Eight months ago, I was ecstatic. I thought my wife’s rejection of her old flame meant that I had finally, truly become the only one she would ever lean on. That day, the man had shown up with a terminal diagnosis, crying and begging my wife to have his child. She had simply looked at him with cold indifference, said, “The man I love is Luke,” and turned right into my arms. Not long after, my wife told me the company was sending her overseas to launch a new market. She’d be gone for a year. As much as I hated the thought of it, I smiled and helped her pack, reminding her to take care of herself. Until today—our wedding anniversary. I flew across the ocean to surprise her, to give her the grand romantic gesture she deserved. But the moment I pushed open the door to her apartment, I saw her. She was holding the arm of that same old flame, her belly so round with pregnancy it was impossible to miss, a radiant smile on her face. The so-called business trip, I realized, was nothing but a perfectly crafted lie so she could have a baby for the man she’d supposedly left behind. 1 I let out a bitter, silent laugh and tossed the carefully chosen gift I was holding into the nearest trash can. “Honey, happy eighth anniversary. I’m so sorry I can’t be there to celebrate with you.” It was my wife, Ava, calling. I stood there in silence for a moment before I could manage to speak. “It’s okay.” “I’ll make it up to you when I get back, I promise,” she said, her voice bright. “I have a huge surprise for you.” You already have. I watched as Ava leaned her entire body against her old flame, Daniel, her face a picture of pure happiness. The sight was a knife in my gut. “Honey, this trip is exhausting,” she went on. “The workload is insane, it never ends.” Still lying. My hand tightened around my phone. When we first got married, Ava told me that the greatest poison to a relationship was deceit. “Honey,” she’d said, “if you ever stop loving me, you have to tell me. Don’t lie. Don’t hurt me.” And yet, here she was, lying to me, hurting me more than I ever thought possible. The air felt thick, heavy. I couldn’t breathe. “Honey? Are you still there?” I tilted my head back, fighting to keep the tears from falling. My voice came out as a strained rasp. “Just got caught up with work.” I heard her sigh in relief on the other end. “Okay, well, I won’t keep you then. Love you, honey!” The line went dead. I watched as Daniel helped her into a car, his arm wrapped protectively around her. The moment the car door closed, the tears I’d been holding back finally streamed down my face. I didn’t understand. Why lie? Don’t lie, don’t hurt me. Weren’t those her words? I took a taxi back to the airport. I had arrived full of hope. I left in utter despair. A message from Ava popped up on my phone: [Honey, I bought you a gift. It’s that new gaming console you wanted. It’s already been shipped home.] I typed back a single letter: [K] Was this guilt? Was she trying to buy my forgiveness after the fact? What a joke. When I got back, I threw myself into my work, staying at the office until the early hours of the morning. My coworkers joked that I was trying to rack up overtime pay to buy Ava an extravagant welcome-home present. They had no idea I was just trying to work myself to exhaustion, to numb the part of my brain that wouldn’t stop thinking about her. I first met Ava at her father’s funeral. She didn’t cry. She just stood there, staring blankly as they lowered the casket into the ground. Seeing her like that, my heart ached. I walked over and offered a few clumsy words of comfort. What happened next surprised everyone, including me. She attached herself to me. When I was at work, she’d find any excuse to be near my desk, inventing elaborate reasons to just hang around. On weekends, she’d drag me out to dinner, to go shopping, to see movies. She just bulldozed her way into my life. Finally, I had to ask her why. “Everyone else who gets close to me just sees a pretty face,” she’d said. “Their intentions are never pure. But you’re different. I can feel it. You genuinely care about me.” “My dad’s gone, and my mom is always working. I just… I really wanted someone in my life who truly, genuinely cared.” 2 “Luke, would you be that person for me?” Looking at the raw hope in her eyes, I couldn’t help but smile. I held out my hand. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Luke.” She beamed. It was a smile that lit up her entire face. After that day, we became inseparable. She told me everything. She shared her joys when she was happy and confessed her fears when she was sad. We explored every corner of the city together. A coworker pulled me aside once and warned me not to get too attached, telling me she had an old flame she could never quite get over. I just smiled. It didn’t matter. I only saw her as a friend. But the more time I spent with her, the more my heart went out to her. Her father was gone, her mother was a workaholic, and everyone else around her was only interested in her looks. She didn’t have a single real friend in the world. She deserved to be loved. Later, her mother was in a car accident. On her deathbed, she grabbed my hand. “Luke, I can see it. You genuinely care for Ava, and I am so grateful you came into her life.” “Her father is gone, and now I’m going too. I can’t bear the thought of leaving her all alone in this world.” “Luke, can you promise me you’ll always take care of her?” How could I refuse a dying mother’s last wish? Ava and I got married. After the wedding, I devoted myself to her. I gave her all the love I had. I practically split myself in two, balancing a demanding job with my determination to build a happy home for her. Sometimes, when I’d mention how tired I was, she’d give me a playful smile and start massaging my shoulders. “God was so good to me,” she’d say. “He brought you into my life.” “Honey, it’s going to be you and me, forever.” But she was the first to break that promise. She was the one who shattered everything. I saw her again two months later. She and Daniel were walking out of the airport, and she was holding a baby. “Honey, Daniel adopted this baby overseas! Isn’t he just adorable?” she said with a bright smile. I couldn’t smile back. I just nodded numbly. Daniel chimed in, a smug grin on his face. “I ran into Ava abroad. She saw how much I was struggling to care for the baby on my own and insisted I come back with her. She said she could help me out.” I ignored the challenge in his eyes and turned to Ava. She couldn’t meet my gaze. She looked down and mumbled, “Daniel’s a single dad, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. We have a spare room, so I thought he and the baby could stay with us. That way we can help out when we have time.” I just stared at her, speechless. That house was our home, the sanctuary we had built together. And she wanted him to live in it. The knife in my gut twisted again. My voice was a croak when I finally managed to speak. “Fine.” Ava’s face broke into a relieved smile. “Honey, I knew you’d understand! You’re the best!” I forced a smile of my own. It wasn’t that I was the best. It was that in that moment, my heart had shattered completely. I just didn’t care anymore. That night, as we were getting ready for bed, Ava said, “You go ahead and sleep, honey. The baby might get fussy tonight, I’ll come back after I get him settled.” I waited all night. She never came back. The next morning, she had an excuse ready. “The baby cried all night long. He didn’t fall asleep until dawn. Look, I have dark circles under my eyes.” “Yeah, Ava was a real lifesaver last night,” Daniel added, his tone dripping with provocation. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without her. You’re not going to get the wrong idea, are you, Luke?” I said nothing. I just turned and started making breakfast. “Honey, the baby’s one-month celebration is in a couple of days. I was thinking of helping Daniel throw a little party. What do you think?” My hand paused over the cutting board. “Fine,” I said, my face a blank mask. “Thanks, honey!” Ava exclaimed, and immediately went to discuss the party details with Daniel. 3 Watching them, I pressed my lips into a thin, hard line. Every time I gave in, every time I stepped back, Ava just pushed the boundaries further. Maybe she’d gotten used to it. After all, since the day we got married, I had always been the one to compromise. I believed that in a marriage, one person had to be the one to yield. Two strong-willed people would never last. Since she wouldn’t be the one to bend, I would. But everyone has a breaking point. And I had reached mine. This time, I wouldn’t back down. This time, I was letting go. On the day of the baby’s party, Ava invited a crowd of guests. It was a huge affair. Her best friend cooed, “Ava, the baby looks just like you! You have the exact same eyes.” Ava’s expression flickered with panic. “Don’t be silly. You can’t tell who babies look like when they’re this young.” She turned to me, offering a rushed explanation. “Honey, don’t listen to her. Daniel adopted him. I’ve just been taking care of him so much, maybe he’s starting to look a little like me.” “You know what they say,” she added with a nervous laugh, “a baby starts to look like the person who spends the most time with them.” I just smiled, saying nothing. Honestly, she didn’t need to explain. During the party, Daniel raised his glass to me. “Luke, a toast. I want to thank you for letting me and my son stay in your home, and for letting Ava help take care of him.” He downed his glass in one gulp. “I’ll drink to that. You do what you want.” All our friends were looking at me. I stayed seated. That place wasn’t my home anymore. And as for Ava, soon enough, she would be out of my life too. “Honey, Daniel’s toasting you,” Ava said, her tone chiding. “I have things to do later,” I said calmly. “I can’t drink.” Ava’s face clouded over. “What could be so important? Today is the baby’s celebration. Daniel is trying to thank you, and you won’t even drink with him? You’re just going to sit there looking miserable?” She walked over, picked up my glass, and held it out to me. “Fine. Then I’ll toast you. You can at least drink to that, can’t you?” I stared at her, my voice quiet. “Have you forgotten? I’m allergic to alcohol.” Ava froze. She quickly apologized. “Oh my god, honey, I’m so sorry. I forgot.” But she never used to forget. Every time I had a business trip or a dinner with clients, she would remind me, again and again, not to drink. Daniel smoothly stepped in. “Well, if Luke can’t drink, he can’t drink. My mistake. I didn’t know about your allergy. I’ll drink one for you as an apology!” I looked at him with cold eyes. Ava bit her lip. “Honey, are you angry?” “No.” I looked down. Ava let out a sigh of relief. “Honey, I really did just forget. It won’t happen again.” “Mm.” As the party wound down, everyone gathered around the baby, showering him with praise. Ava was beaming. “Honey, come look!” she called, waving me over. I shook my head. “There’s no need.” “Why not?” she frowned. “Don’t you like children?” She ran over and grabbed my arm. “Come on, just take a look. You’ll love him. Our kids will be this cute one day.” “We’re not going to have children.” “What?” Ava stopped, stunned. I looked up, my gaze steady and calm. “I said, we’re not going to have children. I’ve already drawn up the divorce papers.” “Ava, let’s get a divorce.” She just stared at me, her face a mask of shock. I didn’t look at her again. I stood up to leave. “The papers are at the house. I’ll go home first. You can sign them when you get back.” “Stop right there!” Ava finally found her voice, shouting at my back. “Luke, you explain yourself! What did I do wrong? Why do you want to divorce me? Is it just because I let Daniel and his adopted son stay with us?”

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1 Three years gone at the Boston branch. At the New Year’s HQ conference, the Chairman praised me for doubling Boston’s profits, calling me a hero. He turned to my girlfriend, Isabelle, joking that after our seven years together, she should finally transfer me back so we could marry. My heart soared. The grind was about to pay off. I was coming home. But Isabelle, all business, announced, “Liam transfers to HQ. Noah stays in Boston.” She said Liam needed HQ experience for his future, then looked at me, her voice soft but firm. “Noah, you’re the bigger person. You wouldn’t want me accused of favoritism, right?” The room fell silent. Liam took the transfer order, trying to hide his gleam. “Isabelle, is this right? Noah’s waited three years…” She ignored him, leaning in. “You understand, don’t you? Boston and New York aren’t far. I’ll visit every weekend, bring you those macarons you love.” I looked at the paper in Liam’s hand, the one that should have been mine. A cold numbness settled in. I nodded. “You’re right. Professionalism first.” But Isabelle, the distance between our cities had never felt greater. And that promised return journey? I’m done waiting for it. … When the meeting broke, the New York sky was a heavy, oppressive gray. Everyone else had the good sense to clear out quickly, but Liam clutched a folder to his chest and scurried over to Isabelle, a triumphant glint in his eye, though he feigned shyness. “Isabelle, thank you so much for this opportunity. I just… I hope Noah won’t get the wrong idea…” Isabelle didn’t even look up at him, her fingers still tracing patterns on the back of my hand. “This was a company decision. It has nothing to do with my personal life.” Her tone was distant, professional. “Noah sees the big picture. He’s not going to get flustered like you.” Liam shot a quick glance at me before bowing his head. “Yes, of course. I’ll work hard. Noah… I guess you’ll have to hold down the fort in Boston.” I said nothing, just silently pulled my hand away from hers. Only when Liam was gone did Isabelle slowly rise to her feet. She shrugged off her coat and draped it over my shoulders. “Are you angry?” she asked. “Liam is fresh out of college, he’s inexperienced. A structured training program at HQ is the only way he’ll grow. He’ll go back to Boston eventually. Think of it this way, I’m forging a top-tier asset for you.” I didn’t argue. I just picked up my briefcase and stood up. She rushed to my side, taking the case from my hand. “Come on, I’ll drive you to your hotel.” In the underground parking garage, as soon as I got in the car, Isabelle produced a small, elegant box of macarons. “I had someone wait in line for these.” She broke a piece off and held it to my lips. But for the first time, I didn’t open my mouth. “I’m not hungry.” She awkwardly pulled her hand back and reached across me to buckle my seatbelt. As she leaned in, I caught the scent of the woody perfume I’d given her last year. But my eyes were drawn to something else. A fluffy blue charm was looped around the seatbelt strap. She paused for a second, then smoothly plucked it off. “Ugh, that kid, Liam. He was in my car yesterday to pick up some files and complained the belt was chafing his neck. He put this on.” She tossed the blue fluff into the glove compartment with an exasperated sigh. “Honestly, he’s such a handful. Boys and their silly little trinkets.” The glove compartment. That’s where I used to keep my allergy pills. Now, my small bottle was shoved into a corner, crowded out by a half-eaten roll of mints, liquor-filled chocolates, and a mini Funko Pop. All of them, if I recalled correctly, were Liam’s favorites. My mind flashed back to those thousand-plus days in Boston. To see her, I’d work through Thursday night at the office, plow through a full day’s worth of files on Friday, just so I could catch the last flight to New York before 6 p.m. Sometimes, thunderstorms delayed the flight, and I’d be stuck at the airport until dawn. She always used to say, “Noah, we’re so far apart. You really don’t have to fly out so often.” At the time, I thought she was worried about me. Now I understood. Maybe she was just afraid I’d walk in on the cozy nest she was building for someone else. Isabelle, oblivious to the storm brewing inside me, started the car. “Have you booked your flight back? I can’t take you to the airport tomorrow. I have to show Liam around the different departments, get him settled in.” She said it so casually, and it hit me then. She’d long since accepted me going to the airport alone as a matter of course. I turned my head to look at her, my voice quiet but clear. “Isabelle, I’ve bought 157 round-trip tickets between Boston and New York. Every single one of them ended with you.” I let that hang in the air for a moment. “But before my mom passed, she told me if you knock on a door for seven years and it doesn’t open, it’s time to find a new path.” Isabelle slammed on the brakes. She reached over and pinched my cheek, a forced smile on her face. “She was just worried about you, Noah. She didn’t mean it. Look, I’ll reimburse you for all the tickets. And I meant what I said in the meeting, from now on, I’ll be the one flying to you. No more exhausting trips for you, okay?” She unwrapped one of the chocolates from the glove box and pushed it into my mouth. A sweetness that was never meant for me melted on my tongue. “Be good,” she murmured. “Don’t start a fight now. Once the Boston project is wrapped up, I promise, I will bring you home.” The car stopped in front of the hotel, but Isabelle didn’t even kill the engine. She glanced at her watch, then at me. “Noah, I really am swamped this afternoon. You go on up and get some rest.” She leaned closer, intending to smooth a stray lock of hair from my temple. I flinched back, almost a reflex. “Isabelle. Seven years was the deal. If you can’t do it, I’m done waiting.” She let out a short, cold laugh. “Don’t be silly, Noah. Boston is damp, remember to take your medicine.” The next morning, I was back at headquarters. When the head of HR saw my marriage leave application, he blinked in surprise, then a knowing grin spread across his face. “Congratulations, Noah! Ten days, approved. I knew it. Figured Isabelle was just posturing yesterday. One night with you setting her straight, and she’d be begging you to marry her.” The colleagues who overheard his not-so-subtle teasing spread the news like wildfire. Within half an hour, the entire company knew. In the breakroom, a few senior managers I knew well clapped me on the shoulder. “About time you two made it official, Noah. Don’t forget to invite us to the wedding!” I just offered a polite smile, neither confirming nor denying anything. “I’ve still got some work to hand off. We’ll talk later.” I went to deliver one last report to the Chairman’s office. Before I even reached the door, I saw something through the crack that made the air catch in my throat. In the adjoining executive office, Liam was standing in front of Isabelle’s desk, wearing a thin white shirt, almost transparent under the office lights. Isabelle was focused entirely on him, her fingers patiently redoing the buttons. It seemed he’d buttoned it wrong. “This shirt isn’t appropriate for the office. Don’t wear it again,” she chided, but her eyes held a softness I had never seen before. Liam smiled, leaning closer, his posture intimate. “But I wanted you to see me in it.” Isabelle sighed, but it was fond. She playfully tapped his nose. “I was trying to forge a top-tier asset, not raise a little troublemaker.” A bitter smile touched my lips. I raised my hand and knocked on the door. The two of them sprang apart. When Isabelle saw it was me, the warmth on her face instantly vanished. “Noah? What are you still doing here? Shouldn’t you be on a flight back to Boston?” She saw the report in my hand and let out a breath of relief. “Oh, you had another report to drop off. You could have just had Liam grab it.” Isabelle reached for it, but Liam was faster, snatching it from my grasp. “Noah, I can handle this. Isabelle was just saying how quick I am on the uptake and what a good job I’m doing.” Isabelle nodded. “Liam’s right, Noah. He’s a natural.” For a moment, they looked like the perfect mentor and mentee. Just then, the Chairman pushed the door open. He boomed with laughter as he walked in. “Isabelle, this is fantastic! Noah’s marriage leave application just landed on my desk. So, are you two lovebirds getting married in Boston or here in New York? We have to make sure our company’s golden couple has a wedding to remember!” Isabelle’s hand froze mid-air. She looked up at me, her expression shifting from shock to pure rage. “Chairman, nothing’s set in stone yet. You know how rumors are, hahaha.” The Chairman, sensing the sudden tension, awkwardly cleared his throat and made a quick excuse to leave. The moment the door clicked shut, Isabelle was on her feet, stalking toward me. “You’ve got some nerve, Noah. Submitting a marriage leave application! What is this, are you trying to force my hand? I thought you were the career-driven one! When did you become the kind of man who resorts to this kind of pressure?” Her voice was sharp, accusatory. From the side, Liam let out a perfectly timed gasp. “Noah, you applied for marriage leave? But… Isabelle is supposed to take me to scout a new site this afternoon. She won’t have time to help you with wedding plans.” Isabelle shot me a look of pure disgust and swept the coffee mug off her desk. It shattered on the floor. It was the one I’d had custom-made for her. “Liam, I’m sorry you had to see that. This afternoon’s schedule is unchanged. You can go get ready.” Liam’s eyebrow quirked up, and he shot me a smirk full of meaning. “Of course, Isabelle. I’ll see you at the usual spot.” With that, he was gone. Isabelle’s voice softened, but the edge was still there. “Noah, drop these pathetic little schemes. My career is taking off right now. I will not let my personal life derail my plans. Either you take this leave and go on a vacation—my treat—or, if you’re so set on getting married, you can go find yourself another bride.” I didn’t back down like I always did. I met her cold gaze. “Fine. You said it, not me.” It was the most peaceful week I’d had in years. I almost forgot Isabelle even existed. She didn’t contact me for days, clearly waiting for me to break, for me to send the usual flood of panicked, apologetic texts. But I was enjoying the quiet. I even took a walk along the shore, feeling the sea breeze on my face for the first time in ages. I’d always preferred New York. The wind here was gentle, caressing. Not like Boston’s, which was always damp and carried a sense of brokenness. My three years there, I was always a stranger, an outsider. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, the only thing in my ears the echo of promises Isabelle had made to me by the sea. Then, on Friday afternoon, a text from her finally came through: “The Pier, 7 p.m. Happy seventh anniversary.” I stared at the words, and for a moment, my resolve wavered. The lights of the New York waterfront twinkled, reflecting in Isabelle’s eyes, which for the first time in a long time, looked at me with something resembling affection. She pushed a small jewelry box across the table. “Happy seventh anniversary, Noah.” My fingertips had just brushed the velvet when her phone buzzed. On the screen, one name glared at me: Liam. Isabelle answered, and Liam’s panicked, tearful voice filled the silence. “Isabelle, the power’s out in my apartment! I’m scared of the dark… I was cutting fruit and I sliced my hand, it’s bleeding so much…” The warmth in Isabelle’s eyes vanished, replaced by sheer panic. She gripped her phone, her voice tight with anxiety. “Is it bleeding? Is it bad? Do you have a bandage? Don’t move, I’m coming!” Such a touching display of concern. I pulled my hand back from the box. Whatever was inside didn’t matter anymore. She seemed to have completely forgotten I was even there until Liam let out another cry on the other end of the line. Isabelle looked up at me, her tone gentle but resolute. “Noah, Liam’s all alone in the city. He must be terrified. He can’t handle this. I have to go. Can you just… wait for me for a little while?” She didn’t wait for my answer. She was already grabbing her coat and rushing out of the restaurant. In Boston, I had lived alone, learned to change lightbulbs alone, endured the crushing loneliness alone. I went from being helpless to being able to fix a leaky pipe and haul heavy furniture up flights of stairs. And through all of it, she was never there. The truth was, I had learned to live without her a long time ago. Half an hour later, Liam appeared at our table, a small bandage on his finger. He stood behind Isabelle like a shy, guilty child. “Noah, I’m so sorry. I’m such a klutz. I can’t believe I ruined your anniversary.” Isabelle pulled out a chair for him, then sat down right beside him. “Noah, Liam worked with you, remember? Don’t make him feel uncomfortable.” When the waiter brought our food, Isabelle held up a hand, stopping the plate of escargots. “Cancel this. Bring the fish soup instead.” The escargots. She used to order them for me on every date. “Your stomach is sensitive, Noah. You shouldn’t eat anything too rich at night. Just have something light with Liam.” I couldn’t even remember. Who was the one with the sensitive stomach? She then ordered a black truffle steak, meticulously cut a piece, and placed it on my plate. “You need to eat more, Noah. You’ve been working too hard in Boston.” I stared at the piece of meat, a lump forming in my throat. Isabelle had forgotten. I’m allergic to truffles. Right before I left for Boston, I’d accidentally eaten some and ended up in the ICU. She’d sat by my bedside and sworn she would never let me near them again. Meanwhile, she was leaning over Liam, patiently picking the garnishes off his plate. “Liam, your digestion is weak. Don’t force yourself to eat anything you don’t like.” Expressionless, I raised the fork to my lips and put the steak in my mouth. With my other hand, under the table, I fumbled for my allergy pills and swallowed them down with the meat. Liam’s hand “slipped,” and he spilled his soup. “Oh, my shirt…” he whined, his nose twitching as if he were about to cry. Isabelle reacted instantly, grabbing the silk pocket square that was sitting next to me, still in its gift wrapping. It was my anniversary gift to her. She pulled it out and began dabbing at the stain on his shirt. “How can you be so clumsy? Isn’t this your favorite shirt?” Liam mumbled, “Thank you, Isabelle. I only like it because of the person who gave it to me.” After she was done, Isabelle tossed the now-stained silk onto the table. She looked up and saw me staring at the wadded-up fabric. A flash of irritation crossed her face. “I’m sorry. It’s just a piece of cloth. Liam would have had a meltdown if his shirt was ruined. You’ve always been the bigger person, Noah. Don’t make a scene over something so small, okay?” I let out a humorless laugh. “No problem. It’s found its purpose.” I stood up and walked to the front to pay the bill. Isabelle followed me out, reaching for my hand. “Noah, I’ll buy you a better one tomorrow.” I stepped aside, turning my gaze to the dark, churning river. “Isabelle, there is no tomorrow for us.” She laughed, completely dismissing my words. “Don’t be dramatic. Go home and get some rest.” I turned my back on her and walked away. The next day, Isabelle’s call came while I was in front of a mirror, adjusting my suit. “Noah, I have to go to a wedding reception tonight, so I need to get ready. I can’t go shopping with you today.” I looked at my reflection in the crisp white suit, my voice perfectly calm. “Okay.” She paused, a hint of guilt in her tone. “Liam’s never been to an event like this. I thought it would be a good learning experience for him. You’ve always hated these formal things anyway, it’s all just schmoozing. You’re better off relaxing. I’ll bring you back some late-night snacks, okay?” I held the phone to my ear, admiring my own sharp silhouette in the mirror. “I understand.” I hung up and turned to the best man beside me. “Could you straighten my bowtie? I don’t want it covering my collar.” The Avery family wedding was being held at the most exclusive hotel in New York. When Isabelle arrived with Liam on her arm, they turned more than a few heads. Standing side-by-side, they looked like a power couple. Someone sidled up to her, nudging her playfully. “Isabelle, is this him? The guy you’ve been with for seven years?” Isabelle just smiled, a noncommittal, ambiguous expression on her face. Liam, however, confidently tightened his grip on her arm and nodded to the crowd. Isabelle scanned the room, a strange, hollow feeling settling in her chest. She instinctively patted her pockets, but they were empty. Normally, before any event, Noah would have already ordered her something to eat and had hangover remedies ready. The ceremony began. The lights dimmed, and all eyes turned toward the grand entrance. “And now, let’s welcome our groom!” The doors swung open. Isabelle was only half-paying attention, lost in her thoughts. But when her eyes focused on the figure walking down the aisle, the wine glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor.

