In the city’s elite circles, my brother Danny Sinclair was known for obsessively doting on me. Yet that night, he was holding another girl’s hand, his gaze soft as he guided her to cut the birthday cake meant for me. The girl looked exactly like me—even the burn scar on her wrist was identical. I was about to storm the stage when lines of glowing text suddenly appeared before my eyes: [Look at the adopted stand-in. She doesn’t even realize she’s fake, jealous of the real heiress.] [Spoiler: She’ll go insane trying to win his love. He’ll break her legs and lock her in a psych ward. Total karma.] My blood ran cold. Danny spotted me, immediately shielding the girl. His face hardened as he scolded me for making a scene. He declared Sylvia was his real sister and said he’d explain later. Sylvia. Same face, same scar. I was just a crafted replica. He’d spent millions on this lavish coming-of-age gala for me, yet earlier that day, he’d locked me in a dark room upstairs. I’d smashed the lock, bleeding, and raced into the hall—only to see this. Holding back tears, I gave him a hollow smile. Since the real one was back, the understudy could bow out. I pulled out the limitless black card he’d given me and waved it. “Consider this my final performance fee.” 1 Leaving Danny and the bewildered guests completely frozen in place, I turned on my heel and walked straight out of the grand banquet hall. The mirrored walls of the lobby caught my reflection. The exquisite silk of my designer gown was torn at the seam, the hem dragged with dirt, and my meticulously styled hair had mostly fallen out of its pins. I looked like an absolute wreck. [Wait, what? She’s just leaving?] [Yeah, I was totally waiting for her to throw a tantrum and get humiliated by the male lead!] [This is weird. The villainess isn’t supposed to act like this.] If I hadn’t seen those bizarre, floating comments, I probably would have stormed that stage. I would have stood in front of that towering, three-tiered cake and screamed at the top of my lungs in front of hundreds of aristocrats. I would have yelled that I was the real Sinclair heiress and that the girl beside him was an imposter. And then, just like the floating text predicted, Danny would have shattered my legs and locked me away in an asylum. I quickened my pace. Pushing through the revolving glass doors, a blast of cold, post-rain wind hit my face. I flagged down a passing taxi. “Take me to the nearest luxury shopping district.” As the car accelerated, the blurring city lights outside the window felt like the last eighteen years of my life being rapidly rewound and erased. I pulled out my phone and opened my email. Sitting at the very top of my inbox was an acceptance letter from the Paris Institute of Design. It had been sitting there for exactly seven days. A week ago, when I first received this email, I was ecstatic. I had sprinted straight into Danny’s private study. He was signing documents, not even bothering to look up. “Danny! I got accepted into the Institute in Paris!” The tip of his fountain pen paused. He finally raised his eyes, his gaze as tepid and clear as a glass of water. “Paris.” “Yes! They only accept thirty students globally…” “It’s too far.” He looked back down at his paperwork, his tone leaving absolutely no room for debate. “I don’t feel safe letting you go abroad alone. I will arrange a prestigious academy for you here in the city.” I stood frozen on his Persian rug. “But…” “Sienna.” His voice was incredibly gentle, yet coated in an irresistible, crushing authority. “Be a good girl. Listen to me.” And I did. I listened to him. I shoved my wildest dreams into the deepest drawer of my desk, brainwashing myself into believing he had his reasons. He was only doing what was best for me. Only now did the ugly truth sink in. He wasn’t afraid of the distance. He was afraid I would escape. How could the perfect replica he spent eighteen years meticulously carving be allowed to leave the stage before the authentic masterpiece was safely brought home? I tapped the screen, hitting the “Accept Offer” button at the bottom of the email. Eighteen years of living as a caged songbird. Deleted with a single click. [Holy crap, she’s actually leaving?!] [Wait, isn’t she afraid her ID is going to be deactivated? Her entire legal identity belongs to the female lead!] [The villainess suddenly grew a brain. I can’t predict this plot anymore.] My fingers subconsciously brushed against the raised, jagged scar on my wrist. I couldn’t remember much of anything before the age of five, but one specific, horrifying memory constantly played on a loop in my nightmares. Danny tightly gripping my tiny, fragile wrist. A small, custom-made iron, glowing red-hot, being pressed directly into my skin. The sickening smell of burning flesh. The white smoke curling into the air. And that agonizing, soul-piercing pain. Every single time the nightmare reached that point, I would wake up screaming. I once asked him about it. “Danny, what is this scar?” He stayed silent for a very long time before pulling me into his chest, resting his chin heavily on the top of my head. “It’s a mark.” “It’s the absolute proof that you are my little sister.” What a beautiful, twisted lie. It wasn’t a special bond. It was a brand. Arriving at the shopping district, I quickly bought a change of clothes. A black oversized hoodie, loose jeans, and a pair of canvas sneakers. Stripping off the blood-stained couture gown, I gripped the handle of my newly purchased forty-eight-inch luggage and headed straight for the bank. Inside the VIP lounge, the branch manager took one look at my limitless black card and treated me with the reverence usually reserved for royalty. “Please withdraw two hundred thousand in cash for me.” The manager blinked in shock for a fraction of a second, but his intense professional training instantly kicked in. “Right away, Miss Sinclair. Please wait just a moment.” [Hahahaha is the villainess afraid the male lead is gonna freeze her accounts?!] [Honestly, you have to respect the hustle. Secure the bag before he cuts her off.] [What is two hundred grand gonna do? That card has a limit of at least a hundred million.] [Yeah, but anything over two hundred thousand requires a three-day advance notice. She’s smart.] I sat on the plush leather sofa, watching the manager disappear behind the vault doors. My phone screen lit up. A text message from Danny. “Where are you.” 2 Three words. No question mark. It was a direct order. I ignored it. Thirty seconds later, a second message appeared. “Come home. Don’t make me worry.” I swiped the notification away and opened my airline app, checking for the fastest flight out of the country. I typed in my ID number. When it came time to input my birth date, my fingers hesitated over the screen. That birthday didn’t belong to me. March 21st was the birth date of the biological Sinclair daughter. When was my actual birthday? I had no idea. Every single birthday cake I ever had was decorated with candles spelling out those numbers. I had closed my eyes and made a wish on those specific candles for eighteen years. And every single year, my wish was the exact same. I wished to be Danny’s little sister forever. The irony was suffocating. I pressed confirm and paid for the ticket. The electronic boarding pass popped up. Flight to Charles de Gaulle, departing tonight at nine-thirty. Direct. Now, I just had to make it onto that plane before my legal identity was completely wiped from the system. An hour later, the bank manager handed me a heavily weighted duffel bag. “Miss Sinclair, would you like me to arrange a security escort for you?” I offered a polite, hollow smile. “No thank you. I have my own security waiting.” Dragging my suitcase out of the bank’s glass doors, the biting autumn wind slipped down my collar. I hailed another cab. “To the international airport.” Once the car merged onto the highway, I powered my phone down entirely and shoved it deep into the hidden compartment of my luggage. [The villainess is leaving so decisively, it actually makes me a little sad.] [Obviously she has to leave now. Once her ID gets flagged, she won’t be able to step foot outside the city limits.] I leaned against the cold leather of the backseat, watching the metal guardrails of the highway blur into a continuous gray ribbon. The sky gradually darkened into pitch black. In the distance, a massive commercial jet drifted down the runway, its navigation lights blinking rhythmically against the night. Inside the terminal, the wait became agonizingly boring. Against my better judgment, I pulled my phone out and turned it back on. The second the screen illuminated, news notifications flooded my screen like an avalanche. #SinclairHeiressFound #StandInSisterKickedOut #HeartbreakForTheFakeSister #ColdBloodedSinclairGroup I tapped on the top trending hashtag. There was a high-resolution photo of me stumbling out of the hotel, wearing that torn, blood-stained dress, bending down to get into a taxi. The caption attached to the photo was pure, inflammatory gasoline. “The real heiress returns and instantly forces the innocent stand-in out onto the streets. Getting kicked out of the Sinclair mansion on the night of her 18th birthday, without even getting a slice of her own cake. The absolute cruelty of the wealthy.” The post had over three hundred million views. My pupils constricted. Who took that photo? Who wrote that incredibly specific caption? I clicked over to the official Sinclair Group corporate account. A freshly pinned PR statement sat at the top of their feed, its phrasing sterile and clinical. “Miss Sylvia Sinclair, who tragically went missing at the age of three, has been safely located. Due to his profound grief over the years, Mr. Danny Sinclair adopted an orphan bearing a physical resemblance to his sister. Now that the true Miss Sinclair has returned, the adopted individual has been appropriately relocated and compensated. We urge the public not to spread baseless rumors.” The comment section was a war zone of public outrage. “Appropriately relocated? You mean thrown out onto the street in a torn dress?” “The real heiress is ruthless. She couldn’t even tolerate a girl who kept her brother company for fifteen years?” “Danny Sinclair is a monster. He raised her like a pet and discarded her the second he didn’t need her anymore.” “My heart breaks for the stand-in. Brainwashed into thinking she was family, only to be kicked to the curb.” My fingers went completely numb. The holographic comments flared to life in front of my face, scrolling frantically. [Here we go! The villainess is making her move!] [Playing the ultimate victim to cyberbully the female lead. This is diabolical.] [I actually thought she changed her ways for a second. Guess a leopard never changes its spots.] [She’s just trying to use public pressure to force the male lead to beg her to come back. Classic manipulation.] I stared blankly at the glowing text. No. I didn’t do this. I didn’t have the time, the energy, or the vast network required to pull this off. A trending topic with three hundred million views doesn’t just spontaneously generate in twenty minutes without a professional, highly paid PR firm orchestrating it behind the scenes. My phone vibrated violently in my palm. A name flashed across the screen. Danny Sinclair. Staring at those letters, it felt like a physical hand had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. I was terrified to answer. But I knew exactly what would happen if I didn’t. He would unleash his private security to lock down the entire city. And then, just like the floating text predicted, my legs would be broken and I would be thrown into a padded cell. I knew Danny better than anyone. To the outside world, he was a refined, elegant aristocrat. But beneath the tailored suits, he was a deeply obsessive, terrifyingly controlling megalomaniac. This PR disaster was currently roasting his entire corporate empire over an open flame. He was absolutely furious. The phone rang for the fourth time. Taking a shaky breath, I pressed accept and held the phone to my ear. “Sienna.” His voice was dead calm. Too calm. It was the eerie, suffocating stillness right before a hurricane makes landfall. “Where are you.” I didn’t speak. “I asked you where you are.” He repeated it, his voice dropping an octave, sounding like a violin string stretched to its absolute breaking point. “The airport.” I didn’t bother lying. It was pointless. If he wanted to find me, his tech team could trace my GPS coordinates in under five minutes. Silence heavy with static filled the line. Then came the strike. “This circus online. You paid someone to orchestrate this?” It wasn’t a question. It was a guilty verdict. Every single syllable sounded like it was being ground between his teeth. My stomach plummeted. Just as I thought. He was entirely convinced I was the mastermind. 3 “It wasn’t me.” “Not you?” He let out a low, humorless scoff. “Then who else could it possibly be? Sylvia?” My heart skipped a beat. That actually wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. “I need you to come back here. Right now.” It was an absolute, unyielding command. “I just told you I didn’t do it.” “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?” he cut me off. “Sienna, I know exactly how your mind works.” “You’ve been playing these games since you were a child. Whenever you felt slighted, you never threw a tantrum. You just quietly manipulated things in the dark so everyone else would fight your battles for you.” A bone-deep chill washed over me. So that was how he truly saw me. “This situation has spiraled entirely out of control.” His voice lowered again, thick with the effort of suppressing a violent outburst. “Do you have any idea how Sylvia feels right now? My actual, biological sister?” “She just finally made it home. She hasn’t done a single thing wrong, and the entire country is currently tearing her apart, calling her a jealous, vindictive monster.” “She is only eighteen years old.” Listening to the slow, measured sound of his breathing through the speaker, a bitter laugh bubbled in my throat. He was so deeply heartbroken because she was only eighteen. What about me? I was eighteen too. When he branded my flesh with red-hot iron, I was only five. I glanced up at the digital clock on the terminal wall. My flight was boarding in less than fifteen minutes. “Fine. I’ll come back.” [Wait, what?! Why is she caving so easily?] [Are you kidding me? She’s just going back to beg for forgiveness?] [Hold up, she keeps checking the departure screens. She’s just stalling for time!] There was a fraction of a second of stunned silence on his end of the line. “Are you truly willing to issue a public clarification?” A microscopic trace of hesitation had crept into his tone. He genuinely couldn’t believe I was complying this easily. “I didn’t buy the trending tags, but I will gladly stand in front of the press and clear Sylvia’s name for you.” He didn’t respond immediately. He was carefully calculating whether my promise held any weight. “Which terminal are you in? I will have my security team pick you up.” “That won’t be necessary.” “Sienna Sinclair.” He used my full, fake name. It was the ultimate warning sign. “If you dare try to run…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but the sheer, paralyzing threat bled through the receiver, sliding into my brain like a silver needle. I knew exactly what the rest of that sentence entailed. [The male lead is terrifying. Is he raising a sister or a prisoner?] [Run, girl, run!] [She can’t! He’s already on his way. He’s stalling for time too!] [WARNING: System navigation indicates the male lead is less than fifteen minutes from the airport!] Less than fifteen minutes! I violently whipped my head toward the departure screens. Twelve minutes until the gate closed. I could make it. As long as I could drag this out for twelve more minutes, I could vanish into the sky. Suddenly, the overhead PA system chimed. “Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you…” My heart stalled in my chest. “…that Flight AF1502 to Paris has been canceled due to severe weather conditions at the destination. Passengers are advised to proceed to the customer service desks for rebooking. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.” Canceled. [Canceled?! You have got to be kidding me!] [Even the universe is siding with the male lead. This is way too dramatic. RIP to the villainess.] I practically leaped out of my seat, grabbing my luggage handle and sprinting toward the premium customer service counter. My heart was slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. Rebook. I just needed to rebook any flight. Anywhere. As long as the plane left the tarmac before Danny arrived. I slammed my passport and ID card onto the polished counter. “Rebook me. Any destination in the world. Whatever flight is leaving next.” The ticketing agent jumped slightly at my intensity but maintained her pristine, professional smile. “Right away, ma’am. Please give me one moment to check the system.” Every single keystroke felt like an eternity. “There is a flight to Seoul departing in ten minutes.” “I’ll take it.” The agent swiped my ID card through the reader. She frowned. “I apologize, ma’am. The system indicates your identification profile is currently undergoing a mandatory update. This card has been flagged as invalid.” Flagged as invalid. Those words crashed over me like an avalanche of ice. I stared down at the small plastic card on the counter. For eighteen years, my entire existence in the world was anchored to that piece of plastic. And now, the real Sienna Sinclair had returned. My borrowed life was being systematically deleted from the database. “Ma’am? Ma’am?” The agent looked at me with growing concern. “Your passport is also showing up as…” [It’s over. It’s so over. She literally can’t escape.] [I called it. Her entire identity belongs to the female lead. How was she supposed to run?] [The male lead is probably pulling up right now. Good luck, girl.] I took a deep, shuddering breath and slowly pulled my passport and ID back across the counter. “Never mind. Thank you.” The second I turned around, gripping my luggage handle, my phone illuminated in my pocket. A text from Danny.

