed stepsister tried to kill herself was the ninety-ninth time he left me at the altar. “As her psychologist,” he’d said, his voice tight with a sense of duty that had long ago curdled into a weapon against me, “I have a responsibility to my patient.” And just like that, the System declared my mission a failure. The penalty was a plunge into a profound depression of my own, a systematic stripping away of every last shred of my will to live. From that day forward, all I wanted was to die, to get it over with so I could finally go back to my real life. By the time Carter finally realized I was serious, it was too late. He threw the entire weight of his profession at me, every therapeutic technique he’d ever learned, desperate to “cure” me, to coax a single spark of love for him from the ashes, to anchor me to this world by force. But I was already gone. I didn’t want him anymore. 1 We were about to exchange rings when the call came. Of course, it was his stepsister, Chloe. Carter’s hand, which had been holding mine so tightly, went slack. “Carter,” she whispered breathlessly into the phone, her voice a fragile, childlike thing. “There’s… there’s so much blood, Carter. My prince is gone, so I have to become a mermaid now. I’m going to sleep forever at the bottom of the ocean…” A theatrical pause. “When you look at the sea, will you think of me?” His voice trembled. “Chloe, baby, tell me where you are. I’ll come watch the sea with you, okay? Just… don’t do anything reckless. I’m on my way. I’ll be right there.” He hung up, his gaze falling on me, already clouded with that familiar, pre-emptive apology. “Chloe’s not stable. I have to go.” “The wedding,” he added, a pathetic afterthought. “We can do it another time, right?” “No.” The word was ripped from my throat. I grabbed the sleeve of his tuxedo, oblivious to the sea of curious, judging eyes in the pews below. My control finally shattered. “Is there no other goddamn therapist in the world? Why is it that every single time we try to get married, she decides to kill herself?” I was pleading now, my voice cracking. “This is the ninety-ninth time, Carter. Have you ever considered that maybe a different doctor would be better for her treatment?” The warmth in his dark eyes vanished, replaced by a steely glint. His handsome mouth, the one I had loved to kiss, pressed into a thin, unforgiving line. He looked at me as if I were the one being unreasonable. Chloe was his sacred ground. You couldn’t criticize her. You couldn’t even touch the subject. 2 I couldn’t stop thinking about the first time I met her. She had stolen a necklace Carter had made for me by hand. Before I could even process my anger, Carter had stepped in front of her, a human shield. “It’s the depression,” he’d explained, his voice low and serious. “It can manifest as kleptomania. Don’t be angry with her, Alice.” He’d offered a placating smile. “I’ll make you another one, exactly the same. Since she likes this one so much, just let her have it, okay?” I opened my mouth to say that you can’t make two handmade things exactly the same. I wanted to ask, And what if she decides she likes you, Carter? Am I supposed to just let her have you, too? But the words wouldn’t come out. How could I, a perfectly healthy person, argue with someone who was sick? It felt cruel. Later, while Carter was upstairs getting her anti-depressants, Chloe, whose features were an uncanny, softer echo of my own, shot me a look of pure triumph. “You’re just a cheap substitute, you know,” she’d said, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness. “He only picked you because he can’t cross that line with me. He’d never forgive himself if he touched me.” She giggled, a light, airy sound that was completely at odds with her diagnosis. “He studied psychology for me. I’ll always be number one in his heart. You can’t compete with that. Ever.” Looking at her then, I finally understood why Carter had pursued me with such single-minded intensity, claiming love at first sight. I managed a polite, tight smile. “Of course,” I said, my own voice gentle as I reminded her of the one barrier she couldn’t overcome. “After all, you’re his sister. Legally.” As long as they were siblings on paper, as long as Carter’s rigid, old-money father was alive, there was no universe in which he would permit a relationship between them. The first thing Mr. Hayes had done when he found Chloe’s embarrassingly florid love letters to Carter was to try and force her to officially change her last name to Hayes. She’d fought back with hunger strikes, sleeping pills, a dramatic leap into the ocean—anything to resist. The old man was immovable. The stalemate only broke when Carter introduced me into the picture. For a family like the Hayeses, appearances were everything. Chloe’s triumphant expression curdled. In an instant, her mood snapped. She snatched a water glass from the coffee table and hurled it down. It shattered with a percussive crack, sending shards flying. Several splinters embedded themselves in the back of her hand, drawing long, crimson lines. I flinched back, startled. But Chloe didn’t even seem to feel it. She just smiled, a wide, wild grin. “Guess who he’s going to blame for not taking good care of me?” 3 A moment later, panicked footsteps thundered down the stairs. Carter rushed into the room and shoved me aside so hard I stumbled and fell. “Why weren’t you watching her?” He scooped Chloe into his arms, carefully setting her down on the sofa before starting to tend to her hand. His eyes, cold with fury, were locked on me. “Do you have any idea how serious this is? She’s severely depressed. She could have a suicidal episode at any moment.” My own palm, which had hit the floor, was stinging from the glass fragments embedded in it. But I