I lay on the freezing asphalt, the sheer, blinding agony of a shattered spine pinning me to the earth. Blood pooled in my eyes, turning the world into a red haze, yet my vision locked onto the pristine SUV that had just plowed into me. The door swung open. My sister-in-law stepped out, her hand wrapped tightly around my daughter’s. Eight years ago, Camille came to my apartment in the middle of the night, drenched in rain and shivering violently. Damon, her golden-boy first love, had abandoned her. She had just found out she was pregnant. She fell into my arms, weeping, begging me to give her unborn baby a home. I said yes. I didn’t just marry her; I buried the secret of the child’s paternity so deep it practically ceased to exist. I loved little Ruby as my own flesh and blood. I even gave up my right to ever have biological children—quietly getting a vasectomy so there would never be a sliver of doubt or divided loyalty in our home. Now, my fingers twitched on the wet pavement. I reached out, my voice a wet, trembling rasp. “Get Ruby out of here. Please… don’t let her see this.” Bianca, my sister-in-law, stepped forward and viciously kicked my bleeding hand away. “Do you honestly still think you’re her father?” she spat, her eyes alight with a terrifying malice. “You’re nothing but Camille’s pathetic little lapdog. You will never replace Damon.” A cold dread, far worse than the physical trauma, seized my chest. I turned my head slightly, looking at the little girl I had raised for eight years. “Ruby…” I breathed. But her soft, round face was contorted with a coldness that chilled me to the bone. “Don’t call my name!” Ruby yelled, shrinking away in disgust. “You’re a liar! You stole my real daddy’s place. I want to watch you turn into a cripple, and then Mommy is going to throw you away!” 1 I collapsed back against the pavement. The light drained from the sky. As the blood seeped out of me, carrying my life with it, my heart turned entirely to ash. The darkness pulled me under. When I finally woke, the world was sterile and white. I was tethered to a hospital bed, a labyrinth of tubes running into my veins, an oxygen mask strapped over my face, and a catheter snaking beneath the sheets. The door pushed open. Camille walked in, dragging Ruby by the hand. Ruby dragged her feet, her small face scrunched up in profound annoyance. “Why do we have to be here? I don’t want to look at him! He’s a liar and I hate him!” “He just took a little tumble, he’s not even hurt,” the eight-year-old whined. “He’s just laying in bed trying to trick us again!” “Mommy, he’s faking it! He always lies!” Camille immediately turned her sharp, accusing glare on me. “What exactly did you do to her, Everett?” she demanded. “Why is she suddenly so terrified of you?” “You promised me you would raise her right. You promised you’d be a role model. And here you are, apparently lying to her face? What kind of father does that?” Ruby thrashed against her mother’s grip, her wooden doll swinging wildly and smashing directly into my fresh surgical wounds. A blinding, white-hot pain tore through my torso. “He’s not my daddy! He hits me!” Ruby wailed, burying her face into Camille’s coat, sobbing theatrically. Camille’s eyes darkened with a familiar, terrifying rage. Without a second of hesitation, she leaned over the bed and slapped me across the face. “How dare you ever lay a hand on my daughter!” The force of her palm cracked against my cheekbone, violently dislodging my oxygen mask. Anyone else in the world might have bought Ruby’s lie, but Camille? Camille knew better. I treated that little girl like she was the center of my universe. I had carried her on my shoulders through every zoo and park in the tri-state area. I held her hands when she took her first clumsy steps. I taught her the cadence of her first words. I was the one who showed Camille how to properly test the temperature of her midnight bottles. Once, during a hike in the Adirondacks, Camille lost her grip on Ruby’s hand on a steep descent. To keep the toddler from tumbling down the jagged rocks, I threw my body beneath hers, taking the brunt of the fall. I still had the faded white scar across the bridge of my nose to prove it. I didn’t have the breath to defend myself, and frankly, I no longer had the desire to. I simply turned my head, staring out the window at the bleak, gray sky. Camille huffed, crossing her arms. “Oh, so this is what we’re doing now? The silent treatment? I am speaking to you, Everett. Your daughter is crying, and you can’t even be bothered to comfort her? Are you even human?” The oxygen mask was suffocating me, preventing me from forming a single syllable, yet she stood there demanding a monologue. “When I married you,” Camille kept ranting, her voice rising, “I didn’t ask for your money. I just asked you to be a good father. How did you repay that promise? Look at how you’re acting right now!” She shoved my shoulder, hard. My chest tightened, an agonizing spasm seizing my lungs. I began to gasp, my body convulsing against the sheets as I fought for a sliver of air. Camille watched me struggle with utter indifference, stroking Ruby’s hair and whispering soothing words to the child, while continuing to throw daggers at me with her eyes. Thank God a nurse rushed in for rounds. She immediately shoved past Camille. “What the hell are you doing?” the nurse snapped, adjusting my mask and checking my monitors. “Can’t you see he just got out of major spinal surgery? Try having a conversation with a tube down your throat!” I closed my eyes. The woman I had shared a bed with for nearly a decade possessed less empathy for me than a stranger in scrubs. It was almost funny. “I heard Everett got into a little fender bender. Is he alright?” Bianca’s voice sliced through the tension as she strolled into the room. She walked right up to my bedside. Knowing I couldn’t speak, she leaned over, pretending to smooth out my blankets. Under the guise of adjusting the sheets, her manicured nails dug viciously into my bruised bicep. Her eyes locked onto mine, flashing a lethal warning. “Whoever hit him must have been driving awfully fast,” Bianca purred. “He really needs to be more careful. Thank God little Ruby wasn’t in the car.” Camille pulled her sister back. “Don’t touch him, Bianca, you’ll get your hands dirty. And you’re right. If Ruby had been in that car, I would have killed him myself.” She looked down at my paralyzed, broken body with a disgust so profound it made my stomach turn. “Look at him. A cripple. It’s karma.” I stared back at her, feeling a strange sense of vertigo. Was this really the same woman who had stood on my porch all those years ago, shivering in the rain, begging for sanctuary? And the little girl holding her hand—just days ago, she was a sweet, warm weight in my arms, kissing my cheek and calling me Daddy. Overnight, she had turned to frost. Some dogs, it seems, just bite the hand that feeds them. While the sisters gossiped over my bed, I quietly reached out and slipped my fingers around the nurse’s sleeve, squeezing tight. 2 Three days later, they finally removed the oxygen mask. I could speak. During that agonizing stretch, Bianca practically lived in my hospital room, using the excuse that she was “taking care” of family. But I had already communicated my fears to the nursing staff. Because the nurses were constantly popping in and out, Bianca never got the chance to finish what she started. By the same token, with her hawkish eyes constantly on me, I couldn’t make a phone call or reach out to the outside world. Camille and Ruby never came back. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for my sister,” Bianca sneered one afternoon, painting her nails by the window. “You’re half a man now. A vegetable. You think she’s going to spend her life pushing your wheelchair?” She paused, blowing on her fingers. “And don’t even think about going to the cops. I picked that road carefully. No traffic cams. No witnesses. You have absolutely nothing. Besides, if you try to put me behind bars, do you honestly think you’ll ever have a shot at saving your marriage?” It all clicked into place. The morning of the crash, Ruby had begged me to take a different route to school. A secluded, winding backroad. She claimed she wanted to pick a specific kind of wildflower she heard the other kids talking about. I had thought it was strange, but I never could say no to her. Bianca had orchestrated the whole thing. And she had used an eight-year-old to do it. She had taught my little girl how to lie, how to lead me into a slaughterhouse. But I was too exhausted to fight her right now. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and stared at Bianca with a dead, hollow gaze. “I don’t even know why you hate me this much,” I said, my voice raspy. When Camille and I first married, her family was broke. Bianca was still in college. I paid her out-of-state tuition. I paid her rent. I funded her lifestyle. Looking back, I hadn’t done a single damn thing to wrong them. “But it doesn’t matter anymore,” I continued, turning my head to the ceiling. “If your sister wants a divorce, tell her I’ll sign the papers.” Just as the words left my mouth, I looked up. Camille was standing in the doorway. Throughout our marriage, Camille had always weaponized the threat of divorce. Whenever she felt insecure or threw a tantrum, she’d pack a bag and threaten to leave. And every single time, I was the one who folded. I’d apologize, buy her jewelry, book a trip to Aspen or Paris, and coax her back. This was the first time in eight years I had ever agreed to let her go. She stood frozen in the doorframe, a look of absolute, unadulterated shock washing over her features. She didn’t move for a long time. “You… you want to divorce my daughter? Who the hell do you think you are?” I shifted my gaze. The Pruitts—my mother-in-law and father-in-law—pushed their way into the room. “Are you screwing around with some whore on the side?” Martha, my mother-in-law, marched up to the bed, pointing a trembling finger in my face. Then she grabbed Camille’s arm. “Tell me, sweetie. Did he do something to you?” Because I was three years older than Camille, Martha always acted like I had robbed the cradle, despite the fact that I had paid off their mountain of debt, handed over a million-dollar ring, and bought them a house and a brand-new G-Wagon. It was never enough. Later, when Camille’s brother Tyler got married, I footed the bill for his lavish country club wedding, bought the newlyweds a starter home, and manufactured a cushy job for him at my firm. Back then, Tyler used to throw his arm around me, slurring through expensive scotch, calling me his brother. “You’re blood, man. Forget Camille, whatever happens, I’m in your corner. I’d take a bullet for you, Ev.” Now, Tyler lunged forward, grabbing the collar of my hospital gown and yanking me upward, ignoring the fresh stitches in my spine. “You think you can betray my sister, Everett? You think we’re just going to roll over and die?” Tyler spat in my face. Through the chaos of their screaming and grabbing, I looked at Camille. She just stood there. She watched them suffocate me, watched them tear at a man who couldn’t even feel his own legs, and she didn’t lift a finger to stop it. She didn’t say a word. Finally, Richard, my father-in-law, played the peacemaker. “Alright, that’s enough,” he muttered, pulling Tyler back. “Everett’s in bad shape. He needs his rest. Camille, honey, why don’t you take some time off work and stay home with your husband?” Work. Years ago, Camille claimed she wanted to be an independent woman, so I created a Vice President role for her at my company and handed over fifty percent of my personal equity. It was purely ceremonial. She didn’t have to lift a finger. Her “work” consisted of long lunches, spa days, and charity galas. She barely knew where the corporate office was located. But recently, she had been out of the house constantly. She told me her best friend was going through a brutal breakup and needed a shoulder to cry on. Now I knew exactly who she had been comforting. Hearing her father’s suggestion, Camille finally spoke up, her voice tight. “Fine. I won’t go in this week. I’ll stay at the house with you. I can cook whatever you want, or we can go for drives. Whatever you need.” Martha and Tyler immediately began singing her praises. “Do you know how rare it is to find a woman her age who’s willing to play nursemaid?” Martha huffed. “You better thank your lucky stars, Everett.” Camille stepped forward and unhitched the brakes on my wheelchair. We headed down to the hospital lobby. My car was idling at the curb, but the man behind the wheel wasn’t my usual driver. 3 Noticing my hesitation, Camille offered a tight, overly rehearsed smile. “Stan had a family emergency. I hired a temp to cover for him.” Through the tinted glass of the Mercedes, I caught a glimpse of the new driver. He was looking at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes were cold, mocking, and dripping with a cocky disdain—as if I were the hired help, not him. Furthermore, Stan had been on my payroll for five years. He was fiercely loyal. He would never take a leave of absence without calling me directly. I instinctively reached for my pocket. Then I remembered. My phone had been obliterated in the crash. Camille hadn’t brought me a replacement. For the past week, everyone in my life probably assumed I had dropped off the face of the earth. “Take me to the office,” I commanded the new driver once I was awkwardly hoisted into the backseat. Camille, who was leaning over to buckle my seatbelt, froze. Her fingers hovered over the clasp. “Why do you need to go to the office?” A microscopic flicker of panic crossed her face, her breathing hitching for just a second. I didn’t have the energy for her theatrics. I snatched the belt from her hand and clicked it into place myself. “I’ve been MIA for days. My phone is dead. I’m sure things are piling up. I need to make an appearance.” I raised my voice, directing it at the rearview mirror. “Let’s go. Do you need the address?” The driver didn’t blink. He didn’t acknowledge me at all. “Everett, the office will survive,” Camille said, quickly shutting my door. Instead of sliding into the back with me, she walked around and climbed into the passenger seat. “Take us home,” she told the driver softly. The moment the words left her mouth, the engine purred to life. It was immediately obvious he wasn’t a “temp.” He didn’t punch anything into the GPS. He didn’t ask for directions. He navigated the winding, affluent suburban streets with the muscle memory of a man who had driven this exact route countless times. “We’re here,” the driver grunted as we pulled up the sweeping driveway of my estate. He stepped out and opened my door. He stood there, his face set in a deep scowl, making zero effort to help me into my wheelchair. Finally, Camille walked around and snapped at him. “Give him a hand.” He shot her a look—an intimate, annoyed look—before begrudgingly extending an arm toward me. I pushed myself forward, using my upper body strength, and then abruptly stopped. During the ride, I had kept my eyes closed, fighting the nausea. But now, with the sunlight hitting the interior of the car just right, I saw them. Faint, delicate handprints pressed against the passenger side glass. And just beneath them, violent, desperate crescent-moon scratches etched deep into the leather backrest of the front seat. I certainly didn’t make those marks. So who did? “Everett?” Camille called out, sounding nervous. I was so consumed by the sight of the leather that I didn’t register the pure, venomous jealousy burning in the driver’s eyes as he stared at me. As he hauled me out of the car, his grip magically “slipped.” He let go of my arm completely. My paralyzed legs crumbled beneath me, and I slammed hard into the cobblestone driveway. With my lower body entirely dead to the world, I couldn’t brace myself. I lay sprawled on the stones, forced to crane my neck upward like a helpless animal. “My bad, boss,” the driver sneered. “Hands are a little sweaty.” He didn’t even try to hide the smirk. The blatant disrespect, the sheer humiliation of standing over a crippled man—it was intoxicating for him. I stared up at him. The rage roaring in my veins was deafening, but years of boardroom discipline kept me from screaming. “You’re fired,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Get off my property.” Before the man could even react, Camille rushed to his defense. “Are you insane, Everett? He just slipped! God, why do you always have to be so dramatic? Are you really going to fire a man over an accident when you’re not even hurt?” Not hurt? I could feel the warm blood trickling down my chin where my face had scraped the stone. She didn’t even look at me long enough to notice. “Hey, if the boss doesn’t want me, I’m not gonna beg,” the driver said, tossing the Mercedes keys carelessly onto the front seat. He shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking down the driveway. “Look what you did! I swear, you are impossible to please!” Camille, who had half-heartedly extended a hand to help me up, instantly dropped her arm. She left me lying on the cobblestone and chased after him. My shoulder throbbed against the hard rock. I hissed through my teeth, the pain sharp and blinding. Camille didn’t look back once. “Damon!” I heard her cry out. The name echoed through the manicured lawns. It was the same name she had murmured in the hospital. The same name Bianca had hurled at me like a weapon. Damon. The deadbeat who had knocked her up and bolted. I lay paralyzed in my own driveway, hating myself. Hating the dead weight of my legs. Hating that my own body had betrayed me, rendering me as helpless as a dog on a chain. Suddenly, the heavy mahogany front door swung open. Ruby bolted out of the house. “Daddy!” she squealed. She ran right past me. She didn’t even glance down at the man lying bleeding on the ground. Instead, she threw herself into Damon’s waiting arms. 4 Camille had only taken a few steps down the driveway when Ruby burst out the door. Hearing her daughter shout “Daddy” and launch herself at Damon made Camille freeze. She had no idea how or when Ruby had learned the truth. Damon caught the little girl effortlessly, hoisting her onto his hip. The way they laughed and clung to each other wasn’t the awkwardness of a first meeting; it was the easy rhythm of a routine. It was a beautiful, picturesque family reunion. Except for the husband bleeding on the pavement ten feet away. Camille panicked, whipping her head around. Everett lay motionless on the ground, his eyes closed. He must have passed out from the pain. Maybe he hadn’t seen. She let out a long, shaky exhale and rushed over to Damon, grabbing his sleeve. “Stop making a scene. Take Ruby to the bakery down the street. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.” She turned back and quickly dialed the estate manager, ordering the staff outside to drag her unconscious husband indoors. “Get him to bed,” Camille instructed the housekeeper as they hauled Everett up the stairs. “Call me if he needs anything. Understood?” A gnawing sense of unease chewed at the edges of her mind, but her phone vibrated. It was Damon, letting Ruby talk. “Mommy, when are you coming? I’m almost done with my cupcake. If you don’t hurry, Daddy and I are gonna leave without you!” Hearing the pure joy in her daughter’s voice washed away any lingering guilt. “Just hold on, sweetie, Mommy’s coming right now.” She had fully accepted Damon’s place in their lives. They were playing house. The housekeeper followed her back to the foyer. “Ma’am… shouldn’t we call a doctor? Mr. Everett looks terrible.” Camille waved her off, irritated. “He literally just came from the hospital. What are they going to do? He’s just sleeping. He’s fine.” With that, she pulled the front door shut with a resounding thud. 5 The moment I heard the click of the heavy deadbolt, I opened my eyes. I waited until I was sure her car had pulled out of the gates. Then I called the housekeeper into the master bedroom. “Give me your phone,” I said quietly. “Don’t tell my wife I’m awake.” She hesitated. I held her gaze, my eyes cold and unyielding. “You do realize whose name is on the bottom of your paychecks, right?” She swallowed hard and quickly handed over the cell phone, nodding furiously. I immediately dialed Clark, my executive assistant. I told him to get over here immediately, and to stop by an AT&T store to buy me a new phone and a clean SIM card on his way. Next, I dialed my attorney. It was time to draft the divorce settlement. But my most pressing priority was the “accident.” Bianca had chosen that winding backroad because it was a dead zone for cameras. And because I had been unconscious, I had no idea who had towed the wreck, which meant I didn’t know where my dashcam footage was. “Clark,” I said when he finally arrived, handing me the sleek new iPhone. “I need you to pull up the traffic cameras on the main intersections at both ends of that backroad. Cross-reference every license plate that entered or exited that street around the time of my crash. Call the owners. See if anyone had a dashcam running.” It was a secluded area, but I vaguely remembered the blur of headlights passing by just before the impact. Someone had to have seen it. Clark scribbled furiously in his notepad, looking pale. “Mr. Everett… my god. What happened to you?” He had absolutely no idea about the crash. According to Clark, Tyler had walked into the executive boardroom last week and announced that I had fallen critically ill and had been flown to Switzerland for experimental treatment, with Camille by my side. Tyler claimed I had granted him temporary executive authority. They had even forged text messages from my phone to prove it. The board had been skeptical, but Camille had dialed into a Zoom meeting to corroborate the story. And since everyone in the city knew I had given her half my shares and worshipped the ground she walked on, they bought it. “Since you’ve been ‘gone,’ sir… Tyler and the VP have ousted half the senior leadership. They went on a hiring spree. And they’ve initiated several massive acquisitions.” Clark handed me a leather-bound folder. I flipped it open, and the blood drained from my face. The new hires were kids fresh out of college with zero corporate experience. Their only unifying qualification seemed to be that they were impossibly attractive. Tyler and Bianca had essentially turned my Fortune 500 company into a taxpayer-funded modeling agency. And the acquisitions? They were dumping millions into obscure, no-name startups. Pure money pits. “Sir, I…” Clark stammered, looking like he was about to vomit. “I did some digging off the books. A lot of those startups… they’re shell companies. Registered just weeks ago.” Embezzlement. It was so brazen it was almost insulting. Clark braced himself, expecting me to fire him on the spot. I just closed the folder and sighed, staring at the ceiling. In two weeks, they had nearly bled the quarterly profits dry. “It’s not your fault, Clark. I’m the one who gave them the keys to the kingdom.” There was no point in screaming. The damage was done. The only thing left to do was burn out the infection. I instructed Clark to hire a private security detail immediately. Ex-military. I wanted them stationed at the estate and the corporate lobby. I wanted all security codes changed, all keycards wiped. “Call an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning,” I said, my voice hardening to steel. “Terminate Tyler and anyone with the last name Pruitt. And freeze every single corporate and personal account linked to my wife.”