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1 I stood at the rehearsal for my beach wedding, but my heart was in my shoes. The man who was supposed to be riding beside me, my fiancé, was instead cradling his adopted sister in his arms. The two of them were laughing together on horseback, a picture-perfect couple. When I frowned, my displeasure obvious, he just arched a brow and coldly accused me of being uncharitable. He said his sister was just helping me with the rehearsal and that I should thank her. The sister, however, was even more audacious. She leaned in, kissed him provocatively on the lips, and then turned to me with a smirk. “Just testing it out for you. The whole kissing-on-horseback thing works perfectly.” Just as I was about to fire back, a voice echoed in my mind. It was the white stallion, complaining. This trashy couple is unbelievable, it grumbled. The cuddling was bad enough, but then they started an acrobatic routine up here. Nearly threw my back out. I froze, and then a slow, wicked smile spread across my face. So that’s how it was. I let out a soft, sharp whistle. The next second, the stallion reared up violently, sending the pair on its back tumbling to the ground. If they wanted to play saints, then I’d be happy to help them on their way. I’d send them straight to meet their maker. … I narrowed my eyes, staring down the coastline. There, on my white stallion, Storm, sat two people. My fiancé, Patrick, held Daisy in his arms. They whispered to each other, their smiles sickeningly sweet, as if they were the ones getting married today. I folded my arms, watching the scene with cold amusement. Interesting. Beside me, the wedding planner whispered to her assistant. “What’s going on? Shouldn’t it be the bride and groom on the horse?” “I have no idea. Who is that girl?” “She looks happier than the bride…” I heard every word but said nothing. The horse stopped a few feet away from me. Patrick pulled on the reins, his expression as serene as a benevolent saint. “Cassie, Daisy was just testing the horse for you. You should thank her.” “She’s a pure soul, a woman of God. Don’t get the wrong idea.” His face was unnaturally flushed, a look of deep satisfaction in his eyes. Daisy tilted her head, her smile a mask of innocence. “Don’t misunderstand, Cassie. The horse looked so tall, I was afraid you’d be too scared to ride him.” I almost laughed out loud. This horse? I’d raised him from a foal. I’d be scared? Daisy shifted, pressing a quick kiss to Patrick’s lips. Then she turned back to me, beaming. “See, Cassie? I tested it for you. Kissing on horseback? Totally doable.” A stunned silence fell over the crew. Someone audibly gasped. Patrick, after a brief pause, just chuckled and ruffled Daisy’s hair. “You’re such a little rascal. Always playing games.” “Have you had enough fun?” I asked, my voice dangerously sweet. “If not, you can continue the show tomorrow, in front of all our guests.” Patrick’s hand froze. His brow furrowed with irritation. “Cassie, Daisy is my sister. And she’s a devout woman. Don’t take it too far.” His sister. A devout woman. The same excuses he’d been using for the past six months. It all started half a year ago, when he returned after his long period of service at a remote monastery. Our families had arranged our marriage when we were children, and with his return, the wedding was back on the agenda. I’d been content with the arrangement. I’d heard he was a man of principle, pious and kind—a suitable partner. But from the day he came back, Daisy was a constant presence. She was an orphan the family had taken in, a “fellow devotee” who had spent time at the monastery with Patrick. At first, she just dropped by occasionally. Soon, it was every day. Once, I walked in on her changing clothes in Patrick’s room. He was standing right behind her, a robe in his hands, about to place it on her shoulders. Daisy saw me and didn’t even flinch. “Oh, Cassie. My clothes got wet, so I’m just borrowing something from my brother.” Afterward, I confronted Patrick. “I don’t appreciate relationships without boundaries. This is the first time.” He seemed taken aback, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “You’re misunderstanding.” I held up a hand. “Just remember. Three strikes.” I didn’t elaborate. I just left. A month later, I found them shopping for lingerie. Patrick even reached out and adjusted the strap on her bra. She saw me and smirked. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Cassie. I’m just hopeless at picking these things out, so I asked my brother for help.” I looked straight at Patrick. “That’s strike two.” He scowled, his patience clearly wearing thin. “You’re so worldly. She’s my sister. I was just helping.” I still didn’t raise my voice. I just said, “You told me you knew the difference between a fiancée and a sister. I hope you remember that.” He stared at me for a long time without a word. Today was strike three. He had publicly kissed his “sister.” There’s no brother-sister relationship in the world that looks like that. My patience had run out. I took a deep breath, ready to unleash my fury. Suddenly, a voice echoed in my mind. [This pair of humans has no respect for a horse’s dignity.] [The cuddling was bad enough, but then they started an acrobatic routine. Nearly threw my back out.] [My poor mistress’s perfect wedding… they’ve ruined it.] I slowly turned my head, my eyes locking on Storm. Acrobatics? A cold, bitter laugh escaped my lips. I finally understood. So, they’d broken more than just boundaries. I’d been waiting on this beach for hours, the cold sea wind whipping at my skin, while he was off somewhere playing his “acrobatic” games with his adopted sister. I remembered a conversation we’d had a month ago. “Cassie,” Patrick had said, his tone serious. “Although I’ve returned to secular life, I’ve spent years in devotion. I will honor our marriage contract, but for the first three years, I will not touch you. I hope you can understand.” I’d nodded at the time. I wasn’t a saint, but I could respect his faith. I see now. He wasn’t keeping his body pure for me. He was keeping it for her. I looked up at Patrick. He was whispering something to Daisy, his eyes full of a tenderness he never showed me. She playfully tapped his chest, and he caught her wrist, holding it gently. The nauseating feeling of betrayal and deception washed over me. The two things I despised most in the world, served up on a silver platter. This marriage? I was done with it. 2 Patrick, with Daisy still in his arms, rode Storm around the venue, surveying the setup with a satisfied air. The sea breeze tangled her hair, and Patrick, ever the gentleman, gently tucked the strands behind her ear, using the red braided bracelet on his wrist to tie it back. I watched, my eyes narrowing. That was the promise bracelet we’d gotten together at a festival, blessed for a long and happy union. Patrick caught my gaze and shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a string.” I gave him a slow, knowing smile. “Are you testing my limits?” He knew I cared. And he did it anyway. Daisy immediately untied the bracelet and held it out to me. “If you don’t like it, Cassie, you can have it back.” Then her hand “slipped.” The red cord fell into the sand and was instantly swallowed by a wave. “Oops!” she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, but there wasn’t a shred of apology in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Cassie. My hand slipped.” Patrick wrapped an arm around her waist, his voice dripping with affection. “It’s fine. She won’t blame you.” Suddenly, I laughed. “Of course not. It’s just a string.” I reached down, untied the matching bracelet from my own wrist, and tossed it into the ocean. Patrick’s jaw tightened. His lips parted as if to say something, but he remained silent. I turned my attention to Storm. “You two should get down now. That’s my horse.” Daisy started to dismount, but Patrick held her back. He looked at me, his eyes cold as steel. “I’m giving this horse to Daisy.” My eyes narrowed to slits. He was giving her my horse? On what authority? [Mistress, no!] Storm’s panicked voice screamed in my head. [I don’t want to go with her! She eats horse tartare right in front of me!] So, a fake saint after all. Daisy beamed from her perch on Storm’s back. “This horse is special to me and Patrick now, Cassie.” A blush crept up her cheeks. “Riding him together today… it’s a memory we’ll always have. You should just let me have him. You have so many other horses at your family’s stable, you won’t even miss one.” I scoffed. Their memory? How pathetic. “No.” Patrick froze, clearly not expecting a direct refusal. His voice was laced with impatience. “It’s just a horse. If Daisy likes him, just give him to her.” I wagged a finger at him, enunciating each word. “I. Said. No.” A muscle twitched in Patrick’s jaw. He was getting angry. He suddenly raised the riding crop and brought it down hard on Storm’s flank. Storm whinnied in pain. My heart clenched. The horse spun in place, trembling, a raw red welt already forming on his hindquarters. Patrick gripped the reins, his eyes filled with a challenging, warning glare. “An animal is an animal. It needs to be taught a lesson when it misbehaves.” His words were a thinly veiled threat. As if he weren’t taming a horse, but me. I clenched my fists. I had been satisfied with this marriage because I believed in Patrick’s character. But would a truly kind man treat an animal like this? It all became crystal clear. He wasn’t a man of God. He was a hypocrite. I pulled out my phone and dialed my father. “Dad, officially notify the Montgomerys. The wedding is off.” 3 Patrick looked down at me from his high horse, a mocking smile on his face. “What kind of act is this, Cassie? You think you can just call off the wedding?” He sighed dramatically. “If only we had a choice.” So that’s what he thought. The Montgomery family business was on the brink of collapse, desperate for a cash injection from my family. We, on the other hand, had a long list of suitable marriage candidates. If it weren’t for his carefully crafted image as a pious man, I might never have agreed. The wedding was tomorrow. He was betting that I’d cave to protect our families’ reputations. He had bet wrong. I, Cassandra Hale, don’t check the clock before I flip the table. “If you’re so reluctant, there’s no reason to continue,” I said, then turned to the wedding planner. “You’ll be paid in full. Cancel everything for tomorrow.” The color drained from Patrick’s face. “Cassandra, don’t be childish.” Daisy chimed in, her voice syrupy sweet. “Cassie, this is a union between two families. It’ll sound so bad if you cancel now.” She paused, feigning concern. “Besides, being left at the altar is so humiliating for a woman.” Patrick snorted. “Don’t coddle her. If she can’t understand something so simple, she’s not fit to be a wife.” He patted Storm’s head forcefully. “Just like this horse. You can’t spoil them.” Storm let out a pained whinny. [Mistress, help me.] [They were whipping me while they were insulting you.] [They tampered with your medication… said something about once the Montgomerys are stable, a grieving widower would be best… they’re not good people!] A roar filled my ears. I remembered the strange pains in my chest over the past few months. I’d chalked it up to stress from work, a weakened immune system. But they didn’t want me to live. Rage flooded my veins. I stepped in front of the horse. “Don’t touch my horse! Get down, now!” Patrick didn’t move. Daisy didn’t move. I glared at them, my voice low and dangerous. “The only reason he’s calm is because I’m here. Don’t push your luck.” Patrick laughed, a sound full of contempt. “Cassie, there isn’t a horse I can’t ride.” I knew what he was really saying. There isn’t a person I can’t control. This whole series of provocations today… it was a compliance test. Too bad for him, he had miscalculated. I may bow to God, but I don’t bow to false prophets. And I certainly don’t bow to sanctimonious hypocrites. “I am telling you for the last time. Get. Down. Now. Or you will face the consequences.” Daisy giggled, covering her mouth. “Oh, you look so scary, Cassie. Patrick, you’ll protect me, won’t you?” He looked down at her, his eyes soft. “Of course.” I stared at them, my voice flat. “Are you absolutely sure you’re not getting down?” Patrick’s gaze was indifferent. “I told you, this horse belongs to Daisy now. When she gets down is her decision.” Daisy shot me a triumphant smile. “Thank you, Patrick.” She dug her heels into Storm’s sides. “Giddy-up!” The horse started walking toward the ocean. I took a deep breath and put two fingers to my lips. A piercing whistle cut through the air. Storm understood my command instantly. The next second, he reared up, his body almost vertical. “Ah!” Daisy screamed, falling backward. Patrick instinctively grabbed for the reins, but he had no control. They both tumbled from the horse, landing with a heavy thud on the wet sand. The scene erupted into chaos. Crew members screamed and scattered. Patrick scrambled to his feet, his face contorted with rage. “What the hell did you do? You spooked him! If Daisy is hurt, I’ll kill you!” “Help me! Patrick, help me!” Daisy shrieked. She had fallen directly under Storm’s belly and was curled in a ball, covering her head. The horse’s hooves danced around her, inches from crushing her. Patrick’s face went pale, and he lunged forward without a second thought. Any last shred of hesitation I had vanished. I whistled again. Storm’s eyes fixed on his target. His front hooves shot up into the air. And came down, square in Patrick’s groin. A bloodcurdling scream echoed across the beach. Patrick curled into a ball, clutching himself, writhing in the sand. 4 I smirked. Enough. I let out one last, short whistle. Storm galloped away, disappearing down the beach. The crew finally rushed forward, surrounding Patrick. “Call an ambulance!” “He’s bleeding! I think he’s bleeding!” I walked over slowly and stood over him, looking down. “I told you. You shouldn’t have ridden my horse.” He was drenched in a cold sweat, but his eyes still glared at me with pure hatred. “You… you…” Daisy finally pulled herself up from the sand, trembling, and pointed a shaking finger at me. “It was you! You did this on purpose! You told the horse to trample him!” I laughed coldly. “You brought this on yourselves. I warned you. You didn’t listen.” “You!” Before she could say more, a commotion started at the edge of the beach. Patrick’s parents had arrived. They hurried toward us, their eyes locked on me. “Cassie, what’s going on? Why are you canceling the wedding?” It seemed my parents had called them. As they got closer, they saw the scene. Patrick’s mother shrieked and ran to her son. “Patrick! What happened to you?” Daisy burst into tears. “Mom, it was Cassie! She made the horse go crazy and hurt Patrick!” Mrs. Montgomery’s head snapped toward me, her eyes filled with suspicion. “You want to see the truth?” I asked, then gestured to the camera crew. “Play the rehearsal footage.” The videographer scrambled to set up the camera, projecting the video onto a large monitor. On the screen, Patrick and Daisy rode together, laughing. Daisy turned and kissed him. He smiled and ruffled her hair. I hit pause. “This is why I’m canceling the wedding. This brother and sister are a little too close. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of true love.” Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery’s faces turned an ugly shade of red. Mrs. Montgomery looked at Daisy as if seeing her for the first time. Daisy panicked. “Mom, Dad, let me explain…” Patrick, still on the ground, groaned through the pain. “Mom, it’s not Daisy’s fault… Cassie was being unreasonable…” I held up my hands and shrugged. “See? They’re perfect for each other. It’s only right that I step aside.” Daisy pointed frantically at the screen. “Mom, Dad, watch the rest! She set us up to fall! She’s the one who got Patrick hurt!” The video continued playing. It clearly showed me whistling. Daisy’s eyes lit up. “See? It was her! She did it!” I kept my voice casual. “I’m not a horse whisperer. I was just trying to get you to stop. That horse has a wild streak. I warned you more than three times, but you wouldn’t listen.” I glanced at her, my voice dropping. “He was originally going to trample you. It was you who screamed for him to save you. You’re the one who got him hurt.” Daisy froze. The video was undeniable. Patrick had been on his feet, disheveled but unharmed. It was Daisy’s screams that made him play the hero. The color drained from her face. Mrs. Montgomery’s was even paler. SLAP. The sound was sharp and clear. “You ungrateful viper! We took you in, and this is how you repay us? Seducing my son, nearly getting him killed!” Mrs. Montgomery was shaking with rage. Mr. Montgomery’s face was like thunder. After all, their family desperately needed my family’s money. My dowry alone was three billion dollars. Daisy clutched her cheek, tears streaming down her face. She opened her mouth to argue, but one look at her adoptive parents’ faces and she snapped it shut. The wail of an ambulance grew closer. Paramedics examined Patrick, their expressions grim. “Oh, god. His groin… I think it’s… severed.” A dead silence fell over the beach. I hid my triumphant smile behind a mask of pity and sorrow. I pressed my palms together. “Amen.” The man of God had truly become celibate. And next, it was the saint’s turn.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “424980”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