didn’t dare say a word, terrified of setting Chloe off again. She, in turn, wrapped her arms around Carter’s neck, burying her face in his chest and starting to sob in a breathy, childish way. The sound was laced with a victory I was sure only I could hear. “Carter, it hurts… It hurts so much.” He sighed, and the look he gave her was pure, undiluted sympathy. He gently wiped a tear from her cheek, then took her injured hand and brought it to his lips, softly blowing on the cuts. “There, all better. You’re being so brave.” He never once looked down to see the blood pooling around my own hand on the floor. I told myself it was okay. She was the patient. It was natural for him to give her more attention. But it was always Chloe. Over and over. Ninety-nine times she staged a suicide attempt. Ninety-nine times he abandoned me for her. He left me on deserted mountain roads, in blinding blizzards on the interstate, on the shoulder of a highway with cars screaming past, in the middle of nowhere late at night, and here, now, at the altar of yet another wedding that would never happen. Because of Chloe’s depression, I never had the right to say no. This time, I couldn’t give in. I just couldn’t. I held onto his sleeve, my knuckles white, refusing to let go. The System’s warning from the night before echoed in my mind. If Carter abandons you for Chloe one more time, the mission will be classified as a failure. You will be terminated. To give me a fighting chance, the System had also let me in on a secret: Chloe was faking it. She would never actually kill herself. Carter’s face was a mask of anxiety. “She’s my sister, Alice. I can’t just ignore her.” He lowered his voice, trying to reason with me. “And I’m her doctor. I have a professional responsibility. We can get married any other day, but if something happens to her today… I’ll never forgive myself.” He squeezed my arm. “I promise you, next time, it will be perfect.” I shook my head, my throat raw. “Carter, if you walk out that door, there won’t be a next time.” His patience finally snapped. He pried my fingers from his arm, his touch rough. His brow furrowed, his voice dropping to an icy whisper. “I am going to marry you, and I am going to save Chloe. The two are not mutually exclusive. Why do you have to be so stubborn?” His voice rose slightly. “This is a life-or-death situation. Are you really going to be this irrational right now?” The air froze. I could feel the mocking stares of our guests from every direction. I opened my mouth to tell him. She’s faking it, Carter. She’s not going to die. But the words wouldn’t form. The System had been clear: telling him its secrets was cheating. I tried again, desperate. If you leave, I’m the one who’s going to die. Before I could speak, his phone rang again. He answered, his voice instantly softening as he murmured reassurances to Chloe. Then, without another glance at me, he turned and walked away. A cold, mechanical voice filled my head. “Host, you have failed the mission.” “You are now free to choose your method of death.” “Upon termination, you will be returned to your original world.” Go back? Suddenly, it didn’t sound so bad. In my real life, I was sick, chronically ill, but at least I had my mother. A mother who loved me. In this world, aside from a healthy body I was about to lose, I had nothing. I considered my options. “Okay,” I transmitted to the System. “Let me develop real, severe clinical depression. And let me die at Carter’s hands.” If I had to die anyway, I wanted him—the expert psychologist—to see what the real thing looked like. And it looked nothing like Chloe. 4 After Carter left, the wedding reception devolved into chaos. Normally, I would have forced a smile, played the gracious hostess, and endured the pitying and scornful looks from our guests. Not today. I stood there, a statue in white, and watched Carter’s stepmother round on his father, her voice shrill. “Are you trying to drive her to her death? You know how much Chloe loves him!” she shrieked. “If anything happens to my daughter, I swear I’ll die too! Then we’ll see what’s more important—your precious family name or me and Chloe!” She shot a venomous glare in my direction. “You shameless bitch.” Then she stormed out, as if I were the other woman who had come between Carter and Chloe. The irony was suffocating. She was the one who’d had the affair, the one who’d ruthlessly driven Carter’s real mother to her death. But that, too, was a secret from the System. I couldn’t tell him. God, what I wouldn’t give to see the look on his face if he knew the beloved stepsister he’d coddled his whole life was the daughter of his mother’s killer. Mr. Hayes sighed, stepping toward me and patting my hand. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. Chloe’s illness… it will get better one day. You just have to be patient.” I numbly pulled my hand away and nodded, feeling nothing. Carter had said the same words to me a hundred times. Be patient. Don’t hold it against a sick person. I used to feel anger, grief, despair. Today, I felt nothing. The System had explained it. This is what severe depression does. It robs you of normal human emotion, strips away your will to live, and leaves you with nothing but endless pain and the unwavering resolve to die. “But if Chloe’s depression is so different from mine,” I asked the System, “how could a professional psychologist like Carter not see she was faking it?” There was a long pause before it answered. “Who says he couldn’t see it?” The air left my lungs. If Carter knew all along… then her “depression” was just an excuse. An excuse to spoil her without limits, to force me to yield to her again and again, to allow her to cross every conceivable line with him without consequence. It’s not the lies that kill