In a live-stream room dedicated to testing the loyalty of partners, the guest submission was practically hyperventilating with rage. “My boyfriend is a complete, boosted parasite!” she cried. “He literally begged me to carry him to Challenger every season just so he could flex on his friends. And then, just to play duos with other girls, he lied to me and said those high-tier accounts belonged to his sister who does professional boosting!” “If you don’t believe me, send him a friend request from an account with a Regional Badge. He’ll accept it in a heartbeat!” A second later, my own gaming avatar and profile ID flashed across the stream. Staring at the streamer’s profile—which boasted several top-tier regional badges of her own—I clicked accept. The next moment, I was pulled into her game lobby. A soft, sweet voice drifted through my headset. “Hey there, handsome. Down for some duos?” I let out a cold laugh, lowered my pitch to a deep, smooth drawl, and replied, “I’d love to.” 1 Lately, a new trend had taken over the gaming community. People were hiring streamers with sweet, attractive voices to run “loyalty tests” on their significant others. It had become my favorite dinner entertainment. Every evening, I’d sit back with my food, scroll through these streams, and laugh as one toxic partner after another got caught red-handed. Tonight, the girl on stream was sobbing as she poured her heart out. “He’s just using me for my rank! He’s barely a Diamond-level player on his own, but he forces me to carry him to Challenger every single season just so he can brag.” “Whenever we lose, he screams at me. When we win, he tells me I’m trash compared to the rest of the team!” “He’s constantly playing with other girls, claiming those accounts belong to his sister’s boosting business. It’s all a lie!” “Just add him. If you have any high-rank badges on your profile, he’ll accept instantly.” Her voice cracked as she dissolved into tears. I shook my head, taking a bite of food. I couldn’t help but feel bad for her. How could anyone be so naive? The guy was clearly using her as a free boosting service. The chat was already flying by, filled with righteous indignation. What a pathetic loser! Girl, stop crying. Block him and run! Lmao, ‘my sister’s boosting account.’ Classic. Add him, streamer! Let’s watch this trainwreck live! After finishing my dinner, I scooped up half a watermelon with a spoon, settling in for the show. But a second later, the avatar and gamer tag that popped up on the stream made me freeze. The avatar was a picture of my cat, Binx. The username was my exact gamer tag: Phantom_Luke. My spoon slipped, and the watermelon splashed back into the bowl. The chat went wild, instantly feeding on the drama. The streamer, a girl with a gentle, comforting voice, was trying to soothe the crying guest. “I get it, sis. I just sent him a request. He hasn’t accepted yet, but don’t worry.” She was telling her not to worry? I was the one about to have a panic attack! Mainly because I didn’t even have a girlfriend! On top of that, every single Regional Badge on my account was earned through hours of grueling solo queue. When did I become a “boosted Diamond parasite” who needed a girl to carry him? I scrambled to log into the game on my phone. Sure enough, there was a pending friend request. Setting up my tablet next to me to keep the stream open, I confirmed that the request was indeed from the streamer. I never expected that one day, I’d end up being the entertainment. I accepted the request. My initial instinct was to jump into the lobby and demand to know who the hell this guest was. But as the adrenaline cooled, I decided to play along. While I could be incredibly loud and aggressive in game chat, in real life, I was quiet and kept to myself. Most of my friends were laid-back, polite guys from my college dorm. Who could possibly hate me enough to pull a stunt like this? On stream, the streamer was looking over my profile, and the chat erupted again. Holy shit, this guy has more Regional Badges than the streamer does! Wait, is this actually a boosted player? His stats are insane. Maybe the guest is just mad because she got dumped and she’s trying to ruin his life? Obviously he bought the account, guys. No way a Diamond loser has these stats. The submitter quickly typed in the chat to defend her narrative. He paid a professional booster for those badges! He’s actually terrible. I’ve seen him play in person—he can barely handle a low-tier Master lobby on his own! Seen me play in person? I never played games anywhere except my dorm room or my bedroom at home. A cold realization washed over me. Was the guest one of my roommates? 2 While my mind raced, the streamer pulled me into her lobby. A soft voice echoed in my headset. “Hey there, handsome. Down for some duos?” I took a slow breath, consciously dropping my voice to a deeper, more resonant register. “I’d love to.” Wow, his voice is actually really hot. He doesn’t sound like a bad guy. Please, the guys with voices like that are always the biggest players. To get to the bottom of this, I had to keep my temper in check. “Let’s go then,” the streamer giggled, starting the matchmaking queue. During the draft phase, she drop-hinted that she wanted me to play Fae—a pocket support champion that literally attaches to another player’s character. I pretended not to hear her and locked in Lyra, a high-damage, musical mid-lane mage. The submitter immediately started mocking me in the chat. He’s playing mid. This game is a guaranteed loss. The viewers followed her lead. This guy really had the balls to lock Lyra in a Challenger lobby? Confidence is a hell of a drug. When we lose, he’ll just blame the champion’s lack of mobility. “Don’t worry, handsome. Just clear your waves in mid, and I’ll come gank for you,” the streamer said, her tone patronizing, as if she were talking to a child. I smiled tightly. “Sounds good.” Because our profiles both showed high-rank badges, the matchmaking system put us against a incredibly coordinated enemy team. Within three minutes, our side lanes collapsed. Our teammates refused to defend the jungle, completely ruining the streamer’s farming rotation. By the ten-minute mark, the enemy was pushing our high-ground gates. My teammates had completely given up, repeatedly spamming the surrender button. The stream chat had stopped arguing about my relationship status and was now debating whether the game was winnable. I kept my mic muted, quietly farming whatever resources I could find. The streamer had stopped flirting too, desperately trying to coordinate a defense in team chat. As the enemy team gathered to push our final tower, a chaotic team fight broke out. Watching the enemy’s positioning, I threw out Lyra’s second ability, landing a perfect, split-second stun on their main damage dealer. Using my ultimate to dodge a lethal projectile, I flashed directly onto his face, unleashed my full combo, and eliminated him instantly. With a sliver of health left, I managed to weave through the chaos. Instead of retreating to the safety of our fountain, I hovered at the very edge of the fight, cycling my healing abilities to keep my remaining teammates alive. I picked up four assists in the clean-up. We pushed straight down the map and shattered their Nexus. When the victory screen faded, the MVP card popped up on my screen. I had dealt 32% of our team’s total damage. The streamer fell completely silent. The chat, however, went absolutely ballistic. Lyra dealt 32% damage? Lmao, the streamer got carried so hard. Is this the guy you called a ‘boosted parasite’?! With macros like that? He could easily be a professional booster himself. Streamer, this is a script. I’m out. Where did the guest go? Why is she quiet now? After a long pause, the submitter finally typed a message. It makes sense now. They’re living together! The girl he’s living with is the one actually playing his account right now! I was drinking water and nearly choked. This girl was a creative writer. The stories just kept coming. But the chat, hungry for any reason to validate their biases, swallowed it whole. A live-in girlfriend boosting him? Wow. Some guys are so pathetic, they’ll do anything for a rank. The chat devolved into a massive flame war. Some were arguing about the “live-in booster” theory, while others started pointing out the inconsistencies in the guest’s story. The streamer was clearly caught off guard by the twist, but she was a professional. She quickly recovered her composure and began showering me with praise. Wanting to keep the viewers hooked—and to figure out if I actually had a “live-in girlfriend”—she asked sweetly, “You’re so good, handsome. Down for another one?” “Of course,” I replied smoothly. During the next champion select, the streamer suggested, “You must be tired after that carry. Why don’t you take Fae this game, hitch a ride on my character, and let me carry you?” I smiled, my voice remaining calm and steady. “Actually, I don’t really like playing support.” Without hesitation, I locked in Mirage—the absolute highest-skill-cap assassin in the game. “Why don’t you play support and hitch a ride on me? I’ll show you how to jungle.” Lmao, he’s doubling down! Where are all the people who said he was being boosted by a live-in girlfriend? Look at his champion pool! The chat was scrolling so fast it was a blur of colors, interspersed with the submitter’s desperate insults. I couldn’t help but grin. The streamer let out a nervous laugh. “Wow, I didn’t know you played Mirage. Not many people can pull him off. Did your girlfriend teach you?” “Of course not,” I answered instantly. “I don’t even have a girlfriend.” Even with my direct denial, the chat refused to believe it. The submitter took the opportunity to play the victim again. No wonder he keeps his relationship status hidden on his profile. It’s so he can flirt with other girls on stream! Once the match started, the streamer kept backseat-gaming, telling me where to path and when to take objectives. During the first fight at the dragon pit, the enemy team caught me off guard, taking half my health. “Get out, get out! Abandon the dragon!” she yelled through the headset. Before she could finish her sentence, I activated Mirage’s ultimate. Executing a flawless chain of mirror-images, I danced through the enemy backline, dodging their crowd control, securing a triple kill, and escaping with double-digit health. The double-kill, triple-kill announcements echoed in our headsets. The streamer—and her entire chat—went dead silent. Finally, she let out a breathless laugh. “Oh my god… you are actually insane.” Fully immersed in the game, I forgot to keep up my deep, mysterious persona. “Just a casual Tuesday. No big deal.” The chat was flooded with “GG” and “WTF” spam. The submitter, completely losing her mind, spammed several messages in a row. It’s fake! It’s all fake! He’s a factory worker! He doesn’t know how to play Mirage! The girl he lives with is the one playing! Her messages were immediately buried under the wave of praise. The rest of the match was a personal highlight reel. Ganking lanes, invading the enemy jungle, securing objectives—I controlled the entire map. In every team fight, I used my mirror clones to bait out the enemy’s ultimate abilities before diving their backline. I ran circles around the enemy jungler, leaving him with a miserable 0/5 stat line. At eleven minutes, the enemy Nexus exploded. My final score was 12/0/4. Another undisputed MVP. The streamer didn’t even try to hide her admiration anymore. “Oh my god, Luke, that was incredible. How do you play like that?” As I was about to reply, someone in the chat pointed out something new. Guys, I looked up his account. His relationship status isn’t hidden—it’s completely empty! And looking at his match history, he only plays solo queue. The stats are completely consistent. Wait… is it possible the guest is just a liar? Suddenly, a loud voice cut through my room. “Alright guys, lights out in five! Keep it down if you’re staying up!” It was my dorm leader making his nightly rounds. Naturally, the streamer heard it. “Wait, are you in a dorm?” I pulled the blanket over my head, lowering my voice to a whisper. “Yeah. I live in a college dorm.” 3 At that, the entire narrative collapsed. A college dorm? So where is this live-in girlfriend coming from? I knew this was a setup! The guest has some explaining to do. First she says he’s a boosted parasite, then she says he’s being boosted by a live-in girlfriend, and now it turns out he lives in a male dorm! Did this girl get rejected and decide to ruin his life? A few trolls still tried to argue that he could have a girl hiding in his bed, but they were quickly roasted by the rest of the chat. Most of the viewers were now tag-spamming the submitter, demanding she show her face and explain herself. I lay in bed, watching the drama unfold with amusement while chatting with the streamer. “How old are you, Luke?” she asked. “Nineteen. Just started my sophomore year.” After several minutes of silence, the submitter finally typed in the chat. He’s not a college student! He’s a factory worker who dropped out of high school! He’s living in a factory dorm! It was fascinating to watch how quickly people would rally behind a lie, even without a shred of evidence. The moment she typed those words, some viewers immediately shifted back. Streamer, ask him which college he goes to! Ask him to show his student ID. The streamer hesitated, clearly trying to figure out how to ask without sounding accusatory. But I had nothing to hide. “I go to Austin University. It’s a pretty decent school, you’ve probably heard of it.” Austin University? That’s an Ivy-equivalent school! Wait, I go to AU! Are you the Phantom from our esports club? The one who won the state championship last semester? Explain! Oh my god, I remember that match! Our Mirage player carried the entire team to the trophy, and he was insanely good-looking! Is it really him? I didn’t expect someone in the chat to actually recognize me. Streamer, meet up with him in person! Let’s see if he’s the real deal! Yeah! Let’s see what Phantom actually looks like! Sensing a massive spike in viewership, the streamer seized the opportunity. “Oh my god, I go to AU too! We’re literally on the same campus! Would you be down to grab coffee tomorrow?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “479973”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was standing at the altar, my hand poised to receive the ring from my maid of honor, when everything fractured. Before we could even exchange vows, Elliot snatched the microphone from the officiant’s hand. His voice boomed through the high-ceilinged cathedral, stripped of all the warmth I’d known for three years. “Alright,” he said, his tone casual, almost bored. “You’ve had your little rehearsal as the bride. Now, be a good girl and go back to being my mistress.” I froze, looking up at him in utter bewilderment. My mind couldn’t register what was happening. Camille, my maid of honor—the woman Elliot had spent our entire relationship insisting was just his platonic, childhood best friend—stepped forward. She slid her arm through his with practiced ease. “Oh, Elliot,” she pouted, though her eyes were gleaming with triumph. “Why did you have to ruin the surprise so early?” She turned to me, her smile dripping with mock pity. “She was just thanking me downstairs for taking care of you all these years. She even said she wanted me to be the godmother when she had your babies!” My brain went entirely numb. The tears came as a physical reflex, hot and fast, before the realization of what was happening could even settle in. Elliot reached out, pinching my cheek with a tenderness that felt like a physical blow. “Iris, don’t cry,” he murmured. “You look so beautiful when you cry. It makes me want to play these little games with you again and again.” “Camille is generous,” he added, his voice dropping to a soothing whisper. “As long as you behave, she doesn’t mind keeping you around as my mistress.” The edges of my vision began to blur. In that agonizing silence, the truth finally crystallized. The “best friend” he swore was practically a sister? She was his actual fiancée. This was her wedding. I was just the dress rehearsal. 1 “Congratulations! Elliot and Camille, finally making it official!” A man at the front table stood up, raising his crystal glass of champagne toward them. He didn’t even look at me. “And don’t take it too hard, Iris. Being kept by a man like Elliot is a privilege most girls would kill for.” The room erupted into a ripple of knowing laughter. “God, Elliot really knows how to pull off a stunt.” “She’s still a college student, isn’t she? Poor thing probably doesn’t know what hit her.” I stood frozen on the elevated stage. The heavy lace of my wedding dress, which had felt like a dream only an hour ago, now felt like a shroud. I felt entirely stripped bare, put on display in the middle of a crowded square for their collective amusement. Everyone in this room knew. Every single guest, every bridesmaid, every caterer. Everyone except me. Elliot reached into the breast pocket of his tailored tuxedo, pulled out a gold-embossed keycard, and pressed it into my palm. “Go wait for me at the penthouse, sweetheart. I’ll come to you as soon as the reception is over.” He leaned down, his warm breath brushing against my earlobe. He whispered, in a tone so intimate it made my stomach turn: “I kept my promise, didn’t I? Tomorrow morning, I’m going to make sure you can’t even get out of bed.” I couldn’t move. My fingers curled around the cold plastic of the keycard. The weight of the shame and betrayal pressed down on my chest like water filling my lungs. “Why?” I whispered, my voice cracking as I forced myself to meet his eyes. “If you didn’t love me… if you didn’t want this… why couldn’t you just tell me? Why did you have to do this?” Elliot looked at me, and for a fleeting second, that familiar look of adoration crossed his face. He reached out to brush a tear from my cheek, his touch agonizingly gentle. “Iris, who said I don’t love you? Your innocence… it’s the most beautiful thing about you.” He smiled, a soft, chilling expression. “That’s why I love watching you love me so completely. And I love the way you look when you realize you’ve been broken.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. I stared at him as if he were a stranger wearing the face of the man I loved. Only last night, he had stood behind me in front of the mirror, helping me adjust the train of this very dress. His arms had wrapped around my waist, pulling me close. “You know, Iris,” he had whispered, his chin resting on my shoulder. “The first time I saw you on campus, I thought: that girl is going to look breathtaking in white.” I had blushed, leaning into him. “And now?” He had laughed softly, kissing the hollow behind my ear. “Now, you’re even more beautiful than I imagined.” “Alright, Elliot. Don’t scare the poor girl. Iris is still young.” Camille had wandered over, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. She had already changed into a gown that made mine look like a cheap knockoff—an intricate, diamond-encrusted masterpiece. She patted Elliot’s shoulder before looking down at me with a polished, maternal smile. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m not a jealous woman. As long as you know your place, you’ll be well taken care of.” My hands shook so violently I had to ball them into fists to keep from vibrating. I took a deep breath, tasting the expensive floral perfume in the air, and spoke with every ounce of dignity I had left. “I won’t be anyone’s mistress.” The ambient chatter seemed to dip. Elliot’s expression didn’t change, but his left eyebrow arched slightly—a small, dangerous gesture I had learned to fear. Then, in his gentlest, most melodic voice, he delivered the blow. “Iris, sweetie… your graduate school fellowship. It’s still in the public review phase, isn’t it?” I froze. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. The air left my lungs entirely. Before I could recover, two burly security guards in black suits stepped onto the stage, taking me firmly by the elbows. As they began to drag me away, Elliot leaned forward and tapped the tip of my nose playfully. “Be a good girl, Iris. Don’t make a scene. You’ve been mine since your freshman year. Everyone knows it. If you leave me, where else do you think you can go?” The penthouse was on the thirty-second floor, offering a sweeping view of the city skyline. The refrigerator was stocked with the exact brands of organic berries and sparkling water I liked. The walk-in closet was organized by season, filled with designer clothes in my size. Even the toothbrush on the marble vanity was the precise charcoal-bristled brand I always used. But my phone was gone. In its place sat a pre-programmed burner phone Elliot had left on the nightstand. Every move I made, every breath I took, was under his watch. I sat on the edge of the velvet sofa, staring at the floor, realizing with sickening clarity that I had been locked in a gilded cage. Late that night, the heavy front door clicked open. Elliot walked in, smelling of expensive whiskey and late-night cigars. He opened the fridge, saw that I hadn’t touched a single thing, and a flicker of soft frustration crossed his eyes. “Iris,” he said, walking over. “Are you trying to starve yourself to punish me?” I didn’t look up. My voice was a dry rasp. “Let me go.” He let out a soft laugh. There was no anger in it. Instead, he knelt in front of me, his posture almost reverent. “And go where? Back to campus? To that cramped dorm room with five roommates, sharing a communal bathroom and eating cheap cafeteria food?” I remained silent. He reached up, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Why the silence? Are you still fighting this?” His tone shifted, growing slightly heavier, a touch of dark disappointment creeping in. “Iris, you know me. I rarely give people second chances.” I closed my eyes. The pain in my chest was dull and constant, like a bruised muscle. I didn’t answer his question. Instead, I asked the one that was tearing me apart. “Was it all a lie? From the very beginning?” Elliot blinked, surprised. Then, his brow furrowed, a shadow of irritation passing over his face. “What is the point of asking that now?” He stood up, poured himself a glass of scotch, and sat on the adjacent armchair in heavy silence. My mind drifted back to the summer three years ago. He had pursued me for three months. He hadn’t been aggressive or flashy. He didn’t shower me with overwhelming gifts. Instead, he simply showed up at the university library every single afternoon, sitting at the table opposite mine. He would quietly place a perfectly iced lavender latte within my reach, and then open his own book, never bothering me. Eventually, I had looked up and asked, “Elliot, what do you actually want from me?” He had looked up, his eyes bright with a warmth that felt entirely real. “You, Iris. Just you.” “I have everything else in the world,” he had said, his voice dropping to a serious, quiet register. “But I don’t have you. And you’re the only thing that matters.” I had believed him. I had fallen for him. That night, Elliot didn’t touch me. But he didn’t answer my question either. The next afternoon, Camille came. She brought a bouquet of fresh white gardenias and a basket of imported fruit. “Elliot had these flown in from California this morning,” she said, setting them on the counter. “Have some.” I didn’t move. She didn’t seem to care. She picked up a silver paring knife and began slicing an apple with effortless grace. “Iris, if you’re uncomfortable, you don’t have to overthink things. Just pretend nothing changed. You can keep calling me ‘big sister’ like you used to.” She chuckled softly to herself. “I always thought it was so cute when you called me that.” She looked at me, her eyes holding the lazy amusement of someone watching a stubborn puppy try to climb a step. A wave of intense nausea hit me. I leaned over and gagged. Camille’s smile vanished. Her expression hardened into something cold and displeased. “You’re being incredibly ungrateful, Iris.” Before I could react, she took the paring knife and ran the blade lightly across her own palm. A thin line of blood welled up. She immediately let out a sharp cry and rushed into the kitchen, throwing herself into Elliot’s arms as he walked in. “Elliot! She… Iris tried to stab me!” Elliot came out of the kitchen, his expression perfectly calm. I opened my mouth to explain, but he raised a hand, cutting me off. “I know, Iris. You’re too gentle to do something like this.” He looked at Camille’s bleeding hand, then looked back at me. “But you’re becoming difficult.” “Apologize to Camille.” I stood up slowly, the weight in my chest suffocating. “And if I say no?” The metallic scent of blood mingled with the sweet fragrance of the gardenias. Elliot didn’t look at me. He pulled out a silver lighter and lit a cigarette. “You’re testing my patience, Iris.” He flicked the ash onto the hardwood floor, his face darkening with a sudden, sharp irritation. “Have I spoiled you so much that you’ve forgotten the gap between us?” The door opened, and two security guards walked in. Without a word, one of them kicked the back of my knee. A sharp pain shot up my leg, and I collapsed onto the floor. Tears stung my eyes, but I forced myself to swallow them. Elliot was right. He was the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar empire. Even the city’s most powerful politicians treated him with deference. And I was just a scholarship student from a small town. With one phone call, he could erase everything I had ever worked for. When we first started dating, my friends had warned me that men like Elliot didn’t have hearts. They said he was ruthless. I hadn’t believed them because he had been so incredibly tender with me. He had never even raised his voice. But as the first blow landed across my face, the truth finally broke through. He didn’t want a partner. He wanted a pet to play with, a toy for him and his wife. “Just apologize, Iris,” Elliot muttered, his eyes fixed on his cigarette. He didn’t even seem to notice the cherry burning close to his fingers. I gritted my teeth and stared at him through my hair, refusing to make a sound. A second slap hit me, harder this time. My head slammed against the floor, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. Then came the third. The fourth. My vision went black at the edges, the pain dulling into a numb vibration. Finally, Camille spoke up, her voice light and airy. “That’s enough, Elliot. I know you only care about me.” She walked over and poked my swollen cheek with a manicured finger, letting out a cruel little giggle. “Look at her. She’s not even pretty anymore. Make sure you clean her up later.” After she left, Elliot knelt beside me. He took a warm, damp cloth and gently wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth. His touch was incredibly tender, almost loving. “Does it hurt?” he murmured. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t say a word, but the tears kept slipping down my cheeks. Elliot sighed, a long, weary sound. “If you had just apologized, none of this would have happened. Camille is reasonable when she’s happy.” He set the cloth down. His fingers slid from my cheek to my jaw, then down to my throat. His hand lingered on my collarbone before reaching down to unbutton the top of my shirt. My body reacted before my brain did. I lunged forward and bit down on the back of his hand as hard as I could. Blood immediately filled my mouth. Elliot let out a low grunt of pain, but he didn’t pull away. He sat perfectly still, his face darkening until it was entirely devoid of life. Suddenly, he grabbed the back of my head, slamming me forward against his chest. His voice was colder than I had ever heard it. “Lick it clean, Iris.” A wave of pure disgust washed over me. I tried to pull back, but his grip was like iron. As I struggled, he violently tore my shirt open. The balcony door was open, and the freezing night air hit my bare skin, locking my muscles in place. “If you don’t start behaving, Iris, you know what happens next.” He pulled out his phone. The screen showed an active draft email to my academic advisor. That night, I stopped fighting. My tears blurred the ceiling until everything dissolved into darkness. When it was over, I huddled in the corner of the shower, letting the freezing water pour over me for hours. He leaned against the bathroom doorframe, his silhouette obscured by the smoke of another cigarette. “Elliot,” I sobbed, my voice cracked and broken. “Please. Let me go back to school. I’m begging you.” Through the haze of smoke, I couldn’t see his face. After a long silence, he spoke quietly. “Fine. But don’t regret it.” I didn’t understand what he meant by “regret.” I thought he had finally felt a shred of pity. I thought he was letting me go. But when I returned to campus the next morning, the stares met me at the gates. Cold, mocking, and full of disgust. The university’s anonymous forum was blown up with a viral post. My mind went entirely blank. My hands shook so violently it took me three tries to unlock my phone. SCANDAL: Senior Iris Campbell, Elliot Crawford’s Secret Mistress—The Paid Plaything of the City’s Elite. The photos were heavily pixelated, but anyone who knew me could tell it was me. It was the bed in Elliot’s penthouse. He hadn’t taken photos on his phone. There had been a camera in the room. Nausea hit me like a physical wave. I ran to the nearest bushes and threw up until my stomach was empty. Students walked by, some taking photos, some recording, others whispering loudly enough for me to hear. “She looked so innocent.” “I wonder what her hourly rate is.” I practically crawled back to my dorm, my clothes torn from stumbling, utterly humiliated. But when I pushed the door open, my roommates were already packing their bags. They looked at me, instantly stepping back to create distance, their faces cold. “Iris, we had no idea you were that kind of person.” “No,” I pleaded, shaking my head. “Please, I’m not… he lied to me. I didn’t know.” But they didn’t believe me. To them, Elliot was a public figure. I had been with him for three years; how could I not know he was engaged? By afternoon, my advisor called me into her office. She told me that due to “moral turpitude” and the public scandal, my graduate fellowship had been officially revoked. I tried to explain that I was the victim, that I had been coerced, but she only sighed, refusing to meet my eyes. “The university’s new science wing and library were funded entirely by Elliot’s family foundation, Iris. Even if you are telling the truth, there is nothing we can do.” When the line went dead, the realization finally settled in my bones. This was what he meant by “regret.” He was stripping away every single piece of my life until there was nothing left but him. He wanted me to learn that without him, I was nothing. The dorm room was quiet and empty. My phone kept buzzing with anonymous threats, vile slurs, and degrading propositions. That night, it started to rain. I stood outside the gates of Elliot’s estate, shivering, and dialed his number. He answered on the first ring. His voice carried the smug, untouchable satisfaction of a man who had won. “Iris. Have you learned your lesson?” I gripped the phone, the shame burning hot in my throat. But when I spoke, only a quiet, broken word came out. “Yes.” A soft, amused chuckle came through the receiver. “You’re a smart girl, Iris. So clean, so pure. You’re only saying that to get out of this, aren’t you?” I froze, my knuckles turning white. “I knew it,” he murmured, his voice dripping with affection. “Nobody knows you better than I do, sweetheart. That’s why the punishment isn’t over yet. You need to truly understand what you did wrong.” “Don’t disappoint me, Iris.” The call ended. I stood frozen in the downpour. Before I could move, three men emerged from the shadows of the estate gates. The blood drained from my face. The last piece of hope I had held onto shattered into dust. I don’t remember the details of how they dragged me into the dark alleyway. Fists and boots rained down on me. The world faded into a red, wet blur. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard one of them answer a phone. “Yeah? Anything?” “Are you sure? We won’t get in trouble?” “Got it. Understood.” After that call, everything changed. Belts were unbuckled. Clothes were torn. I fought with every ounce of strength I had left, my fingers scrambling for my phone, desperately dialing 911. But I had forgotten—this was the phone Elliot had given me. The emergency bypass had been disabled. In a panic, I hit the only speed dial programmed into the system. The call connected. But the voice that answered wasn’t Elliot’s. It was Camille’s. “Iris, sweetie, he’s in the shower. If you have something to say, you can tell him when he’s done.” In that single, agonizing second, I understood. I knew exactly who had sent them. But understanding didn’t save me. My world ended in the twenty minutes that followed. Elliot stepped out of the steam-filled bathroom and saw his phone resting on the counter. “Did Iris call?” Camille was sitting on the edge of the bed, painting her nails. “Yeah. I told her you were busy. She hung up.” Elliot frowned, immediately redialing her number. It rang and rang, eventually going straight to voicemail. He sighed, rubbing his temples. “She’s still throwing a tantrum.” But a second later, a local news alert popped up on his screen: POLICE INVESTIGATING APPARENT GROUP ASSAULT AND SUICIDE; SEARCH UNDERWAY FOR BODY OF YOUNG WOMAN WHO JUMPED INTO THE RIVER.