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Diana dropped the bomb in our college alumni group chat: I’m divorced. In the very next message, she tagged Ternence. Will you marry me now? Reading those words, the memory of that absurd wedding three years ago rushed back, vivid and suffocating. That day, playing the role of the tragic heroine to perfection, Diana had abandoned the devoted second-choice man at the altar. She shoved her expensive bridal bouquet into my chest, told the gasping crowd that Ternence and I made a better pair, and ran out the chapel doors to chase her “true love.” I had stood there, frozen in tulle and shock, slowly turning to look at Ternence. His knuckles were white, gripping the wedding band so hard I thought it might cut into his skin. He watched the chapel doors swing shut behind her, his face a portrait of utter devastation. Then, amidst the rising whispers of the congregation, a terrifying, apathetic calm washed over him. He grabbed my hand and shoved the ring onto my finger. If Diana thinks we’re a good match, he told the crowd, his voice hollow, then I’ll listen to her. I’ll marry Jo. I had loved him in secret for ten years. In that chaotic, humiliating moment, my foolish heart actually thought my waiting had finally paid off. But it was right then that the floating text appeared. Glowing, venomous sentences began scrolling across my field of vision like a digital ticker tape only I could see. [Omg, the heroine is so brave for chasing true love! An absolute icon!] [This supporting girl is so pathetic. Does she actually think the second male lead is marrying her out of love? Just wait for the angst, she’s gonna get destroyed.] Looking back now, three years later, those spectral comments couldn’t have been more right. 1 The floating text, which had been dormant for three years, suddenly exploded across my vision, bright and jarring: [The audacity of this minor character trying to steal a man from our baby girl Diana! Does she have a death wish?] [The moment we’ve been waiting for! Diana is finally going to see how devoted Ternence is!] [The side-chick wife is so annoying. Ternence needs to divorce her right now!] [Manifesting them rekindling their romance at the reunion!!!] My chest tightened. I sat on the edge of our bed, bracing myself for Ternence to walk in and demand a divorce. Instead, a familiar, large hand reached out and pressed the lock button on my phone, turning the screen black. I looked up, meeting Ternence’s gaze. His eyes were impossibly soft. “Don’t be silly, Jo. I’m not going to that reunion tonight,” he murmured, his thumb gently smoothing the crease between my brows. “There hasn’t been an ‘us’ for a very long time.” He ruffled my hair affectionately and guided me under the covers. I rolled onto my side, and he slid in behind me, pulling my back against his chest. His warm breath ghosted over the nape of my neck. I forced my breathing to slow, mimicking the steady rhythm of sleep. Only then did he carefully, silently, slip out of bed. The bedroom door clicked shut. He was gone. I knew he would leave, yet the sharp ache in my ribs still took my breath away. I threw a trench coat over my pajamas, ordered an Uber, and followed him. Through the tinted glass of a private VIP booth at a downtown lounge, I watched Ternence snatch a rocks glass from Diana’s hand. “Diana, that’s enough!” The words were a reprimand, but the look in his eyes—the raw, bleeding tenderness—told a completely different story. “Let go of me!” she slurred, her eyes heavy with liquor as she lunged for the glass, only to stumble directly into his chest. Ternence went entirely rigid. The tips of his ears flushed a deep, betraying crimson. Diana began to hammer her fists weakly against his chest, tears spilling down her cheeks. “You’re loving this, aren’t you? Seeing me this pathetic. You think this is my karma for leaving you at the altar?” Ternence turned his face away, his jaw tight. He didn’t say a word. With a strained, agonizing restraint, he pushed her away. Diana grabbed a trash can and began dry-heaving, violently swatting away the napkin he offered her. Before she could reach for another drink, Ternence bent down and hoisted her over his shoulder with one arm. She kicked and screamed all the way out of the bar. He carried her to the sidewalk, finally setting her down by the curb. Without warning, she threw up, the mess splattering all over his designer shirt and slacks. This was a man who practically bordered on germaphobic. Yet, looking at the mess, he didn’t even flinch. Two years ago, to help him secure a massive corporate account, I had swallowed my pride and drank myself sick entertaining his clients. When he came to pick me up, I had stumbled toward him, seeking the safety of his arms. He had shoved me away with a look of pure disgust. You’re filthy, he had sneered, before throwing the jacket I had been wearing straight into a public dumpster. Now, watching Diana cry and vomit, mascara streaking her face, Ternence’s brow furrowed in deep distress. He gently rubbed circles into her back. “If he doesn’t want you,” Ternence whispered into the night air, “I do.” I froze in the shadows. It felt as though someone had reached into my chest and scooped out my heart with a rusted spoon. The glowing text flared violently before my eyes: [That is SO swoon-worthy! The devoted second lead is making his move! Get together already!] [Oh my god! Who could resist a man this hopelessly in love?] [Wait, he hasn’t divorced the wife yet. Our Diana can’t be a homewrecker! Hurry up and serve the papers, Ternence!] 2 My legs gave out. I crouched on the concrete, wrapping my arms tight around my knees. If he chose Diana… then what exactly were the last three years of my life? What were we? I don’t know how long I stayed huddled there in the cold. Eventually, I forced myself to stand, dragging my numb legs all the way back to our townhouse. The moment I walked through the door, Ternence rushed forward, pulling me into a desperate embrace like I was a precious treasure he thought he’d lost forever. “Jo, where were you? God, I was so worried.” A tiny, pathetic ember of hope tried to spark to life in the hollow of my chest. I raised my hand, ready to wrap my arms around his waist. Then I looked past his shoulder. Standing in the hallway, wearing nothing but his oversized white dress shirt and a pair of lace underwear, was Diana. “Oh, you’re back?” she purred, covering her mouth with a delicate hand to hide a smirk. She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you were out looking to catch a cheating husband?” She was waiting for it. Waiting for me to morph into the hysterical, insecure, crazy wife, screaming and demanding answers. Instead, I slowly lowered my hand. I placed my palms flat against Ternence’s chest and pushed him away. As I did, my eyes fell to his left hand. The gold wedding band was gone. In its place was a pale, distinct indentation—a ghost of the promise he had made to me. A wave of bone-deep exhaustion washed over me, heavy and suffocating. Catching the direction of my gaze, panic flashed in Ternence’s eyes. For the first time in our marriage, he scrambled to explain himself. “Diana just got back into the States. She didn’t have a place to stay, and she was drunk… It was dangerous out there, Jo. I couldn’t just leave her on the street.” He really didn’t need to explain. The moment he chose to bring her into our home without asking me, he made it clear that my feelings were entirely irrelevant. “Okay,” I said quietly. Ternence let out a ragged breath and suddenly grabbed my wrist, pulling me down the hall and into his study. I stumbled, genuinely surprised. He had never allowed me in his study. I had only ever sneaked in once, years ago, and discovered the reason why: it was a shrine to her. He backed me against the wall, his breathing fast and heavy. “Diana just went through a brutal divorce. I… I took the ring off because I didn’t want to rub my marriage in her face. I didn’t want to trigger her.” “Besides,” he added, his voice dropping to a persuasive, desperate murmur, “that ring was originally bought for her anyway. Tomorrow, let’s go to the jeweler. We’ll pick out a brand new one. Whatever you want, okay?” I didn’t answer. My eyes were fixed on the massive canvas hanging on the wall beside us. It was an oil painting. Five years ago, during a college camping trip in the Adirondacks, he had painted it for her. Diana was the ghost he had spent his whole life chasing. The golden girl. But wasn’t he the same to me? [Holy shit! What is going through this supporting character’s head? Does she seriously think he saved her back then because he liked her?] [Please, he just hated seeing the campus bullies picking on a weakling. He pitied her.] [Ternence is a saint, he would have saved a stray dog. This girl is delusional.] [If Diana hadn’t told him to marry her, and if Jo didn’t happen to have the same shaped eyes as Diana, do you think he ever would have given her a second look?] The glowing text scrolled mercilessly. My whole body turned to ice. So that was it. In Ternence’s eyes, I was never a wife. I was just a cheap understudy. A placeholder with the right shaped eyes. Ternence’s voice dragged me out of the digital crossfire. “We can…” He was rambling, making promises I couldn’t hear over the roaring in my ears. I blinked my dry, burning eyes and cut him off. “I’ll sign the divorce papers.” Ternence’s pupils contracted to pinpricks. “What?!” 3 I stared at him, bewildered by his shock. Wasn’t this what he wanted? Wasn’t this the grand confession where he told me he was leaving me for her? His face darkened. He reached over, unhooked the massive painting of Diana from the wall, and set it face-down on the floor. He took my hands in his, his voice dropping to a velvet, pleading register. “Jo, listen to me. I brought you into this room to show you that I’m done. I’ve let her go.” “I only see her as a little sister now. Please, don’t spiral over this.” I looked straight into his dark eyes. They were intense, desperate, and terrifyingly sincere. He didn’t sound like he was lying. “Then tell her to get out of my house. Right now.” Crash! The sound of shattering glass erupted from the doorway. Diana stormed in, her face twisted in fury. Before I could blink, her hand cracked across my cheek in a vicious slap. “If it weren’t for me, you never would have had a chance with him!” she screamed, her chest heaving. “You should be on your knees thanking me! Instead, you’re using the title of ‘Mrs.’ to throw your weight around and order me out?” My cheek throbbed, the skin burning hot and swelling instantly. Ternence’s face turned lethal. He grabbed Diana’s wrist, his voice a furious roar. “Apologize to her!” Diana violently wrenched her arm free, her voice hitting a hysterical pitch. “Why should I?!” “She’s been obsessed with you for years! She only pretended to be my friend to get close to you! She’s a manipulative, shameless bitch, and she deserves everything she gets!” Sobbing wildly, she turned and bolted from the study. The lethal anger in Ternence’s eyes vanished, replaced instantly by sheer, blinding panic. Without a second thought, he ran after her. [Yessss! Go off, queen! That manipulative side-chick totally orchestrated everything! Put her in her place!] [Aww, our devoted guy is chasing after her! He can’t stand to see her cry ~] [Tsk tsk. No matter how hard the understudy tries, she’ll never hold a candle to the leading lady!] I stood alone in the quiet study, my cheek burning. I didn’t understand why the voices hated me so much. Was it a crime to love someone quietly? To hope? Ternence didn’t come home that night. The promise to buy a new ring dissolved into thin air. The elaborate itinerary we had planned for our three-year anniversary today? Forgotten entirely. I lay paralyzed on the living room sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling. My phone buzzed. A notification popped up from a local lifestyle account on Instagram. The thumbnail caught my eye immediately. [He always listens to me.] The photo showed a man gripping the back of a woman’s neck, kissing her with an aggressive, consuming hunger. Their hands were locked together, fingers intertwined. Right there, on the man’s left hand, was the unmistakable pale band of missing skin. I would know that silhouette anywhere. It was Ternence. I clicked onto the poster’s profile. The pinned photo at the top of the grid hit me like a physical blow. [He wants to marry me all over again!] I looked down at the ring on my own finger. The woman in the photo was wearing a breathtaking, multi-carat pink diamond. I was wearing the plain gold band she had discarded three years ago. I scrolled further down her feed, every post sinking my heart deeper into an abyss. [After all these years, he never got the jasmine flower lasered off his chest. He’s so obsessed with me!] The air left my lungs. For three years, whenever we made love, Ternence had forbidden me from touching that specific spot on his chest. A few times, frustrated and insecure, I had asked him, “Have you ever really gotten over her?” His warmth would instantly turn to ice. Without a single word of reassurance, he would throw the blankets off, get dressed, and slam the door on his way out. It would trigger weeks of agonizing silent treatment. It always ended with me begging for forgiveness, swearing I would never bring her up again, just to get him to look at me. My head was pounding, a sickening pressure building behind my eyes. My hands shook as I gripped my phone. Against every instinct of self-preservation, I dialed his number. It rang eight times. Finally, the line clicked open. “Diana’s in the hospital. Whatever it is, it can wait until I get home.” His voice was clipped, distant, lined with a tightly coiled rage. Before I could form a syllable, he hung up. I couldn’t breathe. Following the geotag on the Instagram post, I ordered a car to Boston General. I needed to look him in the eye. I needed a final verdict on the last three years of my life. 4 I stood outside the private hospital room for a long time. A passing nurse carrying an IV bag paused and looked at me sympathetically. “Are you here for your friend? She had a terrifying night. Some drunk guy harassed her and nearly assaulted her in an alley.” The nurse sighed. “If her boyfriend hadn’t gotten there in time… God, I don’t even want to think about it.” With that, the nurse pushed the door open. The room went dead silent. The moment Diana saw me standing in the doorway, she went feral. She grabbed her pillow and hurled it at my face. “You couldn’t stand seeing him treat me well! You were so jealous you hired someone to—” She cut off with a sob. “Get her out of here! Make her leave!” Ternence immediately pulled Diana into his chest, wrapping his arms around her trembling shoulders. He shot a dark, lethal glare over her head, locking eyes with me. “If I find out you had anything to do with this, Jo, I swear to God…” I stood rooted to the linoleum floor. He didn’t need proof. He didn’t need an investigation. His first instinct was that I was a monster. The nurse gave me a look of absolute disgust, swapped the IV bag, and hurried out of the room. [Holy shit! Did the side-chick actually orchestrate an assault? That is pure evil! Trying to ruin the heroine’s purity?] [She’s so dumb. There are cameras everywhere, the cops will catch her instantly!] [Lock her up and throw away the key! Keep her away from my OTP!] Through the venomous scrolling text, Diana peeked out from Ternence’s embrace. A vicious, triumphant smirk played on her lips. “Stop playing your pathetic little games, Jo,” she sneered. “Let me spell it out for you. The only woman Ternence has ever loved is me. You will never, ever be me.” She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “Oh, and by the way? You know that miscarriage you had two years ago? It wasn’t an accident.” The room tilted. “I told him I was terrified that if you had his baby, he would stop loving me,” Diana smiled, her eyes glittering. “So he made sure you had an ‘accident.’” Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. It felt like a jagged piece of glass was being twisted into my heart. I couldn’t breathe. No wonder. When I was pregnant, Ternence had suddenly become obsessed with my daily routine, asking me exact times for everything. He was looking for the perfect window to tamper with the ropes on the porch swing I sat on every afternoon. I remembered the snap of the rope. The terrifying freefall. The crimson blood soaking through my summer dress. The baby was gone before the ambulance even arrived. But when I had first told him I was pregnant, he had wept. He had picked me up, spinning me around the living room. “You are the greatest gift the universe could ever give me, Jo. I’m the luckiest man alive.” And yet, because the woman he truly loved expressed a fleeting moment of insecurity, he had murdered our unborn child in cold blood. Tears spilled hotly down my cheeks. I lunged forward, raising my hand, and slapped Ternence across the face with every ounce of strength I possessed. He didn’t dodge. He took the hit, his head snapping to the side. I raised my trembling hand again, aiming straight for Diana’s smug face. But before I could make contact, Ternence shoved me. Hard. I flew backward, my spine colliding violently with the plaster wall. A blinding shot of pain radiated through my bones. “That’s enough!” Ternence roared, stepping between us like a shield. “I’m the one who did it! If you want to take your rage out on someone, take it out on me!” His eyes were wild, shifting, trembling—but there was not a single shred of remorse in them. I stared at him, my face the color of ash. My voice shook violently. “Ternence. In the three years we’ve been married… did you ever love me? Even for a second?” Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. I slowly pulled my gaze away from his face. A numb, broken smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I turned around and walked out. I stumbled out of the hospital doors, my vision blurred with tears, wandering aimlessly into the rain-slicked streets. Suddenly, a blinding pair of headlights cut through the darkness. CRASH. The impact threw me into the air, the world spinning in a terrifying blur before the pavement rushed up to meet me. [Oh my god! Did the side-chick just get wiped out?] [Good riddance! Now Ternence and Diana can finally be together in peace. No more dead weight!] [Hey upstairs, have some basic human decency, wtf!] Everything was spinning. I lay in a spreading pool of my own warm blood, the cold rain washing over my face. As the edges of my consciousness began to fray and fade into black, I thought I heard a voice screaming my name, raw and torn to shreds. “JO!” A faint, self-deprecating smile touched my lips. I’m done, Ternence. I’m not playing your sick little game anymore.