you. It’s the truth. My chest felt like it was being pricked by a thousand tiny needles. I walked out of the chaos, through the gossiping crowds, and went home in a daze. I signed the organ donor forms, swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills, and curled up under the covers, waiting. Soon, I’d be with my mom again. The truth is, people who truly want to die do it quietly. They don’t broadcast it to the world like Chloe did. They just slip away. 5 The phone rang, dragging me from the deepening fog. I answered. Chloe’s cheerful, singsong voice came through the line. “Carter, what brand is your mattress? It’s so comfortable.” Of course. She was in our marital home. In our wedding bed. A bed I had never even slept in. A wave of nausea churned in my stomach. “Your sister-in-law picked it out,” Carter’s voice replied, distant. “I don’t know. Don’t lie on it, Chloe. Alice hasn’t even used it yet. She’d be upset.” “Carter,” Chloe purred, “have you ever slept with her?” A long, damning silence. Then, his honest answer. “No.” “Hee hee,” she giggled. “I knew you didn’t love that clingy bitch. If you really loved her, you wouldn’t have been able to keep your hands off her for this long, would you?” My mind drifted back through a haze of memories. So many times we’d been lost in the moment, skin on skin, on the verge of going all the way. And every single time, Carter would pull back, breathing heavily, stroking my hair and whispering that he wanted to save the most precious memory for our wedding night. I thought it was because he cherished me. It turns out he was saving himself for Chloe. I was about to hang up, disgusted, when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of a kiss, followed by a soft gasp. Chloe’s voice was breathy, broken. “Carter… please… don’t push me away again… If you do, I think… I think my depression will come back and I’ll want to jump off the balcony.” Carter’s normally cool voice was husky. “Chloe, I’m getting married. I can only be your brother. Do you understand?” “Stop lying to yourself,” she murmured. “You decorated this whole apartment to my tastes.” It was true. We had fought endlessly over the decor. Our aesthetics were polar opposites. Exhausted from the arguments, I had finally given in and told him to just do it his way. I never imagined his way was Chloe’s. “Carter, I dare you,” she whispered, her voice a challenge. “Touch my heart, right here, and swear you’ve never had a single improper thought about me. If you can swear it, I promise I’ll never bother you again.” She took a deep, theatrical breath, waiting for her victory. And on my end of the line, so was I. I needed to know. For five years, had I been nothing more than her stand-in? The answer came in the form of a long, heavy silence that crushed the last flicker of hope in my chest. All those moments I had treasured, all that manufactured magic… it was all just me, fooling myself. Chloe’s voice, now a sultry whisper, shattered the quiet. “Let me be your first, Carter. Please? I want to see what you’re like when you finally let go…” His response was a weak protest. “Stop it! This is my marital home!” “Doesn’t that just make it more exciting?” she purred. Listening to them, my mind spiraled. All those nights he’d left me to rush to her side… what had they been doing? An involuntary, wrenching dry heave escaped my throat. I don’t know if I imagined it, but I could have sworn I heard Chloe let out a soft, triumphant laugh. As if to say, I win. Again. Suddenly, Carter’s voice was in a panic. “Alice? Alice, listen to me, it’s not what you think!” A bitter, hopeless laugh escaped me. “Then what is it?!” “It’s a long story. Stay there. I’m coming to you right now, I’ll explain everything—” “Get lost,” I spat, my voice thick with revulsion. “Don’t you dare come near me.” Before he could reply, I used the last of my strength to end the call and block his number. The cold was spreading through my limbs now. My eyelids felt impossibly heavy. The world dissolved into a welcoming darkness. I saw my mother, as if from a childhood memory, wearing her slightly faded apron, standing at the entrance to our old alleyway. She was waving, her voice soft and warm. “Sweetheart, come inside now. Time to wash up for dinner.” … Just before I lost consciousness completely, I heard a frantic pounding on the door. “Alice! Open the door! I swear, there’s a reasonable explanation for everything!” It was Carter’s voice. Too late.

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When I finally got my laptop back from my roommate, Jenna, the C-drive was a solid block of red. The desktop was littered with icons for three massive online games and at least a dozen different media players I’d never seen before. I spent an entire afternoon purging the junk, reinstalling the OS, and then I changed the login password. That evening, Jenna came back and found she was locked out. She stormed over to my desk, her face flushed with anger. “Leah, what the hell is this? My thesis is on there! Are you trying to screw me over?” “It’s my laptop,” I said calmly. “You’ve ‘borrowed’ it for a month.” Suddenly, she lunged. She snatched the laptop off my desk and, with a furious scream, smashed it onto the floor. 