I have a strange illness. Every morning I wake up, the previous day’s memories are completely gone. My wife, Olivia, is the only person I trust when I open my eyes. She always tells me patiently: “Your name is Ethan. You’re twenty-nine, and you’re my husband.” I believed her without a shadow of a doubt. Until today, when I found a hidden diary in the corner of the study. On the very first page, written in my own handwriting, was a chilling warning: “Never trust Olivia.” “Julian isn’t her cousin. He’s the man she’s been in love with for years.” “You don’t have amnesia. She has been drugging you.” “This is the 1001st time I’ve discovered the truth.” From this moment on, I decided to play dumb. I’ll keep acting in her little play. I opened my eyes in the morning, my mind completely blank. “Are you awake?” I turned my head and saw a woman in a silk bathrobe sitting on the edge of the bed. “Who are you?” The words slipped out of my mouth automatically. The woman smiled, gently brushing her hand over my forehead. “I’m Olivia. Your wife.” “And you are Ethan, my husband. You’ve been sick, which is why you forget everything from the day before.” She pointed to the picture frame on the nightstand. “That’s our wedding photo.” In the photo, I was wearing a tuxedo, leaning close to her. But strangely, there was a noticeable crease along the edge of the photo. She took my hand, her fingertips warm. “Ethan, I’m the only one you can trust.” I nodded, accepting this reality. Olivia helped me get out of bed, laid out my clothes, and even meticulously adjusted my collar. “What do you want to do today?” I looked at myself in the mirror. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.” “Then just let me handle everything.” Olivia wrapped her arms around me from behind, resting her cheek against my back. “A family doctor is coming for a checkup this morning. In the afternoon, I’ll take you for a walk in the garden. And tonight…” Before she could finish, the doorbell rang. Olivia let go of me, her brow furrowing just for a split second. “That must be Dr. Julian.” I followed her downstairs. A man in a white lab coat was standing in the living room. When he turned around and saw Olivia, his eyes lit up instantly. “Olivia.” “How is Ethan doing today?” Olivia walked naturally to Julian’s side and took his medical bag. Their fingers brushed against each other as they made the handoff. Neither of them pulled away. Julian looked at me, a quick, calculating look flashing deep in his eyes. “Ethan, let’s test your memory baseline today.” For the last question of the test, he pointed at Olivia. “Who is she?” “My wife.” Julian’s pen paused on the clipboard, and the corners of his mouth curled up. “The basic cognitive function is still there. But Olivia, I still suggest we increase the dosage.” He began packing up his equipment. As he stood up, his fingers casually brushed against the back of Olivia’s hand. I sat quietly on the sofa. Through the window, I saw Julian lean close to her ear outside the front door, whispering something. When she closed the door and walked back in, her face immediately returned to that sweet, gentle expression. “Ethan, what would you like for lunch?” I stared directly into her eyes. “What did he whisper to you outside?” Olivia froze for a moment. Then, a sharp, testing look flashed in her eyes. “Why do you ask?” I looked down, my finger tapping the armrest of the sofa absentmindedly. “He comes here every day. Were we very close in the past?” “Dr. Julian is just doing his job.” Olivia wrapped her arm around my shoulder. The faint scent of cedarwood on her was exactly the same as the scent on Julian. “Ethan, you have to remember. In this world, I am the only one who truly cares about you.” “Don’t believe a word anyone else says.” I nodded silently, saying nothing more. But deep down, I knew something was terribly wrong.

In the afternoon, Olivia left for the office. I sat alone in the backyard, soaking in the sun. Maria, the maid, brought over some fresh fruit. She looked at me, hesitating to speak. “Mr. Ethan… do you really not remember anything?” I shook my head blankly. “Olivia says I’m sick.” Her lips parted slightly, but in the end, she just sighed. “Then just listen to Mrs. Olivia. She’s doing it for your own good.” As she turned to leave, I heard her mumble under her breath. “So tragic… he can’t even protect the inheritance his parents left him…” I was about to call her back and ask what she meant. Just then, the sound of a car engine echoed from the driveway. Julian came in with his medical bag, a look of apology on his face. “Sorry about this, Ethan. I forgot to give you your injection this morning. I just realized and rushed right back.” As he spoke, he pulled out a syringe. “This is a new neuro-nutritional drug. Olivia agreed to start you on it today.” I instinctively shrank back. But he grabbed my arm with surprising force, pinning me down. “Ethan, this is for your own good.” I struggled slightly, and he immediately frowned. “Stop moving.” The needle pierced my skin. Before long, a heavy, dark sleep washed over me. I had a terrifying nightmare. In the dream, I was standing on the edge of a steep cliff. Olivia and Julian were holding each other, watching me. “Ethan, just jump! You’ll finally be free if you jump!” I didn’t want to. I wanted to run away. But Olivia blocked my path, pushing me step by step to the very edge. “Ethan, once you’re dead, all the company shares will be mine!” With that, she gave me a violent push. “Ah!” I screamed and woke up, but there was no one in the room. Through the glass of the backyard conservatory, I saw the two of them talking. I shook my heavy head, walked out, and suddenly spoke up. “Olivia, are we really married?” Their conversation cut off instantly. Olivia turned around, and for a split second, her eyes looked incredibly terrifying. She walked toward me, step by step. “Why would you ask that?” I was intimidated by her cold gaze, my back tensing up. “I just think it’s weird. Why do we only have one wedding photo?” “Why isn’t there a single trace of my past in this house?” She grabbed my hand so hard I felt my bones ache. “Because you are sick, Ethan.” “When you have your episodes, you destroy things. You tear up photos, smash furniture.” “To protect you, and to protect our memories, I hid everything away. Don’t you trust me?” She looked at me, a look of deep hurt in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have doubted you.” Olivia’s face softened, and she pulled me into a hug. “It’s okay. I know you’re sick. I’ll stay by your side until you’re completely cured.” I didn’t pull away, but I didn’t hug her back either. Over her shoulder, my gaze locked onto Julian, who was still standing nearby. Maybe it was because of the drug, but I fell asleep incredibly early that night. At 2:00 AM, I woke up feeling extremely thirsty. I got out of bed and crept down to the kitchen in the dark. While pouring a glass of water, I noticed the lights in the conservatory were still on. As if possessed, I walked over. Through the glass, I saw Julian sitting on a wicker chair in a bathrobe. Olivia stood behind him, bending over to massage his shoulders. “Was the dosage today too high? He actually started questioning things,” her voice drifted out. Julian tilted his head back, resting it against her stomach. “It’s normal for him to doubt. That drug damages memory. Over time, it makes people paranoid, even delusional.” He reached up and grabbed Olivia’s wrist. “Olivia, are you getting soft-hearted?” “No.” She smiled, her expression colder and more indifferent than I had ever seen. “He deserves this. If his family hadn’t forced me into this marriage back then, we would have been together long ago!” Julian chuckled. “Just hang in there for three more months. His cognitive functions will be permanently damaged.” “By then, he really will be a vegetable. No one will ever be able to prove a thing.” Olivia let out a cold laugh. “Yes. And then, all of his parents’ wealth will belong to me!”

I stood there frozen in the darkness. Suddenly, shattered fragments of memory rushed back into my brain. Olivia crushing pills into my milk. Julian holding a syringe, smiling warmly while saying, “This is for your own good.” And the past version of me, frantically writing in a diary: “Do not trust them.” I really did write a diary! I really did discover the truth! It’s just that every morning I woke up, I forgot it all over again. Inside the conservatory, Julian stood up and wrapped his arms around Olivia’s waist. He rested his head on her shoulder. “Playing your ‘cousin’ all these years has been so exhausting.” Olivia gently patted his back. “Just bear with it a little longer. The transfer of the family trust is almost complete.” “You approached him on purpose back then just for his parents’ inheritance, didn’t you?” “Why else would I?” Olivia laughed, her voice dripping with mockery. “Who could actually love an idiot who gets fooled every single day?” I clenched my fists, wanting to run. But my foot stepped on a dry twig on the ground. “Snap.” The lights in the conservatory went out instantly. I ran back to the bedroom as fast as I could. I lay in bed, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it would burst out of my chest. The bedroom door creaked open. Olivia stood in the doorway, keeping the lights off. She walked over and put her hand on my forehead. “Ethan, where did you just go?” I forced myself to sound like I had just been woken up, my voice deep and groggy. “What? I’ve been sleeping this whole time.” She didn’t say anything. Her fingers slid from my forehead down to my neck, stopping right on a faint bruise, pressing down gently. The pain made my muscles tense up. “Did you have a nightmare? You’re sweating a lot.” I clenched my teeth, saying nothing. Olivia leaned down, whispering right into my ear. “Ethan, you have to remember. You can go anywhere in this house, except the conservatory in the backyard.” “It’s too damp there. It’s bad for your illness.” I nodded, making no sound. She smiled with satisfaction and tucked the blanket around me. “Go to sleep. Tomorrow morning, everything will be fine.” She walked out, leaving the door slightly ajar. I heard her whisper to Julian in the hallway. “He might have noticed something. We need to move the plan forward!” Only when the hallway went completely silent did I dare to open my eyes. Olivia had said that the things I destroyed during my “episodes” were kept in the study. And I remembered where she hid the key. I slipped out of bed barefoot and crept into the study. Opening the door, a musty smell hit my nose. Torn photos, smashed ornaments, and half-shredded books were all piled in the corner. I looked at the very bottom shelf of the bookcase. The thickness of one particular book looked wrong. I pulled it out and opened it—the inside of the book had been completely hollowed out. Hidden inside was a leather notebook. I flipped to the first page. It was my handwriting. “March 15th. Olivia gave me a new pill today. I pretended to swallow it but spat it down the toilet. When Julian came to check on me, I lied and said my head hurt. The excitement in his eyes was sickening.” “May 20th. Our anniversary. Olivia gave me a tie clip. Tonight, I found a bank transfer record to Julian on her phone. What a joke.” I kept flipping through the pages. The diary detailed every single time, date, and location of their secret hookups. On the very last page, there was a single line written in bold red marker: “Ethan, run! They are going to kill you!” My hands began to shake violently. “Thud!” The sound of the front door opening echoed from downstairs. I frantically shoved the diary back into the hollow book. I had just made it back to bed and lay down when my bedroom door was kicked open. Olivia stood at the door. She flicked the light switch. In her hand was a syringe, the needle dripping with a clear liquid. She smiled and walked toward me. “Ethan, you went to the study just now, didn’t you?”

I clenched my jaw, the veins on my forehead bulging. “I checked the lock on the study door. There are fresh scratches on it.” Olivia sat on the edge of the bed, her hand brushing over my face. “Why can’t you just be obedient?” I desperately fought to suppress my rising panic. “Olivia, I swear I didn’t. I just went to the bathroom.” “Stop acting.” She violently whipped the blanket off me. She grabbed my arm and dragged me to the edge of the bed. “The mud on your bare feet hasn’t even been wiped off. There are footprints on the study floor.” My body went completely rigid. I couldn’t find my voice. Olivia raised the syringe. She pushed the plunger slightly, squirting a bit of liquid from the needle. “I wanted to let you live for three more months, but you just had to be difficult.” She smiled. “Let’s end this tonight.” The moment the needle touched my skin, I violently thrashed and broke free. Olivia didn’t expect me to have the strength to fight back. She lost her balance, falling backward, and the syringe flew out of her hand. I rolled off the bed and dashed toward the door. But before I could take two steps, she grabbed me by the collar from behind. “Did you really think you could escape?” She dragged me back. She threw me violently onto the bed, pinning my legs down with her knees. The pain made my vision blur, but I gritted my teeth and screamed. “Olivia! If you kill me, the police will find out!” “The police?” She looked at me with pure disdain. “You have severe amnesia. Everyone knows that.” “You forget everything every day, and you hurt yourself during your episodes.” “Tonight, you had a breakdown and accidentally injected yourself with a lethal dose of your own medication. What does that have to do with me?” She leaned down, her face inches from mine. “Julian will back up my story. He’ll tell them your condition had already deteriorated beyond control.” “Do you really think anyone will suspect me?” Olivia let go of my collar. She stood up to pick up the spare syringe from the floor. That was my one-second window. I reached under my pillow and pulled out the phone I had hidden there earlier. The screen was bright. A call was in progress. The number dialed was 911. I held up the phone, my voice trembling but loud. “Olivia, you’ve been talking for three minutes. The operator heard every single word.” She froze. Her face turned instantly pale. Suddenly, loud, frantic banging echoed from the front door. “Police! Open up!” Olivia looked at me, a cold, mocking laugh escaping her lips. “Ethan… when did you get your memory back?” I didn’t answer. I just clutched the phone and screamed toward the door. “Help! In here!” The bedroom door was kicked open. Two uniformed police officers rushed in, followed by an officer holding a body cam. Olivia stepped back. A polite, sweet smile instantly returned to her face. “Officers, this is all a misunderstanding. My husband is very sick. He’s having a manic episode right now.” The lead officer cut her off, raising his hand. “Ma’am, we have your entire confession recorded on the line.” “Put your hands behind your back.” Olivia’s smile froze. She turned to look at me, her lips curling into a venomous smirk. The officers handcuffed her and started wheeling her out. As she passed by me, she suddenly stopped. She leaned in, whispering in a voice only I could hear. “Ethan, do you really think this is over?” “Don’t forget, Julian is still out there.” I looked up sharply. At the far end of the hallway, Julian was standing in the shadows. He was holding a surgical scalpel. He smiled at me, then vanished down the stairs. The officers rushed after him. But all I heard from downstairs was the sound of hurried footsteps, and then, total silence. I gripped the edge of the bed to stand up, my chest heaving. Suddenly, my phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number appeared on the screen. It was just one line: “Ethan, we’re not done yet.”

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My cousin’s wife was hooking up with someone at a cheap motel, and my cousin, too terrified to go alone, dragged me along to back him up. I wanted no part in their toxic marital drama, but he threw himself at my feet, weeping and begging. I made him promise, over and over, that we would only talk—no fists, no violence. He swore up and down. But the moment we arrived, he kicked the door open, lunged at the bed, and plunged a knife straight into the lover’s chest. The knife was one he had swiped from my kitchen earlier that day. It was covered in my fingerprints. At the trial, the two of them stood in the witness box and pointed their fingers directly at me. They swore under oath that I was the killer. I was defenseless. I was sentenced to death. After they put me to death, my cousin didn’t just walk away from the million-dollar debt he owed my business. He forged a promissory note, seized my house, and kicked my grieving parents out onto the street. My parents, shattered by the loss of their only son, had nowhere to go. They froze to death on a bitter, snowy night. When I open my eyes again, I am back on the day my cousin begged me to go to that motel. … “Lester, please. Just come with me. I’m begging you, man.” “Lester, your cousin is on his knees. What more do you want? Do you want me to get down on my knees, too?” Two familiar voices pulled me from the lingering terror of a needle piercing my skin—the cold, sterile terror of the execution chamber, the phantom sting of the chemicals still burning in my veins. I opened my eyes to see my cousin, Kyle, kneeling on the hardwood floor in front of me. Gripping my arm with a vice-like hold was his mother, my Aunt Helen, looking as if she was about to drop to her knees as well. The realization hit me like a physical blow: I was back. I had traveled back to the very day Kyle tried to drag me into his twisted trap. “Lester, the guy is built like a tank,” Kyle pleaded, his eyes shining with desperate, fake tears. “I can’t face him alone. I can’t bring anyone else into this—it’s too embarrassing. You’re my family, man. I had no choice but to come to you.” “I swear, I just need you to stand there. To back me up. I won’t make you do a thing.” He had said those exact words in my past life. But the moment we got to the motel and he kicked that door open, he didn’t hesitate. Before I could even process what was happening, he had plunged a kitchen knife into the chest of Victor, the man sleeping with his wife. Victor bled out right there on the cheap sheets. I had stood there, utterly paralyzed with horror. When I finally found my voice and screamed at Kyle to run, he had simply leaned against the dresser, casually lighting a cigarette. “What are you panicking for?” he had muttered. “If you want to run, go ahead.” I didn’t even make it out of the lobby before security tackled me. The front desk had already received an anonymous tip about a murder, and they pegged me as the prime suspect. While I was frantically trying to explain, the police arrived. They brought me back up to the bloody room. Before I could open my mouth to defend myself, Kyle and his wife, Amber, were already weeping to the officers. “Officer, we saw the whole thing. My cousin, Lester, did it. He killed him.” “He and Victor were business rivals. They’ve been at each other’s throats for months over a deal. We’re family to both of them, so we arranged this meeting to help them patch things up. We had no idea Lester would be this reckless. He just pulled out a knife and snapped…” “That’s a lie! You killed him! Why are you lying?!” I had screamed, my chest tight, my voice cracking. “Officer, I swear to God, it wasn’t me!” But the motel’s security cameras had mysteriously glitched that night. The murder weapon was a knife from my own kitchen, covered in my own fingerprints. To make matters worse, the police database showed a previous harassment report Victor had filed against me after a heated argument. The motive was served on a silver platter. I was convicted. Sentenced to death. I died a criminal’s death, buried in shame. My elderly parents were destroyed. But their nightmare was only beginning. With me out of the picture, Kyle refused to pay back the million dollars he owed my business. Instead, he produced a forged contract claiming I owed “him” a million dollars, demanding my parents pay it back immediately. Grief-stricken and legally outmaneuvered, my parents were forced to sign over their house to settle the “debt.” Left homeless, they froze to death on a bitterly cold winter night, huddled under a thin blanket on a park bench. It wasn’t until after my death, when my spirit lingered in the cold air, that I realized the truth. The entire catching-them-in-the-act setup was a meticulously designed trap. Kyle owed both me and Victor massive sums of money. So, he devised a sickening plan: he had Amber seduce Victor, dragged me along under the guise of an outraged husband, and used a knife he had stolen from my kitchen to commit the murder. Two creditors, silenced in one stroke. One dead, one executed by the state. The memory made my blood run cold, then boil with a white-hot fury. I violently wrenched my arm free from my aunt’s grasp. “Find someone else to parade your dirty laundry with,” I said, my voice cold and hard. “I’m not humoring this pathetic drama.” Kyle froze, his desperate expression instantly hardening into something ugly and resentful. “Lester, are you seriously saying that right now? Your own cousin asks you for help, and you’re worried about your reputation?” “Have you forgotten everything I’ve done for you over the years?” I let out a harsh, dry laugh. “Everything you’ve done for me? You actually have the nerve to say that?” “I trusted you to expand our territory, and you embezzled a million dollars of my company’s funds—money you still haven’t paid back.” “I sent you to negotiate a project with Victor, and you used my name to illegally solicit a million-dollar investment from him, which you pocketed, leaving me to take the fall and almost getting me into a fistfight with him.” “You haven’t helped me a single day in your life, Kyle. All you do is drag me into your garbage. From this second on, we are done. Get the hell out of my house.” Kyle’s face flushed a deep, angry crimson. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Aunt Helen, seeing her precious son backed into a corner, stepped in, pointing a manicured finger directly at my nose. “Lester! You ungrateful, cold-hearted bastard! Your cousin is going through the worst crisis of his life, and you stand there talking to him like he’s trash? Where is your humanity?” “We are family! Blood is thicker than water! How can you just stand by and watch him get humiliated like this?” “Family.” The word tasted like ash in my mouth. In my past life, when she and her son were throwing my grieving father out of his own home, my dad had begged her, weeping, to give them just a few more days because of their shared blood. And what had she said? She had looked down her nose at him and said, “Business is business, Richard. Debt is debt. If your son was a useless criminal who owed my boy money, that’s on you. If you don’t pack up and leave by tonight, I’ll hire men to throw your things into the gutter. Don’t blame your big sister for being heartless.” Recalling her smug, cruel face made my stomach churn with disgust. “Save your guilt trips, Aunt Helen. They don’t work on me anymore,” I said coldly. “The answer is no. I am not helping him catch his cheating wife, and I am not getting involved in this mess.” Aunt Helen’s face twisted in rage, turning a mottled shade of red and purple. Unable to find words to argue with me, she turned around and began hammering frantically on my parents’ bedroom door. “Richard! Mary! Stop hiding in there! Come out and see what a disrespectful, heartless monster of a son you’ve raised!” The door clicked open, and my parents stepped out, looking anxious and deeply uncomfortable. My dad looked at me with a sigh. “Lester, son… maybe you should just go with Kyle? Your aunt and cousin are practically begging you.” “It’s a delicate matter, and they can’t exactly ask strangers. We’d feel better knowing you’re there to keep Kyle safe. If things get out of hand…” “Mom, Dad, stop,” I interrupted, my voice gentle but unyielding. “I’m not going. And that is final.” They didn’t know what a parasite Kyle truly was. They were still worrying about his safety, completely unaware of the knife he was waiting to plunge into my back. Seeing that even my parents couldn’t sway me, Kyle realized I was truly, immovably done with him. His eyes narrowed, glinting with venom. “Fine, Lester. Remember today,” he spat, his voice dropping to a low hiss. “I don’t need you. I can handle those two pieces of trash on my own.” He grabbed his mother’s arm, and they slammed the front door so hard the walls vibrated. Once they were gone, the thought of what Kyle might do to Victor weighed on me. Despite everything, I decided to throw a bone of warning to Victor out of sheer basic human decency. I dialed his number and warned him to stay far away from Kyle’s wife. But Victor didn’t appreciate the gesture. He immediately blew up at me over the phone. “You’re full of shit, Lester! Amber and I are strictly professional. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do. You’re still pissed about our argument last month, so you’re spreading cheap rumors to ruin my reputation, aren’t you?” I didn’t even bother arguing. I just hung up. In my past life, we had shared a tragic, manipulated fate. I wanted to throw him a lifeline, but some people are determined to drown. If he wanted to treat my warning like poison, so be it. Let him face the storm. The next morning, I was drinking coffee when a breaking news alert flashed on my phone: “A local man had been rushed to the hospital in critical condition after being stabbed multiple times in a downtown motel. Doctors were currently fighting to save his life.” As I was trying to find out the identity of the victim, my front door was suddenly subjected to a violent, deafening pounding. I opened it to find Victor’s wife, Megan, and his elderly mother standing on the landing, their faces distorted with grief and blinding rage. “You absolute monster, Lester!” Megan screamed, lunging forward. “Victor only had a few words with you, and you try to murder him? Well, here we are! Why don’t you just stab the rest of us too?!” She pulled a kitchen knife from her purse and tried to force the hilt into my hand, physically pulling my arm toward her chest. Victor’s mother grabbed my other arm, her teeth sinking deep into my wrist. “You animal!” she shrieked through clenched teeth, her voice muffled by my skin. “Give me back my son! I’ll tear you apart myself!” I wrestled myself free from the two hysterical women, backing away and shouting over their screams. “Are you out of your minds?! I haven’t seen Victor in weeks! How could I have stabbed him?” “Who told you this garbage? Why are you blaming me?!” Megan pointed a trembling, manicured finger at my face, her voice cracking. “Stop lying, Lester! I was there when you and Victor had that fight! I heard you say you wanted him dead!” “And don’t try to deny it—your own cousin, Kyle, confirmed it! He told us you bought a knife specifically to go after Victor!” Right on cue, the elevator doors chimed, and Kyle and Amber stepped out, hurrying down the hallway with practiced expressions of deep concern. Kyle walked up to me, shaking his head with a look of theatrical disappointment. “Lester, how could you be so reckless? I begged you not to do it.” “You’ve ruined your life, man. Murder is a capital offense. Just go to the police station and turn yourself in. Maybe they’ll show some mercy if you confess.” I shoved him back, hard. “Cut the bullshit, Kyle. You didn’t see me do anything. For all I know, you’re the one who stabbed him!” Amber stepped forward, grabbing my jacket sleeve. “Lester, have you lost your mind? Where is your conscience?” “When you bought that knife to get revenge on Victor, your cousin literally got on his knees to beg you to stop. You wouldn’t listen. Now that you’ve done this, everyone else is running away from you. But Kyle and I ran straight here to convince you to confess, to save what’s left of your life.” “Don’t be stubborn. Listen to your family. Just turn yourself in.” Hearing this, Megan’s eyes went wild. Believing their words entirely, she raised the knife again and charged at me. “You think you’re getting a light sentence?! Over my dead body! I’ll kill you first!” Kyle and Amber quickly stepped aside, exchanging a swift, ugly smirk as they prepared to watch the bloody spectacle unfold. I dodged Megan’s desperate swipe, turning to run back inside my apartment to lock the door, but Kyle suddenly reached out and grabbed my arm, pinning me in place. “Lester, where do you think you’re going? You made your bed, now lie in it! Stop running from the police!” With my arm pinned, I couldn’t move as Megan lunged again, the silver blade aiming straight for my stomach. “Stop right there!” Just as the blade was inches from my flesh, several heavy-set men burst from the stairwell. With loud, commanding shouts, they tackled Megan to the ground, disarming her in a second. The police had arrived. Pinned to the floor, Megan shrieked, “Let me go! He killed my husband! I want him dead!” Victor’s mother scrambled over, grabbing the officer’s uniform. “Please, let her go! She’s just grieving! My son is dying!” She pointed wildly at me. “Arrest him! He’s the monster who stabbed my boy!” The commotion had drawn the attention of the entire floor. Neighbors began opening their doors, whispering and staring at the unfolding chaos in the hallway. The lead officer, Detective Reynolds, gently helped the elderly woman to her feet. “Ma’am, please calm down. We are here specifically to investigate the assault on your son.” Reynolds turned his gaze to me, his expression grim. “Lester. We received a tip identifying you as the primary suspect in the attempted murder of Victor. We recovered the weapon at the scene, and it has partial prints on it. We need to take your fingerprints for comparison right now.” Two forensic technicians stepped forward, holding out ink pads and scanners. The neighbors began whispering frantically. “What is going on? Did Lester actually stab someone?” “I heard he murdered some guy over a business dispute…” “Shh, wait and see. The police are still testing him.” Kyle and Amber seized the opportunity, loudly playing to the crowd. “It’s true, everyone,” Kyle called out, sighing heavily. “I’m his cousin, and it breaks my heart, but I saw him buy the knife. I begged him not to do it, but he was blinded by rage…” “We came here to convince him to surrender so he wouldn’t face the death penalty, but he just won’t listen. It’s tragic.” The neighbors looked at me with horror and disgust. My parents, who had just returned from buying groceries, squeezed through the crowded hallway. Hearing the rumors, my mother dropped her grocery bag, spilling apples across the floor, and began to weep. “Lester, baby… tell me it’s not true. What are we going to do?” I held my parents’ hands tightly, squeezing them reassuringly. “Mom, Dad, don’t worry. I have nothing to do with this. It’s going to be cleared up in a second.” Just as I spoke, the two technicians stepped back, holding a tablet showing the analysis. “Detective Reynolds. The prints on the handle of the knife recovered from the motel are an exact match for the suspect, Lester.” The hallway erupted. “Oh my god, he actually did it.” “And he was standing there pretending to be innocent! What a psychopath.” Megan and her mother-in-law screamed at me. “You sick bastard! The evidence is right there! How are you going to lie your way out of this now?!” My mother collapsed against my father, sobbing hysterically. “Lester, you said you were innocent… how is this happening?” Kyle let out a soft, mocking chuckle. “I told you to confess, Lester. Now you’re going to rot in a cell.” Detective Reynolds stepped forward, pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Lester, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Victor.” I calmly put my hands up, but instead of offering my wrists, I pulled out my phone. “Detective Reynolds, hold on a second. I am not your guy. And before you put those cuffs on me, you might want to look at this video. Once you do, you’ll know exactly who you should be arresting.”

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Three years into our marriage, Flora brought home a college sophomore. Before I could even process the insult, she pushed a young, wide-eyed girl into my path. “I need a little excitement, Alex, and you need company,” she said smoothly, as if simply handing over an old coat. “We’re both getting what we want. Don’t hold a grudge.” But this time, she flew too close to the sun. She came to me later, her tone uncharacteristically pleading, trying to strike a deal: “Alex, I wasn’t careful. I took precautions, but… I ended up pregnant with Dustin’s baby. The child needs a father on paper. We need to divorce. Just temporarily.” “I’ll marry Dustin for now, and you can spend this time with that college girl. Treat it like a real relationship. Go date.” Behind closed doors, her friends gossiped. “Flora, you literally crawled up ninety-nine stone steps of the basilica on your knees to pray for this man’s life. Are you really being this generous now?” “Right? You didn’t even warn that girl to keep her hands off your husband?” I heard Flora laugh, a light, careless sound. “I don’t have a sharing fetish,” she said. “But you all know Alex. He’s an emotional purist. He won’t touch her.” “Brilliant! You bring the girl right to his face. If he chooses to live like a monk, that’s his own fault. No one can blame you.” They all expected me to do what I had always done—write a check, call security, and sweep her flings out the door. Instead, I looked up and smiled. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll date her.” 1 Flora froze. The living room fell into a sudden, suffocating silence. Whitney was the first to find her voice. “Alex, what did you just say?” I set my phone on the coffee table, letting my gaze sweep past Flora’s stunned face before settling on the girl standing quietly by the door. “I said, fine.” A collective gasp echoed through the room. “He actually agreed?!” “No way. He’s not kicking her out?” “Flora, did you hear that?” Flora’s expression barely shifted. That faint, mocking curve of her lips remained perfectly intact. But Dustin, standing beside her, nervously squeezed her hand. “Flora, he’s finally seeing reason. You should be happy.” Flora didn’t answer him. She walked over to Iris, patted her shoulder, and said, “Take good care of him.” Then, she and Dustin went upstairs. I looked back at the girl. Her ears were flushed crimson. “Are you staying in the dorms, or here?” Her throat clicked as she swallowed. “Either… either is fine.” “Then stay here.” I turned and walked toward the hallway. Behind me, the hushed murmurs started up again. “Is he serious?” “Usually, when this happens, we all get dragged into the blowout!” “Oh, please. Trust Flora. When has he not thrown a check at them? It’s like touching them would rot his hands.” “Remember that art-school dropout? Alex didn’t even give him money. Just had security throw him into the street.” “He’s probably just acting out because Flora’s pregnant. Trying to make her jealous.” I kept walking. Their words were like needles in my back, but they weren’t wrong. I used to be insufferable. Too proud, too self-righteous, believing that my “emotional purity” could somehow protect the sacredness of our vows. Every time Flora brought someone home, I would coldly hand over a check and banish them. I thought that was winning. I thought it kept me clean. And where did that leave me? With Dustin’s baby on the way. My pristine principles had bought me a stack of divorce papers, a cold bed, and a living room full of people waiting to watch me break. At the door of the guest room, I stopped and leaned against the frame. I looked at Iris. Five-foot-six. Champion of the international mock trial team, top of her class, guaranteed federal clerkship. Flora had spent real money this time. This wasn’t some desperate kid she’d picked up from a dive bar. “Are you doing this for the money?” I asked. She nodded. No hesitation. No defenses. My old self would have sneered, thrown a check, and told her to get lost. How grand I must have looked then, perched on my moral high ground, treating these girls like toxic waste. But the “toxic waste” left, and Flora never came back. And honestly, who among us was truly clean? “If you need anything, let the housekeeper know,” I said, stepping inside. She followed me. “I’m Iris.” “I know,” I replied without turning. “Flora told me.” I walked out onto the balcony. Below, the guests were finally leaving, their cars winding down the driveway. I had lost count of how many of my humiliations they had cheered for. Back in my room, I glanced at the divorce agreement on the nightstand. For three years, I had turned a blind eye to her wild behavior. It started after “that” incident—the one that fractured us beyond repair. She had her reasons, and I had mine. But debts have to be paid. At first, I told her: “Just don’t bring them to our house.” Then I said: “Just don’t cross the line.” Step by step, I retreated. Step by step, she pushed. Now, since we were both exhausted by this marriage, there was no point in hesitating. I picked up the pen and signed my name. Iris emerged from the bathroom, her hair damp. Seeing me, her ears instantly turned bright pink. “I… I’m done,” she whispered. I stood up, momentarily struck by how easily she blushed. Flora’s previous choices had always looked at me with defiance when I kicked them out. One had even yelled: “Are you two psychopaths? One pushes us in, the other kicks us out! What do you think we are?” At the time, I had only stared coldly: “Take the money and shut up.” Now, I realized she was right. We were both sick. One with a twisted need to push me away, the other with a pathological need to remain untouched. My phone buzzed. A text from Flora: “Sleep early.” It was hilarious. She never sent texts like that. Why now? Because I let Iris stay? Because she finally realized that the Alex who “would never touch them” might actually cross the line? I didn’t reply. The lights across the estate went out, plunging the villa into silence. Dustin had moved in. Iris had moved in. This house had finally become what it always was: a dumpster where we threw all our garbage. Myself included. I turned off the light, a bitter smile tracing my lips in the dark. She thought I was still the same Alex. Thought I wouldn’t dare. Thought I couldn’t. Thought I would be clean forever. She was wrong. The next morning, the dull ache in my neck lingered. When I went downstairs, Iris was in the kitchen helping the housekeeper, Mrs. Gable. When she saw me, she nearly dropped the spatula. I smiled. Where was the shy girl from last night? As soon as I sat down, Flora came down the stairs. “Up so early?” She took the seat opposite me, a strange, unreadable smile on her face. “How was last night?” Before I could answer, the front door burst open. Whitney rushed in. “Flora, Flora! Who won—” “I bet twenty grand he wouldn’t last until noon!” “I bet he kicked her out last night. Three-to-one odds, Flora’s bookmaking—” The words died in her throat. They saw me, and their excitement instantly curdled into awkwardness. “Oh… Alex! Morning!” Flora took a sip of her coffee. She looked at them as if this bet wasn’t about her own marriage, but some hard-won trophy. “Have a seat,” I said calmly. “Breakfast is ready.” I stood up and walked toward the kitchen. “You should head to class,” I told Iris. Iris blinked, startled, then quickly untied her apron and hurried out. The door clicked shut, and the room went silent for two beats. Whitney lowered her voice. “See? He sent her away after all!” Todd laughed. “What did you expect? Flora has Alex mapped out perfectly.” “Flora really knows how to train them,” Whitney said, her tone dripping with admiration. “That’s the kind of husband you want. Keeps the house, guards the door, never strays.” Flora sat at the table, her plate clean. Listening to them, her lips curved with quiet satisfaction. I let out a breath and walked back into the dining room. Flora and I spoke at the exact same moment. “Accompany me back to the family estate for dinner tonight…” “See you at the clerk’s office at two p.m. for the divorce…” The room went dead quiet. I slid the signed divorce agreement across the table. “Let’s get this over with first.” Flora froze, her eyes scanning the signature line. She didn’t move. I knew what she was thinking. In the past, I would have torn the paper to shreds with tears in my eyes, asking how she could do this to me. It would have been a massive, dramatic production. Flora looked up at me, her tone reverting to that lazy, casual drawl. “What’s the rush? I’m not even in a hurry.” “I am,” I said. “Two p.m. Are you showing up?” Her eye twitched. “Alex,” she said, pushing the agreement back toward the center of the table. “Are you out of your mind?” “I’d rather do it now,” I replied, “before I wake up and regret not tearing it up.” The tension stretched thin. Suddenly, Dustin came down the stairs. “Alex, please don’t be angry. I just didn’t want my baby to be born with a stigma. We can wait to finalize the divorce until after the baby is born and registered.” His eyes welled with tears, looking far more devastated about my divorce than I was. Flora shot a look at Dustin. The phrase “don’t be angry” seemed to prick her pride. When had Flora ever been rushed into anything by anyone? “Alex, you think I’m afraid to sign?” she laughed coldly, grabbing the pen. Whitney panicked. “Flora—” “Shut up,” Flora snapped, not even looking up. She signed her name with a sharp flourish and threw the pen onto the table. Her signature smirk returned. “I keep my word. And everyone here is a witness.” “Once Dustin and I have the baby, we’ll remarry.” She stood up and leaned down to whisper in my ear, her voice carrying a suffocating, possessive warmth. “You’re the man I dragged back from the edge of the grave, Alex. None of those cheap flings could ever compare to you. This baby? You’ll raise it. You’re the only one worthy of being its father, understand?” I let out a soft laugh. So this was her version of love. I said nothing, grabbed my packed suitcase, and walked out the front door. Behind me, Dustin’s voice floated out. “Flora… do you think he’s really not coming back?” She didn’t answer. In her plan, I was supposed to divorce her but stay in the house. The estate was still my home. My actual departure had caught her off guard. But she didn’t think it changed anything. “Oh, please,” she told Dustin. “He’s gone. You should be thrilled.” “No, I’m not!” Dustin whimpered. “My upbringing wouldn’t allow me to break up a marriage… it’s all for the baby.” He looked like a fragile reed bending in the wind. It instantly melted Flora’s annoyance. “Alright, stop crying. I’m not teasing you.” Dustin was far smarter than her previous flings. He didn’t provoke me, didn’t call to flaunt his position. He simply adopted an “I’m here to join the family” posture. The moment I said anything harsh, Flora would think he was being victimized. I had seen younger, more handsome, more charismatic boys. But they were always too impatient, demanding she choose, demanding I leave. Only Dustin was patient. He moved in quietly, carrying a baby, calling me “brother” like he was family. He had achieved what none of the others could. At 1:50 p.m., I sat on the bench outside the clerk’s office. I called Flora for the ninth time. This time, she picked up. “Where are you?” I asked. Her voice was distracted. “I’m at Dustin’s prenatal appointment. I can’t leave. Wait for me, I’ll head over when we’re done.” “I told you, our appointment is at two.” “The divorce isn’t going anywhere,” she said, as if soothing a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Wait until I’m finished. Bye.” Wait. Always waiting. I watched the couples passing through the lobby. Some were crying, some were numb. I used to cry like that, tearing my heart out, until her guilt would offer me the “reward” of staying married. But today, that wasn’t the reward I wanted. The clerk called the next number. I pulled up my lawyer’s contact and sent a text: “Mr. Warren, let’s file for a contested divorce. I’ll send you the paperwork this afternoon.” That evening, at my father-in-law’s insistence, I returned to the family estate. The entire drive, I wondered how to explain it to Thomas. Should I tell him his daughter got another man pregnant? That she forced me into a divorce? Or that I was suing her? Family obligations are often far more exhausting than lawsuits. When I arrived, I was alone. Thomas frowned. “Where is Flora?” “She’s busy,” I said. “Busy?” He slammed his fork onto the table. “What could be more important than her husband?” I remained silent. Thomas and my father had been brothers-in-arms, surviving combat together. He had always wanted our families joined. But Flora’s mother, Lydia, had fought it. She looked down on my family’s modest background, and after my severe illness, she claimed my constitution was too weak. It was Flora who refused to let go. She had gone to St. Jude’s Basilica on the hill, kneeling on every single one of the ninety-nine stone steps leading to the altar. Ninety-nine steps. Her knees were torn to shreds. She had prayed: “I don’t need to be with him. Just let him live.” When I found out, I broke down. In our relationship, she had always been the fierce one, while I watched from the shadows of my own insecurity. But after that, I held her hand and said, “I won’t hide anymore. If you have the courage to marry me, I have the courage to stand by you.” Miraculously, my health improved. The day I finally went home with her, Thomas was so thrilled he transferred a third of his stock options to my name as a safety net, to give me standing within the family. Back then, I thought Lydia was our biggest hurdle. Now I knew that outsiders could never destroy a marriage. Only the people inside could do that. Before I could find the words to explain, the heavy oak doors opened. Flora walked in, her arm wrapped around Dustin. She froze when she saw me. Thomas’s face darkened. “What is this trash doing in my house?” Flora guided Dustin to a chair, her tone breezy. “Dad, it’s just dinner. Don’t make a scene.” Then she glanced at me. “Alex, go home for tonight.” Sensing my stillness, she leaned in and whispered, “I didn’t think you’d actually show up. Today is his turn, okay?” I let out a quiet laugh. His turn. She was parading her new man, bringing him home before our divorce was even dry. Lydia came downstairs, her eyes skating over me before landing on Dustin. “Is this the new one? Our family certainly has a habit of attracting low-class grifters.” With one sentence, she insulted us both. Years ago, Flora would have stood in front of me and declared, “Alex is my choice.” But today, she frowned and pulled Dustin closer. “Mom, don’t talk about my man like that.” Dustin’s eyes brimmed with tears. He always looked like the victim of a cruel world. I stood up, thoroughly exhausted. “I’m leaving.” Thomas couldn’t stop me. Flora didn’t look back. As I stepped out into the cold night, I thought of those ninety-nine steps. “I don’t need to be with him, just let him live.” Well, she got her wish. The divorce went smoother than expected. Flora believed that once the baby arrived and we remarried, everything would slide back into its comfortable groove. On the day we signed the mediation agreement, she was forty minutes late, signing her name with a casual shrug. She leaned close, her tone uncharacteristically sweet. “Didn’t you always want a real wedding?” “Once we remarry, I’ll plan it myself. The island you wanted, the custom suit, everything.” I looked at her. “Flora, there’s no need.” She paused, then smiled. “I know you think we’re past all that, but I owe you a wedding. I want to make it right.” I shook my head. “In a week, you…” Before I could finish, her phone blared. She answered it, her face going pale. “His stomach hurts? I’ll be right there!” She took two steps, then turned back to me. “I know our legal marriage ends in a week when the papers clear, but that’s just a piece of paper. The court has the papers, but you belong to me. They’re separate things.” She patted my shoulder and ran out. I stood alone in the hallway, finishing the sentence she had cut off. “…In a week, you’ll receive much more than just a divorce decree.” The day the decree arrived at the family estate, Thomas summoned her home with a furious phone call. “I don’t care how you do it, get Alex back here right now. I have things to say to him.” “After that, if you still want to destroy your life, I won’t stop you!” Flora frowned. She didn’t know what her father wanted to say, but she knew how absurd this divorce actually was. For the past week, her phone had been dead silent. No texts from me, no missed calls. She claimed she didn’t care, but the emptiness was beginning to gnaw at her. She had never gone a full week without speaking to her husband. She needed an excuse to reach out, and her father had just handed her one. “Fine, fine,” she mumbled, pulling up my contact card. “He’s being ridiculous. I’ll call him.” She complained, but her fingers moved faster than they ever had. She pressed call. She cleared her throat, rehearsing her opening line. “Alex, my dad wants you at the estate.” Or: “Are you done throwing your tantrum? It’s been a week, get back home.” The call connected. But the voice on the other end wasn’t mine. “Hello? The groom is currently adjusting his tie. Are you a guest of the groom’s family?”