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When I walked in on the betrayal of the most powerful woman in the city, we were both unsettlingly calm. Confronted by my gaze, Margot Silvester didn’t even flinch. She remained nestled in the man’s arms, her expression as cool as a corporate buyout. She asked me what I wanted—money, shares in the Silvester Group, or perhaps a high-ranking executive position. I simply shook my head. I told her I only wanted a divorce. At those words, the two people in the bed exchanged a look before erupting into sharp, jagged laughter. Margot flicked the ash from her cigarette with a lazy grace. She sneered, asking if I was planning to run back to my ex-wife. She claimed she knew Elena had come to see me a few days ago, questioning why I thought a woman like that would ever blow up her life for me. After her cold laugh died down, she traced the man’s throat, her voice dropping to a silken purr as she looked at him. She asked him—Dominick—if he knew best whether his ex-wife would actually go through with a divorce. Dominick smirked, his eyes glinting with a smug, predatory triumph as he nodded. Of course he knew. Because his current wife was the woman I had once called mine. … “Big brother, just give it up already.” Dominick pulled Margot closer, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear. “Honey, shall we go again? For old time’s sake?” Margot stubbed out her cigarette and reached for a fresh foil packet on the nightstand. As she tore it open, she shot me a mocking smile. “Still here? Waiting for a show?” “I don’t mind, Big Bro,” Dominick added with a rakish grin, kicking the duvet aside to flaunt himself. I clenched my fists, taking a slow, steadying breath. “I’ll draft the papers. Just let me know when you have a gap in your schedule for the filing.” Margot laughed, indifferent, and began to mess around with Dominick as if I were a piece of furniture. I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned toward the door. “Since you’re busy, I’ll take your silence as consent.” As I walked away, the biting winter wind made my eyes sting, turning them a raw, watery red. I thought I could handle this. I thought that having survived this exact nightmare before, I could navigate the wreckage with professional detachment. But I had underestimated the sheer, agonizing pain of an old scar being ripped open. Dominick called me “Big Brother” partly to spit in my face, but partly because it was the truth. We weren’t blood, but I was the closest thing he had. My parents died young. I dropped out of school to work three jobs just to keep a roof over my head. I found him on the street—another orphan, just like me. I put him through college. On his first birthday after graduation, I had gone to the apartment I was paying for to surprise him with a cake. Instead, the moment the clock struck midnight, I walked in to find two familiar bodies tangled together in the dark. Margot knew exactly how much it destroyed me when my ex-wife cheated on me with Dominick. She knew the sordid, public mess of that divorce. Back then, she had been my savior. She had used her considerable influence to drive Elena and Dominick out of the city, just to give me a sense of justice. She was the one who pulled me back from the ledge when I was ready to end it all. And now, she had invited the very man who broke me into her bed. What a pathetic joke. The lifeline I thought I’d grabbed turned out to be a razor wire. I hadn’t even cleared the driveway before three black Escalades swerved in, pinning my car. “Mr. Beckett, Ms. Silvester says you aren’t permitted to leave yet.” The security detail didn’t ask. They dragged me out of the car and hauled me back into the mansion. Upstairs, the sounds of their revelry echoed through the halls. I sat in the darkened living room, losing track of time until the house finally went quiet. Margot eventually descended the stairs, draped in Dominick’s arms. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said with a dry chuckle. My eyes snagged on their matching silk pajamas. Seeing my gaze, Dominick adjusted his collar with feigned casualness. “Like them, Big Bro?” he asked. “Margot told me you hand-stitched these yourself. Took you over a year, didn’t it? I could never do that kind of tedious work. I don’t have the patience.” I looked away, my voice raspy. “They’re just ten-dollar clearance rack junk. Only a fool would spend a year making something so worthless.” Margot’s hand froze on her water glass. Her eyes turned to chips of ice. “If they’re so cheap, then I’ll just give them to Dominick.” I forced a smile, loosening my grip on my own hands. “Dominick is my brother, after all. And you’re the richest woman in the city, Margot. It’s a bit stingy to only give him a cheap pair of pajamas.” I grabbed Dominick by the arm and hauled him toward the walk-in closet. “Come on, little brother. Let’s see what else you like.” “Not bad,” he muttered, feeling the fabric of a bespoke suit. He turned to Margot. “Can I really have this, too?” The fury on Margot’s face softened instantly. She reached out and patted his head with sickening affection. “Of course, darling.” So, I started handing it all over. The custom-made couple’s outfits? Yours. The watches engraved with our initials? Yours. Even the tuxedo I wore to our wedding? Take it. Whatever memory those items held, I purged them. I handed them over with a hollow chest and steady hands. By the time I was done, the massive closet was nearly stripped bare. As I reached for one last watch, Margot grabbed my wrist, her teeth gritted. “Gideon Beckett, you’re certainly being generous today!” she hissed. “Fine. Why stop at the clothes? Why don’t you just pack your bags and let him move in?” She stared at me, a flash of something—was it hurt?—flickering in her eyes before it was replaced by rage. “What? Can’t let go after all?” she taunted. “I knew you weren’t this noble. Never mind…” I ripped my hand back, my expression cold. “There’s nothing to let go of. I think your suggestion is excellent.” I walked into the master bedroom. Margot followed, barking threats. “I’m giving you exactly sixty seconds to pack. Anything left behind goes in the incinerator…” She stopped mid-sentence. I hadn’t even opened a suitcase. I just grabbed a simple canvas duffel bag and headed for the door. She hurried to block my path, breathless with indignation. “That’s it? That’s all you’re taking?” “Yes,” I said flatly. “Fine. Great,” Margot snapped, her eyes scanning the room, looking for something of hers that I might be stealing. Finding nothing, she pointed toward the driveway. “Then you aren’t taking the car, either. I bought that for you.” She had forgotten. She was the one who had begged me to take that car. She told me back then that with a car like that, no one—not even my ex-wife’s hired thugs—could ever throw me out on the street again. She promised she would always be my backup. Now, the metal of the key fob felt like a piece of dry ice in my palm. I tossed the keys to Dominick. “This is yours, too.” He caught them, a slow smirk spreading across his face. “You know, ever since we were kids, you always gave me whatever I wanted. I guess some things never change. You’re so good to me, Big Bro. Thanks!” He stepped forward to clap me on the shoulder. I stepped back, avoiding his touch. “Don’t thank me. Thank Margot. If she hadn’t reminded me, I would have forgotten to give it to you.” Margot’s knuckles turned white around her glass. “Those second-hand scraps don’t mean anything,” she said, her voice trembling with forced steel. “Dominick, whatever you want, I’ll get you a brand new version. Better than anything he ever touched.” Dominick wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, nuzzling her neck. “Thanks, Margot.” The two of them were locked in their own world. I didn’t look back as I walked out of the gates. Luckily, the Uber I’d called was already waiting. I headed to another property, a small condo in the city. But when I arrived, a line of security guards blocked the entrance. “Mr. Beckett, Ms. Silvester has given orders. You are not permitted to stay here.” I froze, then remembered. The deed was in my name, but it had been a gift from her. It’s funny how easily “gifts” are reclaimed when the giver decides they don’t like you anymore. I had been naive enough to think she was different. The wind cut through my thin jacket. I sighed. Fine. A hotel. “Sir, I need to see your ID,” the hotel clerk said. I reached into my bag, only to realize with a jolt that my wallet and ID were still in the center console of the car I’d just given away. “Looking for this?” The familiar voice came from behind. Margot was standing there, twirling my ID between her fingers like a poker chip. I knew she wasn’t going to just hand it over. “Apologize,” she said, her face a mask of indifference. “For what?” Before I could finish, a man stepped into the lobby, his face bruised and his fists clenched. “Big Brother, I’m sorry. I don’t want the car anymore,” Dominick said, trying to shove the keys into my hand. “You left your ID in there just to remind me that it’s yours, didn’t you? Fine. I don’t want any of it…” He grabbed my arm, and before I could react, he slammed my own fist into his jaw and threw himself backward onto the marble floor. “Dominick!” Margot rushed to him, catching him as he fell. I, however, stumbled and hit the floor hard. A sharp, white-hot pain flared in my abdomen. The world began to blur, voices echoing as if from the bottom of a well. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Margot’s back as she carried Dominick away. … Three days later, I woke up in a VIP hospital suite. Margot was sitting by the bed, clutching a piece of paper, her face livid. Hearing me cough, she turned toward me, her voice trembling with suppressed fury. “Did you sleep with her that day?” I was weak, my head spinning. I had no idea what she was talking about. “Who? Sleep with who?” She threw the paper onto my lap. “Gideon, how long are you going to keep playing the martyr? She’s pregnant! Five weeks! Exactly five weeks!” “Count the days, Gideon. Five weeks ago was the day you went to see her. No wonder you were so calm about the divorce. You couldn’t wait to go back to her, could you? You thought a baby would make her choose you!” “But you miscalculated. She didn’t keep it!” The words hit me like a physical blow. I grabbed the paper and squinted at it. It was a medical record for a termination. My ex-wife’s name was at the top. But the math didn’t add up. It wasn’t mine. As I let out a hollow, bitter laugh, a pair of strong hands grabbed my arms. Margot was barking orders at her guards to drag me out of the room. “You’re getting a vasectomy. Today. I’m not letting you have a future with her.” I wanted to laugh in her face. If she had bothered to look at how pregnancy weeks are calculated—starting from the last period, not the date of conception—she’d realize I couldn’t possibly be the father. “Let go of me!” I found a surge of strength and kicked the guard away. “Get back!” “I’m going to say this once,” I panted, looking her in the eye. “There is nothing between us. Nothing.” She grabbed my collar, her eyes bloodshot. “You still want her that much? You want to go back to the woman who cost you your job and left you on the street? Gideon, are you really that pathetic?” Pathetic? I looked away, blinking back the moisture in my eyes. Yeah, maybe I was. My ex-wife tore my life apart, and I went and married a woman exactly like her. If that isn’t pathetic, I don’t know what is. She wanted me to have the surgery? Fine. Let’s do it. Let’s kill any possibility of a “family” once and for all. “Schedule it,” I said, my voice dead. “The sooner, the better.” Margot’s expression shifted from rage to a manic kind of joy. She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Gideon! I’m so glad you’ve come to your senses. I’ll set it up right now!” “Don’t be sad. Once you’ve completely cut ties with her, we can look into a reversal. We’ll have our own children.” I didn’t push her away. I just let her hold me. But Margot, there will be no children. And there will be no “us.” On the way back to the ward, she made three calls and settled everything. She sat by my bed, holding my hand with the same tenderness she used to show me. “Don’t be scared. I’ll be here the whole time.” I pulled my hand away and picked up my phone. I sent her a document. “Look at this. If there are no issues, I’ll have it printed.” “I’d like to get the divorce filed before the surgery—” My voice was drowned out by her phone’s custom ringtone. “Hello? Dominick? What’s wrong?” She stood up, her face tight with worry, and rushed out of the room. The woman who just promised to stay by my side was gone in an instant. I didn’t know if she read the agreement, but I had it printed anyway. I waited for her to come back so she could sign it. But the hours ticked by, and she never returned. I was wheeled into the operating room alone. While I was in recovery, I checked social media. My feed was flooded with photos of Margot and Dominick—at a bridal boutique, laughing over racks of white lace. The day I was discharged, she finally appeared. “I’m here to take you home,” she said. Dominick was standing right behind her. He rushed forward. “Big Brother, are you okay? Are you in pain?” He looked down, his face a mask of guilt. “It was all my fault. I was so clumsy that day. I’m just glad you’re alright.” I didn’t bother explaining. I stepped back, creating distance between us, and handed Margot the divorce papers. “I’ve already signed.” She scanned the document, her brow furrowing. “Why? Just because of the surgery?” She spoke as if she’d forgotten the original reason—that I caught her in bed with another man. But it didn’t matter now. Any reason was a good reason to leave. I put on my face mask to hide my pale, bloodless lips. “Think what you want. If you have no objections, let’s go to the courthouse now.” Margot didn’t speak. Her grip on the papers tightened until the edges crumpled. “By what right?” she hissed. “I’m willing to overlook your cheating, yet you’re the one demanding a divorce? Do you really love her that much?” A high-pitched ringing started in my ears. I didn’t hear a word she said. I just saw her lips moving, her eyes burning with a strange, misplaced sense of betrayal. I nodded vaguely, just wanting it to end. “Are you signing or not? Just give me an answer.” Seeing my indifference, she marched over to the nurse’s station, grabbed a pen, and scrawled her name in a jagged, violent script. “If she doesn’t take you back, don’t you dare come crawling back to me crying!” The moment the papers were back in my hand, I felt a weight lift. My steps felt lighter as I walked toward the exit. At the hospital gates, a tall, elegant woman was leaning against a black sedan. Elena. “You’re here,” she said with a soft smile. Behind me, Margot’s phone chimed with a notification. It was a message from her private investigator. [Ms. Silvester, we’ve confirmed the medical records. Mr. Beckett’s ex-wife’s pregnancy had absolutely nothing to do with him.]

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My husband, Zavier, had a shadow that followed him since childhood—a woman named Bridget. Their relationship was a toxic feedback loop, a never-ending war of wills where neither would ever admit defeat. Bridget didn’t just play games; she played for blood. Years ago, she set fire to our tent during a camping trip just to sabotage a weekend alone with Zavier. I still carry the jagged, silver scars of those burns on my shoulder. Later, on the day of our seaside wedding, she drove her car straight into the reception. The impact tore my knee ligaments to shreds, leaving me with a permanent limp and a cane I hated. For years, I lived in the crossfire of their twisted dynamic. I thought getting pregnant would finally bring peace, but it only made Bridget more feral. She manipulated a local man with a history of violent psychosis, pointing him at me like a loaded gun. He stabbed me in the stomach. I woke up in the ICU after a three-day blur of surgery and blood transfusions, barely clinging to life. The day I was discharged, I overheard Zavier talking to his best friend, Silas, in the hallway. The words turned my blood to ice. “The surgeons said the uterus could have been saved,” Silas whispered, his voice thick with confusion. “Why did you tell them not to? Why let them perform the hysterectomy?” Zavier’s voice was weary, but there was an edge to it—something almost casual. “You know how Bridget is. She’s relentless. If Elena got pregnant again, Bridget would only go further next time. It’s better this way.” “Then why the hell don’t you make her stop?” Silas pressed. There was a long silence. Then, Zavier let out a soft, lighthearted chuckle. “You don’t get it, Silas. This is the game we play. Honestly? Elena is… she’s lovely, but she’s boring. Without Bridget’s little disruptions, I wouldn’t know how to get through the day.” Every ounce of pain I had endured—the fire, the crash, the blade—was nothing more than a spark to keep their fire burning. I wasn’t his wife; I was the board they played on. If they wanted a game, I decided right then, I would show them how it ends. … Zavier continued, his tone shifting into something defensive. “Besides, Zavier and I… we owe this to her. You know we were supposed to be married. If Elena hadn’t shown up back then, Bridget and I would already have a family of our own.” Silas sighed. “It just feels like Elena is paying a price for a debt she didn’t even know existed. It’s not fair to her.” “It’s just a game, Silas. No one actually dies,” Zavier said, dismissing the concern. “And look at us—every time Bridget acts out, Elena clings to me more. Our marriage actually gets stronger. In a way, she should be thanking Bridget.” I leaned back against the hospital pillows, feeling like I had died and been resuscitated just to feel the sting of the cold air. He had kept me in the dark, a sacrificial lamb offered up for his entertainment. He didn’t love me; he used my trauma to manufacture a sense of intimacy. When Zavier finally walked into the room, my face was a mask of practiced composure. He moved with practiced grace, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking my hand. His touch felt like a snake sliding over my skin. “Hey, babe,” he murmured, his eyes full of faux-tenderness. “How are you feeling? Any pain?” I placed my hand over my abdomen. Beneath the bandages was a void where a life had once been. “My baby is gone. I can never have children again.” Zavier’s eyes welled with tears—a masterclass in acting. He squeezed my hand. “I know. And I’m so sorry. But listen to me: I don’t need a child to love you. You’re enough. I promise you, I’m going to make Bridget pay for this.” “How?” I looked him dead in the eye, watching for the slightest flicker of a lie. He blinked, caught off guard by my bluntness. “Don’t worry about that. Your only job is to heal. Leave the rest to me…” My heart turned to stone. I looked at him and realized I didn’t know this man at all. Had he ever loved me? Or was I just a prop in his long-running drama with Bridget? “I want her in prison,” I said. Zavier’s expression darkened. His voice dropped an octave. “She’s doing this to spite me, Elena. If I put her in a cell, it’s a public admission that I lost. I have a reputation to maintain.” He softened his tone, trying to placate me. “Besides, prison is too easy for her. Better to keep her close, under my thumb, where I can make her life miserable.” Always the same excuse. No consequences. Just the game. I remembered our last anniversary. We were at a high-end steakhouse when Bridget walked in, carrying a small, ceramic tureen. She had caught and killed the two macaws Zavier and I had raised since they were chicks. She’d had them cooked into a soup. She had smiled at us, her eyes dancing with malice. “A celebration isn’t a celebration without the kids, right? I brought them to you.” Zavier had stood up and poured the boiling soup over her head. At the time, I thought it was a righteous fury. But later, I saw photos on Bridget’s Instagram of new birds Zavier had bought her. The soup was just a move. A play. The chime of a cell phone broke the silence. Zavier glanced at the screen, his posture tensing. “I have to take this. It’s the office.” “What’s so important you can’t say it in front of me?” I asked, my voice raspy. He hesitated, then took the call on speaker. It was his assistant, Marcus. “Sir, we have a situation. Bridget… she just picked up a random guy at a dive bar. They’re at the Drake Hotel. She told the concierge to make sure you knew.” Zavier’s mask slipped. The boredom was replaced by a sharp, jagged jealousy. “She said what?” “She said… she’s going to conceive twins tonight just to one-up you.” Zavier bolted upright, his face contorting. “How dare she!” He caught himself, remembering I was there. He forced a scoff. “Whatever. She’s a degenerate. If she wants to ruin herself, let her. Send a few more guys to her room for all I care.” But his knuckles were white as he gripped his phone. “Zavier,” I said into the heavy silence. “I want a divorce.” He didn’t even blink. His eyes were fixed on the wall, his mind already at the hotel. Before I could repeat myself, he grabbed his keys. “I just remembered something urgent. I’ll be back this afternoon to take you home.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He ran. And he didn’t come back that afternoon. Or that night. I felt the familiar, hollow ache in my chest. I called him five times before he finally picked up. His breathing was heavy, ragged. “What is it, Elena?” “Where are you?” “I’m… I’m handling things. Getting justice for you and the baby. Bridget is going to regret ever touching you.” Behind his voice, I heard it. A woman’s sharp, high-pitched moan. I hung up. I knew exactly what kind of “justice” was being served. I forced myself out of bed and into a wheelchair. My legs felt like lead. Ever since the wedding crash, I could walk, but never for long. Zavier had always insisted on carrying me, kissing my scarred knees, telling me he would be my legs forever. I had believed him. I had let him make me weak so he could feel like a savior. By the time I reached our penthouse, the sun had set. I pushed open the front door and froze. The foyer was a disaster. Clothes, shoes, and jewelry were strewn from the entrance all the way to the master suite. My hands shook so hard I could barely steer the chair. The bedroom door was ajar. “Tell me,” Zavier’s voice was a low growl. “Who else were you going to have babies with?” “You’re so… damn… good at this, Max,” Bridget gasped, her voice dripping with spite. “Why don’t you try… making Elena pregnant again… oh wait, you can’t.” Zavier laughed, a dark, primal sound. “Shut up. Give me a child. I don’t want anyone’s but yours.” I felt a physical pain in my chest so sharp I had to double over. I thought about the day I found out I was pregnant. How convenient it was that Bridget had a madman waiting for me. How convenient it was that Zavier was nowhere to be found when the knife went in. They hadn’t just played a game. They had performed an execution. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a heavy chef’s knife, and forced myself to stand. The rage was a stimulant, numbing the pain in my incision. I entered the bedroom. They were a tangle of limbs on the silk sheets we had picked out together. They didn’t see me. Zavier leaned down, biting Bridget’s earlobe. “Listen, after tonight, you need to leave Chicago for a while. You went too far this time. It’s getting hard to keep Elena quiet.” Bridget scoffed. “Please. You’ve played that little mouse for years. She doesn’t have the brains to realize you’re the one pulling the strings.” “I’m doing this for your own good,” Zavier murmured. I stepped forward, the knife raised, and drove it down. Zavier sensed the movement at the last second and rolled. The blade buried itself in his shoulder. He screamed, his eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror. He grabbed my wrist, his face pale. “Elena! What are you doing?” I wrenched the knife out, the spray of blood hitting my face. I felt nothing but a cold, crystalline clarity. “I’m ending the game.”