1 The crash echoed through the room with a sickening finality. My silver MacBook lay shattered on the linoleum, its case split open like a clamshell. The guts were exposed, emitting a faint, fizzing electrical sound. Absolute silence fell over the dorm room. My other two roommates, Maya and Becca, froze, staring at the carnage in disbelief. I just stood there, stunned. My dad had bought me that laptop as a graduation present when I got into college. I’d used it for three years, and I’d treated it like a precious thing. Jenna’s chest was heaving. For a split second after the impact, she looked as shocked as we were, but that shock was instantly consumed by an even hotter rage. She pointed a trembling finger at the wreckage. “Leah! Are you happy now? What about my thesis? What about my graduation? You want to ruin my life, is that it?” Her logic was, as always, breathtaking. I didn’t scream or break down like she probably expected. I didn’t even shed a tear. I just slowly knelt, took out my phone, and began taking pictures of the destroyed laptop from multiple angles, the flash cutting sharply through the dim room. My calculated calm seemed to unnerve her. “What… what are you doing?” A flicker of panic entered her voice. I stood up, slid my phone back into my pocket, and met her furious gaze. “You’re going to pay for it, Jenna,” I said, my voice perfectly even. “Full price, what it costs on the Apple store right now. Not a penny less.” Jenna let out a high, incredulous laugh. “Pay for it? Are you insane, Leah? Your family sends you enough to buy a new one like it’s a head of lettuce. Me? I’m on financial aid! My work-study check is barely enough for groceries! What am I supposed to pay you with? My life?” She was already slipping into her well-worn victim narrative, trying to seize the moral high ground. “Besides,” she added, her voice rising, “if you hadn’t changed the password, I wouldn’t have gotten so stressed out! And if I wasn’t stressed, my hands wouldn’t have slipped! When you really think about it, this is your fault!” Maya spoke up timidly from her corner. “Jenna, calm down… I mean, it is Leah’s laptop. She paid good money for it. It’s only fair that you replace it.” “You shut up!” Jenna snapped, whirling on her. “You’ve got money, just like her. It’s easy for you to stand there and judge! Have you ever had to worry about making next semester’s tuition? Have you ever lived on ramen for a week straight? No! You have no idea!” I looked at her, so self-righteously indignant, and almost laughed. She lived on ramen but somehow always had money for the latest in-game character skins. She couldn’t make tuition, but she’d managed to haul in a mountain of cheap, discounted makeup during the Black Friday sales. Her poverty was a performance. It was a weapon she used to justify taking whatever she wanted, to excuse any harm she caused. I was done arguing. I just repeated my terms. “Pay for it. Or we call the police.” “The police?” Jenna’s voice shot up an octave. She stared at me, her teeth gritted. “Go on! Call them! Let’s see what the cops think when a rich girl tries to ruin a poor student’s life over a piece of metal! I can’t finish my thesis, I won’t graduate, and my entire future will be destroyed! It will all be your fault! If I go down, I’m taking you with me!” The venom in her eyes, the raw and unhinged look on her face, sent a genuine chill down my spine. It reminded me of the stories you see on the news, the ones that end in tragedy. I said nothing. Seeing her advantage, Becca rushed in to play peacemaker. “Come on, Leah, don’t take it so seriously. Jenna didn’t mean it, she’s just under a lot of pressure. Why don’t you… just let it go? It’s an old laptop anyway. I’m sure your dad can just get you a new one. We’re all roommates here, getting the police involved would be so ugly.” Jenna immediately latched on, a triumphant smirk touching her lips. “See? Becca gets it. Don’t be so petty, Leah.” Watching them, a team of two against me, I felt the last bit of warmth in my chest evaporate. I didn’t say another word. I just knelt again, carefully gathering the pieces of my broken laptop and placing them back in their original box. Jenna thought she’d won. The victorious smile spread across her face. She even offered a magnanimous olive branch. “There, see? If you’d just been reasonable from the start, none of this would have happened. I’ll buy you a coffee tomorrow.” I ignored her. Cradling the box like a coffin, I turned and walked out of the room. 2 I didn’t go to the library or a friend’s dorm. I went straight to my academic advisor’s office. His name was Mr. Evans. He was a man in his late thirties with glasses and a perpetually gentle, understanding demeanor. He listened to my story, his brow furrowing as he peered into the box at the mangled remains of my MacBook. “I understand the situation, Leah,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “However, Jenna’s case is… unique. She is one of the university’s most prominent scholarship students. We have a certain duty of care for students in her position.” I listened, holding my tongue. “Look, she was clearly under immense pressure with her thesis deadline. It was an impulsive act. And realistically, given her financial situation, she simply can’t afford to replace it. If you file a police report, it will create a record, and that could follow her for the rest of her life.” Mr. Evans’s tone was that of a patient father explaining a hard truth. “For you, a laptop is a replaceable object. For her, a blemish on her record could be a life sentence.” “So, what are you suggesting, Mr. Evans?” I asked. “What I’m suggesting is, for the sake of fellowship, and as a favor to me, we let this go.” He offered a placating smile. “Let’s not make this a bigger issue than it needs to be. I’ll have a serious talk with Jenna. I’ll have her write you a formal letter of apology, and she can even deliver it in front of the whole department if you’d like. How does that sound?” A letter of apology. To compensate for a thousand-dollar piece of hardware and intentional property destruction. I shook my head. “Mr. Evans, this isn’t about being petty. It’s about the principle of the thing. When you do something wrong, you have to take responsibility. She wasn’t thinking about ‘fellowship’ when she