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Of all the contacts on my phone screen, nearly seventy percent were tagged “Vincent – Client.” My fingertip froze on the glass. Moments ago, in the parking garage of St. Jude’s Women’s Center, I had watched my husband, Vincent, carry a pink prenatal bag for another woman, the hospital’s logo burning into my vision. I called his name. He turned, showing no panic, still holding the woman’s hand, and only frowned as if I were an interruption. “Sophia,” he said, his tone more distant than with clients. “What are you doing here?” My eyes were fixed on their entwined hands, on the halo of diamonds glittering on her ring finger. “My annual check-up,” I replied, fighting to steady my voice. He nodded dismissively. “Well, don’t let me keep you.” Then he looked down at her and offered the same gentle smile he once gave me ten years ago. As they walked away, I heard her ask softly, “Who was that?” Vincent’s quiet reply echoed off the concrete walls: “She’s nobody.” He paused, then added, “She can’t hold a candle to you.” The engine started and faded. I stood alone, every ounce of strength gone. 1 A fluorescent light in the garage ceiling was failing, flickering on and off in a frantic, dying rhythm. I don’t know how long I stood there. Three minutes, maybe thirteen. It wasn’t until a black Audi, reversing, nearly clipped me and the driver honked twice that my feet finally moved. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t name the feeling. It wasn’t heartbreak; heartbreak was supposed to ache, but I was completely numb. It was like a machine humming along for a decade, and someone had just yanked the plug. Every gear seized at once. The silence was terrifying. I walked to my car, pulled the door open, sat down, and buckled my seatbelt. Then I opened my contacts again. Mr. Redmond – Dad’s Golf Buddy, Chairman of Redmond Properties. In the winter of 2016, after dinner with my dad at the country club, I had casually placed Vincent’s business card by Mr. Redmond’s hand. “My husband just started his own practice,” I’d said. “If you ever have any legal needs, maybe you could throw some work his way.” Mr. Redmond had smiled and pocketed the card. The following year, Redmond Properties moved its entire legal portfolio to Vincent’s firm. The annual retainer was $1.2 million. Arthur Cole – Mom’s College Friend’s Son, President of Apex Investments. In the summer of 2017, at my mother’s birthday party, I made a point of inviting Arthur and seating him next to Vincent. Six months later, Apex Investments tasked Vincent with the legal due diligence for three major acquisitions. The fee for the largest of those deals was $4.6 million. Mark Marston – Tech CEO I’d met at an industry conference. In 2019, I had dinner with him twice. On the third, I brought Vincent along. Later, when Mark’s company went public, Vincent’s team handled all the legal work. That one deal brought the firm $8 million. I scrolled down, one name after another. Franklyn Bell. David Shaw. Peter Quinn. Behind every name was a dinner, a round of golf, an evening where I had smiled until my face ached. Seventy percent. Seventy percent of his firm’s core clients were people I had brought to him. Today, Vincent Croft stood as a partner in one of L.A.’s top three commercial law firms. He wore $3,000 bespoke suits and spoke eloquently on legal talk shows. Every stepping stone beneath his feet was one that I had laid. And just a few minutes ago, he had told that woman, “She can’t hold a candle to you.” I put my phone away and started the car. As I drove out of the garage, the sunlight stabbed at my eyes, and I squinted. I was home. I put the key in the lock, turned it twice, and the door swung open. The living room was just as we’d left it that morning. His jacket was slung over the sofa, his half-finished coffee sitting on the table. I folded his jacket and hung it in the closet. I took the coffee cup to the kitchen and washed it. Then, I started making dinner. My hands were steady as I chopped the vegetables. Tomatoes into perfect, even cubes. Eggs whisked until frothy. Green onions sliced paper-thin. The oil sizzled in the pan. I poured in the eggs, stirring them with a spatula. Everything was exactly as it had been for the past ten years, on any given evening. At 8:40 p.m., Vincent came home. He’d changed his suit and his tie. “A frittata?” he asked offhandedly. “There was nothing else in the fridge,” I replied. “Get some steak tomorrow,” he said, sitting down and taking a bite. “Okay.” He glanced at me, detecting nothing unusual. Of course he didn’t. My expression hadn’t changed at all. After dinner, he went to his study to work. I cleared the dishes, wiped the table, and scrubbed the last water spot from the kitchen counter. Then I went to our bedroom and picked up my phone. There was a number in my contacts I’d saved six years ago but had never once dialed. Rebecca. My college roommate. After graduation, she’d moved to New York to become a trial lawyer. She had just moved back to L.A. last year to start her own firm. At a reunion last month, she’d complained about how hard it was to find clients, joking that the stress was turning her hair gray. I stared at her number for a long time. I didn’t call. Not because I didn’t want to. But because I wasn’t ready yet. Outside, a string of lights along the distant coastline blinked on. We bought this condo in 2018. The down payment was $480,000, paid for by my father. Vincent said he would handle the mortgage, but after the first year, I was the one making the payments. $3,200 a month. I turned off the lights and lay down in bed. In the darkness, I replayed the scene from the parking garage. He hadn’t said, “I’m sorry.” He hadn’t said, “I can explain.” He had said, “She can’t hold a candle to you.” In front of a total stranger, he had taken ten years of my life, my effort, my everything, and crushed it into dust with seven words. I closed my eyes. Tomorrow, I had to remember to buy steak. 2 The next day, I went to the law firm. It was my Thursday routine, helping Vincent organize client files and coordinate with the administrative staff. No one paid me a salary. Vincent called it being “partners in life and work.” I pushed open his office door. The young woman at the front desk greeted me with a bright, “Morning, Sophia.” I smiled back. Vincent wasn’t in. His assistant, Jenna, told me he was out meeting a client and wouldn’t be back until the afternoon. I sat down in his large leather chair and started sorting through the month’s case files. A stack of invoices sat on the corner of his desk. I picked them up and idly flipped through them. Most were for routine office expenses—printing, couriers, travel. But I stopped on the twelfth one. An invoice from a furniture store. Modern Living Furnishings. The total was $37,800 for one item: a three-seater leather sofa. The delivery address was listed as: The Pacific Crest, Unit 1204, Santa Monica. That wasn’t our address. I took a picture of the invoice with my phone, then placed it back exactly where I’d found it. Next, I opened his laptop and pulled up his email. He never changed his password. It was six digits, our wedding anniversary. In the search bar, I typed “The Pacific Crest.” Three seconds later, four emails appeared. The first: a notification for payment of HOA fees, billed to Vincent Croft. The second: a quote from an interior design company for a full furnishing package. Total price: $186,000. The third: confirmation of a new broadband internet installation. The fourth: a forwarded email. The original sender was a woman named Paige. The message was short. Vince, I went with the cream-colored curtains. Let me know if you like them. An image was attached. Sunlight streamed through the cream curtains, illuminating brand-new hardwood floors. The living room was spacious, with that $37,800 sofa sitting right in the middle. On the wall hung a large abstract painting. I recognized it instantly. It was a print I had helped him pick out at an art fair last year. He told me he loved it. Turns out, he was buying it for someone else. I closed the email client. The screen reverted to the login page. With a single click, I cleared the browsing history. Jenna came in with a cup of coffee. “Sophia, Mr. Croft said a client will be here at three. He asked if you could get the conference room ready.” “Which client?” “Mr. Wallace, from the Wallace Group.” Wallace. I pressed my lips together. “Of course. I’ll get it ready.” I wiped down the conference room table twice, set out eight bottles of mineral water, and calibrated the projector. At ten past three, a man in his fifties walked in. Michael Wallace, Chairman of the Wallace Group. He was a client I had introduced to Vincent at a Chamber of Commerce gala last year. When he saw me, he shook my hand warmly. “Sophia, good to see you. How has your father been?” “He’s doing well, thank you for asking, Michael.” Vincent walked in behind him, clapping him on the shoulder. “Michael, sorry to keep you waiting.” He glanced at me. “Sophia, could you get us some coffee?” Michael Wallace frowned for a split second. He knew exactly who I was. But Vincent had already started his presentation. I turned and walked to the kitchenette. As I was pouring the coffee, my phone buzzed. It was an alert from a real estate app linked to Vincent’s credit card. “The property you are tracking, The Pacific Crest, Unit 1204, Santa Monica, has completed its title registration.” Property Owner: Vincent Croft. Purchase Price: $1.8 million. One point eight million dollars. I was paying our $3,200 mortgage every month. And he had taken that money and bought another woman a house. The coffee was ready. I carried the tray back into the conference room and placed a cup in front of Mr. Wallace. “Michael, please.” Then I turned, walked out, and gently closed the door behind me. The moment the door clicked shut, I could hear Vincent’s voice, confident, steady, and professional. “Now, Michael, the risk factor in this clause is…” Ten years ago, he couldn’t even draft a simple contract properly. It was my father who had taught him, line by line, how to do it. I stood in the hallway, leaning against the cool wall. The faint sound of traffic drifted up from the street below. I took out my phone and stared at Rebecca’s number for three long seconds. Then I put it back in my pocket. It wasn’t time yet. 3 In the days that followed, I started to notice. It wasn’t that I was actively looking for clues; it was more that things I had been blind to before were now screamingly obvious. The collar of his shirt would occasionally carry the scent of a perfume that wasn’t mine. Nothing expensive, just the cloyingly sweet, fruity kind you smell at department store counters. His arrival time home shifted from 8:30 to 9:30, then from 9:30 to 10:00. The excuse was always the same: “Working late at the office.” On Saturday, he said he was going to play golf, but the clothes in his bag were bone dry when he returned. But the thing that stuck with me the most was small. The milk in the refrigerator. I only drink skim; he drinks whole. Last week, I found a carton of strawberry-flavored yogurt in the fridge. I don’t like strawberry. Neither does he. The next day, it was gone. I didn’t ask. Even if I did, he’d have a hundred plausible excuses. He was a lawyer. Making up stories was his profession. Life went on. On the surface, nothing had changed. I still went to the firm on Thursdays, cooked dinner every night, and paid the mortgage every month. Only one thing was different. At night, I started going through my contacts. Not Vincent’s. Mine. I went through every client’s name, reliving how we met, where we had dinner, what I had said to convince them to give their business to Vincent. On the fourth night, I had a final count. Of the firm’s twelve core clients, eight and a half were mine. Why half? Because one of them was a client Vincent had technically landed himself, but the introductory dinner had been hosted by my father. My father had no idea. He thought it was just a casual get-together with friends. For ten years, I had been his unpaid business development manager. I smiled, made small talk, remembered every client’s wife’s birthday, and knew what grade their children were in. Mr. Redmond’s wife loved a specific type of white tea, so every spring, I would send her a tin of the finest Silver Needle. When Arthur Cole’s mother was hospitalized, I visited her three times, each time bringing her favorite osmanthus cakes. When Mark Marston first moved to L.A., he didn’t know a soul. I was the one who helped him find an apartment, recommended a dentist, and even found the international school his son now attended. Did Vincent know about all this? Yes. And what did he say? “Sophia, you’re a natural at this stuff. You’re better than any business assistant I could ever hire.” Better than an assistant. That’s what I was to him. A useful tool. So useful that he didn’t even feel the need to hide his affair, because tools don’t have feelings. “She can’t hold a candle to you.” He wasn’t insulting me. He was stating what he believed to be a fact. In his world, I truly couldn’t compare. I wasn’t as young. I wasn’t as pretty. I didn’t fawn over him. And as for my network, my resources, my connections? He had long ago claimed them as his own. They were as natural and essential to him as the air he breathed, and who ever stops to thank the air? On Saturday afternoon, Vincent’s mother called. “Sophia, dear, has Vincent been busy lately?” “He has been, Mom.” “Well, you two have been married for ten years now. Isn’t it about time you had a child?” “We’re planning on it.” “You’re not getting any younger, you know. You should hurry up.” “I will.” “I heard a new maternity center opened up near your neighborhood. Do you want me to go take a look?” “That’s not necessary, Mom. We’ll see when the time comes.” After hanging up, I sat on the sofa. The TV was on, playing some legal talk show. On screen, Vincent was wearing a sharp gray suit, sitting on the expert panel. The camera zoomed in for a close-up. Comments scrolled across the screen: “Vincent Croft is so handsome,” “So professional and charming,” “Where can I find a husband like that?” I turned off the TV. In the blank, dark screen, I saw my own reflection. Thirty-four years old. Fine lines at the corners of my eyes. Lips a little pale from years of not wearing lipstick. She can’t hold a candle to you. He was right. But do you even know whose ground you’re standing on? Vincent didn’t come home that night. He sent a text: Urgent case at the office. Pulling an all-nighter. I used to reply, Take care of yourself. This time, I sent back a single word. Okay. Then, I dialed Rebecca’s number. It rang three times before she picked up. “Sophia? Why are you calling so late?” “Rebecca,” I said, my voice even. “Your firm. Are you still looking for clients?” There was a two-second pause on the other end. “Always. What’s up?” “I might have a few to send your way.” “…How big are we talking?” “Big enough to set you up for the next three years.” Rebecca went quiet again. “Sophia,” she said, her voice now serious. “Are you sure about this?” I looked out the window at the glittering ribbon of the coastline highway. “Let’s meet next week and talk in person.” 4 I met Rebecca on Tuesday afternoon. We chose a private dining room in a small, out-of-the-way restaurant in Marina del Rey, a place where we were unlikely to run into anyone from our circle. Rebecca was thinner than I remembered from college, her hair pulled back in a low ponytail, wearing a tailored navy-blue suit. Her firm, Shoreline Law Group, currently employed six lawyers and mostly handled small-scale cases. “Were you serious on the phone?” she asked, her chopsticks hovering mid-air. “I was.” “How many clients?” “Let’s start with three.” I wrote three names on a piece of paper and slid it across the table. Redmond Properties. Apex Investments. Marston Technologies. Rebecca glanced at the list, and her expression changed completely. “Sophia, the combined annual legal spend for these three is at least twenty million dollars.” “I know.” “And you’re certain you can convince them to switch firms?” I took a sip of my tea. “I personally introduced every one of these clients to Vincent. Mr. Redmond is my father’s golf partner. Arthur Cole is the son of my mother’s best friend. Mark Marston is someone I cultivated a relationship with myself.” “What about their personal relationship with Vincent?” “It exists,” I said, setting my cup down. “But it’s not as strong as he thinks it is.” “Rebecca, do you understand the relationship between a lawyer and a client?” “Of course.” “Most of the time, the client isn’t loyal to the lawyer. They’re loyal to the person who made the introduction.” Rebecca stared at me, slowly lowering her chopsticks. “What’s your plan?” “We take our time. One by one.” I took out my phone and opened a document. “We start with Redmond. His daughter is getting married next month. I’ve already prepared a gift. I’ll deliver it in person and casually bring up the subject of consolidating family enterprise legal services.” “What kind of consolidation?” “I’ll tell him that my family’s trust is restructuring and requires an independent legal team, separate from Vincent’s firm, to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.” “Is that a solid reason?” “It is. Mr. Redmond is a businessman. The words ‘conflict of interest’ are more persuasive to him than any piece of gossip.” Rebecca was silent for a moment. “Sophia, what on earth happened between you and Vincent?” I didn’t answer her question. “Rebecca, all you need to do is be ready to take on these clients. Your team’s work has to be impeccable. No screw-ups.” “You can count on me for that.” “One more thing.” “What is it?” “Until this is done, no one can know that I’m involved. Not even the people at your firm.” “How long will this take?” “Two months.” By the time I left the restaurant, it was already dark. The streetlights stretched my shadow long and thin behind me. Before getting in my car, I glanced back to make sure I wasn’t being followed by any familiar vehicles. Then I drove away. With my hands on the steering wheel, I felt something I had never felt before. It wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t relief. It was clarity. Ten years of marriage had been like a veil over my eyes, and now, a hand had violently ripped it away. My entire world looked different. On the way home, I stopped at the supermarket and bought two pounds of steak. Vincent had mentioned he wanted some the other day. When I walked in, he was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through his phone. He looked up at me. “What’d you get?” “Steak.” “Good.” He went back to his phone. A notification popped up on his screen. I caught a glimpse of a pink profile picture. I went into the kitchen and put the steak in the fridge. Then I started making soup.

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It was a freezing Sunday morning, and I was lighting a fresh memorial candle at my daughter’s grave. My son-in-law, Oliver, suddenly broke the silence, asking if I knew where Sweetpea lived. He told me that before Lily died, she constantly talked about someone named Sweetpea, calling this person her savior. He said he wanted to pay them a visit to show his gratitude. My hand froze in midair. I almost dropped the lighter. Sweetpea wasn’t some stranger. It was the embarrassing childhood nickname I had given my daughter. When Lily grew up, she thought the name was incredibly childish and absolutely forbade me from ever saying it out loud. A cold knot formed in my stomach. Why on earth would she tell her husband that Sweetpea was her savior? 1 My daughter was brutally murdered in a dark alleyway three months ago. She was eight months pregnant at the time. The killer showed absolutely no mercy, taking her life and the life of her unborn baby in one horrific act of violence. When the police called and I rushed to the scene, the sheer trauma of seeing what was left of her made me pass out on the wet pavement. Oliver was completely destroyed. He sat by her body in the freezing rain, weeping until his voice gave out. The shock and grief were so profound that streaks of silver appeared in his hair overnight. The crime shocked the entire city. Everyone was disgusted by the killer’s cruelty and heartbroken over Lily’s fate. The police department immediately set up a special task force. But because Lily died in a blind spot without a single security camera, there were no witnesses. It was pouring rain that night, washing away any footprints or DNA. The killer vanished like a ghost. The task force worked around the clock for days but came up completely empty. Refusing to let the monster walk free, Oliver publicly offered a massive million-dollar reward. He went on every local news station, begging the public to help find the person who slaughtered his family. For a while, the whole country was obsessed with the case. But three agonizing months passed. Every lead turned into a dead end. Just yesterday, the department officially disbanded the special task force. The million-dollar reward sat unclaimed. The murder of my daughter was officially a cold case. I honestly thought the truth would stay buried forever. But right now, hearing Oliver’s question, a sharp tremor went through my heart. I looked up at him, studying his face. “When exactly did Lily say Sweetpea was her savior?” Oliver thought for a few seconds, his expression completely serious. “Just a few days before she was killed.” Something was wrong. Something was horribly, twistedly wrong. I kept my eyes locked on his face. “What were her exact words?” Oliver met my gaze, his eyes pooling with sadness. “She said if it wasn’t for Sweetpea, she wouldn’t have survived this long. She called Sweetpea the greatest blessing of her life and made me promise to repay the favor if we ever got the chance.” He took a shaky breath. “I kept asking her who this person was and where they lived. She just smiled and said she would introduce me after the baby was born. I never thought she wouldn’t make it to that day.” His voice cracked as he spoke, dropping into a devastated whisper. But down by my side, my fingers were digging into the cold wet dirt. I called her Sweetpea because she was such a tiny, chubby, sweet-smelling baby. Later, when she started dating, she specifically warned me. She told me if she ever got a boyfriend or got married, I was never allowed to utter that nickname around him. She was terrified of being teased. From that day on, Sweetpea became a banned word between us. Lily hated that nickname so much. There was absolutely zero chance she would willingly bring it up to Oliver. And there was definitely no way she would call Sweetpea her savior. So who was lying to me? 2 While my mind was spinning, Oliver spoke again. “Mom, it was just the two of you growing up. Do you have any idea who this Sweetpea is?” I chose not to tell him the truth. Instead, I looked at him, let two seconds of heavy silence pass, and calmly shook my head. “Never heard of them.” A flash of disappointment crossed Oliver’s eyes. “I really wanted to thank them. Just to fulfill Lily’s last wish. But if you don’t know them either, I guess I’ll have to let it go.” I didn’t say a word. I just looked down and fixed the flowers. But the suspicion in my chest was growing into a raging fire. My husband died when I was young, and I raised Lily all by myself. Working double shifts while being a single mom was hell, but Lily was an angel. She never caused trouble. She was so gentle that she had never even been in a shouting match with anyone, let alone made mortal enemies. That was exactly why the cops were so stumped. She had no enemies. Oliver and Lily met in college. They dated for five years and had been married for three. For eight whole years, Oliver treated her like royalty. Every time Lily called me, she was bragging about him. “Mom, Oliver just signed up for a culinary class so he can make me healthy meals every night.” “Mom, I coughed twice this morning and Oliver dragged me to the clinic for a full checkup. He’s such a worrywart.” “Mom, a huge stray dog charged at me today. Oliver threw himself right in front of me and fought it off barehanded. He was bleeding everywhere but didn’t even care. He just cried because I scraped my knee falling down.” “Mom, I’m pregnant! Oliver is over the moon. He just booked the most expensive maternity clinic in the city. He swore he would protect us with his life.” She was so incredibly happy. As a mother, I could see the glow radiating from her. And I genuinely believed Oliver loved her with everything he had. That was why he aged ten years overnight when she died. For the last three months, he hadn’t slept a full night. Once the million-dollar bounty went public, his phone rang off the hook. If a caller spotted someone suspicious across the state, he would drive there immediately. Once, at two in the morning, someone called saying a creepy drifter was following pregnant women in the next county. Oliver threw on a jacket, drove four hours in the pitch black, and found nothing. This happened every single day. People told him to rest. He would just grit his teeth and shake his head. “I am not missing a single chance to get justice for Lily.” When the task force shut down, he begged them on his knees, tears streaming down his face. “Please, keep looking. My wife and baby can’t die for nothing.” I was hospitalized for shock after the funeral. I refused to eat. I wanted to die. Oliver was the one who stayed by my bed day and night, talking me off the ledge. He held my hand and cried. “Mom, you are the most important person in Lily’s world. If she looks down from heaven and sees you like this, it would break her heart.” If it wasn’t for Oliver, I would probably be in a psychiatric ward right now. Because I knew exactly how good he was, I was losing my mind trying to figure out who was lying. If Oliver was lying, how did he find out about the nickname, and why spin this weird story? If Lily was lying to Oliver, what was the point of telling him that? Was she trying to send a message? Right when I felt my head was about to split open, my cell phone buzzed. It was Detective Garrett, the head of the disbanded task force. As soon as I answered, his voice came through completely breathless. “Sarah, someone just anonymously leaked a hidden camera video of the alley from the night your daughter died.” 3 My knees gave out. I had to grab the gravestone to keep from falling. Oliver, who had heard the voice through the speaker, went wide-eyed. He leaned in and yelled into the phone. “Detective! Are you serious?” Garrett cleared his throat, his tone dead serious. “Dead serious. How fast can you two get down to the precinct?” We both nodded aggressively, practically screaming into the receiver. “We are on our way!” Oliver drove like a maniac. His hands were physically shaking on the steering wheel, and he had the gas pedal slammed to the floor. He looked like a man desperate to rip the killer apart with his bare teeth. We burst into the station a few minutes later. Detective Garrett was waiting in the conference room with a laptop open on the table. He skipped the pleasantries. “Tech guys already verified it. The footage is raw. No deepfakes, no edits. I need you both to watch this closely and tell me if you recognize the guy.” He hit play. It was nighttime. The alley was dark, lacking streetlights, so the footage was incredibly grainy. But I instantly recognized the brick walls. It was the alley. On the screen, my pregnant daughter was walking slowly in the rain, holding an umbrella. Two seconds later, a man stepped into the frame. He was wearing a black hoodie pulled up tight, a baseball cap, and a medical mask. He kept a steady distance, about ten feet right behind Lily. You couldn’t see a single inch of his face. But you could see his build. He was short, almost skeletal. And he walked with a severe, heavy limp. A few seconds later, Lily turned the corner into the blind spot. The man paused at the mouth of the alley, looked left, looked right, and followed her into the dark. The video cut to black. Detective Garrett paused on the frame of the man, zooming in on his hunched, limping figure. “Have either of you ever seen this man in your lives?” I stared at the screen until my eyes burned. I shook my head. “Never.” Oliver’s face was completely drained of color. “I have no idea who that is.” Garrett played it again, this time at half speed. He pointed at the screen with a pen. “Based on the coroner’s timeline, your daughter was attacked the moment she entered that blind spot. This man is our prime suspect.” Knowing I was staring at the monster who butchered my baby made my blood boil. I leaned in, practically pressing my nose against the monitor, praying to recognize something. But he was completely covered. The only thing visible was his eyes, caught for a split second reflecting the distant streetlamp. For some inexplicable reason, those eyes gave me a weird, prickling sense of deja vu. But my mind was blank. I couldn’t place them. Garrett looped the video a dozen times. No matter how hard we looked, we had no names to give him. The room fell dead silent. Finally, I looked at Garrett. “Is that the only clip?” He nodded, looking exhausted. “I was packing up my desk yesterday. Then this morning, this file drops into my inbox. And it wasn’t just me. The sender mass-emailed it to every single officer in the building, plus three local news anchors.” He sighed heavily. “It’s all over the internet now. The public is out for blood. The mayor just called and forced the department to reopen the case. Everyone wants this guy’s head on a spike.” Something didn’t sit right with me. “Why did the sender wait three months? Why wait until the day after your team officially shut down to make a huge spectacle out of it?” It made zero sense. This was the golden ticket. If the person who filmed this had turned it in on day one, they would be a millionaire right now thanks to Oliver’s reward. Why hide, ignore the money, and wait until the cops gave up to drop a bomb? Garrett rubbed his temples. “We think they wanted to cause maximum panic. They want a media circus. We tried tracking the IP address, but it bounced through ten different countries. The sender is a ghost.” Oliver slammed his hands on the table. “Can’t you track him through other street cameras? He didn’t just teleport there! Pull the footage from every block in a five-mile radius!” Garrett looked over at Toby, the tech guy at the corner desk. Toby typed frantically. “We are pulling all commercial and traffic cameras from the night of the murder. We are through seventy percent of the footage, but there is no sign of…” Before Toby could finish, Garrett’s radio crackled loudly. “Boss, patrol unit three. We are doing a sweep of the lower east side. We just spotted a guy matching the suspect’s description. Same hoodie, same heavy limp.” Garrett shot out of his chair like a rocket. “Do not engage. Keep eyes on him. We are on our way right now!” 4 Oliver and I jumped into the back of Garrett’s unmarked cruiser. Twenty minutes later, tires screeching, we pulled up outside a decaying, rundown apartment complex on the edge of town. Several plainclothes officers were already waiting by the dumpsters. They jogged up to Garrett. “Boss, asked around. Neighborhood kids call him Limping Jack. He’s a drifter, collects cans for cash. Wanders the streets all day. He went into the ground floor unit right there and hasn’t come out.” Garrett drew his weapon and signaled the men to move quietly toward the peeling wooden door of the apartment. I stayed close behind Garrett, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Oliver was pacing behind me, aggressively twisting his wedding ring. “Lily… we are finally going to get him. We are finally going to make him pay.” His voice was vibrating with emotion. He had been waiting for this exact moment. Garrett knocked sharply on the door. “Gas company. We have a reported leak, open up.” Footsteps shuffled inside. A heavy deadbolt clicked. The door swung open. Standing there was a frail, hunched man. Half of his face was covered in horrific, melted burn scars. And his eyes… they were the exact same eyes from the grainy video. Seeing the badges instead of gas workers didn’t shock him. Limping Jack stared at the cops, paused for two seconds, and actually smiled. “Took you long enough.” His voice was calm. Unnervingly calm. Like a man waiting for a dinner guest. Garrett instantly sensed danger and tackled the man to the ground. Two other cops piled on, pinning his arms. Jack didn’t even try to fight back. With his face pressed against the dirty linoleum floor, he kept laughing. “I waited three whole months for you guys. Finally. Hahaha!” That laugh sent a block of ice sliding down my spine. Feeling sick, my eyes wandered past the scuffle and into his cramped apartment. What I saw made the breath leave my lungs. Every single inch of his four walls was plastered with photographs. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. And they were all of my daughter. There was a picture of her as a toddler in the park, wearing pigtails. There was her in middle school, carrying a heavy backpack. Her sitting in the college library, chewing on a pencil. Her in a wedding dress, holding Oliver’s arm. There was even a recent one, her heavily pregnant, watering plants on her balcony. The pictures documented her entire existence. From a little girl to a grown woman. A complete timeline of my baby’s life. I was paralyzed. Oliver froze in the doorway. A second later, a guttural scream ripped out of his throat. He lunged forward, grabbing Jack by the collar and hoisting him up. “You sick, twisted freak! You’ve been stalking her for years?!” Jack didn’t flinch. He let his head hang back and let out another raspy laugh. “That’s right.” “I killed her.” The moment the words left his mouth, Oliver’s fist connected with Jack’s jaw with a sickening crack. “I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!” It was the first time I had ever seen Oliver lose his mind. He was a wild animal, raining punches down on the frail man, his eyes bloodshot, fully ready to murder him right there on the floor. Garrett and another cop had to physically put Oliver in a chokehold to drag him off. Oliver was still thrashing wildly, screaming at the top of his lungs. “What did she ever do to you?! Why did you have to hurt her?!” Jack wiped the blood from his mouth. He completely ignored Oliver. Instead, his eyes found mine, locking onto me from across the room. He spoke softly. “I confess. Take me away.” Garrett holstered his weapon and gestured to his men. “Get him in the car.” They slapped the cuffs on him and hauled him up. Again, no struggling. Jack actually walked toward the police cruiser faster than the cops pulling him. He was desperate to be arrested. Watching his hunched back and heavy limp as he walked away, an overwhelming sense of wrongness washed over me. Nothing made sense. Who was this man? Why did he photograph my daughter for twenty years, only to brutally murder her right before she gave birth? Why would he pick a perfect blind spot to commit the murder, completely avoiding detection, but then leave his front door unlocked and practically beg the cops to arrest him? Why say he waited three months? And the video… if he filmed it himself, why wait? Why turn down a million dollars just to send an anonymous email to the news? And what about Oliver? Why did he lie about Lily mentioning Sweetpea? My brain felt like it was trapped in a blender. Everything was spinning out of control. I leaned against the wall to keep from collapsing. As I did, my gaze drifted to the dirty window of the apartment. Sitting on the windowsill was a small, potted sunflower. It was completely dead. Withered and black. The moment I saw it, my heart stopped. A terrifying, earth-shattering realization hit me like a freight train.

