Bianca and I were locked in a staring contest when that metallic, grating voice echoed in our heads, demanding we make a choice. I’m the Shadow Reaper; she’s the Light Reaper. Because our soul-collection quotas were essentially breaking the scales of the Underworld, some bottom-tier “Domestic Goddess System” decided to hijack us. The options it presented were a joke. Choice A: Marry a billionaire but live a strictly “split-the-check” lifestyle. Choice B: Become a blue-collar girl drowning in ten million dollars of debt. The System clearly thought we’d claw each other’s eyes out for Choice A. It expected a display of greed, a hunger for the high life. Instead, Bianca shoved me aside with a dramatic flourish. “I’ll take A! I’m a delicate flower, I can’t handle manual labor. This cushy gig is mine!” The System hissed with mechanical satisfaction. [Light Reaper has successfully bound to Scenario A. Shadow Reaper is automatically assigned the Debt-Ridden Scullery Maid script.] Then, it whispered in my ear with a synthesized sneer: [Do you see? This is human nature. Thousands of years as partners, and she betrays you for a paycheck. Disgusting.] I kept my mouth shut, burying the smirk that threatened to twitch at the corners of my lips. This idiotic System didn’t understand a thing. The “split-the-check” lifestyle this billionaire practiced wasn’t just stingy—it was psychotic. In his world, the wife pays “rent” for doing housework. If she gets pregnant and misses work, she has to reimburse him for the lost productivity. Bianca wasn’t going there to be a wife. She was going there to conduct a manual audit of his soul. She was carrying the “Karmic Ledger,” the most potent tool in the Veil. If that man tried to nickel-and-dime her for a single cent, she’d shave a decade off his life for every transaction. As for me? I glanced at my “Debt-Ridden” script. The creditor’s name? Benson Caldwell. The very same billionaire. Nice move, partner. We were hitting him from both ends. If we didn’t squeeze the marrow out of this miser’s bones by the time we were done, we’d be a disgrace to the Reapers. … The moment I looked down to hide my smile, the System’s voice boomed in my mind. [Detection: Host Nina Blackwood is showing a passive attitude and non-compliant emotions. Administering Level One Electric Shock!] Zzzzzzt— A bolt of lightning surged down my spine, exploding into my nerve endings. I gritted my teeth, clutching the hem of my shirt until my knuckles turned white. This goddamn Domestic Goddess System. It wasn’t just blind; it played dirty. Before I could even catch my breath as the current faded, the world around me dissolved. When I opened my eyes, the cold, comforting mist of the Underworld was gone. In its place was the stench of damp rot and mildew. Bang! The rusted iron door of the basement was kicked open. Three men with full-sleeve tattoos swaggered in. The leader was twirling a heavy rubber truncheon in his hand. “Nina Blackwood, right? You think you can hide? You really thought you could dodge Mr. Caldwell’s money?” I narrowed my eyes as the memories of this “identity” flooded my brain. This version of me was a fresh college grad who’d taken out a predatory loan to pay for her brother’s terminal illness. With the interest, it had spiraled into a staggering ten million dollars. And the man holding the leash was Benson Caldwell. “Talk! You deaf?” When I didn’t answer, the man swung the truncheon, catching me hard on the shoulder. Pain flared, a dull throb that made my vision swim. My gaze went icy. [Warning! Host must maintain the ‘Humble Debtor’ persona. Use of supernatural force is strictly prohibited. Violation will result in immediate erasure!] The System’s red lights flashed frantically in my mind. I took a shaky breath and recoiled, pressing my back against the moldy wall. “I… I don’t have the money.” “No money?” The leader laughed, pulling a contract from his jacket. “Then you pay with your life. Mr. Caldwell says the Caldwell Group is short on janitors. Sign this, and you’ll work off the debt. Interest is zero point five percent—daily. If you don’t finish paying, you don’t leave. Ever.” I scanned the document. It wasn’t a labor contract; it was a bill of sale. No benefits, no insurance, abysmal wages, and every cent earned was automatically garnished. It even charged for “equipment wear and tear” and “oxygen consumption.” This was the Miser King’s handiwork, no doubt about it. With a trembling hand, I signed the name. The man smirked, tucking the paper away. “Smart girl. Six a.m. tomorrow, Caldwell Tower. Every minute you’re late, we add ten grand to the principal.” Once they left, I leaned against the wall and exhaled a cloud of frustration. To “motivate” me, the System decided to project a live feed of the other side directly into my brain. The screen in my mind showed a luxury sedan pulling into the most expensive estate on the outskirts of the city. My best friend, Bianca Frost, was standing in a gilded living room, looking intentionally awkward in an ill-fitting designer gown. Sitting across from her on a leather sofa was Benson Caldwell. He held a thick stack of papers, his expression as cold as a morgue. “Ms. Frost, if we are to be married, we need to establish the ground rules.” He tossed the documents onto the coffee table. “This is the Pre-Nup and the Post-Marital Cost-Sharing Manifesto. One hundred and twenty-eight clauses.” Bianca stared at the sheer volume of the stack, her lip twitching. “One hundred… and twenty-eight?” “Correct.” Benson’s long fingers tapped the mahogany surface. “I don’t support parasites. Water, electricity, groceries, HOA fees, and even toilet paper consumption will be split fifty-fifty. Since you currently have no income, I will front these costs at market interest rates. You will work off the balance through domestic labor.” Bianca’s eyes widened. “Work it off? What am I, the maid?” “Ms. Frost, watch your tone,” Benson frowned. “This is the epitome of modern female independence. You expected a free ride? I’m afraid the Caldwell family doesn’t do charity.” Bianca looked like she wanted to flip the table. She was the Light Reaper. She’d spent millennia being worshipped and feared; she wasn’t built for this kind of disrespect. However, the System shrieked: [Warning! Host must maintain the ‘Gold-digging Trophy Wife’ persona. Accept the agreement or face Level Two Electric Shock!] In the feed, Bianca’s body stiffened. She gritted her teeth and picked up the pen. “Fine… I’ll sign.” Benson offered a thin, surgical smile. “Excellent. By the way, tonight’s dinner ingredients cost eighteen hundred dollars. Your share is nine hundred. I’ve started a ledger for you.” I watched the scene, my fingers tracing the cracks in the basement wall. Benson Caldwell. What a charming little accountant you are. You better pray your soul is made of sturdier stuff than your balance sheet, because we’re about to bankrupt you in ways you can’t imagine. The System forced me awake before dawn. [Attention, Host! One hour until your shift begins. Please depart immediately. Work diligently to repay your debt!] I dragged my malnourished body to the Caldwell Tower, arriving just before six. I was assigned to the maintenance department. My official title? Restroom Technician. My supervisor was a middle-aged woman with sharp, triangular eyes that raked over me with pure disdain. “So you’re the one who owes Mr. Caldwell ten million?” She threw a sour-smelling uniform at my face. “You’ve got the face of a home-wrecker, no wonder you’re in deep. Get changed! Scrub every toilet on this floor. If I catch a whiff of anything unpleasant, I’m docking you two hundred.” I silently picked up the uniform and went to the supply closet. The restrooms were a disaster zone—clearly sabotaged. Water and muddy footprints covered the floor, and the stalls were… unspeakable. I grabbed the mop, and the System chimed in: [Detection: Host is undergoing labor reform. Please maintain a smile and demonstrate the positive spirit of the working class!] I forced a grimace that looked more like a snarl and started scrubbing. While I was on my knees, digging grime out of the tile grout, a pair of bespoke Italian leather shoes appeared in my field of vision. I looked up the sharp crease of the trousers to meet Benson Caldwell’s eyes. He was flanked by a group of executives in tailored suits, all of them looking at me like I was something stuck to the bottom of their shoes. “This is the one?” Benson’s voice was like ice. The supervisor hurried over. “Yes, Mr. Caldwell. This is her. She’s slow, but we’re breaking her in.” Benson gave a cold laugh. He lifted his foot and ground his sole into the patch of floor I had just cleaned, leaving a heavy, black smear. “Typical bottom-feeder,” he mused. “The stench of poverty follows her like a shadow. You can smell it from across the hall.” The executives chuckled obediently. My knuckles turned white around the scrub brush. [Warning: Endure! Resistance will result in mission failure!] I took a breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Caldwell. I’ll clean it up immediately.” Benson pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his fingers, and dropped it onto the wet floor. “Clean it? You aren’t even worth the tile you’re kneeling on. That handkerchief cost three thousand dollars. You’ve offended my sight. Add it to her tab.” He turned and swept away with his entourage. I stared at his retreating back and flicked on my “Spectral Sight.” Above Benson’s head, the golden aura of his immense wealth was being strangled by a creeping, black fog. That was karmic debt. And that debt was growing with every cruel word, every act of exploitation, visible to my eyes even if he was blind to it. “Three thousand dollars,” I whispered, picking up the handkerchief and tossing it into the bucket of filthy water. “Benson Caldwell, the Underworld is keeping receipts.” Meanwhile, the System switched the feed back to Bianca. She was currently wearing an apron, shoveling dirt in the middle of a massive estate garden. Benson had decided that grocery costs were “inflated,” and in the spirit of their “partnership,” she was required to grow her own vegetables. He was charging her interest on the seeds he “lent” her. “Faster, Ms. Frost,” the butler said, standing in the shade with a stopwatch. “Mr. Caldwell said that if the lady of the house can’t handle a little yard work, she doesn’t deserve to eat his rice. If this patch isn’t finished today, your water bill for dinner will double.” Bianca was drenched in sweat, her manicured hands covered in mud. She was a Reaper! For three thousand years, she had carried the Staff of Mourning and the Soul-Hook. She had never touched a shovel in her life. [Warning! Light Reaper’s emotional levels are critical. Murderous intent detected! Please calm down. You are a ‘Virtuous Wife.’ A wife is patient and hardworking!] Bianca looked like she wanted to bite through her own tongue. She slammed the shovel into the earth. “Fine! I’ll plant it! I’ll plant enough to bury all you bloodsuckers!” she screamed internally, though her face wore a tight, pained smile. “Of course, Butler. I’ll work harder.” That night, Benson came home. He sat at the head of the dining table with a wagyu steak and a glass of vintage red. In front of Bianca sat a bowl of plain, watery noodles. “Today’s ingredient budget was exceeded,” Benson said, slicing his steak. “Since you have no income, you get the basics. The noodles are fifty dollars—after all, I employ a Michelin-starred chef, and his labor isn’t cheap.” Bianca looked at the bowl. Her stomach let out a pathetic growl. “Benson… could I at least have an egg?” she asked, her voice trembling with forced humility. Benson stopped eating and looked at her. “An egg? Ms. Frost, you need to learn contentment. Do you know what an organic egg costs these days? Five dollars. Add in the preparation, the gas, and the wear on the plate, and that’s twenty dollars. Do you have twenty dollars?” Bianca was silent. She had no money. Her Underworld currency was useless here, and the System had locked her powers. “Then shut up and eat your noodles,” Benson huffed. “And wash the dishes when you’re done. Don’t use more than three drops of soap. Water flow stays at level one. Otherwise, there’s a fine.” Bianca lowered her head, shoving the overpriced noodles into her mouth. Tears hit the broth, making it saltier. She was screaming in my head: [Nina! Nina! I’m going to kill him! I’m going to drag him to the eighteenth level of hell and loop his torment on repeat!] I replied from my cramped janitor’s bunk: [Patience. Let him play his games. The harder he plays, the harder he falls.] I was hungry too, but I was looking at the shredded documents I’d scavenged from Benson’s trash earlier. They contained the Caldwell Group’s darkest secrets. Benson’s cruelty didn’t just persist; it escalated. A week later, it was the annual Metropolis Charity Gala. Bianca was required to attend, but Benson refused to provide a dress. “You’re my wife, you represent the Caldwell name. But you’re the one wearing the clothes, so you pay for them.” Penniless, Bianca was forced to wear a gown she’d fashioned out of an old maid’s uniform. I was hauled to the gala as “temporary help.” My job wasn’t serving drinks. I was a human side-table. The ballroom was a sea of gold and silk. I was dressed in a cheap, high-slit dress, forced to kneel on the plush carpet next to Benson’s VIP booth, my arms raised high, holding a heavy silver tray laden with expensive wine and fruit. My knees throbbed. My arms were numb. But the System warned me: one wobble, one slip, and I’d get a Level One shock. Benson sat on the leather sofa, his arm around a woman dripping in diamonds and haute couture. It was his “Untouchable Muse,” the famous starlet Serena Valentine. “Benson, is this really your new wife?” Serena pointed at Bianca, giggling behind her hand. “She looks like a beggar. How embarrassing for you.” Benson glanced at Bianca with total indifference. “She’s a roommate I share a contract with. She needs discipline. She thought marrying into money meant a free ride. She needs to learn how hard it is to earn a living.” Bianca gripped her skirt until her knuckles turned white. The guests whispered and snickered. Serena’s eyes then fell on me. “Oh, this tray is so… unique,” she purred, reaching out to take a glass from my tray. As her fingers touched the crystal, she intentionally flicked her wrist. Splash— A full glass of red wine soaked my face and chest. “Oops! My hand slipped!” Serena cried out theatrically. “Why were you holding it so unstable? You’ve ruined my view. Can you even afford the dry cleaning for this atmosphere?” Before I could speak, Benson’s boot connected with my shoulder. “Useless!” I tumbled backward, the tray clattering as everything shattered on the floor. Benson stood over me, pointing a finger. “This carpet is handmade Persian silk. This section alone is worth fifty thousand. Add Serena’s distress fee and the price of the wine, and that’s two million. Put it on her tab.” I lay on the glass-strewn floor, my palms sliced open. I looked up, staring straight at Benson. At that moment, Bianca broke. She lunged forward, trying to help me up. “This is too much! She did it on purpose!” Slap! Benson’s backhand sent Bianca reeling. “Silence!” He stepped on Bianca’s hand as she tried to push herself up. “In this house, money is the law. Do you have money? No? Then stay on your knees.” [Warning! Light Reaper is attempting to attack the Male Lead. Initiating Body Control Protocol: Kneel and Apologize!] Bianca’s body jerked, her limbs locking into a forced, robotic motion. Slowly, she was forced down until she was kneeling before Benson and Serena. Her eyes were filled with pure, unadulterated humiliation. “I’m… sorry,” she forced out through clenched teeth. Serena smiled triumphantly. “Benson, you’re so masculine. A real man of principle.” Benson looked down at both of us. “Remember this. This is the fate of the poor. You want dignity? Try being born rich in your next life.” The System’s voice chimed in: [Ding! New Mission: Reform Benson Caldwell. Make him feel the ‘Warmth and Inclusion of a Home.’ Reward: $500 debt reduction.] Bianca and I locked eyes. In that split second, we saw the same thing: an ocean of blood. Reform him? Fine. We’d give him a “warmth” he’d never forget. After the gala, Benson used the “contract violation” as an excuse to strip Bianca of her last few pieces of jewelry, including a ring left by her mother. I was thrown into the damp, dark basement of the villa for “reflection.” But in that darkness, I smelled something familiar. The scent of restless souls. I opened my Spectral Sight. In the walls and beneath the floorboards, I saw them: distorted spirits sealed in concrete. The Caldwell fortune wasn’t built on genius; it was built on a foundation of bones. No wonder he needed to siphoning our luck—he was running out of his own. Benson Caldwell, your invoice is due.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “424254”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