smashed my computer.” His face hardened. “Leah, you need to see the bigger picture. Is it really worth jeopardizing a fellow student’s future, and tarnishing the reputation of our department, over something so trivial?” The undertone was no longer gentle. It was a threat. Just then, as if on cue, Jenna herself appeared in the doorway, having realized where I’d gone. The moment she saw Mr. Evans, her eyes welled up. She rushed to his desk, tears streaming down her face. “Mr. Evans, you have to help me! I didn’t mean to do it! I was just so dizzy from staring at my research, and my hand slipped… Leah’s blowing this all out of proportion! She said she’s going to call the cops and get me expelled… I don’t know what to do…” She was a master of turning reality inside out. Mr. Evans immediately slipped into the role of the protective father figure, handing her a tissue and murmuring, “There, there, it’s alright. I’m here. I won’t let anyone bully you.” He then turned back to me, his expression now openly hostile. “Leah! Look what you’ve done to her! Jenna already told you it was an accident, so why do you insist on persecuting her? Where is your compassion? Your empathy? Is it because you come from a more privileged background that you feel you can look down on students who are less fortunate?” And there it was. In one swift move, I had been recast as the privileged bully. I stood there, watching this touching display of mentorship, and I could feel my entire body trembling with rage. “Mr. Evans, there are other witnesses in the room. They can confirm it was deliberate. The difference between dropping something and throwing it is obvious. Just look at the damage in the box.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Enough. I’ve heard enough. This matter is closed. Jenna, you go back and focus on your thesis. And Leah, you will go back to your room and write a one-thousand-word statement reflecting on your failure to foster a supportive environment among your peers. I want it on my desk by Friday.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You want me, the victim, to write a letter of apology?” “Yes!” he snapped, slapping his desk for emphasis. “Your decision to change the password was the catalyst for this whole incident! You lit the fuse! Are you telling me you bear no responsibility at all? My decision is final! If you continue to pursue this, it could have serious consequences for your own academic standing.” Without giving me another glance, he turned to Jenna with a warm smile. “Don’t you worry about a thing. If you have any trouble with the thesis, you come straight to me. I have a spare laptop in my office you can use. Come on, let’s go get it.” He led her out, leaving me alone in the office with the box of my computer’s remains. A tidal wave of humiliation and fury washed over me, so powerful it almost knocked me off my feet. 3 Back in the dorm room, the atmosphere was thick enough to choke on. Jenna wasn’t there, probably off receiving further ‘care and support’ from Mr. Evans. Becca saw me and immediately looked away, muttering, “Leah, don’t be mad. Mr. Evans was just trying to do what’s best for everyone…” I ignored her and walked to my desk. My other roommate, Maya, came over. She hesitated for a moment, then handed me a bottle of water. “Leah, don’t let them get to you,” she whispered. “I saw what happened. I can be your witness.” I looked up at her. Maya’s eyes were filled with sympathy and a hint of guilt. She was quiet by nature and usually stayed out of our dorm disputes. “Thanks,” I said, taking the water. She sat on the edge of my bed, her voice sinking lower. “Honestly… Jenna has always been like this. Last semester, I bought a new tube of lipstick. I only used it twice before it went missing. A week later, I saw her using it. When I confronted her, she claimed she’d bought the exact same shade and then accused me of bullying her. She cried in the common room for an hour, making it look like I was the bad guy.” I nodded. I’d heard similar stories. Jenna’s ‘borrowing’ was a one-way street. It started with small things, like pens and tissues, and escalated to clothes and skincare products. Most people, intimidated by her scholarship-student status and her hair-trigger temper, just let it go. I had been one of them. I’d felt sorry for her when she said she didn’t have a reliable computer for her thesis, which is why I’d lent her mine in the first place. And my reward was a smashed laptop and a reprimand from my own advisor. It suddenly clicked. I remembered hearing that Mr. Evans had also come from a low-income background, attending this very university on a full ride before being hired after graduation. Of course. I should never have gone to him. The thought of his demand—that I write a self-criticism essay—sparked a cold fire in my gut. I took out my phone. If he was so determined to protect his star scholarship student, to sacrifice fairness for his own biased narrative, then I would give him a gift he wouldn’t forget. Maya leaned over curiously. “What are you doing?” “Writing my statement,” I said. I started typing. I documented everything that had happened today, starting with Jenna’s long-term monopolization of my laptop, her violent destruction of it, and culminating in Mr. Evans’s ‘mediation’—his blatant favoritism, his threats, and his demand that I, the victim, be the one to apologize. I scrubbed the names, using aliases: ‘Scholarship Student J’ and ‘Advisor E.’ The tone was cool and factual, a simple statement of events without any emotional flourishes. When I was done, I proofread it, then attached the photos of the wreckage and a screenshot of the official estimate from the repair shop, which declared the laptop ‘unrepairable and recommended for disposal.’ Then, I logged onto the university’s online forum. It was the digital heart of the campus, a place where thousands of students shared news, traded gossip, and debated everything under the sun. I took a deep breath and created a new post. The title was: ‘My Scholarship Roommate Smashed My Laptop, and My Advisor Told Me to Apologize.’ After hitting ‘submit,’ I closed my phone. A strange sense of peace settled over me. I had no idea what would happen next, but I knew one thing for sure. I would not be silent. Silence is how you let the rot spread. The next morning, I was woken by Maya’s gasp. “Oh my God! Leah! You need to see the forum!” I grabbed my phone. My post had exploded. Overnight, it had racked up over a hundred thousand views and three thousand replies. It was pinned to the top of the homepage, the title glowing in bold red.