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The pain in my abdomen was a white-hot blade, rhythmic and unforgiving. It was the exact moment the world splintered—the moment Xander called to tell me he was going to Lydia’s wedding. I tried to tell him. I tried to gasp out the words through the haze of shock, telling him I’d been rear-ended, that my car was a crumpled heap of metal, that I needed him to get me to the ER. He cut me off with a sigh so sharp I could practically feel his irritation through the line. “Izzy, stop it,” he snapped. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to bait me into staying. I told you, I’m committed to our marriage now, but I owe her this. One last look, one final goodbye, and then she’s out of our lives for good. Don’t make this uglier than it has to be.” The line went dead before I could tell him I was bleeding. By the time the paramedics lifted me onto the gurney, the red stain had already soaked through my jeans, blooming like a dark, macabre flower. The ER doctor’s face was grim; he used words like “emergency D&C” and “fetal distress.” I called Xander seventeen times while they prepped the OR. He didn’t pick up once. Between the bouts of agony, I swiped through my phone with trembling fingers and saw it. Xander, a man who treated social media like a plague, had posted an update. It was a photo of Lydia in a froth of white lace, leaning into him with a smile that reached her eyes. His caption read: Not being with you will always be the great regret of my life, but your happiness is the only thing that matters now. When I finally drifted into the cold embrace of the anesthesia, my last conscious thought wasn’t about the baby I was losing. It was about the divorce papers I’d signed four years ago and tucked into a floorboard in the attic. As soon as I could sit up, I sent for them. 1 I spent a week in the hospital. Xander never showed. Instead, he sent me a daily itinerary of his penance. Day one: At the ceremony. It’s hard, but I’m here. Day two: Helping Lydia move her family’s luggage into the hotel. Almost done. I didn’t reply. I was too hollowed out to care. Eventually, he interpreted my silence as a tantrum. He called me on the sixth day, his voice thick with a performative sort of grief. “Drop the act, Izzy. This was the last time, I swear. She’s married now.” He let out a shaky breath, a sound that was supposed to be a sob but felt more like a confession. “I just… I had to see for myself. I had to know if the guy deserved her.” “I’m coming home tomorrow,” he continued, not waiting for a response. “My assistant said you’ve been in the hospital for some ‘minor exhaustion.’ I’ll pick you up in the morning. We’ll start over.” He hung up before I could say a word. The next day, I waited until sunset. He never came. Clutching my stomach to dull the ache of the stitches, I signed my own discharge papers and took an Uber home. When I walked through the door, the house smelled like rosemary and garlic. Xander was in the kitchen, wearing an apron, meticulously stirring a pot. He froze when he saw me, his expression flickering between guilt and a practiced sort of warmth. “I was just about to head out to get you,” he said, his voice smooth. “Why didn’t you wait?” “I just got in,” I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. My eyes drifted to the counter. There was a thermal container packed with creamy lobster bisque—thick, rich, and heavy with cream. My stomach turned. I’ve had a severe shellfish allergy since I was a child. Xander knew this. But Lydia? Lydia lived for it. To make a bisque that smooth, he would have had to start at noon. He’d been home for hours. I stared at him for two long seconds, watching the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes. The bitterness in my throat tasted like copper. “It’s fine,” I whispered. He looked visibly relieved. He grabbed his keys and the thermal bag, his pace quickening as he headed for the door. “One of my biggest clients is under the weather. I’m just going to drop this off and finalize the merger contract. It’s a huge deal, Izzy. I’ll be back late.” The door clicked shut. Three minutes later, I followed him. He didn’t take the car. He walked to the boutique hotel just a few blocks from our estate. Standing under the gold-leafed awning was Lydia. Four years ago, she had been the girl who ruined us. The “one who got away” that he had crawled back to, begging me for a divorce so he could marry her, throwing away his reputation and mine in the process. There was a man standing next to her—the new husband, I assumed. Xander handed over the bisque, keeping a respectful distance, but the look in his eyes was one of pure, unadulterated longing. It was the look of a man watching his soul walk away. Lydia laughed, a bright, melodic sound, and tucked her arm into her husband’s as they went inside. When Xander finally stumbled home that night, he was wasted. He collapsed onto the sofa, eyes squeezed shut, mumbling her name like a prayer. “Lydia… Lydia, please…” I stood in the shadows, watching the man who used to swear he’d never touch a drop of whiskey because I hated the smell of it. For the past few years, he’d spent half his nights in high-end lounges, drowning his sorrows because she wasn’t mine. My heart had been broken so many times it was mostly scar tissue, but watching him now, I felt a fresh, sharp pang of humiliation. I quietly began to pack. Two more weeks until the papers were processed. Two more weeks until I could stop breathing his air. 2 By then, it wouldn’t matter who he chose to drown with. Our downfall had started four years ago. It was a cliché, really. Lydia had been a waitress at a bistro Xander frequented. She’d spilled a drink on him, looked up with those wide, doe eyes, and he’d hired her as his personal assistant the next day. She was a disaster—constantly tripping, losing files, making “adorable” mistakes that Xander spent every waking hour fixing. By the time I realized it wasn’t incompetence but an invitation, it was too late. I found them in his office on his birthday. I’d brought a cake and a vintage watch. I opened the door to find them tangled together on the mahogany desk. My heart didn’t just break; it stopped. He didn’t even try to hide it. He told me he wanted a divorce. He told me he’d give up the house, the stocks, everything—just to be with her. My world collapsed. We’d been together since college. He’d written me hundreds of letters, stood under my window in the rain, promised me a lifetime of safety. That boy was dead. I went nuclear. I printed the photos I’d taken that day and sent them to his board of directors. I made sure everyone knew. All it got me was Xander’s hatred. He looked at me with a disgust so cold it made my skin crawl. “You’re a psycho, Isabel,” he’d said, shielding Lydia from the fallout. “I’m filing.” He moved her into a penthouse. He took her to see the Northern Lights, the Amalfi Coast, while I sat in our empty house, rotting with resentment. I posted their story on every local forum, tagged their old college classmates, branded them as the “Mistress” and the “Traitor.” I wanted blood. I didn’t realize that Xander was willing to draw more of it than I was. To force my hand on the settlement, he leaked my private photos—intimate, vulnerable moments from our early marriage—to a “collector” site. He let it be known that for a small price, anyone could see what he used to own. He put a bounty on my dignity, whispering to his circle that he’d pay a million to the man who finally “tamed” me. Suddenly, I couldn’t leave the house without seeing men leering at me. “Hey, Isabel. Why play hard to get? We’ve all seen the goods. I’m better than Xander, trust me.” Then came the rainy night in the alleyway. Hands tearing at my clothes, the cold pavement against my skin. It wasn’t random. Lydia was there, filming with her phone, her face twisted into a mask of triumph. She hated me for “ruining” her reputation. “Still want to call me a slut, Isabel?” she’d hissed. “Look at you now.” I was a broken doll. I couldn’t even feel the pain, only the emptiness. When Xander finally arrived to “save” me, he didn’t even look at me. He kept his eyes on Lydia, making sure she wasn’t too traumatized by what she’d seen. “You brought this on yourself,” he’d whispered to me as I lay in the mud. “If you’d just signed the papers, none of this would have happened.” I was ready to give in then. I was ready to let go. But Lydia wasn’t finished. She took the video of my assault and sent it to my Nana. 3 Nana was the only person who had ever truly loved me. She had a weak heart, and she was the one who had raised me after my parents died. The hospital called an hour after she saw the video. “It was a massive cardiac arrest,” the doctor said. “She was gone before she hit the floor.” The world went silent. My heart felt like it had been put through a meat grinder. Looking at the white sheet pulled over Nana’s face, I saw my own reflection in the glass of the morgue—grey, haggard, a ghost. I went to the police. I wanted Lydia in a cage. But Xander intervened. He used his connections, his money, his lawyers. He found a fall guy to take the blame for the harassment. He knew what Nana meant to me, and he did it anyway. On the night of Nana’s wake, Xander and Lydia were in a car parked just outside the funeral home. I could see the vehicle rocking, the windows fogged with their heat while I stood over a casket. Something snapped. I got into my car and rammed into them. Xander emerged with blood streaming down his face, looking at my frenzied, bloodshot eyes. He stayed silent for a long time. “What will it take for you to leave us alone?” he finally asked. I laughed, a sound like breaking glass. “My death.” That was the turning point. He realized I would never stop. So, he made a deal. He sent Lydia away—to protect her from me. For four years, he played the role of the repentant husband. He tried to mimic the man he used to be. But I knew. I knew he was just keeping his heart in a jar, waiting for the day she came back. Now, I was just tired. I was done with the war. The next morning, Xander woke up and tried to be sweet. “I’m sorry about last night. Too much scotch with the client. Let’s go to that French place you like tonight.” I agreed. It was time to tell him. As soon as we walked into the restaurant, Xander’s body went rigid. I followed his gaze. Lydia and her husband were by the window. Xander’s voice was a jagged rasp. “What a coincidence. They’re here for their honeymoon.” He didn’t even wait for me to speak. “We should join them. It would be… civil.” He didn’t wait. He stepped forward so fast he nearly jerked me off my feet. My knee slammed into a chair, a sickening pop echoing in my ears, but he didn’t notice. He was already at her table. I limped to the restroom to compose myself. When I came out, I ran straight into Lydia’s husband. He didn’t look like a groom. He looked like a predator. He grabbed me by the throat, shoving me into the ladies’ room, and slammed my head against the tile. “You’re the bitch my sister told me about, aren’t you?” Dax. That was his name. Lydia’s brother. “If it weren’t for you, she’d have been a billionaire’s wife years ago. You’re blocking the family’s payday, lady.” He slammed my head again. Blood trickled into my eyes, turning the world crimson. He held his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t scream. “You think Xander actually gave her up?” he whispered, his breath smelling of stale cigarettes. “This was all her idea. The fake wedding, the honeymoon… she knew as soon as she said she was getting married, Xander would come crawling. They’ve been together every night this week. He didn’t even use a condom, Isabel. He wants a piece of her to keep forever.” I shook with a mix of rage and vertigo. Suddenly, a familiar moan drifted from the stall next to us. 4 “Xander… stop… I have a husband now…” Lydia’s voice was a mock-whimper. “Don’t do that,” Xander groaned, his voice thick with lust. “You know I’m the only one who matters. I don’t care about the husband. I’ll be your secret. I’ll be your mistake. God, I’ve missed you so much…” The blood in my veins turned to ice. Callum—no, Xander—the man who claimed he was “trying,” was willing to be a side-piece just to taste her again. Dax backhanded me across the face. “Hear that? That’s the sound of you losing.” He rained punches down on me until I was a heap on the floor. The sounds from the next stall grew louder, Lydia’s high-pitched cries puncturing the air like a curse. When it was over, Dax smirked. He grabbed the front of my dress, tearing it open, and dragged me out into the hallway just as Xander and Lydia were emerging. “Xander! Your wife is a piece of work,” Dax yelled, throwing me toward them. “She followed me into the bathroom, tried to tell me that because my sister stole her man, I owed her a ‘service.’ She’s pathetic.” I looked up, my vision blurry. “Xander… he’s her brother… it’s a lie…” Xander didn’t even look at my injuries. He looked at my torn dress with pure, unmitigated loathing. “Isabel, enough! Lydia finally finds happiness and you try to seduce her husband to ruin it? You’re a monster.” “Since you won’t leave her alone,” he said, his voice dropping to a deadly coldness, “I’m done being nice.” He watched, arms crossed, as Lydia stepped forward and slapped me. Again. And again. I tried to fight back, but Xander pinned my arms. “You owe her this,” he hissed. He let her beat me while he whispered sweet nothings to comfort her because she was crying—crying because her hand hurt from hitting me. He stood by while Dax tore away the last of my dignity in front of the gathering crowd. The world went black. When I woke up in the hospital, my phone was buzzing. It was my editor. “Isabel, about that Paris assignment… we’re giving it to someone else.”