As a woman sitting on a ten-billion-dollar empire, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in precision. And my current project required the ultimate precision: a perfect heir. Thomas Blackwell was particularly enthusiastic tonight. He went through three boxes of protection—or so he thought. In the heat of it, when his breath was ragged against my neck, he groaned another woman’s name. “Elva,” he whispered, promising her the world, promising her a future, promising her the children they’d never have. I played my part perfectly. I arched my back, made the right sounds, and kept my internal temperature as cool as a mid-winter Atlantic. My heart didn’t even skip a beat. When he finally rolled off and fell into a heavy, self-satisfied sleep, I stayed awake for a moment, studying his profile in the moonlight. He was a specimen, truly. The next morning, Thomas stood by the window, the harsh New York sunlight catching the sharp, arrogant lines of his jaw. He looked at the rumpled sheets with a flicker of distaste and handed me a glass of water and a pill. “Take it,” he said, his voice clipped as he tightened his silk tie. “All of it. Don’t go getting any ideas about ‘accidental’ pregnancies. I won’t have you tainting the Blackwell bloodline with your schemes.” I nodded obediently. I took the pill—a high-end prenatal vitamin I’d meticulously disguised—and swallowed it right in front of him. In my head, I was already running the numbers. Ten more days and the embryo would be stable. His genetic markers—Ivy League intellect, peak physical health, that relentless drive—were exactly what I needed to build the perfect successor for my firm. … “Make sure it’s all gone,” Thomas muttered, watching my throat move. “Elva is the only woman I’ve ever loved. You’re just a convenient distraction while she’s away. A placeholder.” I took another sip of water, finishing the glass. “I understand, Mr. Blackwell.” “Good.” He huffed a cold laugh and turned back to the floor-to-ceiling window. I had to admit, setting aside his insufferable ‘Master of the Universe’ personality, Thomas was top-tier. In the high-stakes world of Manhattan private equity, he was the gold standard. That was why, out of a hundred candidates, I had scouted and selected him to be my unwitting donor. Suddenly, his phone buzzed on the nightstand. A specific, melodic ringtone. Thomas’s rigid posture melted instantly. He practically lunged for the device. “Elva?” From the receiver came the faint, tremulous sound of a woman sobbing. “Thomas… it’s so cold here in London. I… I miss Michael so much. I feel so alone.” Thomas’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone. Michael was his older brother. Elva was his widow—the “Sainted Widow,” the one who got away, the ghost Thomas had been chasing for three years. “Don’t cry, Elva. Please. It kills me to hear you like this.” “But I’m all by myself. I have no one to talk to.” “I’ll send the private jet. No, I’ll come get you myself!” “No, Thomas, don’t. I’ve already booked a flight home. It’s just… I’m afraid I’ll be an intrusion. For you and… that girl, Jade.” Thomas whipped around, his gaze cutting through me like a serrated blade. “Her? She’s nothing. She’s a shadow. She’s not even worth a thought in your head.” “Thomas, don’t say that. She’s still a person.” “Elva, you’re far too kind for your own good. Just remember: the Blackwell estate is your home. Always. And I… I am your rock.” He hung up, breathing hard, his eyes shimmering with a mix of obsession and manic relief. Elva was coming back. For three years, I had followed Thomas’s scripts. I wore the muted, silk slip dresses Elva favored. I wore the specific, crisp citrus perfume she used. I even lowered my voice to that breathy, hesitant register that made men feel like protectors. “You heard?” Thomas said, his voice returning to its usual icy temperature. I nodded, setting the empty glass down. “I heard. Congratulations, Thomas.” He frowned, seemingly annoyed by my composure. “What’s with that attitude?” “What attitude would you prefer?” “Jade, don’t forget yourself. Just because you’ve been in my bed for three years doesn’t mean you have a seat at the table. You aren’t my wife.” He walked over and grabbed my chin, his grip tight enough to bruise. “Elva is sensitive. When she gets back, I don’t want a single whisper of your existence reaching her ears. Do you follow me?” I looked him dead in the eye and gave him a flawless, practiced smile. “Perfectly. I’ll stay in my lane. I won’t let her see me.” He let go and wiped his fingers with a wet wipe, as if he’d touched something soiled. “Smart girl.” “Stay in the house for the next few days. Don’t go out until I’ve made arrangements.” He grabbed his blazer and headed for the door, stopping only at the threshold. “And about last night… forget it happened. If I find out you skipped that pill, or if you try to pull some ‘secret pregnancy’ stunt to trap me…” He looked back, his eyes dark with a sudden, sharp cruelty. “I will make your life a living hell.” The heavy oak door slammed shut. The penthouse fell into a beautiful, expensive silence. I walked over to the vanity and looked at my reflection—pale, refined, but tired of the masquerade. I rested a hand on my still-flat stomach. A living hell? No. As long as I had what I wanted. As long as I had this heir. I was willing to endure anything. The news of Elva’s return rippled through the city’s social registers like a shockwave. Thomas didn’t come back to the penthouse for days. Word was he’d met her at the gate with a fleet of cars. Word was he’d cleared out the master suite of the family mansion, redecorating it entirely in her favorite shades of cream and gold. I didn’t mind. I spent my days taking folic acid and reading quarterly earnings reports on the sofa, enjoying the peace. Until the third night. Thomas’s personal assistant, a man who usually treated me like a piece of furniture, pushed open the door. “Ms. Jade, Mr. Blackwell wants you to change. You’re expected at The Onyx.” I looked up from a stack of merger filings. “The Onyx? That’s a private club. It hardly seems appropriate for me to be there right now.” The assistant remained expressionless. “Mr. Blackwell was very clear. You must attend.” I closed my laptop and stood up. “Fine.” Half an hour later, I arrived at the club wearing a white dress that was slightly too large for me—another one of Elva’s hand-me-downs that Thomas had insisted I keep. I pushed open the door to the VIP lounge. The air was thick with expensive bourbon and ego. Thomas was in the center of it all. Leaning against him was a woman in Chanel couture, looking as fragile as spun glass. Elva. “Well, well. Look who finally showed up. The Little Shadow,” sneered Tyler, Thomas’s younger cousin. He swirled his drink, eyeing me with open mockery. “Tommy, now that the real queen is back, why are you still dragging this knock-off around?” A ripple of laughter went through the room. Thomas didn’t say a word. He was busy peeling a grape with agonizing care, offering it to Elva’s lips. Elva took the fruit, her eyes drifting to mine. There was a flicker of something there—not pity, but the quiet satisfaction of a victor. “Thomas, don’t be mean. Jade is a sweetheart,” she said, her voice like honey and arsenic. “She took care of you while I was away. We should be grateful.” Thomas laughed, a dry, harsh sound. “Care? She was a paid service provider, Elva. She did what she was compensated for.” He finally looked at me. His eyes held the same warmth one might give a piece of trash destined for the incinerator. “Jade. Come here.” I walked over, stopping a respectful three feet away. “Yes, Thomas?” Tyler whistled. “Damn, Tommy. You really trained her well. She’s more obedient than a golden retriever.” Thomas ignored him and pointed to the bottle on the table. “Pour Elva a drink.” I picked up the bottle and stepped toward her. As I began to pour, Elva suddenly gasped, fluttering a hand near her nose. “Oh, that scent…” She recoiled into Thomas’s chest. “Thomas, her perfume. It’s so… aggressive. It’s giving me a migraine.” It was the citrus scent Thomas had demanded I wear for three years. Her scent. Apparently, the “Sainted Widow” had changed her brand. Thomas’s face darkened instantly. “Who told you to wear that cheap garbage?” My hand remained perfectly steady as I held the bottle. “You did, Thomas. You said it was her favorite.” “Shut up!” he barked. “Elva has exquisite taste. She would never touch something so common. You’re not just a fake; you’re a bad one.” He snatched the bottle from my hand, slamming it onto the marble table. “Get out. You’re polluting the air.” I turned to leave without a word. “Wait,” Tyler called out. He stepped into my path. “Tommy told you to get lost, but you haven’t finished your job. You haven’t apologized to the lady.” He picked up a glass of neat scotch and held it out to me. “Drink this as a penance, then you can crawl away.” I looked at the high-proof alcohol. I was five weeks pregnant. I wouldn’t touch a drop. “I’m sorry, I’m allergic to alcohol.” Tyler’s face twisted. “You think you’re too good for us?” He raised the glass, ready to toss it in my face. “Enough,” Thomas said. He stood up and walked over to me, looming over me with all his inherited height. “Elva doesn’t like scenes.” His voice dropped to a whisper, cold enough to draw blood. “Jade, Elva is moving into the penthouse tonight. Go back, pack your things. Every single scrap.” “Be gone before sunrise. And don’t look back.” “Move faster. Don’t linger,” Thomas said, leaning against the doorframe of the penthouse, flicking a gold lighter open and shut. “I thought I’d feel something after three years—hell, you have more sentiment for a dog. But looking at you now? I just feel cold.” He blew a plume of smoke toward the ceiling, his eyes filled with disdain. “A woman like you, who sells herself for a zip code… I don’t even want your scent in the rooms where Elva will sleep.” I knelt on the floor, tucking an old sweater into a battered suitcase. Cold? I felt light. I felt like I was finally stepping out of a suffocating skin. I zipped the bag and stood up. “Don’t worry, Thomas. I’m done.” He glanced at my single, half-empty suitcase, his brow furrowing. “That’s it? Where are the Birkins? The jewelry? The furs I bought you?” “They were yours,” I said calmly. “I have no use for them.” “Oh, please,” he scoffed, kicking the side of my suitcase. “Don’t play the martyr now. You’ve been a parasite for three years, and now you want to pretend you’re above the money? Take the damn bags. I don’t want people thinking I’m a cheapskate.” That was Thomas. Even when throwing someone out, it had to be about his image. “I really don’t want them, Thomas.” I gripped the handle of my bag and started for the door. He grabbed my wrist, his fingers digging into my bone. “Are you playing a game with me, Jade? Is this some long-con ‘hard to get’ strategy?” He searched my eyes, desperate to find a flicker of heartbreak, a tear, a shred of resentment. Something to feed his ego. “Do you think if you act like you don’t care, I’ll come running back? Dream on. Elva is home. To me, you aren’t even a memory anymore.” I sighed and met his gaze with total clarity. “Thomas, there is no game. Our contract is over. I’m just leaving cleanly. Let go. You have a penthouse to scrub.” His face turned a violent shade of purple. He shoved my arm away. “Get out! Don’t expect another cent from me! You’ll be begging in the streets by next month!” I didn’t look back. I dragged my suitcase into the crisp New York autumn air. Once I was in the back of an Uber, I gave the driver an address. Not a shelter, not a cheap motel. I gave him the address of the most exclusive private medical clinic in the city. The car was quiet. I pulled out my phone and dialed my best friend and personal physician, Dr. Natalie Chen. “Natalie? I’m out.” “Finally?” Natalie’s voice was triumphant. “You’re done with that arrogant prick?” “I’m done.” I watched the city lights blur past the window, a genuine smile finally touching my lips. “Everything is in place. I need a full blood panel tomorrow morning. I need to know for sure if the seed took root.” The results wouldn’t be ready until the afternoon. I had just walked into the temporary luxury apartment I’d leased under a shell company when the buzzer rang. Three men in dark suits were at the door. “Ms. Jade. Ms. Elva would like a word.” I frowned. “Elva? What for?” “She said there are personal items belonging to Mr. Blackwell that need to be hand-delivered for a formal handover.” It was a power move. A victory lap. But I couldn’t burn the bridge quite yet. Until I was through the first trimester and my legal team had finalized the separation of my public and private identities, I needed to keep a low profile. I changed into a simple dress and followed them to a high-end cafe in the West Village. The place had been cleared out. Elva sat by the window, gracefully stirring a latte. “Jade. Sit.” She pointed to the chair opposite her. I sat. “What do you want, Elva?” She chuckled and pulled a small velvet box from her bag, pushing it toward me. “Open it.” Inside was a cheap silver locket. I had lost it in the penthouse three years ago. It wasn’t worth ten dollars, but it was the only thing I had left from my mother. “I found this under the dresser,” Elva said, taking a delicate sip of her coffee. “Thomas said I could throw it away. He said it was clutter. But I thought I should give it back in person. After all, trash belongs with trash, doesn’t it?” She looked at me, her eyes gleaming with malice. “Just like you.” I looked at the locket, my fingers tightening. “Thank you for returning it.” As I reached for the box, Elva suddenly tilted her cup. Scalding hot coffee poured directly over the locket, soaking the velvet and the silver. “Oh! My hand slipped,” she whispered, faking a look of horror. “I’m so sorry, Jade. But honestly, for a piece of street-junk like that, a little wash won’t hurt. Why don’t you clean it up right now?” She pulled a single paper napkin from the dispenser and dropped it onto the floor. “Clean it.” It was a blatant humiliation. She wanted me on my knees, begging for my dignity. I looked at the napkin, then at Elva’s smug face. I took a deep breath. I leaned down. I picked up the coffee-soaked locket. I didn’t use her napkin. I used my own silk handkerchief, wiping the silver clean with slow, deliberate motions. “Thank you for returning what is mine,” I said, standing up. “If that’s all, I have work to do.” Elva froze. She clearly hadn’t expected me to take the hit so calmly. “You really are pathetic, aren’t you? No pride at all.” I didn’t answer. I walked out of the cafe. As soon as I hit the sidewalk, my phone buzzed. It was a message from Natalie. [HCG levels are perfect! Doubling exactly as they should. Congratulations, Jade. You got exactly what you wanted.] An image of the lab report was attached. I looked at the numbers and started to laugh. I laughed until my eyes watered. Pathetic? Elva, you have no idea. The man you’re so desperate to chain yourself to, the man you think is a prize… to me, he was nothing but a biological donor with a decent IQ.

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One hundred days. That’s how long I’d been rotting in this digital graveyard—a forced-labor compound hidden in the lawless jungles of Southeast Asia. And today, in the middle of the humid, suffocating heat, I realized I was carrying the devil’s child. The “devil” was the man running this hellhole. Things had gone from bad to worse. My sales numbers had been at the bottom of the leaderboard for three days straight. As punishment, they’d used the whips, then the cattle prods, and finally, they’d tossed me into the “Grave”—the water cell—like a piece of discarded trash, waiting for the organ harvesters to come collect the remains. The filthy, ice-cold water reached my waist. I drifted into a feverish sleep, fueled by exhaustion and pain, and there he was: my father. He’d been dead for three years, but in the dream, he looked as real as the scars on my back. “Sweetie, don’t be afraid,” he whispered, his voice a ghost of a lullaby. “The drainage grate on the left is loose. Pull it open tonight, and you can run. You can go home.” I jerked awake, my heart hammering against my ribs. I was still submerged in the dark, stagnant water of the cell. Panic flared, but I reached out, my fingers trembling as they searched the slimy stone wall to my left. My breath hitched. There it was. The metal grate wobbled under my touch. I was just about to wrench it open when a tiny, high-pitched voice echoed through the silence of the dark. It wasn’t in the room; it was inside my head. “Mommy! Don’t listen to him! That’s just a restless spirit trying to pull you into the abyss with him!” … The voice—childlike, innocent, yet terrifyingly sharp—rang out again. “Mommy, if you crawl through that grate, you’ll end up right under the executive dorms. You’ll be walking straight into the lion’s den.” “Wait. Just wait until next month. When the compound closes a major scam deal, they’ll throw a party. Everyone will be drunk. You can slip out the back gate in the chaos.” My hand froze under the water, my fingertips hooked into the rusted edge of the grate. I checked the room, then my own sanity, before the absurd truth settled in: this was the heart of the child in my womb. My baby was telling me to stay. My dead father was begging me to go. I didn’t know who to trust. Suddenly, footsteps thudded above. A flashlight beam sliced through the ceiling vent, tracing a jagged white line across the murky water. I sucked in a breath and pressed myself into the shadows of the corner, praying the silt and darkness would swallow me whole. The guard’s eyes, cold and predatory, scanned the cell from above. I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. It felt like an eternity before the heavy thud of his boots faded into the distance. But the water was rising. It was at my chest now, a slow, relentless theft of my body heat. My limbs were turning to lead. I knew that if I didn’t leave tonight, I wouldn’t leave at all. Tomorrow, they’d drag me out for another round of “re-education.” I’d seen what happened to the last girl who spent three days in the Grave. When they hauled her out, she was purple and breathless, her eyes wide with a terror that hadn’t faded even in death. I didn’t have three days. I gripped the grate again, gritting my teeth as I pulled. The rusted metal sliced into the raw sores on my palms. It was a searing, white-hot pain, but I didn’t make a sound. With one final, desperate heave, the grate gave way. The sudden release sent a massive splash echoing through the cavernous cell. Heavy footsteps immediately sprinted back toward the vent. I collapsed against the wall, pretending to be unconscious, using my body to shield the open hole. The guard descended the ladder into the cell. I felt the heat of the flashlight beam move across my eyelids. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Finally, the splashing of his boots moved away. I thought he was gone. I started to open my eyes, but the voice screamed in my mind: “Mommy! Don’t move! He’s right behind you!” I froze. A few seconds later, I felt a hot, foul breath against the nape of my neck. A low grunt followed. “Heh. Looks like another one’s biting the dust tonight.” The guard waded out, and I heard the heavy iron door of the upper chamber slam shut. “Mommy, he’s gone now.” I let out a ragged gasp, my heart nearly leaping out of my throat. If I had opened my eyes, I’d be dead. Beneath the waterline, the dark mouth of the pipe beckoned—just wide enough for someone as wasted away as I was to squeeze through. It was a black void leading to God-knows-where. My “baby” was still frantically pleading with me not to go inside. As I hesitated, my vision blurred. I was pulled back into that gray mist. My father appeared again, wearing his favorite old flannel shirt, his face etched with frantic concern. “Run, June. Just swim through. It’s a two-minute stretch, and you’re out. Your daddy would never hurt you.” The mist evaporated. Outside the cell, I heard the muffled voices of the guards changing shifts. This was my window. “No!” the baby’s voice turned shrill, more desperate than I’d ever heard it. “That pipe takes way longer than two minutes! You’ll drown in the dark!” Two minutes or three? The difference was life or death. I pictured myself stuck in that lightless tube, water filling my nose and lungs, my consciousness flickering out in a cold, lonely suffocation. No one would ever find me. I’d just be another missing person in a file folder back in the States. But if I stayed? Tomorrow was the cattle prod. The day after was the whip. How much longer could I survive the torment? The shift change ended. The new patrol was starting. I took one massive, lung-bursting breath, dived under, and shoved myself into the black pipe. It was narrower than I’d imagined. The metal walls scraped against my shoulders, and every inch forward required every ounce of my remaining strength. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. My lungs began to burn. My chest felt like it was being crushed by a hydraulic press. In the absolute darkness, the only sound was the frantic drumming of my heart in my ears. My throat convulsed, my body screaming for oxygen. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, clawing at the slimy joints of the pipe to drag myself forward. My vision began to spark with white stars. Just as I prepared to let the water in, the pipe angled upward. Using the last of my strength, I scrambled up the incline. There was a tiny gap of air—less than four inches—between the water and the top of the pipe. I broke the surface, gasping, greedily inhaling the foul, metallic air as if it were the finest perfume. I kept moving, crawling through sections that were fully submerged and others that offered a sliver of breath. Finally, a faint, grayish light appeared ahead. I burst through the drainage exit and collapsed onto the muddy earth, gasping like a fish hauled onto a deck. The night air hit my soaked clothes, sending a violent shiver through my frame. I tried to stand. Ahead of me was a twelve-foot concrete wall topped with jagged concertina wire. I reached for a handhold, but my muscles turned to jelly. I fell back, hard. Suddenly, the compound behind me erupted in red light. A siren wailed—a high, piercing shriek that cut through the jungle. They knew I was gone. I forced myself up, staggering along the base of the wall, searching for an exit that didn’t exist. I was trapped in a corner. I didn’t have the strength to climb. “Mommy!” the baby’s voice echoed. “Go into that building! Third floor, the room on the far left. There’s a space under the bed!” I didn’t argue. I sprinted toward the nearby barracks. The stairwell was a tomb. I found the room on the third floor; the door was slightly ajar. I scrambled inside and threw myself under the bed, tucking my limbs in tight. Seconds later, the sound of heavy boots and shouting filled the hallway. “Search it! Every damn room!” “She couldn’t have gotten far!” The footsteps stopped at my door. The handle turned. A flashlight beam swept across the floor, the light dancing inches from my face. I buried my nose in my arm, stopping my breath. The beam lingered on the foot of the bed. My heart stopped. Luckily, a pile of discarded laundry and trash blocked his line of sight. He didn’t linger. “Clear! Next door!” The door slammed. I lay there, drenched in a fresh coat of cold sweat. The shouting outside continued for a long time before fading into a dull hum. “Mommy, stay here. Give it a day or two for the heat to die down. I’ll find us a way out.” I started to nod, but the world went black again. I was pulled back into the fog. My father was there. He wasn’t gentle this time. He was terrified. “Run! You can’t stay here!” he yelled. “There’s a gap in the fence behind this building. A crawlspace. That’s your only way out!” He saw the doubt on my face and his voice cracked. “Do you forget whose child that is? Do you really think that… thing… wants to help you? It’s a monster’s seed, June!” I flinched. The child belonged to Killian Varga, the compound’s second-in-command. I’d met him online, fell for his charm, and spent a year in a whirlwind romance before he lured me on a “vacation” that ended in a cage. “Dad, I…” Before I could finish, a new set of footsteps jolted me awake. They were doing a second sweep, and this time, they were being thorough. “Mommy! Quick! The storage closet next to the bed!” I looked. There was a small door. But there were no windows in there. If they found me, I’d be cornered. The doorknob turned. In that split second, I had to choose: the closet or the window behind me. I rolled out and slipped into the closet, pulling the door shut just as the bedroom door kicked open. Three sets of boots entered. Their first move was to rush to the window. I watched through the crack in the door, a wave of nausea hitting me. If I’d jumped, they would have seen me instantly. “The sheets are damp!” one shouted. “She was just here! Search everything!” Furniture was tossed. Drawers were ripped out. The footsteps moved toward the closet. “Mommy! There’s a loose ventilation panel in the ceiling! Use the shelves!” I scrambled up the metal racking in the dark. My elbow clipped a cardboard box, and it started to slide. I caught it mid-air, heart hammering, and eased it back. I shoved the ceiling tile aside and hauled myself into the crawlspace just as the closet door was ripped open. Flashlights probed the floor and the shelves. I laid flat in the dust, suppressing even the sound of my heartbeat. Eventually, they left. My back was soaked, and my knees were raw where the metal edges of the duct had sliced into me. “Turn left, then straight. It leads to the fourth floor,” the baby whispered. “They won’t search there again.” I followed the instructions, shimmying through the tight space until I reached another vent. I eased it open and looked down. It was an office, plush and carpeted, with a desk lamp glowing softly. I dropped down and saw a photo on the desk. Killian. This was his private quarters. The hair on my neck stood up. The baby’s voice was quick to soothe me: “He’s not here. He’s downstairs leading the search. You can hide here until nightfall. Look in the left drawer. There’s a black keycard. It opens the back gate.” I pulled the drawer open. The card was there. But as my fingers brushed the plastic, the mist returned. My father stood before me, his expression grim. “It’s lying to you. It brought you here so Killian would find you, so he’d know about the pregnancy. It wants to be his heir, June. It wants his life, not yours.” He pointed to the window. “Climb out. Use the A/C units as steps. There’s a gap in the perimeter fence at the bottom. That is your only path to freedom.” I snapped back to reality. “Don’t listen to him!” the baby hissed. “The patrol will see you on the wall! The back gate is the only safe way!” I walked to the window. Below, flashlight beams moved like searching fingers, but there were gaps—rhythmic intervals of darkness. The A/C units were bolted to the wall, forming a precarious ladder down to the second-floor terrace. The keycard felt cold in my hand. I looked at the gate, then the fence. I took a breath and pushed the window open. I climbed out, my boots slipping on the metal casings of the A/C units. Every time I stepped, the brackets groaned, threatening to pull out of the stucco. I reached the terrace and slid down a drainpipe, hitting the ground hard. The gap my father mentioned was there—a dark, jagged hole at the base of the fence. I dropped to my stomach and crawled, my nails digging into the dirt. As soon as I squeezed through to the other side, a light hit me. “Over there! Someone’s by the fence!” I didn’t look back. I ran. The jungle outside the compound was a wall of thorns and shadows. I plunged in, branches whipping my face, drawing blood. The baby had gone silent—angry, perhaps. I didn’t care. I just needed to move. The shouting grew closer. Then came the sound that chilled my blood: the baying of hounds. “Let the dogs loose! Don’t let her reach the road!” The barking tore through the night. My lungs felt like they were bursting, but the mud and roots kept tripping me up. Two Dobermans burst through the brush, their green eyes glowing with predatory hunger. I grabbed a heavy branch and swung. I caught one across the nose, and it backed off with a whimper, but the other lunged, its teeth sinking into my calf. I screamed. I jammed the branch into the dog’s eye until it let go, leaving my leg a mangled, bloody mess. I limped forward, every step a serrated knife in my skin. Finally, the trees thinned. A paved road stretched out before me, shimmering under the distant moon. I went to lunge for it, but a black SUV roared out of the shadows, its high beams blinding me. Three men jumped out. At the head was Mick, one of Killian’s lead enforcers. He held a stun baton, a cruel smirk plastered on his face. “Run all you want, sweetheart. You’re not going anywhere.” I turned to go back into the woods, but more lights appeared. They had me boxed in. Mick stepped closer, the baton crackling with blue electricity. I backed away, my heel catching on the edge of a sheer drop-off. I didn’t know how deep the ravine was. Suddenly, another set of lights appeared on the road. A local police cruiser was heading our way. The baby’s voice screamed: “Mommy! Run to the police! They’ll save you!” I took a step, but then my father’s voice boomed in my skull, clearer than ever. “Jump, June! The police are on his payroll! If you get in that car, you’re a dead woman! Jump! There’s a pool of water at the bottom! You’ll survive!”