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I was terrified. Every time I thought about my ending in the book, I couldn’t stop shaking. It turned out I was the product of my mother’s affair. Such a soapy, twisted plot. According to the novel, my older sister, Abby, was abused by my mother her entire childhood, both physically and mentally. This trauma turned her into a twisted, ruthless, and cold-blooded villainess. The first thing she did after taking control of the family was expose my true parentage. She threw my mother and me out onto the street and spent the rest of her life torturing us. But after I transmigrated into this world, I realized something shocking: this older sister was actually the female lead of the story. My mother kept her locked in the attic, feeding her only once a day. My scumbag father, after bringing her home, completely ignored her existence. It wasn’t until I was five years old that I even knew I had an older half-sister. My playboy father only cared about his own pleasure; he never gave a damn about his kids. 1 My mother left the house right after finishing breakfast with me. At my age, I should have been in kindergarten, but because of my weak constitution, I was kept at home to rest. I sneaked into the kitchen and asked Mary, our cook, for another plate of soup dumplings and a glass of milk. Mary looked down at me, surprised. “Leo, are you still hungry?” I tilted my head back, my neck aching a bit from looking up at her. “I need to eat more to grow tall.” And just like that, I got my second breakfast. Holding the small tray, I refused Mary’s help and wobbled my way down to the end of the hallway. I struggled to turn the doorknob, pushed the door open, picked up the tray again, and walked in. Abby’s room wasn’t spacious—it was actually smaller than my walk-in closet—but it was clean and well-lit. She was sitting on the floor by the window, reading a book. She didn’t react at all when I walked in. I set the tray down. “Sister, eat.” I remembered the book saying that my mother starved her, giving her only one meal a day. This eventually caused the female lead to develop chronic stomach issues. Although her stomach pain later became a plot device to bring her and the male lead closer, I mentally apologized to him—he was the male lead, he could find another way to spark romance with her. But I was different. I was just a vicious male supporting character destined to die a horrible death. Abby stared at me blankly, her eyes ice-cold. I wiped my hands, picked up a dumpling, ate one myself, and then grabbed another and shoved it directly toward her mouth. The dumpling was honestly too big for me, and I nearly choked to death on the first one. Abby had no choice but to pat my back and feed me a sip of milk. Once I finally caught my breath, I looked at the glass—I had chugged more than half of the milk. I felt a pang of guilt. “Mom’s not home,” I explained softly. “I told Mary I was still hungry, so she gave me this.” Nobody else knew, but Abby was only seven years old. No matter how powerful she became later in the story, right now, she was just a starving child. She lowered her eyes and slowly, silently, finished the dumplings. At the very end, without any hesitation, she drank the rest of the milk I had started. Watching her, I felt a spark of hope for my future survival. I waited a while before taking the empty tray back. Mary just assumed I was a growing boy with a big appetite and didn’t suspect a thing. My mother didn’t come home for lunch either. Mary made me tomato noodles with a bunch of colorful, kid-friendly toppings. “Mary, can you make a little extra?” I asked. Mary smiled. “Leo is eating so well today.” I thought to myself, I’ll probably be eating this much every single day from now on. I actually had a very small appetite. Looking at the heavy tray, I thought for a second, then stood up wobbly. “Mary, Leo wants to eat in his room.” “Are you sure you don’t want me to carry that for you?” she asked. “Leo can do it himself,” I insisted. I had a playroom filled with Legos where I spent most of my time, so it wasn’t weird for me to walk in that direction. I walked right past my playroom, straight to the end of the hall. “Sister, open the door!” I called out. I was using every ounce of strength to hold the heavy tray. If I put it down, I probably wouldn’t be able to pick it back up. Thankfully, Abby opened the door just in time and took the tray from my shaking hands. I sighed in relief. But when I looked at the table, my expression froze. There was a bowl of plain noodles sitting there. Not a single vegetable, no meat, nothing. It was a miracle the female lead managed to grow tall eating such garbage. I walked over, pushed the plain noodles aside, and slid my tray into the center. “Sister, eat this.” Abby looked at the colorful, rich tomato noodles, then at me. “Did you eat?” My stomach chose that exact moment to growl loudly. I yelled, “Sister, you eat first!” Keeping the female lead fed was my top priority. Plus, I remembered I had an entire cabinet of snacks in my room. Abby stayed silent for a moment. She picked up a pair of chopsticks, scooped a small bowl of noodles, sat in front of me, and held some up to my mouth. “I’m not hungry. You eat.” I shivered slightly and obediently opened my mouth. I always felt that she didn’t seem like a female lead at all; she felt more like the ultimate villain. She was only seven, but she was already terrifying. I took a few bites and was instantly full, just chewing without swallowing. Abby glanced at me. “Full?” I nodded rapidly. Only then did she begin to eat the rest of the noodles from the tray. This time, I didn’t take the tray back to the kitchen. I left it in my playroom, knocked it around to make it look messy, and then told my nanny to clean it up. That night, both my father and mother came home together. My eyelid twitched. When these two were in the same room, it was usually like Mars colliding with Earth. My mother patted my head and went straight upstairs. My father, however, knelt down and looked at me. “Did Leo have fun playing today?” I nodded. “Yes.” My father actually cared about his son at this point. He held me and talked to me for a good while. My heart skipped a beat. I just hoped that when this cheap dad found out I wasn’t his biological son, he would still speak to me this gently. Even Abby was called down for dinner that night. I quickly realized that when my father was around, my mother didn’t dare go too far. Our family sat around the dining table, putting on a fake show of harmony, eating in complete silence. My father cut the steak on my plate into tiny pieces and handed it back to me. “Does Leo want to go to kindergarten and make some new friends?” I completely froze. I blinked my big eyes at him. “Leo doesn’t want to go to school. Leo wants to stay home.” My father and mother exchanged a look. When it came to me, they were actually on the same page. “How about we invite your cousin from your uncle’s house to come play with you?” my mother suggested. It took me half a minute to remember who she was talking about. It was a minor bully character who tormented the female lead in the book. “I want that huge Lego set! I want to play by myself!” I quickly said, using my hands to gesture how big it was. After a lot of frantic hand waving, my mother finally understood. My father laughed. “Alright, Daddy will buy it for you.” It was obvious my father didn’t want me interacting too much with my mother’s side of the family either, so the conversation hit a dead end. After a while, my mother put down her silverware and went upstairs. My father wiped his mouth and said, “Leo, keep eating with your sister.” I nodded. “Okay.” Once my father was out of sight, I looked around to make sure the coast was clear. I grabbed a spoon, scooped up a massive piece of my favorite stir-fried meat, and stretched my little arm across the table. “Sister, this is really good.” Abby watched my shaking hand. Seeing that the meat was about to fall off the spoon, she sighed softly, picked up her plate, and caught it. I finished my dinner feeling incredibly satisfied. I firmly believed that the bond we were building, meal by meal, would eventually convince the female lead to spare my life. The childhood phase that passed by in a single blink in the novel, I had to survive day by day. My fake parents actually treated me really well. Even though they were rarely home, they never deprived me of anything material. This made it easy for me to secretly take care of Abby. But every time my mother came home, it was absolute torture for me. I wanted to be close to her, but I was also terrified of her. As the mother of my original character, I had thought about trying to pull her back from the edge—at least save her from her miserable fate in the book. But whenever she looked at Abby, she turned into a monster. She used every excuse to torment the girl, venting all her hatred for my father onto this innocent child. Once, I was so terrified by one of her cruel punishments that I developed a high fever in the middle of the night and started hallucinating. The next morning, when Abby and I saw each other, it was hard to tell who looked worse. I couldn’t change my mother’s mind, so I just focused on making Abby’s life a little more bearable. I even managed to skip grades so I could be in the same class as the female lead. From elementary to middle school, my father arranged for both of us to attend the same elite private academy. My mother threw a fit at first, but eventually, for some reason, she agreed. Having read the book, I knew exactly why. Because everyone knew Abby was an illegitimate child hated by her own family. The kids at the academy came from wealthy, powerful backgrounds, and they loved bullying her for entertainment. Although the novel only mentioned it briefly, I could imagine the absolute hell she went through at school. One Monday morning, I sat in the car, fighting back yawns. As soon as Abby got in, I hit the button to raise the privacy partition between us and the driver. Then, I pulled a bag of cookies and a carton of milk out of my backpack. “Breakfast. You have fifteen minutes.” In the original novel, my character inherited my mother’s nasty temper and kicked Abby out of the car on the very first day of school, forcing her to walk. Abby had to walk for an hour and obviously arrived late. After that, she woke up before dawn every single day to walk to school, until our elderly butler finally took pity on her and secretly lent her his son’s bicycle. But now? I was terrified of not treating her well enough. There was no way I’d let her walk. Abby ate quietly. Right as the car pulled up to the school gates, I grabbed the empty wrappers, shoved them into my bag, and hopped out of the car pretending nothing had happened. “Sister,” I whispered, “if anyone bullies you, tell me. I’ll beat them up.” At school, I always pretended not to know her well. That was, until the day I saw three kids cornering her, digging through her books, and shoving her shoulder. As I got closer, I heard their ugly laughter. I couldn’t take it. I had no idea how Abby managed to stay so expressionless through it all. I marched right up and kicked the lead kid’s desk as hard as I could. It flipped over with a massive crash, scattering textbooks everywhere. I sneered at them. “No matter what, her last name is still the same as mine. Who gave you the right to teach her a lesson?” Even though I was short, my cold voice and aggressive entrance terrified the entire classroom into dead silence. The boy leading the group started to get angry, but his friend pulled his sleeve. They muttered under their breath, flipped the desk back over, and slinked away. The kid’s last name was Vance. His family did a lot of business with my mother’s side, so he didn’t dare cross me. Abby quietly picked up her books from the floor without saying a single word. When I sat down, I realized my foot was throbbing in pain. Thinking about my fragile glass-doll body, I fell silent. Eventually, I begged my mother to let me take taekwondo classes. She agreed and hired a private coach to train me at home. Because of that, Abby heard me screaming in pain on a regular basis. She looked at me with very complicated eyes back then, but ultimately just patted my head. During lunch break, I sat on the school roof with the massive bento box delivered from home, waiting in absolute boredom. Just as I was starting to panic that she hadn’t seen the note I slipped her, she finally appeared. I scratched my head. “I thought you didn’t see the note.” She explained that she got held up by something. My internal alarms instantly went off. “Did they bully you again?” Ever since I kicked that desk, nobody had dared touch her. She shook her head. “No.” Then I noticed the apple in her hand, and my brain started spinning. Who else would give the female lead an apple at school besides the male lead? Before high school, their interactions were supposed to be minimal, but the plot always found a way to push them together. The male lead was smart, handsome, and incredibly kind. He stepped up to help her multiple times, acting as the single ray of light in her childhood outside of her mother. This was all laying the groundwork for them to meet, understand each other, and fall in love. I relaxed and opened the food container. Mary knew exactly how much I “ate.” Every single box had two massive layers—way more than both of us could finish. The school cafeteria had amazing food, but I remembered a scene from the book where someone dumped a tray of food all over Abby, leaving her starving after she had to change clothes. I was not letting her suffer that indignity. After we finished eating, Abby packed up the containers for me and left the apple behind. I stared at it. “This apple…” “What?” she asked. “You don’t want it?” “It’s not that I don’t want it,” I mumbled. Abby turned to leave, her face blank. “If you don’t want it, throw it away.” I stared at the apple in a daze. The novel spent so much time describing her intense control issues and possessiveness—especially when it came to the male lead and anything related to him. Did this apple really mean absolutely nothing to her? This was a gift from your childhood crush! I didn’t dare eat it. I just packed it in my bag, figuring that if she regretted it later, I could give it back. But days passed, the apple started to rot, and she never brought it up again. I chalked it up to the timeline. They were still kids. Their real romance didn’t blossom until high school. During my last year of middle school, my mother’s side of the family took a massive financial hit. Whenever my parents were home together, it was a warzone. Back when our family was struggling, my mother’s family helped a lot. Now that they were crashing, my father refused to lift a finger. Their screaming matches echoed from the second floor all the way down to the living room. I sat on the couch with my earbuds in, calmly doing my homework. Abby raised an eyebrow. “You’re not worried?” I pulled out an earbud. “What?” She pointed toward the ceiling. I shrugged. “Adult problems. Kids shouldn’t get involved. Besides, I know her family will take a hit, but they won’t go bankrupt.” They were stepping stones for the female lead. Until she grew powerful enough to crush them, they couldn’t fall. As long as her family stayed afloat, my secret parentage wouldn’t be exposed, and everything was manageable. I smiled. “I need to finish this fast so I can watch TV.” I was obsessed with a new drama and needed to catch up on the latest episodes. That day, my father slammed the front door and left. My mother threw an absolute fit. That night, my mother claimed she lost an expensive necklace and “found” it in Abby’s room. She accused Abby of stealing and forced her to kneel outside in the snow for two hours. It was the dead of winter. Abby knelt in the snow wearing nothing but thin pajamas. I was so anxious I was on the verge of tears, but one sharp look from Abby forced me to stay calm. My mother did it on purpose. Whether a maid actually stole it and hid it, or my mother orchestrated the whole thing, she just needed an excuse to punish her. Abby’s existence was a thorn in her side, and my father’s refusal to help her family today had driven that thorn even deeper. I sat on the stairs, hugging my knees, looking out the window at the frail girl kneeling in the snow. I felt like I had tried so hard for years, but nothing had really changed. The next morning at school, I tracked down the male lead, Ethan, and asked him to help me buy some medicine. He looked confused. “Doesn’t the school clinic have that stuff?” I lowered my head, looking embarrassed. “I got frostbite playing in the snow, and I don’t want my mom to know. If I go to the clinic, they’ll log my name and call my parents.” Ethan immediately understood. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” I sighed in relief. This was the safest way I could think of. I knew the male lead was a good guy, and it was a great excuse to earn some favor with him. That night, my mother thankfully wasn’t home. I breathed a sigh of relief and snuck into Abby’s room with my backpack. She was sitting up in bed, reading. Her face was frighteningly pale, but her expression was perfectly calm. You couldn’t tell what she was thinking. “I asked Ethan to buy some medicine,” I said softly. “Do you remember him? The guy in the white shirt who smiles with his eyes?” Abby gave a faint “Mm.” I reached out to roll up her pajama pants, but she grabbed my wrist. She looked a bit uncomfortable. “I can do it myself.” I obediently let go. “I’ll go check what’s for dinner.” When I came back with the tray, she had finished applying the ointment and was out of bed. Usually, I was the one keeping the conversation going, but I was in a terrible mood today, so we ate in silence. I pulled a test paper out of my bag. “They handed this out today. With your grades, it doesn’t matter if you don’t do it.” Abby was a master at hiding her true potential. She purposely kept her grades slightly above average—not terrible, but never standing out. She took the paper from me and coughed twice. I stared at her pale face, feeling my chest tighten. “Are you sick?” The moment I asked, I felt stupid. Who wouldn’t be sick after kneeling in the freezing snow for two hours? “I’m fine,” she said flatly. I didn’t believe her. I ran to my room and grabbed the first-aid kit. Unsurprisingly, she was running a high fever. Thank god we had the right medicine in the box. Looking at her miserable state, my nose started to sting. I tried to hold it back, but I couldn’t. Fat tears started rolling down my face. For the first time, Abby looked panicked. “What’s wrong?” I shook my head. “Nothing. I just feel so useless.” In the beginning, I only took care of her to save my own skin. But after spending so many years together, I truly saw her as my family, my friend. Yet every time she suffered, I was powerless to stop it. I could only stand by and watch. Abby shifted on the bed. She reached out and placed her hand gently on my head. “I don’t blame you. Stop crying.” Hearing that made me want to cry even harder. I couldn’t help it—I lunged forward, wrapped my arms around her, and sobbed for a good ten minutes. She froze completely, her body rigid, but she didn’t push me away. When I finally stopped crying, I realized what I had just done and was too embarrassed to look her in the eye. “Get some rest,” I mumbled, scrambling toward the door. “I’m going to do my homework.” The next day, her fever was worse. I woke up extra early to sneak her some breakfast and medicine, only to find I couldn’t even wake her up. My eyes got hot. I took a deep breath, blinked hard, and forced myself to act completely normal. I packed away the food and medicine, made sure my face wasn’t red, and walked out to the dining room for breakfast. I frowned, putting on my best annoyed brat act. “Is she not going to school again today?” Mary paused while serving porridge. “I think she’s still feeling unwell.” I scoffed loudly. “Get a doctor to look at her. If something happens to her, Dad is just going to come home and scream at Mom again.” Mary nodded quickly. “You’re right. I’ll let the butler know right away.” I let out a breath. If the butler knew, my father would find out, and there was no way he would let her die of a fever. I spent the entire day at school completely distracted. I kept staring at her empty desk, wondering if the doctor ever showed up. I prayed her brain didn’t get fried by the fever. It wasn’t until I rushed home and saw her sitting on the couch that my heart finally settled back into my chest. Thank god she was alive. I rushed over, worried. “Why are you out of bed?”