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On the day we met to discuss the wedding, my parents wore clothes they had bought just for the occasion. We sat in the private dining room of a high-end French restaurant, waiting. Three hours passed before my fiancé, Elliott, and his parents finally showed up. The moment his mother, Victoria, sat down, she pointed at the bowl of wild mushroom consommé in the center of the table and looked at my mother. “Freda’s mother, dear, would you mind ladling some soup for me? This silk dress is custom Valentino. I can’t risk getting a drop of grease on it.” Her tone was casually dismissive, the way one might address a hired maid. My temper flared, but Elliott caught my hand under the table, squeezing it gently. “Freda, relax,” he murmured, his voice low and soothing. “Your mom is a housekeeper; she’s used to serving. She’s quick on her feet. My mom’s never lifted a finger in her life. It’s just a hand. Don’t be so sensitive.” My mother froze. She blinked, a shadow of embarrassment crossing her face, before she quickly wiped her hands on her stiff, new skirt. Forcing a polite smile, she stood up. “It’s fine, really. I’ve got it.” She carefully spooned the soup, ensuring the ladle didn’t drip, and offered the bowl with both hands. Victoria didn’t even look up. She poked at the liquid with her silver spoon, her brow furrowing in deep distaste. “You didn’t even strain the herbs? Elliott has a delicate stomach. He can’t possibly drink this with bits floating in it.” My mother stood frozen, the color draining from her face. “I’m so sorry,” she stammered, looking utterly terrified of having caused offense. “Let me… let me get another bowl and strain it…” Watching her stand there, so small and desperate to please, a sharp, burning ache rose in my chest. I stood up, pulled my mother back into her seat, and grabbed the bowl of soup. Without another word, I dumped it directly into the trash can by the sideboard. While Victoria gasped in shocked outrage, I turned my gaze to Elliott. I felt entirely cold, entirely calm. “Elliott,” I said, “the wedding is off.” ······ 1 Silence fell over the room, heavy and absolute, lasting for three long seconds. Victoria was the first to break it, her face twisting into an expression that suggested she had just heard a ridiculous joke. “What did you just say? Do you have any idea how many girls from the best families are practically lining up to marry into our family?” “Mom,” Elliott interrupted. He stood up and walked over to my side, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. He leaned in, his voice dropping into that sweet, cajoling tone he used whenever he wanted to charm me. “Freda, sweetheart, stop making a scene, okay? I know my mom can be insensitive. I’ll talk to her later.” His hand was warm, his thumb gently rubbing my shoulder, like he was soothing a stray cat that had bared its claws. In our three years together, this was always his move when I got angry. And every single time, I had softened. But not today. I pulled away from his touch, refusing to look at him. “Elliott, you just said my mom is ‘used to serving people’ and ‘quick on her feet.’ Do you honestly think there’s nothing wrong with that sentence?” He blinked, then let out a heavy, weary sigh. “I was just stating a fact. She works in home care and cleaning. Why are you acting like it’s a dirty secret? Sweetheart, it’s not like I look down on her.” When he called me “sweetheart,” his voice was genuinely tender. But that tenderness was exactly what made my skin crawl. He truly, from the bottom of his heart, did not see the insult. I turned to look at my dad. He had been sitting silently the entire time, his knuckles white around his water glass. The price tag on his new suit sleeve hadn’t even been fully snipped off. Before we left, he had adjusted his tie in front of the mirror four times, asking my mom if he looked too old-fashioned. Now, he looked up, his lips trembling slightly. He said only one thing: “Freda, let’s go. We’re done here.” The sound of his chair scraping against the hardwood floor was loud and harsh. Elliott reached out to stop me, his fingers wrapping firmly around my wrist. “Freda, are you seriously going to ruin everything over something so trivial—” “Trivial?” I looked back at him. “You let your mother treat my mom like hired help, and you think that’s trivial?” His smooth facade cracked for a split second, but he quickly recovered, flashing that airy, bohemian smile that only artists can pull off. “Okay, okay. My bad. I apologize. I’ll take you to that Italian place you love this weekend to make it up to you, deal?” I didn’t answer. I helped my parents up and walked out of the restaurant. In the hallway, my mom kept her head low, staring at her shoes. “Freda… did I embarrass you?” I stopped, turning to wrap my arms tightly around her. She felt so thin, her shoulder blades sharp against my palms. “Mom, no. Never. You didn’t do anything wrong.” My dad stood in silence for a long moment before he spoke quietly. “Sweetheart… if you really love the boy… I can swallow my pride. I just… I don’t want you going into a family where they make you feel small.” 2 Back at my rented apartment, I made up the fold-out bed for my parents and boiled some water. My mom took the mug, hesitating before she spoke. “Freda, I’ve been thinking… maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on Elliott. His mother is difficult, but Elliott really does love you. Look at all those paintings he does of you. His friends, his social media—everyone knows how much he adores you. I don’t care about my pride. I just want you to be happy.” I knelt down and took her hands in mine. They were rough, like sandpaper, with deep lines that no soap could ever wash clean. Fifteen years of scrubbing other people’s floors had left their mark. “Mom, your pride is my pride.” She stared at me, tears welling in her eyes, before she hurriedly wiped them away with her sleeve. My dad muttered from the doorway, “Let’s get some sleep. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.” I couldn’t sleep that night. At 1:00 AM, my phone began buzzing continuously. Elliott had sent over a dozen texts. The first few were playful: “Sweetheart~ if you’re mad, yell at me, just don’t ignore me.” “Freda Freda Freda, at least send a silly emoji.” Then the tone shifted: “You can’t seriously be calling off the wedding over this? The invitations are already printed.” The last message was a voice note, thirty-eight seconds long. I tapped play. His voice was low, laced with a mix of exhaustion and genuine confusion. “Freda, I honestly don’t get what you’re so angry about. My mom is just like that. She’s like that with everyone. I’m not her. I have never once judged where you come from. You’re my muse. You’re the center of my art. Isn’t that enough?” I stared at the ceiling, leaving it on read. He had painted me dozens of times. Last year, his piece “The Camellia” had sold for three hundred thousand dollars, and everyone in his circle knew it was a portrait of his girlfriend. But I remembered a private gallery dinner he’d taken me to. I had worn a dress that cost me two months of savings. He had looked at me, smiled, and gently tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “Next time, let me pick out your outfit, okay? Your taste is a little… too rustic.” And last Christmas, when he drove me back to my hometown. Seeing the cracked asphalt and the run-down bungalows at the edge of town, he had rolled down his window, taking a deep breath. “No wonder you have such grit, Freda. Kids who grow up in places like this have a raw, primal survival instinct. It’s beautiful.” He had said it with genuine admiration, the way an art critic might praise the rough, textured brushstrokes of a painting. But my parents weren’t brushstrokes. They were human beings. The next morning, I took my parents to the train station. Just before going through security, my dad turned back and slipped a thick white envelope into my hand. “Freda, this is some money I put aside. Take it. Just in case… in case you really don’t go through with it. It’s good to have your own cash. Keep your head up.” The envelope wasn’t very thick, but I knew it represented more than half a year of his pension. My dad gave me a reassuring smile and walked through the gate. His back was slightly stooped, his new suit hanging loosely on his frame like it was still on a hanger. 3 Three days after my parents left, Elliott showed up. He stood outside my apartment door, holding a bouquet of white roses and a box of pastries from that bakery I loved. He was wearing his black cashmere turtleneck—the one I always told him he looked best in. His hair was slightly messy, falling perfectly over his eyes. He looked devastatingly handsome. “Sweetheart, come on, open the door. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His muffled voice drifted through the door. “If you don’t open up, I’m just going to sit in this hallway until you feel bad for me.” I unlocked the door and let him in. He walked inside, taking a quick, almost imperceptible glance around my tiny, seven-hundred-square-foot rental. A tiny flinch of his brow, gone as quickly as it came, replaced by a warm smile. He sat on my small sofa and took my hand, his thumb stroking the back of it. “Have you had time to cool down? The invitations are out, the venue is locked in, and the deposit is paid. If you’re still mad, I’ll make my mother call you and apologize herself.” I pulled my hand back. “Elliott, let me ask you something.” “Anything.” “If my mother weren’t a housekeeper—if she were a university professor—would your mother have demanded she serve her soup?” He went quiet for a beat, then let out a soft laugh. “Freda, my mom is just old school. She treats everyone like that. It has nothing to do with what your mom does for a living. And honestly…” He paused, looking at me with gentle pity. “Class differences exist. It’s not something I can personally erase overnight. But I chose you. Isn’t that what matters?” “I chose you.” He had said those words so many times before. Every time, they sounded like charity. “You chose me, so I should be grateful?” He frowned. “Why do you have to put it like that? That’s not what I mean.” “Then what do you mean?” He took a deep breath, stood up, and walked over to the window, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Freda, I mean that the gap between our backgrounds is a real, objective thing. The fact that I don’t care about it—doesn’t that show how much I love you? But you can’t expect my mother, or my entire family, to just pretend that gap doesn’t exist.” I looked at his profile against the window, feeling a strange, hollow calm wash over me. He was being entirely honest. He did love me, but his love came with a quiet, persistent condition: I was expected to be grateful for his tolerance. “Elliott,” I said, “if one day you couldn’t paint anymore, if you lost every dime you had, do you think my parents would make you wait on them?” He turned around, blinking. He had clearly never considered the question, because in his world, such a downfall was an impossibility. “They wouldn’t care about your bank account or your family name,” I continued, “because you’d be the person I chose. But your family cares. And deep down, so do you.” For the first time, his composure cracked. He opened his mouth to speak, but his phone cut him off. He glanced at the screen and stepped into the corner to answer it. “Hey, Mom… Yeah, I’m at her place. We’re talking.” “Don’t worry, she’s just hurt. I’ll smooth it over.” “Right. Don’t cancel the invitations. Send them out.” He spoke with his back to me, his voice lowered, but in the quiet room, every word was crystal clear. I stood up and pulled the front door wide open. “Get out, Elliott.” He hung up, a flash of genuine panic crossing his eyes. “Freda—” “I’ll give you my final answer about the wedding soon.” He stared at me for a long moment, then sighed. He walked over and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “Fine. I’ll give you some space. But Freda, please remember… I really do love you.” After the door clicked shut, the faint scent of his expensive cologne lingered in the air. I walked over to the trash can and dropped the white roses inside. 4 Over the next few days, Elliott came by every day. Leaving flowers, pastries, little sketched notes slid under the door. He played the part of the penitent lover perfectly. On the fifth night, he called, his voice unusually solemn. “Freda, I had a long talk with my mother. She’s stepping back from the wedding planning. We can do whatever you want.” I remained quiet for a moment. “Really?” “Really.” He paused, his voice dropping into a cautious, delicate tone. “There is… one thing we need to discuss, though.” “What’s that?” “The guest list. As you know, the people attending are mostly from my father’s business circles and the art world. My dad was thinking…” “Thinking what?” “Well… it’s going to be a very formal affair. We’re worried your parents might feel out of place, or that they’d just feel uncomfortable with all the cameras and formality. My dad suggested it might be easier on them if we set up a private, high-quality live stream for them to watch from home. Then, right after the wedding, we can fly back to their town and host a quiet, intimate family dinner. It’ll be much more relaxed for them.” My grip on the phone tightened until my knuckles ached. “Elliott. Are you telling me my parents aren’t allowed to attend my own wedding?” “It’s not that they aren’t allowed, Freda. It’s just… finding a way that’s more comfortable for everyone.” “Comfortable for everyone, or comfortable for your parents?” “Freda, please listen to me. I’ve taken a lot of heat for this relationship already. My mother wanted me to marry Senator Ward’s daughter, and I said no. My dad’s friends told him I was throwing my life away, and I fought them all off. I fought my entire family to be with you. They are making one small request—” “A small request?” I cut him off, my voice barely a whisper. “Telling my parents they can’t watch their only daughter get married is a small request?” “Freda, can you try to see this from my perspective? I’ve made so many compromises.” He sighed, his voice reverting to that gentle, condescending tone. “Be reasonable, sweetheart. As soon as the reception is over, I promise we’ll drive down to see them. We can even bring them back to the city to stay with us for a month, okay?” I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no. “I understand,” I said quietly. After hanging up, I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time. I remembered when my dad first found out I had a boyfriend. He had been so excited he couldn’t sleep. He dug out his thirty-year-old wedding album, pointed to my mom’s faded dress, and said, “When you get married, Freda, I’m going to buy your mother a beautiful dress, just like this one, so she can sit in the front row and look at you.” I didn’t cry. Instead, I dialed my mother’s number. “Mom,” I said when she picked up. “You and Dad don’t need to come down for the wedding.” There was a brief pause on the other end. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Did… did we cause trouble again?” “No, Mom. I’m not marrying him.” A long, heavy silence stretched over the line. Finally, my mother spoke softly. “Okay. Mom will be waiting for you to come home.” I hung up and immediately started packing. Elliott sent a text: “Sweetheart, the dress arrived! Do you want to come to the studio tomorrow to try it on? I want to see you in it so badly.” Followed by a string of kiss emojis. I didn’t reply. He sent another: “Freda~ still mad? How about I have them deliver the dress to your place? You can try it on there and send me a picture. Oh, and I talked to my mom. She promised to be on her best behavior at the ceremony.” The next morning, a courier delivered the dress. I looked at the custom gown draped over my bed—French lace, hand-beaded pearls, fabric that easily cost six figures. It was breathtaking. It looked like a beautiful, glittering cage. I carefully folded the gown, packed it back into its pristine white box, and set it by the front door. Then I opened my suitcase and began packing my own life. I didn’t take much. The jewelry, the designer bags, the silk dresses he had bought me—I laid them all out neatly on the bed. I only packed the old canvas backpack I’d carried when I first arrived in Chicago, the envelope of cash my dad had given me, and the mason jar of peach preserves my mom had quietly tucked under my pillow during her visit. On the lid was a piece of tape with her shaky handwriting: “Freda’s favorite.” The wedding was scheduled for Saturday. On Friday evening, I walked out of my apartment, rolling my suitcase behind me. Before leaving, I left a note on top of the wedding dress box: “Elliott, here is the dress. If my parents aren’t worthy of attending this wedding, then I’m not worthy of it either.” I turned off my phone, stepped into the cool night air, and disappeared into the city. The next day, Saturday. The grand ballroom of the Drake Hotel was a sea of white orchids and crystal chandeliers. Three hundred guests sat in gilded chairs under the soft, glittering lights. Elliott stood near the entrance in his custom tuxedo, holding a glass of champagne he hadn’t touched, his eyes darting to his watch every few seconds. 9:00 AM. The bridal suite was empty. 9:30 AM. My phone went straight to voicemail. 10:00 AM. He sent his assistant to my apartment. A few minutes later, a text popped up from the assistant: “Elliott, the apartment is completely cleared out. There’s nothing here but the wedding dress box and a note.” Elliott stared at the screen, the easy smile slowly draining from his face. Behind him, the soft murmur of three hundred high-society guests began to grow louder. Victoria hurried over, her face pale with fury under her heavy makeup. She hissed in a harsh whisper: “Where is she? Where is the bride?!”