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On the night of our third wedding anniversary, something strange happened. Colin was leaning against the headboard, reading through some corporate files. The lines of his profile were as sharp and unyielding as ever. I was just pulling the duvet back to get into bed when I suddenly saw a line of translucent white text hovering right above his head. It glided from left to right, like closed captions on a muted television. [Why isn’t she asleep yet? God, it’s annoying.] The text practically echoed in my head with his exact tone of voice, but his lips hadn’t moved. I rubbed my eyes hard. The words vanished. Thinking my mind was playing tricks on me, I tested the waters. I shifted closer and gently looped my arm through his. “Honey, would you come shopping with me tomorrow?” I asked softly. Instantly, another line of text materialized above his dark hair: [Clinging to me every single day. Doesn’t she ever get exhausted?] Yet, out loud, his actual words were: “We’ll see.” My hand, entirely on its own accord, slipped away from his arm. 01 My name is Summer Davis. I’ve been married to Colin Montgomery for three years and four months. That was the first time the subtitles appeared above his head. It was also the first time I realized that his trademark phrase, “We’ll see,” never actually meant we would see about it later. It meant, Leave me alone. I didn’t try to touch him again that night. Colin flipped a page of his document, and another line of text drifted through the air. [Finally, some peace and quiet.] Those five words cut deeper than anything he could have actually said out loud. I lay on the far edge of my side of the mattress, pulling the covers all the way up to my chin. My heart felt like it was being slowly pinched between someone’s fingernails. The next morning, I woke up at six a.m., just like always. I spent forty minutes in the kitchen making slow-simmered steel-cut oats with caramelized apples and pecans, pairing it with his favorite hand-ground espresso. Colin came downstairs, impeccable in his tailored suit, and sat at the kitchen island. A line of text floated above his head. [Oatmeal again. Could she have any less imagination?] Out loud, he didn’t say a word. I slid the ceramic bowl in front of him. “Colin, I let the oats simmer a bit longer today. The texture should be creamier than yesterday.” He gave a noncommittal hum. Above his head: [Who cares.] I stared at the bowl of oats, suddenly nauseous. Three years. Every single day, waking up at six to make sure he had a warm, homemade breakfast. Cinnamon oats, avocado toast with perfectly poached eggs, freshly baked scones—I rotated them constantly. Three years. Over a thousand mornings. And he had never cared about a single one of them. At ten o’clock, my mother-in-law arrived. Constance Montgomery swept into the foyer wearing a gray cashmere coat, carrying two expensive jars of imported Manuka honey. “Where is Colin?” “At the office, Constance.” I took the honey with a practiced smile and turned to put the kettle on for her tea. A line of text drifted above Constance’s perfectly coiffed hair. [Calling me by my first name. As if she belongs here.] My footsteps faltered for a fraction of a second. Constance settled into the living room sofa, her sharp eyes sweeping the space. “Summer, the water in that crystal vase needs changing. It’s looking cloudy.” “Of course. I’ll change it right now.” [All she does is buzz around Colin all day, completely oblivious to how out of her depth she is. If her father hadn’t saved my husband’s life in that wreck, there is zero chance my son would have ever married someone like her.] The paragraph of text scrolled past, dense and suffocating. I stood at the kitchen sink, holding the heavy crystal vase. The faucet was running, the water spilling over the rim and rushing over my fingers. It was freezing. So, this marriage was just a debt being paid. When Colin’s father was in a horrific car accident years ago, it was my dad—a passing driver—who pulled him from the wreckage and rushed him to the ER. I had always foolishly believed the Montgomerys were kind to me out of genuine affection, out of gratitude. Now I knew. Their “kindness” was simply an obligation. They endured me. I arranged the fresh water and flowers, placing the vase back on the glass coffee table. Constance glanced at me. [Well, at least she’s obedient. It’s a shame that’s her only use.] I sat across from her and poured her a cup of Earl Grey. My smile was identical to the one I wore yesterday. The only difference was that starting today, I knew my smile was entirely hollow. That afternoon, Colin’s executive assistant called. “Mrs. Montgomery, Mr. Montgomery asked me to let you know he has a client dinner tonight. He won’t be home.” I said okay. I hung up the phone and sat alone at the long dining table. In front of me was a perfectly roasted chicken, garlic butter asparagus, and roasted fingerling potatoes. All his favorites. I cut a piece of chicken and chewed it for a long time. For some reason, I couldn’t taste a thing. 02 By the third day, the subtitles had become crystal clear. It was as if someone had installed an invisible AR screen over my eyes. Anyone who stepped within fifteen feet of me had their inner thoughts broadcast above their heads. The Whole Foods cashier: [Why is it so packed today? I hate this.] The neighborhood security guard: [This poor woman is always buying groceries and cooking, while her hotshot husband is never home.] Even the security guard saw it. But it took me three years to open my eyes. On Saturday, by some miracle, Colin was actually home. He was in his home office answering emails. I brewed a cup of black coffee—just the way he liked it—and carried it in. “Colin? Black coffee.” He took the mug without looking up from his screen. Above his head: [Here she goes again. Can’t I just get ten minutes of peace without her barging in?] I gave a small smile, stepped backward out of the room, and quietly pulled the door shut. The moment the door clicked into the frame, I felt something inside my chest click shut along with it. At two in the afternoon, the doorbell rang. I opened it to find a woman standing on the porch. She wore a flawless white crepe dress, her makeup immaculate. Draped over her arm was a signature Tiffany blue shopping bag. Doris. Colin’s college classmate, and the Creative Director at Montgomery Holdings. She was also the woman everyone in our social circle whispered about as Colin’s “golden girl”—the one that got away. “Summer! It’s been ages!” Her smile was blindingly sweet. The subtitles above her head painted a completely different picture. [Three years, and you’re still clinging to this house like a parasite?] I kept my polite smile pinned in place. “Doris. Come on in.” She swapped her heels for guest slippers and walked in, her gaze sweeping over the grand living room. [The interior design is stunning. Such a waste that it’s occupied by someone so unremarkable.] “I brought Colin an early birthday present. A silk tie I picked up while I was in Milan for fashion week.” She handed the Tiffany bag to me. [Let’s see what pathetic little gift you can afford to get him.] I took the bag by the handles. “Thank you, Doris. His birthday isn’t until next month, but it’s so sweet of you to remember.” She covered her mouth as she laughed lightly. “Well, we’ve known each other for twelve years, after all.” [Which is a hell of a lot longer than he’s known you.] Hearing the voices in the foyer, Colin emerged from his office. His facial expression didn’t change at the sight of Doris, but the text immediately gave him away. [She’s here. That dress looks incredible on her.] He had never once commented on my clothes. Whenever I asked him, “Does this look okay?” his answer was universally, “It’s fine.” The three of us sat in the living room with coffee. Doris and Colin immediately launched into a discussion about a new corporate initiative. When she brought up a specific design strategy, Colin actually engaged, offering a rare, lengthy response. Doris’s subtitles were scrolling at rapid speed. [Do you see this, Summer? I’m the only one who can talk to him on his level. What are you? A maid?] [Once I close the licensing deal with the Whalefall IP, let’s see if you still have the nerve to sit in that chair.] Whalefall. The word struck a nerve, sliding like a cold needle into my brain. “Whalefall” was the pseudonym of an anonymous contemporary artist and illustrator. Over the last two years, the Whalefall IP had exploded. Global brand collaborations, sold-out print runs, massive cultural cachet. Montgomery Holdings had been desperately trying to secure exclusive licensing rights, but the artist was notoriously reclusive, communicating strictly through an agent. Doris was spearheading the acquisition project. What she didn’t know was this: The artist behind Whalefall was me. I picked up my porcelain teacup and took a slow sip. Neither of them noticed the slight tremor in my fingers. It wasn’t fear. It was a dark, boiling mass of something entirely unnameable churning in my chest. When I married Colin three years ago, I put my paintbrushes in a box and shoved them in the back of a closet. Because he had said one sentence to me: “We don’t need the money. You don’t need to work.” I had thought it was an act of love. Protection. Provision. The subtitles told me the truth. He just thought my art was a pointless little hobby, completely beneath his notice. My agent, Roxy, had kept my secret faithfully. She managed the “Whalefall” persona, handled the staggering influx of emails, and negotiated every lucrative deal. Over the last three years, the value of a Whalefall original had skyrocketed from a few thousand dollars to over half a million. The licensing deals had generated over three million dollars. All of that money was sitting quietly in an LLC account Roxy had set up for me. Colin didn’t know. Doris didn’t know. No one knew that the dull, accommodating housewife currently refilling their coffee cups was the elusive genius they had been chasing for eight months. When Doris finally left, she paused at the front door to look back at me. [Enjoy your final days in this house, Summer.] I gave her a little wave. “Drive safe, Doris.” I closed the heavy oak door and leaned my back against the cool wall of the foyer. I closed my eyes. I was done. The era of the desperate, clinging wife ended today. 03 The shift began the very next morning. At 6:15 a.m., my alarm went off. I rolled over, hit the button, and went back to sleep. When Colin came downstairs at seven, the kitchen island was bare. No espresso. No oats. No perfectly poached eggs. He stopped in his tracks for two seconds. Above his head: [No breakfast today? Well, at least it saves me the routine.] He grabbed his car keys and walked out the door. He didn’t even ask if I was feeling okay. I stood by the second-floor window, watching his sleek black Audi pull out of the driveway. Usually, I would run out to the porch in my robe to wave and tell him to drive safely. Today, I stayed behind the glass. He didn’t look back. At noon, I didn’t send him a text. I used to send at least five texts a day. Did you eat lunch? Are you slammed today? I miss you. Looking back, his replies were always identical: Yeah. Fine. Busy. I unlocked my phone and sent a message to Roxy instead. “Roxy. Call Craig at the Mercer Gallery. Let’s talk about the solo exhibition.” Three seconds later, Roxy replied with a wall of exclamation points. “SUMMER! You finally woke up!! Craig has been waiting on standby for eight months for this!!!” I smiled. A real smile. Not the plastic one I wore for Colin. That afternoon, I drove across the river to the West End. I wasn’t grocery shopping. I wasn’t running errands for the house. I walked into a commercial real estate office. “Hi, I’m looking for a loft or a studio space in the Arts District. Just a wide-open room with good light.” The young agent was eager. “What’s your budget, ma’am?” “Under three thousand a month.” “I’ve got the perfect keys right here. Let’s go look.” When I walked out of the agency an hour later, the afternoon sun hit my face. The March wind was still carrying a late-winter chill, but as I breathed it in, I realized it was the most comfortable afternoon I’d had in three years. Colin came home that evening at seven-thirty, earlier than usual. He took off his shoes and walked into the living room. The dining table was empty. The kitchen was dark and cold. “Summer?” I walked out of the bedroom, holding a paperback novel. “Yeah?” He glanced at the empty table. [No dinner? What kind of tantrum is this?] “You didn’t cook?” he asked. “No. I was a bit tired today. Didn’t have the energy,” I said, my tone incredibly flat. “There’s some frozen ravioli in the freezer. You can boil it yourself.” Colin stared at me. [Whatever. If she wants to be lazy for a day, let her be lazy.] He walked into the kitchen. I heard the faucet turn on, then off. The metallic clatter of a pot hitting the stove grate. For the first time in three years, he was boiling his own dinner. I turned a page of my book. I felt no pity. No guilt. I only felt that I should have done this a thousand days ago. 04 A week passed. I didn’t wake up at six. I didn’t send the five daily texts. I didn’t rush to the door to take his briefcase, pour his water, and present a plate of sliced fruit the second he walked in. I stopped asking if he was tired, or what he wanted for dinner. The change in our dynamic was massive. But Colin’s reaction was minimal. For the first three days, his subtitles read: [Finally, some quiet.] [It’s actually nice that she’s not hovering.] [Did she read some dumb magazine article about ‘giving men space’? Whatever. I don’t care.] He actually seemed relieved. I watched those subtitles drift through the air and a cold smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. Fine. Enjoy the quiet. On Wednesday evening, my mother-in-law arrived again. And this time, she didn’t bring honey. She brought Doris. “Summer! Doris said she was craving your famous beef bourguignon, so I just had to bring her over,” Constance beamed, making herself entirely at home. [Doris and Colin are the ones who actually belong together. If it weren’t for that ridiculous debt to her father, Doris would be the lady of this house.] Doris took off her coat and strolled in, looking as comfortable as if her name was on the deed. [I am going to make sure Colin sees exactly why I am superior to Summer tonight.] In the past, a sudden ambush like this would send me into a panic. I would have scurried into the kitchen, desperately throwing together a gourmet meal while wearing a permanent, accommodating smile, terrified of offending either of them. Not tonight. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Constance. I haven’t been to the grocery store this week. The fridge is pretty bare. How about we just order something in?” Constance froze. [Excuse me? Every other time I’ve walked through that door, there’s been a feast waiting. What kind of stunt is this?] “Order in?” Constance’s brow furrowed heavily. “You have a chef’s kitchen right there. Ordering delivery is tacky.” I smiled politely. “Well, I can get catering from that French bistro downtown. What are you in the mood for?” “Catering?” Constance’s face darkened completely. [Has she lost her mind? Guests arrive and she wants to order takeout? What kind of wife is she?] Doris chimed in with flawless timing. “Oh, Mrs. Montgomery, please don’t be upset! Why don’t I cook? I just learned this incredible seared scallop recipe. I’d love for you to try it.” She was already walking toward the kitchen. The scowl on Constance’s face instantly dissolved into a radiant smile. “Doris, you are simply too sweet.” [Look at Doris. A true catch. And then look at Summer.] I sat comfortably on the sofa, watching in absolute silence as Doris rummaged through my kitchen, opening cabinets and looking for spices. I used to get so jealous. I used to feel so utterly inadequate. I used to hide in the master bathroom and cry silently into a towel. I didn’t feel anything anymore. Because her subtitles were broadcasting her entire strategy. [Her apron is in the second drawer, but I refuse to wear it. I’m going to drink water out of Colin’s favorite glass, just so she has to sit there and watch me do it.] When she finally served the meal, she purposely plated it on my favorite set of hand-painted ceramics. [These plates are gorgeous. When I move in, I’m taking all of them.] Colin walked through the front door just as she set the table. Seeing Doris standing in his kitchen, laughing, his footsteps paused. [What is Doris doing here?] Followed immediately by: [She looks really good in this setting.] Then, his eyes shifted to me. [Why is Summer just sitting there? That’s not like her.] “You’re home,” I said. Just those two words. No “honey.” No bright smile. I didn’t even stand up. Colin frowned slightly. [What’s wrong with her?] But he didn’t ask. He never asked. The four of us sat around the dining table. Doris had managed four beautiful dishes. Constance took a bite of a scallop and practically swooned. “Doris, this is divine. Better than a Michelin restaurant.” [If Doris were my daughter-in-law, I would wake up laughing every single day.] Doris offered a graceful, humble smile. “You’re too kind, Mrs. Montgomery.” [Keep complimenting me. Make sure Colin hears every word of it.] I kept my head down and ate my food. Slowly. Quietly. Normally, I would jump in and say, “Constance, I’ll definitely have to get the recipe from Doris so I can make it for you.” Tonight, I was a ghost. Constance noticed. “Summer, you’re awfully quiet tonight.” “Just enjoying the meal, Constance.” She let out a harsh scoff. [Giving us attitude now? If you don’t like it, you should have cooked the damn dinner yourself.] After the meal, Doris insisted on doing the dishes. I sat in the living room, sipping sparkling water. Constance walked over and lowered her voice to a vicious whisper. “Summer. Let me give you some advice. This little attitude of yours lately needs to stop.” “What attitude?” “What attitude? Look at you! Ice cold, barely speaking, refusing to cook. You married into the Montgomery family to be a wife. You are not here to play a pampered princess.” [Know your place. If it weren’t for your father dying on that highway, you wouldn’t even be fit to shine Colin’s shoes.] I looked straight at her. In the old days, a lecture like this would make my eyes sting with tears. I would look at the floor and whisper, “I’m sorry, Constance. I understand.” Today, I just nodded slowly. “I understand, Constance.” My tone sounded exactly the same. But deep down, I knew that this “I understand” meant something radically different than all the times I’d said it before. Before, it meant submission. Today, it meant I was done playing the game. Day ten. The changes had finally compounded to the point where Colin could no longer ignore them. It started with an Instagram post. Historically, my grid was a shrine to him. Dinner made by my amazing husband, so blessed! — I had actually cooked it. The flowers he sent me, so romantic! — I had bought them myself, arranged them, and staged the photo. So thankful for you. — Accompanied by a selfie where I was beaming, and he looked like he was attending a funeral. Pathetic, right? On the tenth day, I posted something new. It was a photo of a watercolor I had secretly painted: a massive whale breaching the surface of a midnight ocean, its back blooming with vibrant, impossible flowers. The caption was just one word: Whalefall.