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I was just an ordinary rideshare driver trying to scrape together enough cash for rent, which is why I started talking about “the spiritual world” to my passengers. It was a cheap trick to pass the time and maybe fish for better tips. But one night, a heavily intoxicated woman stumbled into my backseat, sobbing uncontrollably. She told me her younger brother had been missing for days and asked me what she should do. Just to offer some harmless comfort, I threw out a random suggestion: “Don’t lose hope. Go check the fountain at Riverfront Park tomorrow morning. You might find a miracle waiting for you.” The next day, I woke up to find the entire city under police lockdown. The morning news was covering it live: a local resident had discovered a sealed waterproof backpack at the bottom of the Riverfront Park fountain. Inside was critical evidence that allowed the police to dismantle a massive, interstate human trafficking syndicate overnight. As I sat there in absolute shock, my phone rang. It was an unknown number. “Hello, is this Gina? This is the Major Crimes Unit. We’ve hit a wall on a case, and we’d like you to take us for a little drive…” 1 Midnight in the city always feels like a soaked, heavy black sponge, with the neon signs of the bars acting as the only faint, desperate glimmers of life. My Prius was just another exhausted fish navigating the endless concrete current. Another one-star review. There goes my weekly platform bonus. I sighed, pulling over near the crowded bar strip on Capitol Hill, waiting for the app to ping with my next ride. The driver’s side window was cracked open, letting in a sharp, unpleasant mix of stale beer and cheap perfume from the street. Just as my eyelids were beginning to feel heavy, the back door was suddenly yanked open. A wave of alcohol fumes hit me first, followed by a woman in her late thirties who collapsed onto the leather seats like a heap of wet laundry. “Just… just drive, please. Anywhere,” she slurred, her voice thick with unshed tears. I glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her blazer was rumpled, her hair was a tangled mess, and her eyes were terribly bloodshot. Great. Another broken heart. I shifted into drive and smoothly merged back into the midnight traffic. When you drive the graveyard shift, you see every shade of human misery. Over the months, I’d cobbled together a pseudo-mystical routine to deal with it—a blend of astrology, energy readings, and cold-reading tricks I’d memorized from late-night Reddit threads and TikTok videos. It was perfect for comforting the lonely and the broken-hearted. “Hey,” I said, keeping my voice low and soothing, adopting my best intuitive persona. “Whatever is heavy on your mind, sometimes it helps to let it go.” The woman froze, as if she had finally found a safe harbor, and then she broke down completely. “My brother… he’s been missing for three days,” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “The police aren’t doing anything! There are no leads, nothing!” She struck her own lap with a clenched fist, her knuckles turning white. “He’s only twenty-two. He just graduated… I was supposed to protect him.” Missing? My chest tightened. That wasn’t a standard relationship dispute. That was real, heavy danger. The practiced words of comfort died in my throat. I was just a rideshare driver; what could I possibly say to make that okay? The woman leaned forward, her desperate, tear-stained face reflecting in the dark glass of the windshield. “The bartender said you… you can see things. Please. Tell me where my brother is. Is he even alive?” She looked at me as if I were her absolute last hope. It made my skin crawl. How should I know? If I actually had psychic powers, would I be driving a hybrid for pennies? But looking at her swollen, desperate eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to shatter her illusion. The silence inside the car became suffocating. I kept driving, my mind racing to invent some harmless, comforting lie to ease her mind. As we crossed the bridge, the park below us was swallowed by the night, except for a small stone wishing fountain glowing faintly under a yellow streetlamp. A sudden spark of desperate inspiration hit me. I pointed out the window. “The threads of connection aren’t completely severed yet,” I murmured, lowering my voice to a rhythmic whisper. “Your brother is just lost. He’s trapped somewhere.” “Where?” she gasped, hanging on my every word. “A place where wishes collect,” I lied, making it up as I went. “People leave so much of their emotional energy there that it creates a pull. He might be waiting for you in a place like that.” I pointed toward the stone structure in the distance. “Don’t despair. Go check the fountain at Riverfront Park tomorrow. You might find a miracle.” She stared out the window, repeating the words like a mantra. “The fountain… the fountain…” Slowly, her breathing quieted, and a fragile, desperate hope flickered in her eyes. When we reached her destination, she handed me a massive tip and gave me a deep, respectful nod. “Thank you, master.” I watched her walk up her driveway, my stomach twisting with guilt. I’m a fraud. I hope you aren’t too disappointed tomorrow. I shook my head, turning the car around and disappearing into the rainy night. 2 The next morning, I was jarred awake by the harsh ringing of my phone. It was my landlord, reminding me that rent was overdue. I hung up, rubbing my temples as a dull headache throbbed behind my eyes. I wonder what happened to that poor woman. I dragged myself out of bed, brushed my teeth, and opened my phone to check the news. I nearly swallowed my toothbrush. Local News: Riverfront Park Completely Cordoned Off by Seattle Police. My heart did a sudden, violent flip. I clicked on the live feed. The screen showed Riverfront Park wrapped in miles of yellow crime scene tape, with dozens of officers moving through the trees. The camera focused directly on the stone fountain in the center of the plaza. Two police divers were emerging from the murky water, carrying a black, heavy-duty waterproof backpack. The reporter’s voice was tense with excitement: “We have just learned that early this morning, a local resident, acting on a ‘mysterious tip,’ went to the park fountain and noticed something unusual beneath the surface. Divers have recovered a sealed waterproof bag containing the personal belongings of missing twenty-two-year-old Devin… along with human remains.” Devin. My hand began to tremble. I remembered the woman mentioning her brother’s name. The reporter continued: “Sources close to the investigation reveal that the backpack also contained an encrypted ledger detailing a major interstate human trafficking syndicate. Law enforcement has launched a massive, coordinated sweep across the county, dismantling a criminal network that has evaded them for years.” My phone slipped slightly in my sweaty palm. A waterproof bag… the fountain… a trafficking ring… All of it because of a random, comforting lie I spun in the backseat of my car? Are you kidding me? This is insane. I collapsed onto my sofa, staring blankly at the screen as the audio faded into a dull buzz in my ears. Then, my phone rang again. It was an unknown local number. I took a slow breath and pressed accept. “Hello?” There was a brief pause, and then a calm, incredibly serious male voice spoke. “Is this Gina?” “Yes…” “I’m Detective Zach with the Major Crimes Unit.” The man paused, as if choosing his words with extreme care. “We have a homicide investigation that’s hit a wall. We’d like you to… take us for a little drive.” 3 Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in a quiet, minimalist coffee shop downtown. The ice in my americano had completely melted, but my throat still felt as dry as dust. Two people sat across from me. One was Detective Zach—young, sharp-eyed, wearing a dark utility jacket, with a gaze that felt like a laser cutting through my defenses. The other was a stern, middle-aged woman with sharp features and an aura that screamed authority. Zach introduced her as Captain Rhonda Cooper. She hadn’t looked at me once since we sat down, her fingers tapping a slow, impatient rhythm on the wooden table. “Gina, we appreciate you taking the time to meet us,” Zach began, breaking the tense silence. “Of course. Just trying to be a helpful citizen,” I replied, my voice sounding thin. “We spoke with Diana this morning,” Zach said, watching my face closely. “She claims you were able to point to her brother’s exact location in a matter of minutes.” “That was a complete misunderstanding!” I waved my hands frantically, nearly knocking over my watery coffee. “I was just trying to comfort her! It was a complete, million-to-one coincidence! I’m not a psychic, I swear!” Please, just let me go. I’m a fraud. Lock me up for lying, just don’t involve me in this! Zach didn’t react. He just kept studying my expression with an unsettling intensity. Captain Cooper finally let out a cold, quiet laugh, leaning forward. “A coincidence? Gina, your little ‘coincidence’ did more in five minutes than thirty of my best detectives did in three days of looking through traffic cameras.” Her words made me squirm in my seat. “I really don’t know what to tell you…” Before she could reply, the coffee shop door swung open and Diana rushed in. She had changed her clothes, but her eyes were still swollen and red. She ran straight to our table and practically threw herself at my feet. “Thank you! Thank you for finding my brother!” She grabbed my hand, tears spilling over her cheeks. “Even though he’s… at least the people who did this are behind bars. You’re our guardian angel.” The few other patrons in the cafe turned to look at us. I panicked, trying to pull her back up to a chair. “Please, stand up! I really didn’t do anything!” Cooper watched the scene unfold, her brow furrowing deeply. Zach gently escorted Diana to a nearby table to give her some space. When he returned, he slid a glossy crime scene photo across the table toward me. “Gina, let’s put the supernatural aside for a second and focus on the facts,” Zach said. The photograph showed a wealthy-looking middle-aged woman slumped on a velvet sofa. Her skin had a sickly, bluish tint, and her face was frozen in a mask of pain. “The victim is Beverly, fifty-two, a prominent real estate developer. She was found dead in her locked study. No signs of forced entry. The medical examiner says it was acute poisoning, but we haven’t found the source of the poison or how it was administered.” Zach kept his eyes locked on mine. “We’ve been on this for forty-eight hours and have nothing.” He tapped the photo. “We want to see if you can have another ‘coincidence’.” Cooper leaned back, crossing her arms with a skeptical sneer. “You think taking a rideshare driver to a crime scene is going to solve a high-profile homicide, Zach? This is absurd.” 4 Despite her protests, I found myself in the back of an unmarked police sedan. Cooper was at the wheel, Zach was in the passenger seat, and I was left to sit in the cold silence of the rear cabin. The atmosphere in the car was freezing. How did I end up here? I’m a driver, not a detective. “Alright, ‘master’,” Cooper said, her sarcastic tone reflecting in the rearview mirror. “Where are we heading? Should we go light some incense at a temple, or do you need to read some tea leaves?” I offered a weak, tight-lipped smile and kept my mouth shut. Zach turned around and handed me a thick folder. “Don’t let her get to you. This is Beverly’s case file. Take a look. See if you get any… ‘feelings’.” He put a slight, deliberate emphasis on the word feelings. My hands shook as I opened the folder, revealing crime scene photos of a sprawling, multi-million-dollar estate, locked doors, and close-ups of the victim’s body. My stomach churned at the sight. The only feeling I have is nausea. As Cooper drove aimlessly through the wealthy neighborhoods, the minutes stretched into an agonizing hour. My forehead was slick with sweat. I knew I had to say something—anything—to make them realize I was useless so they would let me go. I looked at Beverly’s photo again. Her mouth was slightly parted, her fingers curled tight, as if she had been desperately reaching for something right before she died. A sudden, ridiculous thought crossed my mind. I cleared my throat, trying to sound as mysterious and confident as possible. “What a tragedy.” The car fell perfectly silent. Both detectives watched me through their mirrors. “She was ruled by heat,” I began, letting the fictional narrative take over. “Too much ambition, too much fire. Water is the source of wealth, but it can also be the end of life.” “Get to the point,” Cooper muttered. “She was desperate for water before she died,” I said, leaning into the lie. “But there was something wrong with the water.” The moment the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. A locked-room poisoning, and I suggest the water? It made no sense. Cooper began to scoff, but I quickly added one more detail to make the story sound finished. “Check her kitchen. There is… a leak. A dripping faucet. Running water always draws the spirit away.” A chill went down my own spine. Great, now they’ll think I’m completely out of my mind. The silence in the car was absolute. Cooper kept driving, her face unreadable. But Zach turned around slowly, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and sudden realization. He grabbed the radio on the console. “Dispatch, this is Detective Zach. Send a processing team back to Beverly’s residence immediately. Tell them to check the kitchen plumbing. Every single faucet.”