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This marriage was destined to be a business transaction from day one. My family’s company desperately needed a massive infusion of capital to stay afloat, and his family was drowning in a messy, high-stakes legal battle. We each had something the other needed. That was the only reason we walked down the aisle. From the moment we said our vows, we slept in separate bedrooms. I remember mustering up the courage shortly after the wedding to ask if I could move my things into the master suite. He rejected the idea without a second of hesitation. His reason was simple. Caroline would mind. Caroline. His first love. The girl he could never let go of. He looked at me with ice in his eyes and added that if it had not been for me, they would not have ended up like this. He told me to just leave things as they were. I stood there frozen. It took me a long time to force a single, pathetic “okay” past the lump in my throat. I never brought up sharing a bed again. For three years, no matter the occasion, the woman standing by his side was always Caroline. She was at his family dinners. She was on his arm at the corporate galas. Even at my own mother’s birthday party, she was the one hovering near him. Everyone whispered behind my back. They all gossiped about who the real mistress of the house actually was. But it didn’t matter anymore. The financial crisis was averted, and the lawsuits were settled. It was finally time for me to leave. 1 I sat in the study, reading the divorce settlement from top to bottom one last time. Black ink on white paper. Crystal clear. Under the asset division section, I asked for absolutely nothing. The sprawling estate belonged to him before we married, so he kept it. The luxury cars stayed with him. His company shares had nothing to do with me. I only needed the money I had in my own savings account. I picked up a pen and signed my name on the dotted line. Serena Kensington. Three years ago, I was stupid enough to think that even though this marriage started as a corporate deal, maybe we could build something real. I was such a fool. I slid the documents into a manila envelope and left it on the coffee table. Then I picked up my phone and opened my text thread with him. “Come home early tonight. There’s something we need to discuss.” About two minutes later, a single word popped up on the screen. “Okay.” I locked my phone and tossed it onto the sofa. Turning around, I walked into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. It was a massive, gorgeous kitchen. It featured a double-door smart fridge, built-in dual ovens, and imported German cookware, all arranged in pristine order. But I rarely used any of it. When we first got married, I tried cooking a few times. I wanted him to have a hot meal waiting for him after a long day at the office. The first time, I spent hours making a slow-roasted beef brisket. He took one bite and said it was decent. Then his phone rang. He grabbed his coat and walked out the door, saying Caroline had an emergency. The second time, I made pan-seared sea bass. He never came home at all. The third time, I prepared an entire feast. I stood over the stove from four in the afternoon until seven in the evening. He actually came home that night, but Caroline was trailing right behind him. They walked in laughing and joking. When he saw the dining table covered in food, he paused for a second before shaking his head. “We already made reservations. We’re eating out.” Caroline stood behind his shoulder, tilting her head to look at me. She offered a sickeningly sweet smile. “You worked so hard for nothing.” Just thinking about that smile makes my stomach churn with acid. I never cooked for him again. Seven o’clock rolled around. He wasn’t home. Eight o’clock. Still empty. At nine, my phone finally buzzed. I glanced at the screen. It was a text from him. “Caroline is dealing with some stuff. I’m going to be late. Go to sleep first, don’t wait up.” I stared at those words for a very long time. Go to sleep first. Don’t wait up. I had been reading those exact words for three years. It was always like this. It was always Caroline. She was a walking disaster zone, and he was her personal first responder. If she caught a cold, he had to be there. If she felt sad, he had to be there. He helped her move apartments. He even held her hand when she adopted a stray cat. Once, Caroline mentioned she was craving a specific slice of cake from a bakery across town. He drove forty minutes in gridlock traffic to buy it, delivered it to her condo, and waited until she finished eating before heading back. He walked through the front door at 1 AM. I asked him if he had eaten dinner. He said he already ate at Caroline’s place. Then he took a shower and went straight to sleep in the guest room. I should have woken up and smelled the coffee that night. But I didn’t. I kept tricking myself into believing that since we were legally bound, we owed it to each other to try. I thought that if enough time passed, he would realize I wasn’t a monster. I thought that if I played the perfect, understanding wife, he would eventually turn around and see me. Looking back, it was completely delusional. If someone doesn’t have a space for you in their heart, bending over backwards will only break your spine. He wasn’t going to fall in love with me just because I was a good wife. He just felt entitled to my goodness. I didn’t reply to his text. In the past, I would always send back a polite “Okay” to let him know I understood. Sometimes I would even add a pathetic “drive safe,” desperately trying to show him how graceful and mature I was. But tonight, I didn’t want to reply. It didn’t matter anyway. In a few days, I would never receive a text from him again. 2 I left my phone on the coffee table and grabbed the remote to change the channel. A reality show was playing. A bunch of celebrities were laughing hysterically at some pointless joke. I leaned back against the cushions. The contrast between the bright, noisy television and my dead, silent reality felt completely absurd. Here I was, sitting in a multi-million dollar mansion, chained to a ghost of a marriage, waiting for a man who would never prioritize me. And he was out keeping his first love company. He did it openly. He felt completely justified. Because on the day we got our marriage license, he made his stance crystal clear. If it weren’t for me, he and Caroline would be living happily ever after. In his eyes, I was the villain who tore them apart. I was the ruthless heiress who shoved her way into his life, using my family’s connections and his company’s lawsuit to force a ring onto his finger. But what was the actual truth? The truth was that my father’s business was bleeding cash and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Arthur’s corporation was drowning in a catastrophic lawsuit that only my family’s political network could make disappear. The patriarchs of both families sat down over an expensive dinner and finalized the merger. Nobody asked me if I wanted to be a bride. Nobody asked him if he wanted to be a groom. To the rest of the world, it was a perfectly balanced business deal. He provided the funding. My family provided the muscle. A clean exchange. Caroline was just the unfortunate collateral damage. Arthur firmly believed I had stolen her rightful place. I had forced her to step down from the role of the beloved girlfriend to the tragic, hidden ex. So he poured all his guilt into spoiling Caroline, and he saved all his freezing indifference for me. On our wedding night, he drank himself into a stupor. His groomsmen had to drag him into the house. I tried to help him take off his suit jacket and loosen his tie. He grabbed my wrist with a grip so tight it bruised. “Serena Kensington.” He spat my full name, his voice ragged and slurred. “You know exactly what this marriage is. I don’t love you, and I will never love you as long as I breathe. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll play the quiet little wife and stay out of my way. Do not expect me to ever touch you.” He let go of my wrist, stumbled down the hallway, and locked himself in the guest bedroom. We slept in separate rooms from that night forward. He took the guest room. I took the master suite. Thinking about it now, over the course of three years, he had only stepped foot in the master bedroom twice. The first time was on our wedding night to deliver that speech. The second time was last winter when I caught a nasty virus. My fever spiked to 103 degrees, and I was delirious. The housekeeper panicked and called him. He showed up two hours later, stood in the doorway of the bedroom, stared at me for ten seconds, and told the housekeeper to take me to the ER. Then he left. He said Caroline had an incredibly important social event, and he needed to be her plus-one. He didn’t come home at all that night. When I woke up at seven the next morning, I checked my phone. My screen was completely blank. Not a single text checking to see if I was alive. I washed my face and walked downstairs. The housekeeper, Martha, was already prepping breakfast. When she saw me walking down alone, she opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, and finally just asked gently what I wanted to eat. “Just some plain oatmeal, please.” I sat at the kitchen island. My phone screen finally lit up. It was a text from him. “Caroline drank too much last night. I stayed at her place to take care of her. I have a morning meeting, so I’m heading straight to the office.” I put the phone face down and took a spoonful of hot oatmeal. “Martha, could you do me a favor and buy some heavy-duty cardboard boxes today?” She froze, holding a spatula in mid-air. “Are you moving, ma’am?” “Yes. In a few days.” She parted her lips, clearly wanting to ask a million questions, but one look at my exhausted expression made her swallow her words. She had worked in this house for three years. She had eyes. She knew exactly what was going on. “Right away, ma’am.” 3 She nodded and turned back to the stove. I finished my breakfast, went upstairs, and changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater. I had an appointment with a leasing agent today. I needed to secure a new place before walking out of this toxic mansion. I didn’t ask for a dime in the divorce settlement, but that didn’t mean I was destitute. I had a healthy amount of savings from before the marriage. Even though I hadn’t worked a corporate job for the past three years, Arthur’s family automatically deposited a hefty monthly allowance into my account. I barely touched it, so it had piled up into a small fortune. It was more than enough to rent a nice luxury apartment and live comfortably for a year or two without breaking a sweat. I would figure out the rest of my life later. The leasing agent was a bubbly young woman with a high ponytail who talked a mile a minute. She showed me a sleek two-bedroom apartment on the East Side, just outside the chaotic city center, surrounded by greenery. “Miss Kensington, the natural light in this unit is to die for. The landlord just completely renovated the place. All the appliances and furniture are brand new. It’s going for four thousand a month. What do you think?” I stood on the balcony. The view was entirely unobstructed, overlooking a beautiful public park. It wasn’t a mansion, but it was perfect for one person. More importantly, there were absolutely zero memories of Arthur Harrington polluting the space. “It’s perfect. I’ll take it.” The girl blinked, clearly shocked that I was signing without haggling or hesitating. She broke into a massive grin. “Oh, wonderful! Let me get the paperwork ready and call the landlord right now!” I signed a one-year lease on the spot and wired the deposit and first month’s rent. When I walked out of the building with the keys in my hand, the afternoon sun felt incredibly warm against my skin. I stood on the sidewalk, tossing the keys in my palm, feeling a crushing weight finally lift off my chest. When I got back to the mansion later that afternoon, Martha had already stacked a dozen folded moving boxes in the living room. I was just about to carry a few upstairs to tackle my closet when the front door clicked open. I didn’t turn around, but my gut already told me who it was. Sure enough, a familiar, sickly-sweet voice echoed behind me. “Oh, you’re home.” I turned around. Caroline was standing in the foyer. She noticed the cardboard boxes in my hands. Her gaze flickered over my casual clothes before landing on my face. “Are you packing?” I completely ignored her question and asked one of my own in a flat tone. “Why are you here?” “Arthur brought me.” She stepped further into the house, looking around like she owned the place. “My lease expired, and I haven’t found a new condo yet. He told me to crash here. Said I could stay as long as I need.” I gave a curt nod and let out a flat “Oh.” Caroline clearly hadn’t anticipated such a deadpan reaction. Her smug smile faltered for a second. “You don’t mind, do you?” She tilted her head, giving me a look of fake innocence. “I mean, I told him it might be a little awkward, but Arthur absolutely insisted. He said…” “If he told you to stay, then stay.” I cut her off abruptly. “It’s a big house. There are plenty of rooms.” She tightened her lips, striding over to the plush living room sofa and sitting down like a queen on her throne. “You really are so generous.” “You were generous enough to force your way into this marriage, and now you’re generous enough to let me move in.” I looked at her, suddenly finding the whole situation incredibly amusing. I didn’t bother validating her petty bait. I turned on my heel and headed for the stairs. Feeling completely dismissed, Caroline raised her voice, her tone turning sharp. “Serena Kensington, I am talking to you.” I paused on the first step and looked over my shoulder. “I heard you.” “But you didn’t come here to make polite conversation with me, so why are we wasting each other’s time?” “I have packing to do.” Caroline shot up from the sofa. The fake, polite smile completely vanished from her face. “You’re leaving?” she blurted out, her voice dripping with disbelief. “Obviously.” “Did you think I was going to stick around to be the third wheel in my own house?” 4 Caroline stood completely paralyzed by the sofa. I turned back around and marched up the stairs, leaving her alone in the massive living room. I opened the doors to my walk-in closet and started pulling dresses off their hangers. After three years of marriage, I didn’t actually have that many clothes. Arthur had never taken me shopping. He had never bought me a single gift. No anniversary presents. No birthday surprises. Definitely no Valentine’s Day flowers. Thinking about it now, my dedication was truly pathetic. I folded my last cashmere coat, tucked it into the box, and was just reaching for the packing tape when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Arthur. “I have a business dinner tonight. I won’t be home to eat. Caroline just moved in, so be a good host and help her get settled in the guest suite.” I locked the screen, tossed the phone onto the bed, and kept taping my boxes. By the time the sun started setting, my closet and study were completely boxed up. When I walked downstairs, Caroline was sitting elegantly on the sofa, sipping an espresso. Hearing my footsteps, she glanced up. Her eyes instantly locked onto the manila envelope resting on the coffee table. “What’s that?” I didn’t answer. I just walked over, adjusted the envelope so it sat perfectly in the center of the table, and sat down in the armchair across from her. Caroline stared at the thick envelope for a few seconds before letting out a short, mocking laugh. “Divorce papers?” I stayed silent, letting my silence act as a confirmation. Her eyes immediately lit up. It wasn’t shock in her gaze—it was pure, unfiltered thrill. “Are you seriously divorcing him?” “Yes.” “When?” “Whenever he gets home. I’ll tell him tonight.” I crossed my legs and leaned back. “This marriage was just a business transaction to begin with. Now that the companies are stable, dragging this out doesn’t benefit anyone.” She stared at me for a long time, her eyes narrowing as she tried to read me. “Serena.” She dropped her voice into a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “Do you really not love him? Or is this just some desperate act to get his attention?” The question actually caught me off guard for a second. Did I not love him? Three years ago, when I first put on the white dress, I was full of hope. The man waiting at the altar was devastatingly handsome, fiercely intelligent, and commanded every room he walked into. I honestly believed that if I was just flawless enough, considerate enough, and patient enough, the ice around his heart would melt and he would finally look at me. But it didn’t take long for reality to crush that delusion into dust. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” I looked Caroline dead in the eyes. “Whether I loved him or not, it’s over.” At nine o’clock sharp, the front door opened, and Arthur walked in. His eyes immediately found Caroline sitting on the sofa, and the hard lines of his face softened into something warm. “Caroline. Are you settling in okay?” Caroline beamed at him, her voice dripping with honey. “It’s been wonderful.” Only then did Arthur bother to acknowledge my existence. His gaze swept over me, drifted down to the manila envelope on the coffee table, and finally landed on the stack of moving boxes piled near the stairs. He frowned slightly. “What’s with the cardboard boxes?” I stood up from the armchair, picked up the envelope, and held it out to him. “Arthur. We need to talk.” He didn’t reach for the envelope right away. He just stared at me, a flicker of genuine confusion in his dark eyes. “What is this?” “Divorce papers.” 5 The living room fell into a suffocating silence. Caroline gripped the handle of her espresso cup so tightly her knuckles turned white. She didn’t blink, her eyes glued to Arthur’s face. Arthur looked down at me. His expression barely shifted. There was no anger. No panic. Not even a trace of surprise. He just stayed quiet for a few agonizing seconds before finally reaching out and taking the envelope from my hand. “When did you draft this?” “Last week.” He pulled the thick stack of papers out and scanned the pages from top to bottom. When he reached the section detailing the division of assets, his frown deepened into a harsh crease. “You’re not asking for a single cent?” “No.” “You don’t even want the house?” “This estate is your pre-marital asset. It has nothing to do with me.” He slowly lifted his eyes to meet mine. There was an emotion swirling in his gaze that I couldn’t quite decipher. “Serena, are you throwing a tantrum?” I almost laughed in his face. A tantrum? You only throw a tantrum when you still desperately care about someone and want them to prove they love you back. My heart was completely dead. What was there to throw a tantrum over? “I’m not throwing a tantrum.” “I am dead serious. We got married because our families needed it. The crisis is over. There’s zero logical reason to keep pretending.” Arthur stared at me, the silence stretching out between us. He looked at me as if he was studying a stranger, trying to calculate my hidden angle. “Are you absolutely sure about this?” “Crystal clear.” He tossed the legal documents onto the coffee table, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and sank heavily onto the sofa. “Fine,” he said. One word. Cold, sharp, and totally void of hesitation. Beside him, Caroline sucked in a sharp breath, immediately ducking her head to hide the triumphant smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth. Watching her terrible acting, I realized my heart wasn’t reacting at all. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t heartbroken. I didn’t feel wronged. I just felt numb. “When are you going to sign it?” I asked. Arthur leaned back against the leather cushions and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tomorrow. I had drinks at the dinner tonight. I have a headache.” “Alright.” I turned to walk up the stairs when his voice stopped me. “Serena.” I paused on the bottom step but didn’t look back. “Where are you going to stay after you move out?” “I already signed a lease on an apartment.” Silence hung in the air behind me for a few seconds. “If you don’t have a place lined up right away, you can stay in one of the guest rooms.” He said it so casually, like he was offering a stray dog a blanket in the garage. I turned around and looked down at him. He was sitting on the sofa, his jacket still on, his tie loosened and crooked. He looked incredibly drained. Caroline pressed her lips together, clearly livid that he was offering me a place to stay under the same roof as her. “No need. Once I walk out that door, I’m never coming back.” I turned back around and walked up the stairs. Behind me, I could hear Caroline murmuring something in a hushed, placating voice. Arthur muttered a low reply, the words muffled by the distance. But right before I closed my bedroom door, I distinctly heard Caroline let out a soft, victorious laugh. The next morning, when I walked downstairs, Arthur was already sitting at the dining table. He was wearing a tailored navy loungewear set. His hair was messy, a few dark strands falling over his forehead, making his sharp features look even more striking. A cup of black coffee and an untouched sandwich sat in front of him, but his attention was entirely locked on his phone. Martha was bustling around the kitchen. Hearing my footsteps, she popped her head out. “Ma’am, what would you like for breakfast?” “Just the oatmeal, Martha. Thanks.” I pulled out a chair at the opposite end of the long dining table, leaving three empty seats between us. He glanced up from his screen, looked at me, and set his phone face down on the table. “I signed the papers.” I looked up from my bowl and saw the manila envelope sitting squarely on the center console. “You were right.” He picked up his mug and took a slow sip of black coffee. “Ending this quickly is the best move for both of us.” If anyone else had said that to me, I probably would have felt a sting of humiliation. But coming from him? It was exactly what I expected. “I’ll go file the paperwork at the courthouse today.” “Okay.” He set his mug down. His dark eyes locked onto my face and stayed there for two uncomfortable seconds. “Serena, did you ever regret these last three years?” 6 The question came completely out of left field. I froze for a second, then genuinely thought about it. “Regret isn’t the right word. It just feels like a massive waste of time.” His index finger twitched against the mahogany table. It was a microscopic movement, but I caught it. “A waste of time.” He repeated the four words slowly, testing the weight of them. “You think being married to me was a waste of time?” “What else would you call it?” I shot back. “Do you honestly think anything from the last three years is worth remembering?” He didn’t answer. “In three years of marriage, how many times did you sit down and eat dinner with me? How many nights did you actually come home? Do you know my favorite food? Do you even know my birthday?” I pushed the bowl of oatmeal away and stared him down. “You don’t. You don’t know a damn thing about me. Because for the last three years, every single ounce of your energy was dedicated to Caroline.” His mask finally cracked. A deep furrow appeared between his brows, and his jaw tightened. “When you agreed to this marriage, you knew exactly what the dynamic was going to be,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “I know.” I nodded calmly. “That’s exactly why I never blamed you. Like I said, it was a transaction. We got what we needed. Now the deal is over, and we go our separate ways.” I stood up, walked over to the console, and picked up the envelope. I pulled the papers out to check. On the very last page, his signature—Arthur Harrington—was slashed across the line in bold, aggressive ink. He actually signed it. I suddenly felt like the last three years had been a suffocating fever dream. Now I was finally waking up, holding the only proof that it ever happened. “Let’s go. To the courthouse,” I said. He gave a curt nod, turned around, and went upstairs to change, leaving me alone in the dining room. Five minutes later, he came back down. He was wearing a charcoal wool overcoat and black trousers. He looked immaculate, sharp, and untouchable. He grabbed his car keys from the foyer tray and shot me a look. “Let’s go.” The drive to the courthouse was agonizingly silent. You could hear a pin drop in the luxury sedan. He drove with aggressive precision, both hands gripping the leather steering wheel, his eyes locked dead ahead. He didn’t say a single word. I sat in the passenger seat, watching the city skyline blur past the tinted window. As we drove past a familiar intersection, I spotted a specific French bakery. It was the exact bakery Caroline was obsessed with. The same bakery Arthur had spent two hours driving through gridlock traffic just to buy her a slice of cake. “In the last three years, was there anything you wanted to do but didn’t get the chance to?” he suddenly asked, shattering the silence. I blinked, completely thrown by the question. “Yes.” “What was it?” “I wanted to see the Northern Lights.” “I’ve always wanted to go, but taking a trip like that alone felt pathetic.” He fell silent for a long time. “You can go with friends now.” “Yeah.” We didn’t speak again. The courthouse wasn’t busy. The clerk took our IDs and the signed settlement, running through the mandatory checklist in a bored, bureaucratic drone. “Are both parties consenting to this divorce?” “Yes,” I said. “Yes,” he echoed. “Are there any disputes regarding the division of assets?” “No.” “No.” The clerk slammed a heavy stamp down on the papers and slid two pristine divorce decrees across the counter. Dark blue covers with gold foil lettering. I opened mine. The date of dissolution was stamped starkly across the page. Today. When we walked out of the courthouse, the midday sun was blinding. I had to squint against the glare. Arthur stood next to me on the concrete steps, holding his copy of the decree. He stared straight ahead at the bustling street, and suddenly, he spoke. “Serena, I’m sorry.”