For the very last tour group of my guiding career, I never expected to be hosting my ex-boyfriend, Carter, on his honeymoon. I stood at one end of the suspension bridge, framing him and his new wife through the camera lens. Through the viewfinder, I watched the woman cling to Carter’s arm. Her voice was dripping with sweetness. “I read online that couples who kiss on this bridge will stay together forever.” Carter’s gaze swept over me. He paused for a fraction of a second, then lowered his head and kissed her. His tone was unwavering. “That’s right. We’re never going to be apart.” I quickly lowered my head, pretending to fiddle with the camera settings. I fought back the tears threatening to spill, blaming the sharp coastal wind for making my eyes sting. Three years ago, on this exact spot, I was the one he kissed. Back then, he told me that this suspension bridge represented a promise through life and death. He promised to bring me here every single year. But Carter would never know that I didn’t have “forever” anymore. My eighth round of treatment had failed. The doctors told me I had, at most, three days left to live. 1 After the photos, Carter’s wife joined the rest of the group to pick wild lavender. Only Carter and I were left at the head of the bridge. I kept my head down, pulling my sun hat lower and adjusting my mask to cover half my face. But the next second, he reached out and grabbed my employee lanyard. The thin cord bit into the back of my neck, forcing me to tilt my head up and meet his eyes. “Summer. It really is you.” “Ran out of gambling money, so you switched careers to be a tour guide?” His eyes were sharp, carrying the weight of a heavy winter snow. The icy glare made me shiver. He had recognized me. Since when? A short distance away, the girl named Madison came jogging over. “Babe, do you know the guide?” Those fingers suddenly tightened. I let out a low gasp of pain as the lanyard snapped. He let out an incredibly soft scoff. “No. I mistook her for someone else.” The ID badge fell to the dirt. I bent down to pick it up, but as I stood back up, my vision went completely black for a moment. I quickly grabbed the wooden railing, keeping my head bowed as I waited for the dizzy spell to pass. “Let’s go.” Carter wrapped his arm around Madison and walked away. I clutched the broken lanyard. It still held the residual heat of his palm. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t finish guiding this group. Ben, our head tour guide, was standing on the other side of the bridge. When I walked over, he had just hung up his phone. He looked at me with an incredibly complex expression. “Summer, did you offend Carter, the CEO of our private VIP group?” “He just called corporate. He specifically demanded that you stay with them for the entire trip. He said if your service leaves him unsatisfied, he’s pulling his investment.” “Carter is the majority shareholder, and his wife, Madison, is the daughter of our second-largest investor. If we piss them off, our local branch is…” Is dead. Fourteen of my colleagues would lose their jobs, all because of me. My fingers unconsciously twisted the hem of my shirt. I had forgotten. Three years had passed. Carter was no longer that eager, bowing junior sales rep. He was in a completely different league now. With a snap of his fingers, he could crush an entire travel agency. “I understand.” I returned to the group, pasting on a polite smile as I checked the three couples into their hotel rooms. But the moment I finished and returned to the tiny staff room, a knock sounded at the door. Madison stood there in a silk slip dress, her fresh, youthful face glowing with a bright smile. “Excuse me, Summer. I really don’t like our room number. Your room, 208, is actually quite nice. Could you let us have it?” I looked past her to Carter in pure shock, only to see him raise an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?” Ben’s warning echoed in my ears. I spoke immediately. “Of course. It’s just that tour guides aren’t allowed to stay in the guest presidential suites, and the hotel is fully booked…” “Did you really think you were worthy of staying in our suite?” Carter’s gaze swept across the floor with utter contempt. “This room is small and filthy anyway. Who knows what kind of pests might crawl out of the corners.” “As a guide, it isn’t too much to ask for you to sleep in the hallway so you’re available whenever we call, right?” A dull, throbbing pain struck my heart. I clenched my hands into fists. “No. It isn’t.” I turned around and walked toward the cheap dresser. “I’ll just grab my bag and head out to the hall…” “Get the hell out right now. Wait until I call you.” A large hand grabbed my collar and shoved me violently toward the door. I stumbled forward, losing my footing. My forehead smashed into the hallway wall. A sickening thud echoed through the corridor right before Carter slammed the door shut behind me. Agony exploded from my brow, shooting straight to the crown of my head. My throat tightened. I almost threw up on the carpet. Thank God the hotel had thick wallpaper to soften the blow. I touched my forehead. No blood. After the eighth failed chemo treatment, my blood platelet count had plummeted to catastrophic levels. My blood simply couldn’t clot anymore. A single bleed meant I would just bleed to death. I wasn’t afraid of dying. But I refused to die right in front of Carter. Leaning against the wall, I slowly slid down to the floor, enduring the sensation that my skull was splitting open. From inside the room, Madison’s soft moans drifted through the wood, accompanied by Carter’s heavy breathing, filled with intense possessiveness. “Babe, why are you so… slow down, you’re going too fast…” Carter let out a low, husky laugh. “I finally married the woman of my dreams. How could I not be in a rush?” The woman of his dreams. He had completely moved on. He had found a new love. My head was pounding harder now. I fumbled around, trying to find my painkillers, only to realize I had left the bottle in my backpack inside the room. “Babe, be gentle. Someone is right outside the door…” Carter didn’t reply, but the sounds that followed grew even more frantic. When it was finally over, he called out to me. “Summer.” I gritted my teeth, using the wall to pull myself up. Just as I managed to stand straight, the door was violently yanked open. Carter stood over me, tossing a crumpled bundle of fabric at my chest. It was the jacket I had casually left on the bed. “If you’re not dead.” “Get in here and change the sheets.” The staff room was cramped and windowless. The aftermath smell was suffocating. Madison had gone to take a shower. Fighting down a wave of severe nausea, I stripped the bed and bundled the damp sheets into my arms, rushing toward the door. Behind me, Carter lit a cigarette. He let out a cold, mocking laugh. “And here I thought you actually had a spine.” The harsh scent of tobacco burned my eyes. I hurried out into the hall. I found four backup pain pills in my jacket pocket. I swallowed one dry, then curled up against the doorframe, shivering until dawn broke. The next day involved a mountain hike. Carter specifically demanded that I lead the two of them. Ben knew how sick I was and offered to take my place. But Carter silenced him with a single glare, leaving Ben to mouth a silent apology to me. I gave Ben a reassuring nod, swallowed another pill, and took their heavy backpacks, leading the way up the trail. Everything was going fine until we reached a steep set of stone steps. My foot slipped on some loose gravel. The sheer weight of their bags dragged me backward. In a moment of sheer panic, I grabbed onto a jagged rock protruding from the cliffside, barely managing to steady myself. Madison started screaming at the top of her lungs. “Babe! She’s trying to drag us down with her to die!” I forced the rising panic down my throat and turned around. They had already retreated to a wide, safe plateau. Carter was holding a crying Madison in his arms, stroking her hair. He looked at me with venom in his eyes. “If you want to die, do it yourself. Don’t try to take us down with you.” For a split second, I felt entirely unmoored from reality. Three years ago, our breakup had been an ugly, explosive mess. To force him to pay off my “gambling debts,” I had pressed a kitchen knife to his throat, demanding a wire transfer. He didn’t hesitate. He sent me every penny he had, begging me to stop gambling, pleading with me to let us live a normal life together. But I refused. I pulled out a massive accidental death insurance policy and told him to fake a fall from a twenty-eighth-floor balcony so I could take the payout and win back everything I had lost in Vegas. He stared at me in absolute disbelief for a long time. The warmth in his eyes froze over, leaving nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred. He said, “Summer, if you’re rotting from the inside out, leave me out of it.” “If you want to die, go ahead. But don’t expect me to be your sacrificial lamb.” A sharp slap to my left cheek snapped me back to the present. The stinging pain cleared my vision. Madison was sobbing, tears streaming down her flawless makeup. “You absolute psycho! We just got married and you almost got us killed!” “I’m telling my dad! I’m going to make sure your pathetic little agency goes bankrupt!” The force of the slap made my head spin. I shook my head in a daze. “I didn’t…” “You still won’t admit it!” She raised her hand and delivered another vicious slap. She wound up to strike me a third time. Carter stood by the side, watching me with dead eyes. As she hit me, he even reached out a protective arm, resting his hand on the small of her back to keep her steady. When the third slap landed, I took it without flinching. Then I opened my mouth. “I am so sorry. It was my fault. Please don’t file a complaint against me.” Madison shrieked, “We almost lost our lives! What good is a pathetic apology!” I swallowed the metallic taste of blood rising in my throat. It took exactly one second for me to drop to my knees. “I’m sorry. You can keep hitting me if it makes you feel better. Just please let the agency go.” A sheer cliff drop was less than ten inches away from me. Madison trembled with rage and fear. She turned and threw herself into Carter’s chest, crying hysterically. “Babe, I want to grow old with you. I want us to have beautiful kids. We can’t die out here!” Carter comforted her with a soft, gentle voice. “I’m here. We aren’t going to die.” Then he violently yanked the heavy backpacks off my shoulders. The sudden force threw me off balance, and I swayed dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. He acted like he didn’t even notice. Standing over me, he delivered his verdict. “I’m taking my wife back to rest. You can sit here and reflect on what you’ve done.” “You are not allowed to come down this mountain before sunset. If you do, shutting your agency down will be the least of your worries.” By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, the temperature plummeted. When I finally made my way down to the base of the mountain, I saw a roaring bonfire. The entire VIP group was sitting around it, chatting and laughing. Madison was still furious. She turned her head away, refusing to look at me. Carter sat poking the fire with a long stick, equally silent. The chill of the mountain descent had seeped deep into my bones. Every step toward the fire felt impossibly heavy. “Carter. Madison. Everything that happened today was entirely my fault. I apologize.” Carter finally looked at me. With chilling apathy, he pointed at two bottles of hard liquor sitting on the dirt. “Drink the liquor, and we’ll forgive you.” Madison protested immediately. “Babe! That’s letting her off too easy! She literally tried to murder us!” Her accusations were getting more ridiculous by the minute. The rest of the tourists stared at me in shock. Ben was terrified, waving his hands frantically to de-escalate the situation. Terrified of bringing ruin to the agency, I tried to explain. “I didn’t. I just slipped…” Carter cut me off with a voice made of ice. “So you don’t want to drink?” I froze. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to drink. I physically couldn’t. My oncologist had been crystal clear. My intracranial pressure was critically high. Alcohol would rapidly accelerate my death. According to the natural progression of the disease, I could have held on until they boarded their flight the day after tomorrow. But if I drank this… “Drink it, and I will personally inject capital into your local branch.” “Refuse, and every single one of you can pack your bags. You’ll never work in this industry again.” Carter’s cold words sealed my fate. I pinched the webbing between my thumb and index finger hard. “I’ll drink.” Ben swallowed hard. He pasted on an awkward smile and tried to snatch the bottles. “Mr. Kensington, Summer has a really weak stomach. How about I drink for her?” “I’ve got a great liver. Forget two bottles, I could put away ten for you right now!” Carter’s dark eyes locked onto him. “Are you her boyfriend, or her husband?” “No, I’m just her coworker…” “Then what gives you the right to drink for her?” Ben broke out in a cold sweat, intimidated into silence. I didn’t want Ben to suffer because of me. I reached out and took the bottles back. “You’re a man of your word, Carter.” I took a deep breath, tilted my head back, and drained the first bottle as fast as humanly possible. When I finally lowered my head, it felt like a bomb had detonated inside my skull. Blinding pain caused my vision to flicker, reducing the world to a watery blur. But there was still one bottle left. I fumbled blindly until my fingers closed around the glass neck. I drank the second one with the same desperate speed. Involuntary tears poured down my cheeks. My throat constricted violently. It was the terrifying precursor to severe, violent vomiting. Biting my lower lip so hard I tasted iron, I used every ounce of willpower I possessed to force the rolling nausea down. Squinting through the blur, I found Carter’s silhouette. I couldn’t read his expression, but I knew he was furious. “I finished them, Carter.” “Thank you for the investment.” I bowed deeply, then turned and began walking toward where I remembered the restrooms were. But the alcohol hit my bloodstream too fast. Halfway there, I felt my blood pressure skyrocket. Every single heartbeat tugged at my brain, dragging it through shattered glass. I clamped my jaw shut, stumbling wildly until I found the restroom door. I barely managed to lock it behind me before I collapsed over the toilet, vomiting until the world spun into absolute darkness and I passed out on the tiles. When I woke up and dragged myself out of the bathroom, it was past two in the morning. The bonfire was dead. The crowd was gone. My vision had finally cleared just enough. My legs gave out completely, and I crumpled onto the ground. Digging into my pocket, I found my last two pain pills and swallowed them dry. Footsteps approached. I fought to open my eyes. Carter was standing over me, looking down from his pedestal. Under the pale moonlight, the same eyes that used to crinkle with joy when he shoved my frozen hands into his pockets after closing a big sale were now overflowing with pure, unadulterated hate. “Summer. Why aren’t you dead yet?” I opened my mouth, but I didn’t have the strength to form words. “Back when you needed cash for the casino, couldn’t you put away eighteen bottles before throwing up? Now you can’t even handle two? Drop the act.” He glanced at the restroom, then sneered at me. “You stole every cent I had and ran off, leaving me with a hundred grand in debt to loan sharks.” “I thought someone as vicious as you would be living the high life. But look at you. A stray dog, bowing and scraping just for a little corporate handout?” The painkillers finally kicked in. I struggled to push myself into a sitting position. When I spoke, my voice was raw gravel. “I drank the liquor, Carter. Please just remember your promise.” Veins popped on his neck. Every word was forced through clenched teeth. “Is this pathetic agency really that important to you?!” “You told me you’d rather die than stop gambling! Well, if you aren’t gambling anymore, what the hell are you still breathing for! Look at yourself! You puke your guts out and all you care about is the agency! Then why did you do that to me…” “Summer is over there!” A chorus of frantic shouts interrupted Carter’s inexplicable rage. The agency staff had found us. Ben practically bowed in half, apologizing profusely. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Kensington. Summer didn’t mean any disrespect. She’s always had a terrible reaction to alcohol…” A few colleagues rushed over and scrambled to pull me up. I swayed heavily, collapsing against Ben’s shoulder. Carter’s gaze felt like a knife carving into my spine. He spoke with glacial calm. “Don’t forget. You’re taking us to see the sunrise at three.” Ben tried to play peacemaker. “Mr. Kensington, three in the morning is freezing. Besides, I’m the local sunrise expert. Let me take you guys.” Carter stared him down, his face a mask of hostility. “Are you tired of being employed?” Ben went completely rigid. The other guides exchanged terrified glances. Nobody dared to breathe. I let out a quiet sigh in my heart. Over the last three years, across eight rounds of chemo, my colleagues had chipped in to pay for half of my medical bills. They barely made ends meet themselves. I couldn’t drag them down. I pushed gently away from Ben and nodded. “I’ll head to the beach right now to wait for you and Madison. Remember to dress warmly. The ocean wind is biting.” When we reached the beach, my colleagues wrapped a thick woolen blanket around my shoulders, lingering to give me endless instructions before finally leaving. I sat in the sand, hugging my knees, staring out at the pitch-black ocean. The freezing wind made my skull feel like it was cracking open. But my pills were gone. All I could do was endure it. I didn’t know how much time had passed before Carter arrived with his arm around Madison. Madison rolled her eyes. “Just looking at her ruins my mood… Achoo!” “Careful, don’t catch a cold.” Carter gently pulled her coat tighter. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed me. He issued a flat command. “Give the blanket to my wife.” But my hearing was already gone. The crash of the waves and the howling wind rushed toward me, but I lived in total silence. I knew it was almost time to go. A sudden lightness hit my shoulders. The blanket was snatched away. I turned my head in confusion, but my eyes could only register blurry, shifting shadows. I saw them speaking, though I heard nothing. Then they walked a short distance ahead of me, sitting down to stare at the horizon. I remembered now. Carter brought his new wife here to watch the sunrise. Three years ago, Carter had brought me here to do the exact same thing. That day, we kissed on the suspension bridge. We took photos in the lavender fields. We talked by the bonfire all night, then rushed to the beach, leaning against each other as we waited for the sun. Carter had told me the suspension bridge meant life and death together. He said we would come back every year. But Carter, I didn’t have forever. I was destined to die, and you were destined to find someone new. The freezing wind dragged across my cheek. I felt my heartbeat slowing, fading into a sluggish rhythm. Every breath required monumental effort.