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The amniotic fluid was slick against my calves, a warm, terrifying contrast to the freezing hospital floor, by the time I realized the pain had hollowed me out. I couldn’t even stand. The 1:00 AM call to the ER should have been to the man who had sat through my last prenatal checkup just hours before. But when the line connected, it wasn’t his voice that greeted me. It was a roar of laughter, the clinking of glasses, and the shrill, sharp voice of his “best friend.” “She’s totally faking it!” Talia shrieked over the music. “Thirty-seven weeks exactly? Please. She’s just trying to reel you in. Who does she think she’s fooling?” Then came the cheers and the clinking of a toast. “Derek lost the bet! Drink up, buddy! Bottoms up!” I opened my mouth to say, My water broke, but the words died in my throat as the line went dead. The room began to spin, the pain coming in waves that turned the world black. My fingers trembled as I scrolled through my contacts, finally stopping on a number I hadn’t dialed in eight years. I used to pride myself on being a “modern, independent woman.” Now I realized that was just a convenient lie they used to shrug off their responsibilities. As the next contraction ripped through me, I gritted my teeth and pressed dial. At the very least, this man wouldn’t treat my life like a barroom wager. 1. When consciousness finally clawed its way back, I was staring at a sterile white ceiling. The door to the room slammed open. Derek rushed toward the bed, looking like a man who had just crawled out of a wreckage. “Elena! Are you okay? Where’s the baby? Why isn’t the baby here?” His eyes were bloodshot, his hair a bird’s nest of sweat and gel. The stench of stale bourbon rolled off him in waves, thick enough to make my stomach turn. He’d clearly come straight from the bar. “The baby is in the NICU,” I said. My lips were cracked, my voice a ghost of itself. “What?” He froze, the color draining from his face. “I… God, Elena, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have turned off my phone. I shouldn’t have listened to Talia…” I looked at this man—the man I’d dated for five years and been married to for three—and felt a chilling sense of vertigo. He was a stranger. The panic in his eyes was real. The guilt was real. But none of it could erase the sound of that laughter through the phone. It couldn’t undo the fact that when I was screaming for help, he chose to believe a woman’s mockery over his wife’s life. I remembered the delivery room. The doctors’ frantic movements as they performed the emergency C-section. The terror in the surgeon’s voice when she said that another minute of oxygen deprivation would have been fatal. I remembered the coldness that settled in my bones as I hemorrhaged, losing nearly two liters of blood. I had almost been replaced by a ghost. While my daughter and I were fighting for our lives on a cold steel table, he was doing shots with his “work wife” at a dive bar. That wasn’t just a mistake. It was a brand. “You didn’t just turn off your phone,” I corrected him, my voice steady despite the ache in my chest. “You put my life and our daughter’s life on the table as a bet. You hung up on me so you could laugh with them.” Derek’s expression shifted from guilt to defensive agitation. “She was just being Talia, Elena. She has a big mouth, she was joking. We didn’t think you were actually in labor. We thought it was just… you know, another ‘check-in’ tactic. It was a misunderstanding. Don’t be like this.” The word misunderstanding felt like a physical blow. “One in the morning. I’m on the floor, leaking fluid, calling for my husband. And you’re at a bar, laughing.” I looked him in the eye. “That’s not a misunderstanding, Derek. That’s a choice.” Derek’s face flushed a deep, angry red. He started pacing the small room like a caged animal. He opened his mouth to argue, but the door swung open again. Talia stormed in. She didn’t look remorseful; she looked annoyed. She grabbed Derek’s arm and pulled him back as if she were protecting him from me. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she snapped, glaring at me. “So Derek wasn’t standing right outside the door for five minutes. Is it really worth this much drama?” She rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m sorry I said those things, okay? My bad. I was drunk. There, I apologized. Happy?” She stepped closer, her voice dripping with condescension. “But honestly, Elena, who calls their husband when their water breaks? That’s what 911 is for. What’s he supposed to do, catch the baby? Plenty of women give birth every day. You’re just being high-maintenance because it was my birthday and you couldn’t stand not being the center of attention.” I started to laugh, but tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes instead. My husband’s “best friend” was calling me high-maintenance for nearly dying during a traumatic birth while she apologized for “ruining her birthday.” I stared at the ceiling, the noise in the room fading into a dull hum. I felt a vast, echoing emptiness inside me. It wasn’t just sadness. It was a clean break. “Get out,” I said. “I don’t want to see you.” “You’re kicking me out?” Derek’s voice rose, cracking with disbelief. “Elena, what the hell? Talia apologized. Why are you dragging this out?” “We’ve been best friends for twenty years,” Talia added, her voice smug. “If anything was going to happen between us, it would have happened a decade ago. Stop being so insecure.” “I don’t care if anything happened between you,” I interrupted, cutting through the noise. “What I care about is that when I needed you most, you chose her voice over mine. You hung up on me.” “But you didn’t die, did you?” The words flew out of Derek’s mouth before he could stop them. He saw my face go pale and immediately tried to backtrack. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant—” “Derek.” I looked at him, my voice a whisper. “I want a divorce.” The thorn was in too deep. If I left it there, I’d just rot from the inside out. It was time to pull it. 2. The silence in the room became heavy, suffocating. Derek stood frozen, as if the word divorce were a foreign concept he couldn’t quite translate. “What did you just say?” “I said, I want a divorce.” I turned my head to look him straight in the eye. “I thought I wanted to grow old with you. Now, I just want you as far away from me as possible.” “Are you insane?” Derek scoffed, regained some of his bravado. “You’re fine. The baby is fine. That means nothing actually happened. You’re going to blow up our entire marriage because I missed a few hours of labor?” I let out a sharp, mocking laugh. This was the man I had loved. As long as there wasn’t a funeral, he thought it wasn’t a “big deal.” “Our daughter had a severe respiratory distress from meconium aspiration. Her APGAR score was a three. She’s in the NICU on a ventilator. I had a postpartum hemorrhage and needed three units of blood. I am still in the red zone. You call that ‘nothing’?” Derek’s face went white. He grabbed Talia’s hand and practically fled the room. That afternoon, he returned. This time, he brought his mother, Martha, as reinforcements. Martha didn’t even say hello. she just grabbed my hand and started crying. “Oh, Elena, you’ve been through so much.” “I heard what happened. Derek was a fool, a complete idiot. You can yell at him, hit him, whatever you need. But don’t make big decisions while you’re still recovering. It’s not good for the healing process.” She watched my face closely, searching for a crack. “I know you’re angry. But think of the baby. For the sake of your daughter, you have to talk to him. Give him one more chance.” I pulled my hand back, my expression cold. “Martha, did Derek tell you where he was last night?” She hesitated. “He was at a lounge,” I said. “He threw a party. For Talia. There were a dozen people there celebrating her thirtieth.” “Your son left his wife—who was at full term—to throw a party for another woman. And when I called for help, he treated it like a joke. Tell me, Martha, am I allowed to be angry now?” Martha’s face shifted. She turned to Derek, her eyes narrowing. “Derek? Is that true?” “I… I didn’t think she’d go into labor early… Talia said it was probably a false alarm…” his voice trailed off, pathetic and weak. He was still defending her. Martha’s face went dark. She turned and slapped Derek across the face, hard. “You animal,” she hissed. “Your wife is giving birth and you’re out with another woman?” Derek stumbled back, clutching his cheek, shocked. “Mom? You hit me?” “I should do more than hit you, you worthless brat!” Martha began shouting, grabbing a nearby magazine and swatting at him, chasing him around the room in a bizarre, performative display of discipline. I watched the chaos with total detachment. Her tears were real, her anger was real, and the slap was real. But I knew what lay beneath it. It was a calculation. She was trying to use “family” and “tradition” to guilt me into swallowing the thorn. She wanted me to go back to the suburbs, move back into their house, and play my part in their happy little script. “Martha!” I shouted, silencing her. “Stop the theater. I’m not watching.” She blinked, her eyes darting nervously. “I’m just trying to stand up for you—” “Don’t do anything ‘for me.’ I have one requirement.” “Divorce. We split the assets. I keep the baby.” 3. “That is out of the question!” Martha shrieked, her maternal sympathy vanishing instantly. “That child carries the family name. You aren’t taking her!” “Elena, enough!” Derek’s voice was vibrating with rage now. “I’ve apologized! What else do you want? I went out for drinks with friends. It’s not a capital crime! You’re going to destroy our lives and leave our daughter fatherless over one night?” “She’s my daughter,” I snapped back. “Her name is Joy. Joy Miller. The birth certificate is already filed.” “By what right?” Martha screamed. “She’s a Miller, she should be named after Derek’s grandmother! You change that name back right now!” I laughed, a cold, jagged sound. “I’m the one who carried her. I’m the one who signed the surgical consent form while I was fading out. Your son contributed a single cell. What else did he do?” Just then, a clacking of heels sounded in the doorway. Talia sauntered back in, looking like she owned the place. She draped her jacket over Derek’s shoulders and crossed her arms. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit much, Elena?” she said, her voice dripping with artificial reason. “You live in Derek’s house. You spend his money. You drive the car he pays for. Even the hospital bill for this ’emergency’ is being charged to his insurance. By what logic do you get to decide whose name the baby takes?” “By the logic that I almost died for her.” I pulled back the collar of my hospital gown, revealing the bruising and the IV punctures near my collarbone. “I spent six hours in post-op recovery alone. I threw up three times because I was allergic to the pain meds, and there wasn’t a single person there to hand me a cup of water.” “And what were you doing? You were betting on me. Betting on whether I’d call. Betting on whether I was ‘faking it.’ Or were you betting…” I paused, watching her shoulders stiffen. “Betting on whether I’d survive the night?” I stood up, moving slowly toward her until I could smell her perfume—Chanel No. 5. The same scent that was clinging to Derek’s jacket. “You showed up here the day after my surgery wearing his coat to mark your territory. You’re so desperate for me to die so you can finally move in, aren’t you?” Talia’s face flushed. “You’re delusional. Derek and I are like siblings. Purely platonic.” “Platonic?” I sneered. “Does he know your cycle because you’re ‘siblings’? Does he buy you herbal tea every month because you’re ‘siblings’? You know his favorite shirt, his steak order, and probably the size of his underwear. Cut the crap.” Talia choked on her words, looking at Derek with tear-filled eyes, playing the victim. “Enough!” Derek roared, slamming his hand onto the bedside table. “You want to play dirty? Fine. Let’s talk about the divorce.” “You give me back the engagement ring. You reimburse me for the wedding costs and the down payment on the house. Since you want to be ‘independent,’ you can pay for your own medical bills. Let’s see how far you get on your own.” My breath hitched. My fingers gripped the bedrail until they turned white. He knew. He knew that I’d quit my job a year ago to focus on the high-risk pregnancy. He knew that every cent of my savings had gone into preparing the nursery and the prenatal care he deemed “unnecessary.” He knew I had nothing left. I looked up at him, forcing the tears back. “You really are a piece of work, Derek.” If I hadn’t made that phone call last night, he would have succeeded in burying me. “Oh? No money?” Talia smirked, covering her mouth with her hand. “Tsk, tsk. No money, no house, no job. Where exactly do you think you’re going, Elena?” Before I could respond, the door was thrown open with a violent thud. “She’s going with me.”

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The system’s piercing alarm exploded in my ears at the exact moment Declan walked into the penthouse living room, a young woman trailing hesitantly behind him. She had my eyes. Or rather, she had the eyes I used to have—stubborn, entirely unyielding, anchoring her to the center of the vast, marble-floored room. Looking at her was like staring at a ghost of my own youth, back before I learned how to lose. “Host! He’s cheating! Your days of suffering are finally coming to an end!” the System shrieked in my mind, its robotic voice vibrating with electric glee. I bit the inside of my cheek hard to kill the smile threatening to break across my face. Taking a shallow breath, I arranged my features into a mask of pure, devastated disbelief and rushed down the sweeping glass staircase. Declan’s gaze washed over me. It was cold, clinical, entirely devoid of the man I used to know. Without so much as a shift in his posture, he announced that the girl would be moving into the master suite. “What about me? Declan…” I forced blood to my eyes, letting my voice splinter into a pathetic, weeping tremble. He didn’t even blink. “Take the guest room.” I nearly laughed out loud right then and there. The guest room was right next to the service elevator. Escaping this gilded cage had just gotten infinitely easier. 1 This was my fifth year trapped by Declan’s side since my rebirth. In this life, I was bound to a “Tragic Heroine Survival System.” Its mandate was chillingly simple: Make the male lead despise you. Accumulate Disgust Points. Break free from his control. Save yourself. That was when I learned the horrifying truth. My reality was nothing more than a dark romance novel, and the man I had grown up with—my fiancé, my husband—was the obsessive, psychopathic male lead. In my previous life, I hadn’t known any of this. I only knew that the man I married had morphed into a monster. Desperate to escape his suffocating control, I crushed sleeping pills into his scotch, hoping to steal my passport from his biometric safe while he was unconscious. The drugs hadn’t affected him at all. Instead, he cornered me against the glass railing of our balcony. With the icy wind of the East River whipping my hair, he took me right there against the cold glass, forcing me to watch the glittering city skyline until dawn broke. His lips had brushed the shell of my ear, his voice a lethal whisper. “Try anything like that again, Mrs. Crawford, and I will ruin your brother. I will tear him apart piece by piece.” Paralyzed by the threat to my family, I abandoned all thoughts of rebellion. I pivoted, playing the role of a fragile, helpless socialite. I became entirely dependent on him, hoping he would tire of the burden. But I had miscalculated. The more helpless I acted, the more I wept, the more it ignited some dark, twisted excitement within him. Declan was deeply, fundamentally sick. Pushed past the brink of sanity, I eventually fought back. I caused scenes. I screamed. I tried to make him hate me. At a high-society gala, I threw a glass of hot tea directly into his face in front of New York’s elite. He didn’t yell. He didn’t flinch. He just pulled a silk square from his pocket, slowly wiped his jaw, and smiled at the stunned crowd. “My wife is incredibly spirited,” he had murmured. That night, he locked me away. He systematically dismantled my family’s empire, cutting off all their business ties. Isolated, terrified for my parents and brother, and swallowed by a depression so heavy it felt like lead in my veins, I simply gave up. I starved myself to death in that beautiful, silent room. When I opened my eyes and found myself reborn, the pieces clicked into place. Declan was a textbook psychopath. He didn’t want a partner; he wanted the thrill of the break. He relished the slow, agonizing process of domesticating a wild thing, watching a fierce woman lose her edges against his iron will. But what happens if the wild thing rolls over and begs for the leash from day one? With the System as my guide, I decided to find out. I transformed into Manhattan’s most cloying, artificial, nauseatingly desperate trophy wife. 2 “Host, the light is at the end of the tunnel. He has someone else!” Five years. Five agonizing years of playing the fool, and the day had finally come. For half a decade, I had been his shadow. A cloying, suffocating perfume he couldn’t wash off. I smothered him with manufactured affection, suffocating him with I love yous until the words lost all meaning. Watching his interest in me slowly curdle into apathy, I had managed to push his Disgust Meter to a meager 15%. Then, the System delivered the miracle: Declan had taken an unusual interest in a new intern. Her name was Paige. She was a scholarship student funded by Crawford Industries, now working on the bottom rung of his corporate ladder. She had made a critical error, and when Declan reprimanded her, she had stared back at him with a fierce, unyielding defiance. That rebellious spark had caught his eye. She was exactly who I used to be in my past life. A new, brilliant plan bloomed in my mind. I hired a corporate spy for an exorbitant sum to permanently delete a crucial proposal Paige was responsible for, giving fate a little shove. When the time came, Paige faced termination. Before Declan could unleash his wrath, I stormed into his sprawling, glass-walled office and slapped Paige squarely across the cheek. “How could you be so utterly useless?” I screeched, fully leaning into the role of the venomous, jealous wife. “My husband and his executives spent weeks on that project! A cheap, pathetic little charity case like you couldn’t pay for this damage if you sold your own organs!” Paige clutched her red cheek, a fire igniting in her eyes. She glared at me, then shifted her gaze to the silent man behind the mahogany desk. Her voice was crystal clear, though it shook with raw adrenaline. “Mr. Crawford, the mistake is mine, and I will take full responsibility. But what gives your wife the right to strip me of my dignity?” Declan’s long fingers tapped rhythmically against the polished wood. His gaze bypassed me entirely, locking onto Paige. I knew that look. I knew it intimately. It was the gaze of a predator discovering a fascinating new prey. “Valerie,” he said, his voice quiet. “Apologize to her.” I gasped, pressing a hand to my chest in exaggerated betrayal. “You want me to apologize to an intern? We grew up together, Declan! You’re taking her side over your own wife?” “Apologize.” The word was a gavel striking wood. “Congratulations, Host. The psychopathic male lead’s Disgust Meter has risen to 19%!” The System’s chime was the sweetest music I’d ever heard. I was on the right track. “I’m sorry!” I wailed, throwing my hands over my face as if my world had shattered, and bolted from the office. Just before the heavy doors clicked shut, I stole a glance over my shoulder. Declan had stepped around his desk. He was standing in front of Paige, gently smoothing the collar of her blouse that I had rumpled. He didn’t come home that night. The System gleefully informed me he had taken Paige out to get her cheek treated. 3 The next day, Declan returned at his usual hour. I immediately arranged a silver tray and marched into his study, a saccharine smile plastered across my face. “Darling, I had the chef brew your favorite espresso roast. It’s the perfect temperature.” Declan was staring at his monitors, a crease between his brows. He didn’t look up, merely waving a hand. “Leave it. Get out.” “I can’t do that. You’ve been working so hard, you need a break.” I slipped behind his leather chair, resting my hands on his broad shoulders, and began to massage the tense muscles. “Are you still mad about yesterday? I’m so sorry, sweetie. I promise I won’t hit anyone ever again~” I cooed, fighting the urge to gag on my own dialogue. Declan froze. His eyes drifted from the screen to my face, heavy with a calculating scrutiny. In my past life, that look would have sent ice water through my veins. I always felt like he was dissecting my soul. But right now, all I was thinking about was the fact that I had pumped six shots of vanilla syrup into that espresso. I hoped the sugar shock would make his teeth ache. “Valerie.” “Hmm?” I blinked, the picture of innocence. “You know I drink my coffee black. Is this your idea of an apology?” I shrank back, letting my eyes well up with instant, manufactured tears. “I just love you so much, Declan. I wanted to give you something sweet. I wanted to share the best things with you.” Declan let out a low, derisive scoff. “You’re overstepping. I don’t want anyone wandering in and out of my study. Understood?” Understood. You son of a bitch, I thought. Before Paige showed up, I practically lived in this room. Now he was drawing boundaries. I let out a pathetic little whimper. Before I could layer on another apology, he reached up and shoved my hands off his shoulders. “Get out. Don’t make me ask a third time.” The second the study door clicked shut behind me, I wiped the fake tears away, practically buzzing with adrenaline. “System! Did the bar move? That sneer was absolute peak disgust!” “Hold steady, Host! Disgust Meter is at 25%. Keep up the good work!” 4 Over the next few weeks, Declan didn’t just spare Paige from being fired; he began taking her everywhere. To high-level meetings, to elite dinners. I didn’t slack off either. I fully embodied the unhinged, love-crazed wife. My relentless antics drove his Disgust Meter straight to 52%. But tonight, he delivered a masterpiece of a surprise. He brought Paige back to our Hamptons estate. I listened from the top of the stairs as he coolly instructed the estate manager. “Her landlord evicted her. She has nowhere to go. Prepare the master suite for her.” He paused, adding with deliberate cruelty, “Make sure my wife and I are in separate rooms moving forward.” Yes! No more sleeping next to the enemy! I stood in the hallway, looking down at the staff carrying her cheap bags, my heart throwing a literal parade. “Host, whatever you do, don’t smile. He’s right behind you!” I instantly dropped my shoulders, twisting my face into a portrait of absolute devastation as I turned to meet his glacial stare. “Declan, I’m used to the mattress in the master bedroom. I won’t be able to sleep anywhere else.” I bit my lower lip, letting my voice crack under the weight of feigned heartbreak. His eyes swept over my face. “Since when did you become so high-maintenance?” I lowered my head, the picture of defeat. “I’m just so terrified you’re going to leave me. Having Miss Paige move into our bedroom… it makes me so scared…” A sharp, mocking laugh echoed from behind him. Paige crossed her arms and stepped into the light. “It’s just a bedroom, Mrs. Crawford. Is it really worth the tears?” She tilted her chin up. “Or is crying the only trick you’ve learned from being a trophy wife?” I paused. The little intern has claws. She was definitely still holding a grudge over that slap. Perfect. I let the tears fall harder, thick and fast. “This is my home! You steal my room, and you have the nerve to insult me?” Contempt flashed in Paige’s eyes, paired with that familiar, reckless defiance. “Steal? If Mr. Crawford hadn’t practically dragged me here, I would never have set foot in this mausoleum. If it’s such a tragedy, I’ll go sleep on a park bench. I wouldn’t want to ruin the view.” I peeked at Declan through my wet lashes. His eyes were entirely fixed on Paige. There was a dark, possessive hunger pooling in his irises. “You’re staying in the master suite. Do not test my patience, Paige,” Declan said, his voice low, vibrating with an authority that left no room for argument. Paige let out a sharp breath, her face tight with frustration, but she didn’t argue. She just turned her head, staring out the massive bay windows into the night. I mentally applauded. Classic enemies-to-lovers tension. She knew exactly how to play the game without crossing the line. “As for you, Valerie,” Declan’s voice snapped like a whip as he turned back to me. “She was evicted because you sent your private investigators to harass her landlord. You owe her this. Keep your head down, and stay away from her.” I reached out, trembling fingers grabbing the cuff of his suit jacket. “I can compromise. But I just want to see your face when I wake up. Can we please not sleep in separate rooms?” He stepped back. My fingers closed around empty air. “Go to your room. Stop being a nuisance.” “I only do these things because I love you!” I cried. “Enough,” he warned. “I… I understand.” I looked like a widow mourning at a gravesite. “System, he’s treating me like radioactive waste. Give me the numbers.” “Report! Disgust Meter is at 55%. Host, your future is looking bright!” Psychopaths really hated being smothered. As long as I was a suffocating, pathetic mess, he would do the heavy lifting of pushing me away. Strike while the iron is hot. 5 To max out the meter as fast as possible, I escalated my campaign against Paige. One afternoon, perfectly timing it with Declan’s arrival, I “accidentally” knocked Paige’s freshly printed master’s thesis into the estate’s massive reflecting pool. “Oh, my! My hand just slipped. You can just print another one, right?” I offered a dazzlingly hollow apology. Paige didn’t even yell. She looked at the sinking pages, kicked off her heels, and plunged straight into the freezing water. “Valerie! What the hell is wrong with you?” Declan strode across the terrace, shoving me aside. I threw myself onto the manicured lawn with a dramatic shriek, holding my wrist as if it were shattered. He didn’t even spare me a glance. He hauled a shivering, soaked Paige out of the water, immediately stripping off his cashmere coat to wrap it around her trembling shoulders. “When does this end?” He looked down at me, and for the first time, the icy indifference in his eyes had melted into pure, unadulterated revulsion. “I won’t stop!” I screamed, tilting my face to the sky, letting the tears stream down my cheeks. “I’m sick of this! Don’t you think she’s taking up too much of your time? You used to only look at me! Now you don’t even see me! I hate her! I wish she would just disappear from the face of the earth!” “The only one who needs to disappear is you.” Leaving the words hanging in the air like an executioner’s axe, Declan picked Paige up in his arms, ignoring her weak protests, and carried her inside. At that exact moment, the System chimed its heavenly bell: “Disgust Meter surges to 70%! Host, that hysterical breakdown was Oscar-worthy. 