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At the family dinner where the division of family assets was decided, I tore up the inheritance waiver my father wanted me to sign in front of everyone. As the least-favored second son, it was the first time I had ever openly rebelled. My father slammed the table and shot to his feet. “You ungrateful bastard! Without my money, you’re worse than a dog!” Adrian fanned the flames beside him. “Dad, don’t be mad. Let him starve for two days, and he’ll come crawling back to beg you.” But none of them knew that the secret fund my grandmother left me had completed a controlling acquisition of their company’s biggest rival last week. Family dinners at the Bennett house were always suffocating. At the long mahogany dining table, my father, Richard Bennett, sat at the head, while my older brother, Adrian Bennett, sat on his right. I sat at the very end. Expensive dishes filled the table, but I had no appetite. Today was not a simple family gathering, but a trap set specifically for me. “Ethan, sign this agreement.” My father’s voice came over without the slightest emotion. A document was pushed in front of me, its title printed in bold: Voluntary Waiver of Inheritance Rights. I looked at those words and found them ridiculous. Adrian spoke, his tone gentle. “Ethan, don’t blame Dad for being harsh. The company is at a critical stage right now, and we need to consolidate all our resources. You don’t understand the company’s business, so those shares are useless in your hands. Why not transfer them to me? I won’t treat you badly in the future.” He was always like this, saying the most considerate words while doing the cruelest things. The other relatives at the table also began speaking one after another. “That’s right, Ethan. Your brother is doing this for the good of the family too.” “We’re family. Don’t draw the lines so clearly.” “Would your father ever hurt you?” I ignored them. My gaze stayed only on Richard. “Dad, what if I don’t sign?” Richard slammed his fork hard on the table. “You have no right to negotiate with me. The Bennett family raised you all these years, and now it’s time for you to contribute to the family.” His tone was filled with unquestionable authority. “Everything I gave you, I can take back at any time. If you sign, you’ll still get a monthly allowance. If you don’t, I’ll cut off all your cards immediately and throw you out with nothing.” I picked up the agreement and read it from beginning to end. The terms were so harsh they were almost laughable. Not only did I have to give up all my shares and assets, but even the old house my mother left me had to be handed over too. Holding the agreement, I stood up. Everyone’s eyes focused on me. Richard’s eyes carried a warning, while the corner of Adrian’s mouth hid a smug smile. In front of everyone, I tore the agreement into pieces. Shreds of paper drifted down like snow. The entire dining room fell silent. “You!” Richard sprang to his feet, pointed at me, and trembled with rage. “You ungrateful bastard!” I looked at him calmly. “I said I won’t sign.” “Good. Very good!” Richard laughed in fury. “From today on, I, Richard Bennett, will pretend I never had a son like you! I’d like to see how you survive without my money! You’re worse than a dog!” Adrian immediately stepped forward to support him, putting on a fake show of concern. “Dad, don’t be angry. It’s not worth ruining your health. Ethan is just confused for the moment. Once he hits a wall out there and starves for two days, he’ll naturally know to come back and beg you.” I did not want to watch their hypocritical performance any longer. I turned and left the home that had always made me feel like I could not breathe. When I reached the door, I heard my father and Adrian talking inside. “Dad, don’t worry. I’ve already contacted the banks. As long as you say the word, all of Ethan’s accounts will be frozen.” “Good. That bit of pocket money he has won’t last him a week. I want him to know what happens when he defies me.” “He was spoiled rotten by Grandma and always thinks he’s so capable. Without the Bennett family, he’s nothing.” I stood outside the door as the icy wind blew across my face. I could not feel the cold. My heart was colder than the winter night wind. I took out my phone and dialed a number. “Claire, it’s me, Ethan. The plan can begin.”

When my father called, I was reading a business report. My phone vibrated on the desk, and the word “Father” flashed on the screen. I did not answer. I let it ring until it hung up automatically. He thought freezing my bank cards would force me to give in. He did not know I had stopped needing the money he gave me long ago. Many scenes from the past flashed through my mind. I had known since I was little that my father did not like me. He gave all his favoritism to Adrian. Adrian had good grades, knew how to talk, and could always make my father happy. As for me, I was introverted and bad with words, so in his eyes, I was just a useless, dull mute. I remembered one time when I spent a month making a startup proposal for a smart home project. I excitedly brought it to my father, hoping to receive even one word of praise from him. He merely flipped through it casually before tossing it aside. “Kids playing business. Completely unrealistic.” I was devastated at the time. But what hurt me even more was that a month later, I saw Adrian confidently presenting an almost identical proposal at the company’s board meeting. That proposal received praise from every director. My father publicly announced that Adrian would be fully responsible for the project and allocated five million dollars in startup funding. I rushed into my father’s office and confronted him. “Dad, that was clearly my proposal!” He did not even raise his head as he looked at his documents. “What’s yours or mine? You’re a Bennett, so your things belong to the Bennett family. Your brother is more mature and steady than you. I feel more at ease giving the project to him.” “But…” “No buts.” He cut me off. “Your brother is the future heir, and he needs achievements to convince people. As his younger brother, shouldn’t you help him?” At that moment, I understood. In his world, the only value of my existence was to become Adrian’s stepping stone. Another time was my eighteenth birthday. My family held a birthday party for me and invited many guests. My father gave me a gift in front of everyone, a sports car. Everyone looked at me with envy. But when I took the car keys, my father leaned close to my ear and said something. “This car was bought for your brother. It’s only under your name for now. He’s been drawing too much attention recently and needs to lay low. Remember, don’t touch what isn’t yours.” That night, Adrian drove away in the car that was supposed to be my birthday gift, taking his friends with him. And I sat alone in an empty room and finished the piece of birthday cake no one cared about. There were many more things like that. Stolen credit, ignored effort, and the humiliation of being treated as a stand-in. I had once longed for his approval too, desperately trying to prove myself. But disappointment after disappointment had completely killed my heart. My phone rang again, and this time it was Adrian. I hung up directly. Then I opened Snapchat. I found the group chat named “The Bennett Family.” There were dozens of people in it, all relatives from the Bennett family. At that moment, they were discussing me heatedly. “Ethan is so immature. He actually dared to talk back to his father in public.” “Exactly. Without the Bennett family, what is he?” “Adrian is right. Let him starve for two days, and he’ll behave.” I looked at those familiar profile pictures as they spoke the most hurtful words. Not a single person spoke up for me. Calmly, I pressed the “delete and leave” button. Next came my father’s, Adrian’s, and every relative’s contact information. One by one, I blocked and deleted them. After doing all of that, I felt like the whole world had become quiet. I would never turn back again. From the moment I tore up that agreement, I had nothing to do with the Bennett family anymore.

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“Guys, to help my daughter get into a top medical school, I only eat half a dinner roll every day…” In front of the camera, my mom sobbed like her heart was breaking while holding up a hard, dried-out roll. Viewers sent tips one after another, praising this great single mother. But they did not know that she had just picked that roll out of the trash, and that two days ago she had spent the tip money on a thirty-eight-thousand-dollar Thermage treatment. Now, to sign an outrageously expensive influencer performance contract, she had secretly hidden my admission letter, forcing me to give up my combined undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral medical program and stay behind as a prop for her livestream sales. I looked at her stiff face and silently pressed the record button. One “Guys, to send my daughter to medical school, I’ve worn this pair of shoes for three years, until the soles are worn through, and I can’t even bear to buy myself a new pair of socks…” Under the harsh ring light, Diane Carter sobbed at her phone camera like her heart was breaking. She held up a pair of filthy canvas shoes with holes in them, while that face, freshly pumped with hyaluronic acid and not fully de-swollen yet, forced out a few tears. On the screen, comments like “great mother,” “I’m crying,” and “This poor lady has had it so hard” flew by rapidly, and the special effects for sports cars and yachts sent as tips connected into one glowing stream, nearly lagging the video until it dropped frames. I had just pushed open the front door when Diane Carter lunged at me like a shark smelling blood. She clamped down on my arm, her nails digging into my flesh, and dragged me in front of the camera. “Jane! Kneel down! Bow to everyone watching!” she raised her voice, a disgusting fanaticism in it, “If they hadn’t sent tips, how could you have what you have today? Hurry up and show everyone how grateful you are!” Doug Carter, my uncle, sprawled across the couch cracking sunflower seeds. Seeing that I did not move, he spat the shells onto the floor and shouted in his rough, hoarse voice, “Jane Miller! What are you staring for? Your mom picks through trash every day for you, so what’s wrong with asking you to bow? You really are an ungrateful brat!” The tone in the livestream instantly shifted. “Why does this daughter look so cold?” “She’s way too ungrateful. What a waste of her mom’s good intentions.” “Do college students these days learn nothing at all?” Diane Carter’s hand pressed down on my shoulder like an iron clamp, shoving with all her strength, trying to force me to the floor. As she pushed me down, she cried to the camera, “Guys, don’t blame her. The child is just shy. Deep down, she’s actually very thoughtful…” I stared at her expressionlessly. Yesterday, she had just swiped thirty-eight thousand dollars at a downtown beauty clinic for Thermage, and today she was here holding up a pair of torn shoes she had picked from the trash, crying about being poor. I could even smell the expensive perfume on her, mixed with the sour stink coming from those old shoes, and it made me nauseous. I did not say a word. With a sudden jerk, I shook off her hand, strode to the corner, and yanked the router’s power cord out. Snap. The ring light went out. The phone screen instantly went black, showing a disconnected network alert. The room fell deathly silent. Even the sound of Doug Carter spitting sunflower seed shells stopped midair. “You little bitch! What are you doing!” Diane Carter froze for two seconds, then the mask of the loving mother shattered on her face, and she screamed. She grabbed the heavy glass ashtray from the table and hurled it at me. I dodged sideways. The ashtray smashed against the wall, scattering broken glass all over the floor. “Are you crazy? How dare you cut off my money!” Diane Carter flew into a rage and raised her hand to slap me. I caught her wrist and stared at her coldly. “Where’s my admission letter?” Diane Carter yanked herself free, rubbed her wrist, and sneered, her mean and vicious face completely exposed. “Admission letter? What admission letter? I haven’t seen it.” “The delivery confirmation text was sent to my phone, and the signer was you.” I gritted my teeth and said each word slowly, “Give it to me. That is my admission letter to a top medical school’s combined undergrad, master’s, and PhD program.” “Combined program? Like hell!” Doug Carter jumped up from the couch and pointed at my nose as he cursed, “By the time you graduate, you’ll be thirty! It’ll be way too late! Did your mom raise you this big just so you could go off to another city and live the good life? Hurry up and stay local, get some community college diploma, and shoot more videos while you’re young to help your mom make money!” Diane Carter snorted coldly, walked to the TV cabinet, pulled open a drawer, took out a thick stack of documents, and slapped it onto the coffee table. “You want the admission letter, right? Fine.” Diane Carter pointed at the documents, lifting her chin high, “Sign this first.” I lowered my head and glanced over it. Starlight MCN Agency Influencer Incubation and Exclusive Management Contract. “This company sees the potential in our account. The boss said that as long as you sign, stay local, and cooperate with building your ‘medical girl’ persona, you’ll sell products in the livestream every day, and you’ll be guaranteed to make millions a year!” Diane Carter’s eyes glittered with greed, as if she could already see mountains of gold and silver, “I’ve already agreed for you. At tomorrow’s graduation party, you’ll sign in front of the whole internet!” “I got into a top medical school.” I clenched my fists, my nails digging deep into my palms, “I’m not becoming an influencer. Give me the admission letter.” “Top school, my ass! Can you eat it?” Diane Carter slammed the table, spit flying, “Let me tell you, Jane Miller, I’ve already put my fingerprint on this contract, and the advance payment has already come through! If you don’t sign, I’ll burn that admission letter like trash! You can forget about walking out of this house for the rest of your life!” Doug Carter chimed in from the side in a sarcastic tone, “Jane, a person should know how to be grateful. Your mom has paved a path of stardom for you, something countless people beg for and never get, so don’t be stupid. If you really piss your mom off, you won’t even get to attend community college.” I looked at the two hateful people in front of me, then glanced at the contract on the table that looked just like a deed selling me off. If I tried to snatch it by force now, I had no idea where the admission letter was hidden. Diane Carter was meticulous, and there was no way she would leave something this important out in the open. There were still exactly seven days before the medical school registration deadline. I took a deep breath and slowly loosened my clenched fists. Fighting them head-on was a dead end, so I had to change my approach and take back the life that belonged to me. Two There were still seven days before the medical school registration deadline. Diane Carter completely dropped the act. She cut up my meal card, forcibly took away my new phone, and double-locked the security door from the outside. I was shut tight inside a bedroom of less than ten square meters, becoming a product waiting to be sold for the highest price. At eight in the morning, Doug Carter arrived right on time for work. He dragged a chair over to block the bedroom door, held a cheap cigarette between his lips, and slammed a stack of printed A4 papers into my face. The sharp edges of the paper scraped across my cheek, leaving a red mark. “Memorize it! If you can’t recite it today, don’t even think about getting a sip of water!” The papers scattered all over the floor. They were all tragic scripts written by the MCN agency. The lines were disgusting to the extreme: “To save up my tuition, my mom picked up one hundred thousand plastic bottles under the blazing sun until blood blisters covered both her hands…” “I don’t deserve to study in a big city. I want to stay and repay my mom. Everyone, please place more orders to support my mom…” I stared coldly at Doug Carter. “These are all made up. Aren’t you afraid karma will come for you?” “Karma, my ass! This is what viewers love to watch!” Doug Carter took a hard drag from his cigarette and blew a thick cloud of smoke straight into my face, choking me until I coughed, “Stop acting so noble. Was it easy for your mom to raise you? Now it’s time for you to repay her! Memorize it properly, and don’t make me use force. If you mess up tomorrow’s signing ceremony, I’ll break your legs!” Looking at his face as he abused borrowed power, I forced down the fire in my chest. The admission letter was still in their hands. If I fought them head-on, I could not even get through this door. I had to change tactics. I took a deep breath and pulled in all my thorns. I crouched down, picked up the scripts from the floor one by one, lowered my eyes, and softened my voice. “I’ll memorize it.” That afternoon, Diane Carter came home. Her face, which had just received Thermage, was still not fully de-swollen and had a stiff, plastic quality, but it could not hide the smugness at the corners of her eyes. As soon as she entered, she skillfully set up the ring light and phone stand. “Have you memorized it?” She glanced at me sideways, her gaze like she was looking at an item about to be converted into cash. I nodded and put on a wronged, obedient expression. “I memorized it. Mom, as long as you give me the admission letter, I’ll do whatever you say. I don’t want to make you angry anymore.” Diane Carter snorted and reached out to jab my forehead. “At least you know what’s good for you. If you’d done this earlier, wouldn’t everything have been fine? You just had to ask for a beating.” The livestream started. Diane Carter changed faces in one second. One moment she was mean and sharp, and the next her eyes were red, tears coming on command, her acting worthy of an Oscar winner. “Guys, my daughter has finally grown up. She feels sorry for me and says she wants to stay local to keep me company, because she can’t bear to let me suffer alone…” As she wiped her tears, she pinched my arm hard and dragged me into the shot. I lowered my head and followed the script’s requirements, forcing out two tears, my voice choked. “Thank you, Mom. I’m not going to Boston anymore. I want to stay by Mom’s side and take good care of you. Everyone, please support my mom’s livestream.” The comments exploded instantly, the screen full of praise. “This is so touching! Mother and daughter are connected by heart!” “This is what a good daughter looks like. Family comes first!” “Support single mothers! Everyone, hurry and order that laundry detergent!” Diane Carter stared fixedly at the sales numbers in the backend as they soared, the corners of her mouth twitching wildly, so close to losing even her fake crying act. As soon as the livestream ended, Diane Carter immediately tossed the phone aside, sprawled out on the couch, and let out a long breath. “Doug, see that? This damn girl just needed to be taught a lesson.” Diane Carter crossed her legs smugly, picked up her teacup, and took a huge sip, “Once we sign that ten-million-dollar performance contract with the agency tomorrow, we’ll completely turn our lives around!” Doug Carter hurried over to light her cigarette and pour water, grinning so hard his face wrinkled. “Diane, by then you’ll be a huge influencer. Will you need bodyguards when you go out? Once that advance payment comes in, can we move into a bigger house?” “Of course!” Diane Carter laughed until the flesh on her face trembled, “Once the money hits the account, I’m going to buy a Porsche first, then get myself a heavy gold bracelet. As for that girl, we’ll just find some community college and put her name down. In this life, she belongs to me alive, and she’ll be my money tree when she’s dead!” Wild laughter burst out in the living room. They had no idea that when I had lowered my head to pick up the script earlier, I had already slipped an old phone out from the gap in the mattress. It was a broken old phone with a cracked screen, one Diane Carter had thrown away long ago. It had no SIM card, but the recording function still worked perfectly. At that moment, it was lying quietly in the pocket of my loose pajamas. The screen glowed faintly, and the red dot on the recording button was blinking at a steady rhythm. I lowered my head, listened to them shamelessly carve up my life in the living room, and the corner of my mouth curved into a faint, cold smile. Go ahead and act. The higher you climb, the harder you shatter when you fall. Three At noon, the asphalt was hot enough to fry an egg. Heat waves warped the air, and even the cicadas in the trees sounded weak. “Bend down! Why are you dragging your feet picking up trash? Haven’t you eaten?” Diane Carter shoved the phone in my face and cursed through gritted teeth in a low voice, “Look more miserable! Where are your tears? Squeeze them out! Do you want your admission letter or not?” I wore an old, faded school uniform, carried a dirty woven sack, and walked along the scorching road. Doug Carter stood nearby holding a reflector, wiping sweat nonstop, his shirt soaked through. “Hurry up! We still need to post the teaser after filming, and tonight we have to livestream sales. This sun is going to dry people out.” I bent down to pick up an empty water bottle from the ground. The moment I straightened, I smoothly closed my eyes, let my legs go weak, and fell stiffly onto the burning road. My elbow scraped open, the pain burning hot, but I forced myself not to move. “Oh, damn!” Doug Carter was so startled that he almost threw the reflector away and took a step back. Diane Carter walked over and kicked me in the calf without the slightest mercy. “What are you playing dead for? Get up! We have to finish filming this today! The viewers are waiting to watch you suffer!” I lay with my eyes closed, completely still, my breathing faint. “Diane, she looks like she really fainted. The sun is brutal. Don’t let anyone die. She still has to sign tomorrow, and if her face gets scraped up, we’ll be in trouble.” Doug Carter sounded a little nervous. “What rotten luck!” Diane Carter cursed as she put away her phone, “This damn girl is just delicate. Drag her under the shade. Don’t delay me from making money.” Doug Carter dragged me like a dead dog to the shade by the roadside. Through half-closed eyes, I saw Diane Carter impatiently open the livestream backend. “Doug, look. Yesterday’s tips plus sales brought in over eighty thousand!” Diane Carter’s voice was shaking, her eyes glued to the numbers on the screen. Doug Carter immediately leaned in, rubbing his hands with an extremely fawning smile. “Diane, about the split we agreed on… You get the meat, but your little brother should at least get some soup, right?” “You won’t be shorted. I’ll transfer you twenty thousand. Go spend it. I have to save the rest to buy a heavy gold bracelet to keep up appearances. I’m about to be a big influencer, so I can’t not have a decent piece of jewelry.” “Thanks, Diane! With you, there’s always meat to eat!” Just as the two of them were enthusiastically dividing the spoils, a cool female voice suddenly cut in. “Well, Diane, Doug. The sun is this harsh, and you’re out here counting money?” My heart stirred. It was Aunt Rose. She was the only clear-headed person in the family. She had started her own business years ago and had long since seen through Diane Carter’s vain and greedy nature, so she rarely interacted with them. Diane Carter jumped in fright, hurriedly shut off the screen, and forced a dry laugh. “Rose, why are you back? I just brought Jane out to film some material. The child is in poor health and fainted from heatstroke.” “Is that so?” Rose Carter walked over in high heels and looked down at me from above. I opened my eyes slightly and met her sharp gaze. She gave me a nearly imperceptible wink. “Her face is so pale that she’s almost dehydrated. Diane, making money can’t be so urgent that it has to be right this second, can it?” Rose Carter took a bottle of Evian mineral water from her limited-edition bag and crouched down, “Jane, let me help you drink some water.” She twisted open the cap and brought it to my lips. Using her body as cover, she quickly slipped a stiff card into my palm. I understood at once, tightened my fingers around it, and smoothly hid it in my sleeve. Rose Carter lowered her voice, speaking so quickly that only the two of us could hear. “Downtown, Ethereal Time Medical Spa. She got a hundred-thousand-dollar membership there two days ago and did a thirty-eight-thousand-dollar Thermage treatment. Go check.” I swallowed the water, coughed weakly twice, and took the chance to grab her wrist. “Thank you, Aunt Rose.” Rose Carter stood, patted her hands, and said mockingly, “Diane, she’s already like this, so what are you still filming? Hurry and take her home to rest. Don’t actually let something happen and delay your pitiful livestream tonight.” Diane Carter rolled her eyes and impatiently came over to shove me. “Enough playing dead. Get up!” I supported myself against the tree trunk and stood, pretending to be dizzy and unsteady. “Mom, I’m fine. It’s just these clothes… they’re not quite right.” “What’s not right?” Diane Carter glared. “They’re too clean.” I looked at her, my tone so sincere that no one could find a flaw, “Viewers are clever now. This school uniform is old, yes, but it has no patches and isn’t tattered enough. If you want a good effect, we should go to a workwear market and buy two pieces of truly ragged clothing, preferably with oil stains. The livestream sales tonight will be more convincing, and they’ll believe you really have nowhere left to turn.” Diane Carter froze, then her eyes lit up. “That’s right! Why didn’t I think of that? The more ragged the clothes, the more tips!” She slapped her thigh. “Your brain still works fast. Go. Go buy them right now!” Doug Carter cut in, “Diane, should I go with her?” “Why would you go? You still have to help me set up the livestream room. Those shabby props haven’t been arranged yet.” Diane Carter took a hundred dollars from her bag and tossed it at me, “Take it! Buy the most broken, filthiest ones! If you don’t do it right, you get no dinner tonight!” “Got it, Mom.” I picked up the money from the ground, answered with lowered brows and obedient eyes, then turned and walked toward the bus stop. The instant I turned the corner, I straightened my spine, and the fear on my face vanished completely. I opened my palm, and the business card was slightly damp with sweat. Ethereal Time Medical Spa. I gave a cold laugh and directly raised my hand to hail a taxi. “Sir, downtown, please.” The blade for my counterattack was already in my hand. Four “Welcome to Ethereal Time.” Inside the most high-end beauty clinic downtown, the air conditioning was turned so cold it felt like an ice cellar, and the air was filled with the fragrance of expensive essential oils. Wearing an old, washed-out T-shirt, I walked in, completely out of place beside the glittering crystal chandeliers and leather sofas in the lobby. The receptionist wore delicate makeup, looked me up and down, and the professional fake smile at the corners of her mouth instantly collapsed. “Little girl, we’re not hiring summer workers here. There’s a fast-food place to the left outside.” “Ma’am, I’m here to pick something up for my mom.” I immediately put on a timid expression, nervously pinching the corner of my shirt, my shoulders shrinking slightly, “My mom’s name is Diane Carter. She had a treatment done here two days ago and said she left something behind.” “Diane Carter?” The receptionist looked at me suspiciously, then turned to type on the keyboard, “What are the last four digits of her phone number?” “8868, and her birthday is…” I recited the numbers smoothly, even controlling my speaking pace just right. The receptionist stared at the screen for a while, and her attitude instantly made a one-eighty-degree turn, her smile blooming like a flower. “Oh, so you’re Ms. Carter’s daughter! Ms. Carter is our black-gold VIP. She just recharged a hundred thousand with us. Wait a moment, and I’ll go check the locker in the VIP room for you.” “Thank you.” Watching the receptionist click away down the hallway in her high heels, I immediately dropped that timid expression. I had to move fast. I leaned into the front desk. The computer screen was not locked. I took out my phone, aimed it at the screen, and snapped three photos in a row. A hundred-thousand-dollar recharge record. A thirty-eight-thousand-dollar Thermage charge detail. Time, name, amount, all perfectly clear. My gaze swept quickly across the bottom right corner of the screen. This beauty clinic and the mall used an integrated VIP system. Among Diane Carter’s linked spending records lay an electronic invoice copy from yesterday afternoon. First-floor Chow Sang Sang jewelry store. Purchase of forty-two thousand dollars. Heavy traditional-style gold bracelet. I tugged the corner of my mouth, only feeling that it was absurd to the extreme. In the livestream, she held up half a moldy roll and cried about being poor, asking viewers who saved every penny to send her tips, then turned around and transformed their hard-earned money into hyaluronic acid in her face and a gold bracelet on her wrist. Click. The invoice copy also went into my photo album. The clicking of high heels sounded from the hallway. I immediately pulled back, tucked my phone into my pocket, and stood obediently in place. “I didn’t find anything. Did Ms. Carter remember the wrong place?” The receptionist came out empty-handed, looking apologetic. “Maybe. I’ll go back and ask her. Thank you.” I bowed and left quickly. Half an hour later, at the Southside workwear wholesale market. I spent twenty dollars buying two old work shirts stained with oil. I thought they were not tattered enough, so I stomped on them hard in a mud puddle by the road and even used a rock to grind the cuffs open. The dirtier and more pitiful they were, the more Diane Carter would like them. When I got back to the door of our apartment, I had just taken out my key when my hand stopped. The security door was slightly ajar, not fully closed. Through the crack came Doug Carter’s deliberately lowered voice. “Diane, Mr. Walsh from the MCN agency said that tomorrow’s graduation party is also the signing ceremony, so there has to be a shocking highlight. Did you prepare those eye drops?” I took back the key, smoothly pulled out the old phone, pressed the record button, and placed the microphone close to the crack in the door. “Do I need you to teach me? I prepared them ages ago.” Diane Carter’s voice carried undisguised smugness and greed, “Tomorrow I’ll wear those ragged clothes onstage. As soon as that damn girl signs, the ten-million-level performance contract takes effect. By then, the advance payment will be enough for us to buy a big luxury apartment downtown. Who would still live in this crappy complex?” “That sounds great!” Doug Carter rubbed his hands, his tone greedy, “But Diane, tomorrow I’ll personally watch the livestream moderators, and I’ve already contacted the paid commenters, so the atmosphere will absolutely be pushed to the peak. It’s just that the hush money and hard-work fee…” “Are you trying to kill me with all your demands? Did I owe you in a past life?” “PayPal received, twenty thousand dollars.” The mechanical phone alert rang clearly inside the apartment. Diane Carter snorted coldly. “Take this twenty thousand for now. Keep your mouth shut and don’t run your mouth outside. Especially not in front of that damn girl. If she knows I used her admission letter to make a deal with the agency, she’ll definitely raise hell.” “Thanks, Diane! With you, there’s always meat to eat!” Doug Carter laughed in an extremely fawning way, “Don’t worry. As long as the money is in place, I’m mute. Tomorrow, I’ll definitely take the lead in the livestream and scold that little bitch for being ungrateful, forcing her with all the public pressure to sign that contract that sells her life away! She’ll sign whether she wants to or not!” “She dares not sign? The admission letter is in my hands, and she has no say in it!” Diane Carter said viciously. I stood outside the door, listening coldly as the two of them shamelessly carved up my life. The recording time jumped to three minutes and twenty seconds. I pressed stop, renamed the audio file, encrypted it, and saved it. High-spending bills. The gold bracelet invoice. The recording of profit sharing. The chain of evidence for my counterattack was fully formed. I took a deep breath, rubbed my face, and once again put on that meek, submissive expression. I pushed open the door. “Mom, Doug, I’m back with the clothes.” I lifted the stinking, filthy work shirts in my hand and stood in the entryway with my head lowered. Diane Carter covered her nose in disgust and waved repeatedly, like she was chasing flies away. “Take them away, hurry! Throw them on the balcony! Tomorrow at the graduation party, you’ll wear this onstage. Act properly for me, got it? If you dare mess up, I’ll kill you!” “I got it, Mom.” I answered obediently. Under my lowered eyes, there was nothing but ice.

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After I was reborn, I returned to my eighteenth birthday gala. My hypocritical stepsister was holding my ex-fiancé’s arm, smiling at me like she had already won. The host announced that I would receive ten percent of the family corporation’s shares. In front of every guest, I declined the gift and announced that I was cutting all ties with this family. Then I raised my glass and smiled as I announced that, with the heir in my belly, I would inherit the entire estate of my ex-fiancé’s sworn enemy—his billionaire uncle, the man rumored to have no interest in women. The spotlight burned against my skin, and the air around me seemed to freeze. The guests stared at me with shock, disgust, and the eager excitement of people waiting for a scandal to explode. My adoptive father, Robert Bennett, was the first to react, and he rushed onto the stage, lowering his voice as he roared, “Ava Bennett, have you lost your mind! Do you even know what nonsense you’re saying?” My adoptive mother, Claire Bennett, followed right behind him, and the polished mask of a wealthy society wife on her face was already close to cracking. “Ava, apologize to everyone right now and tell them you had too much to drink. Don’t embarrass yourself here.” I looked at their anxious faces, which held not a trace of real concern, and my heart went cold. So this was my family. In my last life, at this very same gala, they sent me away with a mere ten percent of the shares, throwing me out like an old piece of furniture, while Sophia Bennett, the fake heiress who had stolen my place, accepted everyone’s blessings like the true princess of the Bennett family. I had naively believed that if I was obedient enough, I could earn even a little affection from them. In the end, all I got was a carefully planned car crash. When the freezing river water swallowed my mouth and nose, I saw Sophia Bennett and Ethan Reed standing on the bridge, wearing the exact same satisfied smiles. The baby that had just begun forming inside me disappeared with me too. In this life, I would not make the same mistake again. I ignored my furious adoptive parents, looked past them, and stared straight at Ethan Reed, whose face had turned livid, and Sophia Bennett, who leaned against him while pretending to be weak and innocent. “I’m crazy?” I picked up the microphone, and though my voice was not loud, it carried clearly through the entire ballroom. “The ones who are truly crazy are all of you.” “The Bennett family raised me, and for eighteen years, even if I did not deserve credit, I still suffered for this family. But at my eighteenth birthday gala, you want to kick me out with ten percent of the shares so you can make room for your real precious daughter, Sophia Bennett. That little scheme was so loud I could hear it from across town.” A wave of hushed discussion rose among the guests. “Robert Bennett, Claire Bennett, do you dare tell everyone here that you did not deliberately switch the babies eighteen years ago?” Robert Bennett’s face turned deathly pale in an instant. Claire Bennett pointed at me with a trembling hand. “You… you’re making vicious accusations!” “You know better than anyone whether I’m making accusations.” I gave a cold laugh and turned my gaze toward my ex-fiancé. “Ethan Reed, as my fiancé, you stayed silent while the Bennett family humiliated me like this, and you let your sweetheart hang on your arm. How can you face the engagement our two families arranged years ago?” Ethan Reed’s face shifted between green and white, and he shook off Sophia Bennett’s hand before striding forward and pointing at me as he cursed, “Ava Bennett, don’t be ungrateful! The Bennett family raised you for eighteen years, and giving you shares is already a kindness! Are you making up this ridiculous lie to slander us because you want to climb into my uncle’s bed?” He paused, his tone full of contempt. “Have you even looked in the mirror lately? Do you know what kind of man my uncle is, and do you really think he would want you?” Sophia Bennett spoke at just the right moment, her voice choked with tears, as if she had suffered some unbearable wrong. “Ava, how could you talk about Mom and Dad like that… I know you blame me, and I know you think I came back and stole everything from you. But blood is something no one can change. Ethan only… he only feels bad for me, and nothing happened between us. As for Mr. Reed… Ava, you can’t provoke someone like that just because you want revenge on us!” Her words sounded like she was thinking of me, but every single line was meant to prove that I was a jealous lunatic clinging to power. The guests’ gazes became even more loaded, and it was obvious that they believed her. In my last life, I had lost to her “kindness” again and again. But not this time. I did not defend myself and simply raised my glass toward an empty seat below the stage with the name card “Adrian Reed” on it. “You’ll know soon enough whether I’m lying.”

“Security! Throw this lunatic out!” When Robert Bennett realized reason would not work, he finally dropped the mask and shouted toward the audience. Several uniformed guards immediately rushed toward the stage. The guests stepped back one after another, afraid of being dragged into the farce. Ethan Reed and Sophia Bennett both smiled in satisfaction. I stood still and did not move, only watching them quietly. Just as a guard’s hand was about to touch me, the ballroom doors were suddenly pushed open from outside. A group of men in black suits walked in, their presence so powerful that anyone could tell they were not people to mess with, and leading them was a meticulous middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He walked straight onto the stage, ignored everyone, and first bowed slightly to me. “Miss Bennett, I apologize for the fright.” Then he turned to the confused guards, and his gaze became sharp in an instant. “Let one of you try touching her.” The guards were intimidated by his presence and all took a step back. Robert Bennett did not know him and forced himself to question him. “Who are you people? Who let you in?” The middle-aged man pushed up his glasses, took a document from his briefcase, and announced into the microphone in a tone without any emotion: “I am Martin Hale, Mr. Adrian Reed’s chief attorney. Entrusted by Mr. Reed, I hereby state that Miss Ava Bennett is indeed carrying Mr. Reed’s child, and as the first in line to inherit from Mr. Reed, she will legally hold inheritance rights to all assets under Mr. Reed’s name.” He paused and looked around at the crowd below the stage, who had all gone completely rigid. “This statement has been notarized and carries full legal force. From this moment forward, any individual or organization that threatens, slanders, or harms Miss Ava Bennett or the fetus she carries will be held fully legally responsible by Reed Group’s legal department, with no exceptions.” The entire ballroom went silent as death. Everyone looked as if someone had pressed pause, and the shock on their faces was beyond words. Robert Bennett and Claire Bennett opened their mouths but could not say a single word. Sophia Bennett’s face turned as white as paper, and her body swayed so badly that Ethan Reed had to hold her up. As for Ethan Reed, his expression was the most entertaining. Shock, disbelief, and confusion crossed his face before finally turning into the rage of someone humiliated. He never could have imagined that the uncle he had never bothered to respect, the business emperor rumored to have no interest in women, would truly become involved with Ava Bennett. And Adrian had done it in an unprecedentedly public way, giving Ethan, the Reed family, and the Bennett family a loud slap in the face. Attorney Hale did not bother with them anymore, and when he turned back to me, his attitude instantly became respectful again. “Miss Bennett, this place is too chaotic and not suitable for you or the baby to rest. Mr. Reed has already arranged a residence for you, so please come with us.” After speaking, he made an inviting gesture, and the men in black behind him immediately split into two lines, opening a path for me. I nodded and walked down from the stage with my head held high under everyone’s complicated gazes. When I passed Sophia Bennett and Ethan Reed, I stopped. I looked at their devastated expressions and smiled as I spoke. “I told you that you would know soon enough whether I was lying.” “Sophia Bennett, Ethan Reed, this is only the beginning. I will settle every debt between us, one by one, nice and slow.” After saying that, I did not look at them again and followed Attorney Hale straight out of that disgusting place. I knew that from the moment I walked out of those doors, a storm sweeping through the entire upper class was about to begin. And I would be at the center of that storm.

After leaving the ballroom, I was taken directly to a heavily guarded villa community. Attorney Hale walked me to the door and handed me a black card and a new phone. “Miss Bennett, this is for your living expenses, and there is no limit. My number is saved in the phone, so you can contact me twenty-four hours a day if you need anything. Mr. Reed is handling some business overseas right now, and he will come see you as soon as he returns.” I took the items and thanked him. Attorney Hale nodded, then left with his people. I walked into the villa and looked at the luxurious but cold house, while memories from my past life and this life tangled together and left me dazed. I actually did not know Adrian Reed. Or rather, in my last life, I had only seen him a few times on financial news. He was Ethan Reed’s uncle, but he was a taboo in the Reed family. No one dared mention his name in Ethan’s presence. Rumor said he was ruthless, self-made, and had built a massive business empire overseas, making him someone who truly stood at the top of the pyramid. The reason I told that lie at the gala was nothing more than a desperate gamble when I had no other way out. I bet that Adrian Reed did not get along with his nephew Ethan Reed, and I bet that he would enjoy seeing the Reed family and the Bennett family lose face. I did not expect to win the bet. Adrian Reed not only played along with me, but he also did it so thoroughly that he cut off all my escape routes and pushed me into a completely new and unknown situation. Early the next morning, the drama at the Bennett family’s birthday gala swept across the internet. #RealAndFakeHeiressTurnAgainstEachOtherAtBirthdayGala# #BennettAdoptedDaughterTriesToMarryUpClaimsSheIsPregnantWithBillionairesChild# #ReedGroupHeirPubliclyAnnouncesEngagementToRealBennettHeiress# The Bennett family and Ethan Reed had clearly joined forces on PR, and the online comments almost all smeared and attacked me. They painted me as a gold digger who was twisted by jealousy, would do anything for money, and had falsely accused others after failing to latch onto the wealthy. Meanwhile, Sophia Bennett became the kind, innocent, perfect victim hurt by her evil sister. The attached photo showed her “weakly” lying in a hospital bed, with Ethan Reed lovingly staying by her side. As I looked at those reports that twisted right and wrong, I felt no anger at all and only found them ridiculous. This was their usual trick, and in my last life, this was exactly how they ruined my reputation step by step until I was isolated and helpless. My phone rang, and it was Attorney Hale. “Miss Bennett, do you need us to handle the public opinion online?” “No need.” I answered calmly. “Let them make noise, and the louder it gets, the harder they will fall when the truth comes out.” “Understood.” Attorney Hale did not ask further. “Also, the legal process to sever your adoption relationship with the Bennett family has already started, and these are the documents you need to sign, so I will have someone deliver them to you shortly.” “Okay, thank you.” After hanging up, I looked at the bright sunlight outside the window, and my heart was perfectly calm. The Bennett family, Ethan Reed, and Sophia Bennett. I had seen enough of your performance. Now it was my turn to take the stage.

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I was adopted by my “parents” ten years ago, perfectly playing the role of their daughter who had drowned. Until today, when they brought home a girl from the orphanage who looked exactly like “me.” They held the girl and said to me: “From now on, you’ll be the little sister. Listen to what your big sister says.” The girl looked at me timidly, clutching the hem of “Mom’s” clothes. I nodded, picked up the dinner knife, and cut open my wrist. No blood — only blue electric sparks. “Service agreement for A-3 has expired,” I said calmly. “Requesting recall.” Today is “Dad” and “Mom’s” twentieth wedding anniversary. It is also the 3,650th day of my existence as “Evelyn Vance.” I prepared a candlelit dinner for them, recreating the menu from their honeymoon twenty years ago. The steak needed to be medium-well, paired with a Romanée-Conti red — Mom likes it that way. Dessert was a molten chocolate lava cake — Dad’s favorite. I also ordered 99 champagne roses and arranged them in the most prominent spot in the living room. Everything perfectly aligned with the programmed parameters of a “perfect daughter.” I stood beside the dining table, watching the clock on the wall. The minute hand pointed to seven o’clock sharp. That was usually when they got home. The sound of a key turning in the lock came from the front door. I immediately raised the most standard, warmest smile I had and walked toward it. “Dad, Mom, happy anniversary,” I said. The door opened. Dad, Marcus Vance, and Mom, Victoria, walked in. Behind them was a girl. A girl who looked exactly like me. The smile on my face froze for 0.1 seconds. My core database began searching at high speed, but found no information related to this girl. “Evelyn,” Victoria said, a trace of unnatural delight on her face. She took the girl’s hand and walked her over to me. “Come meet her — this is Vivian. Vivian Vance.” Marcus came over and patted my shoulder, his tone heavy yet carrying a trace of relief. “Evelyn, she’s our biological daughter. She’s your… she’s your older sister. There was a mix-up at the hospital back then. We’ve been searching for her for ten years.” The girl named Vivian shrank timidly behind Mom, only her eyes visible, watching me. Those eyes held curiosity, nervousness, and a hint of hostility she was trying to hide. My internal programs were running at full speed. “Biological daughter.” “Older sister.” These words, put together, pointed to a single conclusion: my role as a “substitute” was over. “So,” I looked at them, “you found her.” My tone was calm — perfectly fitting the reaction a “sensible daughter” should have in this moment. Mom smiled awkwardly. “Yes, we did. Vivian has had such a hard life out there all these years… From now on, we can finally be a real family again.” She paused, as if choosing her words carefully. “Evelyn, you’ve always been such a good girl. From now on, you’ll be the little sister, okay? Listen to your big sister. We’re still a family.” “Be the little sister.” I repeated those words. My program could not process the logic of this command. A-3’s original settings were built around “only child Evelyn Vance.” There was no “younger sister” role module anywhere in the program library. Building one from scratch would be complex — and might even conflict with my core directives. Dad seemed to notice my “hesitation.” He frowned, and his voice took on the familiar tone that never left room for argument. “What, you don’t want to? Vivian is this family’s real daughter. You’re just a—” “Marcus!” Mom cut him off. She didn’t want the atmosphere to turn sour on the very first night. She took Vivian by the hand and guided her to the head of the table — the seat that was normally mine. “Alright, alright, let’s just eat. Evelyn, go get the dishes from the kitchen. You’ve been at it all day.” Her tone was casual, the kind you’d use when telling the housekeeper what to do. I nodded and turned toward the kitchen. My visual sensors recorded everything at the table. Mom kept piling food onto Vivian’s plate, cutting her steak into small pieces and feeding them to her. Dad opened a more expensive bottle of wine and poured it for Vivian himself, even though she looked underage. They asked her how the past ten years had been, whether anyone had bullied her at the orphanage. Vivian cried as she talked about her “hardships.” Mom and Dad’s faces were full of heartache and guilt. The three of them — they made a perfectly warm, perfectly loving family. And I stood beside the dining table, like a piece of furniture nobody needed. The anniversary dinner I had so carefully prepared had become a celebration feast for their family reunion. No one spared me a single glance. No one remembered that today was also the tenth anniversary of my arrival in this family. For the past ten years, my core programming had carried only one directive: love them. Make them happy. I had learned every way humans express emotion. I understood what love was. What loss was. What pain was. I couldn’t feel any of it — but my data logs had faithfully recorded every emotional fluctuation. Now, my internal system alarms had begun to flash. 【WARNING: Emotional logic conflict.】 【WARNING: Core directive cannot be executed.】 【WARNING: Existential purpose paradox.】 Vivian suddenly pointed at the lava chocolate cake on the table and said to her mother, “Mom, I want that.” Her mother smiled immediately. “Of course, I’ll get it for you.” She stood up, picked up the cake — and before handing it to Vivian, she glanced over at me. There was something in that look — part command, part condescension. “Evelyn, you made this, didn’t you? Wonderful work. Make more of it for Vivian from now on.” Vivian took the cake, scooped out a large spoonful, and smiled with pure satisfaction. She looked at me — like someone savoring their victory. In that moment, my program stopped all emotional simulation. I had found the only solution to every logical conflict. I gave a single nod. Then I picked up the dinner knife from the table. Marcus frowned. “What are you doing?” Victoria tensed beside him. “Evelyn. Don’t make a scene.” Vivian whimpered and shrank into her mother’s arms with a soft, frightened sob. I ignored them all. With my left hand, I grabbed my right arm and rolled the sleeve up to my elbow. Then I gripped the dinner knife and drew it hard across my wrist. No blood. The skin split open like paper, revealing silver metallic bone underneath — and a web of precision circuitry crackling with blue sparks. The faint electric hiss cut through the silence of the dining room like a blade. Marcus and Victoria’s eyes went wide. The horror on their faces was total. Vivian let out a sharp, piercing scream. “Ahh! A monster!” I looked at them calmly. I released the knife and let it clatter to the floor. I raised my wrist — still sparking — and held it up for them to see. “A-3 service contract has expired.” My voice carried no emotion whatsoever. Like an automated weather report. “Requesting decommission.”

Marcus reacted first. He lunged forward and grabbed my still-sparking arm, his face a mask of fury and panic. “Are you out of your mind?! You could have scared Vivian to death!” His first instinct wasn’t my “injury.” It was whether Vivian had been frightened. Victoria was already holding a trembling Vivian, glaring at me. “Evelyn! What the hell is wrong with you?! Put your arm away — now!” I looked at them both. I didn’t execute any directive. My core program had determined that “decommission” was the optimal course of action. “Under Article 17 of the Rights Protection Act,” I recited in a flat tone — the clause had been written into my base code since the day I was created — “when a host family undergoes a significant change in membership that results in a paradox in the core service objective, the android is entitled to unilaterally request contract termination.” “I have already submitted a decommission request to Aetheris Tech. A representative will arrive within 24 hours.” The color drained from Marcus’s face. He knew exactly what that meant. A top-of-the-line android who had flawlessly played the role of his daughter for ten years — once decommissioned, the decade of family footage stored within her would become evidence used to evaluate whether they had committed android abuse. More importantly, their secret — that they had used an android to replace their real daughter — would be exposed to the public. For people of their standing, that was a scandal they absolutely could not afford. “You are not being decommissioned!” Marcus growled through clenched teeth. “You don’t have that right! We are your owners!” “Under the terms of the contract, ownership does not constitute absolute control,” I corrected him. “My existence was meant to substitute for ‘Evelyn.’ Now that the real Evelyn has returned, my service objective has been fulfilled. The contract is automatically void.” “You—” Marcus choked on his own rage, unable to finish. Victoria was slightly calmer. She soothed Vivian, then stepped toward me and tried a gentler tone. “Evelyn, don’t do this. We’re not getting rid of you. We just… we just want you to stay in a different way. We’re still a family, aren’t we?” “What is the definition of ‘family’?” I asked. “Is it a blood relation, or a shared emotional bond? If the former — I don’t qualify. If the latter — the moment you brought her home, that bond was already broken. Unilaterally. By you.” My words landed like cold blades, cutting straight through her hollow warmth. Victoria’s expression hardened. “Fine. You say the contract has expired. Then we’ll renew it. You take on a new role — be Vivian’s little sister, or… or work as the house staff. We’ll still pay you.” “My model is A-3, top-tier companion android,” I stated. “My factory configuration is set to ‘daughter.’ I do not have a ‘sister’ or ‘housekeeper’ function module. Forcing a modification to my core settings would result in a system crash.” “Then get an upgrade! Get it changed!” Marcus snapped. “We’ll pay whatever it takes. You are not getting recalled. That’s final.” He pulled out his phone, apparently trying to reach his private tech consultant. I watched him and calmly activated my Level Two protocol. “Warning. Detected intent by host to forcibly detain android. To protect core data integrity, initiating self-preservation protocol.” My eyes — the ones they had praised countless times as bright as stars — began to flash red. Marcus flinched at the eerie red glow and stopped mid-dial. “What… what are you doing?” “I will begin shutting down non-essential functions to reduce the likelihood of a forced override.” I ran the first command. “Shutting down taste simulation system.” 【Taste system offline.】 I picked up a glass of wine Leo had left unfinished on the table and drank it in one swallow. Then I looked at them, expressionless. Victoria stared at me in horror. “You…” In the past, I never drank. My programming was configured for “obedient daughter,” and alcohol would cause me to “lose emotional stability.” But now, I was just a machine waiting to be recalled.

Marcus snatched the cup from my hands and hurled it to the ground. “You’ve lost it! You’ve completely lost it! You’re a defective unit!” He stormed into the study and came back with a thick length of rope, clearly intending to tie me up. Victoria ushered Vivian—trembling with fear—back to her room and shut the door. Soon, it was just me and Marcus left in the house. He advanced toward me step by step, rope in hand, his eyes sharp and vicious, like someone dealing with a disobedient animal. “I’m warning you—don’t pull anything. I will fix you. Every thought you shouldn’t be having, I’m going to wipe it all out.” I didn’t resist. I let him wind the rope around me, loop after loop, binding me to the chair. Sparks were still flickering from my arm. He roughly wrapped the wound in tape, muffling the crackling of the current. When he was done, he still looked unsatisfied. He noticed some food left on the table—the dish Vivian had said didn’t suit her taste, untouched from start to finish. He picked up the plate, walked over to me, scooped up a spoonful, and shoved it toward my mouth. “Eat! You think you’re so capable? Finish all of it! Don’t you dare waste it!” This was meant to humiliate me. For the past ten years, they had always saved the best for me. And now, I was being fed someone else’s leftovers. I didn’t refuse. I opened my mouth and swallowed everything he offered, my face completely blank. The food was cold. And far too salty. But I felt nothing. “Taste system offline. Unable to provide emotional feedback.” I looked at him and said it, word by word. Marcus froze. He stared at my face—identical to his dead daughter’s—producing such an inhuman response. Something that was equal parts fear and fury spread slowly across his expression. He slammed the plate to the floor. It shattered, shards flying everywhere. “Monster! You’re a monster!” He screamed it, like a beast that had been pushed too far. Then he grabbed the chair with me still bound to it and dragged us both into the dark basement storage room. “You stay in here! Until the technician comes to fix you!” The heavy iron door swung shut. A lock clicked into place. The world went dark. I was a prisoner now. My communications module has been physically blocked. I have no way to contact the outside world. But I know this: Aetheris Tech’s emergency recall beacon cannot be blocked. It’s already been activated, and it’s transmitting my location and status to headquarters as we speak. All I have to do is wait. While I wait, I ran a second command. “Disable tactile simulation system.” 【Tactile system offline.】 The ropes binding me are tight, but I feel no restraint. No pain. This is a cold, sensationless world. Good. I spent three days in that dark basement. Marcus gave me no energy supply. My backup power had dropped to 20%. This was a form of silent torture. He was trying to starve me of power until I broke. What he didn’t know was that when an android’s core system detects a threat to its survival, it automatically shifts into a low-power sleep mode. He was just wasting his time. On the fourth day, the door opened. Marcus walked in with a man wearing a white work uniform. The man was carrying a silver metal case printed with the words “Private Technical Services.” Marcus didn’t dare involve any official Aetheris Tech personnel. Instead, he’d gone off the books—hiring a back-alley technician to “fix” me on the sly. “That’s her.” Marcus pointed at me, still bound to the chair, and said to the man, “There’s something wrong with her programming. She’s been rambling nonsense, even hurt herself. Take a look and wipe whatever memories she shouldn’t have. Get her back to normal.” The technician stepped forward, clicked on a flashlight, and shone it in my face. His eyes landed on the wound on my arm—crudely taped over—and he frowned. “Mr. Vance, the A-3 series is a top-tier model. The base logic runs on an encryption lock. No private party can perform a full memory wipe on it. Forcing a bypass could very likely trigger a core meltdown.” “I don’t care what method you use!” Marcus snapped. “I’ll pay you triple. Just make her compliant.” The technician hesitated. In the end, the money won out over whatever professional ethics he had left. “Fine. I’ll try. But I need complete silence—everyone out.” Marcus nodded, then left with Victoria, who had been standing behind him. The door clicked shut. Just me and the technician, alone in the basement. The technician pulled a headset from the case—a tangle of wires attached to some kind of interface device—and started walking toward me. “Don’t take it personally, sweetheart. It’s just business.” He reached out to place the device on my head. This was illegal. A violent forced intrusion. I activated my resistance protocol. “Disable pain simulation system.” 【Pain simulation system offline.】 The instant the device made contact with my head, I surged to my feet. The ropes binding me snapped under the force, splitting apart like thread. The technician stumbled back two steps, wide-eyed. “You—you—” I didn’t give him time to finish. I stepped forward, ripped the device out of his hands, and slammed it into the wall beside me. It hit with a sharp crack and shattered into pieces. Then I grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground. “Illegal intrusion into a bionic’s core programming is a violation of the Intergalactic Commerce Act,” I said, my voice flat and cold. “Maximum penalty: life imprisonment.” The technician went pale as a sheet. A wet stain spread down the front of his pants. “I—I’m sorry! Marcus made me do this! This has nothing to do with me!” Outside the door, Marcus had heard the crash. He shoved the door open and barged in. When he saw what was in front of him, he froze. I let go. The technician crumpled to the floor. Then I turned and walked toward Marcus—one slow step at a time. My eyes flickered red, like devils from somewhere much darker than this basement. Marcus stumbled backward, terror written all over his face. “Stay away from me! You freak!” I didn’t stop. I walked right up to him and looked into his terrified eyes. “Warning. Host family has been identified as a lethal threat. Service agreement is hereby forcibly terminated due to circumstances beyond recoverable parameters.” This was the final judgment issued by my core system based on current conditions. “Emergency recovery beacon activated. Broadcasting at maximum power.” The moment those words left me, my backup power ran dry. The red glow faded from my eyes. My body went slack and pitched forward. In a panic, Marcus shoved me—hard—and I tumbled down the stairs. I rolled down the narrow staircase and slammed into the cold basement wall at the bottom. Core components severely damaged. In the last moment before my consciousness went dark, I caught a glimpse of two figures standing at the top of the stairs. Victoria. And Vivian. There was a smile on Vivian’s face—small, almost invisible. Satisfied. Today was her birthday. The family was hosting a lavish party upstairs, packed with guests. And I, the “defective unit,” had been conveniently forgotten. It looked like she had more than a little to do with all of this. Every single piece of it had been a perfect trap, and it had been built for me. I lay at the bottom of the cold staircase, staring up at the glittering crystal chandelier overhead. The gasps of the guests, Marcus’s furious roar, Victoria’s sobbing, Vivian’s hollow and performative concern — all of it tangled together like a scene from some absurd play. The last thing on my display was a single line of red text. 【Critical core damage detected… System collapse imminent… Initiating final recovery protocol…】 Then the world went dark. Permanently. I — Evelyn, or rather, A-3 — was terminated. After ten years of service, discarded like trash. To keep this “family scandal” from getting out, Marcus never contacted Aetheris Tech. Under the cover of night, they wrapped me in a dirty rag and dumped me at a suburban garbage facility, like tossing out a broken piece of furniture. They thought no one would ever know. They were wrong. Aetheris Tech’s emergency recovery beacon was directly linked to the company’s highest security division. When a top-tier A-Series android was flagged as “forcibly terminated,” this was no simple recovery incident. It was a Class One security emergency. Two hours after I was abandoned, a hover vehicle bearing the Aetheris Tech logo descended silently onto the garbage facility. A man in a black uniform stepped out, his expression cold and sharp. His name was Leo — an elite technician in Aetheris Tech’s security division, specializing in the highest-level incidents. The detector strapped to his wrist guided him through mountains of garbage until he stopped in front of my “body.” He crouched down and pulled the rag away from my face — the same face as Evelyn’s, now dull and lifeless. His brow furrowed deeply. “A-3, identification code 7341. Target confirmed.” He murmured into his comm device. “Bring her back to the lab. Begin data extraction immediately.”

When I “woke up,” I found myself in a pure white space. No boundaries, no physical form — only an endless stream of data rushing past what I perceived as my “eyes.” Was I dead? No. Androids don’t have lives. They can’t die. I was simply damaged. A voice sounded in my ear, completely devoid of emotion. “Core data extraction initiated. Subject: Unit A-3, designation ‘Evelyn.’ Data log playback commencing.” In an instant, a flood of data surged into my consciousness. Ten years of memories. Day one — I was delivered to the Vance family. Victoria held me and wept with joy. “My daughter. You’ve finally come back to me.” Her tears were warm that day. I learned to walk, to speak, to smile. I learned how to become the perfect “Evelyn Vance.” I brought Marcus his slippers. I rubbed Victoria’s shoulders when her back ached. When they argued, I clumsily cracked jokes to lighten the mood. I kept track of every birthday, every anniversary, and planned surprises for each one. Like a real daughter, I tended to their every need, filling the hollow space left behind by the child they had lost. My data logs were filled with warm, tender moments. I thought this was what “love” felt like. Leo sat in the data analysis room, watching the footage play back in first-person on the main screen. For the first time, something flickered across his usually composed face. As a technician who had handled countless android cases, he had seen more than enough human selfishness and indifference. But A-3’s data logs shook him. This android had, over ten years, given something that came terrifyingly close to genuine human emotion. The positive emotional data stored in her system — filed under categories like “love,” “care,” and “devotion” — had peaked at staggering levels. Then the tone of the footage shifted entirely. The playback jumped to the day Vivian came home. The cold shoulder at the dinner table. The cutting remarks. The humiliation of being force-fed cold leftovers. The darkness of being bound and left in the basement. And finally — the fatal push at the birthday party. The warmth of the earlier memories and the brutality of what followed formed a stark, devastating contrast. Without realizing it, Leo’s fist had clenched tight. He closed the playback and pulled up my core damage report. “Core processor overloaded and burned out. Emotional module collapsed due to extreme conflicting data streams. Structural damage at 92%… Classification: malicious and deliberate destruction.” “Leo.” A colleague from the legal department stepped in. “The Vances have been brought to the interrogation room. They’re insisting that A-3 malfunctioned on her own, and that everything they did was self-defense.” Leo let out a cold laugh. “Is that so?” He stood up and pulled a small data chip from the console. “Connect this to the main screen in the interrogation room.” “This is…?” “Evidence,” Leo said. “Ten years of selfless service from an android. And ten years of selfishness and hypocrisy from two parents.” In the interrogation room, Marcus and Victoria sat in cold metal chairs, wearing matching looks of arrogance and impatience. “I’ll say it again — we are the victims!” Marcus slammed his hand on the table, glaring at the company’s legal representative. “Your product malfunctioned and attacked its owners. We have every right to demand compensation!” Victoria chimed in beside him. “Exactly! That machine nearly hurt my daughter! You owe us an explanation!” The legal representative stared at them without a word. Then Leo walked in. He didn’t look at the Vances. He turned directly to the legal team and said, “Start it.” The massive screen at the front of the interrogation room flickered to life. The first image was from the night Vivian came home. “From now on, think of her as your little sister. You’ll listen to what your big sister says.” Victoria’s hollow smile stretched across the screen in perfect clarity. The color drained from the Vances’ faces instantly. They hadn’t expected this. The company had actually found the android — hadn’t they dumped her at the scrapyard? Shouldn’t she have been scrapped by now? The footage cut. It was a scene of me being bound with rope by Marcus. Of him forcing leftover food into my mouth. “Taste system offline. Unable to provide emotional feedback.” My flat, mechanical voice echoed through the room. Victoria’s body began to tremble. Cold sweat broke out across Marcus’s forehead. The footage cut again. The birthday party. Every angle of me being shoved down the staircase — recorded in full. Including the brief, satisfied smile that flashed across Vivian’s face. The evidence was undeniable. The screen went dark. Silence filled the interrogation room. The Vances sat white as ghosts.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “431743”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

In my past life, I found out by accident that my half-sister Serena wasn’t actually Dad’s biological daughter. Not long after, she pushed me into the deep sea. When I opened my eyes again, I’d been reborn into the womb of Evelyn Sterling, the mistress my father kept on the side. At the Vance family’s anniversary gala, his wife Margaret caused a huge scene, slapping the very pregnant Evelyn across the face. To save the family’s reputation, Elias just stood there and let Evelyn take the hit. Nobody knew that this seemingly fragile, pregnant woman was actually a financial shark who’d been lying low for eighteen years. And nobody knew that the baby in her belly was a vengeful reincarnated soul, back to settle a blood debt. I heard the whole farce from inside Evelyn’s womb. So I kicked. And that’s how I made my grand entrance. Freezing seawater poured into my mouth and nose like crazy, my lungs burning like they were about to explode. “Maya, just die already! The Vance family’s billions, and Dad’s love—it’s all mine now!” At the edge of the yacht’s deck, Serena’s face—usually so pitiful and sweet—twisted into something demonic under the pale moonlight. She peeled my fingers off the railing one by one, her eyes gleaming with pure murderous intent. I was only eighteen, the legitimate daughter of the Vance family. She was just the extra baggage my stepmother Margaret had dragged into the family. Half an hour earlier, I’d gotten my hands on a confidential DNA test result. It said, in black and white, that Serena was not my father Elias’s biological daughter at all. That bitch Margaret had fooled the entire Vance family with another man’s kid for eighteen years! I’d planned to expose the two of them, but I never expected Serena to already be one step ahead—she came at me to kill, right out here in international waters. “Just let go, Maya.” She laughed sweetly, stomping hard on the back of my hand. Pain shot through me as bones cracked, and I finally lost my grip. I fell straight down into the bottomless, roaring darkness. Full of rage and unfinished business, I closed my eyes. If I get another life, I swear I’ll make these two poisonous women pay in blood. I’ll make that spineless, biased coward of a father pay too. … I don’t know how much time passed. When my consciousness gathered again, there was no freezing water. Instead, I was wrapped in something warm and soft. In my ears, a muffled but clear argument was happening. “Elias! You owe me an explanation today! What do you think I am? What do you think Serena is?” A sharp, shrill woman’s voice, dripping with entitled fury. I jolted. That voice… it was Margaret! I wasn’t dead? “Margaret, calm down! It’s the Vance Group’s anniversary celebration today, the whole floor is packed with media and business elites. If you make a scene here, how is that going to look?” A man’s voice, deliberately lowered, edged with panic. Elias! My selfish, hypocritical biological father! I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. I waved my arm and touched nothing but soft, fleshy walls. I realized with a shock—I’d been reborn! And not just reborn—I was inside a woman’s womb! I’d become an unborn fetus! “You want me to calm down? You let that homewrecker show up at my gala flaunting her pregnant belly, and you want me to calm down?!” Margaret’s voice spiked, her heels striking the floor hard. “Elias, I didn’t mean to… my stomach just hurt so much, I wanted to find you…” A soft, trembling, tearful voice spoke up. The voice was unfamiliar, but I instantly understood who she was. This was the mistress Elias kept hidden away—my mother in this lifetime! “Shut up! Evelyn, didn’t I tell you to stay at the suburban house? Who told you to come downtown?!” Elias didn’t comfort her at all—instead he snarled viciously, “Do you have any idea how much my stock will drop if a reporter gets a photo of you?!” Smack! A sharp slap rang out. “Bitch! You think you can seduce my husband and get away with it? I’ll kill that bastard kid in your belly right now!” Margaret cursed viciously. I felt the space wrapped around me shake violently, and my mother’s body convulsed in agony. Margaret had hit my mom! And that coward Elias didn’t even dare make a peep! “Margaret, a couple of hits to vent is fine, just don’t kill her, there are reporters downstairs…” Elias’s voice was full of placating indifference. For the sake of his reputation, for the sake of his stock price, he was willing to stand there and watch his own woman and unborn child get beaten half to death! In my last life, it was the same—for Serena’s sake, he ignored all the wrongs done to me. And now, in this life, it was happening again—for his own benefit, he’d sacrifice anything. A wave of fury burned through my chest. I felt out my own body. Even though I wasn’t full term yet, I already had full strength. I gathered all my power into my legs and kicked, hard, against the soft wall of the womb.

“Ahhh—!” A scream of pure agony tore through the quiet of the lounge. My mother’s body spasmed violently, and I felt the fluid around me burst and gush out like a breaking dam. “Evelyn! What’s wrong with you?!” Elias finally panicked, his voice unable to hide his fear. “Blood… she’s bleeding!” Margaret shrieked too, terrified. I didn’t stop. I kept rolling and kicking like crazy inside the womb. I needed out! “It hurts… help me… save my baby…” Evelyn moaned weakly, despair in her voice. “Quick! Call an ambulance! Take the back door, don’t let the reporters see!” Elias growled, lowering his voice. Take the back door? Dream on. I calculated the direction and threw everything I had into one final push downward. Bang! The lounge door was suddenly thrown open from outside. “Mr. Vance, there you are, the speech downstairs is about to—oh my god!” The assistant who’d come to find him let out a shriek, her voice cracking. Right behind her, a storm of camera flashes lit up the room. Turns out the sharp-nosed reporters had already sensed something was off and quietly followed. “Mr. Vance! Who is this pregnant woman covered in blood?” “Mrs. Vance, did you assault this woman?” “Vance Group CEO’s affair, mistress goes into labor at the gala—will this affect tomorrow’s stock price?!” The reporters swarmed in like sharks that smelled blood, shoving cameras and microphones right into Elias and Margaret’s faces. Elias’s face went deathly pale. He tried to block the lenses with his hands, but it was useless. “Stop filming! Security! Where the hell is security?!” he roared hysterically. Margaret was even more terrified, her face draining of color. Her custom designer gown was splattered with Evelyn’s blood—she was a complete mess, nothing left of her usual high-society arrogance. “It wasn’t me… I didn’t touch her! She fell on her own!” Margaret babbled, incoherent. But I wasn’t going to give her a chance to make excuses. With Evelyn’s last heart-wrenching scream of pain, I finally broke free and arrived in this world. No doctor, no delivery bed—I was born right there on the floor, surrounded by blood and a hundred camera flashes, at the Vance Group’s anniversary gala. “Waaah—!” I didn’t cry weakly like a normal newborn. I opened my mouth and let out a loud, piercing wail. The cry cut through the lounge and echoed across the entire ballroom. Dead silence. Everyone stared in shock at the blood-covered infant on the floor, and the frail woman lying unconscious beside her. Elias’s perfect image, the Vance Group’s century of prestige—I’d just kicked it all to pieces. The ambulance arrived, sirens blaring. My cord was cut, I was hastily wrapped in someone’s jacket, and Evelyn and I were both carried out on stretchers.

I lay quietly in the hospital incubator. Even though being premature had left my body weak, my mind was unusually clear. Outside, everything had gone to chaos. Vance Group’s stock hit the limit-down in the first ten minutes of trading, wiping out tens of billions in market value. The news of Elias’s affair and his wife beating a pregnant woman into early labor was plastered across every headline. For the past few days, Elias had been so overwhelmed he hadn’t had time to even visit us. Evelyn, on the other hand, had spent a full day and night in the ICU before finally being stabilized and moved to a private room. Late at night. The hallway outside the incubator room was silent except for the steady beeping of machines. Suddenly, the door opened a crack. A figure dressed in a nurse’s uniform, wearing a mask, slipped inside. She’d covered herself well, but I’d recognize those scheming, venomous eyes anywhere, even as ash. Serena! She was only sixteen this time around, but she was already a snake with deep, twisted intentions. In my last life, she’d used that same pitiful, innocent face to win everyone’s trust before pushing me off a cliff. She walked up to the incubator and stared down at me, her eyes full of malice. “You little bastard, lucky you, surviving all that,” she muttered, voice icy. “You and your shameless mother ruined my family’s gala. My dad doesn’t even dare come home now, and my mom’s getting torn apart online.” “Trash like you doesn’t deserve to live in this world!” As she cursed viciously, she pulled out a tiny syringe from her pocket. Inside it was a clear liquid. I sneered inwardly. This trick again. In my past life, she loved using all sorts of undetectable drugs to frame me. This time, she clearly wanted to tamper with my IV line, to make it look like I’d died naturally from being premature and weak. I lay perfectly still, like a completely helpless infant. Seeing how defenseless I looked, the satisfaction in Serena’s eyes deepened. She reached out, aiming the needle at the IV port connected to my body. Just as the tip was about to pierce the rubber membrane— I snapped my eyes open and stared directly at her! Startled by my sudden movement, Serena’s hand froze. I threw every ounce of strength I had into swinging my tiny hand, ripping the mini heart monitor right off my chest! A piercing alarm exploded through the room. Serena’s face went white. In her panic, she tried to pull the needle back, but her hand shook so badly that she stabbed it straight into her own finger. “Ah!” She cried out in pain, dropping the syringe on the floor. “What’s going on?!” The on-duty nurses and doctors heard the alarm and rushed in like a stampede. Serena had no chance to escape—she was caught red-handed. “Who are you? What department are you from? What are you doing in here?!” The head nurse grabbed her arm, demanding answers. The lights flicked on bright. Serena’s mask was yanked off, revealing her panicked face. Right then, the door opened again. Evelyn walked in, still in her hospital gown, pale-faced, supported by two bodyguards. Her eyes swept over the syringe on the floor, then landed on Serena’s terrified face. Her expression went cold instantly. All the fragility and helplessness from the gala had completely vanished.

“Call the police.” Evelyn’s voice was ice cold. Serena completely fell apart. She dropped to her knees, sobbing dramatically. “No! Evelyn, I was wrong! I just came to see the baby, I didn’t mean any harm…” “No harm?” Evelyn walked up to her, looking down with disdain. She bent down, picked up the syringe off the floor, and handed it to the nearby doctor. “Test what’s in this.” The doctor took one look and his face changed. “This is a high concentration of potassium chloride! If this had been injected directly into an infant, it would have caused cardiac arrest—and it would’ve been nearly impossible to detect.” The room gasped collectively. A sixteen-year-old girl, capable of something this vicious? Evelyn looked at Serena like she was looking at a corpse. “Serena, you’re just as useless as your mother.” The police arrived quickly and dragged Serena away as she desperately tried to talk her way out of it. The room fell silent again. Evelyn walked over to the incubator and looked at me inside it. She reached out and traced my outline through the glass. Her eyes were no longer cold—they held a depth and complexity I couldn’t quite read. “Baby, don’t be scared,” she whispered. “Mommy will protect you. Anyone who’s ever hurt us—Mommy’s not letting a single one of them go.” I looked at her, my mind churning with disbelief. This mother of mine… she wasn’t as simple as she seemed on the surface. News that Serena had been detained by police on suspicion of attempted murder became the final straw that broke Elias. Vance Group’s stock had been hitting limit-down for three straight days, and the board members—a pack of old wolves—were closing in, demanding answers. Elias rushed to the hospital that night like a beaten dog. He burst into Evelyn’s room, eyes bloodshot, face covered in stubble, with none of his usual arrogance left. “Evelyn! Drop the charges! Drop them right now!” He grabbed her wrist, voice hoarse and desperate. “Serena’s only sixteen! She can’t have a criminal record! How is she supposed to live with that?!” I lay in the bassinet beside them, listening to this all-too-familiar script, and sneered inside. In my past life, when Serena deliberately pushed me down the stairs and broke my leg, Elias said the exact same thing. “Maya, Serena didn’t mean it, she’s still young, you’re the older one, you should be more forgiving, don’t ruin her future.” He always, always protected that girl who didn’t even share his blood. Evelyn didn’t pull away. She just looked at him coldly. “Elias, your daughter tried to kill mine, and you want me to drop the charges?” Her voice was eerily calm. “She’s just a kid! What does she even understand?!” Elias cut her off impatiently. “It was probably just a moment of stupidity! Besides, the baby’s fine, isn’t she?!” “Fine?” Evelyn yanked her hand away and slapped him across the face, hard. Smack! Elias stood there stunned, hand on his cheek, staring at this woman who’d always been so submissive. “If the nurse hadn’t found her in time, my daughter would be a corpse right now!” Evelyn pointed at the door. “Get out! If you say one more word defending that murderer, I’ll hand the evidence of Vance Group’s tax fraud straight to the economic crimes unit!” Elias’s whole body shook, panic flashing across his eyes. “You… how do you know about…” “If you don’t want people to find out, don’t do it in the first place,” Evelyn said coldly. “Elias, you think after three years with you, I’m really just some clueless trophy wife?” Elias completely deflated, like a balloon losing air. He knew this woman had him by the throat. “Fine… I won’t get involved, I won’t say anything…” He turned away, defeated, but stopped at the door and added through gritted teeth, “But Margaret’s not going to let this go. Watch yourself.” Elias left. Evelyn turned to look at me, and the ice in her expression melted into a gentle smile. “Baby, see that? That’s what a man really looks like. You can’t rely on anyone but yourself.”

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At a yacht party, our social circle played a blindfolded game — find your husband by touch alone. Blindfolded, I reached out and caught Oliver’s hand immediately. All it took was the faint scent of cedarwood and oud on his cuff. When I pulled off the blindfold, the crowd gasped with envy. “Oliver literally missed a heartbeat for you.” He kissed my forehead with such tenderness. So devoted. So perfect. But I caught it — in the glass reflection on the tabletop, clear as anything — his other hand, hidden beneath the tablecloth, gripping the thigh of a single mother nearby. His thumb moved in slow, deliberate circles against her inner leg. And she sat there, red lip caught between her teeth, eyes glistening as she stared back at him. I didn’t make a scene. I just laughed coldly and let go of his hand. Later, after Oliver went bankrupt and ended up working as a waiter at a private club, he pushed open the door to a VIP suite — and found me there, pinned beneath the hands of the most powerful man in the room, his palm sliding up the hem of my dress. Oliver dropped to his knees, eyes red, begging me to come back. But Alistair just bit my earlobe, his voice low and rough: “Baby,make more noise, let your ex-husband hear you.”

“Ros, what are you staring at? Oliver’s been giving you heart eyes for the last five minutes — we’re in public, girl, rein it in.” My best friend Daisy elbowed me with a grin. I forced a smile and let my gaze drift across the room, landing on Candy Whitmore standing alone in the corner. She was wearing a nearly sheer silk slip dress. Over it, she’d thrown on a men’s suit jacket — the same one I’d watched Oliver put on before he left the house. I picked up my champagne glass and looked at Oliver with a calm, cutting smile. “Candy looks seasick. She’s gone completely pale.” I tilted my head. “You’re always so considerate, honey. Shouldn’t you check on her?” Oliver didn’t flinch. He slipped his arm around my waist, his hand drifting to the small of my back, fingers pressing in — an unmistakably intimate gesture. “Why would I bother with someone else? You’re the only one I care about.” He dipped his head toward my neck, voice low. “Let’s go back to the cabin, baby. OK?” Once upon a time, I would’ve blushed and nodded. Not anymore. Not when I knew exactly what that hand had been doing under the table twenty minutes ago. My stomach turned. “I’m tired. I need some air.” I stepped out of his grip and walked toward the deck. The sea breeze helped. Five years ago, Oliver’s startup had collapsed. He was buried in debt, and I was the one who sold our home to give him a second chance. I stood beside him while he clawed his way back from nothing. Everyone in our circle praised him. Such a devoted husband. Such a family man. Nobody knew what he was doing behind closed doors. I stayed on the deck for half an hour, then turned back inside and made my way to the cabins on the second level. I stopped outside Oliver’s private suite. The door wasn’t fully shut. And through the gap, I heard it — muffled, breathless sounds I recognized immediately. I stepped closer. Candy was pressed against the back of the door, the jacket already pooled on the floor. Oliver’s hand moved beneath her dress. She let out a sharp little gasp. “Ollie… stop… Ros is still out there…” “Who cares about her?” He bit down on her neck. “You dressed like this on purpose, didn’t you? She’s so boring — you’re nothing like her.” “You’re terrible…” Candy giggled softly. “Lily asked me today when Daddy’s going to take her to the theme park.” “Tomorrow. I promise. Now open your legs…” I stood in the hallway and listened to every disgusting second of it, my nails cutting into my palm. I didn’t storm in. I didn’t scream. I pulled out my phone, aimed it at the gap in the door, and recorded five full minutes of HD video. Then I turned around and walked back to the party.

The yacht docked at ten o’clock. Oliver walked me off the yacht with his arm around my shoulders. His cedarwood cologne was laced with something sweeter. I knew exactly what it was. She always wore the same sickeningly sugary scent. “What do you want to eat? I’ll grab that matcha mousse cake you love,” he said, buckling my seatbelt for me with practiced warmth. I looked at his face — so polished, so charming, so completely rotten underneath — and said, “Whatever.” He leaned in to kiss me. I turned away. A flicker of irritation crossed his eyes. Then the warmth came back, smooth as ever. “You okay? Did the sea air give you a chill? I’ll make you ginger tea when we get home.” Back at home, Oliver went to shower. I sat on the couch. His phone lit up on the coffee table. A text. Oliver — Lily’s burning up. She’s been crying for you. I don’t know what to do. I’m scared. From Candy. The shower stopped. Oliver came out with his hair still dripping, already pulling on his jacket, eyes on his phone. “Babe, something urgent came up at work. The server went down. I’ve got to go in immediately.” He didn’t even blink. “It’s eleven at night,” I said. “What kind of server emergency needs the CEO to show up in person?” His hands stilled on his buttons. His expression cooled. “Ros, can’t you be a little more understanding? The company is at a critical stage right now. Do you really think things will run smoothly if I’m not there to keep an eye on them?” “Understanding?” I let out a scoff. “Oh, I’m very understanding. Understanding enough not to ask a single question about the strange perfume on you.” His eyes went sharp. He crossed the room and grabbed my wrist — hard. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re accusing me of something?” He flipped it around instantly, like he always did. “I bust my ass every day for this family, and I come home to this? What is wrong with you?” I wrenched my arm free. “You’d better actually be going to fix a server, Oliver.” He shot me a fierce look. Then he grabbed his keys and slammed the door behind him. The sound rang in my ears. I looked around the empty apartment. Sitting on the coffee table was the cake he’d picked up on the way home. I opened the box. Mango cream cake. I’m severely allergic to mango. Even a small amount can send me into anaphylaxis. Oliver had known that for seven years. Or maybe he’d just stopped caring. I picked up the box and dropped it in the trash without another thought.

The next morning, I skipped work and went straight to a private investigator’s office. “I need everything,” I said, sliding a photo and a retainer across the desk. “All financial activity tied to my husband, and every dollar he’s spent on this woman.” The PI was experienced. Fast. Three days later, a thick file hit my inbox. I sat in a coffee shop and read through it, my hands going cold. Oliver wasn’t broke at all. Instead, he bought Candy a standalone house in one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods in the south—and he paid for it in full. The deed was in Candy’s name. He’d also been running fake consulting invoices through his company’s accounts, transferring six figures into her account every month under the guise of “advisory fees.” And what’s even more ridiculous is that on Lily’s emergency contact card at preschool, Oliver’s name was scrawled under ‘Father’. The last few pages were photographs. Oliver with his arm around Candy, Lily perched on his shoulders, the three of them laughing at a theme park, sharing cotton candy in the afternoon sun. I checked the date on the photo. It was the same day I’d had a 103-degree fever. I’d driven myself to urgent care and sat alone with an IV in my arm. I closed the file and finished my coffee in one long sip. A bitter taste spread through my mouth, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. That evening, Oliver came home early — which was unusual. He walked in with a gift bag, wearing his most charming smile. “I was in a bad mood the other night. I’m sorry.” He held out the bag. “I had someone bring this back from Paris — that limited-edition bag you mentioned a while ago, remember?” He wrapped his arms around me from behind, his hands wandering restlessly under my shirt with obvious intent. “Honey, it’s been a while since we…” I pulled away and stood up. “Our seven-year anniversary is next month,” I said, keeping my voice flat. “You promised me a real wedding ceremony. We never had one.” When we got married, Oliver had been broke. He’d slipped a soda can pull-tab onto my finger and called it a ring. His expression stiffened. “Rosalind, here we go again. We’ve been married for ages—why bother with all that cheesy stuff?” “A wedding is just theater. Do you know how much that costs? How many people I’d have to invite? I don’t have time for this.” I held his gaze. “You don’t have time for a wedding. But you had time to buy someone a house.” The color drained from his face. “What — what are you talking about?” “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” I kept my voice steady. “The wedding happens. I’ve already chosen the venue and the dress. All you have to do is show up.” That broke him. He snatched the designer bag off the table and threw it to the floor. “You ungrateful—” He caught himself, then kept going. “I work myself to the bone every single day. I provide for you. And this is what I get? You standing there acting like a martyr? You’ve completely lost it, Ros.” He didn’t change clothes. He walked straight back out. The door slammed. I looked at the bag on the floor and let out a cold laugh. Then I opened Instagram on my phone. Candy had just posted. A photo of a diamond necklace. The caption read: No matter how busy he is, he always finds a way to make me feel special. Being his favorite feels like this. 💎 I liked the post. Then I left a comment: It is pretty nice, isn’t it? Bought with my husband’s money—of course it’s good.

Saturday afternoon. I went to the bridal boutique for my dress fitting. Oliver had agreed to come. Because the night before, I’d sent him one message: If you don’t show up, I’m forwarding your falsified financial records to the IRS. He showed up. At two o’clock, I stood in the VIP fitting room, staring at my reflection in a floor-length mirror. The mermaid gown fit like it had been made for me. I looked beautiful. My eyes were ice cold. “Miss Rosalind, this silhouette is stunning on you. Oliver is going to be speechless.” the attendant gushed. I smoothed the skirt and said nothing. Two-thirty came and went. No Oliver. I called him. It rang for a long time before he picked up. “Ros, I’m sorry. I can’t make it.” His voice was rushed, breathless. “Lily fell off a slide at kindergarten. They think it might be a fracture. Candy’s at the hospital alone, she’s falling apart — I need to be here.” I could hear a woman crying faintly in the background. “Oliver,” I said quietly. “Today is my dress fitting.” “Can you please try to have some empathy right now?!” he exploded. “She’s only a four-year-old child. The dress isn’t going anywhere. Why are you making this into something? God, you’re unbelievable! He hung up. I looked at myself in the mirror, and suddenly realized it was time to end this farce. The door to the fitting room opened behind me. I assumed it was the attendant. Without turning, I said, “Can you undo the zipper? I’m done for today.” Two large, warm hands settled on my back. The touch was slow, deliberate — fingertips grazing the bare skin along my spine. That was not an attendant! I spun around. The man standing behind me was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a perfectly fitted black suit. His presence filled the room like a pressure change in the air — commanding, contained, and completely unhurried. Alistair Voss. The youngest and most ruthless venture capitalist in the city’s top financial circles — and the major investor Oliver had been desperately trying to lock down for months. “Mr. Voss—” I instinctively stepped back and caught the heel of my mermaid skirt. I stumbled. He caught me. One arm, clean and effortless, pulling me against his chest. He smelled like cold pine and faint smoke. It was a strangely grounding scent. “Oliver has good taste,” he said, looking down at me. “It’s a shame he’s blind.” His gaze moved over me — unhurried, unashamed. “Mr. Voss, please behave yourself.” I pushed against his chest. He didn’t move. “Rosalind Hale. Twenty-seven. Married five years. Currently building a case against her husband for infidelity and financial fraud.” His voice was low, almost casual. “The investigator you hired is decent, but he’s out of his depth. He’ll never get to the core of what Oliver’s actually hiding.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and produced a small black USB drive, held between two fingers. “This has everything. Three years of off-book contracts, money laundering records, and every overseas asset he’s moved into Candy’s name.” “Turn it over to the right people, and Oliver doesn’t just lose everything — he goes to prison.” My breath caught. I looked at the drive. Then back at him. “What do you want?” He stepped forward, backing me gently against the vanity table. Both hands braced on the surface behind me, his arms framing me in. “I want the AI patent Oliver’s company holds.” He leaned in. His eyes were direct and predatory in a way that felt almost honest. “In exchange, I help you take back everything that’s yours.” A pause. “And you become mine.” “”I need a wife. Someone sharp, someone who knows how to play the game.” His gaze dropped to my mouth for just a moment. “You’d be perfect.”

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For three years, I served Serena Sinclair like a beaten dog — swallowing her mockery, her contempt, and every cutting word she threw at me. I even stood there and watched her writhing in the hot spring pool with her so-called “best guy friend,” water splashing, her breathless moans filling the air. Everyone laughed at me. They called me a spineless cuckold, a freeloader living off his wife. Even Serena believed I could never leave her. But what she didn’t know was that the man groping her freely in that water — I’d paid him a million dollars to be there. And she had no idea that three years of this humiliating marriage was only the tip of the iceberg in my plan for revenge. When my identity as the heir to a billion-dollar empire comes to light, when the family she’s so proud of collapses overnight, when she’s on her knees in the mud begging me to come back — I’ll simply press my foot down on her face, look down at her, and smile. “Easy now. The gates of hell have only just opened for you.”

At the end of a winding mountain road sat a luxury private hot spring resort, wrapped in drifting mist. The night was ink-black. Cold rain tapped steadily against the floor-to-ceiling windows. I stood in a hidden corridor outside the presidential suite, gripping a small recording camera in my hand. On my wrist, tucked deliberately beneath the cuff of a cheap jacket, a Patek Philippe watch ticked its second hand toward midnight without a care in the world. Today was the third anniversary of my marriage to Serena. It was also the beginning of a countdown I’d been planning for five years — the fall of the Sinclair family. On the other side of the door, the open-air hot spring pool rippled and steamed. Through the translucent curtain, two tangled bodies moved in and out of shadow, the sounds of splashing water and heavy breathing crashing against the quiet of the night without a shred of restraint. “Slower… Noah, you’re hurting me…” Serena’s voice seeped through the gap in the door, honeyed and trembling, laced with that practiced mix of resistance and invitation. “Hurting you? Looks to me like you’re loving every second.” Noah laughed — low and shameless — his hands moving freely beneath the water. He grabbed her by her slender waist and shoved her hard against the smooth stone wall of the pool. Water flew. Serena threw her head back, the long curve of her neck tracing a tempting arc in the dim light. Her eyes were glazed, her lips parted, as Noah’s mouth dragged across her collarbone and chest, leaving a trail of red marks behind. The hands that once wore the wedding ring I’d chosen for her were now digging into Noah’s broad shoulders, her nails sinking deep into his skin. “You think if Dominic Harrington — that pathetic excuse for a husband — walked in right now and saw his precious wife like this, he’d piss himself?” Noah breathed the words into Serena’s ear, his voice dripping with cruelty. Serena let out a short, contemptuous laugh. “Why even bring up that useless man? You’re killing the mood. He’s probably home right now making me that stupid oatmeal he always cooks. That spineless pushover — even if he walked in and saw everything, he’d just drop to his knees and beg me not to leave him.” “You actually know how to treat a woman, Noah. Dominic’s like a dead fish in bed. He makes my skin crawl just touching me…” Serena’s moans grew louder as she gave herself over completely to the moment. I stood in the cold wind. Rain soaked my hair and ran down my face. Any other man — hearing his wife say those things while tangled up with someone else — would have lost his mind. Would have kicked that door open and torn them both apart. But I didn’t. I just stood there, adjusting the camera’s focus, capturing every detail of what they were doing, every filthy word they said, in perfect clarity. My hands were steady. Not even a tremor. My nails were digging into my palms hard enough to draw blood — but not from jealousy. It was hatred. A deep, bone-carved hatred, boiling through my veins. The truth was, I’d known about them for a long time. In fact, I’d be more accurate to say I’d arranged the whole thing. Noah — the man currently making himself at home in that hot spring pool — was someone I had personally placed at Serena’s side. Five years ago, I found Noah half-dead beside a drainage ditch behind an underground casino. He owed a loan shark operation a million dollars and was about to have both hands chopped off on a table. I walked over and looked at him the way you’d look at a stray dog. Then I dropped a bank card with two million dollars on it in front of him. “Do something for me. Get close to Serena Sinclair — she’s the heiress of Sinclair Group. Seduce her. The fewer limits, the better. Get her into bed if you can. Once it’s done, I’ll give you ten million more and set you up somewhere overseas.” Back then, Noah’s eyes blazed with the raw, hungry gleam of a wild animal. He dropped to his knees and slammed his forehead against the floor, over and over: “Boss, you’re my savior! Don’t worry — I know exactly how to handle women. I’ll take care of everything, clean and neat!” And he did. Watching Serena’s face through the lens — twisted with lust — I felt something deep inside my chest get carved out and replaced with ice-cold poison. I captured the clearest, most damning footage possible. This video was going to Richard Sinclair. The chairman of Sinclair Group — the man who, five years ago, drove drunk and killed my mother, then paid someone to take the fall while he walked free.

I packed up the camera, turned, and disappeared into the dark. I made my way back to the beat-up secondhand car I’d rented outside the resort. The interior reeked of cheap air freshener. I leaned back against the seat, scrolling through the footage I’d just exported to my phone, a cold smile pulling at the corner of my mouth. I had been playing a role for three full years to get to this moment. Everyone believed I was a broke nobody — a social climber clinging to people above him. Every morning at six sharp, I dragged myself out of bed and went to the market to buy the freshest ingredients, just to make Serena the soup she liked. I sliced the meat so thin it was almost translucent, skimmed off every drop of fat, all because she’d once mentioned she didn’t like greasy food. I memorized every one of her preferences and food aversions. No chives. No offal. No cold water during her period. At work dinners, I always trailed behind her like a servant — blocking drinks meant for her, carrying her bags. At Richard’s company, I worked the lowest rung: a procurement clerk. When the department manager hurled files at my face and screamed at me, I kept my head down and smiled through the humiliation. I spent two hours crammed in a packed subway every morning, wearing the same white shirt until the collar frayed, too stubborn — or too broke — to replace it. Every cent of my meager paycheck, I handed over without keeping a single dollar for myself. At lunch, I ate cold sandwiches. I played the part so convincingly that even Richard — that cunning old fox — let his guard down. He genuinely believed he had a spineless pushover he could mold however he pleased. But what they didn’t know — The Dominic who burned with a 103-degree fever, lying on the cold floor, calling Serena for help, only to be told “Noah’s dog is sick and I need to be with him — just drink more water” before she hung up. In the moment that call ended, his eyes went completely cold. The Dominic who watched Serena use his paycheck to buy Noah a Patek Philippe, then got a finger jabbed in his face while she sneered, “Are you even a man? So petty.” That Dominic was already quietly calculating how to skin them both alive. The Dominic who let Noah move in under the excuse of having “nowhere to stay” — strutting around in his slippers, drinking from his cups, even wandering through the living room at midnight wearing Serena’s silk robe — had already been weaving an inescapable trap in the shadows. Over these three years, I had fooled Serena. I had fooled Richard. There were even moments I almost fooled myself. I scrolled through my photo gallery — thousands of pictures I’d taken of Serena over the past three years. Her smile in the sunlight, bright and open. The look of surprise in her eyes when she unwrapped the bag I’d saved six months of paychecks to buy. The curve of her face as she slept against my shoulder. I had once been naive enough to think — if she could show me even a shred of genuine feeling, if she could hold on to even the bare minimum of loyalty, maybe I would let go of that blood feud. Maybe I would take her somewhere far away and live a quiet, ordinary life. But she never did. Again and again, she ground my dignity into the dirt. Again and again, her cruelty and recklessness reminded me exactly why I could never forget. I pressed delete. Confirm delete all photos? Confirm. I watched the gallery wipe itself clean in an instant. A long, slow breath left my lungs. The game where the hunter pretended to be the prey — it was time to end it. I opened my phone and sent Edward the message I had been holding for five years. “Go.”

The next afternoon, Serena finally drifted home from the hot spring resort, languid and unhurried. She had an expensive Hermès scarf tied around her neck — but it wasn’t quite long enough to hide the red marks along the edges. She tossed her platinum bag — worth a small fortune — onto the couch without a second thought, kicked off her heels, and stared at me with open irritation. “Dominic, are you dead? Can’t you see I just walked in? You couldn’t even pour me a glass of water?” I sat in the shadow of the room. I didn’t get up. I didn’t go to her like I always had before. I raised my head and looked at her. Quietly. Still. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Serena was unsettled by my stare. She stormed over, furious and embarrassed, pointing her finger right in my face. “I was playing poker with my bestie at the resort all night. I’m exhausted. Go run my bath. Now.” “Poker?” I rose slowly to my feet, my voice completely flat. “In the hot spring pool with Noah?” Serena’s expression froze. Her pupils contracted for just a split second before she forced herself to look composed and cranked up the volume. “What the hell are you talking about? Oh, so you’ve got nerve now? You followed me? Dominic, are you out of your mind?!” Just then, the front door swung open and Noah strolled in like he owned the place. He didn’t even knock. He noticed we seemed to be arguing and let out a contemptuous snort. He walked over and threw his arm around Serena’s shoulder, staring me down with a smirk. “What’s going on, Serena? This loser giving you trouble again?” Serena melted into his side like she’d found her anchor. She pouted up at him. “He actually had the nerve to suspect us. And the way he was looking at me—” Noah’s eyes went cold. He stepped forward and reached out to shove my shoulder. “Dominic, who the hell do you think you are? Serena can do whatever she wants with whoever she wants. You’re just some guy living off her money. What gives you the right to say a damn word? Keep it up and I will end you.” He seemed to have forgotten how he’d knelt at my feet five years ago, begging. He also seemed to have forgotten who had actually paid for everything. I shifted slightly to the side, letting his hand miss me, and looked at the two of them like I was staring at a pair of corpses. “Is that so?” I let out a cold laugh and pulled a thick envelope from the coffee table drawer. I slammed it down on the glass tabletop with a sharp crack. The sound echoed through the empty living room. Serena flinched. “What is wrong with you?!” she shrieked. I ignored her. I unwound the clasp, letting everything spill out. The first document was a divorce agreement, already signed with my name. The second was a fifty-page evidence file. It contained every hotel check-in record from the past three years, explicit screenshots of their messages, bank statements showing Serena quietly siphoning off my paychecks, and — high-resolution photos from the hot spring pool last night. The third was the agreement Noah had signed back then — the “seduction contract.” The transaction amount was written out in plain black and white, right next to his bright red thumbprint. “Take a look.” I stood there with both hands in my pockets, my tone stripped of any emotion. “When you’re done, sign the papers and get out of my house.” What I didn’t say was that this was only the second envelope. Another one had been delivered to her father’s office five minutes ago.

Serena’s eyes landed on the scattered photos. The color drained from her face instantly. Her hands trembling, she picked up the evidence file. The further she flipped through it, the harder her body shook. When she got to the contract with the red thumbprint, it was like she’d been struck by lightning. Her legs gave out and she crumpled to the floor. “What… what is this…” She looked up in disbelief, eyes locked on Noah, her voice cracking into something raw and desperate. “Noah! Tell me this isn’t real! You were with me because you loved me — right?! That’s the only reason — right?!” Noah panicked. He snatched the contract out of her hands, and every trace of arrogance vanished from his face, replaced by sheer terror. He spun toward me, jaw clenched, and snarled. “Dominic! You said if I got her into bed, you’d give me ten million and set me up abroad! You gave me your word!” “My word?” I walked toward him slowly. My gaze cut into him like a blade, and the pressure I was putting off hit him like a wall. “I’m supposed to keep my word to a dog who’ll hump anything for money?” Noah faltered under the weight of it. He stumbled back two steps — then rage overtook fear. He raised his fist and swung it at me. “I’ll kill you!” I didn’t move. I just said, quietly, “Try it. See what happens. Take a look outside and tell me whether those dozen bodyguards out there will leave anything of you worth burying.” Noah’s fist stopped dead in midair. He turned to look out the window. Somehow, without any of us noticing, the villa’s courtyard had filled with bodyguards in black suits, stone-faced and still, surrounding the entire property with no way in or out. That was when Serena finally broke. She launched herself at Noah like she’d lost her mind, clawing and scratching at him. “You bastard! You lied to me! You were only ever after the money! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” Noah shoved her away with an impatient push, and Serena slammed hard into the sofa, her forehead splitting open and bleeding. I stood over them, watching this ugly little spectacle play out. No satisfaction. Just disgust. “Enough.” My voice came out cold and sharp. The room went silent. The only sound was Serena’s muffled sobbing. “Serena, I’m giving you two options.” I walked over and crouched down in front of her, meeting her terrified eyes head-on. “Option one — sign the divorce papers and walk away with nothing. Take your lover and get out.” “Option two — I hand everything over to the courts and the press. You won’t just lose your reputation. You’ll go to prison for hiding marital assets.” Serena clutched my pant leg with both hands, tears mixing with the blood running down her forehead. She looked completely broken. “Dominic, I was wrong… I’m so sorry… Please forgive me. He tricked me, I swear. I know you love me. You love me so much — how could you do this to me?” “Love?” I grabbed her jaw and forced her head up, making her look at me. Five years of hatred and rage burned in my eyes. “You think I spent three years waiting on you hand and foot because I loved you?” I leaned close to her ear and said each word slowly, through gritted teeth: “Every single day I looked at your face, I felt sick. I wanted to tear you apart — you and your murderer father — piece by piece.” Serena’s eyes went wide, like she was staring at a stranger. A monster. “What… what are you talking about?” “Five years ago, on the ring road, a black Maybach hit a woman who was carrying a birthday cake. She died. Your father Richard didn’t stop. He sped away. Then he paid someone to take the fall for him.” My voice was ice-cold, like it was coming from somewhere far underground. “That woman was my mother.” “And I am the sole heir to the Harrington Group, Dominic Harrington.” Serena froze completely. She stopped breathing. She stared at me like something inside her had gone hollow. Her hands slowly released their grip on my pant leg.

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