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I was born fragile and spoiled rotten, the kind of heiress who threw a fit if the tea was a degree too cold. So, when night fell, I did what I always did. I ordered my handsome, fiercely loyal butler to my room to keep me company until I fell asleep. But suddenly, lines of bizarre, glowing text floated across my vision without any warning. The floating words claimed that a terrifying final boss was currently slaughtering players outside, and absolutely did not have the time to coax me to sleep or tuck me in. The text sneered that I was nothing more than a pet kept in this gothic manor by the monster, a fragile little toy for his amusement. It told me to stop acting like a high and mighty princess. Worse still, the words predicted that the moment this boss met the smart, resourceful heroine of the game, he would grow utterly disgusted by a whiny diva like me. The text said he would torture me using the most twisted methods imaginable before eating me alive, bite by bite. I trembled violently, yanking my velvet quilt all the way up over my head. A second later, a pair of ice-cold hands gently peeled the blankets back. A voice, incredibly soft but laced with a bone-deep, shadowy chill, hovered right above my face. “My lady, whatever is the matter?” 1 My whole body shook even harder. Those hands paused for a fraction of a second before moving to cradle the back of my head, touch impossibly tender. Just like he had done for countless nights before. His thumb stroked through my hair, the pressure absolutely perfect. “Are you feeling unwell tonight, my lady?” Silas sounded exactly the same as always. Deep, soothing, laced with genuine concern. He reached out to check my forehead for a fever. A floating comment slid past my eyes: “Can’t blame the spoiled brat for not suspecting a thing. If I hadn’t literally just watched the boss snap a player’s neck with a smile on his face, I’d fall for that gentle mask too.” Snap a neck? My spine locked up. I slapped his hand away the second it came near me. The brief contact with his palm was so freezing it sent a violent shiver straight through my bones. “Get away from me! Your hands are like ice. Are you trying to freeze me to death?” I forced myself to sit up, desperately putting on my usual arrogant, untouchable act. Silas wasn’t angry. He simply withdrew his hand, a look of indulgent amusement actually playing on his flawless lips. “My apologies, my lady. I was just dealing with some frozen goods. The cold must have lingered on my skin.” Frozen goods? My eyes darted to the crisp white cuff of his dress shirt. There was a faint, dark red smear on the fabric. A flurry of text rolled past: “LMAO frozen goods. You mean those players he dismembered and shoved into the meat locker?” “Good thing the diva is lazy and loves rotting in her room. If she actually took a walk around the manor, she’d realize how screwed she is.” “I read the leaks. This brat gets sliced into sashimi by the boss and eaten raw at the end.” “Well, the boss grew this ingredient himself. At least he knows she’s organic, haha!” Sashimi? Me? As the words kept scrolling, pure terror seized my chest. My body was already weak, and the sudden spike of adrenaline sent me into a violent coughing fit. Silas immediately sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing circles into my back while guiding a glass of warm water to my lips. It tasted faintly of honey. Sweet and soothing. The coughing finally subsided, and my racing heart began to settle. I looked up, really looking at the man in front of me for the first time. As the most attentive butler in Blackwood Manor, Silas always wore a pristine black tailcoat. His facial features were sculpted and deep, his skin carrying a sickly, vampiric pallor. Every move he made dripped with dark, aristocratic elegance. He didn’t look like a butler. He looked like the true master of the manor. Noticing my unblinking stare, Silas swallowed. I swore a flash of crimson cut through his silver-grey eyes. He raised his hands and began loosening his tie. I immediately realized what was happening and panicked. “Stop! Keep your clothes on!” His jacket was already off. His fingers paused right at his leather belt. He looked at me, a flicker of genuine confusion crossing his face before realization dawned. “How thoughtless of me. Allow me to shower first, my lady. I will change into that servant outfit you adore so much.” Before I could even open my mouth to protest, he vanished from the room like a ghost. 2 I had never regretted anything more in my life. The manor was massive and suffocatingly dark. Even though Silas had decorated my bedroom to look like a cozy haven, with warm tapestries on the walls, fluffy wool rugs, and beautiful porcelain dolls lined up on the shelves, I was still terrified of sleeping alone. Every single night, I commanded Silas to come in and coax me to sleep. The kind of coaxing that involved him getting into my bed. I always made him strip off that stiff, formal tailcoat, leaving only a thin, white undershirt. He would pull me against his chest and read me fairy tales. I never actually listened to a word of those stories. I only cared about the feeling of being pressed against his rock-hard abs and the sharp V-line of his hips. Floating text: “Damn it, the diva is making the boss strip and cuddle her again!” “Move over and let me tag in! The boss is so hot, I want to sleep on his chest and feel those abs!” “You guys are delusional. This monster is a bloodthirsty psycho. Everything you see is a trap. Humans are just bugs to him. Who falls in love with a bug?” “Only the brave, smart heroine gets his affection! This spoiled brat is a coward with a dirty mind. It’s a miracle she’s survived this long ordering him around.” Me, the walking miracle, was currently having a mental breakdown. I hadn’t even processed half of what the floating words were telling me. In the blink of an eye, I had gone from the pampered lady of the house to a literal snack. So, when Silas returned wearing my favorite unbuttoned shirt and pulled me into his arms to read, I felt absolutely nothing. Even with his firm chest pressed flush against mine, the mood was dead. He noticed. He stopped reading, casually popping open two more buttons on his shirt to expose more skin. In my mind, Silas was now a merciless, slaughtering demon. I was terrified of him. But old habits die hard, and my hand instinctively slipped inside his shirt. His body was just too perfect. My fingers traced his skin, slowly drifting downward. Silas let out a low, muffled groan. His breathing grew heavy, the rhythm ragged. A moment later, his large hand clamped gently over my wrist, stopping me. “My lady, you cannot go any lower.” Floating text: “Ahhh keep your hands off him! Let me do it!” “See? The boss only sees her as a pet. He’d never actually let her cross the line!” “He belongs to the heroine! Get your filthy hands off him, you brat!” I bit my lip. The comments were right. Silas let me get away with murder on a daily basis because I hadn’t pushed his actual boundaries yet. Normally, I would have thrown a tantrum and kept going. He was just a butler. He couldn’t refuse his master. But now, all I could think about was becoming his midnight sashimi. I squeezed my eyes shut and yanked my hand out of his shirt. Silas froze. He clearly hadn’t expected me to actually back off. He lowered his gaze, his expression suddenly dark and utterly unreadable. “My lady, if you truly desire it, I could…” “I don’t. Get out of my room right now. I don’t want to hear any more stories. You don’t need to come at night anymore.” I scrambled out of his arms, wrapping myself tightly in the quilt and turning my back to him. The moment the words left my mouth, the temperature in the room plummeted. Even with my eyes closed, I could feel it. The heavy, suffocating weight of Silas staring unblinkingly at my back from the darkness. It felt like the cold, slimy coils of a viper slithering over every inch of my skin. “Are you dissatisfied with my performance tonight, my lady?” It was a trap. A deadly, literal trap. My heart hammered against my ribs as my brain desperately spun a lie. “Isn’t it obvious? You’re freezing! You’re so cold I can’t even get comfortable!” The comments mentioned that monsters ran colder than humans. I technically wasn’t lying. Silas didn’t say a word. The silence in the room was deafening. I swallowed hard, fully preparing myself to die right there in my bed. Suddenly, the warmth returned. That crushing, horrific pressure vanished completely, as if I had imagined the whole thing. The mattress shifted as he stood up. He even paused to tuck the edges of my blanket in. “I understand.” “Sleep well, my lady.” He walked out. It took hours for the tension to leave my muscles. That oppressive, murderous aura he had just leaked… it was terrifying. So that was the real Silas. 3 After that night, the floating text showed up all the time. I walked out into the grand corridor. Text: “The diva is so clueless. Has she never actually looked at the wallpaper?” I stiffly turned my head toward the walls. The elegant crimson floral patterns I had passed a hundred times suddenly snapped into horrifying focus. If I squinted, those flower petals weren’t flowers at all. They were bloody handprints, dragged downward in pure agony by people trying to escape. I slapped a hand over my mouth and practically ran to the main parlor. The parlor was a masterpiece of gothic luxury, brightly lit, with a massive crimson carpet covering the stone floor. Just as I let out a sigh of relief… Text: “The boss literally entertains the players here before massacring them. That carpet isn’t red fabric. It’s dyed with human blood.” “Those candles burning on the tables? Rendered from human fat.” “And the grand chandelier up there is sculpted from cracked skulls.” I had nowhere to hide. Through the lens of these floating words, the gorgeous manor I called home melted away into a blood-soaked slaughterhouse. The quiet, efficient maids and footmen? Flesh-eating monsters in disguise. The beautiful rose bushes in the garden? Carnivorous plants that drained humans dry. And Silas. The true lord of the manor. He was the most brutal anomaly in this entire horror dimension. He delighted in hunting players in the most agonizing ways possible. No one had ever survived more than three nights here. Except me. Not only had I lived in luxury for three years, but I had strutted around treating this psycho boss like my personal footstool. I was officially panicking. According to the text, the heroine was arriving in half a month. That would be my execution date. I had to find a way out of this game. I had to get away from Silas. 4 When I casually brought up the idea of taking a stroll outside the manor grounds, Silas gracefully lifted my hand and pressed a soft kiss to my knuckles. “My lady, I have told you before. The outside world is far too dangerous.” I faked a bratty scowl. “I don’t care! I’m suffocating in this dusty old house. I want fresh air!” A thoughtful look crossed his pale features. “If you insist. I will accompany you.” I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t planning to run today anyway; I just needed to map out the escape routes. I spun around to head out the doors, but Silas’s arm shot out to block me. My stomach dropped, thinking he’d changed his mind. Instead, he took a thick velvet cloak from a terrified-looking maid and meticulously draped it over my shoulders. “It is bitterly cold outside, and your constitution is delicate. We must keep you warm.” His expression was so serious, so focused. He looked like a devoted caretaker genuinely terrified I might catch a cold. My spoiled, impossible personality was honestly entirely his fault for enabling me this much. Fully bundled up, we set off. The woods surrounding the estate were damp and pitch black, echoing with the distant, guttural shrieks of monsters. But with the ultimate boss walking right next to me, nothing dared to show its face. I barely walked a mile before I got tired. Out of pure habit, I ordered Silas to carry me. A split second later, I realized that acting like a diva was a fast track to the meat locker. I opened my mouth to take it back, but I was already swept off my feet into his arms. His signature scent—crushed pine and winter frost—filled my lungs. I pressed my face against his chest as he walked, his stride effortless. “Next time you wish to leave the house, simply tell me to carry you from the start. You needn’t tire your own feet.” I blinked in surprise. Mostly because he didn’t feel like a corpse anymore. “You’re… really warm today.” Silas looked down. “Does this mean I am permitted to return to your bed tonight, my lady?” Staring into those hypnotic silver eyes, my brain short-circuited. “Yes.” The corner of his mouth curved into a breathtaking smirk. He pressed his lips to my forehead. “It would be my absolute honor.” The forest was massive, and the manor sat at its dead center. We only mapped the inner perimeter before heading back. As soon as we returned, my coughing flared up again. Text: “She’s just a normal human. Staying inside a horror dimension this long is rotting her body from the inside out.” “Even if the boss doesn’t kill her, she’ll drop dead on her own pretty soon.” Silas walked in carrying a steaming bowl of medicine. He blew on every spoonful until the temperature was perfect before pressing it to my lips. When the bowl was empty, he pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and gently dabbed the corners of my mouth. Then he left to prepare my afternoon tea. The truth was, Silas hadn’t known how to take care of a human when I first met him. I had trained him. Sometimes, I found myself drowning in the custom-built paradise he created for me. The comments were right. Monsters were natural-born manipulators. But I didn’t belong here. I snapped out of my daze. My resolve hardened. I had to escape. 5 That night, Silas showered and came to my room. Just like old times, he pulled me against his chest and started reading. His body heat was completely normal now. Out of sheer reflex, I snuggled deeper into his embrace. He stroked my hair. “Comfortable, my lady?” I nodded. Even while telling myself to stay sharp, the next morning I woke up sprawled all over him. My arms were locked around his neck, my leg thrown over his waist. It was muscle memory at this point. I opened my eyes to find him staring at me, those silver-grey eyes crinkling at the corners. I went completely rigid. “Good morning, Silas.” “Good morning, my lady.” His voice was naturally raspy and unfairly sexy in the morning. He sat up, dropping a lazy kiss on my forehead. “Sleep a little longer. I’ll go prepare breakfast.” Once he was gone, I jumped out of bed and started pacing the halls. If I was going to run, I needed cardio. Pacing a castle this huge was a solid workout. After a while, I noticed how eerily silent the manor was today. Text: “A fresh batch of human players is getting dropped into the meat grinder today.” “Shame the heroine isn’t in this batch. She could have met the boss early.” “Can the diva just die already? She’s living the dream up there and I’m jealous!” New players? Today? Thinking back, the manor did receive “guests” every now and then. I had just never cared. I stayed up in the penthouse suite living my best life. I had no idea what happened downstairs. Whenever I heard screaming, Silas just told me the staff was catching rats. … I assumed tonight would be like all the others. I went back to my room to stretch. Suddenly, my bedroom door burst open. A man covered in blood and dirt stumbled inside. He stared at the pink plushies and lace curtains in absolute shock. When he spotted me, he immediately leveled a rusted pipe at my head. But after a few seconds, realizing I was just a human girl in pajamas, his aggressive stance broke into frantic desperation. “How did you get up here? I didn’t see you downstairs!” I was just as stunned as he was. I couldn’t believe a player had actually survived the monsters, evaded Silas, and made it to the forbidden top floor. He clearly thought I was just another player trying to survive the game. The guy lowered his pipe and rushed over, sweating profusely. “You used an item to teleport up here, right? Listen to me, almost everyone downstairs is dead. The boss is going to realize we’re gone any second. We have to run!” My eyes lit up. “You know a way out?” His face fell. “I found the secret escape tunnel. But the door is locked, and the master key is on the boss. It’s impossible.” He gripped his hair in despair, his voice cracking. “We were so close. We’re going to die here…” Keys? I casually reached into my bedside drawer and pulled out a massive iron ring heavy with brass keys. “I’ve got all the keys right here.” His jaw hit the floor. “How the hell did you get those?!” Silas had personally handed them to me, of course. I needed them to access the locked conservatories for my walks. I lied through my teeth: “Found them under the bed.” He snatched the ring, tears of relief in his eyes. “Oh my god. We’re getting out. We’re actually going to escape!” I was thrilled. What a stroke of luck. Following the guy’s lead, we practically sprinted down the hidden servants’ stairs and found the iron door to the tunnel. The key turned with a heavy clack. We both let out a massive breath and slipped inside. The tunnel was damp and seemingly endless. A single candle flickered on the stone walls every fifty feet, providing terrible visibility. The deeper we went, the darker it got. After what felt like hours, a faint bluish light appeared in the distance. The guy choked back a sob. “The exit! We did it! We’re actually clearing an SSS-rank game!” The crushing weight on my chest finally lifted. I picked up my pace. “Careful, babe, the ground gets uneven here,” the guy called back. I nodded, but a second later my foot caught on a jagged rock. I pitched forward. Before I hit the dirt, a strong arm clamped around my waist, catching me effortlessly. “Thanks for the catch,” I breathed. Up ahead, the guy stopped. “What? I didn’t catch you. I’m over here.” My blood ran cold. The absolute worst premonition slammed into my gut. A second later, freezing breath brushed against the back of my neck. A dark, amused whisper slid directly into my ear. “You should be thanking me, my lady.” The moment the words left his lips, every single unlit candle in the mile-long tunnel violently erupted into dark red flames. The claustrophobic space was instantly illuminated in a hellish crimson glow. Silas’s terrifying aura completely swallowed me from behind, drowning me in his cold pine scent. The guy ahead of us slowly turned around. When he saw the man holding my waist, his pupils shrank to pinpricks. He stumbled backward, his legs giving out completely. “T-The Boss!” he screamed, dropping to his knees. Silas didn’t even look at him. He was staring down at me, the silver in his eyes rapidly bleeding into a predatory red. “I told you,” Silas murmured. “Next time you wish to leave the house, simply tell me to carry you. You needn’t tire your own feet.” “Walking this far… my lady must be exhausted.” My heart battered against my ribs like a trapped bird. The guy on the floor scrambled up, completely losing his mind to the terror. He bolted toward the exit light. “Sorry, babe! Better you than me!” His footsteps echoed wildly until they faded into nothing. Silas didn’t chase him. He just kept his glowing eyes locked onto mine. Text: “She’s dead. The brat finally played herself. Direct elimination.” “The boss hates disobedience more than anything. Prep the carving knives, she’s dinner.” My mind went completely blank. Silas scooped me up into his arms, turning his back on the exit, and started walking us all the way back to the manor. The flickering red flames cast sharp, demonic shadows across his perfect face. The light of the exit grew smaller and smaller until it vanished completely. I spent the entire walk trying to formulate an excuse, but my throat was closed tight. When we entered the manor and walked past the kitchens, I squeezed my eyes shut and played dead, waiting for the butcher’s knife. It never came. I was gently lowered into my own plush, feather-soft bed. I opened my eyes, utterly confused. Silas stood over me. The gentle butler act was gone. His expression was dangerously dark. This was it. He was going to kill me. He leaned over me. I flinched, trying to pull away, but he pinned my shoulders to the mattress. His face stopped inches from mine. Somehow, during the stumble in the tunnel, I had scraped my temple. A tiny bead of blood welled up on the skin. Silas leaned in, and the rough heat of his tongue swiped across the scratch. Wet. Slow. Agonizingly deliberate. My heart skipped a beat. A bizarre, electric shiver shot down my spine, making my toes curl. I let out a tiny, involuntary whimper. The mix of absolute terror and undeniable attraction was making me lose my mind. I stared at the sharp line of his throat, the dark hunger in his eyes, and before I could stop myself, I tilted my chin up to kiss him. He pulled back instantly. “My apologies, my lady. I overstepped.” His voice was perfectly controlled again. “You were out in the damp for too long. I will fetch you some hot milk so you do not catch a chill.” He turned and walked out. He didn’t ask a single question. He didn’t ask why I was in the tunnel, he didn’t ask about the player, and he definitely didn’t say the word ‘escape’. When he returned with the glass of milk, I stared at it, half-convinced it was laced with cyanide. But if Silas wanted me dead, he could just snap my neck. I chugged the whole glass. Silas stood perfectly still, watching me. As I swallowed, his own throat bobbed in tandem. “Drink slowly, my lady. Do not choke.” I gripped the empty glass, desperately trying to do damage control. “Silas, that weird man burst into my room spouting absolute nonsense about games and escaping. I didn’t understand a word of it.” I paused, forcing my tone to pitch into its usual bratty annoyance. “He dragged me out of my room! I was terrified, so I just followed him! He was totally insane.” Silas took the glass from my white-knuckled grip and placed it on the nightstand. He reached out and gently smoothed my hair back. “Outsiders are always spouting nonsense,” he agreed softly. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping into a dark, intimate purr meant only for me. “They only want to trick you into leaving this safe place.” “But I am the only one in this world who truly cares for you.” He smiled, his long fingers hooking under my chin, forcing me to look directly into his eyes. “Isn’t that right, my lady?” Text: “Holy crap the tension. The butler dominating the master. This is spicy.” “The boss isn’t playing along anymore.” “The power dynamic just flipped. Let’s see the diva act tough now.” I was genuinely terrified of the look in his eyes. I nodded quickly. Satisfied, he released my chin. “Good girl.” “It is late. Time to coax you to sleep.” He stood up. “I will shower first.” The moment the bathroom door clicked shut, I let out a massive breath I didn’t know I was holding. My brain scrambled to figure out how to get back to that tunnel. Text: “Lmao she doesn’t even know the tunnel was fake.” “The boss rigged that passage a long time ago. The real exit looks nothing like that.” “Haha that poor bastard ran all night only to realize the ‘exit’ led directly into the manor’s torture chambers. The monsters down there are having a field day with him right now.” “Honestly, out of all the players, he got the worst death.” My blood turned to ice. I clutched the sheets, horrified. The exit was a trap. The comments kept rolling: “For the record, the real exit is the dried-up well in the back gardens.” “If you jump in, you leave the dimension. But no one’s ever made it. Those man-eating roses turn players into fertilizer before they even get close.” “Plus, the boss is always home. Who’d risk it?” The well. The back gardens. I burned the words into my brain. 6 For the next few days, I played the part flawlessly. On the surface, I was the same demanding, insufferable heiress. I ate the extravagant meals, complained about the tea, and let Silas pamper me. He was even more attentive than before, testing the temperature of my water against his own wrist before handing it to me. But I noticed the changes. A massive antique mirror suddenly appeared in the hallway. When I walked past it, my reflection smiled a fraction of a second too late. A little porcelain cat statue was placed on the staircase railing. No matter what angle I walked from, its black glass eyes followed me. Even the ghost-like servants who usually hid in the shadows started mopping floors and arranging flowers right outside my doors. They were watching me. Every single pair of eyes was a silent reminder: Silas hadn’t forgotten my little field trip. He just chose not to speak of it. My skin crawled constantly. At night, I lay against his chest, listening to his deep voice narrate a story about a cursed village’s blood sacrifice. I watched the text float above us. It mentioned that Blair, the legendary heroine he was destined to fall for, would arrive in exactly one week. I shifted, burying my face into his shirt. He stopped reading, looking down. “My lady?” “Keep reading,” I muttered into his chest. “As you wish.” His hand patted my back in a slow, rhythmic motion, like he was soothing a temperamental cat. I closed my eyes, running the garden route through my head. I knew the path. But with the monster patrols and my own pathetic stamina, there was zero chance I could sneak past them alive. Then, a crucial line of text caught my eye: “On the night of the full moon, the boss falls into a forced slumber. All the monsters in the manor become sluggish and blind. It’s the only weakness in the system, but no player has ever lived long enough to see the full moon.” The full moon. I opened my eyes and stared out the heavy glass window. The moon hanging in the dark sky was almost completely round. Three days. I just had to wait three days.