10/10.” Declan’s tolerance for me had finally breached its limit. He stopped coming home altogether. When he wasn’t at the corporate headquarters, he was traveling. Paige was always by his side. Her status elevated by the day. Even the estate staff started whispering, placing bets on how long it would take for the “crazy wife” to be tossed out onto the street. I couldn’t wait. “Host, only 30% left,” the System urged. “Just pull off one more massive stunt. Break him. Make him demand the divorce.” I nodded silently in my dark bedroom. It was time for the grand finale. I had to strike before he grew numb to my hysteria. 6 Crawford Industries was hosting its grand anniversary gala at The Plaza. It was the event of the season. Board members, Wall Street titans, and New York’s most vicious gossip columnists would all be there. If I caused an irredeemable, catastrophic scene on that stage… A wicked smile stretched across my face. The night of the gala, I didn’t arrive with Declan. I showed up two hours late. When I pushed open the gilded double doors of the grand ballroom, Declan was at the podium, delivering his keynote address. Paige stood just a few feet away from him, clutching a clipboard, looking every inch the indispensable right-hand woman. I took a deep breath, hyped myself up into a state of absolute mania, and sprinted down the center aisle. “Declan! Crawford!” My shrill, weeping scream tore through the room. The acoustics of the ballroom picked it up, shattering the elegant silence. Hundreds of heads snapped toward me. Ignoring the horrified gasps of the city’s elite, I stormed up the stairs and snatched the microphone right out of the MC’s hand. “How long are you going to keep lying to me?! Today is my birthday, and you didn’t just forget—you brought this homewrecker here to flaunt her in my face!” Tears streaming, mascara running, I pointed a shaking finger at Paige. I let my face twist into a grotesque mask of pure, unhinged jealousy. Declan’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. He stepped forward to grab the mic. “Have you lost your mind? Look at where you are. Get off the stage!” “No!” I dodged his grasp and lunged at Paige. Right behind her stood a ten-tier champagne tower. Acting completely feral, I raised my hand to strike her. Paige instinctively stepped back. I grabbed her arm—making it look like a struggle—and shoved her backward with all my might. CRASH. With the deafening roar of shattering crystal, the twenty-thousand-dollar champagne tower collapsed. Glass and vintage Dom Pérignon exploded everywhere. Declan grabbed Paige’s waist, yanking her out of the worst of it so she wasn’t cut, but she was drenched. Her designer gown and heels were ruined, her hair plastered to her face. The ballroom erupted into chaos. The blinding flash of paparazzi cameras strobed like lightning, immortalizing my psychotic breakdown. Sensing the climax had arrived, I reached into my clutch and pulled out a thick stack of photographs. I had hired a PI to tail them all week. The shots were blurry but damning—Paige entering our Hamptons estate, Declan opening the car door for her, late-night dinners. I threw the photos into the air like confetti. “Look at him! Look at the great CEO of Crawford Industries! He leaves his lawful wife to rot while he plays house with a college girl! He moved her into my bedroom! He forced me into the guest room!” The room dissolved into a roaring frenzy of whispers and gasps. Declan’s face had drained of all color, his eyes dark as pitch. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the centerpiece of the stage—a 1920s vintage Victrola phonograph. Declan had won it at an auction in London. He prized the damn thing. I grabbed an unbroken bottle of champagne by the neck and swung it like a baseball bat directly into the antique wood. “If I can’t be happy, none of you get to be happy!” CRACK. The heavy wood splintered and caved in with a sickening crunch. The brass horn bent, groaning under the impact. I looked at Declan. His hands were trembling. “Valerie.” He said my name so quietly, yet it was infinitely more terrifying than a scream. “As of tonight, you no longer exist in this city.” His voice was a razor blade. “Get out. Don’t ever let me see your face again. If you do, I will show you what a living hell truly is.” He didn’t threaten to lock me up like in my past life. He looked at me as if even laying eyes on me made him feel diseased. I collapsed into the puddle of champagne and glass, sobbing hysterically, gasping for air as if my heart had been ripped from my chest. Two massive security guards hooked their arms under my armpits and dragged me out of the ballroom. As the doors slammed shut behind me, the most beautiful sound in the universe rang in my ears: “80%… 95%… 99%… 100%!” “Ding! The psychopathic male lead’s Disgust Meter has reached its maximum capacity. He has initiated the termination of the marriage. The System decrees: Survival Mission Accomplished!” I lay sprawled on the cold marble floor of the hotel lobby, my shoulders shaking violently. To the terrified hotel staff watching, I was a broken woman weeping in sheer agony. In reality, holding back my laughter was causing me physical pain. I was finally free!!!

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The delivery room was a vacuum of fluorescent lights and the sharp, cloying scent of antiseptic. Pitocin pulsed through my veins, an artificial rhythm that triggered waves of agony, pulling at my midsection like an anchor dragging through silt. Wes leaned in then. He didn’t offer a hand to hold or a word of comfort. Instead, a jagged, predatory smile ghosted across his lips. His voice was a low crawl, like a secret whispered in a graveyard. “I have something to show you, Cassie.” He pulled out his phone with agonizing slowness. The screen flickered to life, displaying a family portrait. There was Bridget—my best friend, my maid of honor—radiant and glowing, cradling an infant while two toddlers clung to her knees. Wes stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist with a proprietary warmth I hadn’t felt in years. “These are my children with Bridget,” he whispered, his eyes locked on mine as a contraction crested. “Three kids in five years. Turns out she’s a lot more fertile than you ever were.” I stared at the image. The sight of Bridget nestled in his embrace made the world tilt. The physical pain of the labor suddenly felt distant, muffled by a crushing, psychic numbness. “Being with a pregnant woman is… an experience,” he continued, his thumb tracing the edge of the phone, his tone dripping with a sick, casual intimacy. “Bridget is a natural. It felt like every time I looked at her, she was carrying again. You really don’t compare.” A muffled sound came from the observation window. I forced my head to turn, my neck creaking. There was Bridget, standing on her tiptoes, waving a hand toward the glass. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her lips moving in a silent, mocking “Go, girl.” My stomach lurched. Wes leaned closer, his breath hot against my ear, a nauseating contrast to the clinical cold of the room. “Half an hour before they wheeled you in here, she was still in my bed,” he bragged, his voice thick with a twisted pride. “I had to shower her off me just to make it to your bedside.” Then, as if flipping a switch, his face softened into a mask of feigned regret. He patted the back of my hand. “I still care about you, Cassie. That’s why I’m being honest.” “Now, this baby… have it if you want. Don’t if you don’t. It’s your call.” His words were a scalpel, precision-engineered to bypass my skin and slice straight through my soul. The numbness shattered. A fresh contraction ripped through me, more violent than the last, and I felt the hot sting of tears mingling with the sweat at my temples. … The searing, tearing pain between my legs was the only thing tethering me to reality. This wasn’t a fever dream. Wes wasn’t joking. “Have you decided? The ball’s in your court.” He stood over me, looming like a mountain, his tone as casual as if he were asking what I wanted for dinner. The blood in my veins turned to ice. Despite the agony in my abdomen, I reached out and gripped his sleeve, my knuckles white. “Why…” I choked out, my voice trembling with a desperate, stubborn need for an answer. “Why tell me now?” Wes’s thumb brushed my cheek, wiping away a bead of cold sweat. His gaze was a confusing cocktail of guilt and liberation. “Keeping up the act for five years… it’s exhausting, Cassie. We’re both tired.” “Bridget is your best friend. She didn’t mind you keeping the title of Mrs. Porter. She never wanted to hurt you by telling you.” “But I’m the one who felt it was wrong. She’s given me child after child, and keeping her and the kids in the shadows? It’s not fair to them.” A sob escaped me, jagged and bitter. I laughed through the tears. “So what? You want me to just step aside?” Seeing me break seemed to startle him for a second. He shook his head. “You’re the wife who helped me build this empire from the dirt. That doesn’t change. But going forward, I want a dual-family setup. Both of you. Equals.” “Just push the kid out first. We’ll figure the rest out later.” He shrugged my hand off. “Wes! No! That’s never happening!” I screamed. The only response was the heavy thud of the door closing behind him. A wave of absolute, bone-deep agony rolled over me. A sudden, hot gush of fluid followed. In the background, I heard the frantic, pitying shouts of the nurses. “Mrs. Porter! Stay with us! You need to push!” Mrs. Porter. I twisted my lips into a grotesque, bloody smile. The first time he called me that, he was blushing, unable to look me in the eye, telling me he knew he’d marry me the moment he saw my face. The second time, he was on one knee, holding a ring that caught the light like a promise, swearing he’d give me the stars. And the third time, he used it to tell me he was sleeping with my best friend. The world began to blur. The rhythmic screaming of the monitors blended with the shouting voices until it all became a dull roar in my ears. When I finally drifted back to consciousness, my hand instinctively went to my stomach. It was flat. Empty. “The baby… he didn’t make it through the delivery. I’m so sorry for your loss.” The nurse kept her eyes on the floor, unable to look me in the eye. It took a long time to find my voice. It sounded like it had been dragged over broken glass. “Who signed… the consent forms?” The nurse hesitated, then handed me the clipboard. There, in a shaky, distorted hand stained with a drop of blood, was my own name: Cassie Porter. While my child and I were fighting for our lives, Wes must have been elsewhere, tangled in the sheets with someone else. The door swung open, and Bridget rushed in. Seeing my puffy, bloodshot eyes, she lunged toward the bed. Her designer nails dug into my arm. “Cassie… oh god, you’re young. You can have another one. Don’t give up.” I slowly turned my head to look at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” “My baby is gone, and you’ve managed to pop out three.” Her pupils constricted. “You know?” When I didn’t answer, her lips began to tremble in a practiced show of defense. “Wes and I… it was an accident, Cassie. You have to listen to me—” An accident? What kind of accident results in three children in five years? What kind of accident makes a husband change his life insurance beneficiary from his wife to her? I was the fool. I was the one who let her stomp all over my marriage while I smiled and thanked her for the company. The memory of her faux-concern—the hidden smirks behind my back—ignited a fire in my chest. I grabbed the heavy glass water pitcher from the nightstand and hurled it at that beautiful, lying face. The sound of shattering glass coincided with a man’s sharp cry. Wes had stepped in, throwing his arms around Bridget to shield her. When he turned back to me, blood was already beginning to seep from a cut on his forehead. “Take your anger out on me!” he roared, his voice thick with protective fury. “Don’t you dare touch her!” His eyes, once so full of warmth for me, were now ice-cold. “Bridget has always put you first! She never tried to take your place! She sacrificed everything for you.” “With a friend like her, Cassie, how the hell are you still so ungrateful?” I stared at him, letting his words sink in. Ungrateful. I thought about the night I pulled him from the wreckage of a car, dragging him to the hospital, giving half my blood volume in a transfusion that nearly killed me. I thought about six years of marriage without a child, while they were playing house in the dark. And they had the nerve to say she put me first? I wiped my face with the back of my hand, scrubbing away the last of the weakness. “Get out,” I rasped. “Both of you. I never want to see you again.” “Cassie… just listen—” “GET OUT!” The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by my ragged, desperate breathing. Wes gave me one long, hard look before taking Bridget’s hand and leading her out. As the door swung shut, I didn’t miss the flash of a triumphant smile on Bridget’s face. I collapsed back into the pillows. My throat felt raw, a familiar itch returning. I had quit smoking six years ago for Wes. I needed it now. The moment the nicotine hit my lungs, the door opened again. Wes walked in, a bandage on his head, carrying a takeout bag. He moved with practiced ease, opening containers and blowing on the soup—the picture of a devoted husband. Months ago, this would have moved me to tears. Now, I only realized he had likely done this for Bridget three times over. He was an expert at the “new mother” routine. He plucked the cigarette from my hand and took a drag himself, his expression softening for a fleeting second. “Don’t smoke. You’re not well.” “Why her?” I asked. “Six years ago, when the Porter family went bankrupt… she was the one who saw you pushed into the mud. She was the one who watched them tie you to the back of a car and drag you. Have you forgotten that?” Wes didn’t answer immediately. He stared at the wall, then shook his head. “She was young. She was just playing.” “She wasn’t the only one hurting me back then,” he added quietly. “And besides… she’s the one who saved me later.” According to him, he had recognized her the moment I introduced them. At first, he wanted revenge. He wanted to break her the way she’d broken him. But then he saw her after her own family’s ruin—working at a dive bar, being harassed by old men, struggling to survive. He felt a sudden, twisted kinship with her. He couldn’t stand to see her suffer, and her “quiet strength” won him over. They reconciled in secret and ended up in bed. Meanwhile, I—the woman who had actually protected his dignity and his life—was relegated to the role of the oblivious wife. “Is she really that good in bed?” I asked, my voice a hollow husk. “Is that why you can’t let go?” Wes was silent. He blew out a cloud of smoke and sighed. “I have her name tattooed on me, Cassie. In places you’ll never see. When things get… intense, it’s her name I’m thinking of. It’s a rush.” “The wife who built the business with you is great, sure. But after a while, it gets stale. You should understand that.” I closed my eyes. It felt like being carved up by a dull blade. Six years ago, I fell for him because he reminded me of my first love. When we met again and he was failing, I used my parents’ retirement fund and their house to back his first investment. When he was threatened by thugs for his business plans, I was the one who stood in front of the knives so he could escape and make the meeting. I gave him everything for six years. And all I got back was “stale.” “I didn’t mean for it to become this,” Wes said, his voice drifting into a memory. “Until I found out… she was the one who dragged me to the hospital. The one who saved my life. That’s when I decided I’d give her everything. The house, the money, the kids…” “At first, she felt guilty because of you. She said no. I had to keep her locked in my penthouse for weeks until she finally gave in.” He chuckled, a sound of pure, selfish satisfaction. I smiled, a thin, bitter line. I had never told him it was me who saved him because I didn’t want him to feel indebted to me. I wanted him to love me for me. I had paved the way for Bridget to steal my history. I took a deep breath and handed him the papers I had prepared. He was busy texting Bridget and didn’t even look up. “What’s this?” “Transfer papers. I want a different hospital.” He looked at me then, surprised by my composure. He took the pen from his pocket and signed them with a flourish. “Cassie, look. You’re getting older, and you just lost the baby. I know you’re not stupid enough to actually divorce me.” “When you get out, Bridget will take care of you. I hope by then, you’ve come to your senses.” He tossed the signed agreement onto the bed. Before he walked out, he gave me one last look of condescending pity. “You should learn how to be a more gracious wife, Cassie.” The door clicked shut. The wind from the hallway ruffled the edge of the paper. Soon, I wouldn’t be his wife at all. A week later, I checked myself out. The lobby was crowded. Bridget was there, leaning on Wes’s arm. When she saw me, she hurried over, trying to take my hand. “Cassie! Are you going home today?” I sidestepped her. My eyes drifted to her stomach. “What? Pregnant again?” She stiffened, sharing a look with Wes, then pulled me aside. “He’s… a little aggressive,” she whispered, her voice a mock-confession. “He won’t leave me alone, even now.” She feigned a gasp, tapping her cheek. “Oh, I’m terrible! Why am I telling you this? I know it’s been ages since he’s touched you.” She stood there, beaming, waiting for me to crumble. She had every reason to smile. I had been the ultimate mark. For years, she told me she was sickly and needed rest. I gave her my guest house, hired her the best doctors, and bought her the finest supplements. All while she was sleeping in my bed and birthing my husband’s children in my own home. When she was a wealthy socialite, I ignored her cruelty. When her father went broke and she was selling drinks, I spent my meager savings to help her meet her quotas. And when I was the one lying in a hospital bed after giving blood to save Wes, she had called me an idiot. “Why would you risk your life for a broke loser?” she’d asked. Now, that “loser” was a mogul, and she had used my identity to claim him. Wes coughed awkwardly, sensing the tension. “My parents don’t know about… the loss yet. Why don’t you take Bridget’s youngest home with you? It’ll make them happy to see a baby.” I stared at him, stunned. He had triggered my premature labor. He had effectively killed my child, and now he had the audacity to ask me to parade his mistress’s child in front of my parents? I didn’t argue. You can’t reason with a monster. At 6:00 PM, I arrived at my parents’ house. I was rehearsing how to tell them about the pregnancy and the tragedy. My mother has a weak heart; I had kept so much from her. Suddenly, the front door swung open. A shower of confetti exploded, and my parents appeared, beaming with joy. They pushed me toward Wes, who was already standing inside. They pointed toward Bridget, who was sitting on the sofa. “You young people and your romance,” my mother laughed. “Celebrating your anniversary like this…” I couldn’t hear them. My eyes were locked on the infant in Bridget’s arms. The baby was about a month old. He was wearing my baby’s shoes. My baby’s clothes. My baby’s hand-knitted cap. Around his neck hung the silver locket I had bought for my child. One half was around my neck. The other half was supposed to be in my baby’s… urn. Cold realization washed over me. Wes gripped my shoulder, his fingers digging in like a warning. “I learned a few recipes from your dad,” Wes said. “Let’s sit down and have a family dinner.” My father was busy learning how to mix formula. My mother was cooing at the infant. Bridget sat next to Wes, their posture sickeningly domestic. My throat felt like it had been sliced. I couldn’t speak. What could I say? That the baby wasn’t a guest, but the evidence of a five-year betrayal? That they were flaunting their affair in my parents’ living room? They had used my dead child’s belongings to dress a bastard. They knew I wouldn’t speak up because of my mother’s heart condition. My fingernails bit into my palms until I drew blood. I turned and vomited all over Wes’s expensive suit. “Cassie! What’s wrong with you?” my mother cried, rushing over. Then she stopped, her face lighting up with a sudden, wild hope. “Are you… are you expecting?” I had been. Now I was empty. My mother, overwhelmed with joy, reached out and took Bridget’s baby, holding him out to me. “Here, hold him! It’s good luck. Maybe it’ll mean a positive test tomorrow.” I didn’t move. But Bridget did. She took the baby back and leaned in close to my ear. “You’re so pathetic, Cassie. Your baby is dead. Now you have to settle for holding mine.” She fingered the silver locket around the baby’s neck and gave me a poisonous smile. “I forgot to tell you. This locket belonged to your kid. And the heart beating in my baby’s chest? That came from yours, too.” “I was worried about rejection at first. But Wes said… using a sibling’s heart was the only way to be sure.” The world turned black. My legs gave out. When my vision cleared, my hands were locked around Bridget’s throat. I wanted her dead. I wanted the world to end. “Cassie! Stop it! What are you doing?” “Cassie, you’ve lost your mind!” The lights were blinding. Shadows swirled. Wes’s face, contorted with rage, loomed over me. He slapped me—once, twice—but I wouldn’t let go. My mother was pulling at my fingers, tears streaming down her face. “Honey, please! Bridget has had it hard too, you can’t treat her like this!” My father was pleading, “She’s your best friend, Cassie. Don’t do this.” The image of my baby’s pale, lifeless face flashed in my mind, replaced by Bridget’s mocking sneer. I let go of her throat and swung, my palm connecting with her face with a crack that echoed through the room. Before I could land another blow, a heavy boot slammed into my chest, throwing me backward. Pain exploded in my ribs. Everything turned red. I couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears. I could only see the shoes. Wes was wearing the red-soled loafers I had searched all over the city to find for him—his wedding shoes. The shoes that had stood beside me while he made his vows. Now he was using them to trample over me in my own home. I gasped for air, clutching my chest. “Why… why did you take my baby’s heart?” A flicker of guilt crossed his face, but it was quickly replaced by a cold, righteous anger. “She saved my life once. I saved her child’s life in return. Don’t you think that’s fair?” Fair. Who was going to make it fair for my child? I crawled forward, my blood-stained hand clutching his pant leg. I looked up into his confused, arrogant eyes. “Has it ever occurred to you…” I whispered, every word a jagged shard of glass. “…that you have the wrong woman?” “The person who saved you—the person who gave you her blood, who carried you for miles in the blistering heat to get you to a hospital—it wasn’t Bridget. It was me.”