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I took the HR job at my wife’s company without telling her. On my third day, while navigating the employee portal, a wedding PTO request popped up in the queue. I clicked it. The co-applicants listed: my wife, Lauren, and a junior employee named Beckett. Using my administrator credentials, I pulled up Beckett’s file. The headshot showed a sharp, pretty boy with clean-cut features. His title: Executive Assistant to the Director of Marketing. Lauren’s assistant. I searched his name on Instagram. His profile was wide open. His latest post was from yesterday. A pre-wedding portrait. Lauren, radiant in a cascading white lace gown, her arms wrapped around him from behind. The caption: “The rest of my life starts with you, Mrs. Beckett.” I scrolled back to the portal, my cursor hovering over the blue “Approve” button. I clicked. [Request Status: Approved.] Have a wonderful wedding, Lauren. I personally cleared your schedule for it. … Our company-wide Slack channel lit up. It was Beckett. He posted a digital invite—elegant gold foil on deep crimson—with a link to their wedding website. Right below it was the same photo of Lauren hugging him, laughing like she’d never known a single sorrow. The channel erupted. “Congratulations, Lauren! He’s gorgeous!” “What a beautiful couple. Made for each other!” “Wishing you a lifetime of happiness!” The notifications cascaded down my screen, each chime a tiny, jagged twist in my chest. I stared blankly at the glass screen, watching my coworkers shower them with digital confetti. My wife, Lauren, was planning to marry another man in front of everyone we worked with. Before the thought could fully form, the heavy glass door of the HR suite swung open. Beckett walked in, carrying a large silver platter of high-end wedding chocolates, his face glowing with a sheer, untouchable happiness. “Hey everyone, grab some sugar! Help me celebrate,” his voice was bright, buoyant with the kind of joy you couldn’t fake. The team flocked to him, laughing, offering congratulations as they took handfuls of truffles. Beckett worked his way through the room, eventually stopping right in front of my desk. He set a physical, gold-embossed invitation and a small bag of dark chocolates on my keyboard. “You have to come, Luke,” he said, giving me a warm, earnest smile. I looked up, meeting his eyes. “Congratulations.” I picked up a chocolate, unwrapped the foil, and popped it into my mouth. It was sickeningly sweet. “Oh, wow, Beckett, that’s gorgeous. Is that an emerald?” one of my colleagues asked, pointing to a vintage-style emerald signet cuff on his wrist. Beckett blushed, touching the green stone gently. “Yeah, Lauren gave it to me. She said it brings out my eyes, and that I’m one of the few people who can pull off vintage gold.” The chocolate in my mouth suddenly tasted like ash. That cuff was my first-anniversary gift to Lauren. Three months ago, she came back from a business trip and told me she’d lost it at a hotel. She had cried, blaming herself, promising she’d find a way to make it up to me. She hadn’t lost it. She’d given it to him. Beckett shifted his hand, and the platinum wedding band on his ring finger caught the fluorescent light. “And she designed this ring herself,” he continued, holding his hand up. “My name is Beckett—like a little brook—so she had this ‘Water Lily’ motif engraved around the band. See how the petals flow? It’s completely custom.” The office sighed in unison. “Lauren is so incredibly romantic.” “Seriously. A woman who puts that much thought into things? You hit the jackpot.” I remembered asking Lauren for a custom ring of our own years ago. “We’re already married, Luke,” she had snapped, not even looking up from her iPad. “Why waste money on sentimental garbage?” Beckett kept talking, his face flushed with the thrill of being loved. “She’s always so busy, but she still drives twenty minutes out of her way just to bring me those warm pistachio croissants from that bakery near the old district.” That bakery was directly below my apartment. I had asked her a hundred times to grab a box on her way home. “It’s too far,” she’d tell me, her voice dripping with irritation. “I’m not fighting traffic for a pastry.” From the office to our place, and from the office to Beckett’s apartment, were in completely opposite directions. It wasn’t the traffic she hated. It was me. “She told me that once we’re married, I’ll handle all the finances. She wants me to have total control of the estate.” Meanwhile, my salary had been directly deposited into our joint account, managed entirely by her, since our third week of marriage. She’d told me that a stable household required a single hand on the wheel. I stared at this young, blissfully ignorant boy. The sweeter his stories, the tighter the knot in my throat became. “Luke? You okay?” Beckett asked, noticing my silence. I forced a thin, hollow smile. “Lauren is a remarkable woman. You two deserve everything.” “Thanks, man. Really appreciate it.” When I got home that evening, the smell of garlic and rosemary hit me. Lauren was standing by the stove, wearing an apron, humming to herself. When she heard the door click, she poked her head out, her face bright with a domestic warmth I hadn’t seen in months. “You’re home! Wash your hands, dinner’s almost ready.” She brought out a plate of honey-glazed pork chops. My favorite. Or, at least, what she thought was my favorite. “Made your favorite tonight. Dig in.” I set my bag down and went into the bathroom. I turned on the faucet, letting the rushing water drown out the sudden, violent urge to throw up. When I sat down, Lauren had already plated the food. “How’s the job hunt going?” she asked, putting a piece of asparagus on my plate. She asked this every single day. It used to feel like support. Now, it felt like surveillance. “Still looking,” I said, pushing the rice around with my fork. “No rush.” “Take your time. There’s no pressure. I can support us.” I almost laughed out loud. Support us. On the two hundred dollars of “allowance” she transferred to my personal account every month, while Beckett wore a vintage emerald cuff that would have taken me two years of saving to buy. Lauren put her fork down. “Oh, by the way. Quick heads-up.” “Yeah?” “The firm is sending me to Miami for a conference. I’ll be gone about two weeks.” I looked up at her. “Two weeks? That’s long.” “I know, but we have a major account launching there. It’s crucial.” She lied with a flawless, practiced ease. “When do you leave?” “Tomorrow morning.” I nodded. “Are you packed? Do you need help?” “No, I’ve got it.” She placed a pork chop on my plate. “Eat up. You’ve been looking so thin lately.” The glistening meat sat on my plate, making my stomach churn. It was Beckett’s favorite. But I was severely allergic to pork. I set my fork down, the metal clinking against the ceramic. Lauren’s brow furrowed, the warm wife persona instantly evaporating. “What’s wrong? You didn’t even touch it.” “I’m just tired today, Lauren.” “Tired?” She let out a sharp, dry laugh. “You sit at home all day job hunting and you’re tired? I work a fifty-hour week, come home, make you a scratch dinner, and I’m not complaining.” I looked at her, truly looked at her, and felt a cold wave of estrangement. Who was this woman? When did she become so cruel? “Lauren, when was the last time we actually talked?” She blinked, then waved her hand dismissively, clearly annoyed. “What is there to talk about? We’re talking right now.” “I have a million things to handle at the office, and then I have to come home and cater to your moods. What more do you want from me?” “Stop being so ungrateful, Luke.” I didn’t say another word. I just watched her. She paced between the living room and the bedroom, tossing linen shirts and light t-shirts onto the bed. “It’s Miami, so just light stuff,” she muttered to herself, not looking at me. “Yeah,” I murmured, my eyes falling on the sleek, silver suitcase sitting open on the floor. “New suitcase?” “Oh. Yeah. The wheel on my old one broke.” She zipped up a compartment. “Picked it up during lunch.” I walked over to the bed, picking up a white linen button-down she was about to pack. “There’s a smudge on the collar of this one. You should swap it.” I tossed it back into the closet and pulled out a fresh, pressed white shirt instead. She paused, looking at me with a fleeting, unreadable expression. She didn’t say anything, just took the fresh shirt and packed it away. “Did you pack your stomach meds?” I asked. “Your acid reflux has been bad.” “Yeah, I have them. Go to sleep, Luke. My flight is early.” The next morning, before the sun had even cleared the horizon, the wheels of her new suitcase clicked against our hardwood floor as she left. I waited five minutes, grabbed my car keys, and followed her. She drove at a steady, leisurely pace, but she didn’t head toward the airport. Instead, she took the highway south, eventually turning into a luxury gated community called Amberley Estates. I parked across the street, watching her car disappear into the underground parking structure. Ten minutes later, she walked out of the elevator lobby. She was wearing the white linen shirt I had chosen for her, but her suitcase was gone. The glass doors of the building opened. Beckett came running out, wearing a sharp, tailored white suit, his face beaming as he took her hand. So this was her real home. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a Slack message from the CEO, Mr. Davis. “Luke, can you post an announcement to the general channel?” “To celebrate Lauren’s upcoming wedding, the company will be closed next Monday so everyone can attend. Hotel details and registry info to follow from Lauren shortly.” I sat in my car, my fingers hovering over the phone screen. I opened the main company channel with three hundred employees. I copied, pasted, and hit send. The channel immediately exploded with replies. “Wow! A paid day off! Thanks, Mr. Davis!” “Double win! A wedding and a free Monday!” “Congratulations, Lauren! So happy for you two!” “See you guys on Monday!” I watched the messages scroll by, then typed my own response: “Congratulations, Lauren. Wishing you two the absolute best.” Beckett replied with a blushing emoji. “Thank you so much, everyone!” Then Lauren jumped in. “Thank you, Mr. Davis, and thanks to my amazing team. Can’t wait to celebrate with you all on Monday.” I locked my phone, put the car in drive, and went home. Back to the house we had shared for three years. Monday arrived. I wore my best black suit, pairing it with a dark, muted tie. I stood in front of the mirror, combing my hair back until it was perfectly neat. The wedding was at the St. Regis, the most expensive hotel in the city. In the lobby, a massive, soft-lit portrait of Lauren and Beckett greeted the guests. Beckett’s parents stood near the entrance, radiant with pride, welcoming everyone. One of my HR team members, Drew, was managing the guest book. When he saw me, he froze. “Luke… you’re here.” I nodded, sliding a thick, heavy envelope onto the table. “Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.” Without waiting for his response, I walked into the grand ballroom. The room was nearly packed with our coworkers. The atmosphere was loud, celebratory, and buzzing. I found a quiet table in the back corner. It was empty. Shortly after, Lauren’s parents arrived, ushered in by Beckett’s family. Lauren’s mother, Lydia, wore an elegant designer sheath dress, her face flushed with excitement. The ceremony was scheduled for 11:18 AM. The house lights dimmed. The music swelled, and a warm spotlight focused on the heavy double doors at the back of the room. The officiant’s voice echoed over the speakers. “Welcome, friends and family. Today, we gather to celebrate a love that feels destined.” Beckett stood at the altar in his white tuxedo, a brilliant, nervous smile on his face as he stared down the aisle. The doors swung open. Lauren, breathtaking in a sweeping white gown, walked down the carpet, her arm linked with her father’s. The room erupted into applause. At the table next to mine, two marketing executives whispered. “He’s so handsome. Lauren really hit the jackpot.” “I heard she paid for the whole thing herself. That tuxedo alone is bespoke Italian silk. Must’ve cost a fortune.” Lauren’s father, Gregory, placed her hand in Beckett’s, whispering a brief blessing. Beckett nodded, his eyes shining as he led her up the steps to the altar. They stood hand-in-hand. The officiant spoke again. “Before they take their vows, let’s take a look at the screen behind them to celebrate their journey together.” The massive projector screen at the back of the stage flickered to life. On stage, Lauren turned to look at the screen, and in that instant, every ounce of color drained from her face.

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Three years after I faked my death, Helena and our daughter finally tracked me down. To escape them, I had held a knife to my own throat, desperate to force them away. But then my seven-year-old daughter, Zoe, wrapped her small hands around my mother’s ventilator plug, her eyes cold. Helena stood right behind her, her voice trembling but lethal. “Your choice, Elliot. Let your mother suffocate right here, or come back to Seattle and be my husband again.” Shaking with rage, I dropped the knife. I signed the remarriage papers. Returning to that sprawling estate, I became the perfect, docile trophy husband. When her adoptive brother, Austin, felt anxious and needed Helena’s undivided attention, I packed a bag and checked into a cheap motel without a word. I didn’t even call her when my stomach ulcer perforated, leaving me to undergo emergency surgery alone. When Zoe complained about my cooking and said she only wanted what “Uncle Austin” made, I drove to his apartment myself and invited him to move in with us. Even tonight, on my birthday, Austin put on his usual performance. Sniffling into his wineglass, he said, “I’m so jealous of you, Elliot. You have such a perfect wife and a beautiful daughter. I’ve never even received a real birthday present.” Without a second thought, I slipped the golden bracelet off my wrist and pressed it into his hand. The blood-red stones looked strikingly bright against his pale skin. Helena’s eyes flared crimson. She grabbed my arm, her jaw tight, whispering through clenched teeth, “Elliot, that’s the bracelet I went on a grueling pilgrimage to Tibet to get for you. I walked that mountain on my knees! It was our promise!” … The dining room fell into a suffocating silence. Austin immediately made a show of trying to slide the bracelet off. “I’m so sorry, Helena,” he stammered. “I didn’t know it was your promise token. I’ll give it right back to Elliot.” Zoe’s face hardened. She pointed a tiny, accusatory finger at me. “Dad knew exactly how important it was! He did it on purpose to make Uncle Austin feel bad. You’re a bully!” Helena stared at me, her eyes heavy with exhaustion. “Elliot, when does this end? I brought you back because I wanted to build a real life with you again.” The sheer absurdity of it tasted like ash in my mouth. In the past, if I hesitated for a second to give Austin what he wanted, I was punished. Now that I was perfectly obedient, she was still angry. I turned and picked up the platinum designer ring Helena had just gifted me for my birthday. I held it out to Austin. “Is the bracelet not enough? Here. Take this, too.” Helena’s face went white, then a furious purple. With a violent sweep of her arm, she sent my birthday cake flying. It crashed onto the hardwood floor, frosting splattering my pants, porcelain shards scattering everywhere. “Elliot! Do you have to be so incredibly petty? Do you have to twist every single thing into a knife?” “I’m not,” I said quietly. Helena closed her eyes, taking a long, shaky breath to master her temper. “I know you’re still punishing me for letting Austin take the ambulance first that night. But he was hemorrhaging, Elliot. He was literally dying. These past few years, I’ve done nothing but search for a compatible heart donor for you so we’d never have to live through that nightmare again. Please, sweetheart. Stop hurting me. Just let us be a family.” I gave her a small, empty nod. Zoe jumped up from her chair, her tiny chest heaving. “Mom is literally apologizing to you, and you’re still acting like an iceberg! No wonder nobody in this house likes you except Grandma!” The words hit me like a physical blow, needle-sharp and precise. I let out a cold, humorless laugh. “Good. Because except for my mother, I don’t care about a single person in this room.” Helena froze. Her gaze turned to solid ice. “Fine. If that’s how it is… if you don’t care about anyone or anything, then you don’t need this life. Starting tonight, Austin and I are taking the master bedroom. You can sleep in the basement maid’s quarters.” I didn’t argue. I simply turned and walked up the stairs. Behind me, Zoe clapped her hands, squealing with delight. “Yay! Now I get to sleep with Mom and Uncle Austin every night!” In our room, I began to pack. I opened the walk-in closet, staring at the cashmere coats, silk pajamas, and limited-edition sneakers—the luxuries I could never afford when we were young and poor, which Helena had bought to make up for the lost years. The custom diffuser on the vanity was a scent she had blended herself. Even the heavy drapes had been changed to the deep forest green I loved. For the two years since she dragged me back, she had tried to play the role of the devoted girl who loved only me. But the man I used to be was dead. I could no longer be swayed by expensive guilt-offerings. I only packed the worn, cheap clothes I had been wearing when her security team dragged me back here. Just as I zipped the suitcase, Helena walked in. She grabbed my wrist with a firm, bruising grip and slid the golden bracelet back onto my arm. “Keep it,” she commanded, her voice leaving no room for argument. “And don’t you ever dare give away my gifts again.” I blinked in mild surprise. She had actually taken it back from Austin. Helena’s eyes fell to my meager suitcase. Her brow furrowed deeply. “That’s all you’re taking?” “The rest isn’t mine,” I said, my voice flat. “No point in carrying dead weight.” The cold indifference in my voice pushed her over the edge. A dark, ugly rage flared in her eyes. “If you despise it all so much, then it has no place in this house. Housekeeping!” she barked out the door. “Take everything I bought for him and burn it in the incinerator out back. From now on, if he wants so much as a clean towel, he has to ask Austin’s permission.” My expression didn’t flicker. I picked up my suitcase and walked out. As I reached the top of the stairs, a pair of small, violent hands slammed into my lower back. I lost my footing, tumbling down the hardwood steps. I crashed onto the landing, my knees scraped raw and burning. Zoe stood at the top of the landing, glaring down at me with pure venom. “You’re not good! You’re just a big liar, trying to ruin things for Mom and Uncle Austin! If you ever pick on Uncle Austin again, I’ll never call you Dad again!” Her eyes caught the corner of the crimson embroidered pouch sticking out of my coat pocket. Before I could move, she lunged down and ripped it from my hand. “Give that back!” I gasped, dragging my bruised body up. It was a sacred protection amulet. I had spent three days kneeling on the cold stone floor of a remote monastery, praying for my mother’s failing health to get it. Zoe smirked, dangling it just out of my reach. “Every time you’re mean to Uncle Austin, I’m going to destroy one of your things. That’ll teach you!” With a swift, cruel twist of her small hands, she tore the velvet pouch open, ripping the handwritten prayer parchment inside to pieces. As the fragments drifted down onto my bruised knees like ash, the last shred of my restraint finally snapped. I whipped my hand across her cheek. The slap echoed through the hallway. “The single greatest regret of my life,” I whispered, my voice deadly quiet, “is that I let them cut out my healthy heart to put it inside of you. If you love Austin so much, go ahead. Call him Dad. He’s exactly what you deserve.” Zoe stumbled back, clutching her reddening cheek, her eyes wide with shock. I didn’t give her another look. Limping through the pain, I dragged my suitcase into the tiny, windowless room off the kitchen. I was dabbing rubbing alcohol onto my bleeding knees when the door was kicked open. Helena stormed in, furious. “Elliot, how dare you lay a hand on a child—” She froze. Her voice died in her throat as her eyes swept over my bruised shoulders, the angry red welts, and my bloodied knees. “How… how did you get these?” She knelt down, her fingers suddenly trembling as she took the gauze from my hand, gently dabbing at the cuts. For a fleeting second, I saw a shadow of the woman who used to love me. A dull ache bloomed in my throat. “Elliot,” she murmured, her voice soft with a dangerous tenderness. She leaned in, her eyes shining as she reached up to kiss me. Instinct took over. I jerked my head back, turning my face away. Helena stiffened. Her fingers clamped onto my jaw, forcing my face back toward hers. She kissed me with a desperate, punishing intensity, biting my lip until the taste of copper filled my mouth. I went entirely rigid, letting her do as she pleased while my mind splintered into a thousand jagged memories. But when her warm palm slid beneath my shirt, a wave of intense nausea hit me. I shoved her away with everything I had, leaning over the edge of the cot, dry-heaving violently. “Elliot!” Helena’s face twisted in humiliation. “Am I really that repulsive to you?” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor. “I’m not well. If you’re lonely, Austin is just upstairs.” A look of raw agony crossed her face, her voice cracking. “You’re still pushing me away? Elliot, I have told you a thousand times—I didn’t touch another soul while you were gone. I take care of Austin because your father begged me to on his deathbed. That’s it!” I looked at her, my expression perfectly serene. “I believe you. You two are completely innocent.” The absolute lack of care in my voice was worse than anger. The veins in her temples throbbed. With a guttural scream, she kicked the metal trash can across the room and slammed the door behind her. Not ten minutes later, my phone vibrated. A FaceTime request from Helena. I stared at the screen for a moment before tapping accept. Austin’s heavy, ragged breathing filled the small room. On the screen, Helena was holding Austin by the waist, pressing him against our large, framed wedding portrait on the wall, kissing him wildly. Austin’s palm was smeared directly over my face in the photograph, leaving a damp smudge on the glass. He looked right into the camera, a smirk playing on his wet lips. “Helena, gentler… Elliot is watching.” Helena turned the lens toward the unmade bed, her voice dripping with a bitter, retaliatory frost. “Since you refuse to believe me, Elliot, let’s make your little fantasy a reality. Watch us. Watch how happy we are together. And don’t you dare hang up until we’re done.” For the rest of the night, she dragged him to every corner of that room, leaving a sickening trail of exhibitionism. The screen flashed with sweat and skin, accompanied by sounds that made my stomach turn. I felt nothing but a profound, exhausting disgust. It wasn’t until the first pale gray light of dawn filtered through my basement window that she finally ended the call, unsatisfied by my lack of reaction. My artificial heart, weak and poorly maintained, began to flutter and seize. A tight, squeezing pain bloomed in my chest. Shaking, I dragged myself out of bed to search for my medication. I had just managed to shake a couple of pills into my palm when Zoe burst into the room. She lunged forward, knocking the bottle from my hand. The pills scattered across the dusty floor. “Who said you could take medicine?” she shrieked. “Mom said you can’t touch anything without Uncle Austin’s permission!” She glared at me with an ugly, learned malice. The pain in my chest was tightening like a vise. I couldn’t breathe, let alone argue. I dropped to my knees, desperately reaching for the small white pills. But before my fingers could reach them, Zoe’s sneakers came down hard, grinding the tablets into powder and dirt. “Thief! Freak! Get out of my house!” she screamed, her voice shrill. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. The fragile mechanical pump in my chest strained against the sudden spikes of adrenaline. My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the floor. As darkness threatened to pull me under, the floodgates of memory burst open. Zoe had been a sickly child. When she was diagnosed with terminal heart failure, her name was placed at the bottom of the transplant list, with months she didn’t have. Desperate, I secretly ran the compatibility tests. I matched. Without a single regret, I gave her my healthy heart, replacing mine with a cheap, temperamental mechanical pump. I spent three weeks hovering on the edge of death in the ICU. But on the day Zoe was finally discharged, she didn’t come to my room. She ran straight into Austin’s arms in the hallway. I dragged my IV pole to the door and heard her sweet, childish voice: “Uncle Austin, when are you going to be my real dad? My old dad is so annoying. He nags Mom when she smokes, and he yells at me for watching TV. You’re way better. You buy me burgers and take me to the park. Mom and I like being with you best.” I stood in the doorway, every word carving itself into my mind. The raw, fresh surgical incision across my chest burned like liquid fire. I stepped forward, choking back my tears. “Zoe… I nearly died on that table so you could live. Is this how you talk about me?” Austin had immediately pulled her behind his back. “Elliot, she’s just a child. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. There’s no need to yell at her and make a scene.” With Austin protecting her, Zoe’s courage swelled. She peered out from behind him and spat at me. “I hate you! You’re always so cold and miserable! Why didn’t you just die during the surgery anyway? Mom is going to have Uncle Austin’s baby soon, and I’ll have a little brother. We don’t even need you!” The words struck me like a physical blow. The room spun. The air in my lungs turned to ash, and the world went completely black as I fell. When I opened my eyes again, Helena was sitting by my bedside. She watched me in silence for a long time before she spoke, her voice flat and detached. “Since you already heard, I won’t lie to you. Austin and I slept together. It was the night of your father’s funeral. I told you I passed out from drinking and missed your calls, but the truth is… Austin was clinging to me, and I couldn’t get away.” A high-pitched hum filled my head. I remembered that day. Austin had fainted in tears at the funeral parlor. I had been worried about him, so I begged Helena to take him home first. But before the service even ended, my father’s greedy relatives descended on us like vultures, trying to seize our family home. My mother and I were beaten and bloodied trying to hold the door against them. I had called Helena fifty times. She never picked up. While my mother and I were bleeding on the floor, clinging to the only things we owned, Helena was wrapped in Austin’s arms, lost in his bed. The betrayal tore through my chest. Humiliation and blinding fury surged in my blood. I lunged at her, striking her across the face again and again. She didn’t flinch. She just sat there, eyes downcast, letting me release my agony on her. But the moment I grabbed my coat to go find Austin, Helena seized my wrist, her guilt instantly warping into defensive rage. “Elliot, stop! You grew up loved by your parents, protected by me. You’ve always had everything! But Austin has had nothing his whole life. He was an orphan, completely dependent on others. Can’t you just let him have this one thing?” The absolute, bone-deep partiality in her eyes drained the last drop of hope from my soul. “Let’s get a divorce, Helena,” I whispered. “No!” She threw her arms around me, her anger vanishing, replaced by desperate pleading. “No, please, Elliot! I’m sorry, I was out of my mind. Austin is just a little brother to me. He was just terrified that after your dad died, we’d throw him out. He slipped something into my drink… I swear it was only that one time! It will never happen again. Think of Zoe, Elliot. She just got her heart. Do you really want to tear her family apart now?” I hesitated. Despite her cruelty, Zoe was still my child. “One last chance,” I said, my voice hollow. “But Austin leaves this house. You abort the pregnancy. You cut him out of our lives completely.” Helena hesitated for a fraction of a second, then nodded fiercely. “Okay. I promise.” She deleted his contact info right in front of me. She started coming home straight after work, attentive and gentle. Even Zoe became sweet and obedient again. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to believe we were healing. Until Zoe’s eighth birthday. I left the office early, intending to surprise her with tickets to the theme park. But as I reached the playroom door, I heard their voices. “Mommy, when can we see Uncle Austin? I miss him so much.” Helena’s voice was a soft, conspiratorial whisper. “Shh, sweetie. When your dad gets home, we’ll slip a little sleeping pill into his tea. Once he’s out, we’ll go see Austin.” I stood in the hall, the blood freezing in my veins. That night, I drank the glass of milk Helena offered me. I feigned sleep, listening to them creep out of the house. I followed them through the dark streets to a luxury high-rise downtown. Through the cracked door of the penthouse, I saw Austin lounging on a velvet sofa. Helena was sitting beside him, feeding him grapes and gently massaging his legs. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here with you lately, sweetheart,” she murmured. Zoe snuggled up to him, pouting. “It’s all because of Dad. He’s so petty, he won’t let Mom bring you home.” I threw the door open, my hands shaking so hard I could barely stand. “Helena… has a single word out of your mouth ever been true?” Helena instantly jumped up, shielding Austin behind her. “Elliot, that’s enough! Austin has never tried to take anything from you. He’s hiding out here in secret, with no name, no recognition, and you’re still trying to ruin his life? Can’t you stop being so incredibly selfish?” Austin smirked from the couch. “Come on, Elliot. You’re getting old and boring. Helena was sick of you years ago. Instead of letting some stranger have her, why not keep it in the family?” The last of my sanity broke. I grabbed a heavy crystal vase from the entryway and hurled it at his face. A chaotic, screaming fight erupted. In the violent scuffle near the glass railing of the balcony, Austin and I went over the edge together, plunging into the dark. We survived the fall, but barely. When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics frantically triaged our broken bodies on the wet pavement. “They’re both critical,” one of them called out to Helena. “We only have one trauma bay prepped. Who do we take first?” Helena didn’t even glance at my blood-soaked face. “Save Austin,” she said instantly. I lay there on the freezing asphalt, watching the red tail lights of the ambulance fade into the night. The last dying ember of my love for her went cold. With a trembling hand, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I had kept hidden for years. “If I survive this night,” I whispered into the receiver, “help me disappear. Make them think I’m dead.” “Elliot! Elliot!” Helena’s frantic voice dragged me back from the edge of consciousness. She lifted my head, forcing a nitro pill under my tongue. As the medicine slowly dissolved, the crushing weight in my chest began to lift. I opened my eyes to see Zoe standing nearby, her chin tucked stubbornly, showing no remorse. Helena spun around and slapped Zoe across the face. “You stupid girl! Who told you to throw away your father’s medication?” Zoe burst into loud, theatrical wails. Austin immediately pulled her into his arms, glaring at Helena. “Helena, don’t scream at the poor girl. She’s just a child. She doesn’t understand these adult games.” With a sigh, Austin pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “I didn’t want to bring this up, but Elliot is really taking this act too far.” He handed it to Helena. “Look at this medical report. He had a successful heart transplant years ago. He’s not fragile at all. It’s all a show.” Helena scanned the forged document, her expression turning from panic to a frigid, accusing coldness. “You’ve been fully recovered this whole time? You’ve just been playing the fragile martyr to make me feel guilty?” I didn’t have the breath or the will to defend myself. I just stared at her with vacant eyes. Helena crumpled the paper and threw it in my face. “I actually wanted to make things right today. I wanted to celebrate your birthday. But since you’d rather play these sick mind games, fine. We’re leaving.” She grabbed Austin’s arm, ushered Zoe out, and slammed the basement door, locking it from the outside. I felt nothing. I didn’t want to celebrate with them anyway. An hour later, Zoe posted a photo on her Instagram. It was the three of them—Helena, Austin, and Zoe standing in the center, smiling brightly. The caption read: “The perfect family.” I double-tapped and liked the photo. Then, my phone began to vibrate violently. It was the hospital. “Mr. Pierce, your mother has gone into cardiac arrest. You need to get here immediately.” My chest seized with terror. I scrambled to the door and rattled the brass knob. Locked. I frantically dialed Helena’s number. Once. Twice. Three times. It went straight to voicemail. In absolute desperation, I ran to the small basement window, kicked the glass pane open, and hauled myself through. I dropped onto the concrete driveway. A sickening crack echoed as my right ankle buckled. Screaming through the white-hot agony, I dragged myself to the curb and flagged down a taxi. But I was already too late. The ICU room was silent when I arrived, save for the flatline hum of the monitor. The doctor looked at me with weary sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Pierce. She suffered a severe emotional shock. Her heart simply couldn’t take it.” I collapsed onto the linoleum floor, the world dissolving into a cold gray fog. Later, as I was gathering her few personal items, my hand brushed against something beneath her pillow. A small digital voice recorder. I pressed play, and Austin’s smooth, venomous voice filled the quiet room. “You know, Martha, I almost feel bad for you. Let me tell you a little family secret. I was never some random orphan my dad adopted. I’m his biological son. His favorite.” “You and my mother fought for his attention your entire lives. And in the end, you spent decades raising me, her son. Isn’t that hilarious?” “Oh, and that family estate you and Elliot bled to protect? Dad signed the deed over to me the day I turned eighteen. Thanks for keeping it clean for me.” “In this life, you couldn’t beat my mother, and your pathetic excuse of a son can’t beat me. His wife, his daughter, his inheritance… they’re all mine now. You two really are my lucky charms.” My mother had been semi-conscious, recovering from her stroke. She could hear every single word. He had literally tortured her to death. A blinding, murderous rage consumed me. I bolted from the hospital, ignoring the agony in my ankle, and drove straight to the theme park. Through the crowds, I spotted them on the manicured lawn, laughing and sharing ice cream. I reached into my pocket, gripping the pocketknife I kept in my car, and lunged at Austin, wanting nothing more than to drag him to hell with me. But before I could reach him, Helena caught my wrist, twisting it back. “Elliot! What is wrong with you? Have you completely lost your mind?” A crowd immediately gathered, muttering and pointing. Zoe jumped in front of Austin, screaming at the top of her lungs, “My dad is crazy! He’s off his meds and trying to hurt Uncle Austin! Get away from us, you psycho! Go away!” She grabbed a jagged stone from the garden bed and hurled it at my face. The onlookers, seeing a child defend herself, began to join in, throwing trash and shouting insults. “He’s acting!” someone yelled. “Get him out of here before he hurts someone!” The hatred and disgust of the crowd washed over me like a suffocating tide. I looked past the stones, past the shouting faces, and locked eyes with Helena, who was holding Austin close. I let out a jagged, hollow laugh. “Helena,” I whispered, my voice carrying over the din. “If there is a next life… I pray I never lay eyes on you.” With a swift, desperate motion, I plunged the blade deep into my chest, right where the artificial heart pulsed its final, agonizing beat.

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I was lounging by the pool on a rare vacation, basking in the warm Florida sun, when I scrolled past a post on a local social media forum that made my blood run cold. It was a blatant brag post. [A bank safety deposit box is the absolute best urn money can buy. Bar none.] Out of some morbid curiosity, I tapped on it. The poster was boasting about how she had rented a high-security bank vault specifically to store her mother’s cremated ashes. The comment section was a war zone of outrage, with users calling her disrespectful, cheap, and deeply unsettling. But the poster remained utterly smug and defensive. [Why waste ten grand on a cemetery plot when you can lease a secure vault?] [It’s climate-controlled, perfectly dehumidified, and all the bank’s cash and other people’s gold get to serve as her eternal tribute!] Disgusted, I was about to leave a comment condemning her when my eyes caught the background of the photo she had uploaded. There, engraved on the brushed steel of the deposit box, was a number: 777. My heart skipped a beat. Box 777. The exact box I paid five thousand dollars a year to lease. The box where I kept my family’s gold bullion and estate jewelry. I checked the poster’s IP address. It was registered in my home city. An uneasy tightness gripped my chest. I clicked onto her profile and scrolled through her older posts. My breath caught. It was Chelsea Ward. She was the lead personal banker at my local branch, the very person who had processed my lease and handled my private wealth account. The vault I rented to protect my life savings was being used as a makeshift mausoleum for her mother’s ashes. Just then, my phone chimed. A text notification from Chelsea slid down the screen. “Hi Mr. Reynolds, hope you’re enjoying your vacation! Just a gentle reminder that your annual vault lease is up for renewal next week. We’ll need to process the payment soon.” I stared at the screen, a dark, bitter laugh escaping my throat. She really thought I was a fool. I typed back a brief reply. “I’ll handle the renewal in person when I get back to the branch.” I didn’t wait. I booked the first flight home, cut my vacation short, and packed my bags. … During the long flight back, Chelsea’s messages kept pouring in, each one draped in a thin veil of professional courtesy. “Are you still tied up, Sean? No worries at all. If it’s easier, you can just wire the five thousand directly to my personal account, and I’ll handle the internal ledger transfer for you, just like last year.” She was trying to keep me away from the branch. Looking back at the comments on her original post, I had noticed several users pointing out standard bank rates. A premium safety deposit box at a private wealth branch like ours only cost three thousand dollars a year. I had been leasing that box for four years. Chelsea had been pocketing a two-thousand-dollar premium from me every single year. Her texts grew increasingly urgent. “Sean, if we don’t secure the payment by Friday, the system automatically flags the box as delinquent. The bank might release it to the waitlist. I’d hate for your gold and heirlooms to lose their guaranteed protection.” I locked my phone, refusing to reply. My mind raced. If my safety deposit box was currently holding her mother’s ashes, where was my gold? Where were the emerald necklaces and the vintage watches my grandfather had passed down to me? A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I dialed the branch manager, Diane Albright. “Mr. Reynolds, you’re letting your imagination get the better of you,” Diane said, her voice smooth and dismissive over the line. “Our security protocols are ironclad. What you’re suggesting is literally impossible. Rest assured, your assets are entirely safe.” Her words offered no comfort. As soon as we hung up, I reopened Chelsea’s post. In the comments, people were accusing her of fabricating the whole thing for clout. [Nobody would actually put an urn in a safety deposit box. You’re lying for attention.] [Even if you wanted to, the bank’s dual-key system would never allow you to access it without the client present.] I refreshed the page. Chelsea had replied just a minute prior. [I’m not lying. I’ll show you.] My thumb hovered over the screen, refreshing constantly, terrified I would miss whatever she posted next. Five minutes later, a new post appeared. It was a video. Before even playing it, I tapped the download button. The moment the download completed, the post vanished—she had deleted it. I opened the video in my camera roll, my hands trembling. In the clip, Chelsea panned the camera around the bank’s secure vault room to prove she was actually there. Then, she inserted her master key alongside a client key, swinging open the door of Box 777. Inside, there was no gold. There were no velvet jewelry boxes. There was only a single, heavy ceramic urn wrapped in yellow ceremonial paper. My chest tightened with a mixture of blinding rage and sheer panic. My assets were gone. When my Uber finally pulled up to the grand, marble-faced entrance of the bank, I didn’t hesitate. I dialed 911 right there on the sidewalk. “I need to report a major theft,” I told the dispatcher, my voice shaking but clear. “I have over three million dollars in gold and jewelry missing from my safety deposit box at Beacon Trust.” I hung up, pushed through the heavy glass doors, and walked into the lobby. The sterile, sixty-eight-degree air conditioning hit my face, but it did nothing to cool the fire burning in my chest. “Mr. Reynolds?” I looked up. Chelsea was standing near the teller counter. Her face paled for a fraction of a second before she forced her customer-service smile back into place. “You’re back early,” she said, her voice tight as she hurried over. “Are you here to take care of the renewal? Honestly, you shouldn’t have troubled yourself with the drive. You could have just wired me the funds.” I stared at her, watching the nervous flutter of her eyelashes. “I want to see my lease contract,” I said coldly. Her smile faltered, but she recovered quickly. “Oh, I’m afraid the physical vault records are locked in the administrative office. It takes a formal request to pull them. But I assure you, everything is completely standard.” “I know the contract is standard,” I replied. “It’s the amount you’ve been charging me that isn’t.” I glanced at my watch. The police would be here in less than twenty minutes. I bypassed her and walked straight toward the manager’s office. “Mr. Reynolds, Diane is in back-to-back meetings today,” Chelsea said, rushing to block my path. “She really doesn’t have time for unscheduled visits.” I turned to a nearby teller who was watching us with a confused expression. “Get Diane out here,” I said, my voice echoing slightly in the quiet lobby. “Tell her if she doesn’t show her face in thirty seconds, I am liquidating my seven-million-dollar portfolio with this bank and moving it across the street.” The teller’s eyes went wide. She immediately picked up her desk phone. Before I arrived, I had called Diane twice, and both times her assistant had claimed she was out of the office. But the moment seven million dollars was on the line, the heavy mahogany door of her office swung open. “Sean!” Diane called out, her face a mask of warm, frantic hospitality. “Please, let’s not do anything hasty. Let’s go into my office and talk. Did Chelsea do something to upset you? I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.” With a sharp look from Diane, Chelsea immediately bowed her head. “I’m incredibly sorry, Mr. Reynolds. If my tone was unprofessional, please forgive me.” Her apology was entirely hollow. I ignored her and looked directly at Diane. “I want to see the audit trail for my safety deposit box. The standard lease for a premium box is three thousand dollars. Why has Chelsea been charging me five thousand for the last four years?” Whispers broke out among the other tellers. Chelsea’s face flushed a deep, ugly red. “Mr. Reynolds, safety deposit boxes are tiered by security level. I upgraded you to our absolute highest-clearance vault. It has a specialized digital monitoring system. That’s why it’s five thousand.” Diane quickly nodded, seizing the lifeline. “Yes, that’s correct, Sean. The premium tier offers unparalleled security for high-value assets.” They were still trying to play me. If there was a higher tier, the other tellers wouldn’t have looked so utterly shocked by the numbers I had just mentioned. “Unparalleled security?” I asked, leaning in. They both nodded in unison. “Fine,” I said, raising my voice so it carried across the entire lobby. “Then let’s go downstairs and open it. I want to see exactly how secure my gold is.” Chelsea froze. The blood drained from her face, leaving her looking physically ill. She must have realized I had seen the post. All the way to the bank, she had been online, replying to comments, sharing tips on how to pull off using a vault as an urn. [It’s easy if you have a complicit teller,] she had written in one comment. [Most wealthy clients rent these boxes and don’t check them for years. They just sit empty. Why let good space go to waste?] She had assumed I was one of those clients. She had kept close tabs on me, texting me weekly under the guise of “relationship management,” just to ensure I wasn’t planning a surprise visit to the vault. “Mr. Reynolds, I would love to open it for you,” Chelsea stammered, her hands visibly shaking now. “But… I don’t have the master key ring on me today. I accidentally left it at home. If we could schedule a viewing for tomorrow morning, I promise I’ll have everything ready.” Diane immediately chimed in, putting on a show of managerial outrage. “Chelsea! You’ve been here for years. How could you make such a careless mistake? If you can’t keep track of your security keys, I will have to write you up!” “I’m so sorry, Diane,” Chelsea whispered, looking down. “It won’t happen again.” It was a practiced routine. I remembered my very first visit to this branch years ago. I had overheard Chelsea arguing with another client, offering the exact same excuse about a forgotten key while Diane smoothed things over. I had thought nothing of it then. Now, the horrifying reality was staring me in the face. She had been doing this for a long time. “Don’t worry about the key,” I said, pulling a small brass key from my pocket. “I brought my copy.” The room fell dead silent. Chelsea stared at the key in my hand, her eyes wide with panic. “Mr. Reynolds… you told me last year that you lost your spare key.” I didn’t answer her. I turned and walked toward the heavy security door leading to the vault room. Chelsea threw herself in front of the door, physically blocking my path. “Sean, please. Let’s not do this today. Just… do this for me. Come back tomorrow. Please.” I looked at her with pure disgust. “Do this for you? Are we friends, Chelsea?” Her face burned with embarrassment as she rubbed her hands together anxiously. “I… I thought we had a rapport. But regardless, bank policy states a client cannot enter the vault room without a designated banker accompanying them.” I turned to Diane. “You’re a banker. You come with me.” Diane frowned, clearly reluctant to get her hands dirty with what she still hoped was a minor customer service dispute. Before she could speak, a teller near the window murmured, “Why is there a police cruiser pulling up outside?” The tension in the lobby snapped like a dry twig. Within seconds, two uniformed officers pushed through the glass doors. The lead officer scanned the room. “We received a call about a high-value grand larceny. Who is the complainant?” I stepped forward. “I am. I pay five thousand a year for Box 777, and this employee turned it into a personal tomb for her mother’s ashes.” A collective gasp echoed through the lobby. “Ashes?” one of the tellers whispered, horrified. “Oh my God, she brought a dead body in here?” Chelsea’s voice trembled as she screamed, “That’s a lie! I would never do that! He’s crazy!” “Let’s go see,” I said, gesturing to the officers. With the police backing me, Diane had no choice but to open the vault door. We walked into the cold, metallic room. I stepped up to Box 777, inserted my key alongside Diane’s master key, and pulled the drawer open. It was completely empty. No urn. No gold. Just clean, empty metal. Chelsea let out a sharp, breathless laugh, her panic instantly morphing into smug triumph. “See? I told you! Officer, this man is fabricating stories. He’s wasting your time and harassing me.” The officers turned to me, their expressions hardening. “Sir, do you have any proof of these claims?” “I do,” I said. I pulled out my phone and played the downloaded video. “This is Chelsea Ward’s personal social media account. She uploaded this ten minutes before I arrived.” The officers watched the video, their eyes moving from the screen to Chelsea’s pale face. “That’s not my account!” Chelsea protested wildly. “He’s using a deepfake! He’s obsessed with me!” I tapped her profile to show her face, but when the page loaded, the screen was blank. She had completely wiped her profile of all personal photos during my flight, leaving only the anonymous bragging posts. Chelsea smirked, leaning back against the vault wall. “Sean, you’re delusional. You saw a random post online and assumed it was me? You need serious psychological help.” The officers looked back at me, their suspicion shifting. “I didn’t make this up,” I insisted, keeping my voice steady. “The police tech department can easily trace the IP address of that account. It will lead straight to her phone.” At the mention of a digital forensics trace, Chelsea’s smirk withered. Diane immediately stepped between us, trying to salvage the bank’s reputation. “Officers, it seems this is all just a terrible misunderstanding. Mr. Reynolds is understandably stressed about his missing assets. We appreciate your prompt response, but we can handle the rest of this internally.” The officers nodded, preparing to leave. The other employees in the room were looking at me with pity and annoyance, clearly believing I was a paranoid rich man who had lost his mind. But as the police turned toward the exit, I stepped in front of them. “You can’t leave,” I said. “If this is my box, and it’s empty… where is my three million dollars in gold?” A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the vault. Everyone looked at Chelsea. Her face was entirely bloodless, her lips parted but silent. Diane’s eyes widened as the realization finally hit her. If the gold wasn’t in the box, and the box was empty, the bank was facing a catastrophic liability. “This box is empty,” I said softly, looking at the bare metal chamber of Box 777, “because this isn’t actually my box.” Chelsea exploded. “Sean, you’re insane! This is Box 777! Your key literally just opened it!” I didn’t argue. I walked over to the adjacent box, labeled Box 776. I slid my key into the lock. Chelsea lunged at me, screaming, “Stop! You can’t touch other clients’ property!” An officer grabbed her arm, holding her back as I turned the key. The lock clicked. I pulled the drawer open. Resting inside, wrapped in a cheap yellow ceremonial cloth, was a heavy ceramic urn.