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The perks package I’d earned from my 9-to-5 grind in the afterlife was supposed to be the golden ticket: I chose the life of the sole heir to a New York City financial dynasty. I never expected that in the final millisecond before my soul settled, my arch-nemesis would squeeze in beside me. We became twins. I gave her a swift kick. “Get out of here. This trust fund is mine.” She retaliated, siphoning half my nutrients from the umbilical cord. “Please. First one out is the oldest. That means primary inheritance rights.” Fantastic. After a lifetime of rivalry, this time we’d be starting as fertilized eggs. Our battle for birthright was so vicious we made our mother sick with morning sickness day and night. We were relentless, a tiny two-person war waged in the dark. Until the day we both heard our father’s voice, cold as ice, from the world outside. “That child cannot be born.” 1 “Carter, what did you just say?” That was our mother’s voice—Eleanor’s voice—trembling. My rival, Stella, and I paused our brawl mid-kick. We held perfectly still, listening. “I said,” Carter Brooks repeated, his voice devoid of any warmth, “that child cannot be born.” “Why? The doctor said the babies are perfectly healthy…” “Healthy?” A dry, mirthless chuckle. “Eleanor, have you forgotten your place? Did you really think I let you get pregnant so you could become the matriarch of the Brooks family?” In the cramped darkness of the womb, Stella and I shared a look, a silent broadcast of mutual panic. This wasn’t in the brochure. Sole heir to a Manhattan fortune? We were supposed to be planning our debutante balls, not our own funerals. “What… what are you saying?” Eleanor’s voice faded to a whisper. “Chloe’s son, Noah… his heart is failing. He needs a compatible transplant, urgently.” The pieces began to click into place, each one colder and sharper than the last. “Your blood type is the same as his,” Carter continued, his tone clinical, as if discussing a stock portfolio. “Rh-null. I did my research. A child you carry has an extremely high probability of being a match. Twins, especially. One for the transplant, one as a backup. It’s foolproof.” Eleanor’s horror was a physical wave that washed over us. “So, from the very beginning… my children were just… a living organ bank for Noah.” Her emotional distress triggered a violent contraction. The walls closed in, and Stella and I were crushed together. “No… it can’t be…” Eleanor’s voice broke into a sob. “Carter, they’re your children, too! How could you…” “Children?” His voice dripped with disgust. “Eleanor, don’t flatter yourself. My only child is the one Chloe gave me. The things in your stomach are nothing more than two well-matched sets of spare parts. Your job is to deliver them, safe and sound. Do that, and the Brooks family will compensate you handsomely.” He paused, letting the cruelty sink in. “If you want to blame someone, blame them for choosing your womb to land in.” “Now, get ready. We’re going to the hospital. I’ve already made the arrangements.” Our mother’s terror and heartbreak became a cascade of brutal contractions, squeezing the breath from our tiny, developing lungs. “No! I won’t!” Eleanor shrieked, a sound of pure, primal fear. “I won’t let anyone hurt my babies!” “You don’t have a choice,” Carter snarled. Then, a dizzying lurch. We could feel our mother being dragged, her body fighting against an overwhelming force. What do we do? I projected the thought to Stella. She didn’t answer with words. Instead, she coiled her tiny body and kicked with all her might in one direction. “Argh!” A muffled grunt of pain from the outside world. It was Carter. “Eleanor! You think you can run from me?” his voice roared from behind, filled with a terrifying rage. He wanted our hearts? He could dream on. 2 Eleanor didn’t get far. Within minutes, Carter’s security team had us back in the penthouse, prisoners in our own home. Stella and I could feel the frantic, rabbit-fast thumping of our mother’s heart. We could feel her body trembling with a fear so profound it seeped into our own developing bones. “Carter, you’re a monster! You’ll rot in hell for this!” Eleanor screamed, her voice raw as they pinned her to a vast, king-sized bed. “A monster?” Carter’s voice was laced with a chilling amusement. “Eleanor, you should be honored. To be able to give something so precious to Chloe and Noah… it’s the most important thing you’ll ever do.” “Shut up! Who the hell is Chloe to me?” CRACK. The sound was sharp, sickening. A wave of fiery pain shot through Eleanor’s cheek, and we felt it, too. “Don’t you ever disrespect her,” Carter said, his voice dangerously low. “A woman like you isn’t fit to say her name.” “I’ll spit on her name! She’s nothing but a home-wrecking—” “It seems one slap wasn’t enough to clear your head.” His patience was wearing thin. “Let me remind you of something, Eleanor. Everything you