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The quarterly all-hands meeting was in full swing. I was huddled in the third row, notebook open, trying to catch every word of the projected growth charts, when Howard’s voice sliced through the air like a dull blade. “Caitlin?” I froze. Howard, the CEO, was staring at me from the podium. His expression was a mix of calculated disdain and public theater. He looked me up and down, his lip curling into a sneer that didn’t match his expensive suit. “Is the office climate control that vital to your existence?” he asked, his voice dripping with irony. “Because, from where I’m sitting, your AC usage is significantly more impressive than your sales numbers this month.” A few people in the front row snickered. I looked up, blinking, the blood rushing to my face. “I’m sorry?” “You’re always the last one to leave,” he continued, leaning over the lectern. “The ‘dedicated employee’ act is getting a little thin, don’t you think? Or is it just that you’re too cheap to pay your own electric bill at home, so you’re squatting in my office to soak up the company’s utilities?” The air in the room suddenly felt very thin. To Howard, eight years of being the first one in and the last one out—the literal backbone of this company—amounted to nothing more than a play for free air conditioning. My face, usually a mask of professional neutrality, began to harden. Before I could even open my mouth to defend myself, Howard turned to his wife, Regina, our “Head of Finance” by way of nepotism. “Regina, get a breakdown of the utility bills for the last quarter,” Howard commanded. “Calculate the overages and dock them directly from the paycheck of whoever’s been logging the most ‘overtime’ hours. I want to see if anyone has the guts to treat this office like a public library once they’re paying for the privilege.” My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. After nearly a decade of building this place from the ground up, I was being branded a parasite. Just as the anger hit its boiling point, a translucent window flickered into existence right before my eyes. [Exploitative Workplace Behavior Detected. Activate the ‘Anti-Leech’ Protocol?] I stared at Howard’s smug, oily face. He really thought he could cast aside the person who had carried him for eight years. I didn’t hesitate. I thought the word Yes with every fiber of my being. Fine, Howard. If you want to talk about who’s been living off whom, let’s look at the receipts. … [Protocol Activated. Commencing audit of Employee Net Value.] The cold, synthetic voice echoed in my mind, but a sharp, high-pitched hum vibrated through the meeting room. Howard’s face went pale. He slammed his hand on the mahogany table, pointing at the empty air in front of me. “Who authorized that? Shut it down! We don’t need some glitchy software running during a board meeting!” He turned his fury back to me. “Caitlin, you’re a utility thief. You don’t get to run audits on me.” Before I could move, Brenda, the Administrative Lead and Regina’s loyal shadow, leaned in, her voice a shrill hiss. “If anyone’s doing math, it’s the company! Do you have any idea how many resources you’ve drained in eight years? You drink the most coffee, you burn through reams of paper, and you’re running the industrial AC for four extra hours every single night!” Brenda caught Howard’s eye, a frantic look passing between them. Howard caught the signal and crossed his arms, regaining his bravado. “You know what? Fine. You want to talk numbers? Let’s talk.” Howard leaned back, a predatory smile spreading across his face. “Based on commercial electricity rates and your four-hour nightly ‘squatting’ sessions, you owe us at least seventy-six thousand dollars over the last eight years. Tell you what—since you’re practically furniture here, we’ll round it up. Call it an even eighty grand, and we won’t involve the lawyers.” I let out a laugh that felt like a serrated edge. For eight years, I had been the top-performing sales lead. I had built our live-streaming department from a single ring light in a closet to a multi-million dollar operation. Every brick in this building had my sweat dried into the mortar. I lived on cold caffeine and three hours of sleep, writing scripts that turned Howard from a guy in a basement into a “disruptive entrepreneur.” And now that the coffers were full, he was worried about the price of a few kilowatts? He’d been “delaying” my commission checks for six months, and now he was trying to shake me down for eighty thousand dollars in light bulbs? I pulled my digital recorder from my pocket and slammed it onto the table with a sharp clack. “Fine,” I said, my voice steady and cold. “Let’s open the books. Let’s see if I owe you for the air I breathe, or if you owe me for the eight years of my life I’ve spent keeping this ship from sinking.” Regina, standing by the coffee station, suddenly lurched forward and threw her lukewarm latte directly at my face. “You think because you had a few good quarters you can talk to the CEO like that?” she spat, her eyes full of venom. “You’re nothing but a platform baby. You made money because the company provided the stage, not because you’re special.” I wiped the brown liquid from my cheek, feeling the sting of the heat. Regina didn’t stop. She looked at the room, her voice booming with the authority of a woman who had never worked a day in her life. “Caitlin Rossi has been found guilty of gross misuse of company resources. Her commissions for the last two quarters are hereby forfeited and will be redistributed as a performance bonus to the rest of the staff.” I actually chuckled. I was a Senior Lead, yet every time they “hired” some new associate director—usually a nephew or a friend—they started them at a higher base than mine. I hadn’t complained because I lived for the hustle, for the wins. But this? This was a mugging. Howard saw my expression and tapped his ring on the table. Clink. Clink. “Don’t look so heartbroken, Caitlin. Anyone can write a script. Anyone can pick products for a stream. You’re a glorified middleman. Honestly, you should be grateful we aren’t suing you for the full amount of the overhead you’ve wasted.” Watching him prepare to butcher the golden goose was surreal. Did he really think the millions of followers we had stayed for the “platform”? I had spent years testing products until my stomach was in knots and my skin was raw from cheap cosmetics, all to ensure our brand remained bulletproof. I’d stayed up until 3 AM crafting the “spontaneous” jokes that made our viewers feel like family. I pushed my chair back, the screech of metal on linoleum echoing through the silence. I looked Howard dead in the eye. “Stop the gaslighting, Howard. We’re settling this today. If I’m a ‘leech,’ then pay me out my back pay and my commissions, and I’ll walk.” Regina stood her ground. “We’ll settle it, alright. By the time I’m done with the audit, you’ll be lucky if you aren’t paying us for the privilege of having worked here.” I reached for the virtual “Confirm” button on the system floating in my peripheral vision. Howard’s eyes widened. He lunged across the table, trying to grab my wrist. “Caitlin, don’t play games with me! This is my house. You don’t make the rules.” He lowered his voice, his tone shifting to a fake, fatherly concern. “Look, we’ll just wash the commissions against the ‘damages.’ You keep your job, I keep the lights on. It’s a mercy, really. Don’t be ungrateful.” I pulled my hand back as if his touch were toxic. “So eight years of growth is worth a few coffee pods and some AC? Pay me my balance, Howard. Fire me or don’t, but pay me.” Howard kicked his chair over, the facade of the “visionary leader” finally cracking. “You think you’re so smart? You were a pathetic intern who couldn’t even format a PDF when I found you! I built the studio for you! I took out the loans! Without me, you’re just another girl with a degree and no future. You owe me a training fee just for the lessons I’ve taught you!” I went silent. I remembered the early days. His “dream” was a failing vintage snack shop. He had zero sales for two months. I was the one who convinced him to pivot to digital. I was the one who spent eighteen hours a day on the phone with vendors. I remembered him getting drunk the night we hit our first ten thousand orders, crying and telling me we were partners for life. It turns out “partners for life” only lasts until the bank account hits seven figures. Regina laughed, crossing her arms. “Hear that? You’re a company-made product. That million-dollar commission check you’re dreaming of? It belongs to the house. In fact, between the ‘training fees,’ the electricity, and the office supplies you’ve wasted, you’re in the red.” Howard grabbed a pen and scribbled a number on a notepad, shoving it toward me. “Market rate for training a senior lead is three hundred thousand. Plus the eighty for utilities. Plus the miscellaneous ‘misuse’ fees… let’s call it six hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Consider it a lucky number. You have three days to pay the company back, or my lawyers will make sure you never work in this town again.” He stood up and marched out, Regina and the rest of the “leadership” trailing behind him like a funeral procession. I sat in the empty conference room for a long time. My phone buzzed. Notification: Your corporate Slack and Email accounts have been deactivated. I stared at the screen. I had been naive enough to think we were a team. I had sacrificed my 20s for a family business that saw me as nothing more than an overhead expense. Fine. If they wanted to play “Family Business,” they were about to find out what happens when the person who built the house decides to take the foundation with her. I pulled out my personal phone and sent a voice note to the one person Howard feared most. “Mr. Henderson? It’s Caitlin. You mentioned a standing offer for double my current salary and a seat at the executive table? I’m interested. And I’m not coming alone. I’m bringing the entire production team.” The reply was instant. [My office. One hour. Let’s change the industry.] I walked back to my desk. I didn’t pack my photos. I didn’t take my mug. Instead, I plugged an encrypted drive into my workstation. I pulled the master vendor list—a document I had spent five years perfecting, categorized by reliability, lead times, and secret pricing. I didn’t just copy it. I deleted the primary contacts and scrambled the sorting algorithms. It wasn’t “stealing” if it was my personal intellectual property—I had never signed a non-compete. Then, I sat back and waited. Joy, our top-tier influencer and my closest work-friend, burst into the area, her face pale. “Caitlin! Regina just marched her sister into the studio. She told me to step aside because Tiffany is taking over the 3 PM livestream. She told me I had thirty minutes to ‘train’ her or I was out!” This wasn’t just a restructuring. This was an execution. I followed Joy to the studio. When we stepped inside, my heart sank. Tiffany, Regina’s younger sister, was caked in heavy club makeup and wearing a dress that was better suited for a Vegas lounge than a mid-day shopping stream. She was looking at the high-end organic snacks on the table with visible disgust. “Who picked this junk? It’s all food,” Tiffany complained, adjusted her camera angle to show more cleavage. “I’m not eating on camera. I’m a dancer. Clear this out. Get some champagne. I’m going to do a ‘wine and body’ segment for the guys in the chat. That’s how you get real tips.” “You won’t get tips,” I said, my voice cold as ice. “You’ll get a permanent ban.” Tiffany rolled her eyes at me. “Whatever. Our audience is fifty percent men, right? They don’t want to hear Joy’s ‘funny stories.’ They want to see a girl who’s actually hot.” “Our audience is sixty percent women,” I corrected, stepping into the light. “And eighty percent of the actual purchases come from them. You alienate the women, you lose the revenue. You’re not selling a lifestyle; you’re selling a cheap distraction.” Regina kicked the studio door open, pointing a finger at Joy. “I told you to train her, not go crying to your little protector. Since you clearly can’t tell who signs your checks anymore, Joy, you can pack your bags. We don’t keep people who bite the hand that feeds them.” Joy looked at me, her eyes brimming with tears. She was the best “girl-next-door” talent in the business, and they were tossing her away for a TikTok trope. I looked around the studio—the place where I’d spent more nights than my own bedroom. I looked at the crew, who were watching in stunned silence. “If the company wants to stop selling quality and start selling… whatever this is,” I said, gesturing to Tiffany, “then we’re done here. Joy, let’s go.” As we turned to leave, Howard appeared in the hallway, blocking our path. He looked frantic. “Caitlin! I knew it! You’re trying to poach my talent! You’ve been planning this, haven’t you?” I was confused for a split second—how did he know? Then I saw my personal phone in his hand. He held it up like a trophy. “I have cameras at every station, Caitlin. I saw you leave your phone unlocked when you went to the studio. I saw the messages to Henderson.” He sneered. “I’ve already messaged him back from your account, telling him to screw off. I also told him you’ve been embezzling from me for years.” My blood ran cold. He had violated the one boundary I had left. “You’re not just paying me the six hundred thousand now,” Howard barked, his face turning a dark shade of purple. “For poaching and trade secret theft, I’m adding a two-million-dollar penalty. And if you want Joy or the rest of these losers to leave? That’s another three million in ‘buyout’ fees. You owe me five point six million dollars, Caitlin. You aren’t leaving this building until I have a signed confession and a payment plan.” The years of quiet endurance, the skipped holidays, the ruined skin, the stomach ulcers—it all crystallized into a single, white-hot point of rage. I didn’t think. I just swung. My palm connected with his cheek with a crack that silenced the entire floor. Howard stumbled back, clutching his face, his eyes wide with shock. “You… you hit me? That’s a twenty-thousand-dollar assault charge, you bitch!” “I don’t care if it’s fifty thousand,” I snarled, stepping into his space. “Give me my phone. Now.” I lunged for it, but Howard shoved me back. I tripped, my lower back slamming into the sharp edge of a metal filing cabinet. The pain was blinding. I collapsed to the floor, gasping for air. Howard stood over me, laughing. “Too late. I already blocked Henderson. I told him the truth—that you’re a leech who’s finally been caught.”