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When my mother was struck by the car, Jack was the first to arrive at the scene. She dragged her cracked carbon-fiber prosthetic across the cold asphalt, her voice trembling as she whispered a desperate plea. “Please, don’t tell Grace. I’m fine, really…” Jack gave her a dismissive nod, turned his back, and helped the driver who had hit her into his passenger seat. He drove nearly half a mile down the suburban road before he finally remembered his mother-in-law. When he backed the SUV up to where she sat on the curb, his window rolled down only halfway. “There’s no room left in the car,” he said, his tone flat. “I’m taking Helen to the hospital first. I’ll come back for you when I’m done.” Helen was his childhood sweetheart’s mother. My mother’s face froze, her forced smile tightening. “Of course. I know you’re busy, Jack. Don’t worry about me.” She waited. She sat on that gravel shoulder from dawn until the sky turned a bruised, ink-black purple. Jack never came back. By the time the police finally reached me and I rushed to the scene, I found my mother huddled outside a small, run-down hardware shop. She was clutching her broken prosthetic, begging the elderly owner to help her glue it back together. “I can’t be a burden to my daughter,” she sobbed softly, her hands shaking. “Can you please just help me fix it?” She was covered in scrapes and bruises. When she had dragged herself toward the shop, she had left a thin, smear of dark blood on the pavement. When she finally saw me, she forced a weak, reassuring smile. “Don’t be mad at Jack, sweetheart.” “It’s just a plastic leg. It doesn’t even hurt. Please don’t fight with your husband. It’s not worth it.” My chest tightened, a sharp, suffocating pain spreading through my ribs. Right then, my phone buzzed. It was Jack. Under my mother’s anxious, pleading gaze, I pressed answer. Before I could even open my mouth to demand answers, his voice came through the line, cold and transactional. “Helen has a hairline fracture. Bella has to work late and can’t take care of her. Get over to the hospital and help out.” Listening to his casual, demanding tone, a strange, sudden stillness settled over me. In that quiet moment, I realized something with absolute clarity: this marriage was over. … “I’m fine, Grace. Go on. Don’t let me keep you from your life,” my mother whispered. She held the broken prosthetic tight against her chest like a shield. “We can just get this patched up. It won’t cost much.” “Mom,” I said, wrapping my arms around her as I fought back the tears stinging my eyes. “I have money. We’re going to the emergency room.” She shook her head, her weathered face lined with deep anxiety. “Jack works so hard for that money. You shouldn’t argue with him over hospital bills.” “Who is that?” Jack’s voice cut through the phone speaker, his brow practically audible in his irritation. “The billing department is pressing me for the copay. Just get down here and watch Helen. I’m hanging up.” “Go, Grace. Don’t make him angry,” my mother urged, gently pushing my shoulder. “I’ll just wait here at the shop.” I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. There was no universe in which a daughter should abandon her injured mother to nurse the woman who had run her down. Before I could speak, my mother’s calloused hand—rough from decades of hard labor—pressed against mine. “Please, Grace. Don’t let me be the reason your marriage falls apart.” She leaned down, trying to gather the jars of homemade apple butter that had spilled from her bicycle basket onto the gravel. “Jack loves apple butter,” she mumbled, her eyes glassy. “I made it myself. I wrapped the jars so carefully so they wouldn’t break…” Just then, a speeding sedan roared past, its heavy tires crushing the jars. The sweet, spiced preserve splattered across the dark asphalt, mixed with dirt and shattered glass. My mother froze. She stared at the mess, her shoulders sinking. “How did they break? I… I can go back to the house and make more. Jack really likes it…” “Mom!” I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled her into my arms, burying my face in her shoulder. “We’re not making any more. We’re done.” A sleek black SUV pulled up to the curb, and Jack stepped out, followed closely by Bella. Through the tinted glass of the rear window, I saw a giant, plush white rabbit doll belted securely into the backseat. It took up the entire row. Bella loved rabbits. So that was why there was “no room” for my mother. But the front passenger seat was completely empty. Why hadn’t he let her sit there? Then I remembered. The year Jack bought the car, I had reached for the front passenger door. He had caught my wrist, his expression tightening. “Bella and I have a rule. The front seat is hers. If she sees you sitting there, she’ll feel replaced.” I had stared at him, bewildered. “But I’m your wife.” “And because you’re my wife, you should be understanding,” Jack had replied, lighting a cigarette. “Bella comes from a broken home. She’s sensitive. You’re the mature one here, Grace. Can’t you just let her have this?” So I let her have it. I never sat in that seat again. But this was an emergency. Was my mother’s life not even worth a stupid passenger seat rule? I helped my mother up, begging the shop owner to let her sit on a plastic stool for a moment. “Grace,” my mother pleaded, grabbing my wrist. “Don’t fight. It’s not worth it.” I patted her hand gently. “I know, Mom. I’ve got this.” She let out a small breath, though her eyes remained wide with worry. “Thank you so much for coming down to help with the police report,” Bella said, wrapping her arm through Jack’s, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Do you think my mom will go to jail?” “Of course not,” Jack said, his voice dripping with professional confidence. “I’m a defense attorney, Bella. Based on what you told me, the other party was riding against traffic. It’s entirely their fault.” As the words left his mouth, his eyes drifted toward us, and he froze. For the first time, he seemed to actually see his mother-in-law—the woman who had worked herself to the bone to pay for his law school tuition. “Grace? What are you doing here?” Jack walked over, his brow furrowed. “Where is your mother?” The anger in my chest boiled over, but before I could speak, he snapped. “If she doesn’t know how to ride a motorized bicycle, she shouldn’t be on the road. Because of her recklessness, Helen is in a hospital bed.” I looked down at the twisted metal of my mother’s old cruiser bike. It was the same bike she had ridden before dawn every single morning, delivering homemade baked goods to local diners to put Jack through school. Through freezing rain and scorching summer heat, she had never missed a day. Even with a high fever, she would force herself out of bed. Whenever I begged her to rest, she would smile and say, “I don’t mind the cold, sweetie. As long as you and Jack get your degrees, I have no regrets.” “Jack, do you have a single shred of conscience left?” I screamed, my voice cracking. “Helen was driving on the wrong side of the road! She hit my mother! How dare you accuse her!” Jack scoffed. “Your mother barely reads traffic signs. Helen has a clean driving record. How could she possibly be the one driving illegally?” “Grace,” Bella sobbed, stepping forward. “I know you’ve never liked me, but you can’t just lie like this. Filing a false police report is a felony.” Jack nodded in agreement. “Even if she is my mother-in-law, I cannot compromise my professional ethics. I have to follow the law.” I clenched my fists. “I want the traffic camera footage.” My mother had lived her whole life with quiet dignity. I would not let them drag her name through the mud. Bella smirked. “Grace, you only want the footage because you know this stretch of road doesn’t have cameras. You’re trying to frame my mother.” Jack stepped between Bella and me, shielding her. “I know you’re defensive of your mother, but facts are facts. As an attorney, it is my duty to protect vulnerable victims like Helen.” “A vulnerable victim who drives a forty-thousand-dollar luxury SUV?” I demanded, laughing bitterly. “That SUV was a gift from Bella’s hard work. What does her car have to do with her being a victim?” Jack reached out, grabbing my wrist. “You’re hysterical right now. We’ll talk about this at home.” “No, we won’t,” I said, coldness washing over me as I yanked my arm back. “Jack, if you don’t want to treat my mother with respect, then we—” “Grace!” My mother cried out, slipping off the stool and tumbling onto the gravel. “Don’t argue. Please.” “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.” Without her prosthetic, she couldn’t stand. She dragged herself across the dirt toward me, her eyes wild with panic. “I shouldn’t have come to town. I’m the one who caused all this trouble.” She began hitting her own thigh in frustration. “An old, useless cripple like me should have stayed in the countryside. Why did I have to come here?” “Mom, stop. It’s not your fault,” I whispered, my throat tight, feeling as though I were choking on broken glass. I knelt down and hoisted her onto my back, just like I used to when her leg first failed her. “We’re going to the hospital. I’m not fighting anymore.” “It’s just a few scratches,” she whispered against my neck. “Let’s not waste money.” “We can just endure it. It’ll pass.” Five years ago, when a heavy truck crushed her leg on a construction site, she had said the exact same thing. “It doesn’t hurt, Grace. Keep the insurance money for your wedding. I can endure it.” She had spent her whole life enduring. “Mom,” I whispered, tears finally spilling over. “I’m grown up now. We don’t have to endure this anymore.” There were no cabs in this part of town. I kicked off my high heels, carrying my mother down the shoulder of the dark road. Jack marched after me, his face dark with embarrassment. “Stop throwing a tantrum, Grace. Do you have any idea how bad this looks? What will people think of me if they see you walking like this?” He unlocked the rear door of his SUV. “Get in.” My mother squeezed my neck, whispering, “Go on, Grace. He’s throwing you a lifeline. Don’t be stubborn.” “I can walk. You go with Jack. I’ll just find a pharmacy and buy some pain patches.” I bit my lip. If I kept walking like this, we wouldn’t reach the hospital until midnight. I swallowed my pride, looking at Jack. “Jack, please. For the sake of everything my mother did to support you when you had nothing, please just drive her to the emergency room. I’m begging you.” “I’m not a monster, Grace,” Jack muttered, checking his watch. “Just get her in the back.” I carefully placed my mother onto the leather seat. She sat there stiffly, clutching the hem of her faded cardigan. “I’m sorry… I’m getting dirt on your clean car.” “How could you be dirty, Mom?” I said, my voice shaking. “When someone left Jack on our doorstep in a cardboard box when he was a baby, you didn’t think he was too dirty to hold.” “That was a lifetime ago! Why do you always have to bring up the past?” Jack snapped, his pride wounded. “Have I not paid you back? Who do you think bought her that prosthetic leg?” My mother had taken a grueling job at a brick factory just to pay for Jack’s freshman year of college. That was where her accident happened. The meager settlement money she received was what paid for the rest of his law degree and got him his first internship. I walked around to the passenger side, reaching for the door handle. Before my fingers could touch it, Bella slipped past me, sliding into the front seat. “Sorry, Grace. You know the rules.” Jack started the engine, not even looking at me. “The hospital is only twelve miles away. You can walk. It’ll give you time to clear your head.” “Yeah,” I said, looking through the window at my mother. “I’ll walk. Mom, Jack is your son-in-law. He’ll make sure you’re taken care of.” Before I could finish, Jack hit the gas, and the SUV sped away into the dark. My mother pressed her face against the rear window, crying out my name until the red taillights vanished into the night. I wiped my face, walked back to the hardware store, and picked up her broken prosthetic. She was so careful with her belongings; she would grieve if it were lost. The shop owner, a kind man in his late fifties, looked at me with pity. “Was that your husband?” “He… he…” The old man stammered, his face flushing with anger, unable to find the words. Finally, he let out a long sigh. “Look, I was taking a video of the sunset on my phone earlier. I caught the whole accident on camera. Your mother didn’t do anything wrong.” By the time I walked into the hospital lobby, it was past ten o’clock. I found my mother sitting on the concrete steps outside the emergency room entrance, her empty pant leg fluttering in the cold night breeze. I had no idea how long she had been sitting out there in the damp air. I wrapped my coat around her shoulders and handed her the prosthetic. “Where is Jack? Did he just leave you on the steps?” My mother nervously rubbed her fingers together. “He’s a busy man, Grace. I told him I could manage.” She reached deep into her inner pocket and pulled out a small, worn handkerchief, unfolding it to reveal her life savings. “I have money. You don’t need to worry, and you don’t need to ask Jack for anything.” She pulled out three crumpled hundred-dollar bills and pressed them into my palm. “Take this. Go buy yourself a warm meal, and go home to your husband.” But how could a house be a home if there was no room in it for my mother? My eyes burned with unshed tears. My mother looked at the broken plastic leg in my arms. “The handyman can fix it. It’ll be fine. When you get old, you learn not to be a nuisance to your children.” Just yards away, the automatic sliding doors opened. Jack was gently guiding Helen out, his voice warm and attentive. “Don’t worry about the car being totaled, Helen. I have some savings. I’ll make sure Bella gets you a brand-new crossover next week.” “Children earn money to take care of their parents, after all.” I stared at the crumpled bills in my hand, remembering the thirty thousand dollars Jack had withdrawn from our joint account five days ago, claiming he was making a “low-risk investment.” It hadn’t been an investment at all. He was using our marital assets to buy a luxury vehicle for another woman’s mother. Bella walked beside them, her face bright. “Jack, I don’t know what I would have done without you. Finding the right doctors, getting her a private room… you’re a lifesaver.” Jack smiled down at her. “Don’t say that. We grew up together. Your mother is my mother.” “Then what about my mother?” I asked, stepping into their path. “When you were abandoned on a doorstep, dying of a congenital heart defect, my mother spent every penny she had to save your life!” Jack stopped in his tracks, his eyes widening slightly as he noticed my blistered, dusty feet. He frowned. “You’re let-down and emotional right now, Grace. I’m not going to argue with you here.” He stepped forward, grabbing my arm. “You don’t have to worry about your mother going to jail anymore. I’ve personally convinced Helen to sign a liability waiver. All you have to do now is stay in Helen’s room and nurse her until she’s discharged. Consider it an apology on your mother’s behalf.” “We don’t need her waiver!” I spat, my voice rising. “You spent thirty thousand dollars on her car. How much of our money did you spend on her hospital suite?” Tears finally spilled over my cheeks. “My mother has been gluing a cheap prosthetic leg together for five years because she didn’t want to spend five thousand dollars on a replacement. Where is your conscience, Jack? Did you leave it in the gutter?” My mother reached out to stop me, but when she saw the look in my eyes, her hand fell away. Jack’s face hardened. “You’re acting crazy again. I’m not going to humiliate myself by engaging with this.” “If you’re so independent, stop using my credit cards.” I froze. The year we both graduated from law school, Jack had held my hands and said, “Let me take care of you. Step back from the firm track, let me build the practice, and I’ll build us a life.” I had turned down a prestigious clerkship so he could take the associate slot. Over the years, “let me take care of you” had slowly turned into “I support you.” Jack sighed, his tone dripping with patronizing exhaustion. “I don’t even know why you’re angry. Your mother caused an accident. I settled the matter quietly. Isn’t that what a good husband does?” “You asked me to bring her to the hospital. I did. Her injuries are minor. I told her to check herself in, but she insisted on sitting out here in the cold to make me look bad. What else do you want from me?” In his mind, my mother was too uneducated to understand traffic lights, yet perfectly capable of navigating a complex hospital registration system alone. “Jack,” I whispered, looking down at my shoes. “I’m sorry. Can I please have the bank card? My mother needs to be admitted.” He let out a dry, mocking laugh, pulled a silver card from his wallet, and dropped it onto the dirty, wet concrete, stepping on it with his polished leather shoe. “You’re asking the wrong person. You should be asking Bella and Helen.” My mother pulled on my sleeve. “Grace, don’t… I’m fine.” How could she be fine? “Mom,” I whispered. “You’ve endured enough.” I turned to Bella, my voice hollow. “I’m sorry. Please forgive us.” Bella smirked, tossing her hair. “Your apology doesn’t sound very sincere, Grace. Actually, I think I’ve changed my mind. I think we should press charges for hit-and-run.” I clenched my fists. She only felt this confident because she thought I had no proof, and she had a hotshot defense attorney in her corner. Just as I was about to tell her about the shop owner’s video, Jack reached down, picked up the card, and slid it back into his pocket. “Next time, watch your tone,” he said coldly. “Once Bella decides to forgive you, you can come ask me for the money.” He guided Helen toward the elevator. “Excuse us. We have an appointment for her MRI. Don’t block the hallway.” As Bella walked past, she intentionally shoved her shoulder into mine. Losing my balance on my blistered feet, I fell sideways onto the hard tile. The broken prosthetic fell from my arms, clattering to the floor. Bella didn’t pause. She brought her high heel down right onto the carbon-fiber socket, cracking it completely down the middle. In the elevator, Jack’s expression flinched. But before he could say a word, the steel doors slid shut, cutting them off from view. A ragged, desperate sob tore from my throat. This was the marriage I had sacrificed my career for. This was the man I had loved. It was rotten to the core. My mother scrambled off the steps, her eyes wild with panic as she saw me break down. “Grace, sweetie, I’m okay. Really, I’m okay. Please don’t cry.” But her leg was gone. She could only drag herself toward me across the sterile hospital floor. Our despair drew a crowd of staring onlookers. “Grace?” A deep, cultured voice sounded above me. I looked up through my tears and saw Lucas, my former constitutional law professor. Using his professional connections at the hospital, he bypassed the bureaucracy and had my mother admitted into a private room within twenty minutes. An hour later, Jack walked into the room, his face dark with disapproval. “Why aren’t you down in Helen’s room helping her? What are you doing up here?” I didn’t look at him. I quietly reviewed my mother’s medical charts, noting down her scheduled tests in my phone. He walked over, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper. “If you don’t show some remorse, how is Bella supposed to forgive you?” “I don’t want my mother going to jail over this.” “So?” I raised my head, my eyes dead. “Is that why you’ve spent the evening playing savior to Bella and her mother?” Jack’s expression remained perfectly smooth. “I am an officer of the court. I am objective.” “Don’t let your petty jealousy ruin Bella’s reputation.” I started to laugh. It was a terrible, empty sound, and tears slipped down my face as I laughed. You can never wake someone who is pretending to be asleep. But it was fine. I didn’t need his love anymore. Jack’s phone rang. It was Bella. “Jack, my mom is in so much pain. I’m so scared…” “I’m coming,” he said, his voice softening instantly. He left the room without a single backward glance. Later, as I wheeled my mother down to the radiology department, we passed the billing desk. Jack was standing there, his wallet out. “I’m here to settle the bill for Mary Vance.” The nurse behind the counter frowned at him. “Sir, can you please stop wasting our time? Her account has already been paid in full. There is a massive credit on her file.” “Paid?” Jack’s brow furrowed. “Who paid for Grace’s mother?” “Jack!” Bella called out from down the hall, waving her hand. “The doctor is ready for us!” He didn’t have time to process it. He turned and ran toward her. As he passed me in the crowded hallway, his eyes stayed glued to his phone. He never even noticed me standing there. When we reached the CT room, the technician looked at my mother’s paperwork and sighed. “I’m sorry, dear. Your mother’s slot was just taken by an emergency referral.” I felt a cold dread pool in my stomach. “But we had this scheduled. My mother has potential internal bleeding.” The nurse looked at my mother’s frail form and whispered, “I know, but an attorney from the hospital’s legal board pulled strings. He bumped his client’s mother to the front of the line. It was the last slot of the day.” I felt a tug on my sleeve. My mother looked up at me, her eyes filled with quiet shame. “Grace… did I cause trouble again?” Before I could answer, the door to the CT room opened. Jack was gently guiding Helen out. “I told you it wasn’t a big deal,” Helen was saying, her voice perfectly strong. “You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.” Bella giggled, leaning against Jack’s shoulder. “That’s just because Jack cares about you.” A fuse blew in my mind. I slipped the gold band off my left ring finger and threw it hard against Jack’s chest. “I want a divorce.” Jack’s face hardened, his jaw tightening. “That’s impossible.” “Oh, sweetie,” Bella purred, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across her face. “Does she really not know? Jack, you didn’t tell her?” She turned to me, her voice dripping with venomous glee. “The year you guys ‘got married,’ I had a little panic attack because I didn’t want to lose him. So Jack promised me he’d never actually file the marriage license at the courthouse. He forged the clerk’s stamp on your copy just to keep you quiet.” “You can’t divorce someone you were never legally married to, Grace.” A strange, beautiful lightness bloomed in my chest. No marriage. No legal ties. No lingering obligations. I looked Jack dead in the eye, pulled out my phone, and dialed the local police precinct. “Hello. I’d like to report a hit-and-run.”