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There are three men in my life who blush with delightful ease. First, there is my husband, Declan—a man of strict upbringing, rigid routines, and a stoicism so thick it feels like a physical wall. Then, there are our two sons, who inherited his exact brand of solemn, miniature-adult seriousness. Teasing the three of them—watching the tips of their ears burn a violent shade of pink while they desperately try to maintain their composure—is the absolute greatest joy of my life. Especially during our nightly bedtime routine. Every evening, without fail, my boys and my husband wait with flushed anticipation for my goodnight kiss. But tonight was different. Tonight, as I leaned over to press my lips to my youngest son’s forehead, my vision suddenly fractured. A flood of glowing, scrolling text—like a live comment feed from some bizarre, phantom social media app—projected itself directly into my mind’s eye, floating in the air between me and my family. The Comments told me that my parents had found their biological daughter. That they had reunited a month ago, and I was the only one kept entirely in the dark. The scrolling text gleefully predicted that once I met this “true daughter,” I would spiral into a villainous rage, frame her for theft, and ultimately be publicly exposed by my own husband—who would then have me committed to a psychiatric ward. Someone in the Feed was even typing out strings of laughing emojis, mocking the way I would eventually escape the asylum only to be dragged back, claiming they had re-watched that specific downfall five times because it was just that satisfying. My lips, still puckered for a kiss, froze. A slight, involuntary twitch pulled at the corner of my mouth. Right in front of me, three expectant faces were still waiting for their affection. I swallowed the sudden, metallic taste of panic in my mouth. I silently turned my back on them, climbed into the center of the sprawling mattress, and pulled the Egyptian cotton duvet up over my nose until only my eyes were visible. Then, my voice muffled by the down feathers, I announced that effective immediately, goodnight kisses were canceled. 1 Three faces shared a singular, identical expression: a slight, perplexed furrowing of the brows. Declan and my eldest son, Benedict, just stared at me, their faces completely unreadable, silent in their disapproval. It was my youngest, Blake, who broke first. His lower lip wobbled. “Mommy, why no kisses?” I rolled over, turning my back to them entirely. “Everyone out. I need to sleep.” Silence hung thick in the room for several seconds before Declan’s voice cut through it. Low. Measured. Restrained. “Benedict, take your brother to your room. It’s time for sleep.” The sound of their footsteps receded. The heavy bedroom door didn’t latch all the way, and the muffled whispers of my two little boys drifted in from the hallway. “Benedict, why doesn’t Mom want to kiss us anymore?” “I don’t know.” “Is it because we cover her mouth when she says inappropriate things?” “No.” “Then… did Dad make her mad?” My older boy paused, clearly turning the logistics over in his logical little brain. “That is a strong possibility.” Blake suddenly whisper-shouted, “Then Dad shouldn’t get a kiss either! It has to be fair for all three of us!” A laugh bubbled up in my throat, but I bit down hard on the inside of my lip to kill it. Because right then, the Feed in my vision started scrolling frantically again: [Did the female lead get possessed? Usually during bedtime, she’s practically glued to the three of them, saying the most shameless, teasing things.] [Poor little stoic baby, being harassed by his mom and still making excuses for her. You can tell he’s used to coddling her.] [It’s fine! The True Daughter outshines this fake in every way. Give it a few days, and those boys will be calling the True Daughter ‘Mom.’] I squeezed my eyes shut. My heart physically ached, squeezing tight in my chest like a bruised fist. The bedroom door clicked open again. The mattress dipped beside me, the weight familiar and grounding. Declan’s hand reached out, resting lightly on the curve of my waist. It was a rare moment of initiation for him. His fingers brushed against the cool silk of my slip, tracing a slow, almost hesitant circle. “Why are you wearing this one again?” he asked, his voice rougher than usual. I turned my head and glared at his handsome, impossibly repressed face. Three years of marriage, and the man’s repertoire in bed was something you could count on one hand. He didn’t like changing positions. He refused to do it anywhere outside the bedroom. Whenever I pushed him to the edge with my teasing, his only defense mechanism was to go take a freezing cold shower. Even the two kids I bore him shared his exact, maddening temperament. A sudden, fierce irritation flared in my chest. I yanked the duvet tightly around myself. “I didn’t put it on for you,” I snapped, puffing out my cheeks. “Get out.” Declan’s hand froze mid-air. Normally, this was the part where he would sigh, gently haul me out from under the covers, pin me against the headboard, and lecture me on propriety. Then I would barrage him with filthy whispers until his self-control shattered, leading to a long, breathless night. But tonight, he just sat there in silence for a few long, agonizing seconds. He reached out, carefully tucked in the edge of the duvet I had kicked loose, and stood up. He walked out. The door clicked shut. The Feed erupted in a digital cheer. [SO SATISFYING. The male lead is finally freezing her out. He’s keeping himself pure for the True Daughter.] [I mean, I’ve always said it. A classless orphan like her never deserved to marry into the Wright family anyway. If she hadn’t taken the wrong glass that night, accidentally drugged herself, crawled into his bed, and conveniently gotten pregnant with twins, he never would have married her.] [Exactly. Genetics don’t lie. No matter how hard she plays the part, she’ll never be the real heiress. She needs to pack her bags and crawl back to the orphanage while she still has her miserable life.] 2 I watched the phantom text scroll past, a heavy, suffocating weight pressing down on my chest. The truth was, I already knew I wasn’t my parents’ biological child. I found out during a routine medical exam my freshman year of college. My blood type was A. But both my parents were type O. Two type O parents cannot produce a type A child. It is a biological impossibility. I had quietly hired a private investigator to look into my origins. I learned I was an orphan, dropped at a group home from birth, parents unknown, before eventually being adopted by the wealthy Wentworth family. I remember sitting in front of my laptop in my dorm room, staring at the investigator’s email until the sun came up. When morning broke, I deleted every file, cleared my cache, and pretended absolutely nothing had happened. I did it because my parents loved me. They loved me so completely, so fiercely, that I convinced myself blood didn’t matter. I used to have nightmares that they would find their missing biological daughter and stop loving me. But I never, not even in my darkest anxieties, imagined they would find her and purposely hide her from me. When I finally opened my eyes, the room was bathed in morning light. I washed up and went downstairs to the dining room. The three men of the house were already seated. Benedict and Blake sat with their backs ramrod straight, their hands folded, waiting obediently for me. Declan was scanning the Wall Street Journal. He glanced up at the sound of my heels, then dropped his eyes back to the page. I pulled out my chair, sat down, picked up my fork, and began to eat. Instantly, three pairs of eyes snapped toward me. I calmly speared a piece of asparagus and chewed it, ignoring them. The Feed began to drift across my vision: [Wait, she’s acting so weird. Doesn’t she usually go around the table and kiss everyone?] [Yeah, she usually leaves the two little stoics covered in lipstick while they look like they want to cry. They secretly hate it.] [No goodnight kiss yesterday, no good morning kiss today. I bet she’s brewing some toxic scheme.] [(+1)] Reading the conspiracy theories floating in the air, I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes. Then, out of my peripheral vision, I noticed Blake taking tiny, hesitant bites of his oatmeal, his big eyes darting toward me every few seconds. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He pushed his small porcelain plate slightly toward me. “Mommy. A shrimp dumpling.” I looked down. Two perfectly plump dim sum dumplings sat on his plate. On any normal day, I would have cooed, Let Mommy feed you, baby! just to watch him blush and declare, I can feed myself, Mother. But today, the well was dry. I pushed the plate back. “Eat it yourself.” Blake froze. He turned his head, shooting a desperate, pleading look at his older brother. Benedict maintained his serious little scowl. He didn’t intervene, but his spoon remained hovering over his bowl, entirely forgotten. At the head of the table, Declan lowered his newspaper. He leveled a look at me. It was a silent question: What is going on with you? I pretended to be deeply engrossed in my breakfast. The Feed flared up again: [She’s terrifyingly quiet today. Doesn’t she usually spend breakfast sexually harassing her husband and babying her kids? She usually talks so much trash I want to mute her.] [What about under the table? She loves rubbing her foot up the male lead’s leg. I bet fifty cents she’s doing it right now!] [Reporting in: I checked. She’s not. She’s sitting there rigid as a board.] The phantom voices couldn’t figure me out. And strangely, that felt incredibly empowering. I calmly dabbed my mouth with a linen napkin and stood up to head upstairs. “Wait,” Declan’s voice stopped me. “There’s a gala tonight. You need to get ready.” I paused on the bottom step, feigning total ignorance. “What gala?” He hesitated for a fraction of a second. His tone was perfectly flat. “Your parents found their long-lost daughter. They’re hosting a welcome-home reception for her.” I slowly turned to look at him. He stood by the mahogany table, the morning light catching the sharp angle of his jaw, hiding his eyes in shadow. My sons tilted their little faces up at me, their expressions laced with a sudden, palpable nervous energy. Ah. So they all knew. The big one, and the little ones. My fingers tightened around the oak banister until my knuckles turned white. A slow, sharp smile curved my lips. “Understood.” The Feed practically shrieked: [HOLY SHIT. Look at that sinister smile. That is the textbook evil-step-sister smirk. Terrifying.] [I mean, she’s the fake. She stole someone else’s life for twenty-something years. She’s rotten to the core.] [I cannot WAIT to see her lose her mind with jealousy tonight. Let the husband and kids see her true, ugly colors so he can finally file for divorce!] [In the True vs. Fake Daughter trope, I am always team True Daughter. The fake deserves to burn!] I pulled my gaze away from the empty air and continued up the stairs. Jealousy? Rage? No. I just wanted to see her. I wanted to see the sister my parents had hidden away for an entire month. I wanted to see what she looked like. I wanted to see if she looked like the ghost in my nightmares. That was all. 3 I chose a black couture gown. The tailoring was aggressive and architectural, the plunging V-neckline holding to my curves with weaponized precision. When I descended the grand staircase, my boys and my husband were already waiting in the foyer. Declan looked up. Instantly, a deep crease formed between his brows. The two little stoics were dressed in matching, immaculate white miniature tuxedos. When they saw me, their eyes lit up like stars. The Feed, however, was vicious: [Is she insane? Why is she dressed like she’s walking a red carpet?] [Oh, I get it. She knows the True Daughter grew up poor in the country and probably dresses plain. She’s trying to upstage her. Shameless bitch.] [Even the husband and kids are frowning. They know she looks too slutty for a family event.] Declan’s eyes swept over me, taking in every inch of the dress. He stepped toward me, his voice a low, vibrating murmur. “That dress isn’t appropriate. Change.” I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze. “What’s inappropriate about it?” “It’s too formal,” he said flatly. I let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Is a welcome-home gala not a formal occasion?” Without waiting for his answer, I swept past him toward the door. Declan stood frozen in the foyer. The boys immediately broke ranks, their little dress shoes pitter-pattering across the marble floor as they scrambled to flank me, each grabbing one of my hands. Benedict, who almost never offered unprompted praise, looked up at me with profound seriousness. “Mother, you look very beautiful today.” Blake nodded furiously in agreement, his round cheeks suddenly flushing pink. I squeezed their tiny, warm hands. “Let’s go, boys.” Once we were in the back of the Maybach, I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, watching the city blur by. The three of them sat opposite me, stealing glances at me every few minutes. In the past, no matter where we were, I couldn’t resist poking at them. I loved watching them get flustered while trying to maintain their dignified facades. But after reading the venom in the Feed, a quiet, insidious doubt had crept into my mind. Was my behavior actually bad for the kids? Was I overwhelming them? The silence in the car was so absolute I could hear the rhythmic ticking of Declan’s Patek Philippe watch. “Mommy.” Blake’s voice was barely a whisper. I gave a soft, lazy hmm? “Are you feeling sick?” Before I could even process the question, Declan leaned across the space between us. The cool back of his hand pressed firmly against my forehead. I flinched, instinctively pulling my head back to break the contact. “I’m fine,” I said. Benedict was staring at me too. “But Mother, you’ve been holding your chest the whole ride.” I looked down. My left hand was pressed tightly, unconsciously, over my heart. I slowly lowered my hand to my lap, forcing my voice to stay gentle. “I promise, I’m okay.” Then I turned my face back to the window. In the reflection of the glass, I could see all three of them still watching me. Their expressions were tight, laced with a strange, heavy concern. The Feed drifted by, dripping with sarcasm: [Wow, the little stoics actually care about her. Giving birth to two good kids is the only good karma she has.] [Um… is it just me, or does the male lead look really worried too? The kid said one thing, and he immediately jumped across the car.] [Worried? Please. Those three are geniuses. They know she’s putting on an act and they’re just playing along to humor her.] I closed my eyes and let the darkness take the words away. 4 The reception was held on the top floor penthouse of the St. Regis. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the glittering sprawl of the city skyline, a sea of lights stretching to the horizon like a silent, breathless celebration. Half of the city’s elite were in attendance. I linked my arm through Declan’s as we walked through the double doors, the boys trailing perfectly at our sides. As we navigated the room, I felt the weight of a hundred stares sticking to my skin. The whispers rustled through the crowd like wind through dry leaves. After all, the circumstances of my marriage weren’t exactly a closely guarded secret among the upper crust. There were those who envied me, and those who despised me. I was used to the scrutiny. I kept my spine straight and my face impassive. My parents were standing by the head table, greeting a minor tech CEO. When my mother saw me, her polished, practiced smile faltered for a fraction of a second. She recovered instantly. “Jocelyn, darling. You made it.” I nodded, my gaze sliding past her to rest on the girl standing slightly behind her. The girl was wearing a plain, starkly conservative white dress. The fabric hung a bit awkwardly; it clearly wasn’t custom, or even designer. Standing next to me in my architectural black silk, the contrast was violently stark. A sudden wave of awkwardness washed over me. The Feed was losing its mind: [Oh my God, the contrast is brutal. My heart breaks for the True Daughter. She’s the main character, and she’s being totally eclipsed by this fake!] [The female lead is such a bitch. Dressing like that to sabotage her big night? Does she want everyone to know how manipulative she is?] [Don’t even call her the female lead anymore. She doesn’t deserve the title.] I lowered my eyes, a bitter, hollow laugh threatening to bubble up in my throat. How was I supposed to know she would be dressed like that? I had assumed my parents—with their endless wealth and obsession with appearances—would have commissioned a bespoke gown for her. I assumed they would want her to shine like a diamond. The dress I was wearing was from a three-year-old runway collection. By high-society standards, it was practically vintage. After a beat of heavy silence, my mother reached out, took the girl’s hand, and pulled her forward to introduce her to Declan and me. “This is your sister. Sabrina.” Sabrina looked at me, a bright, open smile spreading across her face. “Jocelyn!” She stepped forward, opening her arms for an embrace. But my mother quickly lifted a hand, blocking her path. “Sabrina, darling, you have to give your speech soon. Let’s not ruin your hair.” Sabrina dropped her arms awkwardly. She reached up, nervously touching a curl near her cheek, and offered me a sheepish, apologetic smile. My own hand was caught in no-man’s-land—halfway up to return the hug, not sure how to retreat. Feeling incredibly foolish, I mirrored her movement, reaching up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I gave her a warm, tentative smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Sabrina.” I turned to look at Declan, and my breath caught in my throat. Declan was staring at Sabrina. His eyes were wide, fixed on her with a look of profound, undisguised shock. And he kept looking. For a long, long time. 5 “Father.” Blake’s little voice, soft and sweet, broke the spell. It snapped Declan out of his trance. Declan blinked, his mask slamming back into place, and he pulled a small, black velvet Cartier box from his inner jacket pocket. “A small token,” Declan said, his voice smooth and professional. “From Jocelyn and myself.” Sabrina looked at my parents, clearly overwhelmed. My mother beamed and nodded encouragingly. Sabrina took the box and clicked it open. Inside lay a breathtaking vintage diamond and emerald necklace. The clarity was flawless. The Comments immediately flooded with jealousy: [Whoa, the male lead is dropping serious cash. Is he trying to apologize for his wife’s terrible behavior?] [Apologize? No, he’s trying to make a good impression on the True Daughter. After all, she’s the real heiress now.] [Keep cooking! The male lead is officially ignoring the fake wife. The romance arc with the True Daughter begins now!] Sabrina’s eyes suddenly dropped, landing on the two little boys standing by my skirt. She crouched down until she was eye-level with them. “Hi there,” she said softly. “I’m your Aunt Sabrina.” Benedict kept his face perfectly impassive, but his manners were ingrained. “Hello, Aunt Sabrina.” Blake looked up at me, his big eyes searching my face for permission. I gently stroked the back of his little head. “Alright, boys. Tonight is Aunt Sabrina’s big night. Let’s go sit down and give her some space.” My mother opened her mouth, looking as though she wanted to say something to me. I just smiled at her, took my boys by the hands, and walked toward our assigned table. Almost the second Declan sat down next to me, a venture capitalist swooped in to talk mergers. I was annoyed, and the noise of the room was giving me a headache. Declan noticed. He leaned close to my ear. “I need to step away for a moment.” I rested my elbow on the linen tablecloth and made a dismissive shooing motion with my hand under the table. Declan caught my hand beneath the linen. He squeezed my fingertips tightly for three seconds, then let go and walked away. The moment he was gone, my youngest son’s hand shot out and grabbed mine. He looked at his older brother, a triumphant grin on his face. “I got Mom’s hand first!” I looked over at Benedict. His little eyebrows were pulled tightly together. “Do you want to hold a hand too, Benedict?” I asked softly. He turned his face away, looking fiercely at the centerpiece. “No.” But a second later, the corners of his mouth betrayed him, pressing into a tiny, secret smile. I laughed quietly, reached across the table, and gently wrapped my fingers around his. “That’s a shame,” I teased. “Because Mommy really wanted to hold your hand.” Benedict’s hand went stiff for a second, and the tips of his ears burned a bright, glowing pink. I drank three glasses of sparkling water before Declan finally returned to the table. He had barely sat down and spoken two words to me when his phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and a subtle frown deepened the lines around his mouth. I was just about to ask who it was when the Feed lit up with frantic energy: [Is it the True Daughter calling?] [Omg, when did they exchange numbers?!] Driven by the phantom text, the words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Who is it?” He looked at me. “Sabrina.” That invisible string inside my chest pulled taut, sharp as a razor. But I kept my face smooth, perfectly bored. “Oh? And how exactly did you get her number?”