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I used visiting out-of-town family as an excuse to dodge our ten-year high school reunion. As fate would have it, I had dinner plans with an old friend that same night. I never expected to crash right into my former classmates at the exact same upscale hotel restaurant. Right in the center of the crowd stood Tristan. He was the golden boy I had secretly crushed on for three years in high school, currently laughing and holding court. Our eyes locked across the room. He visibly stiffened. The woman clinging to his arm narrowed her eyes, her voice dripping with venom. “It’s been a decade. Why is she still haunting you like a ghost?” A heavy sigh caught in my throat. I turned on my heel to leave, but several voices called out, pinning me in place. “Well, well, if it isn’t the Swine Queen. Did visiting your relatives somehow lead you to a five-star hotel?” “She probably found out Tristan was here. Even the pig farmer learned how to put on some makeup for the occasion.” Someone pointed at the roasted pork belly appetizer on their table, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “You’re late, sweetheart. Your livestock relatives are already being served.” Looking at their sneering, bitter faces, a genuine laugh escaped my lips. Ten years had passed, and they were still hopelessly clueless about modern, multi-million-dollar agricultural enterprises. 1 “Sally, the gorgeous. Long time no see. Aren’t you going to say hello?” Derek lit a cigarette, his eyes doing a slow, greasy crawl up and down my body. I took a good look at him. It took me a second to remember that this was the same guy who had shoved two desperate love letters into my locker back in the day, both of which I had rejected. The scrawny, awkward kid from my memory had ballooned into a balding middle-aged man whose belt was fighting a losing battle against his gut. The isolated boy who used to blush when spoken to had morphed into a slick, overconfident creep. The whole table looked different from the kids I remembered. Seeing my silence, they exchanged knowing glances and chuckled. “We practically begged her to come and she said no. But the second she hears Tristan is attending, she magically shows up to stage a little ‘accidental’ run-in.” “Guess we just weren’t important enough to grace with her presence.” I lowered my gaze to my best friend, Sophie, who was standing right behind me. So this was her grand plan. She had dragged me to this specific restaurant just to trick me into attending the reunion. Seeing the pleading look in her eyes, I offered a soft smile and pulled out a chair. “Since we bumped into each other, you don’t mind squeezing in two more chairs, right?” A former classmate laughed, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. “Of course you’re welcome! It’s been forever since we saw you and Sophie. We all assumed you two moved out of state.” “No.” Sophie smiled shyly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m a pediatric nurse at the city hospital. And Sally… she…” “Oh, we know.” Derek cut Sophie off, blowing a ring of smoke. “She went back to the pigs.” He gave a condescending snort. “Her old man paid for her tuition by shoveling manure, and now she’s doing the exact same thing. A real family legacy, isn’t it?” The entire table erupted into laughter. Sophie frowned, her protective instincts flaring. “That’s not true! Sally isn’t just doing what her dad did. She runs a highly successful corporate…” “Sophie, please. Don’t embarrass yourself by making up lies just because she’s your friend.” A girl whose name I couldn’t even recall suddenly chimed in. “Victoria ran into her just last week. Said Sally was still driving her dad’s beat-up old pickup truck, delivering raw meat to people.” Sophie’s face burned crimson. She opened her mouth to argue, but I grabbed her wrist and gave my head a slight shake. This toxic, suffocating atmosphere was exactly why I had declined the invitation in the first place. I had zero desire to explain myself to these people. Once the check was paid tonight, I would never see them again. Explaining my life to them was a total waste of breath. Victoria finally unhooked her arm from Tristan’s and offered me a sickly sweet smile. “Sally, I am so sorry. Was I not supposed to tell everyone I saw you? I just recognized that awful truck and wanted to ask the group if it was really you.” I nodded coolly. “It was me. My dad is getting older. When his back flares up, I help him run deliveries to his legacy clients.” Bless her heart. After ten whole years, she still remembered exactly what my father’s old truck looked like. Seeing that I didn’t deny it, Derek scoffed. “Corporate? You need a corporation to slop pigs? My bad, I shouldn’t call you a dirty farm girl. I should call you…” He dragged out the syllables, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “The Chief Executive Swineherd.” “That is enough.” The sharp voice cut through the giggles. It was Tristan. He had been completely silent since I walked in. He scanned the room, his jaw tight. “It’s a rare night for all of us to be together. What is the point of obsessing over pig farming?” 2 The moment the golden boy spoke, the private dining room shifted gears, pivoting instantly to flattery and brown-nosing. “Honestly, out of all of us, Tristan is the one who really made it.” “He was the valedictorian, graduated from an Ivy League business school, and came straight back to a Senior VP role at a top-tier investment bank. The guy is unstoppable.” “Not to mention he’s paying the entire tab for tonight! I say we raise a glass to the boss!” The tension in Tristan’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. “It is just nice to see everyone. The bill is nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Someone else chimed in, eager to score points. “A killer career is one thing, but look at his lady! Victoria’s parents are old money, both corporate executives. Talk about a power couple!” “Seriously, it is so rare for high school sweethearts to make it. When is the wedding?” Victoria beamed, wrapping her arms around Tristan’s bicep again. “Stop it, you guys. Tristan and I just got lucky with our careers, that’s all. As for a wedding…” She cast a coy, blushing look at the man beside her. “That is entirely up to him.” Listening to the clinking glasses and the hollow praises, I felt a bone-deep wave of boredom. I kept my head down, eating a piece of roasted duck in silence. Suddenly, a guy who had clearly downed too many shots pointed a sloppy finger at me. “Hey, wait a second. Wasn’t Sally your girlfriend back in the day, Tristan?” He slurred his words, swaying in his seat. “When did… when did you swap her out?” Glasses froze halfway to people’s mouths. The air in the room turned to lead. Tristan’s polite smile shattered. “You are remembering things wrong,” he said, every word clipped and tight. The drunk guy frowned, confused. “No way, man. You bought her breakfast every morning. You tutored her after class. Literally everyone knew.” “She used to show up early just to wipe down your desk because you were a germaphobe. She brought you iced water after every gym class. You don’t remember?” My fingers tightened around my fork. I suddenly lost my appetite. I had buried those memories a long time ago. In high school, Tristan and I shared a desk. He was the handsome, brilliant kid who always knew exactly what to say to make people feel special. I was young, foolish, and fell for him effortlessly. Whenever he looked at me, the tips of his ears would turn pink. I thought those shy, stolen glances meant something real. I thought promising to apply to the same college was our unspoken vow. I genuinely believed that when the time was right, we would be together. Then came the senior year family background forms. It ruined everything. Victoria had been helping the teacher collect the paperwork. When she grabbed my sheet, she let out a theatrical gasp, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “Heartland Farms? Sally, your family raises pigs?!” Heads snapped toward us. Victoria batted her eyelashes, feigning innocent disgust. “My parents work in high-rise offices. I’ve never even seen a live farm animal. I heard they are absolutely filthy. Doesn’t the manure smell horrible? Does your dad actually have to slaughter them?” She pinched her nose, looking at me like I was a walking biohazard. I honestly didn’t understand the big deal. My mother passed away from a severe illness when I was young. My father bought a house in the city and sent me to the best public school purely through the sweat, blood, and tears of running that farm. I felt nothing but overwhelming pride for him. “You don’t seem to mind the smell when you’re eating bacon,” I shot back immediately. “What is wrong with farming? My dad is an incredible man.” The room erupted into laughter. The eyes watching me were suddenly filled with mockery and disdain. Later that afternoon, I went to fill Tristan’s water bottle like I always did. When I handed it back to him, he took it, sniffed the rim, and then pulled out a packet of antibacterial wipes, scrubbing the plastic violently. Remembering the sheer disgust in his eyes ignited a cold fury in my chest. I looked dead at the drunk classmate. “He is right. Nothing happened. Tristan and I were never anything to each other.” Victoria let out a loud scoff. “Obviously. Like he would ever let a girl who reeks of livestock touch him.” “The only people reeking right now are you guys.” Sophie had finally had enough. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a heavy set of keys bearing the iconic Porsche crest, and slammed them onto the table right in front of me. “Sally. Your keys.” 3 Before I could even react, Sophie snatched my limited-edition Hermès Birkin from the back of my chair and shoved the keys inside. “Almost forgot to give those back to you.” “Wow.” A sharp-eyed girl across the table let out a loud gasp. “Does cleaning out pig pens really pay that well? Just getting the purchase history to buy that bag costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.” “Are you an idiot?” Victoria hissed, her manicured nails digging into the tablecloth. “Half the people on the internet rent luxury cars and buy knock-off bags just to flex at high school reunions.” She tilted her chin, a nasty smirk on her face. “Of course, I am not saying you are that kind of person, Sally.” Derek snorted. “You guys just don’t know her. She was always trying to be something she wasn’t. Coming from a literal barn, but begging her dad to buy her name-brand sneakers just to look rich.” Sophie’s eyes blazed. “You little…” “Are you all quite finished?” I interrupted, my voice dangerously calm. “You don’t need to keep trashing the agricultural industry. My father and I work hard, we earn honest money, and I will spend that money on whatever the hell I want.” I locked eyes with the balding man. “Derek, I rejected you back then because I found you repulsive. Listening to your pathetic, insecure remarks tonight just confirms I was right.” I didn’t spare a single feeling, stripping away their shallow facades one by one. “And Victoria. If you have a vendetta against me because I had a crush on your boyfriend a decade ago, let me clear the air for you. I forgot about him the second I graduated. You don’t need to bare your fangs at me. Just eat your dinner.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. “I am going to get some fresh air. The stench of jealousy in this room is making me sick.” Ignoring their dropped jaws, I walked out. Even through the heavy oak door, I heard the sharp clatter of Victoria throwing her silverware onto her plate. “Who does she think she is?! She’s a filthy farm girl! I’m the one who’s disgusted by her! Did she even wash those gross hands before she came here?” Derek immediately echoed her. “I must have been blind to ever like her. The day I found out she lived with pigs, I almost threw up my breakfast. She spends her life with animals, and she has the nerve to act superior.” A heavy wave of disappointment washed over me as I walked down the plush corridor. Whatever childish bonds we once shared were completely rotten. Sophie jogged out of the room, twisting her fingers together guiltily. “Sally, I am so, so sorry. I was just so angry about how they treated you back then. I thought dragging you here would be a victory lap. You are so successful now! Why didn’t you just tell them?” I pushed open the restroom door and turned on the gilded faucet. The cool water washed over my hands. “Because they don’t matter to me anymore, Sophie.” I looked at our reflections in the ornate mirror and offered a gentle smile. Two days before graduation, we had to clean out our lockers. Tristan had taken a massive stack of love letters he had received over the years and dumped them in the trash. Some cruel kids dug through the pile, found the letters Sophie and I had written, and taped them to the front chalkboard. Look at the golden boy’s fan club! Braces-face and the Pig-girl! Tristan had snapped. He completely lost his temper, screaming at us to leave him alone. He had looked right at me and said, Sally, your letter literally smells like pig shit. Don’t you realize how disgusting you are? The innocent, fragile heart of a teenage girl had been shattered into a million pieces on that sweltering summer afternoon. “I grew up. I became successful,” I told Sophie, drying my hands. “I thought seeing them again would feel like some grand revenge, but honestly? It is just boring.” Sophie’s voice snapped me out of the past. I tossed the paper towel into the bin and linked my arm through hers. “Come on. Let’s go back, grab the bag, and get out of here. The food here is terrible anyway.” We walked shoulder to shoulder back toward the private dining rooms. Just as we rounded the corner, a hand shot out and gripped my arm hard. 4 It was Tristan. His jaw was clenched, his eyes dark. “Sally. We haven’t seen each other in ten years, and you seriously don’t have a single thing to say to me?” I stared at him, utterly baffled by his audacity. I gave Sophie a look, silently asking her to go grab my purse from the room. I yanked my arm, tearing it out of his grip. “You’ve had too much to drink.” He stared down at me, his gaze intense and slightly unfocused. “You never used to be like this.” I took a step back, putting distance between us. “That is none of your business.” “How is it none of my business?” He aggressively loosened his silk tie. The alcohol had flushed his skin and entirely stripped away his polished, gentlemanly mask. “Sally, who exactly are you trying to fool with this little act?” He let out a low, breathy laugh and stepped into my space. The sharp scent of expensive cologne mixed with stale whiskey hit my nose. “How much money can you seriously make shoveling dirt? Working outside in the sun, getting filthy, breaking your back?” He paused, his eyes doing a slow, evaluating sweep of my silk blouse and tailored trousers. “If you were with me, you wouldn’t have to buy fake bags.” “Twenty grand a month. How about it?” “Excuse me?” I blinked, convinced I had misheard him. “Stop playing dumb.” He frowned, looking irritated that I wasn’t immediately grateful. “Victoria’s family has massive connections in my industry. I am never going to leave her. But I can take care of you on the side. You’ll never have to do manual labor again. Isn’t that what you want?” So that was it. A laugh bubbled up in my throat, sharp and utterly devoid of humor. In what delusional universe did he think he could buy me as his little secret? Even though I already knew my high school crush was a mistake, the sheer, unadulterated sleaze radiating from him right now was sickening. I opened my mouth to tear him apart, but a piercing, hysterical shriek echoed down the hallway. “Sally, you absolute home-wrecking bitch!” Victoria was sprinting toward us, her expensive heels clicking violently against the marble floor. “You filthy tramp! You act so innocent inside, but you’re out here trying to seduce my fiancé! I can smell the desperation on you. You’re repulsive!” Her screaming drew the attention of the waitstaff, who peeked out from the corners. The heavy oak door of our dining room swung open, and the rest of the class spilled out into the hallway to watch the drama. Derek was the first to jump in, his face lighting up with malicious joy. “Whoa, Sally! Trying to rekindle the old flame by becoming a mistress? Tristan and Victoria are practically at the altar. Trying to wedge yourself in there is pathetic.” Emboldened by her audience, Victoria lunged at me, raising her hand to slap me across the face. “You shameless whore!” I didn’t flinch. I reached out, clamped my hand around her descending wrist, and twisted it hard. She let out a high-pitched wail of pain. “Enough!” Tristan’s face was chalk-white. “Everyone, stop it! We were just having a conversation. Why is everyone screaming?” “Tristan!” Victoria sobbed, huge tears ruining her mascara. “I saw everything! This dirty farm girl is harassing you! I am going to destroy her!” “Then let’s get the story straight,” I said. I didn’t shout, but my voice echoed with absolute, icy authority. “Tristan just offered to pay me twenty grand a month to be his mistress. If you don’t believe me, we can pull the security footage from the hallway cameras right now.” Tristan’s face went from pale to ash. A collective, stunned gasp rippled through the crowd of classmates. Their eyes darted wildly between the golden boy and his hysterical fiancée. Victoria looked like someone had just stolen the air from her lungs. Her jaw dropped, completely speechless. Sophie came running down the hall, clutching my Birkin. She glared at the frozen couple with absolute disgust. “Let’s go, Sally. Breathing the same air as these people is a biohazard.” “Hold on! Did I say you could leave?” Victoria suddenly snapped out of her shock. She threw her body in front of us, blocking our path. “Sally, you lying bitch! Don’t you dare try to ruin my relationship!” “Ms. Lockwood!” A breathless voice called out. The owner of the restaurant came rushing down the corridor.

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1 A few days after the Christmas holidays, Mason finally returned home from his trip. In the past, I would have already been waiting downstairs in the lobby to greet him with a hot coffee. This time, I didn’t even bother getting off the couch. My phone buzzed. His voice came through the speaker with his usual commanding tone. “Come down and help me with my bags.” I took a slow, leisurely sip of my chamomile tea and casually rejected him. “I’m busy. Bring them up yourself.” A few minutes later, while I was reclining in my lounge chair soaking up the afternoon sun, Mason walked through the front door, panting and dragging his heavy suitcase. The second he walked in, he started complaining about how starving he was and ordered me to make him lunch. If this were the old me, I would have immediately rushed into the kitchen to cater to his every whim. But today, I just gave him a blank look and told him I wasn’t feeling well. I told him to order DoorDash. Mason was clearly irritated. He suppressed his temper and tried to explain himself, assuming I was still throwing a fit over the fact that he spent Christmas Day keeping Stella company instead of me. He told me to grow up and stop causing drama. I sat up, smoothed out my hair, and calmly told him I wasn’t angry at all. He lit a cigarette. He stubbornly insisted that Stella was just a fragile girl living all alone in the city. He claimed it was dangerous for her to be lonely during the holidays, and as her friend, it was his duty to be there for her. I simply nodded and gave a flat reply. “You’re right.” Mason stared deeply into my eyes, desperately trying to find the familiar jealousy and desperation he was used to. Finding nothing, he rubbed his temples, claiming he was exhausted from his trip and demanding that I show some understanding. I looked right back at him. I repeated that I wasn’t causing drama, and he didn’t need to explain himself to me. My utter indifference left Mason completely speechless. He awkwardly reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled plastic bag, tossing it onto the coffee table. He said it was my late Christmas present. Inside the bag was a smooth river stone, the cheap acrylic paint on it still slightly sticky. It was a laughable contrast to the diamond tennis bracelet Stella had flaunted on her Instagram story the night before. I thanked him with a completely expressionless face. There was none of the overwhelming joy he had been waiting for. Mason froze. He demanded to know why I wasn’t surprised or happy. I calmly reminded him that this was the twentieth painted rock he had gifted me over the years. His face instantly turned an ugly shade of purple. Changing the subject, he held out his hand and asked where his present was. I shrugged my shoulders and told him I forgot to prepare one. I pulled out my phone, casually offering to just buy him whatever he wanted right now on Amazon. Mason’s pupils constricted. He clearly never expected me to forget. Every single year, picking out his perfect gift was my absolute biggest priority, even though he never once bothered to get me anything of actual value. The air in the living room seemed to freeze solid. We stared at each other in suffocating silence until I picked up my purse and headed for the door. He grabbed my arm, demanding to know where I was going. “Going out with my friends,” I answered flatly. I pulled my arm out of his grip and walked out the door, completely ignoring the string of curses he shouted behind me. Ever since I started dating Mason, his manipulative complaints about wanting to be my “one and only confidant” made me slowly cut off my entire social circle. My friends all thought I had lost my mind. They knew Mason was suffocatingly possessive, so they eventually stopped inviting me out. But now, I was finally reclaiming the freedom and joy that belonged to me. 2 After a few rounds of fruity cocktails, my friends started pouring their hearts out. “We honestly thought you forgot about us the second you got with Mason. If you ever ghost us like that again, we are officially cutting you out of the group chat.” I downed another shot and nodded aggressively, making a solemn vow. “Forget Mason. Forget men. From now on, the girl squad comes first. I promise I’m just a phone call away.” Since getting together with Mason, I had prioritized him above everything else in my life. Whether it was my career or my personal life, he always took the top spot. I abandoned my own support system and drifted completely away from the people who actually cared about me. Looking back on it now, I was unbelievably stupid. I checked my phone screen. Not a single text from him. By the time I finally satisfied my craving for a night out and headed home, it was already three in the morning. I flipped on the living room lights and instantly spotted Mason sitting on the sofa, his face completely black with rage. I rubbed my eyes, genuinely thinking I was hallucinating. Why the hell was Mason awake and waiting for me at this hour? When Mason smelled the heavy scent of alcohol radiating off my clothes, he didn’t even attempt to help me balance. He just looked at me with pure disgust. He covered his nose and sneered. “Harper, why are you letting yourself go like this? I get that you’re jealous, but you shouldn’t trash your own body. Who are you getting blackout drunk for? Do you actually think this makes me feel sorry for you?” The room was spinning. I was seeing stars, and Mason’s angry face was blurring into double vision. Mason frowned as I stumbled against the wall. He muttered under his breath. “You really think you’re so tough, drinking yourself into a state like this.” “Stella and I are completely innocent. We have a pure friendship. There is absolutely no reason for you to be this insanely jealous, turning yourself into a pathetic mess just to prove a point.” I shook my heavy head. “You’re overthinking it. I only drank this much because I finally realized the truth.” Seeing me sway dangerously, Mason’s voice grew harsh and authoritative. “Harper, what more do you want from me? I swallowed my pride and tried to make peace with you, and you’re still not satisfied? When are you going to stop throwing these tantrums? Why can’t you be gentle and understanding like Stella? I have put up with your attitude for way too long. I am not going to spend the rest of my life walking on eggshells to accommodate you.” My head was throbbing. Hearing his voice only made the pounding worse. I leaned against the doorway, exhausted. “Just stop talking. I need to sleep.” Mason finally shut his mouth. He poured a glass of water and stepped forward, trying to help me toward the master bedroom. An image of him and Stella tangled up together flashed through my mind. I violently recoiled, dodging his touch. I blindly navigated my way into the guest bedroom and locked the door behind me. Mason furiously pounded on the wood. I completely ignored him and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep. When I woke up the next morning and opened the door, Mason was standing there with his arms crossed, radiating a freezing anger. I knew he was furious. But I looked right through him, treating him like empty air. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and walked right out the door to handle my own business. 