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The night before our wedding, we hosted a dinner for Burke’s colleagues to distribute the invitations. It was supposed to be a celebration. But my gaze kept snagging on the opposite end of the long mahogany table. Burke was sitting there, his eyes fixed on a girl named Summer Lane. Through their shared audio app, he was playing a song—only audible to the two of them. I knew the track. It was “Almost Lover” by A Fine Frenzy. On his screen, the single-loop interface showed only two connected listeners. Just them. Yet they sat at opposite ends of the table, pretending to be strangers who barely knew each other’s names. I watched Burke as he poured my sparkling water with one hand, his left earbud still snugly in place. A sudden, cold wave of absurdity washed over me. 1 I remembered Summer. When she interviewed at Harrington MedTech, she had been so nervous she could barely string a sentence together. It was me who had pulled the HR director aside and asked them to give her another chance to present her portfolio. That second chance was her ticket into Burke’s company. Back then, she wore faded, off-brand clothes and cheap flats. Now, only a few years into her tenure, she was draped in Chanel and Cartier. As I lost myself in thought, one of the senior directors raised his glass. “No excuses tonight, everyone. Let’s fill our glasses and toast to Burke and Lorraine! To a lifetime of happiness.” Burke, who hadn’t said more than three words all evening, suddenly spoke up. His voice was cool, authoritative. “Let’s skip the alcohol. I’ve never cared for toxic drinking culture in the office.” The table fell instantly silent. The director, trying to save face, offered a playful nudge. “Ah, of course. Lorraine probably can’t drink, and our boss is just playing the protective fiancé.” I set my glass down, a tight, practiced smile on my face. “Actually, I can hold my liquor just fine.” That was when Summer timidly raised her hand. “It’s actually me. I can’t drink tonight. Please, don’t mind me, everyone else should go ahead.” She looked around, shrinking into her seat. “Could the server bring me some mil—” Before she could finish, a pitcher of warm milk was placed directly in front of Burke. “Your milk, sir,” the waiter said. Burke adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, his expression carefully neutral. “Put it across from me,” he murmured. Summer glanced at me, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk playing on her lips as she took the pitcher. As she sipped the milk, her eyes kept drifting back to Burke. Their gazes met, lingered, and pulled away—thick with a silent, heavy tension. The rest of the table, feeling the mood stall, started clamoring for Burke and me to do a traditional couples’ toast. Burke had barely lifted his glass when Summer suddenly pouted, dropped her silverware onto her plate with a sharp “clack”, and stood up. “It’s suffocating in here,” she muttered. “I need some air.” She hurried out of the private dining room. The anxiety on Burke’s face was instantaneous and entirely unguarded. He slammed his glass back onto the table. “Is everyone here really that bored?” he snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut. “If you have time for these childish games, maybe you’d prefer to go back to the office and log some overtime.” The room froze. Nobody dared to make another sound. Within seconds, Burke stood up and followed her out. I offered a few polite, rehearsed apologies to the table to quiet the room, then made a quiet excuse of my own to slip out. The service stairwell was narrow and heavy with gray smoke. Burke, who detested the smell of tobacco and was notoriously obsessive about keeping his clothes pristine, was crouching on the concrete floor. He didn’t seem to care about the smoke at all. Instead, he was carefully examining Summer’s leg, tending to a tiny scrape she’d gotten when she pushed her chair back. This was Burke Harrington—the cold, untouchable, high-society heir. And yet, from his breast pocket, he pulled out a cartoon Band-Aid. A colorful, childish strip he kept ready for her. Summer’s soft, wet whimpers echoed in the quiet stairwell. Burke stood up, gently plucking the cigarette from her fingers. “Stop smoking. It’s bad for you.” “Why do you care, Burke?” she whispered, her eyes flashing with stubborn defiance. “In what capacity are you even speaking to me?” Burke leaned down, his lips brushing away her tears. His voice held a tenderness I had never, in all our years together, heard him use. “Summer, please. Don’t cry. Every tear you shed tears me apart.” “You know how I feel. I don’t love her. This wedding… it’s just a family arrangement. A merger of assets.” “Do you honestly think I enjoy playing the doting fiancé to someone I don’t care about? Do you think I’m not suffocating?” “Someone I don’t care about.” The words vibrated in my chest. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. Instead, hot, silent tears began to spill down my cheeks, soaking into the collar of my coat. I had never realized that being with me was a cage for him. A source of agony. Yes, our families had arranged it. But long before our parents ever shook hands on the deal, I had loved Burke Harrington. I had loved him in secret, with a desperation born of survival. My childhood had been a living hell. After my mother died young—broken by my father’s endless affairs—my stepmother, Theresa, moved in. She made sure I knew my place. Her own children wore designer labels; I wore the stained hand-me-downs the housekeepers didn’t want. They ate fresh meals; I was left with the scraps. At school, I was the weird, quiet girl who smelled like old closets. I was isolated, mocked. When I begged my father to help, he only told me to keep my head down. “For the sake of family peace”, he said. The lowest point came when I was sixteen. I was standing in a drugstore aisle, staring at a box of pads I couldn’t afford, tears of sheer humiliation stinging my eyes. Burke had walked in with his friends. He saw me hovering there, pale and terrified. Without a word, he grabbed every single box of pads on the shelf and dumped them on the counter. His friends laughed, teasing him. “What, Burke? Are you having a medical emergency?” “Yeah,” he had replied, utterly indifferent. “So what?” When they walked out, he dragged me into the empty alley behind the store, shoved the heavy plastic bag into my hands, and ran off to his basketball game before I could even whisper a thank you. Later, at a high-society charity gala, Burke’s grandmother, Margaret, had openly pressured my father. She made it clear that if the Thorntons didn’t start treating me like a daughter, the Harringtons would sever every joint venture. After that night, my life improved. My father finally gave me an allowance, a room of my own. And I fell head over heels for Burke. I spent the next decade chasing his shadow. When he declared his dream was AI-driven medical research, I threw myself into medicine. I forced myself to study until my eyes bled, transforming from a failing student into the top graduate of my class. All so I could be his most valuable researcher. I thought we were building a life. But to him, it was just a transaction. In the stairwell, Summer wasn’t easily appeased. She pushed his chest away. “But she’s still the one standing at the altar with you.” Burke reached up, unbuttoning the top of his shirt to reveal his collarbone. “Have you forgotten? We tattooed each other’s kiss marks right here, over our hearts.” “When I stand there tomorrow, I’ll be wearing your mark. In my mind, I’m marrying you.” Looking at his chest, my knees turned to water. A sickening wave of grief rushed up my throat. I remembered the first time I had seen that tattoo on him. I had thought it was a beautiful, spontaneous piece of art. Out of a foolish, romantic whim, I had pressed my own lips to paper, taken the print to a parlor, and had it tattooed in the exact same spot on my chest. When Burke saw it, his face had contorted into pure disgust. “Get it removed,” he had cold-facedly demanded. “It doesn’t suit you.” He had personally driven me to the clinic and watched as the laser burned the ink out of my skin. At the time, I believed him. I thought I had just been tacky. Now I knew the truth. It wasn’t the tattoo that didn’t suit him. It was me. I didn’t have the strength to listen anymore. I slipped back to the dining room. A few minutes later, Summer returned, claiming she felt unwell, and gathered her things. Burke stood up immediately. “I’ll drive you.” Summer made a half-hearted attempt to refuse, but Burke grabbed her wrist, his grip firm and unyielding. “Let’s go.” Even his colleagues, as oblivious as they tried to pretend to be, could see what was happening. They kept shooting me side-long glances of deep, agonizing pity. With the groom gone, the dinner collapsed into awkward small talk. I thanked everyone, settled the bill, and walked out to the garage. My car was gone. Burke had taken it to drive Summer home, leaving me stranded at a restaurant on the absolute edge of the city. I ended up hitching a ride with one of his junior engineers. It was past midnight when I finally walked through the front door. The house was dead silent. The clock on the wall ticked loudly, measuring the empty space. My eyes drifted toward the door of Burke’s home office. Before I realized what I was doing, I was sitting in front of his computer. There were no texts between them on his phone, and they barely interacted in the company-wide Slack channels. But as I dug deeper, the pattern emerged in the public logs. Whenever Summer posted a simple, “So tired,” Burke would instantly order gourmet espresso catering for the entire office and send out a memo delaying start times by an hour. When Summer shared photos of a snowy resort in Finland, the HR department miraculously announced a fully funded winter retreat to Lapland a week later. Burke, who famously loathed video games and viewed them as a waste of productive time, had a desktop shortcut for a cozy sandbox life-simulator. My hand shook as I clicked it. The screen opened to a beautifully rendered virtual cottage, decorated with meticulous, romantic detail. The chat logs inside were a diary of their domestic life. “Don’t forget to come home early tonight, B.” “Can you make that pasta dish I like?” They had a real home somewhere. A real life. And Burke answered every single one of her messages with endless patience. My own texts with him were a desert of green bubbles—me sending paragraphs, him sending single-word acknowledgments. I had never even tasted his cooking. He had always told me he didn’t know how to boil water. But it was the logs from July of last year that shattered whatever remained of my heart. “Summer: “Are you sure that sterile ice queen won’t be furious when she finds out you gave me her kidney?” “Burke: “Let her be mad. She’s so obsessed with me, all I have to do is whisper a few sweet words and she’ll convince herself it’s fine.” My breath caught. It felt as though a massive, jagged stone had been shoved down my throat. Last July, Burke had supposedly suffered sudden renal failure. I was the only match. I hadn’t hesitated for a single second. I signed the donor consent forms with a heart full of desperate gratitude, thinking I was giving him back his life. I had walked around for a year feeling proud that a piece of me was keeping him alive. It was all a lie. He had staged the medical emergency to steal my kidney for Summer. The log continued. “Summer: “But I heard losing a kidney can affect fertility. Don’t you want her to have your babies?” “Burke: “No. I only want children with you. If she gets pregnant, I’ll pay for the kid, but I’ll never love it. It’ll be just like her.” Every word was a scalpel, peeling back my delusions until my love for him was completely, irrevocably dead. I scrolled further and found design blueprints. Burke was planning a massive, secret ceremony for Summer in Europe, scheduled just weeks after our official wedding. He had hand-drawn the venue layout, incorporating every single detail she loved. He had spent six months collaborating with an elite designer on her custom gown. Meanwhile, our own wedding prep had been a chore he outsourced entirely. Whenever I dragged him to see florists or caterers, he sat in the corner on his phone, telling me to just pick whatever and send him the invoice. I remembered seeing a sketch of that custom gown on his phone months ago. I had been breathless, pointing at it and saying how much I loved the silhouette. He had snatched the phone away, his eyes turning ice-cold. “Is it yours to want?” he had snapped. Seeing my shock, he had quickly softened his tone. “A friend designed it for his fiancée. If you like it, I’ll get someone to make you something else.” I had never heard of any friend getting married. Now I knew why. My vision blurred with tears. I don’t know how I stood up from that chair. My legs felt like lead, every step heavy and hollow. I picked up my phone and dialed the chief of medicine at the university hospital. “Dr. Fletcher,” I whispered. “I’m calling to accept the volunteer position. I’ll go to the humanitarian mission in the Middle East.” There was a pause on the line. “Lorraine? But aren’t you getting married tomorrow?” “The wedding is off,” I said, my voice steadying. “My life is too short to waste. My training belongs where it actually matters.” Dr. Fletcher let out a breath, a mix of shock and profound relief. “We need doctors like you out there, Lorraine. Welcome to the team.” As soon as I hung up, a text popped up from the junior engineer who had driven me home. “Lorraine, I’m sorry to overstep… but if you have a chance, you should go look at the townhouse on Mercer Street. The one registered under Burke’s name.” A cold dread settled in my stomach. I took a deep breath, grabbed my coat, and called a cab. Before I left this life behind, I needed to close the ledger. The townhouse was our designated “matrimonial home,” a property my father had gifted us. I hadn’t been back since the interior designers finished their work. When I pressed my thumb to the scanner, the lock beeped red. “Access Denied.” My fingerprint had been deleted. I rang the bell. The door opened, and Summer stood there. She was wearing Burke’s white button-down, the hem barely reaching her mid-thigh, her hair damp from the shower. She didn’t look startled to see me. If anything, a spark of triumphant excitement lit up her eyes. She leaned against the doorframe, smirk in place. “What are you doing here, Lorraine? Burke is sleeping. If you have something to say, say it to me. Let’s not wake him.” A bitter laugh escaped me. “This is my house. The deed is in my family’s name. You don’t tell me where to stand. Get out of my way.” Summer excelled at smugness, stepping aside with an inviting wave of her hand. “Go ahead. See for yourself.” The moment I crossed the threshold, the last of my composure shattered. Hanging on the main living room wall was a massive, hand-painted portrait of Burke and Summer in wedding attire. The entire adjacent wall was a collage of polaroids—their travels across Europe, laughing in Paris, kissing in Rome. On the dining table sat matching cartoon mugs—the kind of childish home decor Burke had always sneered at when I suggested it. Summer leaned against the wall, her voice dripping with venomous satisfaction. “Shocked? I told you not to come in. But you just couldn’t help yourself.” “Let me guess. He’s never spent a Valentine’s Day with you, has he? Or an anniversary? You actually believed he was working late at the lab. And while you were lying in that hospital bed, recovering from ‘saving his life,’ do you know where he was?” She stepped closer, her eyes flashing. “He was right here. With me. Letting me take care of him… in every way possible.” I stood frozen, completely numb. “Want to guess why I can’t drink tonight?” Summer whispered, her smile widening. “Because we just lost a baby. Burke was a little too… enthusiastic last week. But don’t worry, we’ll make another one soon.” “So tell me, Lorraine. Who do you think is his real wife?” Something inside my brain snapped. I lunged forward, grabbing her shoulders, my voice cracking into a scream. “Shut up! You’re living in my house, spending the money I helped build, sleeping in my bed! You’re nothing but a pathetic, desperate thief!” “Oh, please,” Summer sneered, pushing me back. “Look around. Does this place look like it belongs to you? In a relationship, the one who isn’t loved is the real intruder.” The remaining fragments of my sanity dissolved. I went wild. I grabbed the cartoon mugs and threw them against the wall, watching them shatter. I tore down the polaroids, smashed the glass frames, and grabbed Summer by the arm, dragging her toward the door. The noise finally woke Burke. As soon as he stepped into the hallway, Summer’s defiance melted into trembling terror. She wrenched herself from my grip and threw herself into his arms. “Burke! She just burst in and started breaking everything! She called me terrible names, she hit me… I’m so scared!” “Am I really a bad person, Burke?” Burke, always so obsessed with his public image, immediately wrapped his arms around her, shielding her face from the open doorway where neighbors were beginning to gather. Then, he turned his ice-cold eyes to me. “Who are you? Why have you broken into my home to harass my wife?” The words felt like physical blows. I stared at him, my mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out. Seven years. Seven years of my life, and I was a nameless intruder. My silence only fueled the whispers of the neighbors gathered in the hallway. I could feel their eyes on me—curious, disgusted, judging. Burke wasn’t done. He tightened his grip on Summer. “Look, lady. I don’t care how obsessed you are with me, or what kind of sick fantasy you have. But you do not touch my wife. She is my red line. Do you understand?” I stood there, feeling as though a bucket of freezing water had been poured over my head. My chest ached with a physical, crushing weight. “Burke,” I finally managed to whisper. “Say that again. Tell them who I am.” Perhaps it was the sheer, hollow despair in my voice, but for a fraction of a second, a flicker of guilt crossed his face. But then Summer whimpered, burying her face in his chest, and his expression hardened. “Get out of our house before I call security and have you arrested for trespassing.” I looked at him. Really looked at him. And for the first time, I saw him clearly. I nodded slowly. “Fine, Burke. If this is what you want, I accept it.” My sudden calm seemed to unnerve him. Usually, when we fought, my eyes were filled with tears and a desperate plea for him to love me. Now, there was nothing. Just empty space. But Summer wasn’t satisfied with a quiet exit. “Wait, Burke. She can’t just wreck our place and walk away. She has to apologize to me.” Burke looked down at her, his voice softening into that sickeningly sweet tone. “Of course, sweetheart. No one gets to hurt our princess.” He stepped forward and grabbed my wrist. “Apologize to Summer.” I cold-facedly wrenched my arm back. “I have nothing to apologize for.” Burke’s face darkened. “You still don’t think you’re in the wrong? Fine. I know how to make you understand.” Ten minutes later, a familiar, hurried figure pushed through the crowd of neighbors. Before I could even blink, a palm cracked sharply across my face. “Lorraine! How dare you embarrass me like this!” Theresa, my stepmother, stood there, her face contorted in manufactured outrage. “To think you would stalk Mr. Harrington and harass his poor wife! You are an absolute disgrace to this family!” I held my burning cheek, staring at her through a wave of dizziness. “What are you looking at? Kneel down and beg Mrs. Harrington’s forgiveness right now!” she shrieked, her voice scraping against my nerves. The shrill, abusive tone triggered a physical reaction, dragging me instantly back to the dark terrors of my childhood. Back then, the teenage Burke would have stepped between us. He would have told her, “Don’t touch her. I’ve got her back. The Harringtons will take care of her.” But now, he stood behind my tormentor, watching coldly, using the woman who had abused me to force me to my knees. Seeing my hesitation, Theresa leaned in, her voice dropping to a vicious whisper. “You know your mother’s urn is still in our family mausoleum, Lorraine. One word from me to your father, and she’ll be thrown into a public ditch.” The threat was clear. I was entirely out of options. Slowly, my knees hit the hardwood floor. “I’m sorry, Summer,” I said, staring at the floorboards. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have coveted your husband. I beg for your forgiveness.” “Is that enough?” Summer let out a pleased, delicate sigh, pulling Burke back into the apartment. The door slammed shut in my face. Through the thin wood, I could hear the faint, happy murmur of their voices. I slowly got to my feet, walked down the stairs, and went back to my apartment to pack. When I was almost finished, my phone buzzed with a message from Burke. “Summer likes that townhouse. Let her keep it. I’ll buy you a better place in the suburbs.” “Be a good girl, Lorraine. Stop throwing tantrums, and your place as my legal wife won’t change.” I stared at the screen and let out a soft laugh. Even now, he was entirely convinced that my love for him was an incurable disease. That I would accept any crumb he threw my way. I didn’t reply. I blocked his number, deleted his contact, and wiped every trace of him from my phone. Right before I boarded my flight, I made one final move. Using a scheduled broadcast email, I sent a mass notification to every member of the Harrington and Thornton families, informing them of a “venue change” for our wedding. The coordinates I sent were for the lavish, secret European ceremony Burke had planned for Summer. I hoped he would enjoy my wedding gift. Then, I boarded the plane to the Middle East.