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The package room in the lobby of our corporate headquarters was dead empty. It was only then that my supervisor—who had just returned from a business trip—finally remembered the existence of the employee whose phone number he had blocked. When I picked up the office line, his voice was frantic, a man whose world was actively catching fire. He demanded to know where the five cases of premium liquor were for tonight’s executive dinner—the one meant to seal a ten-million-dollar contract. He practically screamed into the receiver, accusing me of hiding the shipment. The irony was thick enough to choke on. This whole disaster had started exactly three days ago. Claiming his corporate cards were maxed out, he had ordered me to front nearly ten thousand dollars of my own money to purchase five cases of reserve vintage Scotch and a custom corporate embosser. He told me it was a life-or-death emergency for a signing event the following week. I had bitten my lip, drained my savings, and paid for it. The next morning, when I bumped into him in the breakroom, he brushed me off, promising to authorize the reimbursement by the end of the day. The day after that, he claimed he was dizzy from back-to-back meetings. Just wait one more day, Paige, he had said. On the third day, he crossed the line. He left on a business trip without a word, ignored all my messages, and sent my calls straight to voicemail. So, sitting in the stairwell with the cold, automated tone of a blocked call ringing in my ear, I had made a singular, split-second decision. I opened the shipping app, intercepted the packages, and canceled the entire order. 1 “Paige, are you allergic to your notifications?” The sharp rap of knuckles against my desk startled me. I pulled my eyes away from the architectural blueprints scattered across my workspace and looked up. Bradley, my direct supervisor, was staring down at me. His tone was perfectly mild, his face arranged into a mask of corporate friendliness, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. For the past half hour, the messaging icon on my monitor had been flashing relentlessly. I had ignored it, knowing from a year of bitter experience that Bradley reaching out directly never meant anything good. I had simply kept my head down, burying myself deeper into the CAD files. I just hadn’t expected him to actually walk out of his glass-walled sanctuary to confront me. Without waiting for an invitation, he leaned over my shoulder, the overpowering scent of his designer cologne invading my space. He took my mouse, jiggling it to wake the screen, and clicked open the chat window I had been so desperately trying to ignore. “I need you to cover this invoice for me, Paige,” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s all stuff for the big signing next week. My limits are totally frozen right now.” He said it with such breathtaking entitlement. If he had known my passcode, I’m half-convinced he would have processed the payment himself right then and there. I couldn’t even count how many times we had played this exact game. During my very first week as a junior designer, he had forwarded me a cart containing three boxes of premium binder clips. It was thirty bucks. I was eager to please, terrified of making a bad impression, so I paid it without a second thought. I didn’t realize that in doing so, I had bled in shark-infested waters. A few days later, it was a hundred-dollar order. Mostly random, disparate office supplies. Back then, I had tried to maintain my professional boundaries, offering a polite, tentative refusal. “Brad, does the company actually reimburse us for these kinds of individual orders?” I had asked. “I’m still waiting on the money for those binder clips from last week.” He had frozen, a flash of genuine annoyance crossing his features. “Paige, these are essentials for our department,” he had snapped, his voice carrying just enough for the surrounding desks to hear. “It’s practically pennies. Why are you being so difficult about this? Just fill out an expense report, bring it to accounting, and I’ll sign off on it. Easy.” With that, he had turned on his heel, effectively ending the conversation. As he walked away, I distinctly heard him mutter, “So damn emotional.” I had swallowed my pride, quietly canceled the sweetgreen salad I had scheduled for lunch, and bought a stale sandwich from the lobby vending machine instead. My checking account barely had enough to cover his “pennies.” Yes, the company technically reimbursed us. But the bureaucratic red tape was a nightmare. The money always took weeks, sometimes over a month, to hit my account. Bradley’s demands had only grown more frequent, the amounts steadily climbing, and I was drowning under the weight of it. So today, when I saw his name flashing on my screen, a knot of dread had formed in my stomach. But nothing could have prepared me for the number staring back at me now. Nine thousand, five hundred dollars. I stared at the screen, my vision tunneling. A custom corporate embosser. And… Scotch? Five entire cases of limited-edition, twenty-year reserve Macallan? When I didn’t immediately speak, Bradley sighed, a harsh, impatient sound. “Paige, I told you, this is for the signing next week. You know exactly what’s at stake here. This is a ten-million-dollar contract. If we land this, the bonuses for our department are going to be astronomical. This is a drop in the bucket, and you’ll get it all back through Concur anyway.” A drop in the bucket? I almost laughed out loud. I was a junior employee barely making rent. Nine and a half thousand dollars was everything I had to my name. It was my safety net. It was my mother’s medical fund. Bradley stamped his foot, an ugly flash of panic in his eyes. “Look, I just need you to float it! If you can’t wait for the corporate reimbursement cycle, I will personally wire you the cash tomorrow morning. Do you want me to pause the entire workflow and have the whole floor pitch in like a bake sale?” It was rare to hear actual desperation in his voice. We were in the eleventh hour of a massive push, and the tension on the floor was palpable. A few of my colleagues, exhausted and running on fumes, looked up from their monitors. “Just do it, Paige. Don’t be the bottleneck,” Kevin, a senior architect, muttered loudly, shooting me a glare. A murmur of agreement rippled through the pod. Surrounded by the heavy, judgmental stares of my team, and looking at Bradley’s dead-serious expression, the fight drained out of me. My hands shook as I picked up my phone. I double-clicked the side button. FaceID authenticated. Payment Successful. The moment the green checkmark appeared, Bradley practically sprinted back to his office. But as I watched his retreating back, a cold, sickening weight settled deep in my bones. 2 I survived the next workday entirely on nervous adrenaline. I sat rigidly at my desk, my eyes darting toward Bradley’s office every few minutes. He never showed up. His lights remained off, the glass doors securely shut. Just as the panic began to curdle in my throat, just as I was drafting a carefully worded text to demand my money, I bumped into him by the espresso machine in the breakroom. Before I could even open my mouth, he went on the offensive. “Hey, Paige, I’m glad I caught you,” he said smoothly, pouring a double shot. “My schedule is completely insane today. I have to head to corporate HQ in twenty minutes, and I won’t have time to deal with the bank. My transfer limit is still locked up.” He offered me a reassuring, easy smile. “Don’t stress. I’ll come find you first thing tomorrow, and I’ll wire you the funds directly. I promise.” He had brought it up first. He looked me in the eye and swore he’d handle it. It was just enough to quiet the screaming alarm bells in my head. I forced myself to breathe, walked back to my desk, and threw myself into my drafts. But Thursday came and went, and Bradley never approached my desk. His office door was wide open. I saw him pacing, taking calls, laughing with the senior partners. Several times, we made direct eye contact through the glass. Every time, his gaze slid right past me, frictionless, as if I were part of the drywall. By 5:00 PM, the nausea was unbearable. I walked up to his door and knocked twice. “Brad, about that invoice—” He rubbed his temples, pinching the bridge of his nose like he was carrying the weight of the free world on his shoulders. He let out a long, theatrical sigh and waved a hand at me. “I’ve been in meetings for eight hours, Paige. I can barely see straight. We’ll handle it tomorrow.” He looked so deeply inconvenienced by my existence that I just backed away. Tomorrow is Friday, I told myself. I will not leave this building without that money. I needed it. Desperately. Because Friday night, right after work, I had an appointment with the billing department at my mother’s oncology ward to settle her monthly copays. But when I arrived at the office on Friday morning, Bradley’s office was dark. His door was locked. I asked around, trying to keep my voice casual, only to have Kevin casually mention that Bradley was out of town. Not a sudden emergency. A scheduled, multi-day trip he had known about all week. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A sterile, automated text from the hospital reminding me of my outstanding balance. Something inside me snapped. I retreated to the quiet hum of the fire stairwell and opened my messages. I typed out a firm, urgent demand for the transfer. I waited ten minutes. Sent another. Over the next hour, I sent ten messages. Nothing. Total silence. The read receipts were glaring. At one point, the little typing bubbles appeared, dancing on the screen for three agonizing minutes, only to vanish into nothingness. My legendary patience evaporated. I hit the call button. It rang through the full cycle. Voicemail. Fine. I can do this all day. I hit redial. I was prepared to blow up his phone until the sheer annoyance forced him to answer. But on the third try, there was no ringing. Just a sharp, single beep, followed immediately by the automated operator. The number you have reached is unavailable… I lowered the phone. The air in the stairwell suddenly felt freezing. He had blocked me. I sank down onto the concrete steps, hugging my knees to my chest. My mind raced, piecing together the breadcrumbs I had been too naive, or too intimidated, to see. Did top-tier liquor even qualify for standard corporate reimbursement? Looking back at the months of random receipts, the pattern was glaringly obvious. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was expensing items that blatantly violated company policy, using me as a buffer, an untraceable middleman. When it was twenty bucks here, fifty bucks there, I had swallowed it. Even when it hit a few hundred, and he held my upcoming performance review over my head, I wrote it off as the unspoken cost of surviving in a cutthroat firm. But this was nearly ten thousand dollars. My lifeline. I stared at the red exclamation point next to my final, undelivered text message. The panic was gone, replaced by something much colder. Much sharper. 3 I opened the shipping app. The order status read: In Transit – Arriving at Local Sorting Facility. Because it was high-value freight, it required multiple checkpoints and signatures. I hit the customer service icon, bypassed the chatbot, and got a live agent on the phone. I explained there was a critical error with the billing and requested an immediate, hard intercept on the shipment. Since the pallets hadn’t yet been loaded onto the local delivery trucks, the intercept was approved. Twenty minutes later, my phone vibrated in my palm. Refund processed. $9,500.00 has been credited to your account. I stared at the numbers. The relief was so intense my knees went weak. I felt like I could finally draw a full breath into my lungs. When I pushed open the heavy stairwell door and walked back onto the floor, I felt invincible. I tore through my remaining revisions with a kind of manic clarity, finishing my entire weekly workload an hour before the clock hit five. Leaning back in my ergonomic chair, I let the quiet satisfaction wash over me. I should have drawn this boundary months ago. But late was better than never. By the time I packed my bag, there were still zero notifications from Bradley. With my bank account safely restored, I decided we deserved a victory. On the way to the hospital, I stopped at an upscale grocer. I bought a crate of Rainier cherries—the obscenely expensive ones—and a pound of thick-cut, artisan roast beef. That night, sitting in the quiet, sterile glow of my mother’s hospital room, we ate like queens. The entire weekend passed in absolute bliss. Bradley didn’t try to reach me. Monday and Tuesday at the office were a revelation. Without him prowling the aisles, no one was timing our bathroom breaks. No one was breathing down our necks, demanding performative overtime just to show “hustle.” The air in the studio literally felt lighter. But the peace shattered on Wednesday evening. I was pulling my coat off the back of my chair when my cell rang. A frantic, blocked number. I answered, and Bradley’s voice exploded through the speaker. “Paige! Where the hell are you? I’m standing downstairs at the loading dock!” He was breathing heavily, panic bleeding into every syllable. “Where did you stash the delivery? The executive dinner starts in three hours!” I actually had to admire the sheer audacity of the man. When I needed my money to keep my mother in care, he played dumb and blocked my number. But now that he was staring down the barrel of a ruined VIP event, I was suddenly his best friend. I let out a soft, dry laugh. “What delivery?” His voice spiked an octave. “The order from last week! The Scotch! The tracking said it shipped days ago. Did the freight guy not call you?” I let a beat of total silence hang on the line. Then, I spoke, keeping my voice perfectly, terribly calm. “Oh, that. I canceled the order.” The silence on his end was absolute. For three long seconds, I wondered if he had dropped his phone. Then, a sound clawed out of his throat—half-gasp, half-shriek. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!” “I don’t know what to tell you, Brad—” “I told you exactly what that was for!” he screamed. Behind him, I could hear the muted chaos of a hotel lobby. “This is a ten-million-dollar deal! Ten million! The entire executive board is going to be there!” He tried to say something else, but a voice in the background cut him off, urgently telling him they needed to leave. He didn’t even hang up. I just listened to the rustle of fabric as someone dragged him away. By the time I unlocked my apartment door, my screen was drowning in notifications. Paige, I don’t care if you have to go to every high-end liquor store in the tri-state area. Find me twenty-year-old reserve right now and bring it to this address! Forget five cases. Bring one. Just bring me two bottles! God damn it, answer me! When I left him on read, the desperation curdled into pure venom. The texts dissolved into an unhinged string of profanity. I scrolled to the very bottom. The final message sat there, heavy and menacing: You killed the project. Enjoy getting sued by corporate, you stupid bitch. 4 I stared at the chaotic mix of voice memos and unhinged texts. Even through the screen, I could vividly picture him unraveling in real-time. His later messages barely even made sense, riddled with typos and frantic autocorrects. I had no idea what kind of disaster was unfolding in that private dining room, but the fallout hit our department’s group chat like a bomb. Kevin was the first to strike, tagging me directly in the main channel. Kevin: What the hell is wrong with you, Paige? You just tanked months of everyone’s hard work because you wanted to throw a tantrum? Kevin was Bradley’s golden boy. I imagined Bradley had just called him, weeping in a bathroom stall somewhere, spinning a wild narrative of my betrayal. Then Lauren, another senior associate, chimed in. Lauren: Wait, the deal fell through? How is that even possible? Kevin took the opening and ran with it, painting a picture of a catastrophic dinner ruined entirely by my insubordination. He made it perfectly clear: if I hadn’t gone rogue, the ink on that ten-million-dollar contract would be drying right now. No one else in the chat said a word. They were either too terrified to intervene or quietly enjoying the bloodshed. I locked my phone and went to sleep. The next morning, I walked into the office exactly at 8:55 AM. The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the low hum of office chatter vanished. The silence was deafening. Everyone was staring at me. Kevin and Lauren didn’t even try to hide their disgust, looking at me like I had tracked dog shit onto their carpets. I considered defending myself, but standing in the middle of the floor screaming about expense fraud felt a little unhinged. So, I walked to my desk, sat down, and opened AutoCAD. My utter lack of visible guilt pushed Kevin over the edge. He stormed across the aisle, slammed his hands down on my desk, and swept a stack of my printed schematics onto the floor. “How do you even have the nerve to show your face here?” he hissed. I looked up at him, my expression blank. “What exactly did I do, Kevin?” His face flushed a dark, furious red. “You sabotaged the executive dinner! Because of you, the clients walked. All of our late nights, all of our overtime—wiped out because you wanted to be petty!” He was trembling with rage. For a second, he raised a hand, looking like he might actually take a swing at me. A few people gasped, but no one stepped in to pull him back. Before things could escalate, a sharp, authoritative voice cut through the air. “Who is Paige?” Kevin froze. Standing in the doorway was Victor Caldwell, the Managing Director from corporate HQ. His face was carved out of granite, and his tone was absolute zero. The entire floor pointed at me in terrified unison. Kevin practically shoved me forward, stepping back with a smug, vindictive smirk, eager to watch my execution. I followed Mr. Caldwell into the main conference room. The moment I stepped inside, I saw Bradley. He looked awful—sweaty, pale, and desperate. The second he saw me, he pointed a trembling finger. “That’s her! That’s the one!” he practically yelled, turning to the panel of executives seated at the table. “I laid everything out for her perfectly last week. I sourced the vendor, I approved the vintage, all she had to do was process the payment. And she deliberately canceled the order behind my back!” He was hyperventilating, entirely off script. “The whole floor can back me up! I streamlined the entire logistical process for her. What kind of psychopath does something like this? Ask anyone out there—they all know she’s the reason we lost the client!” Bradley was a cornered animal, using volume to mask his terror. The executives at the table—four very expensive suits from headquarters—stared at me with cold, open hostility. The collective weight of their glares was meant to crush me. Standing alone in the center of that room, I felt physically small. Bradley noticed my rigid posture. A tiny, triumphant sneer tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Paige, your actions have resulted in catastrophic consequences for this firm.” It was Mr. Caldwell who spoke, sitting at the head of the table. He didn’t ask for my side of the story. He delivered the verdict as a statement of fact. “This was a ten-million-dollar acquisition,” Caldwell continued, his voice echoing off the glass walls. “A junior employee does not have the authority, nor the capacity, to make decisions of this magnitude.” Every word was a nail in my coffin. It wasn’t my job. It was never my responsibility. But Bradley had spun a brilliant, desperate lie, turning me into a rogue employee who had maliciously destroyed a corporate merger. “Given the severity of your interference, we are preparing to take immediate legal action against you for damages.” It was over. They had made up their minds before I even walked in the door. Caldwell closed his folder and stood up, signaling the end of the tribunal. Bradley exhaled, a long, shuddering breath of relief, and hurried to open the door for the executives. But as Caldwell reached for the handle, I found my voice. I had been quiet my whole life. I hated conflict. I hated being perceived. But I looked at Bradley’s smug face, and a strange, cold fire lit up in my chest. “Mr. Caldwell,” I said, my voice ringing out, clear and steady. Everyone stopped. “I just have one question. For a dinner with two client representatives… did you really need thirty bottles of vintage Scotch?”