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The crumpled scratch-off ticket lay in the trash can, the $100,000 prize printed on it burning my eyes. Just minutes ago, I thought it was a miracle. A wedding fund sent straight from heaven. I had rushed at my boyfriend, Timothy, waving the ticket like a lifeline. “Timothy! We can finally do it! We can get married!” My voice had trembled. The finish line of our five-year relationship was right in front of us. He wouldn’t have to stress about the ring, the down payment for a house, the crushing weight of starting our life together. But there wasn’t a single ounce of joy on his face. Instead, he let out a soft, mocking scoff. “Are you really that desperate to be a wife?” Before the ice of those words could even sink into my veins, a burst of harsh, echoing laughter erupted from the phone in his pocket. “Man, you lost the bet! She actually thinks she can use that chump change to marry you. Might as well just put a ring on it!” a guy’s voice snickered. “For real. A hundred grand? That wouldn’t even cover one of Una’s Birkins. This girl is so cheap.” Una. The trust-fund girl who used to corner me in the high school bathrooms. The one who made my teenage years a living hell. It turned out that in his eyes, I wasn’t even worth the leather on one of her handbags. Five years. Five years of love, of building a life, of sharing a bed. All of it was just a sick, twisted bet between him and his rich friends. 1. “Alright, knock it off, all of you.” Timothy’s voice was casual. “I’m not one to go back on my word. You all better get your wedding gifts ready.” Amidst the chorus of hoots and whistles from the speaker, a woman’s voice cut through—a voice that still haunted my worst nightmares. “Timothy, are you out of your damn mind?!” Una shrieked. “We agreed you were just going to mess with her! It was supposed to be a joke to help me blow off some steam. You’re actually going to marry her?” Timothy reached out, wiping a stray tear from my cheek with his thumb, answering the phone with a lazy drawl. “Yeah. If I don’t marry her, what, am I supposed to marry you?” “Una, sweetheart, did you really think I was your little lapdog? That I’d just roll over and do whatever you say?” The line went dead. The abrupt beep of the disconnected call echoed in the small kitchen. Timothy stared at his phone for a long moment before looking up at me with an easy smile. “What were you crying for just now? So happy you’re marrying a rich guy that it broke your brain?” Before I could force a syllable past the lump in my throat, he turned toward the stove. “You want fried rice? I’ll make it right now.” He tied his faded apron around his waist, cracking an egg, chopping scallions with practiced ease. He moved exactly as he had for the last five years. As if the soul-crushing humiliation that just unfolded in our kitchen had never happened. I took a shallow breath. My chest ached with a rhythmic, pulsing pain. I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “Aren’t you tired?” “What?” he asked over his shoulder. “Five years. Aren’t you tired of acting?” Timothy didn’t answer. The only sound left in the room was the heavy hum of the exhaust fan over the stove. It grated against my nerves, deafening and chaotic. I walked over, snapped the fan off, and grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at me. “Are you not going to explain?” “I just came clean, didn’t I? What else is there to explain?” He paused, his jaw tightening slightly. “Una and I grew up together. We’re childhood friends. Don’t read into it.” He neatly sidestepped the bet. He conveniently ignored Una’s comment about ‘blowing off steam.’ I tilted my head back, blinking hard against the raw burn in my eyes. Five years. Over eighteen hundred days and nights. I had hollowed out my chest and handed my heart to Timothy. I truly believed he was the man I would walk through the fire with. I didn’t care that we were broke. We could work for it. I didn’t care that we rented a tiny apartment or took the subway. We could save. And now he was telling me that every struggle, every tear, every quiet moment of comfort, was a meticulously crafted lie? A prank designed just to stroke Una’s ego? I couldn’t fathom it. I was a nobody. An ordinary girl trying to survive. What on earth did I possess that made me worth this kind of elaborate psychological torture? Why would a wealthy heir spend five years playing the role of a devoted, struggling boyfriend? When he used to hold me and apologize for not being able to give me a better life—did he have to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing? When he warmed my freezing feet against his chest in the winter, when he scrubbed out stains in my underwear in the sink—was he suppressing a gag? What an incredible actor. Truly, I had inconvenienced him. “So, what day are we getting married?” he asked, his tone as light as if he were asking if I wanted soy sauce on my rice. I clenched my jaw, my voice dripping with pure venom. “We’re not.” He scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Seriously? Because of a joke? Haven’t you been dying to marry me for years?” “Yeah, I lied. But look at the outcome. It’s a win for you, isn’t it? I can give you a million dollars for the wedding. A house. A luxury car. Just point at what you want. What the hell are you so hung up on?” “This isn’t about money—” Timothy froze, then suddenly hurled the ceramic bowl against the wall. It shattered on impact. Shards of porcelain grazed my bare arms, and raw egg splattered across the linoleum. “When we were broke, you wanted money. Now that we have money, you want to talk about something else!” he yelled. “Nicole, are you sick in the head?” A thin trail of blood snaked down my forearm. My hands were completely numb. He instinctively reached out to grab me. I shoved him away. “Yeah. I am sick in the head.” My voice was a ghost of a whisper. I reached down and shoved the sleeves of my sweater all the way up, exposing the jagged, overlapping pale scars that mapped my forearms. “I am clinically depressed. I am deeply mentally ill. Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?” The tears spilled over, hot and uncontrollable. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, staring dead into his eyes. “Timothy, I’m asking you. Are you satisfied?!” “Why the hell would I marry you?! Why would I marry the man who turned my life into a sick game for my abuser?!” His lips parted, trembling slightly. Something flashed in his eyes. For a pathetic, split second, I actually thought it was remorse. Then his phone rang again. He answered it. “Timothy! Una is wasted! She’s screaming and breaking things. She says she needs to see you!” a panicked voice shouted through the receiver. “How is that my problem?” Timothy muttered, pulling the first-aid kit from the cabinet, stepping toward me with the iodine. “She said… she said if you don’t come right now, she’s going to find some random guy at the club and sleep with him.” The iodine bottle slipped from Timothy’s hand, spilling a dark brown puddle onto the floor. He clenched his fists, shooting me a conflicted, agonizing look, before his jaw set into a hard line. “Clean yourself up. I’ll be right back.” I didn’t say a word. I just stood by the window in dead silence. I watched him sprint down the sidewalk. When he reached the apartment exit, my beat-up electric scooter was blocking his path. He kicked it violently, sending it crashing to the pavement. He had bought me that scooter during our second year together. It didn’t keep the rain or the cold out, but it meant I didn’t have to squeeze into the crowded subway anymore. When he surprised me with it, I had cried with joy, riding him around our tiny apartment complex in circles. What I thought was love. What I thought was happiness. It was just like that scooter now. Lying in the gutter, its mirrors shattered into a thousand useless pieces. 2. Blood dripped steadily from my arm. I wrapped the gauze around the cuts with robotic, numb movements. The bright red mixing with my tears was a nauseating sight. I stared at the white bandages. My mind fractured, ping-ponging violently between the echoes of Una’s voice—“just mess with her”—and the memories of Timothy holding me. In those dark days, when I would wake up screaming from nightmares, my hands desperately searching for something sharp to make the emotional pain physical, Timothy had gripped my wrists. “Nicole! If you die, it’s over for you. But what about me?!” he had wept into my hair. “What are the people who love you supposed to do?!” He had held me so tightly. He sounded so profoundly terrified of losing me. His burning tears had soaked right through my shirt, warming me all the way down to my frozen bones. And so, I had cracked my chest open for him. Between ragged sobs, I told him everything. I told him about the explicit, fabricated rumors Una spread about me. How she framed me for stealing. How she and her friends cornered me in the locker room, dumping buckets of ice water over my head until I was shaking so violently I couldn’t breathe. The stress and physical trauma had triggered severe endometriosis. The pain was so agonizing I had to drop out of high school for a year. I spent six months in and out of the hospital. For years, just hearing the name “Una” was enough to send me into a panic attack. But I gritted my teeth and survived. And Timothy had been there, staying awake until dawn, stroking my hair, whispering, “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here.” Was he ever comforting me? Or was he just collecting data? Gathering stories to share with Una so they could laugh at her masterpiece? I felt physically sick. Across the room, the laptop screen glowed. The little Discord icon was flashing frantically. Timothy had left in such a rush, he forgot to log out. With shaking fingers, I clicked it open. It was a private server. Una was the admin. I scrolled to the very top. I read every single message. Every word. I read how Timothy’s relentless pursuit of me in college wasn’t love at first sight. It was a directive. Una: She got into the same university as you? What a joke. God, I hate her so much. Timothy, can you just pretend to date her? Ruin her and then toss her out. Timothy: You refuse to be my girlfriend, but you’re pushing me onto someone else? You’re brutal, Val. I read how every time I let my guard down, the server would explode with cheers. They took bets on when he would finally sleep with me. I watched the video of him gifting me the electric scooter. I read their comments. God, she’s so pathetic. Crying over a piece of trash like it’s a Mercedes. I saw them mocking the watch I bought him—the one I ate instant noodles for six months to afford. They called it cheap, embarrassing garbage. Line after line of venomous, merciless cruelty carved into my brain. Tears hit the keyboard, pooling between the keys. I scrubbed my face raw with my sleeve and kept reading. Later in the chat, Timothy spoke less. Until recently, when they began demanding the grand finale. The ultimate humiliation to break me permanently. I slumped back in the computer chair, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The air in the room felt thick, unbreathable. I could hear my own ragged breathing, mingling with the audio from the live video call playing in the group chat. “Kiss her! Kiss her!” “Timothy, man, Una is practically throwing herself at you! Don’t leave her hanging!” I stared blankly at the screen. Through the grainy footage of the club’s VIP room, I watched Timothy scoop up a heavily intoxicated Una into his arms. He kicked open the door to a private back room. The cheers and whistles from his friends were deafening, like they were sending a newlywed couple off to their honeymoon suite. Slowly, deliberately, I placed my hands on the keyboard. You disgusting animals. Why don’t you all just rot in hell? I hit send. A second later, the server disconnected. I had been kicked out. My stomach violently rebelled. I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up everything in my system, dry-heaving over the toilet until my throat bled. The rain from my youth had never actually stopped. Timothy just held an umbrella over my head for a little while, tricking me into believing the sky had cleared. My phone buzzed on the bathroom tile. I swiped to answer. “You saw it?” Timothy’s voice was breathless. “Yes.” “Wait for me. I’m coming home. Let me explain, I—” “Don’t bother.” I sat exhausted on the cold tile, looking out into the living room we had decorated together. “You don’t need to explain, and you don’t need to come back.” “Timothy. I don’t want to play your game anymore. Just let me go.” “I know I can’t beat you people. But I can hide.” 3. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. It was agonizing. I finally held the power button and shut it off entirely. I shoved the property deed back into the drawer where I had found it while packing my suitcase. I had always praised Timothy for finding such a cheap, perfect apartment so close to my office. I never would have guessed that he was the owner. The moon hung high and cold, casting a pale light over me as I walked out of the building. The sound of my suitcase wheels rolling against the concrete felt deafening in the dead of night. But it was drowned out by the screech of tires skidding to a halt right in front of me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Timothy was out of the car in a flash, chest heaving, his fingers wrapping around my wrist like a vice. “You’re a grown woman pulling a runaway act? Are you five years old? Get in the car. We’re going home.” I turned my head, refusing to look at the fresh, bruising hickey blooming on his neck. I yanked my arm with all my strength, but he wouldn’t let go. “You and I don’t have a home.” He stared at me, his eyes dark. I tried to walk around him, and he hauled me back by the shoulders. “Be rational for one second, okay?” he snapped. “Whatever issues you have with Una are ancient history. How long are you going to hold onto high school drama?” “People need to move forward. You know exactly how good I’ve been to you these past five years. If you leave me, where are you ever going to find someone who treats you like I do?” Ancient history. Of course it was easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one waking up screaming. He took the trauma that shattered my mind and permanently altered my body, and brushed it off as “drama.” I stared at him, truly looking at his face. This was the face that used to make my heart skip a beat. How did he look so entirely alien to me now? I suppose the fault was mine. I never really knew him at all. My head throbbed. I didn’t have the energy to fight him. “The keys are under the mat. I didn’t take a single thing you bought me. Except this sweater. And it got torn.” My voice was dead. “Tell me how much it costs. I’ll pay you back.” “You can’t afford it.” Timothy laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “Did you really think I bought your clothes off the clearance rack? That was custom-made in Italy. How are you going to pay for it? With your pathetic entry-level salary? With your worthless pride?” “If you’ve got so much backbone, then take it off right now—” He didn’t finish the sentence. Because I had already reached for the hem. One button. Two buttons. “Jesus Christ!” he roared, ripping his own jacket off and violently wrapping it around my shoulders. “Nicole, you have lost your fucking mind!” He shoved me into the passenger seat before I could react, locking the doors from the driver’s side. He drove recklessly, speeding all the way to his real home. A sprawling, gated estate in a neighborhood I had only ever seen in movies. “You’re sleeping here tonight,” he ordered, dragging me into a massive bedroom. I looked around. The walk-in closet was filled with clothes in my exact size. The en-suite bathroom was stocked with the specific, drugstore brands I used. Sitting in the center of the massive king-sized bed was the giant, outrageously expensive stuffed bear I had once looked at in a store window but refused to let him buy. What was this supposed to be? Poison coated in sugar? A temporary anesthetic before the next round of psychological torture? My stomach heaved again. I gagged, my hair sticking to my tear-streaked face. Timothy frowned, stepping toward me, his voice suddenly shifting, laced with a strange urgency. “Nicole… are you…” Are you what? I saw a flicker of absolute elation cross his face, but it was instantly shattered by the sharp, aggressive click of high heels marching down the hardwood hallway. Una threw the bedroom doors open. She glared at me with pure, unfiltered hatred before raising her hand to slap me across the face. A visceral tremor shot through me. My body betrayed me, flinching violently as I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the impact. But the sting never came. Timothy had caught her wrist in mid-air. “What the hell is this?!” Una screamed, her face contorted in rage. “I told you to break her, not marry her! Timothy, did you actually fall in love with this trash?!” “She’s been a manipulative little bitch since we were kids! Stop letting her play you!” Timothy didn’t answer whether he loved me or not. He just stared at Una, his voice dangerously low. “The second you pushed me into her bed, you lost the right to ask me a damn thing.” I sat on the plush carpet, watching them scream at each other. A toxic, deeply entangled lovers’ quarrel. My head was spinning, my skin burning up with a fever. The last thing I heard through the haze was Una sobbing, “This is my room! Why would you put her in my room? You’re just doing this to make me jealous, aren’t you?!” I couldn’t hear the rest. I just smiled a little to myself. I smiled because I really was pathetic. To think, even for a second, that Timothy had an ounce of genuine feeling for me. He was nothing but a master manipulator, playing us both. 4. When I opened my eyes, the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room greeted me. Timothy was sitting by the bed. Dark, heavy bags shadowed his eyes, but a frantic, uncontainable smile stretched across his face. “You’re pregnant.” He reached out, tentatively resting his hand over my stomach. He pulled up the calendar on his phone. “I looked at some dates. What do you think of a spring wedding? We can still do the botanical garden venue you always wanted. I’ll fly a designer out for your dress. You can start looking at silhouettes.” “And as soon as the reception is over, we’re on a plane for the honeymoon. Didn’t you say you wanted to see the Amalfi Coast? We can stay for a month—” He was rambling, completely manic, aggressively painting over the wreckage with promises of a future. I didn’t say a word. I just stared at my phone screen. There was an email from HR. I had been terminated, effective immediately. Orders from the top. I didn’t even have to ask. If it wasn’t Timothy’s doing, it was Una’s family pulling strings. Five years. I had bled for that company for five years. Gone in a single keystroke because I dared to exist in their orbit. A notification popped up. A trending video on TikTok. Una’s face filled the screen. I clicked it. She had a massive following—millions of subscribers who tuned in to watch her ‘day in the life of an heiress’ vlogs. Why did she get to live such a charmed, beautiful life? Did she deserve it? The video currently breaking the internet was her, makeup flawlessly messy, sobbing into the camera about her tragically stolen childhood romance. She talked about how she and Timothy were soulmates. How he rented out entire amusement parks for her birthdays. How he had bought her rooms full of diamonds. And then, she mentioned me. The manipulative, poverty-stricken homewrecker who clawed her way into their inner circle and seduced him away. Within minutes, the comments were a warzone. Thousands of people were threatening to dox me, calling for my head. My hands shook. I glanced at Timothy, who was now on the phone, loudly demanding a wedding planner’s availability. I opened my notes app. I typed everything out. I attached the screenshots from the Discord server. The high school medical records. And I hit post. I watched the likes climb. I watched her loyal fans call my scars fake, accusing me of lying about the bullying. But then, other people—people who remembered us from high school—started chiming in, validating my proof. The tide was turning. Then, the screen refreshed. Post deleted. Una’s team had scrubbed it. Timothy walked back into the room, ending his call, his brow furrowed in disapproval. “Nicole, you need to stop being so impulsive,” he sighed. “Una is an influencer. She has to exaggerate things for views, it’s her job. I wouldn’t let her actually hurt you.” He paused, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Listen. We’re all going to be in the same social circles moving forward. You can’t make things this ugly. Just… go apologize to her. We’ll clear the air, smooth over the high school stuff, and put it behind us.” The corners of my mouth twitched into a terrifyingly empty smile. The void in my chest was so vast, it couldn’t even echo with anger anymore. I felt absolutely nothing. I nodded submissively. I let him dress me. I let him lead me by the hand into the VIP room of the city’s most exclusive restaurant. Timothy pressed a glass of cranberry juice into my hand as we walked in. Across the table sat Una, dripping in designer jewelry, looking at me with victorious, sneering eyes. She tilted her head. “Well? Apologize. Just like in high school. Get on your knees…” The room was packed with their friends. The same faces from the group chat. All of them smirking, waiting for the show. Just like they did when we were teenagers. I walked toward her, slow and deliberate. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I am so sorry, Una. Let me apologize to a worthless, psychotic bitch like you—” I slashed the glass forward, throwing the dark red juice violently into her face. She shrieked, stumbling back, the red liquid dripping down her Chanel blazer, ruining her flawless makeup. Before anyone could react, I grabbed a heavy wine bottle from the table and smashed it over her head, letting the wine pour over her hair. “I apologize for being prettier than you!” I screamed, the numbness shattering into absolute, feral rage. “I apologize for being smarter than you!” “I apologize that the boys you liked always looked at me! I apologize that you had to torture me just to feel like you were worth breathing the same air!” Hands grabbed at me. I didn’t know whose. I didn’t care. I smashed the neck of the bottle against the table and whipped around, pointing the jagged glass at the room. “Whoever touches me is getting cut! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you!” Una was sobbing on the floor. I lunged, wrapping my hand into her extensions, hauling her up, and bringing my hand across her face in a vicious, echoing slap. “Apologize to you? I’d rather die, you piece of trash!”

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