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I was carrying a stack of things downstairs, ready to dump them straight into the trash. These were all for the white Persian I had raised since he was a kitten. There were homemade, pet-safe meals I had spent hours learning to cook, along with adorable little outfits and expensive toys. But ever since he shifted into his human form, he treated me like absolute garbage. He said I was plain, that my voice grated on his nerves, and that my habit of kissing his cheek made him sick to his stomach. He refused to take a single bite of the food I made, sneering that he wasn’t a dog and wouldn’t eat slop. He shredded the clothes and toys I bought, baring his fangs to warn me that if I ever tried to humiliate him with such disgusting things again, he would rip my throat out. My heart was completely shattered. The only thing left to do was pack it all up and throw it away. Just as I was about to toss the bag, I bumped into a stray tabby cat. He sniffed the homemade food in my hand and ate it with pure joy. Then, picking up a little plush toy in his mouth, he happily circled my legs. I stared at him for a long time. Then, I reached out and took this little guy home. 1 When I walked through my front door, the apartment was a disaster zone. A young man with fluffy white cat ears lounging on my sofa didn’t even bother to look up. “What took you so long? I’m thirsty. I want salmon-infused water!” I stared at the torn garbage bags, shredded toilet paper, smashed pots, and broken plant stems scattered across the floor. A massive headache throbbed behind my eyes. “Hector, what is all this? I told you, if you want something, just call me! Stop destroying the house every time you throw a tantrum!” The young man on the sofa bolted upright, the luxurious, feather-like tail behind him puffing up to twice its size. “What do you mean, destroying the house? You’re the one keeping me locked up in here! You’re stripping away my freedom!” I sighed, rubbing my temples. “The outside world is complicated. You’re a newly shifted Shifter. You couldn’t survive out there on your own.” “Oh, I couldn’t survive?” Hector let out a cold, mocking laugh. He grabbed a stack of my medical records from the coffee table and hurled them at me. The words ‘Depression’ and ‘Anxiety’ flashed across the flying papers as his vicious voice rang out clearly. “Looks to me like you’re the one who would die without me!” A sharp edge of paper sliced across my cheek, leaving a stinging trail of blood. We both froze. In the next split second, a piercing yowl erupted from the shopping bag in my arms. A lean, agile shadow launched itself directly at the sofa. As the shadow closed the distance, it stretched and grew. By the time it slammed into the cushions, it had taken the full form of a broad-shouldered, adult man. Hector couldn’t dodge in time. He was pinned brutally beneath the stranger, shrieking in panic. “Who the hell are you?! This is my house!” The man didn’t say a word. He just raised a fist and started throwing heavy punches, knocking Hector’s head back against the armrest. “Stop! Don’t hit him!” I finally snapped out of my shock and rushed forward to pull the man back. “No fighting in the house!” The man immediately froze. He twitched the tabby ears atop his head, tilted his neck, and affectionately nuzzled my cheek. “Whatever my master says.” Hector’s face twisted into absolute fury. He bared his fangs and roared. “Who the hell are you calling master?!” 2 By the time I managed to separate the two cats, well, the two men, I was panting from exhaustion. “You are staying in the guest room tonight!” I shoved Hector into the spare bedroom, giving him a stern glare. “When you learn to stop cursing and puffing up your tail, I’ll let you out!” “Nora! How dare you treat me like this!” Hector was so furious his tail was completely puffed out again. “You bring another stray into this house, and then you lock me up?! You’re disloyal! I’ll bite you to death!” I frowned. “No biting.” Hector bared his teeth even wider. “Fickle, cheating women like you deserve to get sick! Don’t you ever think about hugging me again. Just drop dead!” The pure malice in his eyes made my chest tighten with a mix of fear and crushing sorrow. The kitten I had raised for two years, the one I had nurtured since he fit in the palm of my hand, was wishing for my death. I pulled the guest room door shut, doing my best to block out the muffled screaming. I quietly swept up the ruined living room, wiping away tears with the back of my hand. Once the mess was cleared, I carried a bowl of food into my study. The room was perfectly quiet. If it weren’t for the small lump under the blanket on the folding bed, I would have thought the tabby had run away. “Why did you turn back into a cat?” I gently poked the lump. “I know about Shifters. I’m not scared of you. You can stay in your human form.” The tabby peaked out, looking at me, and offered a slow, deliberate blink. I knew enough about feline behavior to know that meant trust and affection. I smiled softly and scratched him under the chin. The tabby started purring like a motor. Amidst the deep rumbling, his body began to expand. His human form was significantly larger and broader than Hector’s. He possessed a striking, ruggedly handsome face. A true heartthrob of the tabby world. I felt a sudden flush of embarrassment and quickly yanked the blanket up to cover his bare waist. He clearly hadn’t been neutered. It was very obvious. “You’ll stay in this room for the next few days to quarantine. Here’s some food if you get hungry tonight. I also found some spare clothes. See if they fit you later.” The man hummed in acknowledgment. He kept his eyes on me and gave another slow blink. I chuckled, patted his head, and stood up to leave. Before I could turn around, he gently caught my sleeve. “What is it?” I looked back down at him. “A name.” He stared up at me, my reflection perfectly captured in his deep, forest-green eyes. “Please give me a name.” 3 I thought about it all night and finally decided on Lucian. Since I had found him wandering the streets just before dawn, a name meaning ‘light’ felt like the perfect fit. To celebrate the newest member of the household, I woke up early to prepare a special meal. I baked pet-safe cupcakes using chicken breast, peeled shrimp, and egg yolks. One for each of them. Holding the cupcakes, I hesitated in the hallway before finally opening the door to the guest room. “Hector, time for breakfast.” The moment I stepped inside, my vision swam. The room was utterly trashed. I choked back my anger, forcing my voice to remain gentle. “I made fresh chicken cupcakes today. Come try some.” I placed the plate on the small nightstand. Before my hand even pulled away, a blur launched off the mattress and viciously flipped the table. “What is this garbage?! I could smell the stench through the door! It’s disgusting! I’m not eating it!” The plate shattered. The cupcake flew across the room, crumbling into a pathetic mess on the floorboards. Looking at the utter disgust twisted into his beautiful features, the bitter ache in my chest spread wildly. I quietly knelt down, swept the broken pieces into a pile, and walked out without looking back. I always prided myself on being a good cook. At the very least, human friends always praised my meals. But Hector hated everything I made. Whether it was pet-safe recipes or regular food, he despised it all. Even when I popped open imported, premium wet food, he ate it like it was a chore. Yet, when my friend visited and casually offered him a cheap squeeze treat, he ate it happily. I used to comfort myself by making excuses. Maybe the imported brand wasn’t his flavor profile. Maybe he was just acting like a diva to get my attention. But at this exact moment, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Hector didn’t hate my cooking. He didn’t hate the premium brands. He just hated me. 4 Taking in Hector was completely unplanned. I had just been officially diagnosed with clinical depression, and my therapist suggested adopting a pet to ground myself. By sheer coincidence, I found a litter of abandoned kittens on my way home from work. They were barely the size of my palm, eyes barely open. Hector was the runt of the litter. Sickly, frail, and so tiny that everyone else who came to adopt passed him over. I was the one who took him in. I fought through his fungal infections, his feline distemper, and upper respiratory viruses. I nursed him back to life, ounce by ounce, until the day he shifted into a human. Hector always told me that Shifters were different. They were a rare, noble, elite branch of society. He constantly reminded me that a magnificent creature like him shouldn’t be caged by a painfully average human like me. I knew I was plain and ordinary, but I couldn’t help the swell of pride I felt for raising such a precious, beautiful being. It was a magical feeling. Like a blinding ray of sunlight piercing through the endless rain clouds of my life. Even if that light burned my eyes, I was happy. Even when Hector mocked me and looked down on everything I did, I did my best to tune it out and pretend it didn’t hurt. On Hector’s second birthday, I received an official email from the Shifter Control Council. The letter stated that a two-year-old Shifter was considered a legal adult. If he wished to remain in the human world, he had to sign an official Bonding Contract with a human guardian. I was overjoyed. I meticulously printed out the forms and filled them out. But when I woke up from a nap, I found the paperwork shredded to pieces. Hector stood barefoot on the torn paper, a vicious sneer on his lips. “Who gave you the delusion that I would ever bond with you?” “You’re broke, you’re ugly, and you’re a terrible servant. You cling to me every day begging for hugs and kisses like a shameless stray mutt. Why would I ever sign my life over to you?” I had frozen in place. A cruel, mocking smile curved perfectly on his flawless face. He patted my cheek roughly and whispered, “I want krill-flavored puffs. Go make them, you stray mutt.” 5 It turned out that all my years of love and sacrifice were just seen as ‘servitude’. The affection and warmth I craved were just him tossing me scraps. In Hector’s eyes, I was nothing but a pathetic, needy dog wagging my tail for his amusement. I spiraled into a deep misery after that day. When I went back to my therapist, she was baffled. “I thought you adopted a pet? Why are your symptoms getting worse?” I offered a bitter smile. “My cat… he doesn’t really listen to me.” My doctor went silent for a moment before offering her advice. “If caring for an animal isn’t bringing you peace, but instead compounding your stress, I highly recommend you stop. Rehome him. Find a pet that is actually affectionate. Otherwise, this arrangement is toxic for your health, and frankly, it’s not good for the animal either.” I thought about her words for a very long time. Finally, after Hector smashed his bowl in disgust over yet another meal, I walked downstairs and brought back the stray tabby. The one who always greeted me after work, who never turned his nose up at my leftovers, and who pressed against my legs with soft purrs. Maybe this decision wasn’t a mistake after all. Just like right now. The study door cracked open a fraction, and Lucian peeked through the gap, his eyes entirely focused on my distress. I quickly wiped my cheeks and shook my head. “You can’t come out yet.” Lucian nodded, then shook his head. “I won’t come out. But I want to wipe your tears.” A watery laugh escaped me. I walked over to the doorframe. “Okay, wipe them.” Lucian reached through the crack, using his large, warm thumb to gently brush away the moisture on my skin. His touch was incredibly soft. “I made chicken cupcakes, but… they might taste awful.” “No, they don’t.” Lucian grabbed my wrist, looking at me with absolute sincerity. “I could smell them through the door. Chicken and shrimp, right? It smells amazing! I could eat three of them in one bite!” I blinked, my eyes stinging all over again. I turned into the kitchen and brought back his portion. On a whim, I stuck a sprig of catnip into the top like a little candle. “Welcome to the family. From now on, your name is Lucian.” Lucian nodded vigorously and sat down cross-legged on the floor, devouring the food in massive bites. Seeing him eat with such enthusiasm, I hurried back to the kitchen to make another batch. While waiting for the chicken to boil, I grabbed a squeeze treat to see if he wanted a snack. As I approached the study, I heard Hector’s voice bleeding through the door. “You put on a pretty good show.” “See? I told you this stupid woman was incredibly easy to fool.” 6 Fool me… about what? I froze outside the study, my heart constricting so violently it became hard to breathe. “If you want to stay in the human world, you have to swallow your pride for a bit,” Hector’s voice dripped with lazy arrogance. “Like they say online: play the sweet angel for five minutes, secure a luxury lifestyle forever. It’s a solid trade, right?” Staring blankly at the door, I suddenly remembered the bolded warning at the very bottom of the SCC email: Shifters can be exceptionally cunning. Many will use any means necessary to secure residence in human society. Please ensure your Shifter genuinely respects and cares for you before signing the Bonding Contract. So, it wasn’t an exaggeration. I stood in absolute silence as Hector took on the role of a seasoned mentor lecturing Lucian. “But you can’t just blindly act sweet. You have to lay down the law with this idiot, otherwise she’ll start thinking she actually owns you. Once she learns to stop raising her voice at me and acts completely subservient, I might finally consider signing the contract with her.” Hector sneered at the empty plate on the floor. “You can use Nora for practice. She has a lot of rich friends with pets. I’ll make her rehome you to one of them, and you can just pick whichever wealthy human is easiest to manipulate and bond with them.” Lucian didn’t say a word. He just stared blankly at Hector, his forest-green eyes utterly devoid of the warmth he showed me. “Are you deaf? I’m talking to you.” I had spoiled Hector to the core. His temper was incredibly volatile, and waiting even a few seconds for a response made him furious. He kicked Lucian’s empty plate across the floor, mocking him. “Did eating her garbage slop rot your brain?” Lucian finally reacted. He slowly raised his eyes, locking onto Hector’s face, and spoke in a deadpan voice. “Pick it up.” Hector frowned. “What?” “Pick up the plate.” Hector burst into laughter. He stepped forward, stomping his bare foot onto the porcelain plate and grinding it into the floor as a blatant challenge. “Are you getting too deep into character? Everyone knows tabbies are the most feral, insubordinate street trash around. You bite the heads off rats in the alleys. You don’t need to play the good boy in front of me.” His smile deepened into a venomous smirk. “Or is it because you’ve overstayed your visa in the human world? You need to hook a human fast, or the Council is going to deport you back to the wilds?” 7 Deport him? I blinked, remembering a specific clause in the Shifter Handbook. Rule number one: Shifters capable of achieving human form must secure a Bonding Contract before the age of three. Failure to do so results in mandatory deportation by the Council. This strict deadline was probably the breeding ground for all the deceit, endurance, and fake affection. I watched Lucian’s face darken. A sharp, needle-like pain pierced my chest. It was small, but undeniable. So his approach was premeditated? His affection was just a tool? I gripped the squeeze treat in my hand, my throat burning with acid. I genuinely thought I was past the point of heartbreak after enduring Hector’s constant abuse, but here I was, ready to cry over a stray cat. Or maybe I was just crying because my genuine love was constantly treated like garbage. Just as a sob threatened to break past my lips, Lucian’s voice finally cut through the tension. “I don’t care if Nora bonds with me or not.” Both Hector and I froze completely. Hector’s brow furrowed. “Then what the hell are you doing here?” Lucian stared at Hector, perfectly mimicking his mocking smile. “I heard there was a lazy, ungrateful, backstabbing leech living in this house, so I wanted a front-row seat to see it for myself.” “And looking at you today, the rumors were entirely accurate.” Hector short-circuited for half a second before exploding. “Who the hell are you calling a leech?!” Lucian’s voice was glacial. “I thought you had some basic self-awareness.” Hector knew he couldn’t beat Lucian in a physical fight, so he kept his distance, though his tail was completely puffed out in rage. “What happens between Nora and me is none of your business! You have no right to lecture me!” “Besides, she’s just a normal human! A broke, ugly, average human! Why shouldn’t I be disgusted by her?!” “Do you have any idea how other Shifters live?! They live in multi-story mansions! They eat airlifted seafood every single day! And I’m stuck rotting in this cramped apartment, playing with raggedy, frayed toys! She can’t provide anything for me! She’s turning me into a laughingstock among my kind!” Lucian let him finish his tantrum. Then, with absolute calm, he delivered three words. “Then get out.” “If you hate Nora so much, if she disgusts you so deeply, why are you still here? Why are you squatting in her house?” Lucian took a step forward, jabbing a hard finger into Hector’s shoulder. “You talk a big game about hating her, yet you refuse to leave. If you ask me, you’re the one acting like a pathetic, shameless stray mutt.” 8 I instantly knew things were going to get ugly. True to form, Hector completely lost his mind. Ignoring the sheer difference in their strength, he let out a feral shriek and lunged at Lucian. “No fighting!” I rushed into the room to pull them apart. In the chaotic blur of limbs, Hector’s claws accidentally slashed across the back of my hand. I hissed sharply, looking down at the deep, bleeding scratches. Seeing the blood, Lucian immediately leaped backward out of the fight. He stood frantically by my side, his tail thrashing with anxiety. “You’re hurt! Are you okay?” “Stop acting like a saint!” Hector glared at my bleeding hand before lunging forward again. “That tiny scratch isn’t going to kill her! Stop being so dramatic!” He was right. It wasn’t going to kill me. But it still hurt. My heart turned to absolute ice. For the first time ever, I dropped my accommodating facade and glared coldly at Hector. “Hector, go back to your room!” He completely ignored me, stepping forward to bite Lucian. Taking advantage of the distraction, I reached out and clamped my hand firmly down on the scruff of his neck. “Did you not hear me? Go!” I raised him. I knew every single one of his weaknesses. Even in human form, his biological instincts remained. He was paralyzed by pressure on his scruff. “Let me go!” Hector’s body went stiff, but his eyes glared murderously at Lucian. “Are you completely blind?! He’s just here to scam you for free food and a contract! I know his kind! They’ll call anyone mother for a drop of milk! He doesn’t actually care about you!” I tuned him out completely, dragging him back to the guest room and throwing him inside. Just as I pulled the door shut, I couldn’t stop myself from speaking. “Even fake affection is still affection, isn’t it?” Hector froze. I let out a quiet sigh and closed the door. The moment I turned around, Lucian rushed up to me. “Is your hand okay? It’s bleeding heavily!” I was used to it. Cat owners got scratched; it was part of the job. I walked over to the bathroom sink to rinse it. “I’m fine. Are you hurt?” Lucian followed me right into the bathroom, his eyes glued to my injury. “I’m fine. Hector is incredibly weak. He can’t beat me.” I couldn’t help but laugh. It was true. A spoiled Persian cat was never going to win a street fight against a tabby. Once the wound was clean, I pulled out the iodine. Lucian immediately held out his hand. “Let me.” I blinked in surprise, then handed him the cotton swabs. Lucian’s touch was feather-light, completely terrified of causing me pain. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.” Out of nowhere, Lucian dropped the heavy sentence. I frowned. “What?” He looked up at me, his green eyes swimming with guilt and anxiety. “If I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” I was silent for a moment before gently shaking my head. “It has nothing to do with you.” Even if Lucian wasn’t here, Hector would still look down on me, still mock me, and still show zero concern for my well-being. I could understand Hector’s point of view. Just as he said, as a rare Shifter, he deserved a life of luxury instead of suffering in a tiny apartment with me. I was just reluctant to let him go. He was the kitten I raised by hand. I was selfishly holding onto the hope that he would stay with me just a little longer. But looking at the fresh scratches on my hand, the reality finally snapped into focus. It was time to let go. Hector and I needed to release each other. 9 I tossed and turned that night, trying to figure out how to find a wealthy adopter for Hector. Finally, I got out of bed and sent an official email to the Shifter Control Council explaining the situation. I just had to wait for a reply. Since Hector wasn’t leaving immediately, Lucian still needed to be quarantined in the study. Over the next week, I got a solid grasp on Lucian’s personality. He had a huge appetite. His favorite meal was my homemade shrimp and rice, and his favorite toy was a little yellow fish I sewed by hand. Whenever he felt embarrassed, he would instantly poof back into a cat. He was a master at using his feline form to act cute, purring like an engine the second he touched me. In his human form, despite looking like a deeply mature, rugged adult, he constantly hovered around me like an oversized shadow. “Converting to human years, you’re a full adult, right?” I asked while washing his hair in the bathroom. Lucian was terrified of running water. He squeezed his eyes shut under the suds. “Yes. In human years, I’m twenty-four.” Oh wow. Prime marriage material. I teased him with a wicked grin. “When you were a street cat, did you ever get… fixed?” Lucian cracked one eye open, staring at me for two solid seconds. Suddenly, he grabbed the towel draped over his waist. In a flash, his entire lower abdomen was on full display. My brain stalled for half a second before I grabbed the showerhead and sprayed him. “Put some pants on!” Lucian bolted upright. “Hot!” I checked the dial. “The water is barely lukewarm!” Lucian looked deeply serious. “I’m very fragile down there!” I shot him a glare. “If you’re so fragile, stop flashing me.” He muttered under his breath, “I just wanted to show you. Displaying my male pride.” My face burned bright red. “Stop being a pervert!” After finally finishing his bath, I grabbed the clippers to trim his nails. He resisted aggressively. “I can sharpen them myself!” “Absolutely not!” I scolded. “If you shred the sofa, I lose my security deposit!” “I can go outside and find a tree!” “Denied! You’re an indoor cat now!” While we were bickering, the guest room door was violently kicked open. Hector stomped out, his face twisted in annoyance. “You guys are so loud! Shut up or get out!” I panicked and ran over to check the doorframe. Thank god, no cracks. I let out a massive sigh of relief, turning back to catch Hector’s disgusted sneer. “Panicking over a cheap wooden door. You’re so broke.” “If I’m broke, why don’t you pay for it?” Behind me, Lucian spoke up lazily. “A door like that costs at least two hundred bucks. You got cash?” Hector bristled. “You freeloading piece of—” Halfway through his insult, Hector abruptly choked on his words. He stared dead at the pajamas Lucian was wearing, his expression turning terrifyingly dark. “Who gave you permission to wear that? Take it off right now!”