3 I went straight to my office and handed in my resignation. The job paid garbage and the workload was miserable. If it weren’t for the fact that the office was located right next to Mason’s building, I would have quit years ago. I was completely done suffering for his convenience. My manager tried begging me to stay, but my mind was made up. A few weeks ago, I finally received an answer to a resume I had sent out on a whim. I was offered a highly lucrative executive position at a globally recognized tech firm. This company had always been my absolute dream. I had actually rejected an initial interview with them a year ago just to stay close to Mason. Thankfully, life gave me a second chance, and it wasn’t too late. After finalizing my two weeks’ notice, I handed off my remaining projects and called my girls to plan a celebration. My friends were thrilled for me. But after a moment of cheering, one of them asked the inevitable question. “What about Mason? Is he relocating with you?” I laughed softly into the receiver. “No. He’s staying here. It’s just going to be me. I’m going to end things with him.” With my work transition handled, I started organizing my visa and immigration documents. I didn’t have any parents. In this country, aside from my small circle of friends, Mason was all I had left. I used to foolishly believe that wherever Mason was, that was my home. But now, Mason had become someone else’s home. I was a stray. A piece of driftwood floating aimlessly, ready to let the current take me wherever I was meant to go. When I returned to the apartment, Mason was right in the middle of getting ready to leave. His hair was perfectly styled. He was wearing brand new designer leather shoes and a tailored suit that highlighted his athletic build perfectly. In his hand, he carefully held an exquisite, custom-made artisan cake. I knew exactly what today was. Today was Stella’s birthday. Mason was heading out to celebrate with her. He was on the phone. When he saw me, he held up a finger, signaling me to stay quiet. Then, his voice melted into absolute adoration. “Be good, okay? I got you everything you wanted. I know exactly what you like. Nothing is too expensive for you, babe.” I didn’t know what the person on the other end of the line said, but Mason let out a rare, genuine laugh. His eyes were overflowing with tenderness. Seeing a smile like that directed at me would have been a miracle. He just kept smiling, acting as if I didn’t even exist. But the second he hung up and locked eyes with me, his brow furrowed, and every trace of joy vanished from his face. He granted Stella’s every single wish. He went above and beyond for her. Yet he couldn’t even spare a basic smile for the woman he lived with. His expression turned dark and gloomy. Without saying a single word, he pushed past me with an aura of total disgust. He refused to stay in the same room as me for even a second longer. The front door slammed shut, loud and aggressive. I knew exactly what this was. Mason was punishing me. He was initiating a cold war. And just like every single time before, it was all because of Stella. In the past, I would have broken down. I would have swallowed my pride, begged for forgiveness, and practically slapped myself in the face to get him to talk to me again. Even when he openly showered Stella with affection right in front of me, I used to brainwash myself into accepting it, convincing myself that to love him meant loving his friends too. But right now, I felt nothing but perfect tranquility. I went to the kitchen and started looking up recipes for authentic pasta. I was moving overseas. I needed to start adapting my palate. 4 Just as I finished eating my homemade dinner, I scrolled past Stella’s new post on Instagram. The caption read: “To be loved is to never go to sleep crying.” The comments section was flooded by Mason’s entire friend group. “Damn, Mason! Sneaking off to spoil your girl again!” I scrolled through the replies. Every single one of his guys was hyping her up. Mason’s friends had always looked down on me. They genuinely believed I was the toxic third wheel standing in the way of Mason and Stella’s epic romance. They firmly believed that if I weren’t in the picture, Mason’s life would be flawless. I looked at Mason’s reply to the thread. His friends were absolutely right. Without me, he really would be happier. Mason had replied: “True love conquers all. The right person will always be standing in your future.” I watched them flirt back and forth like a pair of dramatic high schoolers. The comments were flooded with heart emojis. Then, Zack, one of Mason’s closest friends, chimed in with a teasing comment. “You guys better tone it down. Aren’t you worried Harper will see this? She’s obsessively in love with you, bro. Aren’t you scared she’ll throw a massive fit?” I had politely reminded Mason on countless occasions to establish some boundaries with Stella. It was just basic respect to prevent exactly this kind of humiliating gossip. But his friends always called me a classless, uncultured nag. They told me I acted like his mother, and if I was so desperate to control a man, I should just go birth a son of my own instead of treating Mason like a child. Mason never defended me. He silently endorsed their insults, turning around to verbally abuse me himself, claiming my petty jealousy would ruin his reputation. I didn’t fly into a hysterical rage. I didn’t call him to scream. I just kept casually scrolling through TikTok, listening to music until I naturally drifted off to sleep. When Mason finally came home, I was deep in a pleasant dream. He grabbed my shoulders and violently shook me awake. He glared down at me, his voice dripping with venom. “Harper, do you honestly not give a damn about me anymore?! I was out in the city the entire night. Zack’s fiancée was blowing up his phone every ten minutes checking on him. And you? Radio silence! What the hell is your problem? You never used to act like this!” 5 I rubbed my sleepy eyes, completely baffled by his unhinged temper tantrum. Whenever I used to text him asking when he would be home, he would completely lose his mind. He used to scream at me, “Can you rein in your psychotic control issues?! I am a grown man! I need freedom! Don’t you think you’re suffocating me?!” Now that I was giving him exactly what he asked for, he was claiming I was the villain. I honestly couldn’t comprehend his twisted logic. I didn’t bother dragging up the past. I just gave him a cold, flat response. “You’re out drinking, networking, and providing for us. Wouldn’t you be annoyed if I was constantly breathing down your neck? Plus, you said it yourself. You and Stella are strictly platonic. What could I possibly have to be suspicious or worried about?” Mason looked visibly stunned by my sudden display of “maturity.” Or maybe he was just shocked that I could say Stella’s name without descending into hysterics. He gave a slow nod, awkwardly trying to justify himself. “That Instagram comment was just to make Stella feel better on her birthday. Don’t take what my friends say to heart.” I stared blankly at the edge of the blanket, about to speak, but Mason cut me off. “What is with your attitude? Are you still holding a grudge because I went to her birthday dinner? She has a pure heart. She’s incredibly innocent. Yes, we’ve shared a bed before, and yes, we share drinks, but we have never done anything to betray you. We are best friends. If I didn’t show up for my best friend’s birthday, wouldn’t that make me garbage?” I closed my eyes and let out an exhausted sigh. “I understand. You did the right thing. It’s incredibly late. You should get some sleep.” Mason fell completely silent. His dark, glittering eyes locked onto my face, desperately trying to test if I was secretly holding back a volcanic rage. After thirty seconds, he gave up. He reached out, trying to pull me into a hug. I immediately took a step back, dodging his hands. “We should sleep in separate rooms,” I said evenly. “You must be exhausted from partying all night. I don’t want to disturb your rest.” 6 Mason looked completely lost for a second. Was I actively rejecting him? I had never done anything like this before. Frustrated and deeply annoyed, he slammed the bedroom door and stormed out, leaving me alone in the master suite. The moment the door clicked shut, I went straight back to sleep. Ever since I killed every last ounce of hope I had for Mason, the quality of my sleep had skyrocketed. At six o’clock the next evening, I received a surprise call from my old college mentor, Professor Davis. He had somehow found out I was relocating overseas. He insisted on taking me out to dinner to see me off. I tried to politely decline, not wanting to inconvenience him, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He wanted to organize a farewell dinner with a bunch of my old classmates. Faced with his overwhelming generosity, I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. But what I entirely failed to anticipate was that Mason would be sitting at the restaurant table when I arrived. I lowered my eyes, a self-deprecating smile touching my lips. I had completely forgotten that Mason was also one of Professor Davis’s former students. And sitting right next to Mason, with a radiant, victorious smile on her face, was Stella. He actually brought her to my college reunion. They truly couldn’t stand to be apart for a single second. When Mason caught sight of me, he started aggressively gesturing with his eyes, signaling me to take the empty seat beside him. I looked right through him. They looked like the perfect, sickeningly sweet couple. It was better for me not to interrupt their little fantasy and make a nuisance of myself. Stella made eye contact with me from across the table, offering a fake, plastic smile. Then, she stood up, smoothed out her dress, and walked over to me, putting on a sickeningly sweet, innocent voice. “Harper, you don’t mind that I crashed your little reunion, do you? If my presence makes you unhappy, I can leave right now. I was just so bored at home, and Mason insisted on bringing me along so I wouldn’t be lonely.” Mason looked at Stella with profound admiration, clearly incredibly satisfied with her polite little speech. When he looked at me, his eyes were brimming with smug superiority. I smoothed down the edge of my skirt and stood up. “Professor Davis organized this dinner. Naturally, I don’t mind at all.” I sat back down and focused entirely on my food. During the appetizers, my phone started vibrating relentlessly in my purse. I pulled it out. It was a flood of texts from Mason. “I only brought her out of the goodness of my heart. There are absolutely no romantic feelings involved.” “If you’re upset, I apologize.” I scrolled down to the very last message. “When dinner is over, I’m driving you home. Wait for me.” I took a slow sip of my orange juice, typed out a reply, and hit send. “You should drive Stella. I took my own car. It’s not safe for a fragile girl like her to go home alone in the dark.” I switched my phone to silent, shoved it back into my bag, and devoted my full attention to the garlic butter crab and roasted chicken, completely tuning Mason out of existence. The dinner was a massive success. The table was full of laughter and nostalgic stories. Professor Davis’s face was flushed red from the wine. He stood up at the head of the table, raising his glass high in my direction. “Harper, you were always my most promising student. When you first asked me to be your advisor, you told me your ultimate dream was to work overseas. But after graduation, you lost your drive and chose to stay anchored here.” He paused, a deeply emotional smile spreading across his face. “But thankfully, you found your way back to the path! You’re finally moving! You are finally chasing your dream, and I couldn’t be more proud of you! Here’s to a brilliant, shining future!” Tears welled up in my eyes. I was so incredibly moved that he still remembered my ambitions and was cheering me on. Meanwhile, Mason was staring at me with a look of pure, devastated shock. He had absolutely no idea I was leaving the country.

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Catching up with my best friend over dinner, I slid into the curved leather booth right beside her, just like I always did. Halfway through our appetizers, her silver fork slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the hardwood floor. She immediately turned to me, clearly annoyed. “Jenna, you know I’m a southpaw. Why did you slide in on my left side? Our elbows are going to bump all night.” My hand froze halfway to the floor. Ruby was indeed left-handed. But we had a secret pact. She had sworn to me in private that whenever we shared a meal, she would strictly use her right hand. She once told me that if she ever ate with her left hand, it wouldn’t be the real her. 1 It started a couple of years ago. Ruby saw a post online claiming that true best friends always sit on the same side of a restaurant booth. She immediately declared that we would only sit side-by-side from then on. I laughed and called her an idiot. “You’re left-handed. If you sit next to me, we’ll be playing bumper cars with our elbows.” She thought about it for a second, her eyes lighting up. “Simple. Whenever I eat with you, I’ll just use my right hand!” At the time, I figured she wouldn’t last three days. But she actually pulled it off. For two whole years, every single time we ate together, she stubbornly gripped her silverware with her right hand. Whenever she absentmindedly reached for a glass or a piece of bread with her left, she would instantly snatch her hand back, sticking her tongue out at me like a kid caught stealing cookies. She even made a solemn declaration. “If there ever comes a day where I eat with my left hand around you, then that person definitely isn’t me!” Her expression had been so intensely serious when she said it. That was why the memory stuck with me. Yet right now, she was holding a fresh fork in her left hand, flawlessly twirling her pasta. I stared at that hand for a few heavy seconds before bending down to pick up the dropped fork. My fingers were trembling uncontrollably. Was the person sitting next to me not Ruby? Or was this just some twisted little prank she was playing on me? I sat back up, forcing a stiff smile. “Alright, alright, I’ll move to the other side. Don’t be mad.” I picked up my plate and slid into the opposite side of the booth. Ruby’s expression had already returned to normal. She continued eating, casually complaining about the toxic drama at her corporate office. Her tone, her facial expressions, the unique rhythm of her speech. Everything was exactly the way I knew it. I tried to convince myself I was just overworked. My paranoia was playing tricks on me. But the icy chill settling in my stomach refused to melt. A moment later, her boyfriend, Connor, returned from the restroom and naturally slid into the booth beside her. For the rest of the dinner, they chatted about entirely normal, domestic things. Ruby complained that his mother was pressuring them to get married. Connor just smiled, fed her a bite of his dessert, and promised they would tie the knot by the end of the year. Everything looked perfectly, painfully normal. Until Ruby absentmindedly took a massive bite of a stuffed mushroom from the appetizer platter. My heart violently seized. “Why are you eating the mushrooms?” Connor paused, looking at Ruby in genuine confusion. “Yeah babe, don’t you hate mushrooms?” Ruby blinked, looking slightly flustered before waving it off with a complaining tone. “Well, your mom puts mushroom broth in every roast she makes. I guess I just got used to it.” Connor smiled sheepishly, leaning in to kiss her cheek, completely oblivious to the world around them. But a cold sweat broke out across my skin. Connor always thought Ruby avoided mushrooms because she was a picky eater. But I was the only one who knew she was deathly allergic. Freshman year of college, a dining hall worker had accidentally ladled mushroom gravy onto her mashed potatoes. She didn’t notice and took two bites. I had to ride with her in the back of an ambulance while she went into anaphylactic shock. Since that night, she wouldn’t even touch a plate if a mushroom had been near it. You can mimic someone’s mannerisms. You can memorize their habits. But a biological physical reaction does not lie. I sat there for the rest of the dinner watching her closely. Ruby didn’t show a single sign of an allergic reaction. Her skin remained flawless. Her breathing was perfectly even. She even stole another mushroom off Connor’s plate. The last shred of warmth drained from my body. The woman sitting across from me was absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, not Ruby. Which meant… where was the real Ruby? 2 I practically threw myself onto my bed as soon as I got home, staring blankly at the ceiling while my mind spun out of control. I desperately tried to map out the timeline. When did Ruby change? A week ago, she had been perfectly fine before leaving for a VIP music festival in London. The morning of her flight, she sent me a voice memo. “Jenna, I’m heading to the airport! Let me know if you want anything from the duty-free shops.” Once she landed, she texted me every single day. Videos from the concert floor, pictures of fish and chips, the glittering night view from her hotel window. I rolled over, opened our chat history, and scrolled up to the day of the concert. She had sent a video from the VIP pit. The camera was shaking wildly, drowned out by the screaming crowd. I could hear her screaming over the noise. “Jenna, this is incredible! I’m totally coming back next year!” I watched it over and over again. It was definitely her face in the video. The voice belonged to her. There was absolutely nothing suspicious about it. But the more flawless it looked, the heavier my dread became. It didn’t feel like she was sharing a fun moment with her best friend. It felt like someone was deliberately trying to prove she was still alive. If the Ruby sitting in the restaurant tonight was a fake. Then who was sending me these messages? And what about Connor? Did he know the woman sharing his bed was an imposter? I didn’t sleep a single wink that night. First thing the next morning, I drove straight to the local police precinct. “I need to report a missing person. My best friend is gone.” The officer at the front desk was a man in his thirties named Officer Collins. He told me to sit down and walk him through it slowly. I spilled everything. I told him how Ruby had come back from London acting like a completely different person. How she didn’t know the secret habits only the two of us shared. And how she had eaten an allergen that should have put her in a hospital, yet suffered zero reaction. Officer Collins listened, his expression growing increasingly skeptical. He typed a few things into his computer and sighed. “Ma’am, we just ran a check on Ruby Hensley. She is currently at her registered home address.” “Her phone is active. Her social media is updating normally. She posted a photo of her dinner just last night, correct?” I nodded frantically. “Under these circumstances, we cannot open a missing persons case.” Panic clawed at my throat. “But she isn’t Ruby! The woman in her apartment is a fake!” Officer Collins looked at me like I belonged in a psychiatric ward. “Ms. Sutton, you are claiming this woman is an imposter, yet all her social ties, her legal identification, and her digital footprint match perfectly.” “Do you have a single piece of hard evidence to prove she is fake?” I opened my mouth, but the words died in my throat. I only had my intuition. And a secret dining pact between two best friends. None of that held up in a court of law. Officer Collins stood up, his tone shifting into a stern warning. “Ms. Sutton, if you continue to press this, I will have to escort you out for obstructing police business.” I was practically thrown out of the precinct. Standing on the concrete steps, the bright morning sun made my eyes burn with unshed tears. Three years ago, Ruby’s parents were killed in a horrific highway pileup. I was the only family she had left in this world. If she was still alive, she was waiting somewhere in the dark for me to save her. And if she was already… gone, then I was going to find her and bring her home. My phone buzzed with a new text. It was from Ruby’s account. A picture of a sad-looking sandwich with a caption. “The deli downstairs is getting worse every day!” Just her usual, casual complaining about her lunch break. I stared at the screen, my fingers turning numb. The fake Ruby had her phone. If the real Ruby had wanted to contact me, or warn me… A sudden memory hit me like a freight train. I sprinted to my car and sped all the way back to my apartment. Buried in the back of my closet was a clunky, outdated smartphone from our college days. Ruby was a brilliant coder. Back then, she had built a private, encrypted messaging app just for the two of us to gossip on. When we upgraded our phones after graduation, we slowly forgot the app existed. I tore through a shoebox, found the old phone, and frantically plugged it into a charger. The screen flickered to life. I found the greyed-out icon for her custom app. I tapped it. There was one unread message waiting on the screen. Received: Seven days ago, 2:37 PM. It was only three words. “Hide and seek.” 3 I stared at those three words, my pulse pounding violently against my ribs. Seven days ago. 2:37 PM. According to her itinerary, Ruby was supposed to be in the air, halfway to London at that exact time. Her phone should have been in airplane mode. Sending a message over cellular data would have been impossible. Unless… she never got on that plane. I grabbed my current phone and dialed the airline’s customer service hotline. “Hi, could you please check the passenger manifest for a flight to London last week? I need to know if a ‘Ruby Hensley’ actually boarded the plane.” The representative ran the search and delivered the crushing truth. “I can confirm that a passenger named Ruby Hensley checked in her luggage at the kiosk, but she never scanned her boarding pass at the gate.” A freezing shudder violently wracked my body. Ruby never went to London. Yet she had sent me a video from the VIP pit of the concert later that night. Which meant the real Ruby had already been taken before the flight even departed. And “Hide and seek” was the final breadcrumb she managed to drop for me. I stared at the screen, desperately trying to decode the hidden meaning. Hide and seek. It was a game we had played constantly since we were little kids. Back in her childhood backyard, she would always hide behind the giant ceramic water barrel near the flowerbeds, and I would always find her in seconds. But that was too obvious. If she was just referring to an address, she wouldn’t have used a riddle. So what did it mean? I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to mentally catalog every place we had ever been together. The old neighborhood from our childhood had been bulldozed for condos. The diner near our high school was shut down. The arcade we used to skip college classes for was now a strip mall. Eliminating those, I started thinking of places on the outskirts of the city that fit the theme of hiding. Abandoned factories, half-built construction sites, overgrown state parks… Everything felt plausible, yet entirely wrong. I opened the map on my phone, aimlessly zooming in and out of the county borders. And then my eyes snagged on the name of a deeply remote township. High Ash Springs. H, A, S. The exact same initials as “Hide And Seek.” In that split second, every instinct in my body screamed that Ruby was out there. I quickly zoomed in on the map. High Ash Springs was located in the eastern foothills. It was a completely isolated, impoverished mountain community wedged between two jagged peaks, lacking even a properly paved access road. It was eerily familiar. And its isolated geography made it the perfect place to hide a body. I looked up from the glowing screen. I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain this was what her message meant. But even if there was a one-in-a-million chance, I had to take it. Terrified of alerting the imposter, I opened our regular chat and sent a casual text to “Ruby.” “Work just dumped a massive out-of-town project on my lap. Gotta leave for a few days. Let’s grab drinks when I get back!” She replied instantly. “Ugh, the worst! Have a safe trip!” The bubbly, sweet tone was sickeningly accurate. I packed a heavy duffel bag, threw in two portable power banks and a heavy-duty flashlight, and drove my car onto the interstate. High Ash Springs was even more desolate than I had imagined. After leaving the highway, the road degraded from asphalt, to cracked concrete, to nothing but loose gravel and packed yellow dirt. After driving for almost four brutal hours, my headlights finally illuminated the weathered stone sign marking the town limits. The moment I saw it, a cold sweat drenched the back of my shirt. Because I had been here before. Two years ago, Ruby, Connor, and I took a weekend road trip. Our GPS supposedly glitched, and we ended up hopelessly lost in this exact town. Ruby had been sitting in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the decaying cabins. “This place would be perfect for a horror movie,” she had joked. If Ruby was truly trapped out here against her will. Then Connor was absolutely involved. Because on that road trip two years ago, Connor was the one behind the wheel. He was the one who set the GPS. And he was the one who “accidentally” took the wrong exit into this forgotten valley. From the very beginning, he was the only one who knew this place existed. 4 I slumped back against the driver’s seat, completely paralyzed by the realization. Connor and Ruby had been dating for three years. He treated her like royalty. If she worked a late shift, he would sit in his car outside her office until midnight just to walk her out. If it rained, he was standing at the subway exit with an umbrella. When she had horrible cramps, a mug of hot ginger tea was always waiting on her nightstand. They had already booked their wedding venue for December. Their engagement photoshoot was scheduled for next month. Why would he do this? And who was the fake Ruby living in her apartment? I didn’t have time to fall down that rabbit hole. Finding Ruby was the only thing that mattered. I forced myself out of the car, locking the doors behind me. A few elderly locals were sitting on their porches in the fading afternoon light. They watched me approach with openly hostile, guarded eyes. I walked up to each of them, asking if they had seen a strange man and woman pass through town a week ago. But their thick, isolated accents were nearly impossible to decipher. Even with wild hand gestures, I got absolutely nowhere. Just as the sun began to dip behind the tree line, a rugged, middle-aged man finally approached me. “You lookin’ for a guy traveling with a really pretty girl?” My head snapped up. “Yes! You saw them?” I frantically pulled out my phone, showing him a photo of Ruby and Connor. The man squinted at the screen. He didn’t say a word, just casually rubbed his thumb and index finger together. I understood immediately. I dumped out my wallet, shoving all the emergency cash I had on me into his calloused palm. About four hundred dollars. He weighed the cash in his hand, but his greedy eyes dropped to my wrist. I was wearing a solid gold Cartier bracelet. It was a birthday gift from my mother, and I had never taken it off. Without a second of hesitation, I unclasped the gold and pressed it into his hand. The man finally smiled, satisfied. He pointed a dirty finger toward the towering peaks. “They went up the mountain.” According to the local, a torrential downpour had just passed through seven days ago when an expensive sedan rolled into town. “Car was too low to the ground for these dirt roads. Got stuck in the mud on a steep incline.” “I helped the guy push his car out. He threw me a hundred bucks for the trouble.” “There was a woman sitting in the passenger seat…” He paused, scratching his jaw. “Didn’t get a good look at her face. But the hair color and the fancy clothes matched your picture.” My heart plummeted into my stomach. “Which way did they go?” “Up that one.” The man jutted his chin toward the eastern ridge. “Cross over that peak and you hit the neighboring county line. Nothin’ up there but an abandoned logging camp. Trail’s washed out, nobody ever goes up there.” “Did you see them come back down?” The man shook his head. “Nope. Ain’t no cell service up there either. Don’t know why any city folks would wander up there.” I stood completely still, staring at the pitch-black silhouette of the eastern mountain. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs. 5 The sky had gone completely dark. Trying to navigate an unfamiliar mountain trail at night was a death sentence. I retreated to my car, reclined the driver’s seat, and forced myself to wait out the night. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. Ruby’s face played on an endless loop behind my eyelids. When we were kids, she used to wear her hair in two messy pigtails, her crooked canine teeth showing whenever she laughed. In middle school, she chopped her hair into a pixie cut and cried for three days when a substitute teacher mistook her for a boy. In college, she got her heart broken by a frat boy. I walked thirty laps around the track with her while she sobbed, swearing she would never trust a man again. Then she met Connor, and she believed in love again. She told me Connor was different. Connor genuinely cared for her soul. I buried my face in my arms, my tears soaking silently into my jacket sleeves. Connor, what the hell did you do to her? The second the sky began to turn a bruised purple, I was awake. I didn’t go back into the village. I drove straight to the nearest county sheriff’s station. “I need to report an emergency.” “My best friend and I were hiking the eastern ridge yesterday and we got separated. She never came down the mountain.” I lied. It was the only way to guarantee they would send a search party into the woods. Just as I hoped, the mention of a missing hiker in a dangerous, unmapped forest triggered an immediate response. Within thirty minutes, they had assembled six deputies and two search-and-rescue dogs. The search team was led by a grizzled veteran named Officer Collins, his skin deeply tanned from decades in the sun. The dogs were pure professionals. The second we hit the tree line, they started barking wildly, dragging their handlers deep into the dense underbrush. The deeper we ventured into the suffocating woods, the heavier my dread became. If Ruby was actually out here, was she even still alive? Suddenly, both dogs stopped dead in their tracks, letting out a synchronized, ferocious howl before sprinting forward. I was stumbling over exposed roots, struggling to keep up. By the time I ripped through the final wall of thorny bushes and spilled into a small clearing, I heard one of the deputies yell. “We’ve got a body!” … Lying in the center of the muddy clearing was a corpse that had been partially unearthed by wild scavengers. It barely looked human anymore. The decomposition was brutal. The skin was mottled black and purple, bloated and grotesquely swollen from the humidity. Her facial features were entirely erased. Maggots writhed inside the empty eye sockets and along the jawline. The air was thick with the suffocating, putrid stench of rotting meat. But I knew it was my Ruby. She was wearing the custom, rhinestone-studded t-shirt I had designed for us to wear to the London concert. And wrapped around her decaying wrist was a braided silk bracelet I had brought back for her from a temple in Kyoto. Three years ago, when I tied it around her wrist, I had told her: “This is for protection. You’re going to live a long, beautiful life.” But my Ruby was only twenty-eight. She loved feeling beautiful. She spent an hour and a half on her makeup every single morning. She would twirl in front of her full-length mirror three times before stepping out the door. And now she was lying in the filthy dirt, being consumed by insects. I collapsed to my knees in the mud, my body violently convulsing with sobs. Officer Collins walked over, placing a heavy, sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “Let’s get you back to the precinct.” I followed him down the mountain in a completely dissociative haze. Ruby’s remains were bagged and transported to the county morgue. He told me they needed to perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death. I don’t remember how I survived the rest of that day. I only remember Officer Collins eventually leading me into a private interrogation room. “We found something inside the victim’s body. Something she left behind for you.” I stared at him blankly. Inside her body? Officer Collins plugged a tiny, blood-stained microchip into a forensic laptop on the table. A sharp burst of static filled the sterile room. First came the frantic rustling of leaves, like someone crawling desperately through thick brush to hide. Then came the sound of ragged, terrified breathing. And then, I heard Ruby’s voice. “Jenna… if you’re hearing this recording, it means I’ve already been murdered.” “I have a terrifying secret to tell you.” 6 The recording continued. Ruby’s voice was broken and breathless, shaking with pure adrenaline. She was running. “Jenna… if there ever comes a day… where you realize someone else has taken my place… you have to be careful…” A burst of heavy static. “Connor. He…” A sudden, sickening thud echoed through the speakers, like someone tripping and smashing into the dirt. Immediately following it was the terrifying crunch of heavy boots closing in fast. Someone was hunting her. “Ruby!” I screamed her name out loud in the sterile room, as if she could somehow hear me across time. In the recording, Ruby didn’t speak another word. There was only the sound of her gasping for air, thorns tearing at her clothes, and the heavy boots getting closer and closer. Then came a violent, scraping noise, like a piece of plastic being crushed and discarded into the grass. Her final words were a barely audible whisper, fragile as glass. “Jenna, you know my most precious thing… you know what it is!” The recording abruptly cut out. The silence in the room was deafening. Officer Collins hit the spacebar on his keyboard, turning to look at me. “We extracted this microchip from the victim’s stomach contents. It appears to be the core memory board of a digital voice recorder.” “Right before she died… she smashed the plastic casing of the recorder and swallowed the chip raw.” I bit down on my lower lip so hard my mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood. She swallowed it. She knew she was going to die. She knew there was no escape. So she swallowed the evidence. Because she knew that as long as her body wasn’t entirely destroyed, as long as someone eventually found her, her final words wouldn’t be erased. She traded her life to deliver this message to me. “Ms. Sutton,” Officer Collins said softly, sliding a paper cup of water across the table. “Are you alright?” I reached for the cup. My hands were shaking so violently I spilled half the water onto the metal table. “Do you know what she meant by her ‘most precious thing’?” he asked. I didn’t answer. I was desperately trying to figure it out. This was her second clue. “Hide and seek” was the first. “My most precious thing” was the second. I closed my eyes, digging through decades of memories. What did Ruby value above everything else? She used to joke about it all the time. She always said her most precious possession was me—the best friend who had stood by her side for twenty-eight years. But if the answer was that simple, she wouldn’t have used her dying breath to encrypt it. It had to be something tangible. Something hidden. My eyes snapped open. I pushed my chair back violently. “Officer Collins, I need to go somewhere right now.” “Where?” “The cemetery. Where her parents are buried.”

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At dinner, my 5-year-old son ate the last fried chicken piece—the one my stepdaughter always claimed. My wife immediately removed me from the family group chat for the 28th time, her voice icy: “Don’t even ask to rejoin until you teach your son to respect his sister.” What stung more was seeing her ex-husband’s sarcastic Instagram story minutes later: “Five years married, still treated like a stray dog. Guess who?” My boy was crying hysterically, fingers down his throat, trying to gag up the piece to give it back. In that moment, I snapped awake. I set my fork down, held my trembling son, and said with certainty, “If there’s no room for us here, we’re leaving.” Weeks earlier, he’d asked if I could divorce Mommy. When I asked why, he said in his small voice, “I don’t think Mommy loves us. She only loves Harper and Harper’s dad.” He went on, recalling how my wife used her Christmas bonus for them instead of his piano lessons, and gave away my birthday watch after Harper threw a fit. “She always kicks you out of the chat. You always have to beg to come back.” Then he broke me: “If you’re staying just for me, I’d rather not be your kid. I just want you happy and free.” Tears fell before he finished. This time, I was truly done. I was walking away. 1 Pamela froze for two seconds, her fork hovering in the air. “What did you just say?” I held my son tight against my chest. My voice was dangerously quiet. “I said, I want a divorce.” My ten-year-old stepdaughter, Harper, lit up. She dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clatter. “Mom, do it! Let him leave! Then you and Dad can finally get back together.” Pamela shot her a warning glare. “Eat your dinner.” Harper rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide her excited smirk. She muttered under her breath, “It’s true anyway. Once the loser leaves, my real dad can come home.” The loser. I had been married to Pamela for five years. Not once had Harper ever called me “Dad.” She barely even called me by my name. She usually just yelled “Hey” or called me “the loser.” And Pamela never corrected her. She acted completely deaf to it. Pamela leaned back in her dining chair, studying me. Her tone softened into something patronizing. “Owen, what kind of tantrum are you throwing now? Is this seriously just because I kicked you out of the group chat?” I didn’t answer. She let out a heavy sigh, looking at me like I was an unreasonable toddler. “Look at the situation and tell me who is in the wrong here.” Finn shrank against my chest, his little fists gripping my shirt tightly. Pamela pointed at him. “He knows Harper loves the fried chicken drumsticks, but he still fought her for it. As a father, you should be teaching him to yield to his older sister, not coddling him.” “All I did was tell you to discipline him, and now you are threatening me with a divorce?” I stared at the single, half-eaten drumstick sitting on Finn’s plate, and my heart turned to lead. Harper liked fried chicken, which meant she was entitled to the entire bucket. Just a few minutes ago, there was exactly one piece left. Harper had pushed her plate away and loudly announced she was stuffed. Only then did Finn dare to reach for it. He had barely taken a single bite before Harper snatched her fork back up and screamed, “I wanted to eat that! Why are you stealing my food?!” Pamela had been scrolling through her phone. She glanced up, didn’t ask a single question, and instantly removed me from the family chat. It was the twenty-eighth time. Seeing my silence, Pamela assumed she had won the argument. Her tone grew sharper. “Harper isn’t your biological daughter, which means you should be going out of your way to treat her better. But what do you do? You encourage Finn to steal food right off her plate.” “If you cared about Harper even half as much as you care about Finn, I wouldn’t have had to do that tonight.” “I am just trying to remind you to be fair. Stop playing favorites.” Playing favorites? My mind flashed back to when we first got married. Harper was five. She suffered from terrible night terrors, waking up screaming and crying for her real dad. I was the one who paced the living room floor, holding her against my shoulder, rocking her back to sleep night after night. When Finn was born, I was terrified Harper would feel left out, so I spoiled her even more. When she spiked a 103-degree fever in the middle of the night and Pamela was out of town on a business trip, her biological father, Trent, refused to answer his phone. I was the one who held her in the emergency room waiting area until dawn. Finn was barely a year old at the time. I had to dump him at a neighbor’s house. When I picked him up the next morning, he had cried so hard he lost his voice. Yet, in their eyes, I was just a biased, toxic stepdad. Pamela looked at me, her voice softening just a fraction. “Alright, enough drama.” “Make Finn apologize to Harper. Have him promise he won’t do it again. I’ll monitor his behavior for a few days, and if he acts right, I’ll add you back to the chat.” I stared into her eyes. These were the same deep, beautiful eyes that made me fall for her on our very first blind date. When I found out she was a divorced mother of one, my own father had grabbed my arm and begged me to walk away. “Owen, what are you doing? She has a kid, and her ex-husband is still hovering around. If you marry her, you’ll just be a punching bag for all their baggage.” I refused to listen. I naively believed that if I was just kind enough, patient enough, and loved them hard enough, I could thaw her heart and become a real part of this family. But five years had passed. I was still just an outsider who could be deleted from the family group chat at the drop of a hat. “Pamela, in your heart, do you even consider me family?” She blinked, clearly caught off guard. I kept going. “If I am your family, why is there no space for me in a stupid text thread?” Her brow furrowed, a flash of genuine confusion crossing her face. “Everything has been perfectly fine. Whenever you fix your attitude, I always invite you back in, don’t I?” Perfectly fine? Yes, perfectly fine because every single time, I swallowed my pride and apologized. I did it because I loved her. I did it because I desperately wanted to belong. And later, I did it because Finn was too young, and I wanted him to grow up in a complete home. But now, I was exhausted down to my bones. “Twenty-eight times. Every time I don’t perfectly cater to Harper’s mood, or whenever I upset your ex-husband, you kick me out without asking a single question.” “But Trent divorced you six years ago, and he has never been kicked out of that chat.” “Pamela, who is actually your husband?” 2 The color drained from her face. “Are you really going to start being insanely jealous over nothing again? Trent is Harper’s biological father. He stays in the chat so we can easily communicate about our daughter.” Communicate? I let out a bitter, hollow laugh. My eyes burned. “And what about me? Every time you kick me out, I have to completely humiliate myself. I have to suck up to Trent, and I have to beg Harper for forgiveness, just so you’ll bestow the honor of adding me back.” “Pamela, have you ever, for a single second, considered how that makes me feel?” She fell silent. Suddenly, Finn wriggled out of my arms and sprinted to the kitchen trash can. “Mommy, don’t be mad at Daddy! It’s my fault! I’ll give the chicken back to Harper…” As he spoke, he shoved his fingers deep into his mouth, gagging violently over the plastic bin. I lunged forward and grabbed his hands. “Finn! Finn, stop! Do not do that, it’s not your fault!” He collapsed against my chest, sobbing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath, his little face flushed crimson. Harper pointed at him from the dining table and burst out laughing. “Mom, look! I told you he was a manipulative little brat. The loser taught him how to play the victim perfectly.” Pamela didn’t even stand up. She just sat there, her eyebrows pulled together in annoyance. “Look at this. This is because you baby him. He’s five years old and he already knows how to emotionally blackmail adults.” As a mother, she didn’t ask if Finn was choking. She didn’t ask if he was okay. I suddenly remembered last winter. Harper got into a scuffle on the playground and scraped her knee. Pamela got the call at work, burst into tears, abandoned a major client meeting, and drove like a maniac to the school just to carry Harper to urgent care. A month later, Harper purposely tripped Finn in our living room. His forehead slammed into the corner of the glass coffee table. Blood poured down his face, soaking his shirt. Pamela barely glanced up from her laptop. “He’s fine. Kids bump into things all the time.” I was the one who drove a screaming, bleeding Finn to the hospital alone. He needed four stitches. He cried the entire time. When we got home, Pamela didn’t ask how he was. She just accused me of being dramatic and seeking attention. Thinking about that day, I picked Finn up and stood tall. Pamela assumed I was finally backing down. She leaned back in her chair. “Take him to his room and calm him down. When he stops screaming, come back out, clear the table, load the dishwasher, and help Harper with her math homework.” I didn’t say a single word. I just carried Finn to his bedroom. As I shut the door behind us, I heard Harper’s gloating voice echo through the hall. “Mom, he is totally faking it. He’s just waiting for you to go in there and beg him. My dad told me Owen is a manipulative snake.” Pamela sounded irritated. “Let him throw his little fit. Ignore him and he’ll snap out of it.” A few minutes later, I heard the familiar chime of a FaceTime call connecting in the living room. Harper had called her grandparents. She immediately started whining. “Grandma! The loser is acting crazy again.” “His bratty kid stole my food, and when Mom yelled at him, he threw a massive tantrum and locked himself in the bedroom. He won’t even clean the kitchen! He said he wants a divorce.” My father-in-law scoffed loudly through the phone speaker. “That guy is getting more pathetic by the day.” Then, Trent’s voice echoed from the screen. He must have been at their house. “Come on, guys, don’t be too hard on Owen. I’m sure he has his own insecurities. I just feel so terrible for my little Harper…” My mother-in-law immediately chimed in. “What insecurities? The man can’t even cook a decent meal. Harper is our precious angel. She is a growing girl. Why should she have to walk on eggshells just to eat a piece of chicken in her own house?” “He’s completely biased. He only cares about his own blood.” “Things were so much better when you were still around, Trent…” Harper sounded incredibly smug. “Exactly, Grandma! That loser treats me like garbage. He is nothing like my real dad. My dad actually loves me.” “Mom, when are you going to divorce him? Dad is literally waiting to marry you again.” Trent chuckled softly. “Harper, sweetie, don’t say that. Your mom is a married woman.” “He’s not a real husband! I’ll never accept him!” Pamela murmured something low. I couldn’t make out the words. I sat on the edge of the bed, holding Finn against my chest, feeling an absolute, suffocating wasteland inside my soul. Five years. I had bled myself dry trying to take care of every single person in this family. When Pamela’s mother threw out her back, I spent hours every day making homemade bone broth and riding the subway across the city just to deliver it to her while it was hot. When her father had a heart attack and was hospitalized, Pamela was “too stressed” to deal with it. I took all my vacation days and slept in a hard plastic chair beside his hospital bed for a week, so exhausted I was hallucinating. And in return? I didn’t get a single word of gratitude. Meanwhile, Trent had been divorced from Pamela for six years, and her parents still lovingly treated him like a son. I closed my eyes, refusing to listen to the FaceTime call anymore. Finn gently tugged at my collar. “Daddy, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have eaten the chicken…” I looked down at his terrified, tear-streaked face, and my heart physically ached. “Finn, Daddy is going to take you away from here. Is that okay?” He blinked his swollen eyes. “To where?” “To a place where you can eat all the fried chicken you want, and nobody will ever yell at you.” He thought about it for a second, then whispered, “Is Mommy coming?” “Do you want Mommy to come?” He shook his head violently and buried his face in my neck. “Mommy only loves Harper. She doesn’t like me at all.” I hugged him fiercely. “Okay. Then Mommy isn’t coming. It’s just going to be you and me.” 3 That night, Pamela didn’t come into the master bedroom. It was her standard playbook. She was giving me the silent treatment, waiting for me to crack and apologize. But she didn’t realize that after twenty-eight times, I was completely done punishing myself and my son for her ego. The next morning, my alarm went off at 6:00 AM sharp. Normally, I would jump out of bed, cook a full breakfast, iron Pamela’s blouse and Harper’s uniform, and then gently wake them up. I would serve them, clean up their dishes, and then drive Harper to school. Today, I reached over, turned off the alarm, pulled the blanket over Finn, and went back to sleep. When I woke up again, I checked my phone. It was 8:40 AM. The apartment was dead silent. A few minutes later, panicked, heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway. The bedroom door flew open. Pamela stood there, her hair a tangled mess, frantically trying to zip up her pencil skirt. “Why didn’t you wake us up?!” Harper poked her head around Pamela’s hip, her face twisted in fury. “This is all your fault! I’m going to be late for homeroom and my teacher is going to scream at me!” Pamela stormed into the room, her face dark with anger. “You didn’t even make breakfast? Do you have any idea what time it is?” I didn’t get out of bed. I just gently patted Finn’s back as he stirred from the shouting. Ignored, Pamela’s scowl deepened. “Are you seriously still throwing a fit? Over a piece of chicken? Really?” “Fine! I’ll add you back to the chat, okay? Is that what you want?” She snatched her phone from her pocket, tapped the screen a few times, and shoved it in my face. “There. Happy now? Get up and make us something to eat!” I didn’t look at her. I picked up my own phone from the nightstand, opened the family chat, and pressed “Leave Group.” Then, I went to her contact and hit “Block.” Pamela’s face instantly dropped. Harper kept whining loudly. “Mom, I am starving! We have to go right now!” Pamela glared at me, turned on her heel, and slammed the bedroom door so hard the walls shook. A few minutes later, I heard the chaotic clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen, followed by Harper complaining about how disgusting the food tasted. A moment later, Pamela shoved the bedroom door open again. “Harper has a parent-teacher showcase at school today. I just got an email from my boss, there’s a crisis at the office and I have to go in. You need to go to her school.” “No,” I replied flatly. “Call her real dad. I have plans today.” Her expression turned venomous. “Plans? What kind of plans could you possibly have?” I threw off the covers and started digging through the dresser for Finn’s clothes. “I have an appointment with a divorce lawyer.” She froze. The anger melted into genuine shock. “Owen, have you lost your mind? You are seriously dragging us toward a divorce over a minor argument?” I completely ignored her and focused on getting Finn dressed. Harper yelled from the front door. Pamela stared at me for three long seconds. “You want to play hardball? Fine. Let’s see how long you can keep this pathetic act up.” She spun around and dragged Harper out the door. I made Finn a quiet breakfast, called into work to use a personal day, and took him straight to a lawyer friend’s office downtown. While Finn played with a box of Lego in the lobby, I sat in the office and had my friend draft an airtight divorce agreement. Just as we walked out of the law firm into the afternoon sun, my phone buzzed. It was Pamela. I had unblocked her just in case of emergencies. I answered, and her voice came through shrill and frantic. “Harper got hurt at school! You need to get to the hospital right now!” “What happened?” “The parent showcase! Because no one was there, she was running around the bleachers by herself, fell, and severely injured her leg! They took her to the ER. I am locked in a conference room and cannot leave. Get over there now!” I didn’t miss a beat. “Tell Trent to go. I am not her father.” Dead silence on the other end of the line. Then, her voice exploded, practically shattering the speaker. “Owen! What the hell is wrong with you?! If you had just gone to the school like I told you to, she never would have fallen! This is your fault, and you won’t even go check on her?!” Standing under the bright sunlight, a cold, empty laugh escaped my throat. “Pamela, you spent five years telling me I don’t care enough about her. Since I am already convicted of the crime, I figured I might as well show you what not caring actually looks like.” I hung up the phone. I looked down at my son. “Finn, you want to go to the amusement park?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “424975”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Five years ago, Logan’s tech startup went bankrupt, leaving him drowning in a mountain of debt. At the time, I was pregnant with his child. But I was terrified that if I stayed with him, we would end up starving on the streets. So, without a single word, I packed my bags and ran away, taking our unborn baby with me. The next time I heard his name, it was five years later. Word on the street was that he had become the ruthless, undisputed head of the multi-billion-dollar Sinclair family empire. But there was a catch—a horrific car accident had allegedly left him permanently sterile. As fate would have it, right around the exact same time, my son was diagnosed with a severe illness, and I desperately needed a massive amount of money to save his life. I bit my lip, swallowed my pride, and grabbed my little boy’s hand. “Come on, sweetie. Mommy is going to take you to see your daddy.” 1 Lying in his hospital bed, little Leo rolled his eyes at me with zero hesitation. “Mom, are you losing it? Didn’t you say my dad died a long time ago?” I let out an awkward, dry laugh. “Oh, well, he was really, really sick back then. I thought he was going to die. But, surprise! The doctors fixed him.” Leo’s eyes suddenly lit up like fireworks. “Does that mean I can get fixed by the doctors and go home, just like Daddy?” I nodded firmly. “Of course you can!” Kids are so easy to trick. A few simple words, and he believed me completely. Walking out of his hospital room, I reopened the browser on my phone. The screen displayed a massive headline from a major financial news outlet, reporting that the CEO of Sinclair Enterprises was left infertile following a catastrophic car crash. At first, I honestly thought it was just some guy who happened to share the same name. But when my thumb slipped and I clicked the article, my heart dropped. The man in the high-resolution photo didn’t just share Logan’s name—he had Logan’s exact face. There are no coincidences that massive in this world. There was only one logical explanation: Logan had lied to me, too. He was never the broke, struggling kid from the wrong side of the tracks that I thought he was. He was the heir to an empire. Standing in that sterile hospital corridor, I didn’t know whether to scream or cry. But at the very least, for Leo’s sake, this was a godsend. I immediately booked two first-class plane tickets to New York City for the next morning. When my mom arrived at the hospital to drop off dinner, I was already throwing clothes into a suitcase. “Another business trip? Are you trying to dump the kid on me again?” she grumbled, setting the Tupperware on the table. “I told you exactly what was going to happen five years ago. I told you not to have this baby, but you refused to listen. And now that he’s here, you constantly dump him on me. I am supposed to be enjoying my retirement, but instead, I’m trapped in this house playing nanny.” I glanced nervously at the bed. Leo was awake, watching us. I lowered my voice to a harsh whisper. “Mom, please. Can you stop saying that in front of him? He’s little, but he understands. It hurts his feelings.” “Oh, whatever. You did it, but I’m not allowed to talk about it…” “Mom. If you have nothing else to do, go give Leo a hug. Tomorrow morning, I am taking him to New York.” I cut her off sharply. She froze. Then, she grabbed my arm and dragged me out into the hallway. “Did you scrape together enough for the surgery?” she demanded, her voice dropping. “No, wait… where did you get that kind of money? You’ve been raising a kid by yourself for five years. You don’t have a dime to spare.” I kept my eyes on the floor. I had zero intention of telling my mother the truth right now. “Just drop it, Mom. Honestly, I have no idea when we’ll be back.” “You can finally go enjoy your peaceful retirement. Leo and I won’t be dragging you down anymore.” My mom’s face instantly hardened into a furious scowl. “You little brat. You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? You know perfectly well I just talk tough, but I love that kid.” She waved me off dismissively. “Forget it. I’m not wasting my breath on you. I’m going to go see my grandson.” 2 Early the next morning, my mom squeezed Leo so tight she could barely breathe, sobbing hysterically in the hospital lobby. “Leo, my sweet boy, Grandma is going to miss you so much.” “Once the doctors fix you up, you hurry right back to Grandma, okay?” See? People are always like this. They complain when you’re around, but the second you actually try to leave, they act like the world is ending. Just before we stepped into the Uber heading to the airport, my mom shoved a debit card into my coat pocket. “I called around and borrowed some cash. It’s not a fortune, but it’ll help in an emergency. You know the pin. Take good care of my boy.” I waved from the window as the car pulled away, but my stomach was in knots. If my mom knew my actual plan was to hand Leo over to Logan and walk away, she would literally murder me. My own heart felt like it was being run through a meat grinder. But to guarantee Leo got access to the absolute best medical care in the world, this was a trip I had to take. Sitting on the plane, I leaned close to Leo and started laying down the ground rules. “Listen to me, Leo. From now on, whenever there are other people around, you have to call me ‘Auntie.’ Do you understand?” “Why?” Leo tilted his little head, his face entirely scrunched up in confusion. I took a deep breath and patiently fed him a lie. “Think about it. When your dad was super sick, I didn’t stay and take care of him. He is probably incredibly mad at me. If he finds out I came back, who knows how he might try to punish me?” Leo blinked his big eyes, only half understanding. “Mom… are you not going to stay with me at Daddy’s house?” Guilt slammed into me so hard I couldn’t even look him in the eye. “Once the doctors make you all better, Mommy will come right back and pick you up.” “You promise you aren’t tricking me?” “I would never.” “Pinky promise.” “Okay. Pinky promise.” 3 I didn’t go straight to Logan. Instead, I used every resource I could find to track down Logan’s mother, Melora Sinclair. We met at a tiny, obscure coffee shop in Brooklyn that completely clashed with her custom Chanel suit. She kept her oversized designer sunglasses on, sitting rigidly in the cheap wooden booth. “You are claiming you have a child? And that this child belongs to my son?” She spoke first, her sharp gaze slowly dragging from my face down to Leo, who was sitting quietly beside me. The very next second, her entire demeanor shattered. “Oh my dear Lord… is this a carbon copy of Logan?” She practically lunged across the table, grabbing Leo’s small hands, examining his face with frantic excitement. “This… this is exactly what Logan looked like as a little boy! Exactly!” Melora wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest. From the day I found out I was pregnant to the day I gave birth, Logan was entirely absent. But regardless of the angle, Leo was the spitting image of his father. I slid a thick manila folder across the table. It contained Leo’s complete medical history, his birth certificate, and all his identity documents. “Leo was diagnosed with a severe congenital heart defect a year ago. He requires immediate, highly specialized surgery.” “If your family has any doubts whatsoever, I fully support a DNA test.” Melora’s face turned deadly serious. She stared at me intensely. “And you are the boy’s…” “I have no relation to the child. I am simply acting on behalf of someone else.” “If the Sinclair family is willing to claim this boy, I will disappear immediately.” Melora stood up, stepped outside the coffee shop, and made a rapid phone call. Ten minutes later, a sleek black SUV pulled up, and she escorted us to the most elite private hospital in Manhattan. Shortly after we arrived, a man in a sharp suit delivered a sealed plastic bag containing a single strand of dark hair. The moment the rapid DNA results were handed to her, Melora’s eyes lit up like the Fourth of July. While the pediatric specialists whisked Leo away for a preliminary workup, Melora opened her designer handbag, pulled out a massive stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills, and slid them across the waiting room table. “Thank you,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “The Sinclair family will ensure this boy has everything he could ever need.” I politely pushed the money back. I had fully intended to raise this boy myself. But clearly, fate had other, much crueler plans for us. As I turned to walk away, Leo suddenly ran out of the examination room and grabbed the hem of my coat. “Auntie… you promise you aren’t tricking me, right?” His big eyes were bloodshot and brimming with tears. He hadn’t forgotten our deal on the plane. I crouched down and gently cupped his cheek. Because of his illness over the last year, he looked so much smaller and more fragile than other boys his age. I was a terrible mother. I had failed him. I fought back the tears burning the back of my throat and forced a smile. “Did you forget? We pinky promised.” 4 I didn’t leave the hospital until I physically saw the Sinclair family’s private security detail escort Leo into the ultra-luxury VIP pediatric suite. When I finally got back to my cheap hotel room, my chest felt like a hollow, echoing cavern. It felt like someone had reached in and violently ripped out the most important piece of my soul. I collapsed onto the stiff mattress and stared blankly at the popcorn ceiling. I have no idea how much time passed. I was violently jolted awake by my cell phone screaming on the nightstand. It was an unknown New York number. I hesitated for a second, then pressed answer. “Where are you?” A low, vibrating male voice filled the speaker. “Who is this?” I asked on pure instinct. It took me a solid five seconds to realize why the voice sent shivers down my spine. How many nights had we spent tangled in the sheets, sweating and breathless, while he whispered exactly how much he loved me right into my ear? “You know exactly who this is. Send me your location.” It wasn’t a request. It was an absolute command. My fingers clamped around the phone in terror. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.” I panicked, hung up the phone, and threw it across the bed. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. After five entire years of absolute radio silence, why the hell was Logan calling me? And how on earth did he get my number? Before I flew to New York, I had done my research. Logan was currently unmarried. He only had one long-term girlfriend who had been by his side for a few years. If the media reports about his accident were true, Leo was going to be the only heir to the Sinclair empire. That was the exact reason I was so dead-set on handing Leo over to them. Growing up in the Sinclair mansion was infinitely better than growing up in a tiny apartment with me. But my situation was different. I was the ex-girlfriend who abandoned him during the absolute darkest, poorest year of his life. I didn’t have the guts to ever cross paths with him again. The next morning, I planned to sneak into the hospital, get one last glimpse of Leo from a distance, and then head straight to JFK to fly home. As I carefully crept down the VIP corridor toward his suite, I peered through the glass. Logan was sitting by the bed, wearing a razor-sharp, custom-tailored suit. He was completely focused on peeling an apple with a small knife. He didn’t look like he had aged a day, but his aura was completely different. The raw, imposing wealth radiating from him was suffocating. Looking back, it was almost comical that I genuinely believed he was just some broke kid struggling to make rent. Sitting up in the hospital bed, Leo was clearly impatient. Before Logan even finished peeling the apple, Leo leaned forward and took a massive bite right out of his hand. The two of them locked eyes and broke into identical, brilliant smiles. Watching them, my vision blurred with hot tears. Maybe… maybe this really was the absolute best ending for everyone. I looked down and aggressively wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. But right at that exact second, Logan’s head snapped up. His eyes locked onto the small window in the door, staring directly at the spot where I was standing. My heart completely stopped. I violently threw myself backward, flattening my spine against the wall. I held my breath, praying to God I moved fast enough. A few seconds later, the bright sound of Leo’s laughter echoed from inside the room again. 5 It was blatantly obvious that Logan adored the boy. That was all I needed to know. I could finally breathe. I pulled out my phone and pulled up the airline app, looking for the earliest flight back to Chicago. I desperately needed to keep my brain occupied. If I stopped moving, the crushing reality of what I had just done would drown me. But as I stared at the screen, walking down the crowded hospital corridor, the words were just a blurry mess. Before I realized what was happening, I slammed hard into someone walking the opposite way. “Oh! Miss, are you alright?” A soft, polite voice asked. I snapped my head up and froze. If my memory of the tabloid articles was correct, the woman standing right in front of me was Chloe, Logan’s long-term girlfriend. I panicked and waved my hands frantically. “I’m fine! I’m so sorry, totally my fault.” I turned to sprint away, but Chloe gently grabbed my arm. “I saw you walking from down the hall. I just wanted to ask, is the pediatric VIP wing in that direction?” I went completely rigid. She was going to the pediatric wing. She was going to see Leo. I couldn’t help but stare at her. Chloe was undeniably stunning. But she had a very soft, gentle, entirely non-threatening beauty. In one hand, she held an absurdly expensive basket of imported fruit. In the other, a massive, limited-edition Lego set. That was why she couldn’t brace herself when I completely bulldozed into her. I opened my mouth, trying to figure out how to answer her, when a chillingly familiar voice echoed from down the hall. “Chloe.” My spine instantly turned to ice. Chloe looked up, her face breaking into a bright smile. She stepped past me, walking toward Logan. “This hospital is an absolute maze! I was walking in circles for ten minutes.” Logan gave a low, noncommittal hum. His eyes darted past her. “Who were you talking to?” I don’t know if I was just being paranoid, but it felt like a sniper’s laser was burning a hole right between my shoulder blades. Chloe brushed it off casually. “Oh, just a stranger. We accidentally bumped into each other.” A wave of relief washed over me. I turned my head down, desperate to escape. But then Logan’s voice cracked through the hallway like a whip. “You. Turn around.” There was zero doubt in my mind. He was talking directly to me. Chloe instantly picked up on the tension. She reached out, lightly touching his arm. “Logan, what are you doing? She’s just a stranger. And she didn’t hurt me, I promise. Just let it go, don’t make a scene.” Ah. So Logan was just being fiercely protective of his girlfriend. I couldn’t help but find my own panic slightly pathetic. It had been five years. No one stays stuck in the past forever. What the hell was I so terrified of? I took a deep breath, slowly turned around, and looked directly at Chloe. “I am so sorry again for bumping into you.” For the entire agonizing ten seconds it took me to apologize, Logan’s eyes were locked onto my face like a predator. He didn’t say a single word. 6 The second I walked out of the hospital sliding doors, I booked it straight to the airport. Sitting in the back of the cab, Logan’s terrifying, dead-eyed stare played on a loop in my head. I remembered back to five years ago. His startup had completely collapsed, and aggressive debt collectors had actually tracked down our apartment. I emptied my savings account, withdrew the last fifteen thousand dollars I had to my name, and shoved it into his hands so he could pay off the worst of the sharks. Logan had looked at me with that exact same intensity. Then, he had pulled me into a crushing hug. “Baby, I can’t take your money. I promise you, I swear to God, I am going to make it.” “The second I make it, I am going to put a ring on your finger.” At the time, I didn’t think he was just feeding me empty promises. When we first met, if you combined both our bank accounts, we wouldn’t even break two hundred bucks. We rented a tiny, miserable one-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood. Rent was eight hundred a month. I took the bedroom and paid five hundred. He slept on a thrift store couch in the living room and paid three hundred. We split the utilities right down the middle. In the beginning, neither of us ever imagined we would end up falling in love. Logan had an absolutely relentless drive. He regularly worked on his laptop until three in the morning. One night, I came home late from drinks with some girlfriends and found him still hunched over his glowing screen. I casually held up a styrofoam box. “I brought back some leftover wings. You want them?” Logan practically launched himself out of his chair. “Yes!” We sat on the cheap carpet, eating cold wings, and talked for hours. That was the night I found out he had blown up his relationship with his wealthy family and walked out, swearing he wouldn’t return until he had built an empire with his own two hands. Not wanting to kill his vibe, I offered some generic encouragement. “With how hard you grind, as long as you find the right market, you’re guaranteed to succeed.” Logan looked at me, and I swear there were literal stars in his eyes. Maybe it was because I was the only person who offered him genuine support and a lifeline during the absolute darkest chapter of his life. But as soon as his startup finally gained a little traction, he asked me out. We stayed in that same miserable apartment. Except we weren’t splitting the rooms anymore. We were both sleeping in the bedroom. And Logan quietly took over the entire rent payment. It felt like our lives were slowly, steadily climbing toward the light. And then reality hit us with a baseball bat. Logan spent every waking hour drowning in a sea of toxic debt. He was barely coming home. And right at the absolute peak of the crisis, I found out I was pregnant. At first, I didn’t have the guts to tell him. I just wanted to help him survive the immediate financial bloodbath. But then, one afternoon, I came home early and overheard him on a phone call. “What is going on between me and Serena is none of your damn business. Stop interfering in my life, okay?” “Relax. Dating is one thing. When it comes time to actually pick a wife, I will reconsider my options.” I was Serena. I was so incredibly furious I saw red. I thought to myself, This guy is literally bankrupt and running from loan sharks, and he still has the audacity to act like a billionaire playboy? Did he honestly think every woman on earth was going to orbit around his massive ego? I was genuinely terrified that if I stayed with him, I would end up starving to death in a gutter. So, I made the split-second decision to dump him. Just to twist the knife, I left a handwritten note on the kitchen counter. I look at you and I see absolutely zero future. We’re done. I’m sure you understand. After all, I have the right to chase someone who can actually provide for me. Then, I blocked his number, blocked him on every social media platform, and vanished. It wasn’t until I was sitting on the Amtrak train halfway back to my hometown that I remembered one crucial detail. I was still carrying Logan’s baby. 7 For a brief, insane moment, I considered turning around, marching back to the apartment, screaming in his face, and telling him about the pregnancy. But then I remembered the absolute garbage he spewed on that phone call. I realized going back would just be volunteering for more humiliation. He never, for a single second, envisioned a future with me. As for the baby… Since he was already here, I decided to just let fate run its course. Over the years, I occasionally heard whispers about Logan through the grapevine. Apparently, his company had miraculously risen from the ashes. He paid off all his debt and was expanding aggressively. I immediately blocked the friend who told me. I had zero interest in hearing about his meteoric rise. Later, after I gave birth to Leo alone, my mom was furious. She complained constantly. But the very first time Leo giggled and reached for her face, my mom’s harsh voice melted into absolute honey. Ever since my dad passed away, my mom had been entirely hollow. It felt like Leo finally gave her a reason to wake up in the morning. She took care of the baby, and I worked double shifts. The days bled together. It was exhausting, but it was peaceful. Until Leo caught a “bad cold” that wouldn’t go away, and that peace was entirely obliterated. Sometimes, late at night, I honestly wondered if I had committed some horrific atrocity in a past life. Because every single time I thought my life was finally stabilizing, the universe would violently smash a brick into my face. … Snapping back to reality, I realized my face was completely drenched in tears. Great. How the hell am I going to explain this to my mom when I get home? My flight wasn’t until 2:00 PM. I still had an hour to kill sitting at the gate. Right on cue, my phone vibrated with a FaceTime call from my mom. Every instinct in my body screamed to decline it. But my mom is relentless. If I didn’t answer, she would call the airport police and report me missing. Defeated, I swiped the green button. “Where is my Leo?” The very first words out of her mouth. She didn’t even say hello. I rubbed my nose, trying to sound casual. “He’s right here, playing.” “Show him to me.” I purposefully jerked the camera toward the empty seat next to me. “He’s throwing a fit. He doesn’t want to be on camera.” My mom wasn’t an idiot. “Serena, are you at an airport gate? I thought you were checking him in for surgery! Why are you coming back so fast?” “Point the damn camera at Leo right now. I just want to say hi.” I stared at the screen, entirely frozen. “Serena! What the hell kind of game are you playing?” “Are you completely ignoring your mother now?!” Honestly, I couldn’t even process what my mom was yelling anymore. Because staring back at me on my phone screen, hovering just inches behind my right shoulder, was Logan’s face. He was standing right behind me. My mom was still screaming through the speaker. “Serena! If anything happens to my grandson, I swear to God I will end you!” “Mom, I gotta go!” In a blind panic, I jammed my thumb onto the red end-call button. I forced myself to take a shallow breath, plastered on a neutral face, and slowly turned around. “Can I help you?” Considering he currently had physical custody of my child, I couldn’t exactly pretend I had never met the guy. Logan glared down at me, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth would shatter. “Serena. You are just as completely heartless as you were five years ago. First you abandon me, and now you are throwing your own son in the trash?” What do you mean, I abandoned him?! I shot to my feet, my own anger flaring up. “Get your story straight! I didn’t abandon you, you completely betrayed me first!” And wait—he already knew Leo was my biological son. Well, obviously. Unless he suffered a traumatic brain injury in that car crash, any idiot could do the math. Logan scowled, his dark eyes swirling with something I couldn’t read. I pushed forward. “Look, if you actually feel sorry for Leo, then once he recovers from the surgery, can I please come back and get him?” “Not a chance in hell.” Exactly as I predicted. The absolute second the Sinclair family knew this boy existed, my chances of ever getting him back dropped to zero. “Fine. Then take good care of him. I will make sure I never show my face to him again.” Logan was going to marry a billionaire heiress. Leo was going to have a wealthy, connected stepmother. My presence would only be a toxic, humiliating complication for their perfect family.

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My name is Sienna. This was supposed to be my sixth year with Sebastian. That day, I accidentally overheard a conversation between him and his secretary. The secretary asked if the little girl was still throwing a tantrum. Sebastian let out a scoff and said that no matter how fiery she was, she couldn’t hold a candle to the way Sienna used to be. The secretary quickly agreed, laughing about how no one could have predicted that the wild, untamable Miss Sienna from back then would turn into someone so incredibly obedient, never daring to step a toe out of line. But Sebastian just frowned. He said Sienna was docile now, yes, but she had also become painfully boring. I stood frozen outside the door, feeling like a lifeless statue carved out of clay. So that was it. I was the girl he was talking about. The one who used to be fiercely stubborn, but had now become so blindly obedient that I was completely unrecognizable. 1 Through the half-open door, the rise and fall of their conversation drifted out into the hallway. I had just raised my hand to push the door open when I suddenly heard my own name. “I think she’s just taking advantage of the fact that I spoil her.” “Fiery?” Sebastian sneered. “Even on her worst day, she doesn’t have half the fire Sienna had back then.” The men inside chuckled, eager to please him. “Miss Lily is young, after all. She won’t even turn nineteen until after the holidays. It’s totally normal for her to be a bit childish and throw tantrums.” “Sienna was exactly that age back then.” Sebastian seemed to get caught up in the memory, falling silent for a brief moment. “You all saw it. You know exactly how wild and fierce she was.” “But look at her now. She’s so well-behaved she wouldn’t dare breathe in the wrong direction.” The sycophantic laughter started up again. “You’re absolutely right, sir. Back then, none of us could have ever imagined Miss Sienna becoming so incredibly tame.” Someone else chimed in. “I remember it perfectly. She had a lethal temper. If I hadn’t ducked fast enough that one night, that heavy glass ashtray would have split my skull wide open.” Sebastian laughed along. “Now that she’s older, she’s gotten soft and utterly dull.” “Looking at Lily… I actually see a faint shadow of how Sienna used to be.” As he spoke, he suddenly turned to his secretary. “Go book a flight.” “For tonight. I’m flying back to New York.” “Are you flying back personally just to coax her?” The secretary sounded genuinely surprised. Sebastian didn’t deny it. “The patriarch isn’t feeling well. I need to go check on him. Dropping by to see Lily is just on the way.” “There are no more commercial flights tonight. The earliest private slot is at 3 AM. Would you like to reschedule…” “Book the 3 AM slot.” Sebastian cut him off without hesitation. 2 I slowly lowered my hand. Inside the room, the conversation carried on, but they had already moved on to other, meaningless topics. I didn’t push the door open. I just stood there, entirely rigid. Like a wooden carving. It wasn’t until the harsh, overly bright hallway lights began to make my eyes sting that I finally blinked, turned around, and slowly walked toward the elevator. The Sienna that Sebastian was talking about was me. The girl whose personality used to be incredibly stubborn and unyielding. The girl who had rejected his massive, extravagant romantic pursuits over a dozen times. The Sienna who used to dramatically quote cheesy proverbs about how wealth could never corrupt her and power could never bend her. And now, I had morphed into a girl so submissive that I didn’t even recognize my own reflection. As I stepped into the elevator, my phone buzzed. It was Sebastian. “Why aren’t you here yet?” “Something came up. I’m not going to make it.” “Alright. We’re wrapping up here anyway. I’ll be home soon.” Sebastian’s voice was as warm and gentle as always. “Be a good girl and wait for me at home, Sienna.” But he didn’t come home soon. I took a shower. My mind was wide awake, so I just sat on the living room rug, staring blankly into space. It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that the rain began to pour. The front door clicked open, and Sebastian strode in, bringing the freezing, damp scent of the rain with him. “You’re not asleep?” He seemed slightly taken aback. A fleeting second of guilt seemed to flash through his eyes. But it was only a second. He walked over, leaned down, and brushed his thumb against my cheek. Then he pressed a kiss to my temple. “I have to fly back to New York.” “Grandpa is sick. I’m really worried about him.” He spoke quickly, his voice low and a bit hoarse. His brows were pulled tightly together, and a heavy shadow of concern covered his face. If this had been any other day, my heart would have ached for him. But right now, looking at his face, studying every microscopic shift in his expression, I just felt a sickening urge to laugh. Was flying back to coax Lily really just a coincidence? Or was checking on his sick grandfather the actual coincidence? I doubt Sebastian even knew the answer to that himself. But it was glaringly obvious that his performance right now was so good he was even fooling himself. 4 “Sebastian, it’s raining outside.” I pointed toward the dark windows. A sudden, violent crack of thunder ripped the pitch-black sky wide open. It was a thunderstorm. My absolute biggest phobia. It was also the exact same weather we had six years ago, on the night we finally got together. “I’m scared.” I reached out and tugged the hem of his jacket, my pale lips pressed into a tight line. I looked up at him. I looked deep into his eyes. I saw the tiny reflection of myself in his pupils. Seeing the fragile, desperate hope written all over my own face made me want to cry. Six years of deep, consuming love couldn’t just be erased overnight. I kept telling myself that. If he didn’t leave… if he just agreed to stay with me… “Sienna, I absolutely have to go back.” Sebastian gently but firmly pried my fingers off his jacket. His tone was so resolute it bordered on freezing. “You have always been so understanding. What is wrong with you tonight?” Saying that, he turned around, shrugging off his damp coat as he walked toward the walk-in closet. “Come here. Help me pack.” “I’ll be gone for at least a week.” “But don’t worry, I won’t miss your birthday.” “And I definitely won’t miss our anniversary.” He stopped and looked back at me over his shoulder. His dark hair was slightly damp from the rain, clinging softly to his forehead. It made his deep, dark eyes look incredibly warm and affectionate. He didn’t look like the arrogant, untouchable elite he usually was. I stood up and offered him a small smile. I walked right past him and headed into the closet. I pulled out a massive, oversized hardshell suitcase. Sebastian chuckled. “Why do I need a bag that big? I’ll be back in a few days.” I thought about it for a second. He was right. But you couldn’t exactly wear recycled outfits to go see a brand-new girl. A girl with a temper that fiery definitely wouldn’t swallow that kind of disrespect. I packed a few essentials. Throughout the process, Sebastian kept checking his luxury watch, his eyes brimming with blatant impatience. My heart felt like a massive boulder, slowly sinking into the dark depths of the ocean. There were no violent waves or dramatic crashes. Just a few silent bubbles rising to the surface as it disappeared. I finally realized that letting go of six years of love only took the space of a single heartbeat. 5 Sebastian left. The heavy rain finally stopped. A faint, pale glow appeared on the horizon. The weather forecast said today was going to be a beautiful, sunny day. I started packing my own belongings. The things I absolutely needed went into my largest suitcase. Everything else went into cardboard boxes. I called a moving company to come and junk it all. Right before I walked out the door, I took off the ring that had sat on my left hand for six straight years. Sebastian had personally slid it onto my finger. He had promised me it was a priceless heirloom, passed down only to the wives of the Prescott family. But the Prescott family despised my ordinary, working-class background. They flat-out refused to accept me. They certainly never would have handed over a family heirloom to a nobody like me. I knew the truth. I knew it was just an expensive replica he had custom-made to keep me happy. And back then, because I was so desperately in love with him, I was perfectly willing to let him trick me. The ring was valuable, yes, but a fake was still a fake. I opened the front door and dragged my heavy suitcase out into the hall. I didn’t look back a single time. Just like I didn’t look back the day I decided to walk toward him. I gambled my heart, and I lost. I could accept that. 6 On his third day back in New York. The patriarch was perfectly fine and had already been discharged from the hospital. Lily had been successfully coaxed back into a sweet, obedient angel. His elite circles were throwing welcome-back parties for him every single night. Sebastian’s schedule was packed to the absolute brim. It wasn’t until a rare, quiet moment of downtime that someone casually mentioned Sienna’s name, snapping him back to reality. It had been exactly three days. He hadn’t received a single phone call from Sienna. There wasn’t a single text message waiting for him on his phone. His brow furrowed. He remembered that the night he left, the sky was tearing itself apart with a thunderstorm. Sienna was terrified of thunderstorms. Her father had died in a brutal hit-and-run on a night exactly like that. It was a trauma she could never outrun. A sudden wave of regret, mixed with a sharp sting of guilt, hit his chest. Why hadn’t he just waited until morning to fly out? It would have only been a few hours. Lily’s sweet, bubbling laughter echoed across the room. His wealthy friends were teasing her, treating her like an adorable little pet. Sebastian suddenly remembered what it was like when he was chasing Sienna. He had finally managed to convince her to come out for a drink. But because these exact same arrogant trust-fund kids had disrespected her and her roommate, Sienna completely lost her mind. She literally flipped the table right in front of them. She used her razor-sharp tongue to curse those spoiled brats into the dirt. And because he was standing right behind her, actively clapping and cheering her on, his friends were furious but completely powerless. They had been forced to swallow their pride and apologize to her face. Thinking back on it now, the memory was both hilarious and ridiculous. Over the last few years, the passion between him and Sienna had slowly faded. He frequently used checking on his grandfather as an excuse to linger in New York and fool around. But those girls came and went. They bored him entirely too quickly. Until he met Lily. But looking at her now, why did he ever think Lily was anything like Sienna? Sienna would never sit there like a good girl and let a bunch of men treat her like a joke. Sienna wouldn’t just blush and look down when they made dirty comments. When Sienna got angry, her eyes burned like actual fire. She would put her hands on her hips, tilt her chin up defiantly, and say something incredibly naive but entirely fearless: “You think having a little money makes you a god? I don’t give a damn about your wealth.” Sebastian couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He pulled out his phone, deciding to finally call her. But the call couldn’t connect. He lit a cigarette and stood on the high-rise balcony for ten minutes. Then, he called one of his subordinates upstate. Half an hour later, the man called back. His voice was trembling with absolute terror. “Miss Sienna moved out.” “She hired a moving company to haul everything away.” “The only thing left is a ring sitting on the coffee table.” Sebastian’s grip on his phone tightened so hard his knuckles turned white. “Did she leave a message?” “No, sir. I searched the entire apartment.” “She didn’t leave a single word behind.” Sebastian let out a dark, furious laugh. He realized that the exact insult he threw at Lily applied perfectly to Sienna. She was just taking advantage of the fact that he spoiled her. For the last few years, he had completely abandoned the luxury of New York high society just to live with her in that boring, quiet little town. His parents and elders refused to accept her, and he had fought them brutally for it. During their first few years together, he even skipped his family’s elite holiday galas just to spend New Year’s Eve with her. Who the hell was he? He was Sebastian Prescott. Since when did he ever lower his head and sacrifice his own comfort for anyone else? On the other end of the line, the subordinate didn’t even dare to breathe. It took a long time before Sebastian finally spoke, his voice dripping with ice. “Change the locks.” This was his territory. Walking out was easy, but if she thought she could ever waltz back in, she was out of her mind. 7 The seventh day. This was the day he was originally supposed to fly back. But Sebastian didn’t pack his bags. Sienna’s birthday was in five days. And exactly five days after that was their anniversary. Compared to her birthday, Sienna had always cared way more about the anniversary. Sebastian figured that, at the absolute latest, she would crack by that day and come crawling back. The twelfth day. Sebastian spent the entire day feeling inexplicably restless and on edge. A reminder popped up on his calendar. Sienna’s birthday. It felt like a physical needle in his eye. He opened the app and deleted it entirely. His friends had set up a massive party. After the first club, they immediately moved to a second lounge. He brought Lily along. The girl had completely shed all her defensive thorns. She sat glued to his side, looking as obedient as a porcelain doll. They were deep into the liquor when someone suddenly brought up Sienna’s name. “Seb, are you and that Sienna girl officially done for good?” Normally, even when he came back to New York, he never stayed longer than a week. No matter how gorgeous the girls were, his core focus always remained tied to Sienna. But this time, the vibe was completely different. Everyone was betting that Sienna was officially ancient history. Sebastian didn’t even lift his eyes. He held his whiskey glass in one hand, twisting a strand of Lily’s hair around the fingers of his other hand. “We’ve been done for a while.” “Hell yes!” Carter shot up from his leather booth, practically rubbing his hands together in excitement. “I’ve been waiting for this day until I was blue in the face!” “She used to walk all over us just because you backed her up. She was practically stepping on my neck.” “Now that you’ve dumped her, I want to see exactly how cocky she can be. If I ever run into her again, I swear to God I will destroy her!” A lot of the guys in the room had suffered under Sienna’s absolute refusal to tolerate their garbage. Instantly, the room erupted into passionate agreement. Lily looked around the room with wide, innocent eyes. “Who is Sienna? Is she really mean? You guys seem to hate her.” “She is the absolute worst! A total nightmare!” “Little girl, whatever you do, do not act like her. Girls like that always meet a miserable end, got it?” Lily turned back to Sebastian, pressing her soft body against his chest. “I’m the best-behaved girl in the world now, aren’t I, Sebastian?” Sebastian looked down. He clearly saw the calculated, desperate fawning hiding in her eyes. Even though she was trying her hardest to hide it, he saw right through it. He had seen that exact same pathetic, groveling look from people his entire life. He was utterly disgusted by it. He had just raised his hand to push her away when the heavy VIP doors were suddenly shoved open. “Holy shit, guess who I just saw downstairs?!” “Who? Why are you screaming?” “It’s Sienna! Sienna just walked past the bar! With that exact same arrogant attitude, I would recognize her if she turned to ash!” “What the hell is she doing here?” “Seb, is she stalking you? Is she here to beg for you back?” “I told you guys she wouldn’t just quietly walk away. She was definitely waiting for tonight to pull some massive stunt!” “Seb, if she comes crying to you, you aren’t going to get soft, are you?” The arrogant bravado of the rich kids instantly dropped a few notches. After all, every single one of them had seen exactly how obsessively Sebastian used to protect her. And none of them could genuinely predict what Sebastian was actually thinking right now. Sebastian’s hand, which had been meant to push Lily away, suddenly dropped to her cheek. He lightly pinched Lily’s soft skin, lazily lifting his gaze. His eyes locked onto the half-open door of the VIP room. He could faintly make out a slender shadow standing just outside in the hall. It had to be Sienna. He had honestly thought her pride would hold out a little longer. He assumed she would at least wait another five days. He didn’t expect her to lose her patience this quickly. Sebastian suddenly felt the heavy, suffocating dark cloud that had ruined his entire day completely evaporate. He leaned back lazily against the leather cushions. He purposely raised his voice, letting his tone drag with absolute arrogance. “No. I like good, obedient girls like Lily now.” “Whoever wants to deal with a wild thorn like that can have her.” The shadow cast on the hallway floor gave a violent, sudden tremble. The corner of Sebastian’s mouth curled up into a smirk. He was willing to bet money that Sienna wouldn’t last three seconds before she charged into the room. After all, with a temper as explosive as hers, how could she possibly swallow an insult like that?

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