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When the Vice President kicked my office door open, I was clutching an X-Acto knife, my hands shaking uncontrollably. He shoved his phone inches from my face. In the grainy security footage, a figure was rifling through files in the server room. The silhouette, the posture, the tan trench coat—it was unmistakably me. “You backstabbing bitch! We caught you red-handed on camera. Get ready to rot in a cell!” His roar hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. I stared at the screen, watching my “ghost” skulk around, and then, inexplicably, I started to laugh. A sharp, jagged sound that cut through the tension. So, for the last half hour, I’d supposedly been playing corporate spy. That meant the person who had just wired $200 million of the firm’s capital into a fraudulent, frozen account definitely wasn’t me. The X-Acto knife hit the floor with a metallic clatter. My heart, which had been lodged in my throat for the last ten minutes, finally dropped back into my chest. The notification for the frozen funds was still flashing on my monitor, but suddenly, that didn’t seem like my problem anymore. 1 Bill Henderson looked at the knife on the floor and let out a cold, jagged laugh. “What? Scared now?” “If you’re smart, you’ll make this easy for both of us.” He reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out a formal memo, slamming it onto my desk. The header was bold and unforgiving: Termination of Employment – Chief Financial Officer, Summer Beckett. The grounds for firing were laid out in black and white: Suspected theft of core trade secrets, gross violation of non-disclosure agreements, and breach of conduct. He kept one hand pressed firmly on the document while the other signaled toward the hallway. Two security guards filed in, flanking my desk like pillars of stone. “Hand over the corporate keys and your digital signature token,” Bill said, curling his fingers in a ‘give it here’ gesture. A crowd had already gathered at the door. People who, just this morning, were calling me “Ms. Beckett” with practiced smiles were now wearing masks of disgust. “I knew something was off with her,” someone whispered loud enough for me to hear. “Always staying until midnight. Now we know what she was actually doing.” “No wonder we lost that last bidding war. We had a mole in the C-suite.” “She deserves whatever’s coming to her.” I ignored them. My eyes were fixed on the timestamp of the security still on Bill’s phone. 14:15. The figure in the tan trench coat—my tan trench coat—had slipped into the server room then. I thought back to 14:10. Maya, Bill’s niece who was currently “interning” in the marketing department, had walked into my office with two lattes. “Summer, I thought you could use a caffeine boost,” she’d said, her voice sweet and syrupy. Then, she “tripped.” An entire cup of scorching latte drenched the trench coat I had draped over the back of my chair. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry! Summer, don’t be mad—let me take it to the dry cleaner’s downstairs right now!” She’d scooped up the coat and ran out before I could even process the mess. At the time, I thought she was just a clumsy, well-meaning kid. Now I realized that five minutes later, that coat was on someone else’s back. And while that “someone” was in the server room from 14:15 to 14:25, I was sitting right here at my desk, authorizing a wire transfer of $200 million into a dead end. Bill had spent weeks digging a grave to bury me in. He just didn’t realize that the ground beneath us had already opened up into a much deeper abyss. That $200 million? That was the company’s lifeline. We’d liquidated assets and mortgaged the factory to get that bridge funding from our VCs. Now, it was sitting in a court-ordered frozen account. To get it back through legal channels would take eighteen months, minimum. The company had two months of runway, tops. According to the clawback clauses and the fiduciary responsibility agreement I’d signed, every cent of that loss would be pinned on me. My house, my savings, the fund I’d spent three years building for my mother’s dialysis—all of it would be gone. But by trying to frame me for a petty theft at the exact moment the money vanished, Bill hadn’t pushed me into the pit. He had accidentally built a wall between me and the crime. I had to bite my lip to keep from smiling. Bill saw the flicker in my eyes and mistook it for surrender. “Finally realized there’s no way out, haven’t you?” He slowly pulled another stack of papers from his bag. 2 Two documents sat on my desk now. The first was a Voluntary Waiver of All Stock Options and Performance Bonuses. The second was a Confession of Trade Secret Theft. It was written with clinical coldness: I, Summer Beckett, admit that between 14:15 and 14:25 today, I left my workstation and entered the core server room to steal confidential bidding documents. Bill slid a pen toward me. He sighed, putting on his best “disappointed mentor” face. “Summer, I watched you climb the ladder from a junior accountant. Honestly, it breaks my heart to see it end like this.” He shook his head, the picture of grief. “But you did this. If I don’t handle this, how do I explain it to the Board? How do I look at the hundred employees whose livelihoods you put at risk?” He was a phenomenal actor. If I didn’t know for a fact that he was the reason we lost the bidding war last month, I might have even felt a twinge of guilt. “Look, Summer,” he leaned in, lowering his voice so only I could hear. “I know how much your mom’s hospital bills are. You go to prison, who’s going to take care of her? They’ll pull her off that machine within three days.” My knuckles turned white as I gripped the edge of the desk. He straightened up, resuming his role as the benevolent leader. He patted my shoulder in front of everyone. “Sign the papers, walk away quietly, and I’ll convince the CEO not to call the police. We’ll call it a wash—your years of service in exchange for your freedom. I’ll even personally cut you a check for $5,000 to help with your mother’s transition.” A murmur of admiration went through the crowd in the hallway. “Bill is being way too generous.” “Anyone else would’ve had her in handcuffs by now.” “She’s lucky she has a boss like him.” I didn’t say a word. I let the silence stretch for a few agonizing seconds until Bill tipped his head toward the door. “Luke, come in here.” My heart skipped a beat. Luke. My cousin. Three years ago, I’d found him rotting in a dive bar in our hometown. No degree, no skills, no future. I brought him to the city, paid his rent, and got him a job in the IT department. When he needed $10,000 for his wedding because his fiancée’s family was threatening to call it off, I took it out of my mother’s medical fund and handed it to him. He’d hugged me with tears in his eyes and told me I was the only real family he had. Now, Luke stood behind Bill, chest out, chin up. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Summer, just admit it,” he said, his voice forced. “Don’t make me choose between my family and the truth.” He took a deep breath, addressing the room. “I saw her. At 2:10 PM, she locked her screen and headed toward the server room. Her desk was empty for at least fifteen minutes.” The office went graveyard quiet. Then the whispers turned into a dull roar. “Even her own cousin can’t lie for her!” “It’s over!” “Just sign the damn papers!” Luke finished his speech and moved half a step closer to Bill’s side. He looked like a dog waiting for a treat after successfully fetching a kill. I stared at him for a long time. Long enough for him to start fidgeting with his fingers. Then, I looked down. Fine. Every debt of blood and gratitude we had? It was settled today. 3 “I won’t admit to something I didn’t do!” I screamed. “I was at my desk the entire time! I was processing wires! I never left!” My eyes were red, my body shaking. I played the part perfectly: a woman pushed into a corner by a lie, hysterical and desperate. It was exactly what they wanted to see. Bill actually chuckled. “Still stubborn? We have you on video. We have an eyewitness. How are you going to argue with that?” I didn’t answer him with words. I spun around and ripped the hardware security key—the U-key—out of my computer’s USB port. “This!” I held it up like a holy relic. “The high-value transfer system requires this physical key to operate. Every single payment requires a fingerprint confirmation on this device! It has biometric logs! It records the exact second of every interaction!” I was hyperventilating now. “This key will prove that between 2:15 and 2:25 PM, the finger pressed against this sensor belonged to me, Summer Beckett! I was here! I couldn’t have been in the server room!” Before they could react, I grabbed a thick stack of printed authorization forms from my desk and clutched them to my chest. “And these! Every one of these wire approvals has my physical signature and the corporate seal from ten minutes ago! The ink is still wet! A forensics test could prove exactly when these were signed!” “Call the police!” I shrieked. “Call the FBI! Let them check the fingerprints on the U-key! Let them check the timestamps on these papers! See what happens when you try to frame me!” I was a mess. A pathetic, drowning rat. But inside, I was cold. I knew those logs would prove I was at my desk. But they would also prove that I was the one who sent the $200 million into the void. The U-key and the papers weren’t my lifelines. They were the poison I was feeding to Bill. I knew that the more I acted like these were my “proof of innocence,” the more Bill would fear them. Because if the authorities got involved and verified my prints, not only would his body-double-in-a-trench-coat trick fail, but his entire narrative would collapse. He couldn’t let that evidence stay in this office. Sure enough, Bill’s smile vanished. His eyes turned dark and predatory. He looked at the U-key in my hand, then at the papers I was “protecting.” He looked at Luke and gave a slight jerk of his head. “Since Ms. Beckett has clearly lost her mind, help her clean up her desk. We wouldn’t want her hurting herself.” 4 Luke didn’t hesitate. He stepped toward me with a grim sense of purpose. “Summer, just let it go,” he said, reaching for the U-key. I scrambled back, but he was stronger. He pried my fingers open and snatched the small black device. “No! Please! That’s the only thing that proves I was here!” I screamed, struggling against him. It was a performance worthy of an Oscar. Luke held the U-key and looked at Bill. Bill gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod. Then, Luke dropped the U-key on the hardwood floor. He lifted his heavy boot and slammed it down. Crackle. The internal chip snapped. The plastic casing shattered into a dozen pieces. Components scattered across the floor like digital dust. I collapsed into my chair, staring at the wreckage. My face was a mask of pure despair. But in my head, I was counting the wins. He didn’t just destroy my “innocence.” He destroyed the only evidence that could link me to the $200 million crime.