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When I announced to Lana that I wanted a divorce, the room froze. My father-in-law frowned, asking if it was because she was always locked in her art studio. I said it wasn’t that—it was what she was doing with the replica of the Statue of David. My mother-in-law exploded, shouting that Lana had severe postpartum depression, that she was just painting, and that we could hire a nanny if needed. Lana, livid, slapped me and swore she hadn’t cheated or betrayed me—she’d just been absorbed in her art lately. Was that really grounds for divorce? The guests whispered, giving me disgusted looks. I laughed coldly and pointed at her studio door. I told them the truth: since she claimed that sculpted marble was the only thing that satisfied her, I was letting her have it. The truth was, she never let me inside. In the center of the room stood a life-sized David. Ever since giving birth two months ago, she’d become obsessed with sketching it. She spent almost every day locked in there, surrounded by crumpled paper, unfazed even by our crying newborn. I’d had enough of this twisted charade. That’s why I served the papers. … I slammed the freshly printed divorce agreement onto the dining table. “Sign it.” Lana stared at me, utterly horrified, tears already pooling in her eyes. “Silas!” “Have you completely lost your mind? So what if I’ve been busy painting this month? I admit I neglected you, and I am sorry. I’ll make it up to you, okay?” She practically shrieked, playing the absolute victim. “Did you really have to bring up a divorce in front of all our friends and family?” I lifted my gaze and scanned the room. Today was our fifth wedding anniversary. Lana had used the occasion to throw a lavish dinner party at our house, claiming it was just an excuse for our loved ones to get together. Yet from the moment the night began, her eyes never once landed on me. She even locked arms and drank a toast with her childhood best friend, Blake, completely ignoring her own husband. I realized right then that dragging this dead marriage out was pointless. “Since you don’t want to make a massive scene in front of our guests, just be a good girl and sign the damn papers.” I dropped the icy ultimatum, absolutely drained of the desire to argue. A suffocating silence smothered the dining room. The guests exchanged incredibly awkward glances. For the past five years, everyone in our social circle believed we were the perfect, untouchable couple. Lana’s face drained of all color. Her shoulders trembled violently as she put on her best wounded expression. “I am begging you.” She stepped close to me, keeping her voice to a desperate, tearful whisper. “Silas, whatever your problem is, we can talk about it when everyone leaves. Please don’t do this here. You’re scaring my parents.” I violently shoved her hand away. “Do not touch me.” Seeing my hostile reaction, the mood in the room instantly turned toxic. Everyone glared at me with blatant disgust. My father-in-law slammed his wine glass onto the table. My mother-in-law’s face morphed into a vicious scowl. Lana stumbled back from my push, conveniently collapsing right into the waiting arms of her precious childhood buddy, Blake. “Silas, are you even a man?!” Blake completely lost it. He stepped forward, veins popping in his neck as he pointed a finger at my face. “Did you forget that Lana carried your baby for nine months? Her stomach is covered in stretch marks! She hasn’t slept a full night in a year!” “Did you forget that your complete lack of support gave her severe postpartum depression? She almost threw herself off a balcony! Her therapist literally told her she needed isolation and a creative outlet to heal!” “Now that she’s finally finding peace in her art, why the hell are you tormenting her?” “The baby is born, and now you think her stretch marks are ugly. You think her body is ruined, so you want to throw her away. You ungrateful, disgusting piece of trash! Have you no shame?!” Blake stood high on his moral pedestal, painting me as the ultimate villain of the century. Curses and a flying fist came straight for my jaw. But before his knuckles could even graze my skin, I easily slipped to the side. I stared him down, a chilling smirk creeping onto my lips. “My wife has stretch marks on her stomach. How exactly do you know that? Are you two…” Blake immediately panicked. “It is common medical knowledge! Ask any adult in this room, who doesn’t know that?” The guests around the table nodded in agreement, buying his pathetic cover-up. My father-in-law put on a stern face, trying to play the wise elder. “Silas, you cannot be this impulsive in a marriage. My daughter lost half her life giving you a child. This is the universe testing your bond. You have always been a stand-up guy. Don’t be a coward when things get tough.” My mother-in-law crossed her arms, letting out a loud, accusatory snort. “I always knew men were garbage. Asking for a divorce out of nowhere? I bet he has some little tramp waiting for him in a hotel room.” “Spit it out! Who is the home-wrecker? Is she forcing you to make her your legal wife? Is that why you’re torturing my daughter?” She aggressively rolled up her sleeves, looking entirely ready for a physical brawl. She patted Lana’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, sweetie. Mom will handle the mistress.” I laughed out loud. It was a bitter, hollow sound. “The problem was never on my end.” “You can spin whatever fairy tale you want, but this divorce is happening today.” Lana’s eyes were swollen like walnuts. She took a deep breath, stepping forward to grab my hands. “Honey, please tell me what went wrong. You were never like this. Did you forget the vows we made at the altar? For better or for worse, in sickness and in health…” Watching her play the deeply devoted wife literally made my stomach turn. “Enough. Drop the act.” “Get the hell away from me!” I shoved Lana back with pure disgust. She let out a dramatic gasp, falling weakly to the hardwood floor, intentionally scraping her elbow. “Silas, I have had enough of your bullshit!” Blake’s face twisted in furious jealousy. He aimed a lethal glare at me. “If you dare divorce Lana today, I swear to God I will cripple you.” “I would rather Lana be a widow than let an ungrateful parasite like you drag her name through the mud!” Blake completely lost his temper. He charged at me like a raging bull, trying to tackle me to the floor and beat me to a pulp. I just chuckled darkly. “This is an issue between a husband and a wife. Why are you sweating so much? Who gave you the right to speak?” “We grew up together! I am practically her brother!” Blake spat the words like venom. I smirked. “The kind of brother that shares her bed?” “You’re full of shit!” “Your own mind is filthy, so you project it onto everyone else.” While he was busy acting morally outraged, I threw a devastating counter-hook. My movement was fast, brutal, and precise. Blake loved to show off his eight-pack abs on Instagram, but those were just gym muscles. He had absolutely no idea that I had spent years in a boxing ring. Watching her precious boy get manhandled, Lana let out a blood-curdling scream. “Silas, stop it!” “You’re going to severely injure him!” Seeing me lock my arm around Blake’s throat, watching his face turn a violent shade of purple as he choked for air, Lana panicked completely. In her frantic state, she grabbed a heavy, antique crystal decanter from the dinner table. She swung it with everything she had, smashing it directly into the back of my skull. The dining room erupted into absolute chaos. Guests screamed in sheer terror. “Oh my God! So much blood!” “Call an ambulance!” Warm, thick liquid cascaded down the side of my face, stinging my eyes. My vision blurred rapidly, the screaming fading into a muffled, underwater echo. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Lana’s trembling, pathetic voice. “Honey, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean it!” “I was just terrified you were going to kill him… I didn’t want you to go to prison for murder…” “I already called 911!” As my knees buckled and darkness swallowed me, I knew there was a bitter, mocking smile plastered on my face. Look at this. Look at my amazing, loving wife. To protect her childhood bestie, she cracked my skull open with a heavy piece of crystal. When I finally opened my eyes again, the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room blinded me. My head throbbed with an agonizing, explosive pain. “Silas, please don’t move.” “They just put fifteen stitches in your head…” I squeezed my eyes shut, letting out a dry chuckle. “Did you sign the divorce papers yet?” “The second I am discharged, we are going straight to the courthouse to finalize this.” Lana’s fake weeping stopped instantly. “Why are you still talking about a divorce?!” She stared at me in absolute disbelief, massive tears dropping onto the back of my hand. “Silas, I love you so much. The moment you got hurt, I was the one who called the ambulance! What kind of spell are you under?!” I couldn’t hold back my bitter laugh. “You love me? So you smashed my skull open with a crystal decanter?” If that was her version of love, I would rather she loved literally any other man on earth. My rhetorical question choked her up. She scrambled to defend herself. “Silas, that was pure instinct in a terrifying situation! You looked possessed! You were strangling Blake to death, and you terrified all of us.” “You know my family and his family have been neighbors for decades. Blake and I grew up together. We have known each other since we were in diapers.” “He was just trying to help us! He wanted to fix our marriage, and you said those vile, disgusting things to him!” “Shut up.” I cut her off with a voice made of ice. “Spin whatever lies you want. I am done listening. My answer remains the same. Divorce.” Even my in-laws, who had been eavesdropping at the hospital room door, exchanged uneasy glances. They clearly hadn’t expected me to be this ruthlessly decisive. They pushed the door open and barged in. “Silas, you are normally a very level-headed guy. Tell me the truth. Did Lana do something to break your heart? You tell me, and I will discipline her myself.” The person speaking was my father-in-law, attempting to play the good cop. But it was entirely a facade. Before I could even open my mouth, he flipped the script. “Or is there another woman in the picture?” “We are both men here. Do not let some young, flashy girl ruin your judgment and destroy the rest of your life.” My mother-in-law’s expression turned incredibly impatient as she chimed in. “Exactly. Married couples fight all the time. You argue at the dinner table and make up in the bedroom. Stop throwing a childish tantrum.” “A real man needs to have some capacity for forgiveness.” “If you scream for a divorce every time you get a little upset, how are you ever going to survive a marriage?” Lana suddenly displayed an unnatural amount of patience. She gently held my hand, leaning in close. “Honey, what kind of trouble are you in? Tell us. We are a family, we can fix it together.” “You are so insanely determined to get a divorce. Are you… suspecting something?” Beneath her cautious, fragile gaze, I saw a terrifying undercurrent of raw panic. Yet the tears just kept rolling flawlessly down her cheeks. “No matter what kind of mess you are in, I will never abandon you. You don’t have to push me away to protect me.” I stared at her, my face devoid of all emotion. Over the years we had been together, her tears used to be my ultimate weakness. Whenever she cried, I surrendered. Whatever she asked for, I gave her. She wanted to convert the massive guest room into her private art studio? I agreed. She hung a sign on the studio door that read “No Silas and No Dogs Allowed”? I laughed it off and let her have her space. But right now, I was done turning a blind eye. “There is nothing left to say, Lana. I just don’t love you anymore.” Lana flinched like she had been struck by lightning. Her eyelashes fluttered frantically. “What did you just say?” “Silas, I gave birth to your child! Does it not destroy your conscience to say something so cruel?!” She sobbed violently, her shoulders heaving for dramatic effect. Seeing that I was entirely unmovable, my father-in-law let out a furious snort. “Silas, remember that you asked for this.” “If you force this divorce, you are leaving with absolutely nothing. We will make sure you walk out of here penniless.” I simply closed my eyes and ignored him. Faced with my absolute apathy, they lost their minds, cursing me under their breath. They practically carried the weeping, devastated Lana out of the hospital room. “Stay strong, sweetie. A man like this isn’t worth your tears. Let’s go!” But their anger was laced with deep confusion. They couldn’t fathom how a perfectly happy marriage had spontaneously combusted into an irreconcilable nightmare. My best friend, Jaxon, heard I was hospitalized and rushed over to see me. “Silas, man, what the hell happened to you?” He had already seen the viral gossip online. My wife smashing a vase over my head to protect her childhood bestie during our anniversary dinner had become the hottest trending topic in our city. I was officially the internet’s biggest joke. Jaxon winced as he looked at my bandages, taking a deep breath. “You and Lana were the poster couple for true love. How did it end up in a bloody divorce?” I sat in silence for a long time before speaking. “Have you ever seen the Statue of David?” Jaxon blinked, confused. “The naked marble guy in Italy? The world-famous masterpiece?” “Yeah.” Jaxon listened quietly as I continued. “Lana has a life-sized replica in her studio.” Jaxon paused, then let out a relieved laugh. “No way. That has to be a cheap fake…” “Exactly!” I cut him off sharply. “It is a fake.” “And—” “It moves.” Jaxon froze completely. The realization hit him like a freight train. “Are you saying…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence, his face cycling through sheer horror and disgust. Half a month dragged by. After I was discharged from the hospital and returned to the house, Lana completely changed her tactics. She wore an incredibly sheer, seductive nightgown, practically drowning herself in expensive perfume as she slid up next to me. “Silas, I know I have been freezing you out lately. Tell me what you don’t like, and I will change.” Her voice was husky and sweet, dripping with forced affection. She went from a cold artist to a desperate kitten. After five years of marriage, I knew exactly what this was. It was pure, unadulterated damage control. But every time I pictured that locked studio door, a wave of violent nausea washed over me. “Silas…” She wrapped her arms around me from behind, pressing her lips softly against the back of my neck. “Everything I held back from you before… I will give it all to you tonight… Ah! Silas, what the hell?!” Before she could finish her seductive whisper, I forcefully shoved her away. She tumbled backward, crashing onto the carpet. Seeing my aggressive, ruthless rejection, Lana’s fabricated patience instantly evaporated. “Don’t push your luck, you arrogant prick.” “Silas, I apologized. I begged. I literally threw myself at you. What more do you want from me?!” I looked at her flushed, rosy cheeks. I couldn’t tell if she was flushed from the anger, or if she had just been thoroughly entertained by someone else. “I don’t want anything. I told you, I only want a divorce.” I replied with a lazy, bored tone. Lana froze, reverting back to desperate begging, trying everything to manipulate my decision. “Silas, did you really forget the vows we made?” “You promised you would always stand by my side, no matter what. It has barely been five years!” “And our daughter is only a few months old! Are you truly cruel enough to abandon her? To let her grow up without a father?” “Silas, how can your heart be this cold?!” Lana’s eyes were bloodshot, massive tears streaming down her face. “If we divorce, what am I supposed to do? What is our daughter supposed to do?” I let out a dark chuckle, staring at her with dead eyes. “Why the hell would I care what you do?” Lana’s eyes filled with venomous disappointment. She ground her teeth together. “Fine. If you want to be a heartless monster.” “I might as well take the baby and jump off the roof.” She immediately bolted for the nursery, scooped up the baby wrapped in a blanket, and sprinted for the balcony. I sat on the couch, not moving a single muscle. I knew it was a pathetic bluff. She wasn’t going to die. Because I had heard her whisper to someone else that the person she and her daughter truly needed was never going to be me. Just as I predicted, Lana stood awkwardly on the balcony in the freezing wind, clutching the baby, completely frozen in place. “Silas, you really are a monster!” “You want a divorce so badly?!” “Then fine! We’re done!” A torrential downpour had started outside, but she dramatically carried the baby straight out the front door and into the storm. Barely ten minutes later. The front door was practically kicked off its hinges by her precious Blake. A barrage of furious insults rained down on me. “Silas, you are a piece of trash! Did you forget the time you got into that horrific car wreck? The doctors said you might never wake up. Lana stayed by your hospital bed every single day, wiping your face, taking care of you!” “And now you demand a divorce? Was your conscience eaten by a wild dog?!” Blake knew my reputation in our circle. He knew I valued loyalty and gratitude above all else. He saw my silence and assumed I was reminiscing about her past kindness, thinking my resolve was breaking. But I just stared at him with glacial eyes. “If she was the one who ended up in a coma, I would have taken care of her exactly the same way.” “But paying off a debt of gratitude doesn’t mean I am staying in this rotting marriage. I want a divorce.” Three days later, fueled by pure spite, Lana finally signed the divorce papers. But she added a brutal stipulation: I had to leave with absolutely nothing. I scoffed. “On what grounds? You are the one at fault here. If anyone is walking away with nothing, it’s you.” My mother-in-law’s chest heaved with fury. She rolled up her sleeves and pointed a shaking finger an inch from my nose. “Have you no shame?! How dare you say that out loud!” “My daughter paints pictures in her studio. What exactly did she do wrong?! You greedy, disgusting pig. Your math is brilliant. Are you going to demand the wedding ring back next?” My father-in-law was practically vibrating with rage. “You ungrateful parasite! Have you forgotten how you got everything you own?! Do not forget that I gave you your start. You were a penniless nobody when you met her!” “Now you’ve got a little money, you think you can disrespect us? You definitely have a mistress hidden somewhere. You dump my daughter, and now you want to leave her homeless?!” “I should call the local news right now and let the world see what kind of psychotic sociopath you really are!” Jaxon, who had been standing quietly behind me, finally stepped up. “I think you guys have a massive misunderstanding. Silas isn’t like that. There is a deeply messed up reason for this.” But I was exhausted. I was done arguing with brick walls. “If you refuse to let Lana leave with nothing, then we will settle this in front of a judge.” As I turned to walk out the door, the nanny tried to hand me the baby for a hug. “Mr. Silas, no matter what happens, the little lady is your own flesh and blood. How can you be so ruthless? Refusing child support is one thing, but how can you cut off their only lifeline?” I completely ignored her, brushing past without a second glance. Desperate to force my hand, Lana carried the baby and physically blocked my car on the street outside. Blake panicked, aggressively shoving my shoulder. “What the hell are you staring at?! Your wife and kid are standing in the middle of traffic! Go get them before they get hit by a damn car!” I laughed coldly. “If they get hit, that is none of my business.” But the universe has a sick sense of humor. A drunk driver suddenly blew through a red light, losing control of a massive SUV. The car clipped Lana and the baby. The baby was severely injured. She was rushed to the emergency room in critical condition, requiring an immediate, massive blood transfusion. Lana lost her mind. With nowhere left to turn, she dropped to her knees on the hospital floor right in front of a crowd of onlookers. “Silas, I am begging you! Please, go give your daughter your blood!” I stood there, absolutely untouchable. “Why the hell are you asking me for blood? Go ask your beloved David statue. I am sure he would be thrilled to donate.” Lana froze, her face instantly turning the color of chalk. The crowd in the waiting room erupted, cursing me, calling me a cold-blooded psychopath. They said I didn’t even deserve to be called human. “Her baby is dying, and he’s making jealous jokes about a piece of art?! A psycho like this shouldn’t even be allowed near women!” “He’s a controlling, demonic narcissist!” Lana’s face was stained with mascara and tears. She glared at me with absolute hatred. “Silas, I finally see you for the monster you are. Fine! We are getting divorced! And don’t you dare come crawling back to me when you realize what you lost!” In the end, it was Blake who miraculously happened to be a perfect blood match. He donated the blood. My cold, apathetic refusal was recorded by a bystander and uploaded to TikTok. The internet completely tore me apart. I was globally canceled in a matter of hours. “Oh my God, how does a man like this even exist? That is his own biological child! He deserves to rot in hell alone.” “Any woman who marries him is signing her own death warrant. Ladies, watch out for walking red flags like this guy.” Jaxon looked incredibly stressed. “Silas, the entire internet is calling for your head. Are you seriously not going to release a statement?” I shook my head, my face an emotionless mask. “There is no need to explain anything online. We just wait for the trial tomorrow.” I looked up, a lethal chill in my eyes. “Lana played me for a fool for way too long. I am going to destroy her.” The next morning. Lana and her parents arrived at the courthouse early, radiating arrogant confidence. Trailing closely behind them, looking incredibly smug, was Blake. They looked down their noses at me, issuing their final warning. “Silas, a judge isn’t going to side with a paranoid, controlling freak who throws tantrums over nothing.” “I suggest you plead guilty to emotional abuse right now. Maybe Lana will be generous enough to leave you one percent of the assets.” I ignored them completely, taking my seat at the plaintiff’s desk with an eerie calm. After Lana’s lawyer presented their fabricated evidence of my ‘cruelty’, the judge turned his attention to me. “Mr. Silas, your primary complaint is that your wife paints a replica of the Statue of David in her studio. How is this relevant?” “You absolutely cannot demand she forfeit all marital assets based on her artistic hobbies.” Facing their victorious, mocking smirks, I spoke loud and clear. “I have undeniable proof.” I slowly panned my gaze across the smug faces of my soon-to-be ex-family. “Right now, I am going to show this court the real reason I filed for divorce.”