have—your status as Mrs. Brooks, the black Amex, this apartment overlooking Central Park—I gave it to you. And I can take it all away.” He leaned closer. “Do you really think your family, with their failing little business, can protect you? One phone call from me, and they’ll be wiped off the map by morning.” Eleanor’s curses died in her throat, replaced by choked, desperate sobs. This was the gilded cage I’d fought for nine hundred years to be born into? Back in the dimension between lives, Stella and I were legends for all the wrong reasons. I was the top-tier soul guide who’d clawed my way up through sheer grit and paperwork. She was the hell-raising spirit who’d literally fought her way to the top. We’d battled to a stalemate over the single Platinum Rebirth package, only to be sucked into the same vortex at the last second by some cosmic glitch. And now, here we were. “Nice pick, Luna,” Stella’s thought was drenched in sarcasm. “This is the ‘good family’ you were so desperate for?” “Oh, shut up, Stella,” I shot back. “Like you weren’t trying to shove your way in here, too.” “Only because you were blocking the better options!” “Sure, keep telling yourself that.” Our bickering was interrupted by a syrupy sweet voice from the doorway. “Carter, honey, don’t be angry with Eleanor. It’s all my fault…” “It has nothing to do with you,” Carter’s tone softened instantly. “If only my body were stronger, if I could have had another child for you, we wouldn’t have to put her through this…” It was Chloe. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry, Ellie,” she said, her voice dripping with fake sympathy as she approached the bed. “Please don’t blame Carter. He’s just so worried about Noah. The doctors… the doctors said he might not make it through the winter…” She was a performer, and this was her stage. “As long as your children can save my Noah,” she whispered, her voice cracking beautifully, “I’ll… I’ll spend the rest of my life repaying you.” “Did you hear that, Eleanor?” Carter’s voice was sharp again. “Chloe is being gracious. The least you can do is show some gratitude.” He slid a document onto the bed. “Sign this. It’ll be better for everyone.” “What is this?” Eleanor’s voice was hoarse. “Voluntary organ donation consent forms,” Carter replied nonchalantly. “Signing them now just simplifies the process later.” “And if I don’t?” “If you don’t?” He laughed. “Fine. Then I can arrange for an ‘accidental’ premature birth. Or even… an ‘accidental’ death. Either way, Eleanor, the little things in your belly belong to me.” 3 “Don’t sign it!” I screamed in my mind. “If she signs, we’re finished!” Stella roared back. But Eleanor couldn’t hear us. We felt her hand tremble as it reached for the pen, a gesture of complete and utter defeat. “That’s a good girl,” Carter purred. “See how easy this can be?” Chloe chimed in, her voice sickeningly sweet. “I knew you’d understand, Ellie. Thank you. You’re a truly wonderful person.” The tip of the pen was inches from the paper. In that split second, Stella acted. She repositioned herself, gathered all her strength, and delivered a powerful kick directly into Eleanor’s stomach lining. “Oomph—” Eleanor’s body jackknifed, and a surge of stomach acid erupted from her mouth. With astonishing precision, the vomit splattered across the consent forms and, even more satisfyingly, all over Chloe’s pristine, white designer heels. “AH! My shoes!” Chloe’s shriek could have shattered glass. “Eleanor! You did that on purpose!” Carter exploded. Eleanor, looking as shocked as anyone, weakly shook her head. “No… I didn’t…” “You’re still lying!” Carter grabbed her by the wrist. “I see you need to be taught a real lesson!” “Carter, sweetie, it’s okay…” Chloe intervened, already back in character, her eyes welling with tears. “She didn’t mean it. The pregnancy… it’s hard on her. My shoes don’t matter. What matters is that she doesn’t get too upset… what if it hurts the babies?” She enunciated the word “babies” with pointed significance. Carter’s fury didn’t subside. “Hard on her? Is it harder than what you’ve been through with Noah?” He let go of Eleanor and pulled Chloe into a protective embrace. “You’re too good, Chloe. A woman like her doesn’t deserve your kindness.” He turned back to Eleanor, his face a mask of cold fury. He barked an order to his security guards. “Lock her in this room. Don’t let her out of your sight. Hire two nutritionists. I want them watching her every meal. I want the things in her belly fattened up like prize turkeys.” “Yes, Mr. Brooks,” a guard replied. Carter leaned down, his face close to Eleanor’s ear. “And you,” he whispered, his voice a venomous threat, “pull another stunt like that, and next time, it won’t be bile you’re spitting up. It’ll be blood.” The door clicked shut, leaving Eleanor alone with her silent, racking sobs. “Nice one,” I sent to Stella. “It was adequate,” she sniffed. “Just a warning shot.” “So what’s the plan now? We just wait here to be harvested?” I asked. “Of course not,” Stella shot back, her thought laced with fury. “He wants my heart? He’s not worthy of touching it.” “You have an idea?” “The idea,” she said, a grim satisfaction in her tone, “is to make his life a living hell.” That night, I got to work. I focused all my energy, all the skill I’d picked up in the afterlife dabbling in the art of weaving memories and nightmares. My abilities were more subtle than Stella’s brute force, but far more insidious. I constructed a nightmare just for Carter. In the dream, he was the one strapped to the operating table. Chloe, dressed as a surgeon, held a scalpel over his chest, her smile wide and terrifying. “Don’t be scared, Carter darling,” she cooed. “Noah needs a strong heart. And yours is just perfect.” Then, she sliced him open. The next morning, we overheard the maids talking. “Mr. Brooks must have had a nightmare. He was shouting all night. He looked terrible this morning.” “I know! He screamed at the head of housekeeping, said there was something ‘unclean’ in his room.” 4 In the weeks that followed, Stella and I perfected our two-pronged attack. Our “Womb Rebellion” was in full swing. Stella was the muscle. Whenever Carter and Chloe were having a romantic dinner downstairs, Stella would unleash a flurry of kicks and jabs. Eleanor would double over, her face pale, forcing her to call the on-call doctor Carter had assigned. The doctor’s arrival always shattered the happy couple’s private evening. “Eleanor, can’t you just be still for one damn minute?” he’d demand, standing over her bed, radiating impatience. “It’s your children,” Eleanor would reply, her lips white with pain. “They’re the ones kicking.” “Excuses,” he’d scoff. “They’re barely a few pounds. How much force could they have? You’re just doing this to upset Chloe, aren’t you?” Chloe, ever the martyr, would rush to her side. “Carter, don’t say that. It’s hard being pregnant. Her hormones are all over the place. Maybe… maybe I should move out for a while. If seeing me makes her this upset, it can’t be good for the babies.” “Nonsense! The only person leaving is her, after she’s done her job,” he’d snap, pulling Chloe into his arms. “You and Noah are the masters of this house. Anyone who makes you unhappy will be thrown out.” He’d glare at Eleanor. “I’m warning you. If one hair on Chloe’s head is harmed, I’ll make what’s inside you pay for it a hundred times over.” Eleanor would simply turn her face to the wall, feigning sleep. Meanwhile, I became a master dream-weaver. My nightmares for Carter grew more elaborate. I moved on from simple vivisection to showing him his beloved Brooks Corporation collapsing into ruin, him homeless on the streets of Manhattan, being stepped over by a grown-up Noah and a contemptuous Chloe. His face grew gaunt, dark circles forming under his eyes. His temper frayed to a raw nerve. “Did you hear? The boss is seeing someone now, some kind of mystic.” “He thinks he’s been cursed. He’s been screaming in his sleep every night.” The staff’s whispers were our daily entertainment. We thought we could ride this out, this campaign of low-grade psychological and physical warfare, until we were born. Then, one afternoon, Chloe burst into the penthouse, clutching a medical report and weeping hysterically. “Carter! It’s Noah! He… he can’t wait any longer!” “The doctors said his heart failure is accelerating! He needs the transplant… as soon as possible!” Carter held her, his own voice shaking. “What did they say? How soon?” “They said… they said within a month,” she sobbed. “But a month from now… the babies won’t be full-term!” “So we’ll have them delivered early,” Carter said. His voice was flat, colder than anything we’d heard before. Eleanor’s face went sheet-white. “What… did you say?” Carter didn’t even look at her. His focus was entirely on Chloe. “Don’t cry, Chloe. It’s okay. A month early? Modern medicine is incredible. The survival rate for seven-month preemies is very high.” “But… but that’s not good for the babies…” Chloe murmured, keeping up her saintly facade. “What does it matter?” Carter said, stroking her hair. “As long as the hearts are healthy, that’s all that matters. Whether they live or die is irrelevant to us.” He finally turned to Eleanor. “You heard her. Get ready. You’re having a C-section next week.” Eleanor swayed on her feet, grabbing the bedpost for support. She stared at the man she had once loved, and the last flicker of light in her eyes died out. “Carter,” she said, and then she laughed, a broken, hollow sound. “If I died, would you be sad? Even a little?” He frowned, as if she’d asked the most ridiculous question in the world. “You? Die?” He scoffed, and then uttered the cruelest words imaginable. “It would be convenient. It would save me the trouble of you trying to bother me and Chloe in the future. I’d have your body buried somewhere discreet. Consider it a reward for delivering the ‘donations’.” He smiled a thin, cruel smile. “After all, when a dog dies, its owner feels a brief pang of sadness. You’re at least a little better than a dog.” Eleanor didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She just looked at him, her gaze steady and empty, for a long, long time. Then she nodded once and said a single word. “Okay.” The calm acceptance in her voice seemed to surprise even Carter. Chloe, nestled in his arms, smiled. “I knew you’d come around, Ellie. You’re such a reasonable person when you want to be.” From that day on, Eleanor changed. The tears stopped. The protests ceased. She ate every meal they put in front of her and cooperated with every medical check. Carter was pleased. “See? This is how it should have been all along,” he’d say during his brief, infrequent visits. Chloe came by more often, flaunting new jewelry Carter had bought her, or talking about their romantic getaways. “Ellie, isn’t this bracelet gorgeous? Carter said that after Noah’s surgery is a success, he’s taking us all on a vacation to the Maldives.” “Ellie, you should eat more of the fish. It’s good for the babies. The healthier they are, the stronger their hearts will be. That gives Noah the best chance, you know?” Eleanor listened to it all with a placid, unreadable expression. “Do you think she’s given up?” I worried. “No,” Stella replied. Her senses were always sharper. “Her heartbeat is calmer than it’s ever been. This isn’t surrender. It’s the calm before the storm.” One evening, long after the house was quiet, Eleanor made a call. “Dad, it’s me. He’s making his move. Next week.”

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