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My sister officially recognized a bionic experiment as her brother in front of a swarm of flashing cameras, declaring she would leave her entire estate to him. She did it for one reason: to flush me out of hiding. She had already filed a lawsuit against me over a heart transplant, claiming I’d defrauded her by swapping her ten-million-dollar mechanical heart for a defective biological one. But when the court date arrived, I was a no-show. Desperate and furious, she tracked down my last known place of employment—a sprawling, grease-stained graveyard of a factory on the industrial outskirts of the city. She grabbed the first person she saw and demanded to know where I was. the floor manager looked at her, his face a mask of bewilderment. “You mean Emmett? Lady, Emmett died three years ago. Sudden cardiac arrest.” He paused, a grimace flickering across his features. “It was a mess. He got pulled right into the intake of one of the heavy presses. There wasn’t enough left of him to bury.” All of this happened in the seventh year since I had “exchanged” hearts with my sister’s prized bionic project. For seven years, the experiments had been failing due to rejection issues. And for seven years, my sister had laid every ounce of blame at my feet, cursing me for “hiding” the fact that my own heart was diseased from the start. 1 Vicky froze for a split second, then waved her hand dismissively, her face twisting into a mask of impatient scorn. “If you’re going to lie to me, at least make it logical,” she snapped. “I personally designed that mechanical heart. With regular maintenance and charging, it’s built to beat for over a hundred years. It doesn’t just ‘stop.’” She let out a sharp, cold laugh, her eyes sharp with disbelief. “Emmett is such a drama queen. Faking a job in a dump like this to play the victim is one thing, but hiring an actor to tell me he’s dead? That’s low, even for him.” The manager shifted uncomfortably, rubbing his grease-stained hands together. “Ma’am, I’m not joking. Emmett is gone. I don’t know what he was to you—did the kid owe you money or something?” He hesitated, then added in a hushed tone, “A few debt collectors came by a while back, looking to squeeze him for cash. But once they saw the police report, even they had to give it up.” Vicky’s brow furrowed when she heard him call me a “kid,” but the second half of his sentence set her temper ablaze. “What exactly are you implying? That he was into loan sharks?” Her face darkened instantly. “I wired him nearly a million dollars a month for living expenses. How could he possibly burn through that and end up owing collectors?!” She spun around, shouting at the empty, echoing rafters of the factory. “Emmett! Get out here right now! Did you pick up some disgusting habit? Is that why you’re hiding? A son of the Stanley family, hunted for debts—don’t you have any shame?” When only the rhythmic clanking of machinery answered her, she lunged forward, grabbing the manager by his collar. Her eyes were feral. “Stop the act. I’m his sister. Tell him to get out here this second!” “The heart he gave Sam is failing. It’s causing Sam constant pain. He needs to answer for what he did in court, right now!” The manager gasped for air, his face turning a mottled purple. “Ma’am… please… let go… I’m telling you the truth. Emmett is dead!” Vicky shoved him away with a disgusted grunt. “Enough. Take me to where he stayed. I want to see exactly how long he thinks he can keep this charade up.” Resigned, the manager led her deeper into the bowels of the plant. They moved past deafening workstations and rows of dilapidated employee housing that looked more like shipping containers than homes. Vicky held a silk handkerchief to her nose, her eyes scanning the squalor with elitist disdain. “Hiding in a hole like this just to avoid a deposition… you’ve really grown a spine since I last saw you, Emmett,” she muttered under her breath. Finally, they stopped near a literal heap of scrap metal and refuse. The manager pointed to a few dust-covered cardboard boxes tucked into a corner. “There. That’s everything he left behind. Nobody ever came to claim it, so we just piled it here.” Inside the boxes were a few faded t-shirts, a pair of sneakers with soles peeling off like dead skin, and some rusted tin lunchboxes. Vicky looked at my meager belongings, a smirk playing on her lips. “The commitment to the bit is impressive. You even got the props right.” She kicked one of the boxes over. “Do you really take me for a fool? As a Stanley, he had insurance on every hair on his head by the time he was five. You expect me to believe he’d touch this trash?” The old clothes spilled into the dirt. A sneaker rolled into a muddy puddle. A lunchbox clattered across the concrete, its lid popping open to reveal a few crawling beetles. Vicky’s jaw tightened. “Emmett, if you don’t show yourself in the next ten seconds, don’t bother calling me your sister ever again!” She screamed into the void, but the only response was the indifferent roar of the machines. Just then, a gust of wind swirled through the alleyway, carrying the faint, sweet scent of sandalwood incense. Vicky paused, her nostrils flaring. She followed the scent, her heels clicking sharply against the cracked pavement, until she reached a tiny, sagging shack behind the dormitories. She pushed the door open. The space was barely six feet wide. There was a cot made of plywood and a scarred wooden desk. On the desk sat a black-and-white photograph in a simple frame. In the picture, a young man was smiling—a peaceful, gentle expression I hadn’t worn in years. It was my funeral portrait. 2 Vicky stared at the photo, her gaze turning icy. She snatched the frame and slammed it onto the floor with a violent crash. “Are you serious, Emmett? This is pathetic. You screw up, you give Sam a defective heart, and now you stage this morbid little theater piece to guilt-trip me?” She spat the words out. “Photoshopping your own memorial photo? Do you have any idea how cursed that is?” No one answered. The flame of the small prayer candle on the desk flickered in the draft. Infuriated by the silence, Vicky stomped on the frame. The glass shattered into a thousand glittering diamonds, and the photo slid out. She leaned down, picked up the black-and-white image with a look of pure loathing, and tossed it into the small brass charcoal burner nearby. The paper caught instantly. The edges curled and blackened, the fire licking across the bridge of my nose, erasing my smile. Suddenly, there was a noise behind her. Vicky spun around, a cold, triumphant smirk forming. “So, you finally found your conscience. Step out.” The door burst open. An elderly woman, white-haired and clutching a heavy kitchen cleaver, charged in. She looked like a cornered animal. “You heartless monster! How dare you come back here for my Emmett!” The blade flashed. Vicky ducked, her reflexes sharp. she grabbed the old woman’s wrist and twisted, sending the cleaver clattering to the floor. “Who the hell are you? Do you have any idea who I am?” Vicky barked. I drifted in the air above them, frantic, my spirit vibrating with a useless energy. Mrs. Henderson! Please! Stop! Don’t provoke her! But they couldn’t hear me. Vicky shoved the old woman away, looking down at her with chilling arrogance. “You’re the one who’s been hiding him, aren’t you, you old bat?” She brushed the dust off her sleeve, her eyes dripping with contempt. “Tell him to come out and face the music. If he leaves for the courthouse now, I might consider dropping the fraud charges for this little ‘death’ stunt.” Mrs. Henderson stumbled, catching herself against the wall. Her eyes were bloodshot, weeping with a rage so deep it looked like grief. “How can you be this cruel? Emmett has been dead for seven years! You stole his heart, and now you want to drag his ghost into a courtroom for the sake of that… that thing you built?” Vicky’s face went pale with anger. “Stop saying he’s dead. None of you are allowed to say that.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss. “And let’s get one thing straight. He gave that heart willingly. He donated a sub-standard organ on purpose, leaving Sam in agony for years. He’s a saboteur, and he’s going to pay.” Mrs. Henderson trembled so hard her teeth chattered. She reached for the cleaver again. Vicky kicked it across the room and then, without a hint of hesitation, landed a sharp kick to the old woman’s ribs. Mrs. Henderson collapsed, groaning in pain. “Grandma! Grandma, I’m coming!” A younger woman burst through the door. Her eyes were wide and vacant, her movements uncoordinated. She threw herself over Mrs. Henderson, shielding her. Then, like a wild thing, she lunged at Vicky, sinking her teeth into Vicky’s forearm. “Get away from Grandma! Leave Emmett alone! Bad person! Hurting Emmett!” Vicky let out a cry of pain and fury. She grabbed the woman by her hair, yanking her back. The woman fought, her teeth locked tight until Vicky delivered a stinging slap across her face. The girl fell to the floor, stunned and silent. I screamed, diving toward them, trying to catch Vicky’s hand, but my fingers passed through her like smoke. Stop it! Don’t hurt Lila! Please, Vicky, stop! Vicky looked down at the girl, a cruel chuckle escaping her throat. “Oh, I see. She’s a half-wit.” She surveyed the cramped, miserable shack one last time, her eyes landing on the dazed girl. “Emmett… in a few years, you’ve managed to find yourself a new sister. A broken, useless one. Are you really that desperate for a family?” When I still didn’t appear, she shouted at the walls. “I know you’re watching! If you care about this freak and this old hag, then you’d better show yourself, or things are about to get very ugly.” Two of Vicky’s security guards stepped into the room. At her nod, they began to kick and punch the two women on the floor. Lila didn’t say a word; she just curled her body around Mrs. Henderson, taking every blow. Mrs. Henderson looked up, her face a mask of bloody defiance. “You’re a fool…” she wheezed, the words forced through gritted teeth. “My poor, sweet Emmett… how did he end up with a monster like you for a sister?” Vicky’s face turned livid. “Hit them harder! What am I paying you for?” The guards intensified their assault. Lila looked up from the floor, her eyes fixed on the empty air where I was floating. A strange, knowing look crossed her face. “Don’t worry, Emmett,” she whispered, blood trickling from her lip. “He’s gone to the other world. You’ll never find him. Not in a thousand years.” Vicky sneered. She knelt down, gripping Lila’s chin in a painful hold. “Since you’re so convinced he’s dead, where’s the body?” “If he’s dead, show me the corpse!” 3 Mrs. Henderson’s clouded eyes seemed to bleed with sorrow. “He was… he was caught in the machine! He was torn apart… there was nothing left to bury!” Vicky stood up, brushing her hands together as if she’d just finished a chore. “A convenient excuse. No body, no death. You’re all just very dedicated actors in his little play.” She turned her back on them, bored. Just then, her phone chimed. A soft, melodic voice came through the speaker—a voice that sounded exactly like mine used to, but with an artificial sweetness that made my skin crawl. “Vicky? Is Emmett still refusing to come home? My chest… it hurts so much today. I think the heart is stopping.” The transformation in Vicky was instant. Her face softened into a mask of frantic maternal worry. “Sam, don’t be scared. I’m coming back right now. Just hold on.” She hurried toward the door, pausing only to bark an order at her guards. “Watch them. Don’t let them leave this property.” I followed her as she sped back to her sprawling glass-and-steel mansion. Sam was sitting on a designer velvet sofa, looking pale and fragile. When Vicky walked in, his eyes—perfectly calibrated bionic lenses—welled with tears. “Did you find him?” he asked, his voice trembling. Vicky shook her head, her heart breaking for the machine. Sam began to weep. The tears were chemically identical to human salt water, leaking from his mechanical ducts. “I gave Emmett my hundred-year heart so he could live,” Sam sobbed, playing the martyr. “And he gave me this… this broken thing on purpose. I don’t know what I did wrong, Vicky. Why does he hate me?” Vicky pulled him into a hug, her voice thick with guilt. “Don’t worry. I’ll find him, even if I have to scour the earth. He’s the one who betrayed us. I’ll make him get on his knees and beg for your forgiveness.” I stood beside them, watching the display with a hollow, bitter irony. My heart had been perfectly fine. I remembered the day Sam said he “wanted to feel the warmth of a human pulse.” Vicky hadn’t asked me; she had commanded me. I was the “defective” biological brother, and Sam was the “perfected” version. I was conscious when they took it. I watched, paralyzed by anesthesia, as my own heart was lifted from my chest and placed into the cold, titanium cavity of a machine. I hadn’t sabotaged anything. Vicky’s voice snapped me back to the present. She was pacing, her frustration mounting. “He even convinced those people to lie for him. Saying the mechanical heart was ‘scrapped.’ I wired him a fortune every month to keep it charged, and he has the nerve to say it failed?” Her anger flared again. “The manager said he was in debt. He probably spent all that money on that ‘sister’ of his. This time, I’m not just suing him—I’m going to make sure he pays back every cent of that allowance.” Sam leaned his head on her shoulder, a flicker of something cold and calculating passing through his eyes. “You were so good to him, Vicky. How could he choose them over you?” The phone rang again. It was the guard at the factory. “Ma’am, the two women… they’re doing something strange.” Vicky stood up abruptly. “Finally. Emmett is showing himself, isn’t he?” I followed her back to the factory. In the distance, I saw them. Mrs. Henderson and Lila were on their knees in the dirt, performing a grueling ritual of penance. Every few steps, they bowed until their foreheads hit the stone, leaving smears of blood. Lila held something high above her head, her expression one of pure, holy devotion. The sun caught the object, creating a blinding flash of white light. It was my silver bracelet. The one I’d worn since I was a child. Vicky charged forward, snatching the bracelet from Lila’s hands. But Lila gripped it with surprising strength. “It’s Emmett’s! Not for you! You’re the bad one!” Vicky tugged, her face darkening. She stared into Lila’s vacant eyes. “Emmett, I know you’re lurking somewhere nearby. Are you really going to let this poor girl suffer for you?” 4 Vicky raised her boot and brought it down hard on Lila’s leg. A sickening crack echoed through the alley. Lila screamed, a sound of pure agony, but her fingers remained locked around the silver bracelet. I screamed in the sky, a silent roar of fury. I threw myself at Vicky, trying to shove her, trying to break her balance, but I was nothing but a ripple in the air. Lila’s leg was twisted at a grotesque angle. She looked up at the space where I was floating, her eyes shimmering with tears, but her gaze was strangely direct. It was as if she could finally see me. “Emmett… see? I’m holding it. I didn’t let her take it.” My heart—the spirit of it—broke. In a moment of absolute desperation, I did something forbidden. I ignited half of my soul, burning my spiritual essence to create a surge of energy. I focused everything on that mechanical heart miles away. Just for one second. One pulse. That was enough. A moment later, Vicky’s lead guard checked his tablet. “Ma’am! We just picked up a ping from the mechanical heart’s GPS!” “It’s beating! The signal is coming from right nearby… and it’s moving!” Vicky looked at the red dot on her screen and let out a triumphant laugh. “I knew it. I knew he was faking. Let’s go. I’ve got you now, Emmett.” As she turned to run to her car, Lila’s voice drifted after her. “Emmett… where are you going?” Vicky paused. She looked back and saw Lila staring into the empty air, reaching out with a trembling hand as if trying to grab someone’s sleeve. “Emmett! Emmett! Wait for me!” Vicky’s face twisted in disgust. “Useless freak. Stop playing games.” She walked back and stomped on Lila’s other leg. Another crack. Another scream. I collapsed in the air, my vision blurring. Igniting my soul had drained me of everything. My form was fading, becoming translucent, as a strange, cold vacuum began to pull me away. I don’t know how much time passed before Vicky reached the coordinates. She found herself in a dusty vacant lot where a group of neighborhood kids were kicking something around in the dirt. Her breath hitched. The red dot on her screen was right on top of her. As she approached the children, the dot stopped moving. “Hey!” she shouted. “Give me that!” She grabbed the “ball” from the kids. A light rain began to fall, washing away the grime and mud from the object. Familiar brushed-metal housing emerged. A cold, sickening dread washed over her. She pressed the manual override switch on the side of the heart. This time, there was no pulse. No whirring of gears. Only silence.

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Six years after divorcing Hugh Shaw, I ran into him again at the corporation’s charity gala. The moment our eyes met, shock flashed across Hugh Shaw’s face: “Claire Winston, what are you doing here? You’re not Mrs. Shaw anymore. This isn’t where you belong.” I couldn’t be bothered to argue with him and turned to leave, but unexpectedly, he reached out to grab me. “Fine, considering you gave me a son, just stand quietly behind me and no one will give you trouble.” I stepped aside to avoid him and refused flatly: “No, thank you.” But he stared in shock at the child beside me, his voice trembling: “This filthy child—is she my daughter?” I nearly laughed in disbelief. Had he lost his mind? Nora was only three and a half years old. I’d been divorced from him for six years. There was no way she could be his. I pulled Nora behind me, my tone icy: “Hugh Shaw, this is my daughter. She has nothing to do with you!” With that, I grabbed Nora’s hand and turned to leave, but Hugh Shaw blocked my way, his brows furrowed as he looked me over. “Claire Winston, you snuck in here with a child to mooch food and drink. You must have had it rough all these years, haven’t you?” He let out a cold laugh, his gaze falling on Nora with undisguised disgust: “Little beggar, how old are you?” Nora put her hands on her hips, glaring at him indignantly: “I’m three and a half, and I’m not a little beggar!” Beggar? I looked down at my and Nora’s clothes. We’d just been helping disaster victims outside the city. Covered in dust with no time to change, we did look rather disheveled. Hugh Shaw’s expression instantly turned cold. “Nonsense! You lie just like your mother! With your height, how could you possibly be three years old?” I glanced down at Nora. She was indeed much taller and sturdier than children her age. It was all her father’s fault, spoiling her endlessly. I pulled Nora protectively behind me, a frosty look crossing my face: “Hugh Shaw, I’ll say this one more time—Nora is not your child!” But Hugh Shaw acted like he’d heard the world’s funniest joke, scoffing: “Claire Winston, you’re lying again. If she’s not mine, whose could she be? Besides me, who would want a divorced woman?” “Come on, stop pretending. You deliberately snuck into this gala just to see me, didn’t you?” I rolled my eyes. Six years later, and he was still this arrogant. “Get out of my way!” But Hugh Shaw didn’t budge. Instead, he adopted a condescending tone: “Seeing you in such a pitiful state, I can’t help but feel sorry for you. Tell you what—come back home with me and work as a household assistant. Rowena is kind-hearted. She definitely won’t make things difficult for you.” With that, he waved to someone behind him. “Ethan, take your sister away. Find a lounge for her to wait in. Don’t let her embarrass us here and offend the important guests!” Only then did I notice Ethan Shaw standing behind him. The son I’d carried for ten months and nearly died giving birth to. Six years had passed. He’d grown into a handsome young man, but his eyes held a coldness that didn’t match his age. Ethan had a stony expression, his brows furrowed: “I don’t want some little beggar as my sister! My only sister is Chloe!” My grip on Nora’s hand tightened. The Chloe he mentioned must be Rowena’s daughter. Years ago, I’d caught Hugh Shaw and Rowena having an affair. Before I could confront them, Rowena struck first, accusing me of drugging her to ruin her reputation. Hugh Shaw had also blamed me, and even my own biological son Ethan had taken Rowena’s side. Heartbroken and disillusioned, I’d signed the divorce papers on the spot. When I left the Shaw household, Rowena had stroked her belly and told me she was already pregnant with Hugh Shaw’s child. And that day—she’d let me see them together on purpose. Past humiliations and betrayals churned in my heart, my fingers unconsciously digging into my palms. Nora tugged at my clothes, her voice indignant: “Mom, I don’t want this ugly guy as my brother either! He’s nowhere near as good as Asher!” Hearing this, Ethan’s expression darkened further. He sneered: “An ordinary person like that dares to compare himself to me?” Looking at the father and son’s identical faces, my heart gradually turned cold. Fine. I’d just pretend I never had this son. I took Nora’s hand and moved to walk around them when a sweet voice suddenly called from behind: “Claire?”