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It was only on my deathbed that I learned the truth: my wife hadn’t perished in that tragic shipwreck after all. Instead, she had slipped away across the ocean, living a golden life in a foreign land and growing old with the only man she had ever truly loved—her high school sweetheart. And the boy I had raised as my own, spending every penny of my meager savings to put him through school? While I lay there hooked up to a squeaking monitor, wasting away, he quietly opened our front door and welcomed his mother and her “first love” inside. When I gathered the last of my strength to demand an explanation, my son turned on me with cold indifference. “I’ve always known Mom was alive,” he sneered. “Honestly, you were just suffocating to live with. If you hadn’t forced her to marry you back then, she wouldn’t have had to fake her own death to escape you.” Chloe looked down at me, her eyes holding nothing but a cool, detached pity. She reached into her handbag and pressed a yellowed, folded piece of paper into my trembling palm. It was the frantic cry for help she had written to me decades ago. “Drew, Brody wrote this on your desk as a stupid prank,” she said softly. “I never actually expected you to be foolish enough to throw away your SATs and your scholarship just to come rescue me.” She sighed, a small, weary sound. “But I made it up to you. I married you, didn’t I? I even let you keep Toby with you. Even though he isn’t your biological child, I always believed you were too good of a man to care about that.” With those words, she turned and took Brody’s hand, her fingers sliding effortlessly into his. “If you hadn’t been so self-righteous back then, Brody and I wouldn’t have had to suffer through three years of separation before we could finally be together. If there is a next life, Drew… I hope you have the sense not to pick up that letter.” The sheer, suffocating betrayal stopped my breath. My heart gave out right there in that sterile hospital room, drowning in my own silent rage. But when I opened my eyes again, the smell of antiseptic was gone, replaced by the scent of old floor wax and cheap pencil lead. I was sitting at my old high school desk. It was the afternoon before the big scholarship exam. Staring down at the wrinkled envelope resting on the worn wood, I didn’t hesitate. I picked it up and threw it straight into the metal trash can at the front of the classroom. Chloe didn’t know the truth. Brody hadn’t been playing a harmless joke. He had actually hired those local thugs to corner her in that alleyway and ruin her exams. But this time, I wasn’t going to be the martyr. Without me playing the fool, I wanted to see exactly what kind of fairytale she would build out of the wreckage. … “What’s wrong, Drew? Zoning out? Didn’t you see the letter on your desk?” Brody’s smug, mocking voice broke through my thoughts. My eyes snapped fully open. The afternoon sun was spilling across the linoleum floor of our senior homeroom. It was indeed the day before the state scholarship exams. Sitting on my desk was the envelope with Chloe’s name scrawled across the front. In my previous life, under Brody’s watchful, sneering gaze, I hadn’t hesitated to tear it open. Inside had been a frantic, tear-stained note from Chloe. She wrote that Brody was planning to corner her in the alley behind the old diner on the morning of the exam, threatening to ruin her reputation and strip her of her dignity. Before I could even process the words back then, Brody had leaned over my shoulder, flashing a cruel grin. “Hey, Drew. Your family is so dirt-poor you probably share a single pair of jeans. You always act so high and mighty just because you get top marks. Let’s see what you care about more—the girl you’re obsessed with, or your precious future.” He had chuckled, tapping his knuckles on my desk. “Tomorrow morning, I’ve got a dozen guys waiting for her in the alley. If you don’t show up to play hero, Chloe’s going to have a very, very rough morning.” In my past life, those words had sent me into a blind rage. I had lunged across the aisle, throwing punches directly into Brody’s face. But before I could land a decisive blow, Chloe had rushed through the classroom door. Shielding Brody, she had pulled me back, allowing him to land several heavy hits. I had ended up black and blue on the classroom floor. Once Brody swaggered out, Chloe had offered me nothing but a brief, annoyed apology. I had thrust the letter into her hands, pleading, “Chloe, we have to go to the police. With this note and your statement, we can stop him before tomorrow.” Chloe’s face had gone rigid. When I practically dragged her to the steps of the local precinct, she had yanked her arm away, her eyes brimming with tears. “Drew, no! If we go to the police, everyone will find out. My reputation will be ruined before I even finish high school. Besides, the exam is tomorrow. I need to go home and study.” She had fled before I could stop her. Back then, I thought she was just terrified of Brody’s rich, influential family. So the next morning, when I saw Brody and his crew actually cornering her in that damp alleyway, I had swallowed my fear and thrown myself into the fight. I took the brunt of the blows, shielding her with my body while screaming, “Chloe! Run! Get help! Call the school!” She was trembling, but she didn’t look back. She just ran. I took a brutal beating for over an hour, waiting for the police or the school principal to arrive. No one came. Brody eventually broke my arm and my leg, leaving me bleeding on the gravel. He had spat on me and laughed. “You really thought she went to get help? She’s already in the exam hall, taking her test.” He left me there, broken and discarded like a stray dog. It wasn’t until the testing blocks were completely over that my uncle found me and took me to the emergency room. Chloe showed up hours later, offering tears and excuses. She claimed she was too paralyzed by fear, and she simply couldn’t bear the thought of missing the test that was her only ticket out of this town. Stupidly, I forgave her. But I pressed charges against Brody anyway. His father’s connections couldn’t fully bury the blatant assault, and he was sentenced to three years in a state penitentiary. The day his sentence was handed down, Chloe asked me to be her boyfriend. I thought it was love. I spent the next decade working double shifts to pay for her college tuition, eventually raising the baby she brought home. It took me a lifetime, lying on a sterile hospital mattress, to realize the agonizing truth. Chloe had known Brody’s plan all along. She had willingly played her part, viewing me as a pawn Brody used to crush my academic dreams. What she hadn’t realized was that Brody’s malice spared no one. He envied my academic brilliance, but he also resented her. He wanted both of our futures ruined. When Brody went to prison, Chloe married me under the guise of “making amends,” turning me into her personal ATM and a surrogate father for Brody’s child. And when Brody was finally released, she staged her own disappearance at sea, slipping away to rejoin him. Not this time. In this life, I stared Brody dead in the eye, took the letter that had once destroyed me, and dropped it into the trash can. Brody’s brow furrowed, his cocky expression faltering. He knew how hopelessly in love with Chloe I was—or at least, how much I used to be. She was supposed to be my Achilles’ heel. “What’s the matter, Drew?” Brody taunted, stepping closer. “You’re just going to let her get ruined? Or do you prefer your girls a little damaged?” I didn’t let the bait take. I kept my face blank, calmly sliding my exam prep books into my backpack. In my previous life, missing that exam had been a phantom limb that ached every single day. I had kept those old study guides, staring at the practice questions late at night in our cramped apartment, wondering what could have been. I had dreamed of going back to school, but I had always sacrificed my ambitions to support Chloe and Toby. Never again. Nobody’s drama was going to stand between me and my future. I looked up, meeting Brody’s gaze with absolute coldness. “Whatever you do to her is your business. It has nothing to do with me.” His eyes flashed with pure malice. Realizing his leverage was gone, he grabbed a heavy wooden chair, swinging it directly toward my arm. He wanted to break my hand so I couldn’t write the exam. Adrenaline surged through me. I dodged the swing, lunged forward, and tackled him to the floor. I pinned him down, raising my fist to strike, when the sharp whistle of rushing air cut through the room. A heavy blow crashed against the back of my skull. Warm, sticky blood immediately began to pour down my neck. I whipped my head around, my vision swimming in red, to see Chloe standing there, panting heavily, a broken wooden chair leg in her hands. She shoved me off Brody, instantly kneeling beside him to check his face for bruises, completely ignoring my bleeding head. When she finally looked up at me, her eyes were filled with disgust. “Drew, what the hell is wrong with you? Why are you hurting him?” I wiped the blood from my brow, pointing a finger at Brody. “He swung first.” A brief flicker of guilt crossed Chloe’s face when she saw the blood dripping down my cheek, but her brow quickly furrowed again. She scanned the messy classroom, her voice tightening. “Where is the letter?” I froze, studying her face. The defensive posture, the panic in her eyes… It hit me. She had returned too. And the very first thing she wanted to do was reclaim her evidence. A bitter laugh bubbled up in my chest. I pointed toward the trash can in the corner. She stared at the bin, disbelief washing over her features. But then relief took over. She fished the crumpled paper out and tore it into tiny, irreparable pieces. When she looked back at me, her expression was laced with that familiar, patronizing pity. “Drew, this letter was never meant for you anyway. It was just a joke Brody was playing. Don’t go making a big deal out of nothing and ruin our lives.” I let out a dry chuckle. “The only person ruining your life is standing right next to you. But as long as you’re willing to pay the price, I won’t interfere.” Chloe mistook my warning for jealousy. She tilted her chin up, adopting that high-and-mighty tone I had endured for decades. “Drew, I know you have feelings for me. But you and I are from different worlds. I only love Brody.” Without waiting for my reply, she helped Brody to his feet and guided him out of the room. Before they crossed the threshold, Brody threw a smug, triumphant grin over his shoulder. He didn’t realize that his taunts had lost all their power. Back at my tiny, rented apartment, I was sitting at the kitchen table, pressing a damp towel to my head, when the front door was kicked open. Brody swaggered in, with Chloe trailing right behind him. Seeing the open textbooks on the table, Chloe’s eyes flickered with a brief hesitation. But she quickly straightened, speaking with absolute entitlement. “Drew. You can’t take the exam tomorrow. In fact, you shouldn’t take it for the next two years.” A chill ran down my spine. Did she know I had returned? “No way,” I said, my voice hard. She waved her hand dismissively, as if my consent didn’t matter. “Brody doesn’t want you taking the test. He has weak lungs, and stress makes him sick. Just do this for me. Skip the exams.” Then, she added, like she was offering a grand prize, “If you do this, I’ll let you keep taking me out. Even when Brody and I are officially together, you can still be in my life.” Brody’s grin widened. “Yeah, Drew. You’re obsessed with her, aren’t you? Prove it. Throw away the exam for her.” I let out a cold, sharp laugh. “Chloe, what makes you think your presence in my life is worth my entire future?” Chloe sighed, looking at me with disappointment. “Drew, in our last life, you got Brody sent to prison for three years. His health was ruined in there. You owe him this.” She said it so casually, laying bare the truth of our past timeline. My chest tightened. But I quickly masked my shock with raw anger. “I don’t know what kind of delusional garbage you’re talking about,” I growled, pushing Brody toward the door. “Get the hell out of my apartment. I don’t owe him a damn thing!” Brody resisted my shove, his sneer turning vicious. “You’re just a parentless piece of trash, Drew. You belong in the gutter. You honestly think you’re going to use some test to climb out of it?” The red mist descended. I lunged, slamming my fist into his jaw. Brody went down, his face twisting with fury. “You worthless bastard!” he screamed, spitting blood onto the linoleum. “You think Chloe actually respects you? She’s nothing but my pet. I’m going to make sure you get thrown in a cell, just like your deadbeat father. You’ll die in some federal penitentiary, just like him!” That was the breaking point. I threw myself onto him, raining punches down. Suddenly, a stinging slap caught me across the face. Chloe threw her weight into me, shoving me back. As I went to lunge forward again, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small pocket knife, holding it tremblingly in front of her. “Drew, stop it!” she screamed. “Everything Brody said is true! You don’t have parents. Your father died in a federal prison because he was a criminal!” I froze, the air leaving my lungs. I stared at her, utterly shattered. She known my father had been set up. When they dragged him away years ago, Chloe had been the only one who held my hand, whispering that she believed in his innocence. That was the exact reason I had fallen for her. That was the reason I had once been willing to destroy my own life to save hers. Taking advantage of my shock, she pulled Brody up, shielding him behind her. She caught the look of absolute betrayal in my eyes, and for a fraction of a second, her hand shook. But she hardened her heart. “I’m doing this for your own good, Drew. Even if you take the exam, a kid like you isn’t going to get into a good school. You’re better off giving up now. My uncle can get you a shift hauling crates down at the shipping docks. It’s stable work.” I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached. In my past life, when she “died” at sea and left me with Toby, I had ruined my spine working those exact docks, hauling heavy cargo for twelve hours a day just to pay for her son’s formula. I had destroyed my health for her. And she had known all along. She simply believed that the docks were exactly where I belonged. With blood in my eyes, I pointed toward the open door. “Get out.” Chloe scoffed, tucking the knife away. “Don’t come crying to me when you fail.” I let out a harsh, dry laugh. “The only one who’s going to regret this, Chloe, is you.” After they left, the quiet of the apartment felt heavy. I stared down at my math formulas, unable to focus. Then, I heard a metallic rattle from the other side of the front door. I sprang up and rushed to the entryway, rattling the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge. Peering through the narrow gap in the doorframe, I saw Brody’s grinning face. He was wrapping a heavy chain around the handle, securing it with a padlock. “I’m not letting you get to that test site, Drew,” Brody sneered through the metal. “You want to know why?” I gritted my teeth. When we first started high school, Brody had ignored me. It wasn’t until our senior year that his bullying turned obsessive and cruel. Before I could demand an answer, he whispered, his voice dripping with venom: “Your dad found out about some of my father’s business deals. So I made a little phone call, had him locked up on federal charges. He died in that cell, and you’re going to rot right here. I’m never letting you rise above us.” My breath caught. A violent shudder went through my chest. My father’s arrest, his disgrace, his lonely death—it had all been Brody’s doing. He chuckled, enjoying my muffled gasp of horror. “And Chloe knew. Why do you think she was so nice to you after he got sent away? She pity-patronized you because she knew my family ruined yours. It was hilarious.” I slammed my fists against the wood, my knuckles screaming in pain. I wanted to tear through the door and rip him apart with my bare hands. Every single tragedy in my life—the loss of my father, my broken dreams, my wasted decades—had been orchestrated by Brody. And Chloe, the girl I had worshipped, had been his silent accomplice from the very beginning. I pounded on the heavy oak door, screaming until my throat was raw, while Brody’s laughter faded down the stairwell. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I used every tool I had—a butter knife, a screwdriver, my own shoulders—trying to break the heavy padlock. As the first grey light of dawn filtered through the hallway window, I saw Chloe’s shadow through the peephole. She stood there for a long moment, staring at the chained door with a conflicted expression, before turning and walking away. She wanted me trapped. She wanted me ruined so she could play the saint who rescued me later. With a final, desperate surge of adrenaline, I threw my entire weight against the old doorframe. The wood splintered, and the latch finally gave way with a loud crack. Grabbing my registration ticket, I bolted down the stairs and sprinted toward the high school. As I cut through the alleyway behind the local diner, I ran straight into them. Brody and half a dozen thugs had Chloe cornered against the brick wall. Brody’s eyes widened in sheer shock when he saw me free. Reacting instantly, he grabbed Chloe by the throat, pulling her flush against his chest. “Drew!” he yelled, panic creeping into his voice. “You take one step toward that school, and you know exactly what my boys are going to do to her!” Chloe’s eyes stretched wide with terror as she looked at Brody, finally realizing this wasn’t a game. The thugs around them sneered, their eyes lingering greedily on her legs. In my past life, I knew that stepping away meant leaving her to a horrific fate. I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs. Brody smirked, gesturing for one of his guys to grab me. But I didn’t move toward them. Instead, I gripped my registration ticket tighter, turned on my heel, and sprinted toward the school gates. This time, I was running for my life. I was never letting anyone hold me back again. Chloe watched my retreating figure, a sudden, cold hollow opening in her chest. She looked up at Brody, her voice trembling. “Brody… let me go. It didn’t work. He’s not coming back.” Brody didn’t release his grip. He stared at the empty alley, his expression twisting into something ugly and feral. He shoved Chloe hard into the arms of the waiting thugs. “If I can’t break him,” he snarled, “destroying you works just as well.” A sharp tear cut through the quiet as one of the guys ripped her dress. She gasped, staring at Brody in utter horror as he snatched her registration ticket from her fingers and tore it to shreds. But before they could drag her any further into the shadows, a loud siren wailed, and heavy footsteps echoed from the mouth of the alley. “Police! Step away from her and put your hands on your head!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “514692”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel