I had walked beside Tristan Evans from the manicured lawns of our college campus straight into the cutthroat grind of the New York startup world. Three years. In those three years, I had organized 876 financial spreadsheets for him. I had reheated 1,095 late-night dinners. I had kept my eyes open through thousands of midnight hours, sitting in the quiet dark of our apartment, just waiting for the sound of his key in the lock. But despite all of that—despite pouring my youth and my sanity into the foundation of his dreams—he had never once texted me the word goodnight. At two o’clock in the morning, while shutting down my fiancé’s laptop for him, I saw it. A notification slid across the top right corner of the screen. A message sent to his brand-new junior assistant. Goodnight. My hand hovered over the trackpad. My pulse thrummed, a slow, sickening beat in my ears. I opened the message thread. For the past three months, right at the stroke of midnight, he had sent that exact same word to her. Every single night. He hadn’t missed a single one. When I confronted him, my eyes burning with a humiliation so deep it felt like ash in my throat, he just sighed. He looked at me not with guilt, but with exhaustion. “Are you seriously doing this right now?” he asked, his tone impossibly light. “Gemma is fresh out of undergrad. She’s naive, she gets overwhelmed, and she’s out here on her own. It’s just a text, Cam. Don’t be hysterical. I’m killing myself at work every day, and I’m doing it for our future.” Hysterical. I let out a breath that sounded too much like a laugh. The word hit me like a bucket of ice water, snapping my spine straight. For seven years, I had been infected with a blind, self-sacrificing devotion. A romantic martyrdom. In a single heartbeat, the fever broke. Tristan. There was no our future. Not anymore. … The bedroom door clicked open. Tristan walked in wearing his sweatpants, and the moment he saw me illuminated by the glow of his monitor, a muscle jumped in his jaw. “What are you doing on my computer? I told you my office is off-limits.” His voice was cold, laced with an irritation he didn’t even try to hide. When I didn’t move, he frowned, crossing the room in three long strides. He snapped the laptop shut, the sudden sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room. “I asked you a question, Camille.” I stood there. The silence stretched between us, heavy and fragile. I looked at him—really looked at him—and wondered when the boy I loved had been replaced by this stranger. “You made this room off-limits,” I said, my voice eerily calm, “so you could sit in here under the guise of working, just to flirt with a girl named Gemma. Is that it?” He threw his hands up, looking at the ceiling like I was a child testing his patience. “Gemma is my new secretary. Stop being paranoid.” “Paranoid?” He rubbed the back of his neck, exhaling loudly. “Is this really necessary? She’s a kid, Cam. She just graduated. She’s sweet and simple, and all I do is tell her goodnight so she doesn’t feel invisible in a massive city. Why are you making this a thing? Everything I do is to build a life for us.” Hysterical. Paranoid. Making this a thing. The words piled up, suffocating me. I stared at his handsome, exhausted face and felt utterly hollowed out. I stepped away from the desk. When I spoke, my voice was barely above a whisper, yet it felt heavy enough to crack the floorboards. “Tristan, we’ve been together for seven years. We promised each other in college that we’d be married by the time we were twenty-five. I am turning twenty-seven next week. Have you even mentioned it?” He blinked, caught off guard by the shift in my tone. “Who sat on the bathroom floor with you at 3 a.m. when your ulcer flared up? Who stayed up with you until dawn when the venture capitalists ripped your business plan apart? When you didn’t sleep for three days straight before the app launch, who drove to the office to make sure you ate? To make sure you had clean clothes?” My throat tightened, but I refused to cry. “You have never once told me goodnight.” “I thought it was just who you were,” I continued, the words tumbling out, laced with years of suppressed grief. “I thought you just weren’t the type of guy to be soft. To be thoughtful.” I pointed at the closed silver shell of the laptop. “But you have all the patience in the world for her.” Tristan’s face shifted. The annoyance faltered, replaced by a flicker of something resembling panic. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. A bitter smile broke across my face, though my eyes stung fiercely. “Do you know what I’m most afraid of, Tristan?” He froze. “I am terrified of the dark. I hate staying up late. But for the last three years, I have forced my eyes open every single night, sitting in the dark, waiting for you to come home.” “And I never even got a goodnight.” “I made excuses for you. I told myself you were stressed. That you were carrying the weight of the company. That acts of service were your love language, not words.” A single tear spilled over, hot and angry. “But it turns out, I just wasn’t worth the effort.” “Camille, that is enough!” Tristan snapped, rubbing his temples. “It’s 1 a.m. I have a board meeting in six hours. Can you please, for the love of God, just be mature about this?” Mature. The sheer audacity of it made my chest ache. Seven years. I couldn’t even count how many times he had asked me to be mature. When he worked weekends, I had to be mature and not complain. When he went out drinking with clients, I had to be mature and not ask when he was coming home. When he got a little too friendly with female coworkers, I had to be mature and not be “that kind” of girlfriend. And now, standing in the wreckage of my own loyalty, catching him emotionally cheating, he was asking me to be mature. “Tristan,” I said softly, holding his gaze. “Is Gemma mature?” He flinched. “She must be,” I mused, the bitterness coating my tongue. “She knows exactly how to wait for your midnight texts. She knows exactly which emojis stroke your ego. Not like me, right? I’m just the boring, nagging weight pulling you down.” His features darkened. “What is wrong with you tonight? Don’t talk about her like that. She moved to New York completely alone. As her boss, I look out for her. It’s called being a decent person.” Looking out for her. The last thread of my “love brain” snapped. The blinding fog of the past seven years cleared, leaving behind a cold, sharp reality. I nodded slowly. The fight drained out of me, replaced by an absolute, terrifying certainty. “When we were seniors in college, we mapped out our lives. We said twenty-seven. My twenty-seventh birthday is in exactly one week.” The air in the room grew heavy, stagnant. He stared at me, then let out a breathless, patronizing chuckle. “Camille, that was a college pipe dream. You’re holding onto something we said over cheap beer. You know how insane things are right now.” There it was. That familiar, soothing, brushing-off tone. The way one might talk a toddler out of throwing a tantrum. “Besides, a week? Do you know what goes into a wedding? The venue, the invites, the honeymoon—none of that happens overnight. I am drowning in work right now. Once the Series B funding is locked in, we will sit down and plan something out—” “I am having a wedding in one week.” His head snapped up. “What are you talking about?” “I said,” I held his stare, my posture rigid, “I am getting married next week.” For three long seconds, the only sound was the hum of the city traffic outside our window. Then, Tristan’s expression twisted into a mix of outrage and disbelief. He let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Are you out of your mind, Camille? What, you’re turning twenty-seven, you feel your youth slipping away, so you’re throwing an ultimatum at me? You’re trying to force me into a courthouse wedding?” The cruelty of his words scraped against my bruised heart, but ironically, it only cemented my decision. “Yes,” I lied smoothly. “Are you satisfied?” Tristan faltered. A flash of genuine panic crossed his face. “I didn’t mean it like that, Cam. I swear. It’s just… the timing is impossible right now. I will marry you. I promise. Just give me two more years. Can’t you just wait?” I didn’t answer. I turned on my heel, walked out of his office, and headed straight for the bedroom to pull my suitcase from the top of the closet. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Gemma. [Hi Camille. Mr. Evans just texted me. I am SO sorry, I had no idea it would cause a fight between you two. There is absolutely nothing going on between us, I swear! I just see him as an older brother. Please don’t be mad at him because of me!!] I stared at the screen, the blatant manipulation making my stomach turn. I locked the phone and tossed it onto the bed. I opened the closet doors and started yanking clothes off the hangers. When Tristan walked into the bedroom and saw the open suitcase, he stopped dead in his tracks. “What are you doing?” “Packing.” “Camille.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, visibly fighting to keep his temper in check. “Can you try to see this from my perspective for five seconds? This is the most crucial point in my career. And you’re demanding a wedding in seven days like we’re playing house?” My chest ached, a dull, throbbing pain, but I kept folding a sweater. “Camille!” He crossed the room and grabbed my wrist, forcing me to stop. I looked up, meeting his eyes. “Tristan, we’re done. Let’s break up.” He stared at me for a long time. Then, a confident, practiced smirk touched the corner of his mouth. He pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me in a gesture that used to make me feel safe, but now just felt like a trap. “Cam, stop,” he murmured into my hair. “You’re just angry. We’ve been together for seven years. We are not throwing that away over a fight.” I stood rigidly in his embrace, refusing to melt into him. Taking my silence as compliance, his voice softened into a gentle purr. “Look, if you really hate Gemma that much, I’ll keep things strictly professional. I’ll keep my distance. Just stop packing, okay?” I opened my mouth to tell him to let me go. Then, his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket. I could hear the tinny, weak voice coming through the speaker. “Mr. Evans? Are you busy? I… I think I worked too late and skipped too many meals. My stomach is in agony. I think it’s acute gastritis. Could you… could you possibly take me to the ER?” Tristan’s demeanor shifted instantly. The arrogant smirk vanished, replaced by a visceral, protective panic. “Gemma? Are you okay? Where are you—” “Tristan.” I cut in, my voice slicing through the room. “It is two in the morning. You are going to rush across the city to take your single, twenty-two-year-old assistant to the hospital. Do you really think that’s appropriate?” The voice on the phone hitched with a perfectly timed sob. “Mr. Evans… am I causing problems? Camille is right. I’m being completely inappropriate. I’ll just call an Uber or an ambulance… please don’t let me ruin your night…” “Stay exactly where you are!” Tristan’s voice was sharp, desperate. He hung up the phone and turned to me, his eyes wide and pleading. “Cam, she just moved here from Ohio. She doesn’t know anyone in New York. I just need to make sure she’s safe. I’ll drop her at the ER and come right back, I promise.” I watched him grab his keys, his movements frantic and rushed. I let out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. The man who had always prided himself on logic, on stoicism, on being perfectly composed… he had it in him to panic for a woman. Just not for me. I didn’t try to stop him. As the front door slammed shut behind him, I picked up my phone. I pulled up a contact I hadn’t dared to call in three years. It rang twice before a deep, gravelly voice, heavy with sleep, answered. “Camille?” My grip on the phone tightened. After everything—after holding it in for seven years—my eyes finally burned with real tears. “The offer you made me back then,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Is it still on the table?” A beat of absolute silence on the other end. Then, the sleep vanished from his voice, replaced by a sharp, commanding tension. “Where are you? I’m coming to get you.” I had barely stepped off the plane in Boston when Tristan’s name lit up my phone. I hit decline. Seconds later, a text came through. [Cam, stop this. I was up all night at the hospital making sure Gemma was okay, and I come home to find half your stuff gone. You’re ignoring my calls. Fine. I’m assuming you went to your parents’ place to cool off. Take the weekend. When you get back, we are putting this behind us.] I didn’t reply. I swiped the notification away and walked into the sleek black town car waiting for me. I was going to accept the marriage my family had arranged for me years ago. For the next four days, my feet barely touched the ground. I was a ghost moving through a flurry of silk, champagne, and logistics. I picked a designer gown, finalized the catering, and sent out the heavy, embossed invitations. I buried myself in the noise of wedding planning so I wouldn’t have to hear the silence in my own head. On the afternoon of the fourth day, Tristan finally texted again. [You’ve had enough time to throw your tantrum. Today is our seven-year anniversary. I booked a table at Le Bernardin. Be there.] Our anniversary. A tiny, phantom ache rippled through my chest. My fingers hovered over the keyboard. [I land at JFK at 4 PM.] He replied instantly. [I’ll be waiting at arrivals.] The weather in New York was brutal when I landed. A sudden, freezing downpour had swept through the city, and the moment the damp air hit me, a blinding migraine spiked behind my eyes. I sat in the arrivals terminal for two hours. My head throbbed so violently it made my stomach roll. I called Tristan six times. It went straight to voicemail. Just as a wave of nausea forced me to lean over my suitcase, my phone rang. “Cam,” Tristan’s voice was rapid-fire, breathless. “Gemma had a really bad dizzy spell at the office. I’m taking her to Urgent Care. Just grab a cab back to the apartment.” He didn’t even wait for a response. The line went dead. But right before the click, I heard it. A soft, breathless little voice in the background, cooing, “Oh, Tris…” Something inside me, the very last fragment of hope I didn’t even know I was holding onto, finally plummeted into the abyss. I was completely, utterly done. Dragging my suitcase through the rain, I took a cab to a private clinic in Manhattan. I was shivering, dizzy, and desperately needed a Toradol shot for the migraine. As I walked out of the exam room, an IV bandage taped to the crook of my arm, I heard laughter echoing from the waiting lounge down the hall. I froze. Sitting in a circle of leather chairs were three of Tristan’s co-founders. And in the center, lounging on a plush sofa with a faux-sickly expression, was Gemma. A tiny bandage sat on her hand, though her cheeks were flushed and she looked about as sick as a runway model. “I’m just saying,” one of the tech-bros laughed, “Gemma is smart, she’s a hustler, and she actually understands what we do. You guys look perfect together, Tris.” “Seriously,” another chimed in. “Camille is great and all, but she just sits at home waiting for you. Gemma is out in the trenches with us. She’s a partner.” “Come on, Tris, be honest,” the first guy prodded. “If you weren’t chained to seven years of history with Cam, who would you pick?” Gemma’s face turned scarlet. She playfully swatted the guy’s arm. “Stop it, you guys! Tris belongs to Camille. I’m just lucky he even lets me shadow him at the firm. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.” “I see Gemma like a little sister,” Tristan’s voice carried over the room, smooth and dismissive. “Besides, Camille has been with me for seven years. Her entire world revolves around me. She couldn’t leave me even if she tried.” A brief flash of irritation crossed Gemma’s face, but she instantly masked it with a wide, innocent doe-eyed look. “Oh no, it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t felt faint, you’d be at your anniversary dinner with her right now. Do you want me to call her and apologize?” “Don’t worry about it,” Tristan said lazily. “I’ll buy her a necklace. She gets over things quickly.” Gemma tilted her head, her gaze drifting past the circle of men. Her eyes locked onto me standing in the hallway. “Camille?” She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth, tears springing to her eyes with terrifying speed. Tristan whipped around. The color drained from his face. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, standing up so fast his chair scraped the floor. “I told you to go to the apartment. Are you tracking my location?” Instinctively, he took a half-step backward, placing himself squarely between me and Gemma, his body language practically radiating defense. “I came to drop something off.” I walked forward, my footsteps steady despite the pounding in my head. I reached into my designer handbag, pulled out a thick, cream-colored envelope sealed with gold wax, and dropped it onto the glass coffee table in front of him. The waiting area plunged into a dead silence. The tech-bros stared at the envelope. Gemma’s lip trembled. Tristan looked down at the formal invitation. His jaw tightened, the knuckles of his hands turning white. “Camille,” he snapped, his voice vibrating with anger and embarrassment. “I told you, I am not rushing a wedding. Where the hell did you even get these printed? Throw it away. You’re embarrassing yourself.” Gemma stood up, her voice quivering with perfectly calibrated sympathy. “Camille, please try to understand. Tris works until 2 a.m. every single night to build his company. Demanding a wedding right now… aren’t you just suffocating him?” “Keep my name out of your mouth,” I said, my voice deadpan and icy. She flinched as if I had struck her. The tears spilled over her lashes. “I’m sorry! I know you hate me. If you really want me gone, I’ll quit. I’ll pack my things and leave the state—” Suddenly, she stumbled backward, letting out a sharp “Ah!” and collapsing onto the floor. She looked up at me, her eyes wide with manufactured terror. “Camille, if you need to hit someone to feel better, hit me! Just don’t take it out on Tris!” Tristan shoved past me, knocking my shoulder hard as he dropped to his knees beside her. My head was spinning, my body weak from the migraine and the fever. The force of his shove threw me off balance. I tripped over the edge of the rug and hit the hard tile floor. Pain shot up my wrist, and the pounding in my skull amplified to a deafening roar. “Camille, what is wrong with you?!” Tristan shouted, glaring down at me with absolute disgust. “Have you lost your mind? Assaulting a twenty-two-year-old girl?” “I assaulted her?” I let out a dry, hacking laugh, pushing myself up off the floor with trembling arms. “She comes in here looking perfectly fine, and you hold her hand. I drag myself to the ER because I can barely see straight through a migraine, and you don’t even ask if I’m okay?” “Are you sick?” Tristan’s anger faltered for a fraction of a second. He took a hesitant step toward me. But Gemma immediately whimpered. “Tris… my wrist hurts so badly. I think when she pushed me, I might have sprained it.” Without hesitation, Tristan scooped Gemma up into his arms. He looked back at me, his eyes cold. “Camille, Gemma is actually hurt. I’m taking her to get X-rays. Go home.” Actually hurt. When he was building his startup in our cramped studio, we couldn’t afford to keep the heat on. I would shiver through the night, absolutely terrified of the dark, hiding my pale face from him so he wouldn’t feel guilty about our finances. I bore my pain in absolute silence so he could thrive. I was used to walking home alone in the dark. I watched him carry her down the hallway. My face was a mask of utter indifference. Only three days left until my wedding. By the time I finally finished my IV fluids and unlocked the door to our apartment, it was 3 a.m. I walked into the living room and stopped. Gemma was sitting on our couch, her legs tucked under her, laughing brightly at something Tristan was saying. The smell of homemade pasta filled the room. Tristan was standing in the kitchen, carefully plating a dish for her. In seven years, I had never once seen him cook. When they heard the door click, they both froze. Gemma let out a small squeak and shrank back into the cushions, looking at Tristan like a frightened prey animal. Tristan wiped his hands on a towel, walking over to pat her shoulder soothingly. He turned to me, his jaw set. “Cam, Gemma was terrified to be alone in her apartment after the hospital, and she left her keys at the office. She’s taking the guest room tonight. Don’t make a big deal out of this.” I stared at Gemma. Over Tristan’s shoulder, the terrified expression melted away, replaced by a slow, calculating, victorious smirk. “I don’t care,” I said, my voice flat. “You brought her here. It’s your apartment.” Tristan sighed, clearly exasperated. “Why do you have to be so difficult? I told you, she’s like a sister to me! She even begged me not to be mad at you for pushing her today! Why can’t you just be the bigger person?” “I am the bigger person,” I replied, walking past them toward the bedroom. “I’m just here to pack the last of my things. I’m getting married. Whatever twisted relationship you two have is none of my business anymore.” Tristan ran a hand down his face, looking exhausted. “Cam, enough with the act. You’re home now. Let’s just go to sleep. I’ll make this up to you. Next week is your birthday. We’ll celebrate it and our anniversary at the same time. Okay?” I didn’t answer. I walked into the bedroom and pulled out the last of my boxes. He followed me in, leaning against the doorframe, trying to sound reasonable. “You’ve been MIA for days. You have no idea the pressure I’m under. Gemma was the one who actually spent hours calling around to get us that reservation at Le Bernardin, you know.” I kept wrapping my shoes in tissue paper. Silence. His frustration began to leak through his calm facade. “Look, the invitation you printed was a cute stunt. Very dramatic. But I know you’re just trying to scare me. Let’s drop it. Once the Series B closes, I’ll take you to the Maldives. You’ve always wanted to go to the Maldives, right?” I paused, a sad, genuine smile touching my lips. “I’ve always wanted to go to the Amalfi Coast, Tristan. You wanted to go to the Maldives.” He blinked. “And the invitation wasn’t a stunt. I am getting married on Saturday.” Tristan’s face hardened. The vein in his neck bulged as he pushed off the doorframe, pacing the small bedroom like a caged animal. He pointed a finger at me, his voice dropping into a vicious sneer. “Fine. You want to play chicken? Let’s play. Real or fake, I am not showing up to whatever ridiculous venue you booked! When you’re standing at the altar in a white dress and the groom doesn’t show, don’t come crying to me that you humiliated yourself in front of your friends!” I looked at him, completely deadpan. He grabbed the bedroom door handle. “I’m staying at the office until you snap out of this delusion!” He slammed the door so hard the framed photos on the wall rattled. Through the thin drywall, I heard Gemma’s sweet, syrupy voice. “Tris… maybe I should go to a hotel. You should go back in there and apologize. Camille isn’t completely unreasonable…” “Let her sit in it until she realizes what she’s throwing away.” The front door slammed. I finished taping up my box. I looked around the room where I had spent my entire twenties waiting for a man to love me back. I felt absolutely nothing. I turned off the light and walked out. Two days later, while I was doing a final walkthrough with the florist in Boston, my phone rang. Tristan.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “427417”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It was the kind of biting, bone-deep cold that stripped the breath from your lungs. On that godforsaken afternoon, my father threw me out of the house like a bag of rotting trash. As a prominent Circuit Court Judge, he likely felt that I, his biological son, was a stain on his immaculate reputation—all because I refused to donate my bone marrow to his adopted son. My parents insisted that my adopted brother’s severe anemia had reached a critical stage and that he desperately needed my marrow. What they didn’t know—what they never gave me the chance to tell them—was that I had leukemia. My own body was eating itself alive; I had nothing left to give. My mother, a renowned hematologist, had taken my medical chart and ripped it to shreds right in front of me. She ground the heel of her designer pump into the expensive, life-saving medication I had begged for, spitting venom as she called me a pathetic, lying hypochondriac. My father’s reaction was louder. His voice had thundered through the foyer, veins bulging at his temples, screaming that I was a cold-blooded sociopath who didn’t deserve to carry his family name. Standing out there in the freezing wind, I wiped the steadily flowing blood from my nose with the back of my trembling hand. It was in that desolate moment I finally hit the confirm button on my phone, enrolling myself in an experimental drug trial. Later, when the family court convened to prosecute me—the “abusive, deceitful brother”—I wasn’t in the defendant’s chair. As the gallery muttered their disgusted whispers about my absence, my attending physician quietly took the stand. Without a word of defense, he simply pressed play on a video monitor. It was the footage of the last three days of my life. 1 “Holden, your leukemia was caught far too late. Realistically… we are looking at maybe a week. Does your mother know?” Dr. Weaver stared down at the lab results in his hands, the harsh fluorescent lights of his office deepening the lines on his face. I took a slow, rattling breath and shook my head. “She doesn’t know yet. I’ll find the right time to tell her. Please, just… keep it between us for now.” Dr. Weaver’s brow furrowed. “Holden, your mother is one of the top specialists in blood-borne cancers in the state. You cannot delay this any longer.” I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, forcing the hot prickle of tears back. “Dr. Weaver… you know how they are. Everything they have, all their love and attention, it goes to Tristan. They don’t have room for me.” He paused, his eyes softening with that pity I had come to hate. “Son, there is no such thing as an overnight grudge between parent and child. Deep down, they love you.” The absolute silence of the room was shattered by my phone ringing. I answered, and my mother’s furious voice instantly blasted through the speaker. “Holden! Where the hell are you hiding?” Before I could speak, she plowed on. “Tristan is in tears again because of you. Get your ass home and apologize this instant! Not only do you selfishly refuse to give him your marrow, but you have the audacity to bully him? What kind of monster are you?” Dr. Weaver watched the light completely drain from my eyes as I hung up the phone. He reached across the desk, his voice gentle. “There is an experimental drug trial starting here at the hospital. You could enroll.” “But,” he added, his medical professionalism returning, “the chances of a late-stage cure are incredibly slim. You need to prepare yourself for that reality.” I offered him a hollow, bitter smile, but I didn’t say yes. Not immediately. No one can just calmly accept their own death. I was only eighteen. I hadn’t even gone to college yet. I hadn’t seen the world. I held onto this desperate, foolish fantasy that if my mother—the great Dr. Evelyn Gallagher—would just look at me, truly look at me, she could save my life. My stomach was tied in agonizing knots as I pushed open the heavy oak front door of our house. The sound of Tristan’s muffled sobbing immediately hit my ears. Before I could even register the scene, my father materialized from the living room. His face was a mask of pure rage. He grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and hurled me onto the hardwood floor. “You little bastard! You tricked your brother into going to a bar and paid those thugs to humiliate him!” my father roared. “You know exactly how fragile he is with his Thalassemia, and you pull a sick stunt like this? Let me make this crystal clear: you will donate that marrow whether you want to or not. You owe Tristan your life!” This wasn’t the first time Tristan had framed me. He played the victim like a virtuoso, and every single time, my parents stood rigidly by his side, casting me as the villain. I was used to it. Usually, I would just take the hits in silence. Silence was safer. But today, I held a hand against my cheek—already swelling and hot from where his leather belt had struck me—and with my other hand, I pulled my medical file from my jacket and held it up to my father. “Dad, I’m not refusing to save him out of spite. I’m sick too…” My father snatched the folder, his eyes narrowing with suspicion, and called for my mother. She walked over, her face a portrait of elegant disdain. She skimmed the first page for barely two seconds before ripping the entire file perfectly in half, then into quarters. “Faking a terminal illness now? I have to admit, wherever you paid to get these forged, they did a decent job.” She looked down at me. I was bleeding from the corner of my mouth, curled up on the floor. Her eyes were chips of ice. When she noticed the small plastic bottle of pain-management pills that had fallen from my pocket, she brought her heel down directly on it, crushing the plastic and grinding the pills into powder into the expensive rug. Tristan let out a loud, theatrical hiccup from the sofa, leaning his head delicately against my mother’s arm. “Mom, it’s okay,” Tristan whispered, his voice trembling perfectly. “It’s normal that Holden doesn’t want to save me. He’s always believed I stole your love from him. I shouldn’t have ever come to this family. I just ruined your relationship with him.” He let out a choked sob. “My stupid disease already ruined my chances at getting into a good college… what’s the point in living? Just let me die.” Hearing those words, my parents completely unraveled. They swarmed him, murmuring desperate, soothing promises, acting as if his heart was breaking. No one looked back down at the floor. No one noticed the blood that wouldn’t stop dripping from my nose, or the paper-white pallor of my skin. My father turned and literally kicked me toward the door, like sweeping out the trash. “Holden, unless you are walking back through that door to sign the donor consent forms, do not ever come back! Faking a disease to get out of saving your brother… And you think you’re going to college? Dream on!” “You arrogant brat. Expect a subpoena from Family Court. We’ll see how you like sitting in a juvenile detention center!” Over my pathetic begging, my mother reached onto the console table, picked up my acceptance letter from Yale University, and tore it to shreds, letting the pieces flutter over me. My heart plunged into a freezing abyss. The cold was so absolute I couldn’t draw oxygen into my lungs. I stumbled out into the biting wind, the door slamming shut behind me. I had nowhere to go. Then, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Dr. Weaver. “Holden? The trial starts tomorrow morning. Do you want in?” he asked gently. “I’m heading the project. Your mother’s busy, but she drops by the ward occasionally to check in on the residents.” I closed my eyes. “I’m in,” I whispered, and pressed confirm on the digital consent form he had emailed me. Before my grandmother died—the only person in this world who ever genuinely loved me—she held my hand and told me to grow up strong. To go see the world. Since she passed, my survival was entirely irrelevant to the rest of humanity. To my parents, I was just spare parts for Tristan. They probably wished I would just drop dead so they could harvest my marrow without the hassle of asking. But for my grandmother, I wanted to try. Just one last time. I wanted to save myself. 2 The rain was coming down in torrential, gray sheets as I dragged myself into the hospital lobby, completely soaked to the bone. Dr. Weaver caught sight of me shivering by the elevators. He let out a heavy sigh and quickly fetched a warm, dry blanket from a nearby cart. “Dry off, Holden. Sitting in wet clothes is only going to make the fever worse.” His eyes fell to the bloody laceration on my arm where I’d scraped against the doorframe during my father’s assault. He immediately pulled out a first-aid kit. “Holden… don’t be too hard on your parents,” Dr. Weaver murmured softly as he applied the antiseptic. “When you were kidnapped all those years ago, it destroyed them. They spent years looking for you. They’re just… defensive right now. Let me talk to your mom when I get the chance.” I didn’t answer. I just stared down at the glowing screen of my phone. Tristan had sent me a photo. In it, he was holding a massive bouquet of balloons. My mother and father were flanking him, linking arms with him, the three of them beaming with picture-perfect joy. Behind them, hung across the living room archway, was a custom banner: Congratulations to our beloved Tristan on getting into college! A sharp, stabbing pain blossomed in my chest, radiating out until my limbs felt heavy and numb. My Yale acceptance letter was in shreds on their floor. No one cared that I had gotten into one of the most prestigious universities in the country. There were no joyful embraces for me. No flowers. No proud smiles. I was just the garbage they had swept out the front door. When I was five years old, my parents—always so obsessed with their careers—finally carved out a Saturday to take me to the local amusement park. It was loud, crowded, and chaotic. In a split second of inattention, a man my father had sentenced to prison years prior snatched me. What followed was eight years of living in hell. I was taken to an off-the-grid cabin deep in the Appalachian mountains. I wasn’t rescued until a visiting social worker, who had been held hostage by the local men, managed to sneak a message out to her family, bringing the police to the compound. But when I finally came home, traumatized and desperate for my parents’ arms, Tristan was already there. He was the miracle child they had adopted to replace me. And the moment I walked in, Tristan threw a screaming tantrum, pointing at me and demanding I get out of his house. My parents immediately dropped to their knees to coddle him. When they looked up at me, their eyes were full of exhaustion and resentment, as if I had purposely orchestrated my return just to shatter their perfect suburban fantasy. But it was my home. Eight years of separation hadn’t just stolen my childhood; it had stolen my parents’ love. They couldn’t deal with me, so they shipped me off to live with my grandmother in a rural farming town. I stayed there until she died, and only then was I brought back to the Gallagher estate. I tried so desperately to earn my place back. I kept my head down, got perfect grades, became the invisible, compliant son. But Tristan made it his mission to destroy me. He had shoved my head into the toilet bowl and flushed it until I aspirated water. He had locked me in the girls’ locker room at school and then screamed to the principal that I was a sexual predator. And then he would go home, sit at the kitchen island, and cry to my parents about how much I hated him. The handprints bruising my shoulders, the cigarette burns on my back—they were all twisted around to make me look like the violent delinquent. My father would drag me down to the unfinished basement, his eyes full of absolute disgust, and strike my back with a wooden dowel. “You ungrateful bastard! You’re nothing but trash!” he would scream. “I sit on the bench! I am a Circuit Court Judge! And my own flesh and blood is a sadistic, violent degenerate! Do you know what people would say if this got out?” “God, I wish you had never been born.” My phone chimed, yanking me violently back to the present. Tristan was typing. [So what if you’re smart, you pathetic freak? You can’t even go to college now!] [To Mom and Dad, I am the only thing that matters. You’re just a rat crawling out of the gutter. You really thought you could compete with me?] I hit the power button, plunging the screen into darkness. I was a fool for ever craving love that didn’t belong to me. I had spent five years wagging my tail like a beaten dog, begging for a single scrap of affection. If I died and rotted in a ditch tomorrow, they would probably pop champagne. 3 The drug trial was infinitely worse than I had anticipated. My hair began falling out in massive, terrifying clumps. I couldn’t sleep; my nights were spent curled in a fetal position, coughing up thick black blood onto the pristine hospital sheets. One afternoon, suffocating from the boredom of the sterile room, I forced my stiff, aching body to take a slow walk down the corridor. Suddenly, a violent shove hit my spine. I crashed hard onto the linoleum tiles. A sickening crack echoed through the hallway as my ankle twisted beneath my own weight. Blinding pain shot through my nervous system, and a cold sweat instantly broke out across my forehead. Tristan stood over me, a vicious, delighted smirk on his face. He leaned down and violently ripped the beanie off my head. “Well, well, Holden. I haven’t seen you in two days and you’re already going bald?” he sneered. “God, look at you. You look pathetic. How does it feel knowing Mom and Dad threw you away?” He leaned in closer, his breath hot against my ear. “You’re going to be six feet under soon, reuniting with that old bitch. Like grandmother, like grandson. Both worthless.” The words sent a violent tremor through my body. My grandmother was the only sacred thing I had left. When I was a terrified, traumatized kid, my parents had tossed me aside for Tristan’s comfort. “Holden, you’re the older brother. You need to be accommodating,” they had said. “Tristan has been with us his whole life. You suddenly showing up is giving him anxiety. You’re going to live out in the country for a while.” They championed Tristan’s feelings constantly. No one asked if the scars on my back from the kidnappers still hurt. No one asked about the nightmares. But my grandmother… she used to sit by my bed, gently rubbing soothing ointment over my scars with her worn, calloused hands. “Holden, my sweet boy,” she would say, her voice thick with tears. “We love you. Your parents are just… they don’t know how to show it. You endured eight years of hell in those mountains. But one day, you are going to be a bird flying free. You’re going to see the whole wide world.” “No matter what, I am in your corner. I just want my boy to be happy and healthy.” Tristan could hit me. He could lie about me. He could steal my parents. But he could not insult my grandmother. Years of suffocating injustice and blinding rage suddenly erupted. Using every ounce of adrenaline left in my failing body, I threw a desperate, violent punch right into his perfectly sculpted, smug face. Tristan stumbled backward, genuine shock in his eyes. In his mind, I was the punching bag that never swung back. The single punch drained everything out of me. I collapsed against the wall, gasping for air, my whole body shaking uncontrollably. A venomous hatred flared in Tristan’s eyes. He lunged forward, preparing to beat me into the ground. But abruptly, he stopped. He grabbed my wrist, yanked me forward, and threw himself onto the floor, pulling me down on top of him. “Tristan! Oh my god, are you okay?!” My mother’s panicked voice rang out as she sprinted down the hall. She shoved me off him with such force I slammed my head against the drywall. After feverishly checking Tristan and realizing his skin didn’t have a single scratch, she stood up, her lips pressed into a furious white line. “Holden Gallagher, you piece of shit!” she hissed. “I knew it. You followed him to the hospital just to assault him again, didn’t you?” I blinked against the wave of dizziness, reaching up to wipe the fresh stream of blood pouring from my nose—a gesture so routine I barely registered it. My mother’s eyes flicked to the pale blue hospital gown I was wearing. She scoffed, a dry, cruel sound. “You’re so committed to this fake illness routine you actually stole a hospital gown? Why not just buy a coffin and sleep in it while you’re at it?” “You ungrateful parasite. Your brother is legitimately sick, and you’re here playing dress-up for attention. Why don’t you just drop dead?” If she had bothered to look closely, if the brilliant Dr. Evelyn Gallagher had just used her medical training for two seconds, she would have seen the red trial-participant bracelet secured tightly around my wrist. But all her attention, all her panic, was entirely consumed by Tristan. It was exactly like the day I first moved back from my grandmother’s house. Tristan had “generously” baked me a hazelnut cake. My parents forced me to eat it, completely ignoring my throat closing up and my face swelling into unrecognizable red hives from my severe allergy. Right now, she couldn’t see my paper-thin skin or the way my cheekbones threatened to cut through my face. A warm, metallic sweetness flooded the back of my throat. I couldn’t hold it back. I violently gagged and vomited a massive mouthful of dark, clotted blood directly onto the floor. A few dark crimson drops splashed onto the pristine lapel of my mother’s white lab coat. She froze, staring at the visceral redness staining her clothes. For a long, agonizing moment, neither of us moved. I gripped the handrail, trying to pull my shaking body up to go wash the blood off my face, when she suddenly spoke. “Holden… why are you vomiting so much blood?” There was a strange, tight waver in her voice. A tremor of actual fear I had never heard before. A desperate spark of hope flared in my chest. I opened my mouth to speak, but Tristan immediately cut me off. He let his eyes roll back and collapsed weakly into my mother’s arms. “Mom… my anemia is acting up. I’m so dizzy. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.” He let out a pathetic whimper. “Everyone says Thalassemia is so hard to treat… Mom, am I going to die?” My mother instantly snapped her head away from me. Her voice melted into a soothing, desperate coo. “No, baby, no. You’re not going to die. Mom is here. Mom is going to fix you, I promise.” She didn’t look at me again. She half-carried him down the hall. I let out a broken, wheezing laugh and limped back to my bed. I suppose there was a tiny, dusty corner of my mother’s heart with my name on it. But the second Tristan made a sound, that corner was boarded up. But I didn’t expect to see her again that very night. My mother and Dr. Weaver walked into the trial ward for the evening rounds. Because we were severely immunocompromised, everyone in the room was wearing surgical masks. My mother’s clipboard rested in her hand. Her eyes swept over my frail form in the bed and locked onto the patient information card slotted at the foot of my mattress. Her voice was sharp, laced with confusion. “Holden… age eighteen?” 4 I flinched beneath the sheets, but a wild, desperate light sparked in my eyes. She recognized me. But in the very next breath, she muttered under her breath, “Only the good die young. There’s no way that little cockroach is actually sick.” She sighed, writing something on the clipboard. “Just a coincidence. I can’t believe that ungrateful brat is still taking up space in my head.” She turned to Dr. Weaver. “Dr. Weaver, this patient’s reaction to the trial drugs is far too severe. His organs are failing. He probably won’t make it through the week. You need to notify his parents immediately.” She shook her head with detached, clinical pity, and walked out the door. But you are my parent. The brilliant hematologist. The expert who saved countless lives. And she couldn’t even save her own son. The third day of the drug trial was my eighteenth birthday. Against all odds, my cell phone rang. It was my father. “Holden, you always talked about wanting to go hiking out at the state park, right? Come home. I’ll take you for your birthday.” My eyes widened in pure shock. My parents only ever threw extravagant parties for Tristan. The one and only time I had timidly asked if I could have a small birthday gift, my father had sneered at me. “You think you deserve a birthday? Your mother and I wish you had never been born.” Before I could even stammer out a joyful yes, my father’s tone turned strictly business. “But I expect a little maturity in return. After the hike, you are coming home and signing the bone marrow consent forms.” The brief warmth that had flooded my trembling hands vanished, turning to ice. The spark in my eyes died. So that was it. The sudden generosity wasn’t love. It was a transaction. They needed my body. But my leukemia was terminal. There was no cure coming for me. How could I possibly give Tristan my marrow? I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted copper before I whispered into the receiver. “Dad… in all these years, have you ever spent a single birthday with me?” Before I was five, he was always working. Chasing the gavel. Building his political career. After I was kidnapped, he poured every ounce of his paternal love into Tristan. The only person who celebrated my birthday was my grandmother. She would boil an egg, roll it over my forehead in the old country superstition, and whisper, “Roll the egg, roll the bad luck away. My Holden is going to have a beautiful year.” My question seemed to catch him off guard. For once, he didn’t explode into anger. After a long, heavy silence, his voice lowered. “We will discuss the donation later. Where are you? I’ll come pick you up.” I gave him the address of the 24-hour convenience store two blocks away from the hospital. Using the walls for support, I dragged my failing, agonizingly heavy body out of the ward, down the elevator, and into the cold. I sat on the concrete bench outside the store. I waited as the sun rose to its peak. I watched the sky turn amber, then violet, then pitch black. The neon sign buzzed above me. My father never came. The only message I got was a text from Tristan: [Dad took me to the equestrian center to go horseback riding. You could sit on that bench for the rest of your pathetic life, and he still wouldn’t come for you.] My face completely devoid of expression, I dragged myself back to the hospital room. I had been abandoned. Again. A crushing pain suddenly detonated in my chest, forcing me to double over, gasping for air. I honestly couldn’t tell if it was my heart physically failing, or if it was just breaking. With violently shaking hands, I picked up the thick manila envelope that had been left on my bedside table. It was a formal summons from Family Court. My own father was officially suing me for the physical harassment and emotional distress of his adopted son. I clutched the heavy paper and fell into a fit of agonizing, wet coughs. On my eighteenth birthday, I was gifted two things: my imminent death, and a lawsuit from the man who gave me life. In my final, fading moments, I weakly gripped Dr. Weaver’s hand. “Don’t cry,” I whispered, the edges of my vision going black. “My ridiculous joke of a life… is finally over.” But death didn’t pull me away from this sickening world completely. My consciousness lingered, tethered to the inevitable fallout. On the day of the trial, the defense table wasn’t empty. Dr. Weaver sat there, dressed in a somber black suit, his face carved with grief. My father had taken off his judicial robes for the first time in a decade, sitting proudly at the plaintiff’s table to fight for his golden child. When he saw Dr. Weaver instead of me, a flicker of confusion crossed his face. Then, he let out a loud, mocking scoff. “This is hilarious. Where is that piece of trash? How much did Holden pay you to show up and stall for him?” Dr. Weaver stared at him, his expression hollow and cold. “Holden couldn’t make it,” Dr. Weaver said, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet courtroom. “He’s dead.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “427416”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I stared at the photo on my phone screen, my breath hitching in my throat. Every muscle in my body went rigid. In the grainy, candid shot, a man was buried against a woman’s chest. His face was obscured, but a tiny, distinct mole on his earlobe caught the light. It pierced my eyes like a needle. My husband, Xavier Cross, had that exact same mark. It had started with a viral thread I’d stumbled upon while scrolling through a popular campus gossip site. The title was blunt: “Rating My Boyfriend’s Skills: From Stiff Academic to Bedroom God.” In the comments, the original poster—let’s call her “The Muse”—was boastfully sharing her “training” results. She claimed her boyfriend was a buttoned-up, prestigious university professor who had once been hopelessly repressed, but was now “the gold standard” in bed. She described how he’d summon her to his private office, pinning her against the mahogany desk the second she walked in, kissing her with a desperation that left her bruised. She bragged about his stamina, his “service-first” attitude, and how he’d make her cry for mercy before the hour was out. The internet was eating it up. Amidst the sea of envious comments, she revealed that he used to be “the most boring man alive” until she took him under her wing. Then came the photo that stopped my heart. “Deleting in five minutes,” she’d captioned it. “Or he won’t let me sleep tonight.” The man she was praising as her personal “Bedroom God” shared the exact physical signature of the man I shared a bed with every night. … My hands shook as I tried to save the image. Before I could, the screen refreshed: Photo deleted. [Alright, he caught me. He doesn’t want me posting him—he’s a tenured professor, after all. Reputation is everything.] [But here’s a hint: He’s a total heartthrob at Hudson University.] Six months ago, when the “Most Attractive Faculty” list was released at Hudson, Xavier had taken the top spot for the fifth year running. I remembered teasing him about it over breakfast. He’d just looked at me with that weary, indulgent smile of his. “The students are just being kids, June,” he’d said, smoothing his tie. “Don’t tell me you’re joining in on the nonsense.” In the comments section of the post, someone had already connected the dots. [Wait… is this Professor Xavier Cross?] [He’s famous for being a total ice king—strict, old-school, and terrifying. But that face? Every girl on campus has a crush on him.] The Muse didn’t deny it. Instead, she quietly deleted the comments mentioning his name. Then, she replied: [Don’t use names. It’s risky if he sees.] [And the ‘Ice King’ thing? That’s just for show. You guys have no idea how gentle he can be when the door is locked.] She sounded like she was drowning in a sweet, secret memory. [Two weeks ago, during a public lecture, I pretended to ask a question at the podium. Under the desk, I was rubbing my leg against his. I saw the veins in his neck bulging. The second we got back to his office, he tackled me onto the leather sofa.] Two weeks ago was our fifth wedding anniversary. I had spent all day preparing a candlelit dinner. I’d bought a silk lace slip—a “gift” for him. I’d sat at the table, reheating the food again and again until the candles burned down to stubs. Xavier didn’t get home until 2:00 AM, looking exhausted. When he saw the lace peeking out from under my robe, he gave me a flat, disinterested look. “Lace doesn’t really suit a woman your age, June,” he said coldly. “I’m tired. Don’t start.” The humiliation had burned through me like acid. Xavier had simply rolled over, his breathing evening out into sleep within minutes. [He’s a workaholic, but because I mentioned I missed the coast, he actually took a week of ‘sabbatical’ just to take me to the Hamptons.] The spring break. I had asked Xavier a month in advance to clear his schedule so we could visit my parents’ graves for the anniversary of their passing. He’d promised he would. But the day before we were supposed to leave, he’d looked at me with practiced regret. “June, the department chair is breathing down my neck about the new research grant. I can’t leave right now.” [I love photography, so he actually took a class to learn how to capture me properly. He’s filled three entire scrapbooks with my photos. Some of them are… well, let’s just say they’re private. Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed.] The comments were flooded with “Relationship goals” and “He’s a keeper.” I felt a coldness settle into my marrow, deeper than any winter. In five years of marriage, Xavier and I had almost no photos together. Even our wedding album was tucked away in a box under a layer of dust. Every time I’d tried to take a selfie or a candid, he’d turn away, claiming he “hated being on camera.” He didn’t hate being on camera. He just hated being on camera with me. The tears came then—a silent, torrential rain. I don’t know how I made it home. I pushed through the front door and practically collided with Xavier. He looked startled, his hands instinctively reaching out to steady me. “Lydia? Why are you crying? Did something happen?” Less than a year after we married, my parents died in a freak car accident. Xavier had been my rock. He’d stood between me and the vultures—the relatives who only showed up for the inheritance. Later, when I fell into a deep, paralyzing depression and lost our first baby at ten weeks, I had wanted to follow my parents into the dark. It was Xavier who had kicked down the bathroom door. He’d grabbed the blade from my hand, letting it slice deep into his own palm, his blood mixing with my tears. “Don’t give up on yourself, June,” he’d whispered, shaking. “Don’t give up on us. I will always be your anchor.” He’d turned down a prestigious fellowship abroad just to stay by my side, nursing me back to the world of the living. And now, looking at my red, swollen eyes, he opened his mouth to speak. But then his phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked it, and his expression shifted instantly to one of urgent distraction. “There’s a crisis at the lab,” he said, already heading for the door. “Eat dinner. Don’t wait up.” As he brushed past me, my own phone buzzed. The Muse had updated. [Just slipped into my new ‘battle outfit’ and hid in the back of his car. Guess how long it’ll take for him to find me!] There was a photo attached: fishnet stockings against black leather. My brain short-circuited. On pure, jagged instinct, I ran after him. I reached the underground garage just as he was getting into his black Mercedes. He didn’t see me. The car didn’t pull out. Instead, a few moments later, it began to rock with a rhythmic, sickening intensity. I moved like a marionette—stiff, jerky, hollowed out. Xavier was a man of meticulous detail, a man who prided himself on control. But he had forgotten to tint his windows dark enough. Through the glass, I saw the silhouette of the woman pinned beneath him. It was his star graduate student, Lexie Valentine. Xavier was a germaphobe. He used to get annoyed if I even ate a cracker in the passenger seat, terrified of crumbs on the upholstery. But now, Lexie’s lipstick was smeared across the steering wheel. Her nails were digging into the expensive leather of the headrest. Xavier was cradling her head, his movements careful, making sure she didn’t hit it against the window. The dam broke. I threw myself at the car, yanked the door open, and swung. My palm connected with her face with a crack that echoed in the concrete garage. Lexie screamed. Xavier reacted instantly, grabbing a coat to shield her body. “What the hell are you doing?!” He spun around, eyes blazing with fury—until he saw me. He froze. “June? What are you doing here?” The way he instinctively stayed in front of Lexie, protecting her from my sight, felt like a bucket of ice water over my head. “Where should I be, Xavier? Home? Playing the blind wife while you screw your student in the car you bought with my father’s money?” My voice was a raw, ugly scream. Xavier grabbed my wrists, dragging me away from the open door with a strength that bordered on violent. “Shut up! Lexie is a student. Do you have any idea what a scandal like this would do to her?” Even now, his first thought was her reputation. I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper, trying to choke back the sobs. “A scandal? Is that what you call this? Is the truth a scandal now?” Seeing my hysterics, Xavier suddenly went cold. He regained that “Professor” composure—the one he used when a student failed an exam. He frowned, looking at me with a mix of pity and annoyance. “Don’t let your emotions dictate your logic, June.” “Yes, I’m with Lexie. She’s young, she’s spontaneous, and she doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body. There’s no need for this… toxicity.” “I’m a man, June. I have needs. I’m not saying I don’t care about you, but lately… you’ve just been so boring.” In the beginning, we’d had passion. But barely a year into the marriage, Xavier had cooled. He’d recoil from my touch, stay late at the office, eventually move into the guest room. I’d asked him why. He’d said the stress of the tenure track had drained him. He said he had nothing left to give at the end of the day. I’d blamed myself. I’d tried everything to please him, dragging my dignity through the dirt to get a spark of interest out of him. And all it earned me was the word boring. The tears were bitter as they hit my lips. Lexie stepped out of the car, pulling her clothes together. The red marks on her neck were like brandings. “Don’t be mad at Professor Cross,” she said, her voice trembling with a fake, fragile sweetness. “I’m the one who seduced him. Please, hate me if you want, just don’t let this ruin your marriage!” She started to cry—perfect, cinematic tears. Xavier immediately pulled her into his arms. “It’s not your fault,” he murmured. “I couldn’t help myself.” He looked up at me, his face a mask of rational cruelty. “Lexie is vibrant. She’s full of life. She makes me feel young again. You… you’ve become stagnant, June. I can’t give you what you want, and you can’t give me the fire I need.” “I don’t want to hurt you. If you want a divorce, fine. You haven’t worked in years, so I’ll split the assets fairly to compensate you.” Compensate me? I let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. Every step Xavier had climbed in his career was paved by my father. My father had been the titan of the medical research field; Xavier had been his favorite protege. I’d met him in my father’s office, a chance encounter that felt like destiny. When my parents died, Xavier had held me and promised to be my world. And now, he looked at me and sighed. “June, human emotions are finite. You can’t stop me from moving toward something better.” He led Lexie away, and my legs finally gave out. I collapsed onto the cold concrete. My palms were scraped raw, but I felt nothing but a hollow numbness. Deep love, it seemed, really could end in utter loathing. If this is what they wanted, I would give it to them. Now that the truth was out, Xavier didn’t even bother to come home that night. Lexie’s thread updated again: [He did something big today. The way he stood up for me was so alpha!] [I’ve decided to reward him tonight. I told him he can have whatever he wants—I’m not saying ‘no’ to anything!] The nausea hit me in waves. I stood up, determined to throw every piece of Xavier’s clothing out onto the lawn. But as I reached for the door, the world tilted. Darkness rushed in from the edges of my vision, and I hit the floor. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. “You’re a month pregnant,” the nurse said, her voice stern. “You need to be more careful. Stress like this is dangerous for the baby.” The words hit me like a physical blow. After my first miscarriage, it had taken years to find the light again. I knew Xavier wanted a family, so I’d been quietly trying to get healthy, hoping to surprise him. I touched my stomach, laughing and crying all at once. Why now? Why was this beautiful thing happening in the middle of a nightmare? The nurse, seeing my distress, turned on the wall-mounted TV to distract me. The local news was playing. “Hudson University Prodigy Publishes Groundbreaking Research as Lead Author.” Lexie Valentine was on the screen, looking modest and glowing. “I have to thank my mentor, Professor Xavier Cross…” As she began to describe the paper’s findings, my hands began to shake uncontrollably. It couldn’t be. That was my father’s research. A project he’d spent years on before his death—a breakthrough so sensitive he hadn’t even shown me the final data. How was it under Lexie’s name? I ripped the IV from my hand and stumbled out of the hospital. I searched every corner of our house—the cloud drives, the hard drives, my father’s old laptop. Everything was wiped. Finally, tucked away in the back of a drawer filled with my parents’ old belongings—things Xavier had “put away” so I wouldn’t be “triggered”—I found a tattered, yellowing manuscript. On the back of the last page, in my father’s neat handwriting, were the words: “For my daughter, Lydia. May you live a life of peace, free from all pain.” The research was a revolutionary treatment for chronic, debilitating menstrual pain. My father had spent his life trying to solve it because he’d seen me suffer from it since I was a teenager. This wasn’t just a paper. It was his final gift to me. A sharp, stabbing pain blossomed in my lower abdomen, as if the baby could feel my agony. I clutched my chest, sobbing until my throat was raw. I didn’t hesitate. I scanned the original manuscript and posted everything online with a clear timeline. “Academic Fraud: Student Plagiarizes Deceased Professor’s Life’s Work.” The post went viral instantly. The internet, which had once praised Lexie, now turned on her with a vengeance. The front door slammed open. Xavier walked in, Lexie trailing behind him, her face puffy from crying. “Lexie is about to go to Oxford on a fellowship,” Xavier said, his voice flat and commanding. “She needed a significant publication to secure the spot. That’s why she used your father’s work.” “I brought her here to apologize. You’re going to post a retraction immediately.” I looked at him, a cold, dead smile on my lips. I should have known. Xavier was the only one with the keys to my father’s private files. He was the one who had handed his “star” student the stolen crown. Lexie sobbed, “I’m sorry, Lydia. I just… I wanted to be worthy of Xavier. I wanted to be someone he could be proud of.” I wiped my face, my eyes like flint. “Is that it? An apology?” “I want her to publicly admit the theft. I want the paper retracted. I want her blacklisted from the academic community.” Xavier’s face twisted into a mask of pure rage. “She’s young! Are you really going to destroy her entire life over some old notes?” When he saw that I wouldn’t budge, his voice dropped to a low, chilling whisper. “Don’t forget who handled your parents’ funeral arrangements, June.” “If you keep pushing this… I won’t hesitate to let you see their ashes scattered in the gutter.” My father had once risked his entire career to save Xavier from a departmental scandal. He had been Xavier’s biggest advocate. I screamed at him, a sound of pure betrayal. Xavier just sighed. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I won’t let you ruin Lexie. Actions have consequences, June.” He forced me in front of a camera. He started a live stream. I sat there, numb, reading the script he’d written. “My name is Lydia Cross. I’m here to apologize to Lexie Valentine and Professor Xavier Cross…” “I fabricated the accusations… The research was Lexie’s own work…” The viewer count skyrocketed. The comments were a blur of “She’s crazy,” “What a psycho wife,” and “Get her off the air.” The moment the stream ended, Lexie took the original manuscript from my hand. She shredded it into tiny pieces right in front of me and ground them into the floor with her heel. The rage finally exploded. I lunged at her and slapped her with every ounce of strength I had left. Xavier shoved me back, shielding her. Suddenly, three men in white lab coats appeared in the doorway. “My wife is having an episode,” Xavier said calmly. “Take her to the psychiatric facility. She needs immediate intervention.” I fought them like a wild animal. “Xavier! You can’t do this!” He didn’t look at me. “Get some rest, Lydia. I’ll come get you when you’re better.” A searing, white-hot pain ripped through my stomach. I reached out, grabbing Xavier’s pant leg. “Don’t send me there… please… I’m pregnant with your—” I felt the warmth before I saw it. Blood, bright and terrifying, began to soak through my skirt. My vision blurred. As my eyes slid shut, I had a sudden, sharp memory of my first pregnancy. Xavier had pressed his face to my stomach, whispering that he’d protect us forever. The man who promised to protect me was the one who had destroyed me. Xavier, you were the first to break the promise. When I woke up again, Xavier was sitting by my bed, his eyes bloodshot. He was holding my hand. “I’m so sorry, Lydia. I didn’t know you were pregnant… We’ll have other children.” “Lexie is leaving for her fellowship soon. We won’t divorce. Everything will go back to the way it was. You’re still my wife.” I stayed silent. He sighed, then stepped out to take a call. The second he was gone, Lexie crept into the room. She leaned over and backhanded me across the face. “You bitch! Even in a psych ward, you can’t just stay quiet!” “I should have killed you along with your parents!” “What did you say?” I whispered, my voice coming from a dark, hollow place. She sneered. “The only way Xavier could get that chair position was if your father was out of the picture.” “You think that car crash was an accident? Xavier messed with the brakes. And your mother? I was the one who pulled the plug in the ICU while you were in the hallway crying. Xavier only loves me.” The blood in my veins turned to ice, then boiled. I threw myself at her, my fingers locking around her throat. Lexie shrieked and grabbed a heavy ceramic jar from the bedside table, smashing it against my head. Warm blood ran down my forehead. I tried to scream, but she pinned me down, grabbing a handful of grey, gritty powder from the broken jar and forcing it into my mouth. The powder choked me. I coughed violently, the taste of ash and dust coating my throat. “How does it taste, Lydia? Your parents’ ashes?” “I’m reuniting the family. You should be thanking me!” I let out a broken, animalistic wail. Lexie messed up her hair, tore her shirt, and ran out of the room sobbing. She ran straight into Xavier’s arms. “Professor! I tried to talk to her, but she just attacked me! She threw trash all over me!” Xavier saw the grey dust on the floor. He looked at me with pure disgust. “I didn’t think you could sink this low, June.” “When you’re ready to act like a human being again, I’ll come back for you.” He picked Lexie up and slammed the door. I sat on the floor, surrounded by the ruins of my life. Everything I had left—my dignity, my parents, my babies—was gone. I crawled toward the broken jar, scooping up the remaining ashes, mixing them with the blood from my forehead. I pulled them to my chest, hugging them as if I were hugging my mother and father one last time. “Dad… Mom… I’m coming to find you.” … Across town, Xavier was driving when a sudden, sharp spike of anxiety hit his chest. A fleet of fire trucks, sirens blaring, raced past him toward the psychiatric hospital. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw a column of black smoke rising into the sky. He slammed on the brakes as he heard a bystander on the sidewalk whisper, “The hospital’s on fire. They say someone didn’t make it out.”

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I once defied my entire family, burning every bridge I had to marry Morgan. To fuel her startup dreams, I even sold the historic brownstone my mother had left me—the only piece of my heritage I had left. Now, Morgan is worth billions. She’s the darling of the business world, her reputation spotless, untouched by scandal. Everyone tells me I made the bet of a lifetime. They say I’m the luckiest man alive. But on my birthday, I found her. I saw her slip into the bedroom of her widowed brother-in-law, Lucas. I stood there, paralyzed in the hallway, watching through the crack in the door as he tried to push her away. I heard him whisper, his voice thick with a guilt that didn’t belong to her: “Don’t do this, Daniel is right outside…” I didn’t scream. I didn’t cause a scene. I walked out, went to a high-end lounge, and spent a small fortune to buy the night of a girl who looked like she’d never been touched by the world. I thought Morgan would feel the sting of it. I thought she’d feel the humiliation. Instead, she just let out a dry, mocking hum. “Lonely, were we?” she asked. Then, with a chilling indifference, she added, “Maybe it’s for the best. We can each do our own thing. An open marriage actually suits us.” That was the moment I shattered. I picked up a crystal vase and smashed it over her and Lucas’s heads. Morgan wiped the blood from her face, her eyes turning into shards of ice. “The one thing you should never have done,” she hissed, “was touch him.” After that, she dismantled my life with surgical precision. She orchestrated a fraud scheme that swallowed my father’s life’s work. She framed my brother, Ryan, for grand larceny, sending him to a federal prison. My sister-in-law took her little girl, Gia, and jumped from the roof of their apartment building. My father, having cried himself blind in the wake of the funeral, screamed at me in the darkness of his grief: “If you hadn’t provoked her, we wouldn’t be in this hell! You’re a curse, Daniel! Why aren’t you the one who’s dead?” That night, Morgan pinned me against the floor-to-ceiling windows of our penthouse. She had drugged me with something that turned my limbs to lead. “My sweet Daniel,” she whispered, “why couldn’t you just stay in your place?” Listening to her, I stopped fighting. I would be good now. I would do exactly what my father wanted. … Against the glass, Morgan’s hand tightened around my throat, forcing the upper half of my body out over the ledge of the open window. The freezing rain of the twenty-second floor whipped into my clothes, sending tremors through my skin. Her leg pressed hard between my knees, and I heard the sickening tear of my silk pajamas. There was no tenderness. No kiss. Just a brutal, suffocating display of dominance. “Talk to me, Daniel! You were so loud before, weren’t you?” She bit my ear, her voice dripping with a primal hatred. “Your brother just had three ribs broken by a cell boss. Your blind father was kicked out of his place this morning. He’s in a moldy basement now, starving. Do you know why? Because you didn’t just cheat on me—you tried to kill Lucas. You almost took him from me!” “If you beg me right now, if you go to him on your knees and admit what a pathetic, malicious piece of trash you are, I’ll sign the papers to let your brother out. I’ll stop.” A year ago, I would have fought. I would have bitten her shoulder and cursed her name until my lungs gave out. But tonight, I just stared at my own reflection in the dark glass. A ghost. No resistance. No tears. Morgan stopped. She was panting, her frustration boiling over. She grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “What is this? This ‘dead fish’ act? You weren’t this quiet when you were throwing money at that girl, were you? You weren’t quiet when you tried to embarrass me in front of everyone!” I looked into her bloodshot eyes and swallowed hard. My voice was a ghost of itself. “Morgan, if you were actually powerful, you wouldn’t need to do this to feel seen. Are you finished? If you are, get dressed and get out.” Her pupils shrunk. The veins in her forehead throbbed. Slap. The blow sent my head snapping to the side. “Ungrateful bitch,” she spat. She stood up, calmly buttoning her shirt. She grabbed a wet wipe from the table, cleaned her hands, crumpled it, and flicked it into my face. “You think you’re still the golden boy of this city? You think you have dignity?” She ground her heel into the back of my hand, twisting it. “Tomorrow is Lucas’s birthday. We’re celebrating at the club. Bring your blind father. You’ll stand at the door, greeting his guests and pouring their drinks. If I see this pathetic face of yours, I’ll call the warden. I’ll make sure your brother never uses his hands again.” She kicked a chair out of her way and slammed the door. I lay on the rug, my face numb, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. Slowly, I crawled to the bathroom. I opened the vanity drawer and pulled out an unmarked plastic bottle. For six months, I had been faking insomnia, visiting a dozen different pharmacies, slowly hoarding pills. I poured them into my coat pocket. Then, I took a single blade from my razor and tucked it away too. I was done fighting. Morgan was right—this was my fault. I sold my mother’s legacy for a woman who used it to bury my family. My sister-in-law and Gia were gone because of me. My brother was a convict because of me. My father hated the very sound of my breath. Morgan had built her throne on the bones of the people I loved, all to elevate Lucas. I would listen to my father. I would die. But before I left, I needed to see him one last time. The basement in the slums smelled of rot and damp concrete. I pushed open the rusted iron door. My father sat on a broken spring mattress, his sightless eyes fixed on the door. “Dad,” I whispered, fighting the ache in my throat. I opened a thermal container. “I brought the shrimp dumplings you like. Eat while they’re hot.” At the sound of my voice, his thin frame began to shake. He lunged toward me, guided by the sound, and struck me across the face. The container flew, spilling the scalding soup and dumplings across my chest. The pain was sharp, but I didn’t move. “Get out!” His skeletal fingers clawed at my neck, digging into the skin. “You curse! How dare you show your face here! Morgan sent people today… they smashed the urns, Daniel! Gia’s ashes… her mother’s… they poured them into the sewer! I crawled in the filth trying to save them, but there was nothing! Nothing left!” He was hysterical, his tears mixing with the saliva on his face. “You insisted on marrying her! You stole the company seal for her! You built her up with our blood! And now we’re all dead! Are you happy?” My vision blurred as the air left my lungs. I didn’t pull his hands away. I deserved this. “Why won’t you just die, Daniel? Die and give Gia her life back! If you have a shred of soul left, go jump off a building! Stop making us sick by existing!” He let go, collapsing to the floor in a heap, wailing. He struck the concrete with his fists until his knuckles bled. His tears landed on my burned skin, hotter than the soup. He was right. Why was I still here? I knelt and picked up a crushed, dirt-covered dumpling, placing it back on the lid. “Okay,” I said, looking at the broken man. I bowed my head to the floor three times. “Dad… I’ll do what you want. I’m going now. Take care of yourself.” I stood up and walked toward the rain. “Daniel…?” his voice wavered for a second. I paused. “Hmph. Don’t try to play the victim. Death is too good for you after what you’ve done.” I didn’t look back. The rain was torrential. I was soaked to the bone by the time I reached the street. A Maybach roared past, slamming through a puddle and drenching me in muddy water. The brakes screeched. The window rolled down. Morgan sat at the wheel, her gaze dark. In the passenger seat, Lucas held his nose, looking at my dripping clothes with disgust. In the back, Courtney, Morgan’s best friend, let out a sharp laugh. “Well, look at the little prince now. Looking for handouts, Daniel? You really have a gift for looking like a stray.” Morgan stepped out of the car, grabbed me by the hair, and yanked my head back. “I told you to be at the club. What are you doing here? Crying to your pathetic father?” The pain in my scalp was searing. I bit my tongue. “I wasn’t…” She didn’t listen. She dragged me to the car and shoved me into the back seat. Courtney kicked me toward the corner of the footwell. We reached the VIP lounge. Morgan dragged me by my collar through the gilded hallways and threw me onto a glass coffee table in the center of a crowded room. The glass shattered. Shards sliced into my palms and knees, blood blooming through my wet clothes. “Pour the drinks, Daniel,” Morgan commanded. She sat in the center chair, pulling Lucas into her lap, and lit a cigarette. Courtney walked over with a bottle of red wine and poured it directly over my head. The cold liquid stung my eyes. “What’s the matter, Golden Boy? Forgot how to use your hands?” The room erupted in jeers. These were the people who used to crawl at my feet. “Hey, Morgan, if he’s this pathetic, why not let us have some fun? I’ll give him fifty bucks to take off a shirt.” “A hundred if he licks the wine off the floor!” Morgan blew a cloud of smoke, her eyes cold as she watched me. “Do whatever you want with him.” The room filled with laughter. Courtney grabbed my hair and forced a bottle of whiskey into my mouth. I choked, coughing up streaks of red. Lucas leaned against Morgan’s shoulder, his voice soft and performative. “Morgan, don’t. Daniel was good to you once.” He stood up, took a stack of hundred-dollar bills from his bag, and walked over to me. “Take this, Daniel. Go get the divorce papers signed tomorrow. Don’t be a ghost. Morgan loves me now.” He threw the money at my face. The bills fluttered down like dead leaves. I didn’t move. I just looked at him. My silence seemed to unnerve him. Suddenly, Lucas stumbled back, hitting the corner of the table. “Ah!” He clutched his chest, rolling on the floor. “Morgan… my heart… Daniel pushed me… he wants me dead!” Morgan snapped. She kicked the table over and drove her boot into my chest. I flew back, hitting the wall. I heard the distinct crack of my ribs. A wave of heat rose in my throat, and I vomited a mouthful of blood. Morgan’s eyes were manic as she scooped Lucas up. “Daniel! If anything happens to him, I will tear your family apart piece by piece!” She pointed at the glass and blood on the floor. “Get on your knees. Right there. Start bowing. If you stop before I tell you, I’ll have your father killed tonight.” I forced myself up through the agony. Under the mocking gazes of the room, I knelt in the sea of broken glass. Thud. My forehead hit the floor. Thud. Thud. “That’s more like it,” Morgan sneered. She didn’t look back as she rushed Lucas out to the hospital. The crowd lost interest once the “show” was over and filtered out. Soon, only Courtney remained. She kicked the door shut and walked over, grabbing my collar. “Stop it. They’re gone. Who are you performing for?” Her eyes were predatory. Her hand traced my face and moved down to my chest. “You’re so pathetic, Daniel. Remember when I begged you to be my boyfriend in the rain? You called me a toad. Look at you now. Morgan tells you to bark, and you don’t even hesitate.” She set her phone up on a bottle, hitting record. “I want to see how that ‘noble’ body of yours handles a little common fun.” She started stripping her coat, reaching for a small vial in her pocket. I looked at her, my soul feeling heavy and gray. “Lock the door.” She paused, then laughed. “Scared someone will see? Want to save a little face? Fine. I’ll give you that much.” As she turned to bolt the door, I took the plastic bottle from my pocket. I unscrewed the cap and swallowed the entire contents—dozens of white pills—washing them down with a half-drunk glass of scotch from the floor. They scraped my throat, but I forced them down. Then, I pulled out the razor blade. I didn’t hesitate. I sliced deep into my left wrist, right across the artery. It wasn’t deep enough. I did it again. Twice. Until I saw the pale gleam of bone through the red. Blood sprayed, coating the leather sofa and the rug. Courtney turned around and froze. The predatory smirk vanished, replaced by a mask of pure horror. “What the hell are you doing?!” She scrambled back, her legs giving out. I leaned back against the sofa, watching the fountain of red. I felt the light beginning to dim at the edges of my vision. It didn’t hurt anymore. Dad, Ryan, Gia… I’m coming to pay my debt. Meanwhile, at the City Hospital. The emergency light flickered off. The doctor stepped out, looking at a frantic Morgan. “He’s fine,” the doctor said, his voice flat. “Mr. Lucas has a minor bruise. And…” He hesitated. “He didn’t have a heart attack. There’s nothing wrong with his heart.” Morgan went still. “What?” Lucas was wheeled out, his face pale, avoiding her eyes. “Morgan, I…” A memory flashed in Morgan’s mind: Daniel, kneeling in broken glass, his eyes devoid of anything resembling life. A sudden, sharp panic seized her chest. She pushed Lucas’s hand away. She pulled out her phone, dialing my number. Disconnected. With trembling fingers, she opened the club’s security app. The feed loaded. The room was bathed in red. Courtney was in the corner, screaming, clawing at a locked door. Morgan dropped her phone, her eyes wild, and ran for the elevator.

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The homecoming party was in full swing, the air thick with the scent of expensive cologne and the desperate nostalgia of people trying to prove they hadn’t aged. We were deep into a game of Truth or Dare, the kind that starts as a joke and ends in bloodshed. Mallory drew the Truth card. She leaned back, her dewy, expectant eyes fixed on Barry, the man sitting right next to her. She tossed out a question that cut through the laughter like a jagged blade: “In this life, have you ever—even for a second—regretted marrying your wife? If the answer is yes, take a shot.” The rowdy penthouse suite went silent. You could have heard a pin drop on the marble floor. Dozens of eyes shifted, landing heavily on us. I was the wife. Barry’s partner of five years. I was sitting right there, my hand inches from his. Barry didn’t say a word. He simply reached for the heavy crystal glass on the table, tipped his head back, and swallowed the neat bourbon in one jagged gulp. As he set the glass down, his hand trembled. It was the second time I’d seen his hands shake like that. The first was five years ago, the night we got our marriage license. He had spent that entire night in his study, staring at an old Polaroid of Mallory until the sun came up. My throat tightened, a bitter ache blooming behind my ribs. I stood up to leave, but his fingers clamped around my wrist with bruising force. “Cassie, they’re just messing around,” he whispered, his voice thick with urgency. “Don’t take it seriously.” I looked down at his hand gripping mine, and for the first time in half a decade, I realized how exhausting this performance had become. … The atmosphere in the room had plummeted below freezing. One of the guys at the table let out a forced, nervous laugh, trying to patch the hole Barry had just punched in the night. “Come on, Mallory, that was a low blow. You know Barry worships the ground Cassie walks on. He literally moved his entire operation to Vancouver just so she could have that house she wanted.” Barry’s fingers squeezed my palm under the table, a silent plea. I gave in to the pressure and sat back down, my body feeling like a wooden mannequin. To kill the awkwardness, Barry grabbed the mic from the center of the table, pivoting the conversation with practiced ease. “Enough of that. Winter’s coming up. Who’s thinking about a ski trip? My treat.” The room erupted into a cacophony of suggestions—Aspen, Whistler, Saint-Moritz. Then Mallory spoke up, her voice soft but perfectly timed. “I want to go back to Vancouver. To see the maples.” She swirled the wine in her glass, looking far away. “A long time ago, someone told me that the red maples in the Pacific Northwest are like fire. He said it was the perfect place to build a life. He even promised to build me a timber cabin right under the trees.” The room went quiet again. Someone asked, “So, what happened?” Mallory smiled, her gaze cutting through the crowd and locking onto Barry. “He gave the cabin to someone else.” A collective sigh went up. People started teasing her, joking about how even a “Goddess” like Mallory had a ‘one that got away’ story. I turned my head slightly. Barry’s jaw was set so tight the bone looked like it might snap. A vein pulsed at his temple. The house we shared in Vancouver was a timber-framed masterpiece in the hills of West Van. The yard was filled with ancient, towering maples. I had spent five years believing he’d chosen that house because he knew I loved the autumn. I remembered moving in. He hadn’t looked at me that day. He had stood on the deck, staring at the carpet of fallen red leaves for hours. I thought he was just tired from the move. Now I knew. He wasn’t looking at our home. He was looking at the ghost of a promise he’d made to a different woman. A sharp cramp twisted in my stomach. I stood up again, grabbing my coat. Barry was behind me in seconds, catching me in the hallway. “Cassidy, what now? What are you doing?” “I’m going back to the hotel, Barry.” “Is this because of the game? It was a joke! Can you not be so sensitive for once? We finally made it back home, we’re seeing old friends—can’t you just let us have one nice night?” His voice was laced with that familiar, patronizing impatience. Before I could respond, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed around the corner. Mallory appeared, her eyes red-rimmed. She stopped a few feet away, looking like a wounded bird. Barry’s entire body went rigid. His grip on my arm tightened unconsciously. Then, in a sudden, jarring shift, he leaned down and adjusted the collar of my coat. His voice dropped to a tender, performative silkiness. “Is it too loud in there, baby? Let’s get you out of here. I’ll walk you.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek. I stood there, hollowed out. In five years of marriage, Barry had never been this physically affectionate in public. “Barry,” Mallory called out from behind us. Barry turned, his brow furrowed in a display of annoyance that felt a second too late to be real. “What are you doing out here? Your date is waiting for you in the suite. I’m taking my wife home.” He tucked me under his arm, steering me toward the elevator. But his eyes didn’t stay on the doors. Every few steps, he stole a glance back over his shoulder. This “gentle husband” routine was a weapon. I was just the prop he was using to make Mallory bleed. We stepped out of the club into the cool night air. Barry walked beside me, his mind clearly miles away. We stopped at a 24-hour apothecary to pick up emergency heart medication for my foster mother, Martha. Her heart had been failing, and Barry had promised to help me get the best specialists once we settled back in the States. As I picked up the box, Barry’s phone buzzed. It was a specific, rhythmic vibration. I knew it. It was his ‘Priority’ alert—the one he’d told me was reserved for emergency board meetings. He glanced at the screen, and his face went pale. He turned away immediately to take the call. When he hung up, he couldn’t look me in the eye. “Cassie, something came up at the office. A crisis at the regional branch. I have to go. Take a cab back to the hotel, okay?” Before I could even nod, he was gone, disappearing into the neon-lit shadows of the street. I put the medication back on the shelf. I didn’t take a cab. I followed him. Two blocks away, in a secluded corner of a small park, I watched my husband—the man who had “urgent business”—wrap his arms around Mallory. She was sobbing into his chest, telling him how much her date disgusted her, how much she regretted letting him go years ago. Barry was stroking her hair, his touch infinitely more genuine than the kiss he’d given me in the hallway. I felt a ghost of a smile touch my lips as tears hit the wool of my coat. The thread that had held me together for five years finally snapped. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. A few yards away, under the yellow glow of a streetlamp, the two of them stayed locked together. There was no sound from Barry’s pocket. He hadn’t just ignored me. He had put me on ‘Do Not Disturb.’ The red maples in Vancouver were beautiful, I realized. But they were never planted for me. Just as Barry had been a “good” husband, but he had never belonged to me. I stared at my call logs—the missed calls from yesterday when I’d tried to tell him about Martha’s worsening condition. Once, Barry had been the darling of the private equity world, a “cold-blooded” prince whom every debutante in the city wanted to taming. But he had chosen me—a girl from a middle-class background, a professional ballet dancer with nothing but a dream. When I shattered my ankle in a freak stage accident, ending my career, Barry had been there. He found the best surgeons. He flew me to Paris and London to see shows, trying to piece my broken identity back together. I thought it was love. Now I saw it for what it was: a project. A way to fill the Mallory-shaped hole in his life with a grateful, broken girl who would never ask for more than he was willing to give. When I got back to the hotel, the room felt like a tomb. Half an hour later, the door card beeped. Barry walked in, tossing his blazer onto the chair. He looked lighter, energized. His mood was a thousand times better than it had been at the party. He set his phone on the bar and went to get a glass of water. The screen lit up. A notification popped. Mallory: [I only brought that date tonight to make you jealous. Seeing you catch fire for me… it made me so happy.] Barry came back, his eyes falling on the screen. He froze. He lunged for the phone, killing the display. I sat on the sofa, watching him with a terrifying clarity. “Why didn’t you text her back?” Barry’s face darkened instantly. He slammed the water glass onto the marble counter, splashing the surface. “Cassidy, are you seriously doing this right now?” “Doing what, Barry?” “This! This relentless, insecure nagging! I am exhausted. I’m running a multi-million dollar expansion, dealing with administrative nightmares, and I come home to you playing detective over a harmless text. I’ve had enough.” I listened to his accusations. My nails bit into my palms. He was the one who had cheated. He was the one who had spent the night holding another woman. And yet, I was the one who was “unreasonable.” I let go of my hands and saw the red crescents in my skin. I spoke softly. “I want a divorce.” Barry paused, his anger faltering. He lowered his voice, shifting back into the ‘reasonable’ husband. “Look, Cassie, Mallory was just being dramatic. It was a joke. We’re friends. Don’t overthink it.” I didn’t answer. I didn’t look at him. He didn’t care. He checked his watch. “Just… calm down. I have a late dinner meeting with some investors. Make sure you have some aspirin ready when I get back, I have a headache.” He grabbed his keys and walked out. The strength left my body. I slid off the sofa onto the carpet. My old ankle injury began to throb with a dull, sickening ache. My forehead felt like it was on fire. The stress of the move and the emotional wreckage had finally broken my immune system. I found a thermometer in the medical kit. 102.2. As I lay curled in bed, shivering under the duvet, my phone buzzed. It was a voice memo from Mallory. Sixty seconds long. I hit play. Her voice, breathless and coquettish, filled the room. “Barry… we shouldn’t be doing this…” Then came the sounds. Barry’s heavy breathing. The unmistakable, wet sounds of a desperate kiss. “It’s you, Mallory. It’s always been you,” Barry’s voice rasped. “The marriage was just a distraction for my parents. I’m back now. Don’t leave again. I’ll find a way to take care of Cassidy, I’ll pay her off.” The warmth drained out of the bed. I stared at the ceiling. Those sixty seconds felt like a century of ice. The screen went dark, then lit up again. My wallpaper was a photo of us in front of the maples in Vancouver, dressed for a gala. With shaking hands, I changed the background to a plain, clinical white. Then I threw the phone. It shattered against the TV screen with a satisfying crack. I picked up the hotel landline and dialed my lawyer. “Draft the papers. Everything. Now.” Then, the darkness took me. I woke up to the smell of bleach and the hiss of an IV. A nurse saw me open my eyes. “You had a febrile seizure,” she said gently. “The hotel staff found you. You should call your family.” Family. I borrowed her phone to log into my accounts. My feed was an absolute nightmare. Mallory had sent a barrage of “leaked” photos—intimate, suggestive shots of her and Barry—directly to me, accompanied by taunting messages. Barry’s “clean” reputation was a joke. In a final act of cold, hard defiance, I took every single one of those disgusting photos and forwarded them to our old alumni group chat. The group exploded. Three seconds later, the nurse’s phone rang. It was Barry, his voice vibrating with pure, unadulterated rage. “Cassidy, have you lost your mind?!” “The photos were an accident, they didn’t mean anything! You’re going to destroy Mallory’s reputation!” I listened to his fury, my eyes dead, my throat like sandpaper. “I’m in the hospital. I have a fever.” “I don’t care where you are!” he screamed. “Go into that chat right now and tell them your account was hacked! Tell them you made it up!” He hung up. I watched the IV drip, one bead at a time. Half an hour later, the door swung open. Mallory threw herself onto her knees by my bed, sobbing uncontrollably. “Cassie, please, I was drunk! Barry was just trying to make you jealous! The whole group is calling me a homewrecker. How am I supposed to live? Please, tell them it wasn’t real…” Barry pulled her up, his eyes full of loathing as he looked at me. “When did you become so cruel, Cassidy? This has nothing to do with her. I forced her into it. Are you really going to try and ruin her life?” He stepped closer, his voice a low growl. “You will go into that chat. You will tell them you Photoshopped those images to slander her because you were jealous.” I looked at him, truly looked at him. They were the ones who had cheated, yet I was the villain. When I didn’t answer, Barry’s face twisted. He pulled up a photo on his own phone and held it in front of my face. “If you don’t do it, I’ll send this to Martha.” It was a photo from my early days in the ballet conservatory. I had been bullied by a group of older girls who had stripped me and photographed me in the locker room to humiliate me. Barry had used his family’s influence back then to bury the story and the photos. He had held me while I cried, promising to protect me forever. Now, he was using my deepest trauma as a weapon to protect the woman he’d cheated with. I laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound. I ripped the IV out of my arm, ignored the blood, and followed him to a private room in the restaurant where he had gathered our old “friends.” In front of everyone, I spoke the words he wanted. “I lied about Mallory. The photos were fakes.” “She didn’t break up my marriage. I did this because I’m mentally unstable. I was jealous of her…” Before I could finish, a glass of scalding tea splashed across my face. “You’re sick, Cassidy! To use something like that against her!” “No wonder Barry can’t stand you. You’re a goddamn lunatic.” The heat on my cheek was searing. Blisters began to form instantly. Barry saw my pale, trembling face and took a half-step forward, his voice low. “Why are you looking like that? Why are your hands so cold?” I flinched away from him, my voice a broken whisper. “Give me the original files. Give me the photos of me.” His hand froze in mid-air. His face turned to stone. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a stack of printed copies of my locker room humiliation, and threw them into the air. They fluttered down like snow. I dropped to the floor, crawling on the grease-stained tiles, trying to gather the pieces of my dignity while our “friends” watched with disgust. Just then, my phone—the nurse’s phone in my pocket—rang. It was the hospital back home. “Is this Cassidy? I’m so sorry… Your mother, Martha… she saw some photos online. She had a massive heart attack. We’re in the ER. You need to get here now to sign the papers.” I looked up, catching Mallory’s eyes. She looked away, but there was a flicker of triumph there. I lunged at her, my fingers catching her throat. “What did you send my mother?!” Mallory shrieked, struggling. “Barry, help! I didn’t do anything!” Martha was the only light in my life. She was the woman who had worked three jobs to pay for my pointe shoes. Barry didn’t hesitate. He shoved me away with such force I hit the floor again. “Have you had enough?!” he roared. “You and that mother of yours, always with the drama! Always pretending to be the victim to get what you want!” I didn’t care about the blood on my forehead where I’d hit the table. I scrambled for the door. “If you walk out that door,” Barry yelled after me, “don’t ever think about coming back!” The image of Martha gasping for air filled my mind. I turned and dropped to my knees, my head hitting the cold floor in a desperate plea. “Barry, please. Drive me to the hospital. My mom is dying. Please.” For a split second, Barry looked shaken. But then Mallory clutched her chest, gasping for air. “Barry… I can’t breathe… she choked me… take me to the ER…” Barry didn’t look at me again. He scooped Mallory up in his arms and ran toward the parking garage. I ran after them, one shoe missing, limping on my ruined ankle. I pounded on his car window. “Barry, please! Just let me catch a ride, I can’t find a cab here!” The locks clicked. Thump. The window rolled down halfway, revealing his cold, beautiful face. “Your lies are getting pathetic, Cassidy.” The car roared to life. As he accelerated, he didn’t see my right leg. The door frame clipped me, throwing me down, and the heavy rear tire rolled directly over my ankle. A scream tore through the garage, but the car didn’t stop. I rolled on the concrete, the pain so intense I was vomiting. I looked at the “friends” leaving the club. They stepped around me like I was trash. “You deserve it, after those photos you took.” The phone rang again. “Cassidy… I’m so sorry. We did everything we could. She’s gone.” My world didn’t just break. It vanished. A text from Barry popped up. [Mallory is shaken up. I’m staying with her while she gets checked out.] [Stop playing dead. I’ll bring you that chocolate mousse you like on the way back. Let’s just move past this.] His cake. His ‘moving past this.’ I felt a wave of nausea so strong it eclipsed the pain in my leg. Across town, in the hospital, Barry felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest. He tossed his keys to his assistant and hailed a cab back to the hotel. He pushed open the suite door, and his heart stopped. He walked into the bedroom, the silence ringing in his ears. “Cassie?” he called out, tugging at his tie. The walk-in closet was open. It was empty. Every suitcase, every dress, every scrap of her life was gone. He went to the vanity. It was bare. The maple leaf necklace he’d given her—the one she never took off—was gone. Barry’s pulse began to race. He started tearing through drawers, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. He ran to the living room, and his eyes landed on the coffee table. There sat the remains of her shattered phone. Underneath it were a few thin sheets of paper. Barry’s vision blurred. He picked them up. Five words in bold black ink: PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

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I called the cops. On the phone, I told the 911 dispatcher that my doctoral advisor had sexually assaulted me, leveraging his position of power. I added that he had drugged me. I made sure to emphasize one detail: my lab mate had witnessed the entire thing last night. He could testify. The catalyst for all of this was that very same lab mate. After failing to secure the coveted doctoral fellowship, he had started spreading vicious rumors. He told anyone who would listen that I had snuck into the professor’s office in the middle of the night, dressed like a cheap escort, and that was how I secured the only fully-funded Ph.D. spot in the department. Furious and desperate, I had gone to our advisor, begging him to clear my name. But the professor merely stood there, holding his artisanal teacup. He didn’t even look up at me. He said that a clear conscience needs no defense, and that the more I tried to explain myself, the guiltier I would look. He told me that if I truly put my mind to the science, I wouldn’t care about baseless gossip. He said I lacked mental discipline. Fine. If he thought I lacked discipline, I was about to show him exactly how disciplined I could be. 1 The day the fellowship list was posted, I saw my name—Maeve Gallagher—at the very top. The tension that had kept my nerves fraying for months finally snapped, replaced by a wave of profound relief. The dust had settled. I let out a long, shaky exhale. But the peace didn’t last. Later that afternoon, someone grabbed my arm and pulled me into the shadowed landing of the stairwell. It was Gemma, the senior researcher in our lab. Gemma was usually a force of nature, loud and bright, but right now, her face was stripped of its usual warmth. She looked at me with a complicated expression—a heavy, anxious sort of dread. “Maeve, did you cross someone recently?” She kept her voice low, her brows pulled tight. I blinked, instinctively shaking my head. “No? I’ve been practically chained to the centrifuge all month grinding out data. I haven’t even seen anyone.” Gemma’s expression darkened. She leaned in closer. “Then what the hell is going on with the talk in the lab? It’s spreading like wildfire, and they’ve got details.” “They’re saying… they’re saying that to get this fellowship, you went into Dr. Alden’s office in the middle of the night wearing a black silk slip dress. And that you didn’t come out until the next morning, with your eyes all red and swollen.” A loud ringing filled my ears. My brain instantly white-outs. Slip dress? Midnight? The office? These filthy little words strung together, pointing to the single most destructive conclusion you could pin on a female academic. I didn’t even need to think. A name ground out from between my teeth. “Who said it? Derek?” It couldn’t be anyone else. Derek. The golden boy. The senior lab mate who everyone—including himself—had assumed was a shoo-in for the fellowship. Gemma sighed, her eyes heavy with pity. “…It’s him. You know how he is. Ever since he saw the rejection email, he’s been acting like a lunatic.” “He’s telling everyone it was rigged, that Dr. Alden played favorites, that you…” She stopped, seemingly unable to stomach repeating the rest of the garbage. But I had heard enough. I shoved past the heavy fire door and sprinted down the hall toward the lab. The door was slightly ajar. Bursts of raucous, ugly laughter spilled out into the corridor. At the center of it all was Derek. He was surrounded by a few of the guys from the cohort, putting on an exaggerated, theatrical performance of a woman walking. He had one hand delicately holding up an imaginary skirt, the other brought to his mouth in mock coyness. He pitched his voice into a breathy, high-pitched whine. “Oh, Dr. Alden~ I’d do anything for that spot~” 2 The guys around him doubled over, howling. One of them chimed in with a sleazy drawl, “Man, the academic groupies are really taking the casting couch to the next level.” Derek flipped imaginary hair over his shoulder, a leering, oily grin spreading across his face. He dropped his voice, mimicking the cadence of a middle-aged man. “Well, Maeve, your… hard work… hasn’t gone unnoticed.” “Come here, sit a little closer. Let’s discuss your… biology.” “Hahahaha!” The lab shook with their laughter. Ice water flooded my veins. I shoved the door open so hard it slammed into the wall. Every sound died instantly. A dozen pairs of eyes whipped toward me. Shock, amusement, disgust, schadenfreude. Derek’s smile froze for a fraction of a second, but it quickly melted back into an expression of unmasked malice. He lazily straightened up, sauntering toward me with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. His face, which I had once thought was reasonably handsome, looked grotesquely distorted by jealousy. “Well, if it isn’t the department’s rising star. Hey, Maeve.” He dragged the syllables out, his eyes brazenly raking down from my face to my chest. “Congratulations.” He took a step closer. I could smell the stale nicotine on his breath as he spoke down into my face. “You’ve got a really bright future ahead of you. Just make sure you keep Dr. Alden satisfied.” “After all, you worked so hard for that spot, right?” He leaned hard into the word “hard.” Around us, a few guys let out muffled, knowing snickers. I was shaking. Not from fear, but from a blinding, white-hot rage. I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms. Staring into Derek’s smug face, I asked, word by word: “Derek. Say that again.” “What? You didn’t hear me the first time?” He threw his hands up, playing the loud, arrogant victim. “I said, congrats on using your… special talents… to get the spot.” “What’s the matter? Brave enough to do it, but not brave enough to own it?” “I saw you that night, Maeve. Walking into his office in that little black slip.” He was feeding off his own lies, weaving details out of thin air, performing it so confidently you’d think he’d recorded it. “Oh, right. When you walked out the next morning, your eyes were all puffy. You’d been crying, huh?” “Did he play a little too rough? Man, I feel so bad for you.” “Hahahaha!” The crowd erupted into louder, uglier laughter. My lungs felt like they were collapsing. What had I sacrificed for this fellowship? From the day the application opened, I hadn’t slept before 2 AM. While the rest of them were out dating, catching movies, having a life, I was alone in this freezing lab, running dead-end assays over and over again. To crack one specific technical bottleneck, I stayed awake for three days straight. I collapsed in the hallway and woke up in the ER with an IV in my arm. Every single publication to my name was paid for in blood, sweat, and absolute isolation. I used to believe the world of science was a meritocracy. A pure place. I thought if you bled for the work and proved your brilliance, you would be recognized. But now? All my agonizing effort. All my pride. Erased in thirty seconds by Derek’s cheap, filthy lies. 3 To them, I wasn’t a scientist. I was a body. My intelligence was worthless; my ambition was a punchline. I was trembling violently now, my chest heaving, fighting for air. The sharp pain of my own nails cutting into my skin was the only thing keeping me tethered to reality. No. I couldn’t fight them here. You don’t wrestle with pigs; you both get dirty, but the pig likes it. The source of this power dynamic was the professor. He was the only one who could end this. If Dr. Richard Alden stood up and publicly confirmed the truth—that the selection was based purely on my academic record—these rumors would die instantly. I shot Derek a look of pure death. Then I turned on my heel and bolted down the hall toward the corner office. The door was cracked open, and the rich, earthy scent of high-end Oolong tea drifted out. Dr. Alden was standing with his back to the door at his mahogany credenza. He was meticulously going through the motions of his elaborate, imported tea ritual. Hot water cascaded over the leaves. White steam curled into the air, softening the edges of his silhouette. He looked exactly like what he wanted to project: an untouchable academic god, far removed from the petty concerns of the mortal world. I barged in. I had run so fast my breath was catching in my throat, making my voice shake. “Dr. Alden!” He jumped slightly, his hand jerking, spilling a drop of water. He turned around. Taking in my flushed face, red-rimmed eyes, and ragged breathing, his brow furrowed in deep distaste. “Maeve, what on earth are you yelling for? Running around in a panic. You lack composure.” I ignored the reprimand, taking three large steps toward him. The words spilled out of me in a frantic rush—what was happening in the lab, what Derek was saying, the horrific, graphic rumors destroying my reputation. I expected him to be shocked. I expected outrage. I expected him to march down that hallway and lay down the law to protect his student. Instead, he just listened. The muscles in his face didn’t so much as twitch. When I finally ran out of breath, he slowly picked up his cast-iron teapot. He poured the amber liquid into a delicate porcelain cup, picked it up, and blew gently across the rim. The silence stretched. Those few seconds felt like an eternity. Finally, he lifted his eyes to look at me. His gaze was entirely flat. There was no fire. No defense. “A clear conscience needs no defense.” “With things like this, Maeve, the more you protest, the more people assume you have something to hide. You protest too much, they think you’re guilty.” My stomach dropped out from under me. 4 “But Dr. Alden!” I pleaded, desperation clawing up my throat. “They’re dragging my name through the mud! This is going to permanently damage my reputation in this field!” “All you have to do is send an email, or walk out there and tell them none of this happened! If you clarify the selection process, they’ll stop!” He set the teacup down with a quiet clink. He looked at me, his eyes heavy with disappointment and mounting annoyance. “Maeve, I always thought you were one of the sharp ones. Someone with mental discipline. Why are you letting a little hallway gossip completely unravel you?” His voice rose an octave, taking on that patronizing, paternalistic tone he used during lectures. “If you truly put all your focus into the science, you wouldn’t care what other people say. Ultimately, your mind is too scattered. You lack academic discipline.” Discipline? I stared at him, totally unmoored. My reputation, my entire identity, was being violently dismantled right outside his door, and he was reducing it to a lack of focus? Just then, I heard a shuffle of footsteps. Derek and his entourage had followed me. They were crowded around the open doorway, craning their necks, stupid grins plastered on their faces as they waited for the show. Dr. Alden glanced at me, then looked past my shoulder, his eyes landing on Derek. Immediately, the professor’s brow smoothed out. His tone shifted entirely, softening into the indulgent exasperation of a father figure. “Derek, come in here.” Derek instantly dropped the sneer, adopting the posture of an obedient, respectful student as he walked in. “Apologize to your peer,” Dr. Alden said, picking up his tea again. “You are all colleagues. You have to work together in this lab.” “There’s a line with jokes, Derek. Don’t cross it.” Jokes. A block of ice slid down my spine. Taking the out he was just handed, Derek turned to me. A completely hollow, mocking smile tugged at his lips. “Sorry, Maeve. You know me, big mouth, no filter. Don’t take it personally.” The second the words left his mouth, a chorus of muffled snickering erupted from the peanut gallery in the doorway. They looked at me, their eyes bright with even more contempt than before. And then I looked at Dr. Alden. My mentor. The man whose intellect and integrity I had worshipped for two years. He was smiling. A faint, tolerant smile. Like he was watching a bunch of toddlers squabble over a toy. To him, this was a harmless little drama. And I was the hysterical, over-sensitive girl ruining the vibe of his lab. In that split second, watching this sickening tableau, something inside me died. And something else woke up. I understood perfectly. To Alden, Derek might have lost the fellowship, but he was still the golden boy, a favored son he’d mentored for years. I was just a tool. A disposable asset. He was never going to protect me. They all stood there, waiting for me to crack. Waiting for me to run out crying, or swallow my pride and shrink back to my bench. They assumed this would blow over and become a permanent, unspoken stain on my record. I looked at Alden’s hypocritical, serene face. I looked at Derek’s smug, punchable smirk. I looked at the eyes in the doorway, gleaming with malice. The fire in my chest burned away the last thread of my hesitation. 5 Okay. You think this is a joke? You think I lack discipline? Let me show you exactly what someone with “no discipline” is capable of. I took a deep, steadying breath. With every eye in the room glued to me, I slowly reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I unlocked it, opened the keypad, and, making sure my movements were deliberate and clear, punched in three numbers. 9 – 1 – 1.

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This time around, I started quietly dating the wealthiest heiress in Boston. My roommate, Todd, had always possessed a taste in women that mirrored my own with sickening precision. In fact, he had deeply “admired” every single girlfriend I’d ever had. He used to tell me I was too naive, too blind to the manipulative ways of women. Out of the goodness of his heart, he offered to “test” them for me. The result? Every single time, under the guise of looking out for his bro, he seduced them. Once he had them wrapped around his finger, he would parade his victory in front of me with a smug grin. “See? I told you your radar is garbage. They were only after your money, Rowan. Good thing I was here to cut your losses!” The last time he pulled that stunt, I beat him until his face was a mosaic of bruises. So, when he found out about my new relationship with the billionaire heiress, I knew he wouldn’t be able to help himself. He was already itching to make his move. What Todd didn’t know, however, was that this particular heiress was a meticulously crafted surprise—wrapped and delivered specifically for him. 1 Todd was waving a Polaroid of my ex-girlfriend, Juliette, like it was a winning lottery ticket. “When she was chasing you, she swore she’d never love another man. Now? All I had to do was crook my finger, and she practically threw herself at me.” He leaned back in his desk chair, tossing the photo onto my bed. “You should be thanking me, Rowan. You almost got played again.” My hands curled into tight fists. A hot, familiar spike of anger lodged in my chest. “You’re literally bragging about being the other man,” I said, my voice dangerously low. “Do you have any shame left at all?” Todd blinked, feigning a look of profound hurt. “Come on, man. I was just worried about you getting used. Why do you always have to make me the villain?” From across the room, our roommate Dustin immediately chimed in to defend him. “Rowan, you’re acting pathetic over a girl. Are you really going to nuke your friendship with your brother over some chick?” “Seriously,” Brad added from the top bunk, not even looking up from his phone. “If it weren’t for Todd, you would’ve been taken to the cleaners by now. He’s doing you a favor by filtering out the gold-diggers.” I opened my mouth, but the words died in my throat. It was true that my last five girlfriends hadn’t exactly been saints, but was Todd any better? Before my last breakup, I’d secretly checked Juliette’s phone. Todd had flooded her DMs with thirst traps—shirts unbuttoned to his navel, gym mirror selfies. He’d even messaged her: “Want to come over and trace my V-cut?” They were all sickening. Todd leaned closer, the triumph practically oozing from his pores. “You’re not actually mad, are you? Honestly, I didn’t even expect it. I just casually chatted them up, and they all caught feelings. You can’t blame a guy for that, right?” “Course not,” Dustin echoed. “It’s just your natural charm, man. Unlike some people who think getting straight A’s means the whole world is going to fall at their feet.” Dustin and Brad exchanged a knowing, synchronized smirk. I ignored their petty high school dynamics, turning my attention back to my phone. The dorm room fell into a heavy silence for a few seconds. Then, Dustin let out a strangled gasp. “Holy shit. Guys, come look. Is that who I think it is?” He practically flattened his face against the dirty glass of our balcony window, craning his neck toward the courtyard. “It’s Sylvia! Sylvia Dupont! What the hell is the campus IT girl doing outside our building?” Todd and Brad scrambled to their feet, rushing to the window. “Damn, it really is her. What’s she doing here? Waiting for some guy?” “God, whoever it is just won the lottery. That’s Sylvia Dupont. She basically owns half the biotech industry in this city.” Dustin suddenly turned to Todd, his eyes wide. “Wait, Todd, didn’t you use to be tight with her? Does she have a guy now?” Todd’s face tightened. The smugness vanished, replaced by a tense, ugly silence. Tight with her. That was a generous way to phrase it. Todd had stalked Sylvia for six months, practically begging for her attention, and hadn’t even managed to get her number. I calmly grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. Todd’s arm shot out, blocking my path. “I thought you just broke up with Juliette. Where do you think you’re going?” I slapped his arm away. “I dumped Juliette three months ago. If you want my trash, feel free to keep it.” Right on cue, my phone vibrated in my hand. I answered it immediately. A cool, elegant voice drifted through the speaker. “Hey, baby. I’m downstairs.” “I’ll be right there.” Before I could pull the phone away, it was snatched from my grip. Todd glared at me. “No wonder you dropped Juliette. You already found a rebound.” He brought the phone to his mouth, his voice dropping an octave into that slick, practiced tone he used on women. “Hey there. I’m Rowan’s roommate, Todd. Are you his new girl?” I didn’t hear what the voice on the other end said, but Todd’s trademark smirk froze instantly. Seizing the moment of his paralysis, I ripped the phone from his hand and ended the call. A manic, ugly jealousy flared in Todd’s eyes. He stared at me like he wanted to peel my skin off. “Your new girlfriend… is Sylvia Dupont?” 2 “Bullshit,” Dustin scoffed, stepping away from the window. “There’s no way. Sylvia’s standards are atmospheric. Why would she look twice at him?” “Exactly,” Brad agreed. “Guys with trust funds line up down the block for her. Rowan? Please.” Todd remained silent, but he had forcibly smoothed his features back into a mask of indifference. He looked me up and down. “You didn’t just hire some random girl to impersonate Sylvia to mess with us, did you?” I looked at his face—a face that truly believed it had outsmarted the world—and a genuine laugh bubbled up in my chest. “Believe whatever helps you sleep at night, Todd.” I didn’t waste another breath on him. I turned and walked out, letting the door click shut behind me. Down in the courtyard, Sylvia was leaning casually against a cherry-red Lamborghini. When she saw me, she offered a small, lazy wave. The afternoon sunlight fractured through the elm trees, washing over her. She looked like a manifestation of old money and untouchable grace. No wonder Todd had obsessed over her for half a year. And it was exactly for that reason that I had agreed to date her. “Waiting long?” I asked. “Just pulled up. Get in.” With practiced elegance, Sylvia opened the passenger door for me. As I slid into the low leather seat, I glanced up. In the third-floor window of my dorm, three faces were pressed against the glass, contorted with a jealousy so raw it was almost tragic. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Sylvia took me to the indoor courts at an exclusive, members-only country club. The air smelled of expensive cedar and fresh tennis balls. She stood behind me, her chest pressed lightly against my back, adjusting my grip on the racket. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Todd. “Are you at the racket club?” his voice came through the line, tight and demanding. I raised an eyebrow. The guy was like a phantom limb; an annoying, lingering itch. “What exactly do you want, Todd?” He immediately slipped into his victim voice. “Wow, what’s with the attitude? I’m just looking out for you, man. I don’t want you getting played.” “Sylvia isn’t playing me. Do us both a favor and stop calling.” I dropped the temperature of my voice to freezing and hung up. Sylvia stepped back, offering me a pristine white towel. She reached out, gently dabbing a bead of sweat from my temple. “Everything okay? Your roommate giving you grief?” I took the towel. “Yeah. Someone’s just losing his mind because my girlfriend is so far out of his league.” She let out a soft, breathy laugh and reached up to ruffle my hair. A split second later, a tennis ball whipped through the air, slamming hard into the space between Sylvia’s shoulder blades. She winced, her perfectly manicured brows knitting together as she spun around. Todd came jogging onto the court, his face a picture of exaggerated, frantic apology. “Oh my god, I am so, so sorry! I totally miscalculated the swing. Are you okay?” He leaned forward as he spoke. He was wearing a shirt unbuttoned halfway down his torso, making sure the slight flex of his chest was front and center. Sylvia raised an eyebrow. Her gaze swept over his face, lingering for a fraction of a second on his exposed chest, before settling into a look of absolute, glacial boredom. “I’m fine,” she said flatly. She grabbed my hand, turning to walk away. Todd lunged, grabbing her forearm. “No, please, I feel terrible. Let me get your number. At least let me buy you a new tennis skirt or dinner to make up for it.” Sylvia glanced down at his hand on her arm. A flicker of genuine disgust rippled through her eyes. “That won’t be necessary. I don’t give my number to strangers.” She turned back to me, the ice instantly melting from her features, replaced by a warm, honeyed gaze. “I’m sorry the vibe got ruined, baby. Let’s go. I’ll make it up to you tonight.” I smiled, casting a deeply satisfied look over my shoulder at Todd. He was rooted to the spot, his face a sickly shade of gray. My previous girlfriends would have politely declined him in front of me, sure. But I had always seen the hidden heat in their eyes. The secret thrill. And later, when I wasn’t looking, they always accepted his follow requests. Todd thought women were a monolith. He thought they were all the same. What a shame for him. This time, he’d run straight into Sylvia Dupont—a woman who couldn’t even be bothered to look at him twice. 3 I was extremely satisfied with Sylvia. Satisfied to the point where, for a fleeting moment, I almost believed she might actually be the exception. But sometimes, reality has a way of slapping you in the face when you least expect it. It happened on the day of the university’s theater rehearsals. I dropped by the auditorium to surprise her. I found her sitting in the dim lighting of the back rows, her shoulder pressed intimately against Todd’s. She was holding a plastic cup of iced coffee. She took a sip. Then, Todd leaned in, his lips wrapping around the exact same straw she had just used. He took a long drag. Without missing a beat, Sylvia took the cup back and drank from the very same straw. A violent, high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears. Sylvia glanced up and saw me. She froze for a fraction of a second. She followed my gaze, her eyes landing on the plastic straw. “Todd has low blood sugar,” she said smoothly, her voice completely even. “He almost passed out on stage twice. I just want to get through this rehearsal without holding up the entire cast.” With that, she shoved the rest of the iced coffee into Todd’s hands. “Finish it and get back on stage.” Todd took the cup. He took another agonizingly slow sip, locking eyes with me. A filthy, victorious smile spread across his face. “Your girl is a tough crowd, Rowan,” he whispered as he walked past me. “Takes a lot to get her pulse up.” He clapped my shoulder. “Looks like you finally found a keeper.” He walked away, his posture radiating the same arrogant swagger I’d seen a dozen times before. I stood paralyzed in the aisle, my heart hammering furiously against my ribs. I knew that look. That absolute, predatory certainty. I knew it intimately. Sensing the shift in my demeanor, Sylvia stood up and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Baby, don’t overthink this.” “The guy playing the lead got into a car accident. Todd stepped in at the last minute to save the production. It’s a favor I owe him, nothing more.” I nodded slowly, pulling her tightly against my chest. “Do you know… Todd has this thing about my girlfriends,” I murmured into her hair, letting my voice waver just enough. “He stole the last few. I’m just terrified that you’ll…” She squeezed me harder. “Hey. Look at me. The only man I love is you. Forever.” The words had barely left her mouth when her phone buzzed on the velvet seat. I caught a glimpse of the screen. A text from Todd. She glanced at it quickly, then pulled away from my embrace. “I have to get back to the crew. I’ll find you later, okay?” I watched her walk away, feeling my heart sink, millimeter by millimeter, into my stomach. I thought Sylvia was different. But it had barely taken a week for him to get her number. Over the next few days, Sylvia clearly sensed my manufactured depression. To cheer me up, she announced she was taking me out on her family’s yacht to introduce me to her inner circle of friends. I decided to play along and give her “one more chance.” The yacht was sprawling and extravagant, the teak deck lined with crystal champagne flutes and artisanal pastries. Sylvia paraded me around. “Everyone, this is my boyfriend, Rowan.” Her friends—a flock of polished girls in designer resort wear—smiled and offered polite, airy greetings. The vibe was decent enough. After the obligatory pleasantries, the conversation inevitably drifted to the Dupont family’s empire. “How’s the new pharmaceutical R&D coming along?” one of the girls asked. Sylvia’s flawless forehead creased. “We’ve hit a massive wall with one of the chemical synthesis stages. If I could just get a consultation with Dr. Alistair Roth, the cardiac specialist, we could push through. If this drags on any longer, all of our initial funding is going to vaporize.” Before the sentence was fully in the air, a familiar, grating voice chimed in. “Dr. Alistair Roth?” Todd strolled onto the deck, holding a glass of Moët, smiling like he owned the boat. “I know him,” Todd said smoothly. “My aunt is a senior pharmaceutical rep. She’s had dinner with Dr. Roth a bunch of times. If you need an intro, I can make it happen.” Sylvia’s head snapped up. A spark of genuine surprise—and calculation—flashed in her eyes. I stood slightly behind her, my fingers slowly curling into fists by my sides. Every ounce of Sylvia’s attention had been magnetically pulled to Todd. While they dove into a rapid, intense conversation about biotech connections, I quietly slipped my phone from my pocket. I opened a text thread with an unsaved number. “The fish took the bait. Execute the plan.”

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I have always lived in my own head. To keep my imagination sharp, I invented a new student named Chase. I talked about him every day, weaving him into conversations until my classmates got used to his presence. We’d joke about him, complain about his habits—he became a ghost that everyone thought was flesh and bone. But only I knew the truth: Chase didn’t exist. He was a phantom I’d conjured out of thin air to fill the silence of my own life. Until the day my homeroom teacher pulled me aside, her face a mask of grim severity. “Sophie,” she said, her voice dropping to a jagged whisper. “Did you hear? Chase is dead.” I froze. My mind went blank, a white-noise hum drowning out the hallway chatter. Chase? The boy I’d made up? How could a lie end up in a body bag? … It happened during third period on a Tuesday. Mrs. Lawson didn’t call my name from the doorway like she usually did. She walked straight to my desk and leaned down, her breath smelling faintly of peppermint and anxiety. “Step outside for a moment,” she murmured. She kept her voice low, a secret meant only for me. At that moment, I was sketching the profile of a character on the edge of my notebook—a sharp jawline, a slightly crooked nose. I instinctively flipped the page over before following her out. The hallway was a tunnel of sterile fluorescent light, empty and echoing. Mrs. Lawson walked to the window at the far end, shut it with a definitive click, and turned to face me. She was the kind of teacher who didn’t waste words. She taught AP Lit and valued precision. But that day, her eyes held something I couldn’t categorize. It wasn’t the look of a teacher about to scold a student or discuss a failing grade. It was the look of someone trying to figure out how to deliver a blow. She stayed silent for a few heartbeats, then asked, “Do you know someone named Chase? Chase Miller?” My heart skipped. Chase. That was the name I’d invented. My name is Sophie Hall. I’m a senior, and I’m a writer. Not the kind who just doodles in a diary, but the kind who actually tries to build worlds. I’d started posting a story on a serialized fiction site a few years back. Thirty thousand words in, I had exactly twenty-seven followers—five of whom were my own burner accounts. My mom told me I was wasting my time. She wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t stop. The problem with writing is that you need “material.” I’m not the kind of writer who can build a person from nothing. I’m a scavenger. I need a prototype, a spark of reality to steal. I take a stranger’s nervous twitch, a neighbor’s laugh, and graft them onto a fictional skeleton. So, I developed a habit. Every few months, I’d “create” a person. I’d build a complete backstory and then start feeding details about them to my classmates during lunch or before the bell rang. If people started talking about them like they were real, it meant my character work was solid. It was my own private lab. I’d done it at my last two schools without a hitch. This year, I was the new girl at a massive public high school. I was a ghost. People didn’t look up when I walked into the room. They didn’t notice when I left. My messages in the group chat went unread. In the yearbook photos, I was the girl in the back corner whose face was half-blocked by someone else’s shoulder. That feeling—that dull, persistent ache of being invisible—was what birthed Chase. I stole his profile from a guy I saw at a coffee shop: high bridge of the nose, a stubborn chin, ears that stuck out just a little too much. I stole his personality from a half-finished noir novel: quiet, but with a smile that felt like a reward. I gave him a hobby: basketball. But just saying “he plays basketball” was too thin. I gave him a flaw. A specific one. A nagging old injury in his left thigh that made him jump slightly to the right whenever he went for a dunk. He’d miss the rim, the ball would bounce off the edge, and he’d just shrug and trot back, unfazed. He was cocky but effortless. The first time I mentioned that detail to my lab partner, she actually laughed. “God, he sounds like such a dork,” she said. That was the first time in three months someone had looked me in the eye and engaged with me. I felt a tectonic shift in my chest. Something small, but real. I realized that Chase was my currency. So, I started investing in him. The details became more granular. He never used a straw because he liked the cold hit of the soda against his teeth. Every Friday after school, he’d go to the gas station and buy a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos—it was his ritual, win or lose. He was terrified of cats but claimed he was just “deathly allergic” because he was too proud to admit he was scared. Once, I told a girl that he’d borrowed my water bottle and drank from it without asking. She rolled her eyes and said, “Typical.” I realized then that the more real Chase became, the more real I became. People started asking about him. “How’s Chase’s leg?” “Did he ever get over the cat thing?” They remembered what I’d said the week before. For the first time, I wasn’t just Sophie Hall, the girl in the back; I was the girl who knew Chase. I knew it wasn’t healthy. I knew I was trading a lie for a sense of belonging. But I couldn’t stop. So, standing in that hallway, hearing Mrs. Lawson ask about him, my first reaction wasn’t fear. It was a bizarre, fleeting moment of confusion. “A body was found in the old industrial park near the tracks three days ago,” Mrs. Lawson said. “He didn’t have any ID on him. The police are running prints and checking missing persons reports.” She took a breath. “Some students mentioned that you’ve been talking about a ‘Chase’ recently. The police want to talk to you.” I stood there, paralyzed. Outside, on the courts, I could hear the rhythmic thump-thump of a basketball. Chase was a lie. He was a collection of stolen traits and imagined habits. He didn’t exist. How could he be lying on a cold floor in an abandoned warehouse? The police came the next morning. They set up in the conference room. The detective was young, wearing a generic suit and a neutral expression. He looked like he was just filling out forms. He asked me what my relationship was with Chase. I wanted to tell the truth. I wanted to say, He’s a character in a book I haven’t written yet. I made him up. None of it is real. But then I thought of my lab partner. I thought of the girls who finally sat with me at lunch. I thought of the three months of social progress that would vanish the moment I admitted I was a “weirdo” who talked to herself. I thought about the stares. The pity. The mockery. I opened my mouth, and I heard myself say, “We were… friends. Not super close, but we hung out.” The detective scribbled that down. I watched the tip of his pen move across the paper. It sounded like a door locking behind me. I had just lied to the police. Before this, it was a creative exercise. Now, it was an obstruction of justice. But I told myself it was just a coincidence. “Chase” was a common enough name. The dead boy couldn’t possibly be my Chase. I’d made him up from thin air. That night, I searched the news. The report was short. Male victim, early twenties. Found in an abandoned warehouse. Blunt force trauma to the head. Signs of a struggle. No ID. Identity pending. Twenty years old. That fit the age I’d given him. I stared at the screen until the words blurred. I told myself there were thousands of twenty-year-old guys in this city. It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t sleep until 3:00 AM. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the sound of my roommate shifting in the bunk above me, and my heart would hammer against my ribs. The police came back three days later. This time, it was an older detective. He had a manila envelope. He told me the victim’s face was badly bruised, but they’d reconstructed an image. He slid a photo across the table. It was a profile shot. High bridge of the nose. A stubborn, hard jawline. Ears that flared out just a bit at the tips. It was the exact face I’d “stolen” from that stranger in the coffee shop months ago. My skin went cold. It’s a common look, I told myself. Lots of guys look like this. I pushed the photo back. “I’m not sure,” I whispered. “It’s hard to tell.” The detective leaned in. “What did Chase like to do?” “Basketball,” I said. “Did he have any quirks? Anything specific about the way he moved?” I dug my nails into my palms under the table. I kept my face as blank as a fresh sheet of paper. “I don’t know. Like I said, we weren’t that close.” The detective nodded, flipped through his notes, and then looked me dead in the eye. “The guys he played ball with—the ones we tracked down at the park—said he had a weird habit when he dunked. He always landed to the right because of an old injury in his thigh.” He paused, letting the silence heavy the room. “You mentioned that exact detail to your classmates two weeks ago, Sophie. How did you know about an injury that wasn’t visible?” I felt the air leave my lungs. “I… I think he might have mentioned it once. In passing. I don’t really remember.” The detective didn’t push. He just stood up. “If you remember anything else, call us.” I walked out of that room and leaned against the lockers. The injury. The landing to the right. I had made that up. I’d added it because it felt “literary.” It made him feel flawed and human. But the dead boy really had that injury. The dead boy really played that way. That night, I took a piece of scrap paper and listed every detail I’d ever invented for Chase. Profile: Match. Thigh injury: Match. Dunking to the right: Match. Limp when tired: Unknown. Drinking without a straw: Unknown. Fear of cats: Unknown. Friday Cheetos: Unknown. I stared at the list until my hands shook so hard I couldn’t hold the pen. I folded the paper into a tiny square and shoved it into the back of my desk drawer, under a pile of old math tests. In the days that followed, the school turned into a pressure cooker. Whispers followed me. “She knew him,” they’d say. “She’s been talking about him for months, and now he’s dead. It’s creepy.” Others were more suspicious. “Maybe she knows more than she’s saying. Why is she being so quiet?” I didn’t defend myself. I just kept my head down. I found the girl I’d first talked to about Chase. I asked her, “Do you remember when I first mentioned him? Did you ever hear his name before that?” She thought for a second. “No. It was that one day in study hall. You just started talking about this guy you knew. Why?” “Just wondering,” I said. I felt a momentary relief. At least someone could prove the name came from me. I hadn’t overheard it. But that relief was incinerated forty-eight hours later. The police released a new update. They’d found a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos in the victim’s pocket. His friends told the police it was his “stress snack.” He bought a bag every Friday, win or lose. I sat on my bed, staring at my phone. Four out of seven. The fear wasn’t a sharp sting anymore; it was a cold weight, pulling me under. My mom called that night. She sounded worried. “You okay, honey? You sound tired.” “I’m fine, Mom. Just school stuff.” “Take a break, Sophie. Don’t push yourself too hard.” When I hung up, I cried. Not because I was sad, but because I was so incredibly lonely in this lie. Eventually, I went to the abandoned warehouse. I fought with myself for three days about it. Part of me knew it was a mistake. But the other part of me felt like there was a thorn in my brain, and the only way to get it out was to see the place where the lie became real. I took the bus to the edge of town. It was late afternoon, the sun casting long, jagged shadows across the cracked pavement. The yellow police tape was still there, fluttering in the wind. I stood outside the perimeter and looked at the gaping maw of the warehouse door. Near the entrance, there was a dark stain on the concrete. It wasn’t large, but it was deep, like the liquid had seeped into the very pores of the stone. I knew what it was. As I stood there, an image flashed in my mind. My Chase. The boy I’d built. He was on the court, jumping, missing the rim, laughing it off. He turned to look at me, a cocky smirk on his face. And then the image shattered. He never looked at me. He couldn’t. He wasn’t real. But the person who bled out on this concrete was real. He had a life, and a family, and a stupid habit of eating spicy chips when he was stressed. And somehow, my “fiction” had draped itself over his death like a shroud. I turned to leave, but a voice stopped me. “You here for the ghost story too?” It was an old man sitting on a crate near a fruit stand. “No,” I said. “Just passing through.” The old man nodded, not believing me. “A lot of noise that night. I was right here. I heard it.” I stopped. “Heard what?” The old man frowned, searching his memory. He muttered a few things under his breath, then looked up. “He called out a name. Just one. Called it out loud, then nothing but silence.” My blood turned to ice. “What name?” I whispered. “Chase,” the old man said. “He screamed ‘Chase,’ and then the world went quiet.” Chase. The name I’d pulled out of thin air. Someone had screamed it in the dark, right before a real man died.

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As I drifted into the freezing air, hovering in the liminal space between life and whatever comes next, I finally saw it: Benedict’s back. He was walking away, resolute and cold, leaving me behind in the snow. The bet had been a mistake from the very beginning. I couldn’t believe he had actually used my life—my fragile, failing heart—as the stakes for a wager on whether I could summit Mount Rainier. The altitude sickness had hit me like a physical blow. My head felt like it was being split by an axe, and my stomach turned over and over until I was retching nothing but bile. With trembling fingers, I tried to pull out my phone to send my location to my mom. I just wanted to go home. But Mallory reached out, her hand pinning mine down before snatching the device away. “There’s no signal up here, Grace. And look at you—you’re shaking so hard you’ll drop it. I’ll keep it safe for you,” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. Then, she turned to Benedict, her tone shifting to a playful pout. “Ben, maybe you should just admit defeat. I’ll buy everyone dinner tonight, and we can just pretend this climb never happened.” The flicker of hesitation in Benedict’s eyes vanished instantly. Instead, he shot me a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. “She’s fine. She’s just being dramatic because she can’t hack the climb. She’s nothing but a lead weight dragging us down.” I reached out to him, my hands covered in scrapes from the frozen shale, sobbing, begging him to take me back down. He just waved me off with an irritated flick of his wrist. “If you don’t make the summit today, don’t bother coming home,” he snapped. Then he whistled to the rest of the group. “Ignore her. She’ll crawl back to her feet and follow us once she realizes we aren’t coming back to fetch her.” I watched their silhouettes grow smaller and smaller against the blinding white of the peak. I collapsed into the snow, and this time, I didn’t get back up. Benedict, I’m sorry. I really can’t keep up with you this time. 1 Floating in the half-light, I looked down at the girl in the sleeping bag. Her face was buried deep in the down lining, only the tips of her fingers peeking out. Her fingernails were already a haunting shade of slate blue. “Grace!” The tent zipper hissed open, and a gust of biting wind rushed in. Benedict ducked inside, crouching beside me. He reached out and gave my shoulder a rough shove. “Get up. We’re moving out.” He stared at me for a few seconds, his jaw tightening as his expression darkened. “Grace Miller, are you seriously doing this right now? You’re going to play the silent treatment card here?” From outside, someone shouted for him. “Ben! Come on, we need to move!” Mallory’s voice drifted in. “Is Grace still in bed? The rangers said there might be a whiteout by noon. If we don’t leave now, we’re going to get stuck.” Benedict’s face twisted with further resentment at her words. When I still didn’t move, his voice turned into a low, cold hiss. “Stop being so goddamn selfish. This isn’t your house. No one is going to coddle you up here. Get. Up.” Mallory poked her head into the tent, leaning close to Benedict’s ear. Her voice was a conspiratorial whisper. “Ben, do you think she’s doing this on purpose? You know, so you’ll have to carry her the rest of the way? But everyone is waiting…” She let the sentence hang there, unfinished but toxic. Benedict’s eyes turned cold as stone. He grit his teeth and stood up abruptly. “Carry her? In her dreams.” He reached down, grabbed my heavy pack from beside the sleeping bag, and tossed it toward Mallory. “If she doesn’t want to get up, she doesn’t need this. It’s yours.” Mallory caught the bag, looking momentarily stunned. “But Ben…” Inside that bag was my entire life support—my thermal gear, my rations, and my emergency heart medication. “She wants to lie there? Let her lie there. Don’t waste the supplies on someone who won’t use them.” Mallory clutched the bag to her chest, casting a quick, sideways glance at my body in the sleeping bag. “What… what about Grace?” “If she wants to follow, she’ll follow. If not, to hell with it.” Mallory took a step forward, standing right over me. She purposefully brought the heavy lug of her hiking boot down on my exposed hand. She ground the sole into my blueish fingers, a slow, deliberate twist. “Oh! Oops, sorry, Grace! I didn’t mean to step on you. I was just trying to wake you up.” She lifted her foot, looking up at Benedict with wide, pathetic eyes. “I’m so sorry, Ben. I didn’t mean to. But she’s still not waking up? Her temper is just… wow.” At that moment, the other guys finished packing the gear and peeled back the tent flap. “Ben, where’s your little shadow?” Benedict let out a sharp, impatient snort. “She’s on strike. Playing dead because she wants attention.” He looked down at me one last time, a mocking sneer on his lips. He delivered a sharp kick to my shin. “Get up. The act is over.” I didn’t flinch. I didn’t move. Benedict’s fury peaked. His brow furrowed into that deep, jagged line—the one I had spent my whole life trying to smooth away. I had been terrified of that expression since we were children. Because of my heart condition, my parents used to leave me at the Sterling house when they had to work late. When Benedict was a young, restless boy, I was the anchor dragging him down. He couldn’t go out and play soccer with the other boys; he couldn’t spend all day running through the woods because he had to stay inside and watch over me. Every time his parents told him he couldn’t go out because of me, he would wear that exact expression. Back then, I was too young to understand his resentment. I would reach out with my small hands and try to rub the frown lines from his forehead. But I couldn’t reach him now. Benedict stood there, staring at my back, waiting for the punchline. Waiting for me to laugh or cry or scream. But I remained still. Losing the last shred of his patience, he kicked me again, harder this time. In the silence of the tent, I heard something snap. A clean, sharp sound, like a dry branch breaking in winter. “Fine, Grace. If you’re so committed to the performance, stay here. There’s a storm coming, and nobody here owes it to you to stay behind and play along with your tantrums.” When Benedict stormed out, Mallory lingered for one last look before ducking out after him. The sound of their footsteps faded into the distance. The wind began to howl, whipping through the gap in the tent zipper they hadn’t bothered to close. It blew across my face. My eyes were half-open, pupils dilated and fixed, a thick layer of frost already beginning to coat my lashes. From the ceiling of the tent, I watched Benedict’s back as he walked away without a single backward glance. Maybe he had wanted to do this for years. Outside, their voices grew faint, swallowed by the mountain. “Ben, how long do you think it’ll take her to catch up?” “Who cares.” “What if she doesn’t?” “Then she doesn’t.” “But what if something actually happens to her?” Benedict’s pace faltered for a fraction of a second, then he surged forward again, his strides lengthening. “Our parents have been worried that ‘something’ would happen to her for eighteen years. She’s still here, isn’t she? She’s tougher than she looks. It’s all a game.” His cold voice drifted away, buried by the roar of the wind. I knew then. He wasn’t coming back. 2 Just when I thought Benedict was gone for good, I saw him stop. He turned around and began striding back toward the tent. Watching him get closer, a flicker of genuine hope sparked in my hollow chest. He’s going to see. He’s going to realize I wasn’t lying this time. The wind whipped his Gore-Tex jacket, making it snap like a flag. My heart—or what was left of it—rhythmed with the sound. I remembered being kids. Every time I got tired and sat on the curb, refusing to move, he would walk a few paces ahead, turn around, and scowl. He’d threaten to leave me there in the middle of the street. I would burst into tears, terrified. But every single time, before he hit the ten-step mark, he would turn back. He would crouch down in front of me, his back turned, and tell me to get on. I’d wrap my arms around his neck, and he’d carry me all the way home, muttering about how I was “heavy as a rock” and how he’d “never do it again.” But he always did. It had been eight years since Benedict last carried me. He was almost at the tent now. Ten yards. Five. Three. He stopped just outside the flap. I waited for the realization. I waited for the grief. But he just stood there, looking down at the hand peeking out from the sleeping bag—the hand Mallory had stepped on. Suddenly, he let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Grace Miller, I knew it. You’re such a liar. Your hand wasn’t in that position five minutes ago!” I froze, looking at that frozen, bloodless hand. I wanted to scream at him. Benedict, no! I didn’t move! It was the wind! Mallory didn’t zip the tent, and the wind moved the bag! But no matter how hard I screamed, he couldn’t hear me. Benedict’s anger seemed to double. He reached down, about to grab my wrist to yank me out. “Ben?” The voice came from behind him. Mallory was jogging back, panting slightly as she stopped beside him. “Why did you come back?” Benedict pulled his hand back, turning to look at her. “I was just…” He trailed off, his ego getting the better of him. “I thought I left my gloves. But you’re right. Grace has been playing this game with me since we were in diapers. If I cave now, she wins. Maybe we should just call off the bet? I can go tell the guys I’m a coward who can’t handle his girlfriend’s moods.” The rest of the team started trekking back toward them. “No way, Ben,” one of the guys, Wade, called out. “If you back out now, you have to do the forfeit. You really want to walk through the middle of campus in a tutu shouting ‘I’m a pathetic loser’?” Another teammate chimed in, laughing. “Since when does Benedict Sterling let a woman push him around? Every time we tried to get you out to the bars, you used your ‘childhood sweetheart’ as an excuse. We finally get you out here, and you’re going to let her ruin the trip? That’s weak, man.” Under the weight of their mockery, Benedict’s face turned a dangerous shade of red. “Who said I’m calling it off? We’re short on tents as it is. If she wants to stay here and rot in this one, fine. But are you two planning on sleeping in the snow tonight?” He pointed at Wade and the other guy. The two men immediately shut up, rubbing their necks awkwardly. “Then get over here and tear this tent down. What are you waiting for?” They didn’t argue further. They knelt down and started pulling the stakes. Wade muttered under his breath, “Man, your girl is stubborn. She’s still not moving?” The other guy gave my sleeping bag a shove. Feeling the unnatural stiffness of my body, he chuckled. “Look at this. She’s actually tensing her whole body to stay still. That’s commitment. She should have gone to Juilliard.” “She probably thinks if she stays perfectly still, we’ll eventually give in,” Wade added. Benedict leaned down, ripping the final ground peg from the frozen earth. “Just drag the bag out,” Benedict said, not even looking at me. “If she doesn’t move, throw the bag and her with it.” “She’s been like this her whole life,” Benedict continued, his voice loud so I would ‘hear’ it. “The second things don’t go her way, she flops over. Her parents spoiled her, but I’m done with it.” Seeing Benedict’s resolve, the two men didn’t hesitate. They each grabbed an end of the sleeping bag. My body sagged in the middle as they lifted me. The guy at my head laughed. “Ben, she’s even tucking her head in so we can’t see her face. She’s terrified of breaking character.” He looked down at the bag. “Listen, Grace, you’re making Ben look bad. He bet he could get you to the top. Stop being a brat and think about him for once. Maybe if you act like a human being, he’ll actually carry you the last mile.” Benedict turned his back on me. “Stop talking to her. Just dump her out. Let’s see how long she lasts in the open air.” They hauled me over to a ridge, less than ten yards from a sheer drop-off, and dumped me. The wind whipped the fabric of the sleeping bag. Floating above, I looked down at myself. My face was half-buried in a snowdrift. If he had just touched my wrist for one second—just one second—he would have felt the silence of my pulse. He was so close. But he was miles away. 3 The wind shifted, and the blizzard descended with a sudden, violent fury. A wall of grey-white snow roared over the ridge. Panic erupted. The group scrambled to set up the remaining tents, six people cramming into a space meant for four, everyone shivering and coated in ice. Suddenly, Wade let out a yelp. “My pack! It’s gone!” In the chaos of the wind, the gust had swept several bags right off the ledge. Four of them were gone. They peeked out of the tent flap, squinting into the white nothingness. “Grace is gone too!” someone shouted. After confirming the sleeping bag was nowhere to be seen, the tent erupted in frantic accusations. Garrison, an older guy on the trip, slammed his gear onto the floor. “Goddammit! Did she take our supplies?” He glared at Benedict. Benedict stared at the tent wall, silent. Garrison shoved Benedict’s shoulder. “Your little girlfriend is a piece of work, Ben. She plays dead all morning, and the second we turn our backs, she loots the camp and bails?” Garrison’s voice rose to a scream. “Our rations are in those bags! We’re going to starve or freeze up here because of her!” Everyone turned to Benedict. “Ben, say something! Are you going to play the ‘silent and brooding’ routine now too?” Benedict kept his head down. His voice was barely a whisper. “She has a heart condition. She couldn’t have carried all those bags…” Garrison stood up, pointing a finger in his face. “Who are you kidding? If she has a heart condition, why did you bet her life on a mountain climb? This was a setup. You two planned this. She stole the gear, you brought her here. What’s the move, Sterling?” As the tension hit a breaking point, Mallory stood up, stepping between them. “Stop it!” She looked from Garrison to Benedict. “Even if Grace did take the bags, she’s a small girl. She couldn’t have gone far in this. We’ll find her when the snow lets up.” She turned around and opened the pack Benedict had given her earlier. She pulled out protein bars, energy gels, and a thermal space blanket. My things. My eyes felt heavy with a grief that had no tears. Mallory began distributing the items with practiced generosity. “The blizzard is bad. We need to keep our strength up. You can have mine.” The teammates softened. “Mallory… thank you.” “It’s fine,” she said with a sweet smile. “We’re a team.” Garrison took a bar, shooting Benedict a nasty look. “Mallory has ten times the heart that brat ever had.” No one disagreed. Suddenly, a small plastic bottle rolled out of the bag. My emergency pills. The bottle skittered across the floor and hit Benedict’s boot. He picked it up, his expression flickering with a brief, sharp pang of worry. “These are her meds. She never goes anywhere without them.” Mallory leaned over to look, letting out a small, mocking giggle. She took the bottle from him and twisted it open. She poured the contents into her palm. A dozen colorful, round candies spilled out. Skittles. “Ben, look. This isn’t medicine.” Mallory picked one up and shoved it into his mouth. “Taste it.” Benedict chewed slowly. His face went ashen, then turned a deep, bruised purple. Garrison barked a laugh. “So the whole ‘sick girl’ act was a total sham. She was carrying around a bottle of candy the whole time.” Another guy joined in. “I watched her huffing and puffing the whole way up, face turning pale, lips turning blue… she’s a hell of an actress. Ben, she’s been playing you for a fool for years.” Benedict’s hand crushed the plastic bottle. He hurled it against the tent pole. “You’re a moron, Benedict,” Garrison sneered. “A bottle of Skittles kept you wrapped around her finger for a decade. She played you, and now she’s out there with our food while we’re stuck in a hole.” “Because of her, we almost died today,” the other guy added, stoking the fire. “You owe us, Ben. You need to handle her.” I shook my head violently, screaming at him from the shadows of the tent. No! Benedict, no! Those were the pills! My mom put them in there so I wouldn’t be scared to take them! Benedict, I never lied to you! The wind outside began to die down. Benedict sat in the silence for a long time before he spoke. “Don’t worry. When the snow clears, we’ll find her.” He stared at the crushed bottle on the floor. “If she took your gear, I’ll make her pay for every bit of it.” The tent went cold. “I’ll be the one to hand her over to the police myself.” No one spoke. Mallory looked at him, the corner of her mouth twitching into the ghost of a smirk. I felt a strange, hollow peace wash over me. I drifted out of the tent, over to the ledge. The snow had buried everything. 4 Inside the tent, the six of them were still debating Benedict’s plan. Mallory shook her head gently. “I don’t know, Ben. Your families are so close. If you actually press charges, it’ll ruin everything between your parents. Maybe we just… teach her a lesson?” Garrison snorted. “A lesson? You think a lecture is going to change a girl like that?” Someone else suggested, “We just need to scare her. Give her a fright she’ll never forget so she never tries this crap again.” They all nodded, a silent, ugly consensus forming. Garrison spoke up again. “I say we each give her a slap. Ten across the face from everyone here. Let her feel exactly how much she screwed us over. It’s better than jail, but she’ll remember it.” He looked at Benedict. “She’s your girl, and she stole from us. You think ten slaps is too much?” Benedict looked up. His eyes were dead. “No. It’s not too much.” Garrison rubbed his hands together. “Good. I want to be first. I’ve been waiting all day.” A few nervous chuckles rippled through the tent. Two hours later, the storm broke. The group packed their gear and stepped out into the blinding sun. There was a commotion a few hundred yards away. A group of about a dozen hikers had gathered in a circle. Someone was handing out supplies. Benedict’s face hardened. He marched toward them. He shoved through the crowd, his voice a roar. “Grace Miller! You have some nerve! You steal our gear and then you have the gall to act like a—” His voice died in his throat. The person handing out the supplies was a young man in his early twenties. Behind him stood a group of college-aged kids. “Who the hell are you?” the young man asked, startled. “What’s your problem?” Benedict was panting, his eyes darting to the gear on the ground. “Where… where did you get this?” The boy frowned. “We found it. Over by the ridge. A bunch of packs were scattered in the snow, abandoned. We were passing through and figured we’d distribute the extras to people who lost their stuff in the storm. Is there a problem?” Benedict stared at him, his brain refusing to process the information. “Did a girl give these to you? Grace Miller? Where is she?” Garrison pushed forward, gesturing to my height. “A girl, nineteen, purple jacket. Did she give you these?” The boy rolled his eyes. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. We found the bags. They were just sitting there. We’re just trying to be good Samaritans, man.” Wade chimed in, desperate. “Did anyone come looking for them? Did you see anyone near the ridge?” “For the tenth time, NO!” the boy snapped. “The bags were just there. You guys are acting crazy. We’re done here.” Benedict didn’t say anything. Mallory reached out and tugged on his sleeve. Suddenly, a scream ripped through the thin mountain air. “OH MY GOD!” Everyone spun around. A hiker was scrambling away from a mound of snow a few hundred yards away, his face paper-white. “There’s… there’s a body!”

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The greatest mistake of my life wasn’t a single choice, but a man: Gideon Blackwood. I took three bullets for him. That was the price of my devotion. At eight months pregnant, the trauma triggered a forced labor that nearly turned into a death sentence. As the surgeons fought to stop the hemorrhaging, I slipped into a fever dream of white lights and muffled voices. In that hazy purgatory between life and death, I heard him. Gideon was just outside the recovery room, his voice a low, jagged rasp. His right-hand man, a fixer named Elias, sounded hesitant. “Boss, isn’t this too much? The shooters we hired… they’ve been ‘liquidated.’ But the girl…” “There was no other way,” Gideon’s voice was like a winter frost, devoid of the warmth he usually reserved for me. “Sylvia went into premature labor yesterday. Her baby survived, but she’s too fragile. The doctors say another pregnancy would kill her. I promised her that her child would be the Blackwood heir. The only way to secure that legacy was to swap them.” “But Elena…” Elias whispered, referring to me. “The trauma, the blood loss… the doctors say she might never conceive again.” A long, suffocating silence followed. I felt a phantom ache in my empty womb. “Elena is intuitive,” Gideon finally sighed, a sound of weary pity. “She only lets her guard down for me. I owe her everything for taking those hits. I’ll make it up to her. I’ll give her a life of luxury she never dreamed of.” I felt a single tear track through the dried blood on my temple, disappearing into my hair. When I finally opened my eyes, the world was cold. Beside my bed sat an incubator holding a tiny, stillborn shadow. But I am Elena Dennis, and I do not accept “compensation” for a stolen life. 1 The salt from my tears hadn’t even dried when the door swung open. Gideon stumbled in, looking every bit the grieving, frantic husband. He collapsed by my bedside, gripping my hand as if it were a lifeline. “Elena! Thank God, you’re awake.” I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. I simply turned my head, my gaze landing on the incubator. Gideon’s eyes followed mine. For a heartbeat, his mask slipped, showing a flicker of something dark and ancient before his voice broke. “Someone! Get… get the child out of here. Arrange the arrangements.” Elias stepped in, lifting the small, shrouded bundle. He moved quickly, as if afraid the silence would scream at him. I watched that bundle until the door clicked shut. That wasn’t my son. Where is my son? I bit the tip of my tongue, the sharp tang of copper keeping the questions from bursting out. Gideon brought my freezing hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles with a reverence that used to make my heart skip. I knew this move. In the second month of our marriage, when he stayed out until dawn and broke our first real promise, he did this. He’d lean in, whispering sweet, honeyed lies into my ear until I melted. “Forgive me, baby. I messed up.” He’d done it after every late-night “meeting,” every unexplained bruise, every time he made me feel small. His thumb traced the line behind my ear, his touch precise and agonizingly tender. I fought the urge to vomit. I didn’t pull away. “Elena… the doctors said the damage was severe. You won’t be able to carry again.” He paused, his voice thick with a performance of guilt. “This is all my fault.” I lay there, a statue of a woman. I felt the wet heat of his tears hitting the hollow of my neck. “Listen to me,” he whispered, his eyes bloodshot and intense. “You are my wife. My only legal wife. Always. Even without a biological heir, we’ll adopt from the extended family. I will ensure you live in splendor. No one will ever touch you. I’ll protect you for the rest of your life.” I looked into his face—the sharp jaw, the eyes I had memorized during a thousand high-stakes nights. I used to think he was the most beautiful thing in this cruel world. But the words from the hallway were nailed into my brain. The gunshot wounds in my abdomen were burning, a rhythmic, pulsing fire. Yet, the physical pain was nothing compared to the cold realization of his betrayal. I turned my hand over, threading my fingers through his. “Gideon…” I buried my face in his palm, my entire body shaking with a simulated fragility. “I have no one left but you.” Gideon stiffened for a second, then let out a long, shuddering breath of relief. He pulled me into his arms, his hold firm but careful to avoid my stitches. “I swear to you, Elena. If I ever fail you, if I ever turn my back on you, let the world tear me apart. Let me die a dog’s death, alone and forgotten.” I nodded against his chest, a ghost of a smile touching my lips. Gideon, honey… you’d better remember that vow. 2 Gideon didn’t leave my side for two weeks. He canceled board meetings, ignored urgent wires from the overseas branches, and stayed in that sterile room. He personally blew on my soup to cool it; he washed my skin with warm water. If I hadn’t heard the truth, I would have believed I was the most loved woman in the world. One afternoon, after he finished tucking the blankets around me, he hesitated. “Elena.” His gaze shifted to the window. “Sylvia…” The name felt like a shard of glass in my ear. Two years ago, Gideon tried to bring Sylvia into our main estate. I’d smashed a crystal vase and locked the gates. We’d stood on opposite sides of the door all night. The next morning, he was on his knees, begging: “She’s fragile, Elena. The doctors say she only has a few years left. She’s the widow of my best friend—it was his dying wish that I look after her. My heart belongs to you, I swear it.” I believed him. I let her stay. But soon, the South Wing villa became the most expensive, most guarded part of the estate. She didn’t die; she thrived. She became the “Golden Girl” of the Blackwood empire, the secret treasure Gideon kept just out of my reach. I had ignored her existence to preserve my sanity, but I knew I’d lost half of my husband long ago. And now, she had stolen the other half—my child. “She had a boy a few days ago,” Gideon said, his voice laced with a strange, hopeful lilt. “We named him Leo.” He finally looked at me, searching for a reaction. “I want to hold a gala. Give her a formal position within the household staff to explain her presence. But more importantly… I want to put Leo in your name. Make him the Blackwood heir. Your son, on paper. You can raise him as your own. It would be… a way to heal.” My son. The boy I carried for eight months. He told me he was dead, handed him to his mistress, and now he was offering him back to me as an act of “charity.” A consolation prize for the grief he caused. Slowly, I pulled my hand out of his. “And if I say no?” The warmth vanished from his face instantly. “Sylvia has had a hard time,” he said, his voice hardening, his brow furrowed. “She’s naturally weak. This birth nearly killed her.” He tried to grab my hand again, but I moved it. “You’re healing, Elena. You made it through. Our child is gone… think of this as a way to honor that loss. Be the bigger person. Accept the boy.” This man… he was a stranger. I remembered the Gideon who once burned down a rival’s warehouse because they insulted my family’s humble background. The Gideon who drove three hundred miles through a blizzard to get me medicine when I had the flu. The Gideon who cried when I pricked my finger on a rose thorn… where did he go? “I don’t agree,” I said firmly. Gideon’s face darkened, settling into a cold, corporate mask. “Perhaps I’ve spoiled you too much. You’re becoming small-minded, Elena. Selfish.” 3 He didn’t wait for my answer. The door opened, and Sylvia walked in. She was dressed in a flowy white silk dress, her face pale, her steps dainty and performative. Beside her, a nurse carried a bundle wrapped in blue. I gripped the bedsheets until my knuckles turned white. Sylvia dropped to her knees by my bed. “Elena… please. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought him here while you’re hurting. But the baby is innocent… please, have mercy on us!” She leaned forward, her forehead striking the tile floor with a sickening thud. A small cut opened on her brow. Gideon lunged across the room, pulling her up and shielding her behind him. “Elena, look at her! She’s debasing herself for you. What more do you want?” He hissed, his eyes flashing with genuine anger. “The whole household is watching. Do you want everyone to think the Mistress of Blackwood is a cruel, heartless woman?” I stared at the blue bundle behind his back. I swallowed the bitterness in my throat. “You’re right, Gideon,” I whispered. “I agree.” Sooner or later, I will take what is mine. Three days later, the Blackwood estate was ablaze with lights. Gideon didn’t give me time to recover. The moment I “consented,” the invitations were out. The lawyers, the caterers, the dressmakers—everything was finalized in seventy-two hours. I wasn’t even out of my post-op recovery period when two female guards hoisted me out of bed and squeezed me into a blood-red evening gown. The medical binder was cinched tight over my incision, the pain so sharp I felt sweat soaking my silk slip. I gritted my teeth, waiting for the “Legacy Toast.” It was an old-school tradition in his circle—the passing of the torch. Sylvia entered the grand hall on Gideon’s arm. When my eyes landed on her, the air left my lungs. Around Sylvia’s neck hung a necklace—a heavy, teardrop ruby that looked like a drop of congealed blood. The Blackwood Heirloom. For a hundred years, that piece had been worn only by the matriarch of the family. Gideon had fought the board of elders for months to let me, a woman with no pedigree, wear it. He’d taken thirty lashes in the private family court and knelt all night in the rain to prove my worth to them. The day he placed it on my neck, his back was still bleeding. He had told me: “One life, one love, Elena.” Now, the necklace had been polished and shortened to fit Sylvia. It turns out, “forever” can be resized. Gideon placed a hand on Sylvia’s waist. She knelt on the red carpet before my chair, offering a porcelain tea set. “Sister, please… accept this offering.” I suppressed the urge to scream. I reached out slowly. My fingers were inches from the cup when Sylvia’s hand suddenly spasmed. “Ah!” The scalding tea splashed over her hand. Her skin turned angry red instantly. “If you didn’t want it, you could have just said so… why would you burn me?” She sobbed, her eyes welling with tears as she looked up at Gideon. Gideon’s face turned livid. He stepped forward and backhanded the tea set off the table. The hot liquid splashed my own hand, stinging like a hive of hornets, but he didn’t notice. He was already pulling Sylvia into his arms. “Elena! She just gave birth! She’s weak, and you’re still trying to break her?” His voice boomed, drowning out the music. He seemed to forget that I, too, was fresh from the operating table. “You’re the wife! You have the title! She’s just looking for a place to survive—she’s no threat to you. Why are you so damn malicious?” Gideon’s shouting woke the baby in the nurse’s arms. The infant’s cry pierced the room. My body acted before my brain. I slid off the sofa, my hand reaching for the child. “My baby…” Crack. A hand slammed into my wrist, sending me spinning to the floor. The impact tore my incision open. I felt the warm, wet rush of blood spreading across my white silk trousers. Gideon stood over me, his eyes momentarily flickering with panic as he saw the red stain, but Sylvia chose that moment to whimper. “Gideon… it hurts… will it scar?” The hand he had started to reach toward me curled into a fist and pulled back. “You went too far today, Elena. You’re clearly not in your right mind. You’ll stay at the North Lodge until you learn some goddamn humility.” He turned his back on me. He lifted Sylvia into his arms and walked out. The heavy oak doors slammed shut. The pain in my abdomen was a roar, but the pain in my heart was a silent, killing frost. My assistant, Jade, found me an hour later, shivering in a pool of my own blood. When we reached the isolated North Lodge, I pulled a burner phone from my bag and dialed a number I had memorized years ago. 4 After the call, I was left in the derelict North Lodge. The house was a relic—damp, drafty, and neglected. The food they brought was cold. My antibiotics were “forgotten.” No one came to change my dressings. I was being erased. Until Sylvia showed up. She dismissed the guards and walked in alone, carrying the baby. There were no tears now, no “sisterly” affection. “A bit rustic, isn’t it?” she sneered, looking around the peeling wallpaper. “If you stay quiet, I’ll make sure Gideon keeps you fed. You won’t starve.” I watched her, my eyes cold. She shifted the baby, dangling him in front of me like a taunt I couldn’t touch. “Everyone says he looks just like me,” she lied, her voice dripping with venom. “Gideon agrees. He’s mine now. He eats from my breast; he calls me Mama. In a few months, no one will remember whose belly he actually came from.” She leaned in close, her face twisting into a mask of pure spite. “Look at him, Elena. You almost died for him, and yet, he’s mine. What are you going to do about it?” My resolve snapped. I lunged for the child. “Give him to me!” She stepped back, but her heel caught on the rug. She pitched forward. The baby’s bundle hit the edge of the bed with a dull thud, and his screams filled the room. “Elena! How could you!” Sylvia’s eyes turned red instantly. She clutched the baby, sobbing hysterically as the door burst open. Gideon stormed in. He took one look at Sylvia crying and me trembling on the bed. “Elena Dennis! Are you out of your mind?!” He roared. “I thought you were reflecting, but you’re so possessed by hate you’d hurt an innocent child?” “I didn’t… she tripped…” I tried to gasp. He didn’t listen. He swung his hand, the slap echoing like a gunshot in the empty room. My head snapped to the side, blood blooming in the corner of my mouth. “I didn’t do it…” Gideon saw the moisture in my eyes, and for a split second, he wavered. But Sylvia’s sobs grew louder. His lingering affection was incinerated by rage. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Stop playing the victim! If you hadn’t attacked her, she wouldn’t have fallen!” My incision screamed as he jolted me. I felt the world spinning. “Gideon… please… it hurts…” His eyes remained icy. “You brought this on yourself. Don’t play these games with me anymore. Stay here and rot until you learn your place.” He slammed the door so hard the walls shook. For the next two days, no food or water arrived. No one changed my bandages. I lay in the dark, the fever rising, waiting for the end. Then, a flash of white light blinded me as the front door was kicked in. Later, after Gideon had calmed Sylvia down, my face kept flashing in his mind. The silence from the North Lodge was too heavy. He felt a sudden, inexplicable gnaw of anxiety. When he arrived at the lodge, the stillness chilled him. He quickened his pace. When he burst into the bedroom and saw the sheer amount of blood soaked into the mattress, he froze. “ELENA!!”

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