I turned to see Rowena walking over, holding a little girl dressed in designer children’s clothing. Her gaze swept over me before she covered her face and shrieked: “Claire, it really is you! Why are you dressed like this?” Her deliberately shocked exclamation drew countless stares. Among the crowd, several wealthy women who’d never liked me recognized me first and immediately mocked: “Oh my, isn’t this Mrs. Shaw? Haven’t seen you in years—why do you look so shabby? Oh wait, my mistake—Mr. Shaw divorced you ages ago. No wonder you’ve fallen so far.” Rowena sighed, feigning sympathy: “Claire, let me have the maid bring you some clothes. They’re servant’s clothes, but they’re a hundred times better than what you’re wearing.” Hugh Shaw pulled her into his embrace, his tone gentle: “Rowena, you’re always so kind.” Watching their coordinated performance, I couldn’t help but scoff. Six years later, Rowena was still this fake. I looked up, my tone cold and hard: “No need. I can’t accept anything from you.” The wealthy woman who’d mocked me earlier actually called security: “How can just anyone get in here? Guards, throw these two beggars out! They’re an eyesore!” Several security guards strode forward, their expressions serious as they moved to escort Nora and me away. My eyes flashed coldly as I pulled the invitation from my purse. “I was invited to attend this gala.” The guard took the invitation and verified it, momentarily unsure how to proceed. Rowena stepped forward, feigning surprise: “Claire, you didn’t steal that invitation, did you? After all, six years ago you were kicked out of the Shaw family for stealing. I didn’t expect you to still be at it—even daring to steal an invitation to a charity gala.” My whole body trembled as towering rage surged in my heart. So after I left, they’d actually accused me of being a thief. I stared hard at Rowena, my voice cold: “I steal things? Why don’t you talk about how you steal men?” Rowena’s face instantly darkened, her eyes full of venom. Whispers began circulating around us, and the looks people gave Rowena changed. Just then, a reprimanding voice suddenly rang out: “You wretch! What are you doing back here?” The crowd parted as two people pushed through—my adoptive parents. My adoptive father’s face was livid. He raised his hand to slap me across the face, shouting: “You worthless thing! Stop spouting nonsense and ruining Rowena’s reputation!” Caught off guard, I was struck and turned my head, my ears ringing. “Mom!” Nora rushed to my side, her voice tearful. I forced a weak smile and gently comforted her: “I’m fine.” My adoptive mother immediately stepped forward, pointing at my nose and cursing: “Claire Winston, you ungrateful wretch! Mrs. Shaw’s position was always meant for Rowena. You, a fake who stole what wasn’t yours—what right do you have to slander her here? If we hadn’t adopted you, you would have died on the streets long ago, and yet you dare frame our precious daughter!” Adopted? I laughed bitterly inside. Years ago, when I went out with my birth parents, I accidentally got separated from my family and happened to be found by my adoptive mother, who had just lost her own child. Seeing no one around, she’d hurriedly carried me away and used me as a replacement for her biological daughter. If not for them, I wouldn’t have been separated from my birth parents for so many years. Fortunately, after the divorce, through a series of coincidences, I found my birth parents and finally learned the truth about my origins. I held Nora tightly and snatched the invitation back from the guard, my voice cold: “Get out of my way!” Rowena glanced at the name on the invitation and immediately laughed mockingly: “Claire is really bold—stealing from Pierce Ashford himself.” A busybody leaned in, and after seeing the signature, exclaimed dramatically: “Everyone knows Mr. Ashford is the most valued successor of the board’s senior members, and he heads the corporation’s technology division with countless teams under him. You actually dared to steal from him—you’re done for!” Mocking voices surrounded me, but I remained unusually calm. Meeting everyone’s gaze, I said each word deliberately: “He is my husband.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, the entire hall fell silent for a moment before erupting in roaring laughter. “That’s hilarious! Everyone knows Mr. Ashford married a daughter from a prestigious medical family—beautiful, brilliant, and accomplished. You, an ordinary woman, dare impersonate Mrs. Ashford? You’ve got some nerve!” “Exactly! Look in a mirror—you even have a kid in tow. How dare you mention Mr. Ashford?” Nora’s little face flushed red with anger at the crowd’s mockery. She put her hands on her hips and shouted back: “Don’t talk about my mom like that! My mom is a medical doctor!” Seeing this, the crowd laughed even more brazenly: “Like mother, like daughter—look what she’s taught the child!” “Just like her mother—both pathological liars! Shameless!” Rowena grabbed Hugh Shaw’s sleeve, her face full of alarm: “Huai’an, is Claire trying to destroy the Shaw family? Impersonating Mrs. Ashford—if word gets out, our entire Shaw family will be ruined!” Provoked by her words, Hugh Shaw angrily ordered those behind him: “Someone, teach this arrogant woman a lesson!” Several ill-intentioned attendants immediately rushed forward and began groping me without hesitation. To avoid hurting Nora, I held her tightly in my arms. Slaps landed hard, and a metallic taste rose in my throat. “Mom!” Nora broke down crying, her small hands clutching my clothes tightly. Chloe Shaw, who’d been standing beside Rowena, suddenly pointed at Nora and screamed: “My brooch is missing! It was her! That little beggar! She stole my brooch!” My gaze turned cold as I clearly saw a flash of jealousy in Chloe’s eyes. Ethan immediately stepped forward, grabbed the necklace around Nora’s neck, and yanked it hard. The necklace was torn off, and he shoved Nora to the ground in the process. “Little beggar, how dare you steal my sister’s necklace? Shameless!” Nora fell to the ground, her eyes red as she shouted back: “I didn’t steal it! Dad gave it to me! You big meanie! Give it back!” My heart clenched. I stumbled forward to help Nora up and saw a vivid red mark on her delicate neck from being strangled. I trembled with rage and glared at Ethan: “Give the necklace back to her!” But Ethan completely ignored me and handed the necklace directly to Chloe. Chloe happily put the necklace around her own neck and smugly lifted her chin at Nora. Hugh Shaw looked at me with a dark expression, his tone disgusted: “Unrepentant! Teaching a child to be a thief like you! No—I won’t let Shaw family blood be ruined by you! She must come back with me!” A flash of malice crossed Rowena’s eyes before she stepped forward gently: “Huai’an, perhaps we should investigate first. What if she’s someone else’s illegitimate child with another man? We can’t let an outsider taint the Shaw family bloodline.” Hugh Shaw nodded and immediately barked: “Someone get me a paternity test kit!” Several assistant-like figures rushed forward like wolves, reaching out to snatch Nora away. One of them was holding a sampling swab. I held Nora tightly and backed away, screaming: “Don’t come near us! I’ll say it one more time—she has nothing to do with the Shaw family! She is Pierce Ashford’s daughter!” But those people only followed Hugh Shaw’s orders. They ignored my cries and kept pressing forward. In the chaos, the sampling swab jabbed viciously toward Nora. I instinctively raised my arm to block it. The sharp plastic rod pierced straight into my arm. Blood immediately gushed out, staining my sleeve red. “Mom!” Nora cried out in terror, her small body trembling. I endured the piercing pain and still held Nora tightly in my arms. Hugh Shaw impatiently barked: “Pull her away!” Several attendants immediately stepped forward, roughly twisting my arms behind my back with such force it felt like they’d break my bones. Just as the sampling swab was about to jab Nora, a figure suddenly broke through the crowd and grabbed the man’s wrist, twisting it sharply. A scream instantly echoed through the hall. The next second, a cold voice laced with fury shook the entire venue into silence: “You dare touch my daughter? Who gave you that nerve?”

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After I was severely injured by a Rogue and fell into a coma, my Alpha mate Liam took the opportunity to dissolve our mate bond, which led to me developing intermittent amnesia. On the surface, after I lost my memory, he stayed by my side the whole time. Until the third year, I overheard Alpha Liam chatting with his friends. “Liam, Evelyn loses her memory every few months. You keep having us pretend to be you and date Evelyn. Aren’t you afraid one day we’ll actually fall for her?” “Afraid of what?” Liam laughed cheerfully. “Evelyn isn’t interested in sex. As long as you don’t actively provoke her, she won’t have any needs.” “But I’m warning you, you can’t actually sleep with her, and definitely can’t Mark her. When I’m done having my fun, I still need to go back to her.” For the past three years, every time I lost my memory, the men holding my hand and embracing me weren’t the real Liam. Three years. I lost my memory nine times. Nine different men played the role of my husband. But what they didn’t know was that my amnesia actually got better two years ago.

When my ninth “husband” came home, I was sitting on the couch, lost in thought. A clear voice interrupted my thoughts. “Eve, I’m home.” I turned my head and looked at the man in the doorway. “Who are you?” I furrowed my brow, pretending to be confused. “Are you my partner? I remember my partner’s name is Liam.” The man froze for a moment, then immediately objected. “No! Um… I’m your partner’s friend! Evelyn, don’t panic. I’ll call your partner to come back right now!” After speaking, the man pulled out his phone and hurried toward the balcony. “Liam, Evelyn’s lost her memory again! Whose turn is it? Get over here and switch with me!” I hid by the window and heard the voices of Liam’s friends making excuses through the speakerphone. “Liam, Evelyn is too clingy. We have to watch her 24 hours a day. We can’t handle it!” “Yeah, Evelyn is great and all, but she’s too controlling. We’re Alphas. Can’t we have a few lovers?” “How about you come back yourself, Liam?” “No way.” Liam’s lazy voice came through the speaker. “I’m not done having fun yet. I don’t want to go home. Which one of you will take my place? Come on, we’re friends. If you won’t even help with this, that’s pretty cold.” Amid the excuses, a cool voice spoke up. “I’ll go.” I recognized it. This was Liam’s best friend, Alpha Sean. The Alpha of Shadow Fang Pack. They said he still hadn’t found his mate and had been single for thirty years. When Liam first proposed having someone impersonate him as my partner, Sean was the first to object. But now he was interested in playing this absurd impersonation game too? Half an hour later, the front door clicked open. Sean walked in against the light. “Eve, I’m home.” His cool voice had a magnetic quality to it. I stood up and stared at the tall, handsome man before me. “Are you my partner, Liam?” “Mm.” Sean coughed lightly, covering his lips. “Sorry, I had some work to handle. I came back late.” As soon as he finished speaking, his phone rang. Sean made an apologetic gesture and went to the balcony with his phone. Through the receiver came Liam’s casual voice. “Oh right, Sean, I forgot to remind you. At most, hold her hand and hug her. Don’t sleep with her, and definitely don’t Mark her. No matter how far you play this game, she’s still my partner.” “Got it.” Sean’s voice was low. For the past three years, no matter how those men pretended to be Liam, they only held my hand and hugged me at most. They never crossed the line. For three years, there were never any photos in the house, nor any identification documents belonging to any man. And Liam had dissolved our mate bond. Until my second chance mate appeared, all these men were the same to me. Plus, I was an orphan. Because of my memory loss, I had no friends to speak of. They naturally assumed I wouldn’t find out. And I pretended not to know anything. After all, I was just an Omega. I had no way to refuse their game. But this time, I wanted to do something different. I walked over and actively hugged Sean’s waist. “Honey, even though I lost my memory, the moment I saw you, I felt you were so familiar. You must be my mate. I’m sure of it.” I tightly held Sean’s waist, and my hand couldn’t help but feel his firm abs. Sean’s body stiffened. He pushed me away in panic. “What’s wrong?” I asked innocently. “Honey, I lost my memory. Don’t you like me anymore?” “No,” Sean’s eyes flickered with evasion, his voice hoarse. “…I like you.” I reached out to unbutton his shirt and touched his chest muscles. “Honey, it’s so cold today. Let’s go to bed and warm up together, okay?” Sean’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “…Okay.” That night, Sean and I shared a bed. But by tacit agreement, we didn’t say much to each other.

The next day, Sean took me to a bar, saying he wanted to reintroduce me to his friends. As soon as we entered the private area, I saw Liam holding a woman and kissing her passionately. Sean coughed lightly, interrupting them. Liam saw the two of us and froze for a moment, then slowly stood up. “Hello, I’m Liam’s childhood friend, Sean.” Liam extended his hand to me unhurriedly and introduced, “This is my girlfriend, Hannah.” “Oh.” I nodded but didn’t shake his hand. Hannah. Of course I recognized her. Liam’s first love. When Liam first found me and learned we were destined mates, he broke up with her. Later, he got back together with her when I had amnesia. The reason Liam didn’t want to shoulder his responsibilities as a partner for three years was all because of her. There were many of Liam’s friends in the private area. Several of them had pretended to be my partner. Now they all acted nonchalant and teased me: “Evelyn, you lost your memory again? Our Liam is such a dedicated partner. No matter how many times you lose your memory, he’s always by your side!” “Yeah, Evelyn, such a good man. You should cherish him!” I sarcastically curved my lips and said nothing. Sean put his arm around me and sat down on the couch. As soon as we sat down, I picked up a piece of fruit and fed it to him. “Honey, eat more.” In the dim light, I caught Liam glancing our way. I leaned close to Sean’s ear and deliberately bit his earlobe. “Honey, you were so rough last night. You made me uncomfortable all night. It hurt so much~” Sean’s face stiffened. He pinched my hand awkwardly. “Stop fooling around.” Liam gripped his glass tightly, his expression unpleasant. Hannah sat beside him and said with fake sweetness and veiled barbs, “Evelyn, you’re amazing. The coldest person in our friend circle has been charmed by you like a young man experiencing his first love.” As soon as she said this, Liam’s friends, afraid I’d discover the truth, all laughed awkwardly to smooth things over: “Haha, that just proves Evelyn and Liam have a good relationship!” “Yeah, even if she loses her memory, it doesn’t affect their relationship at all!” From the corner of my eye, I saw Liam pick up his glass and take a sip, but his expression became extremely unpleasant. A wave of vengeful satisfaction surged in my heart. I got up and went to the restroom. When I came out of the restroom, Hannah walked toward me. The moment we passed each other, she suddenly reached out and pushed me hard. “Sorry, it was an accident.” I reacted quickly and wasn’t pushed down. “Slap!” I raised my hand and slapped her hard across the face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to either.” As soon as I finished speaking, a stern rebuke came from behind me. “Evelyn, what are you doing!” Liam strode over. Hannah immediately threw herself into his arms, crying pitifully. “Honey, I just accidentally bumped into Evelyn, and she got angry and hit me. My head is so dizzy now.” Liam’s expression darkened, clearly displeased. “Apologize to Hannah!” I sneered coldly. “Who are you to boss me around?” “Evelyn!” Liam’s eyes were dark and vicious, his face frighteningly grim. “Why did you become so arrogant and domineering after losing your memory?” “What I’ve become has nothing to do with you.” I was too lazy to deal with him anymore. Just as I was about to turn around, Liam kicked me down. “Evelyn, don’t think you can do whatever you want just because you lost your memory. Apologize to Hannah right now!” Looking at the furious man before me, even though we were no longer mates, the lingering emotions still made me feel intense pain. I was originally an orphan. In this huge, unfamiliar pack, Liam was my only support. We’d known each other since we were eighteen. We’d been together for ten years. When he proposed to me, he swore he would always protect and love me, that he could never betray me in this lifetime. But now, not only did he betray our mate bond, he was hitting me for another woman. All those sweet words and vows from back then had become a joke. Amid my grief and anger, Sean’s cold voice came from behind. “Don’t touch her!” I endured the pain and stood up, quickly slapped Liam across the face, then hid in Sean’s arms to complain. “Honey, your friend is so rude. He bullied me!” Sean’s expression was displeased, his eyes full of shadows, looking at Liam with warning. “Don’t bully Eve.” Liam clenched his jaw, his solemn face radiating violent energy. As the two confronted each other tensely, Hannah suddenly shrank into Liam’s arms and sneered disdainfully. “A bitch and an idiot who likes bitches. What’s there to be proud of?” “Shut up!” Liam and Sean’s voices rang out simultaneously.

“Hannah, Evelyn was wrong, but you can’t insult her like that.” Liam’s tone was cold and hard. Sean frowned, looking at Hannah with cold eyes. “From now on, don’t let me hear you say anything to slander Evelyn.” After speaking, he held me and strode away. We went straight home. As soon as we entered, I hugged Sean’s waist, my hand rubbing his firm abs a few times. “Honey, you looked so handsome protecting me just now. I love it!” Sean’s ears turned slightly red. He coughed. “I’m glad you like it.” I reached out to unbuckle his belt. “Honey, it’s too cold. Let’s go to bed and exercise to warm up, okay?” “…It’s still early.” “Who says we can only go to bed at a certain time?” I kissed his Adam’s apple and coaxed in a low voice, “Honey, I lost my memory. I can’t remember what intimacy feels like… Can you help me remember?” Sean’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His voice was extremely hoarse. “Eve… stop fooling around.” I simply pushed him down onto the couch. Sean struggled for two seconds, then finally flipped over and pressed me beneath him. From afternoon to late night, after Sean got a taste, he became insatiable. I was exhausted and fell into a deep sleep. In my daze, I heard Sean bite my neck and ask hoarsely, “Eve, have you really lost your memory?” I opened my mouth but said nothing. Did it matter whether I had or not? Actually, I wanted to ask Sean too. You clearly rejected this absurd game of pretending to be someone’s partner. Why did you join in at the end? … The next day, Sean took me to the hospital for a follow-up on my amnesia. Unexpectedly, we ran into Liam and Hannah. Hannah called out to us first. “Evelyn, Alpha Se… Liam, what a coincidence.” She touched her belly and said boastfully, “I’m pregnant. I came for a prenatal checkup. What about you two?” Sean glanced at her lightly, his tone cold. “Bringing Eve for a follow-up.” Liam didn’t speak, but his gaze fell on my and Sean’s tightly clasped hands. Suddenly, his eyes moved up and saw the dense love bites on my neck. “What happened to your neck?” His voice rose. I looked at Sean shyly. “You’d have to ask my partner about that.” Liam turned to look at Sean, his solemn eyes filled with gloom. I took the opportunity to leave. “I still need to get a CT scan. You guys talk first.” After I left, Hannah also entered the ultrasound examination room. After things quieted down, Liam stared coldly at Sean, his voice as cold as frost. “Sean, did you sleep with her?”

Sean lit a cigarette. Through the curling smoke, he spoke vaguely. “No.” “Then what are those red marks on her neck?” Sean paused for two seconds. “Mosquito bites, I guess.” Liam frowned, half-believing. Sean blew out a smoke ring and scoffed. “Besides, what if I did touch her? You already rejected her. Although you’re not legally divorced yet… you might as well divorce.” Liam’s reaction was agitated. “No divorce! Eve and I have known each other for so many years. We still have feelings. It’s just… Hannah is pregnant now. I can’t leave her at this critical moment.” “Heh.” Sean sneered disdainfully. “You just want to have both. Liam, you’re such a scumbag.” Liam was silent for a moment, then spoke as if he’d made a decision. “Sean, next time Eve loses her memory, let’s switch back.” “We’ll talk about it when she loses her memory next time.” Not getting a definitive answer, Liam felt increasingly uneasy. He stared at Sean intently, his face solemn. “I feel like something’s off between you and Eve. Sean, promise me you absolutely won’t touch her!” Sean stubbed out his cigarette. Just as he was about to speak, I walked over with my CT scan report, interrupting their conversation. “Honey, I have good news. The doctor just said my brain nerves have healed. I won’t lose my memory anymore!” Liam froze immediately, as shocked as if struck by lightning. “How is that possible?” But Sean was very happy, his eyes full of joy. “Really? That’s wonderful! Let’s go home and celebrate!” I took Sean’s arm to leave. But Liam grabbed my hand. “Eve, don’t go! Actually, I…” I impatiently interrupted him. “Alpha Sean, even though you’re my partner’s friend, touching me without permission is really rude.” I shook off his hand in disgust and left without looking back. After arriving home, before even turning on the lights, Sean couldn’t wait to carry me into the bedroom. His kisses came fierce and urgent, falling densely on my neck. A blurred voice sounded beside my ear. “Eve… let’s never be apart again, okay?” In the darkness, I murmured, “Okay.” Hearing this, Sean was like a wild beast, taking from me. I went limp in his arms like seaweed, yet clung tightly to him. He was like a fierce wild beast, ferociously and tirelessly taking. Just as we were about to reach climax, the bedroom light suddenly turned on. Liam stood in the doorway with a dark, vicious expression, fists clenched tight, his eyes red as if bloodthirsty.

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