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The moment Tessa laid eyes on me at the Vanguard Corp. interview, she completely fell apart. It all started with the concert I’d been dreaming of for months. The night tickets went on sale, I pulled an all-nighter, but my frantic clicking was for nothing. They sold out in seconds. Gritting my teeth, I ended up forking over an extra four hundred dollars to a scalper for a floor seat. The next morning, I was jolted awake by the grim look on my roommate Tessa’s face. She was standing over my bed, her voice a low hiss. “Are you insane? Spending nine hundred dollars on a concert ticket?” I tried to explain patiently that my parents were fine with it, that it was my allowance to spend on things that made me happy. But her voice shot up, accusing me of being spoiled and thoughtless. She even threw out a sleazy warning about “girls who’d do anything for a designer bag,” telling me I needed to remember my “self-worth.” The night before the concert, my phone buzzed with a notification: Ticket refund successful. A moment later, an email from my academic advisor landed in my inbox. The attached grade report showed that I, who had always been at the top of my class, had failed several core subjects. Frantic, I ran to find Tessa, who was our department’s student representative. She just smirked at me. “Aren’t you just here for a good time, Sophie? What’s the rush?” Then, with a voice dripping in acid, she added, “Funny how the ones who act so innocent are always the ones with the most dirt.” Now, watching her stand here before me, utterly flustered and lost, the irony is almost too much to bear. 1 After finals wrapped up, I spent the entire night trying to snag a ticket for the concert I’d been waiting for all year. They were gone in a flash. Just as I was about to give up, a post popped up on social media—a friend of a friend was selling a floor ticket. The last one. My parents had just dropped fifty grand into my account for “expenses,” so I didn’t hesitate. I immediately offered four hundred dollars over the asking price and secured it. The next morning, I was still half-asleep when I felt a pair of eyes burning into me. I cracked mine open to see my roommate, Tessa, leaning deep into my curtained-off bunk, staring at me with an unnerving intensity. I jolted upright. “Tessa? What are you doing?” A chill crawled up my spine. “You didn’t go to sleep until 4:35 a.m., Sophie,” she said, her voice low and accusatory. “What were you doing up to, being all sneaky?” My bed curtains were drawn. How could she possibly know the exact time I fell asleep? Her dark, hollow gaze made my skin crawl. “Oh, uh, I was trying to get concert tickets,” I mumbled, trying to brush it off. “The show is next month. Can you move? I need to get up.” I gestured for her to get off my bed, but she acted as if she hadn’t heard me. Instead, she plopped right down on the edge of my mattress, her expression a strange mix of pity and amusement. She patted my shoulder. “Don’t play dumb. You stayed up all night for a concert ticket? Seriously, there’s nothing special about them. You can listen to any song you want online for free. It’s a total waste of money.” She wasn’t done. “Besides, it’s not easy to earn money these days. You really want to be one of those suckers throwing cash at celebrities? That’s your parents’ hard-earned money you’re burning!” I fought down a wave of irritation and climbed out the other side of the bed. “Tessa, you don’t need to worry about it. Finals are over, and I’m ready to relax. It’s not that expensive, and the experience is worth it to me.” I added, “And my parents are going with me. They love concerts too.” That seemed to set her off. “Not that expensive? I never took you for such a materialistic person! Your parents might spoil you now, but the real world won’t be so kind!” I almost laughed. Did this girl have any concept of boundaries? “Nine hundred bucks for one show? What a waste. Whoever marries you is in for a world of trouble.” She spat out the exact number, down to the dollar. My other roommates glanced over, their eyes wide. “Whoa, that’s a lot, Sophie. You sure you didn’t get ripped off?” one of them asked. How did she know the exact amount I paid on my own phone? I took a deep breath, about to explain I got it from a trusted source, when Tessa let out a cold snort. “Oh, a few hundred dollars is nothing to Sophie. She has her ways of getting money from men.” That was it. I’d had enough. I shoved her off my bed. “What did you just say, Tessa? It’s my money, what does it have to do with you? Don’t push your luck!” Tessa was not only our student rep but also a micro-influencer with a decent following. She was used to being the one in charge, the one nobody talked back to. My public defiance made her face flush a deep, blotchy red. “Whatever. There’s no talking to people like you,” she huffed, turning away. “I was just trying to be nice. Why do you have to pretend to be such a goody-two-shoes all the time?” I ignored her and headed to the cafeteria. But when I got back to the dorm, I found her hunched over my bed, her hand darting around under my pillow. She was so focused she didn’t hear me come in. “What are you doing?” I demanded. 2 Tessa yelped, startled. She quickly snatched her hand back, hiding whatever she was holding. “God, Sophie, can’t you walk like a normal person?” she snapped, her voice shaking. She was the one doing something shady, but somehow, I was the one in the wrong? My brows knitted together. “What were you looking for in my bed? You can’t just go through my things without my permission.” Tessa rolled her eyes, her face a mask of annoyance. “Do you have a persecution complex or something? You think you’re so special? Nobody wants to touch your stupid stuff!” With that, she stormed out of the room. That afternoon, during our department meeting, Tessa leaned against the whiteboard, her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on me. “Lately, there have been a lot of stories online about college girls selling their bodies to feed their vanity,” she announced to the room, her voice dripping with meaning. “We should all learn from their mistakes and uphold our integrity.” She tilted her chin in my direction. “Right, Sophie?” A few of the guys in the class snickered, their laughter grating on my nerves. I saw a couple of them looking me up and down with smug, knowing smiles. I clenched my fists, fighting the urge to explode. “Who are you trying to call out, Tessa?” I said through gritted teeth. “Show some respect.” She pretended not to hear me. “You all probably don’t know this, but Sophie spent nine hundred dollars on a single concert ticket. Her skincare products cost thousands, all imported. Even her underwear is designer, costing hundreds!” Oh my god, this woman had absolutely no shame. A hot, uncontrollable rage surged through me. I kicked back my chair and shot to my feet. “What is wrong with you? Who talks about their roommate’s private life in front of the entire class? If you can’t control that mouth of yours, I swear I’ll shut it for you!” Tessa just smirked, her voice rising with excitement. “As student representative, I propose that her academic scholarship be revoked and the money divided among the students on financial aid! Sophie can clearly afford it; that three-thousand-dollar scholarship is less than what she spends on a concert ticket!” She paused for dramatic effect. “But for students like us, that money means more hot meals. It means less of a burden on our families!” Tessa was on financial aid. In fact, her entire influencer persona was built around being a poor, hardworking student who was pulling herself up by her bootstraps. Her sob story had gained her a lot of sympathy online. As soon as she finished, a murmur of agreement spread through the classroom. Divide my scholarship? Without even asking me? I was furious. I grabbed the nearest textbook and hurled it at her. “Are you deaf? I earned that scholarship with my grades! It has nothing to do with you. What gives you the right to give it away?” I then turned to the rest of the class. “And don’t you dare try to guilt-trip me! There are programs for students who need financial assistance. If you want money, earn it with your own merit!” After my outburst, I stormed out of the room, leaving Tessa fuming and stomping her foot behind me. As I crossed the main campus quad, I saw a large poster for Vanguard Corp.’s on-campus recruitment drive. The anger I’d just started to let go of came roaring back. I had been the one to convince Alexander Knight to hold a trial recruitment event at our university, begging and pleading with him to give my classmates a chance at a top-tier company. And this was the thanks I got. Fine. If they were going to be like that, I didn’t need to waste my energy. I pulled out my phone and dialed Alex’s number. His assistant, Mark, picked up. When I told him to cancel the campus recruitment drive, he agreed without hesitation. “Honestly, Mrs. Knight, the candidate pool wasn’t quite aligned with the corporation’s needs anyway. It’s better to cancel before we officially begin. Don’t worry, I’ll handle everything.” “Oh, and by the way, Mrs. Knight,” he added, “Mr. Knight knows you’re going to the concert. He had a dress custom-made for you. I’ll have it delivered later today.” “Thanks, Mark. Tell Alex to call me when he’s free.” Hanging up, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. No more trying to do good deeds for ungrateful people. Suddenly, my phone vibrated. I glanced down and saw a notification that made my stomach drop. [Dear Ms. Reed, your ticket refund has been processed successfully!] What the hell? I’d stayed up all night for that ticket. There was no way I would have refunded it. I was about to call the ticketing agency when a message from our academic advisor popped up in the group chat. It was a picture of the final rankings for the semester. My eyes scanned the list, and my heart stopped. I, who had never placed below first in my entire college career, was now at the bottom of the list. 3 I rushed to my advisor’s office, certain there had been a mistake with the system. My academic record had been flawless since my freshman year. I’d even felt I performed better than usual on these finals. How could my rank have plummeted so drastically? The moment I stepped into her office, I noticed the strange way my advisor was looking at me. There was a hint of disdain in her eyes. It was unsettling, but I was determined to sort this out. After carefully reviewing the grade sheet, I knew something was wrong. “Professor, these scores can’t be right,” I said, pointing to the paper. “How did I get a 49 in English? I have the highest proficiency score in our entire class.” My advisor, who was usually warm and supportive, was uncharacteristically cold. “Don’t you ever have an off day, Sophie? When something goes wrong, you should look for the cause within yourself, not immediately blame the system or your teachers.” Her tone sharpened. “And about that letter of recommendation for your study abroad application… I can’t write it for you anymore. Sophie, I have to say, a young woman needs to have some self-respect.” Her words left me completely bewildered. What did she mean, no self-respect? Connecting her strange attitude with Tessa’s recent hostility, a sickening suspicion began to form in my mind. I found Tessa and confronted her. “What did you do?” Tessa simply arched an eyebrow. “I submitted lower scores for you. So what? As the student rep, I have the authority. I was just ensuring a level playing field for everyone else.” Her voice was laced with a chilling self-righteousness. “The interview spot at Vanguard Corp. should go to someone who truly has the skills, not some gold-digging tramp like you!” So that was it. The internship. Tessa must have heard some rumor that the top-ranked student in our department would automatically get an interview with Vanguard. Too bad for her, she’d based her entire scheme on a lie. Tessa knew I was in the middle of applying to graduate programs abroad, that every single grade was crucial for my application. Yet she’d abused her position to knock me out of the running, all for the sake of some twisted idea of “fairness.” “I told the advisor everything,” she continued, her voice dripping with venom. “About your messy private life, how you stay up every night sexting with some guy. All those designer clothes you wear… they’re from your sugar daddy, aren’t they? If I were your parents, I’d die of shame.” Her words were getting more and more vicious. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had been patient for days, but I was done being a doormat. I raised my hand and slapped her, hard, across the face. “Are you sick in the head?” I seethed. “You spend all your time in the dorm spying on me. Are you that pathetic? The man I’m talking to every night is my husband, you psycho. So keep your filthy mouth shut!” Tessa clutched her cheek, her eyes wide with shock. “Don’t give me that crap! That guy sends you thousands of dollars at a time. If that’s not being a sugar baby, what is?” I almost laughed. The playful little money transfers Alex and I sent each other were, in her twisted mind, evidence of me being a kept woman.

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The day the special police raided the scam operation, I was sitting on a small stool memorizing fraud scripts. Captain Luke Reynolds snatched the phone from my hand, his voice sharp with anger. “You could come and go freely. You even had your phone. Why didn’t you call the police?” I clutched my fraud notebook tightly to my chest and shook my head blankly. “Call the police? So you could send me back home? But Captain, even breathing is a luxury there.” Luke stood frozen in place. Since I was twelve, my grandmother had installed tiny cameras in my room — by my bed, at my desk, even in the bathroom — so she could monitor me around the clock. Every time I showered, I watched that little red light blinking, and I could barely breathe. I cried and begged my mother for help, but she only said: “Evelyn, I work so hard to make ends meet. Your grandmother only does this because she cares about you so much.” When I was sixteen, I saw a guy with bleached hair on the street and walked straight into that scam den. I couldn’t stand another second in that suffocating house.

When Luke grabbed the notebook from my arms, my instinct was to lunge forward and bite his hand. Two young officers held me back. I kicked my legs, eyes locked on that blue-covered notebook. “Give it back! It’s mine!” Luke flipped open the notebook and stopped. He turned page after page. There wasn’t a single fraud script inside. Just locks. All kinds of locks. Padlocks, deadbolts, security locks, combination locks. Each one had detailed cross-section diagrams with the internal mechanisms labeled. Even the number of pins was clearly marked. He closed the notebook, glanced at me, and shoved me into the back seat of the police car. The moment the door shut, my eyes swept across the corner of the ceiling. A small black sphere with a red light on top. A dashcam. I pressed my back against the car door, curled into a ball, and my teeth started chattering. “What’s wrong with her?” The young officer driving glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Luke turned around and frowned. “Turn off that dashcam in the back.” “But regulations —” “Turn it off.” The red light went out. My teeth kept chattering, but my body slowly relaxed. At the station, a short-haired female officer poured me a cup of hot water. Luke sat across from me, flipped through a file, and looked up. “Your family reported you missing. Did you know that?” I didn’t respond. “You were cleaning at that operation. You had freedom of movement. Why didn’t you think to call the police?” “What would you have done if I had?” “Sent you home, of course.” “I didn’t want to go home. Why would I call?” Luke’s pen stopped. “You can charge me with fraud,” I said. Luke put down his pen and reopened my file. After flipping two pages, his finger stopped on one line. “Evelyn Carter. Social Security number marked deceased.” He turned the file around to show me. “Two years after you disappeared, your legal guardian applied for a declaration of death.” “Legally, you’re already dead.” I looked at that line and smiled slightly. “Being dead is nice.” “What do you mean?” “Dead people don’t get watched.” Luke didn’t press further. He had the female officer take me to a single rest room. The room was small — one bed, one table, one incandescent bulb. The first thing I did after entering was stand on a chair, take off my jacket, and cover the smoke detector on the ceiling. That round white thing looked too much like a camera. After covering it, I climbed down from the chair and sat on the cot for a while. Then I lay down. The ceiling was stark white. Nothing there. No red lights. No reflective circles. No pinholes hidden in stuffed animal eyes. This was a clean room. Though it was a police station rest room, I slept soundly. In the hallway, Luke watched through the one-way glass as I curled up on the bed. He stayed silent for a long time. “Contact her family. Pull the police reports from back then.” Officer Foster acknowledged on the other end of the line. Luke glanced once more at me sleeping behind the glass and lowered his voice. “And find out when her family filed that death declaration.”

The next day, the station brought in a psychological evaluator. Dr. Morgan was a woman in her early forties wearing gold-rimmed glasses. She seemed kind. She pulled a voice recorder from her bag and placed it on the table. There was an indicator light on top of the recorder. When she pressed the switch, it lit up. Red. My stomach clenched violently. I vomited the oatmeal I’d eaten for breakfast all over the floor. Dr. Morgan jumped, quickly offering tissues. I pushed her hand away and dry-heaved several times. Tears streamed down my face. Luke heard the commotion and pushed through the door. He glanced at the recorder on the table with its red light and reached over to turn it off. “Put away anything with indicator lights.” Dr. Morgan opened her mouth but said nothing. She packed the recorder back in her bag. Luke pulled a pen and a palm-sized notebook from his pocket and set them on the table. “Nothing is watching you now.” He sat across from me. “You can talk.” I wiped my mouth with a tissue and stared at the table for a long time. “What do you want me to say?” “Start from the beginning.” I closed my eyes and began to remember. On my twelfth birthday, my grandmother gave me a teddy bear. Brown, palm-sized, fluffy, very cute. I slept with it for three days. On the fourth night, when I rolled over, my arm bumped the bear’s head. In the darkness, I saw the bear’s right eye flashing. Blinking red light. I took the bear to my desk lamp and dug the eye out with my fingernail. A pinhole camera, lens pointed right at my bed. Holding the now one-eyed teddy bear, I ran downstairs barefoot. My grandmother was sitting in the living room watching TV. “Grandma, what is this?” She glanced at the camera in my hand. Her expression didn’t change at all. “Your father’s dead, your mother’s not home. I’m an old woman who can’t keep an eye on you. What’s wrong with installing something to watch you?” I said I didn’t want it. She ignored me and changed the channel. I called my mother. On the other end, my mother’s voice was exhausted and tearful. “Evelyn, do you know how hard I work to support this family?” “You’re your grandmother’s only granddaughter. What’s wrong with her watching you? Can’t you understand what I’m going through?” I told her my grandmother had installed a camera in my room. My mother was silent for two seconds. “She’s old and worried about you. Don’t fight with her. I’m begging you, okay?” The call ended. The next day, the teddy bear’s eye was replaced with a new one. Still red. Luke’s pen stopped on the notebook. “And then?” Then there were more and more. One in the pencil holder on my desk. One on top of the wardrobe. One behind the alarm clock on my nightstand. One above the door frame. Every time I found one, I destroyed it. My grandmother just replaced it with a new one, hidden in a more concealed spot. The winter I turned fourteen, while showering, I happened to look up at the exhaust fan. Through the gaps in the metal blades, something was reflecting light. I stood on the wet bathroom tiles, completely naked, staring at that reflection for a full minute. Then I grabbed the showerhead and smashed it. The next day when I came home from school, my bedroom door was gone. The bathroom door was gone too. Even the door frames had been removed. The doorways gaped open. My grandmother stood in the hallway leaning on her cane. “You love smashing things? Fine. I removed the doors so you can’t close yourself in and do god knows what.” From that day on, I changed clothes, showered, and used the toilet without any doors. I tried using a shower curtain. My grandmother had someone remove the curtain rod. I tried blocking with a chair. My grandmother had all the chairs removed from my room. When I was fifteen, my uncle’s son Dylan came to stay during summer vacation. He was a year younger than me. He brought four or five male classmates. That afternoon I was changing out of my school uniform in my room. The doorway was wide open. I faced away from the hallway, moving quickly. Laughter echoed from the corridor. I turned around. Dylan was holding my grandmother’s phone, the screen showing a live surveillance feed. Four boys crowded behind him, watching together. “Hahaha, look at her.” I rushed over to grab the phone. Dylan shoved me away hard. He was half a head taller than me. The push sent me crashing into the door frame. The back of my head hit hard, raising a bump. I got up and went to find my grandmother. “Grandma, Dylan used the surveillance to watch me change.” My grandmother was in the kitchen making chicken soup for Dylan. She didn’t even turn around. “What’s there to see on a worthless girl like you?” “If you had half your cousin’s promise, would I need to watch you like this?” I said I’d call the police. When the cane came down, I didn’t dodge in time. Three strikes across my back. My clothes tore. Blood seeped through. My mother called that evening. I thought she’d stand up for me, but instead she said: “Evelyn, Dylan’s still young and doesn’t know better. Don’t hold it against him.”

She cried on the phone. “Do you know how hard it is for me out here alone? I’m so grateful your grandmother helps me take care of you.” “Just endure it. Once Dylan gets into college, things will get better.” But he wasn’t my brother. He was my uncle’s son. My uncle was my grandmother’s youngest son, her precious baby. And my father was the eldest son. An unwanted eldest son who was now dead. When I was sixteen, I found a waterproof camera in the bathroom drain. This time, I didn’t smash it. I started secretly saving money, skimming from my lunch money — one dollar, two dollars — hiding it in the lining of my backpack. I saved for two months. One hundred forty dollars. But my grandmother found the hidden compartment. That night, she locked me in the basement. All four walls of the basement were covered with screens. More than a dozen screens of various sizes — some old phones, some tablets. Every screen was playing surveillance footage. My room, my desk, me changing clothes, me using the toilet, me hiding under my blanket crying at night… Four years of footage, all there. My grandmother locked the basement door. From outside the iron door, her voice leaked through the gap. “You were born a Carter, you’ll die a Carter. Don’t even think about escaping my grasp.” I stayed in that basement for three days. Surrounded by images of myself. Countless versions of “me” staring at me from the screens. When I was released on the third day, I’d vomited six times. For the next month, I dry-heaved at the sight of anything reflective. Luke’s notebook was filled with writing. He never looked up. “Did your mother know about all this?” “She knew everything.” “What was her attitude?” “When she wiped the blood off me, she’d cover my mouth so I couldn’t cry out loud.” “She’d say, ‘Just endure it. Once Dylan gets into college, things will get better.’” When I was sixteen, my grandmother sent me to the store to buy eggs. When I reached the intersection, a guy with bleached hair shoved a flyer into my hand. “Health and wellness seminar. Free attendance, plus free eggs.” The back of the flyer had an address. Very remote. I held it and looked for a moment. The guy walked toward a white van parked by the roadside. The windows weren’t tinted. I could see the seats inside from outside. I scanned the interior. No cameras, no red lights. “Where’s this seminar held?” The guy turned back with a grin. “Get in the car and you’ll see. Real close.” I knew this was probably a scam. Those days, fraud operations were all over the TV news. But I turned and looked back the way I’d come. The doorless room, the basement plastered with screens, the waterproof pinhole in the bathroom… and my grandmother’s voice that rang out every morning at six sharp. “Evelyn, get up. I’m watching you.” Without hesitation, I got in the van. From that day on, I became one of them. Ironically, I finally had a room with a lock. I still remember that afternoon, holding the key to the storage room, standing at the door for a long time. Then I inserted the key and turned it. The bolt clicked out. I crouched on the floor, hugging my knees, and cried for a full hour. For the first time in four years, I had a door I could lock from the inside. Luke suddenly interrupted me. “Is that why you stayed at the scam operation?” I didn’t answer. I just lowered my head and looked at my fingers. “Mr. Reynolds, do you think the people at that operation were bad?” “Yes.” “They’re bad people. But those bad people gave me a lock.” “My own grandmother wouldn’t even give me a door.” Luke didn’t ask anything more. He picked up the peeled apple from the table and handed it to me. “Evelyn, no one will ever take your door away again.” I took the apple and bit into it. Suddenly, the door was pushed open. Officer Foster stuck his head in halfway, his expression grim. “The family’s here.” “Causing quite a scene outside.”

I heard crying from the hallway. “My granddaughter! My poor granddaughter!” It was my grandmother. Her legs didn’t work well, so she sat in a wheelchair, pushed by a caregiver. My mother followed behind, wearing a black cotton jacket, her face bare. They started crying as soon as they entered the station lobby. My grandmother’s crying was loud wailing, with slapping and shouting. My mother’s crying was silent, wiping tears, shoulders shaking. Several young officers on duty all looked over. “Don’t worry, we found the girl. That’s good news.” My grandmother grabbed the female officer’s hand. “I’ve been looking for her for four years!” “Her father died young. I’m just an old woman who raised her, and she just…” Halfway through, she clutched her chest, unable to breathe. The caregiver pulled out quick-acting heart pills and shoved them in her mouth. My mother dropped to her knees with a thud. “Officers, please, I’m begging you to let me see my daughter.” “I dream about her every night.” The officers who didn’t know the truth got teary-eyed. Someone went to open the interrogation room door. The moment the door opened, my mother rushed in and hugged me. Her arms locked around my back, her face buried in my shoulder. “Evelyn, my Evelyn, I finally get to see you.” All the officers nearby were wiping tears. How touching. But only I knew that the second she hugged me tight, her right index and middle fingers dug into the soft flesh at my waist. Her lips pressed against my ear, her voice masked by her crying. Only I could hear it. “If you say anything wrong, I’ll deal with you properly when we get home.” My body went rigid. Exactly the same feeling as when I was twelve. My grandmother’s wheelchair was pushed in front of me. She reached out her hand, trembling as she touched my face. In everyone else’s eyes, this was a white-haired old woman caressing her long-lost granddaughter. But I could feel her fingers searching through my clothes. From the collar to the back of my neck, from the roots of my hair to behind my ears. She was looking for bugs, for recording devices. She knew these things all too well. After finishing her search and finding nothing, her fingers stopped on my cheek, the pressure suddenly increasing. “If you don’t want to actually become a corpse… play dumb.” She released her hand, slowly lifted her face, tears streaming down as she turned toward Luke standing in the doorway. “Officer, this child isn’t mentally well. I need to take her home.” Luke stood in the doorway without moving. His gaze swept across my face and caught the two white fingerprints on my cheek. Then my mother pulled a medical record from her bag and handed it to Luke. “This is Evelyn’s psychiatric evaluation. Severe schizophrenia, diagnosed two years before she disappeared.” “No matter what she’s said, it can’t be taken seriously.” Ha. You’re really in a hurry. You don’t even know what I said, but you’re already rushing to discredit everything I’ve told them. Luke took it and flipped through two pages, glanced at me, and said nothing. My grandmother chimed in from the side. “We’ve already contacted a psychiatric hospital. She can be admitted today.” A white ambulance was parked outside, with two orderlies in blue uniforms waiting in the hallway. I clutched the table leg tightly. “I’m not going back! I won’t go back even if you kill me!” My mother lunged over and grabbed my arm. “Evelyn, you’re having an episode. Listen to me…” Two young officers who didn’t know the situation started to help. “Don’t move.” Luke stepped between me and that mother-daughter pair. “She’s a key witness in a major criminal case.” “No one’s taking her anywhere.” My grandmother’s face darkened. “She’s my own granddaughter. I have guardianship!” Luke slapped the medical record on the table. “The hospital that issued this record — Grace Recovery Hospital — had its license revoked three months ago for selling fake diagnoses.” “This thing is just a piece of waste paper to me.” My grandmother’s mouth twitched. Luke pulled out another paper from the file. “Also, Evelyn Carter is twenty years old, a person with full civil capacity.” “More importantly…” “Her Social Security number is marked deceased.” “You have no legal basis whatsoever to take away a dead person.”

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