At my own engagement party, the man I’d spent three years loving hurled a lab report at my face. The words “High-Risk HPV Positive” blazed across the giant screen behind him. In front of the entire city’s elite, I was reduced to nothing. A slut. A dirty woman no decent man would want. My best friend rushed onto the stage and pulled me into her arms, eyes red, screaming at him to stop. But in the very next second, a vicious, triumphant voice exploded inside my head — one only I could hear. Cry all you want, you stupid little fool. Your fiancé? I had him last night. That positive test result? Consider it my engagement gift to you. The blood drained from my body. Hell is empty. The devils are right here beside you. Fine. If this is the game you want to play, I’ll make sure you regret ever starting it. That thin slip of paper hit me like an open-handed slap across the face before drifting down to land on the expensive Persian rug below. The banquet hall, loud and glittering just moments before, went dead silent. Hundreds of pairs of eyes locked onto me like searchlights. The slideshow on the massive screen behind the stage — the one that was supposed to show our love story — had been replaced by a blinding medical report. High-Risk HPV 16/18 Positive. The words, in red, were blown up to an enormous size. They seared into my eyes like a white-hot brand. Ethan stood in front of me. His face, the one I’d always thought was so handsome, was twisted with disgust and fury. He still held the microphone, and his voice reached every corner of the room through the high-end speakers. “Do you have any shame, Serena?” His voice was quiet but it cut like a serrated blade, every word designed to pin me to the spot. “I’ve given you everything, and this is how you repay me? You’re walking into my family carrying a disease like that? What do you think we are — a charity for broken, used-up women?” The room exploded. “She always looked so innocent. And she has that kind of disease…” “Disgusting. How many people has she been with?” “Ethan got so lucky he found out in time. Almost married that trash.” The contempt and cruelty from every direction pinned me to that stage like nails through flesh. My whole body was shaking. I bent down desperately, not caring how I looked, reaching for the paper on the floor. I didn’t understand. I had barely held a man’s hand before. How could this be real? There had to be a mistake. My fingertips were nearly touching the paper when a warm hand covered mine. It was Vivian. My roommate through all four years of college. My best friend. The girl who was supposed to be my maid of honor today. She yanked me up from the floor and wrapped her arms around me in a way that felt almost possessive, squeezing hard enough that I could feel her fingernails through the fabric of my dress. She turned toward Ethan and snarled like a lioness. “Have you lost your mind, Ethan? You know exactly who Serena is. That report is fake. How dare you humiliate her like this in front of everyone!” The scent coming off her was my Jo Malone Blue Agapanthus perfume — the bottle I’d just opened. Normally I loved that smell. Right now it was making my chest feel tight. “Serena, don’t be scared. I’ve got you. We’ll get this sorted out. The hospital must have made a mistake.” Her voice was soft and trembling in my ear, perfectly calibrated, warm in exactly the right way. I hugged her back, grateful. The tears finally broke through. And then a breath of warm air grazed my ear. A cruel, casual voice — one only I could hear — detonated inside my skull. God, you’re pathetic. Look at you cry. There’s no mistake. Because that report had my name on it — until I had it switched to yours. Everything that’s yours, I’ve already used. Your towel. Your mug. And… your fiancé. You’ll never know how good he was last night. The spot beside Ethan belongs to me. Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. The tears stopped mid-fall. I went rigid and looked down at Vivian’s hand on my arm. Even through the thin fabric of my dress, I could feel the exact shape of her fingernails. She was wearing my nude nail polish. The one I’d bought two days ago. I’d said that shade made your hands look fair. Perfect for the engagement party. She’d laughed and asked if she could borrow it. The three-carat diamond ring Ethan had put on my finger was digging into my knuckle, sending a sharp, stabbing pain up my hand. I shoved Vivian away. Hard. Hard enough that she stumbled backward with no warning and fell onto the stage with a cry. “Serena… what are you doing?” She looked up at me with wide, glassy eyes, the picture of hurt and disbelief. What is wrong with this crazy girl? That actually hurt. The voice in my head rang out again. Clear. Merciless. I wasn’t going crazy. I had just, finally, woken up. I looked out at the crowd drinking in every second of this spectacle, then let my gaze settle on Ethan’s face — that carefully constructed mask of a face — and said, clearly and quietly: “The engagement is off. Ethan, you make me sick.” I gathered my dress in both hands and walked out of that banquet hall without looking back.

I don’t know how I made it home. It was pouring outside. I didn’t bother with an umbrella. I let the cold rain wash away every trace of the careful makeup I’d spent hours on. My dress soaked through and hung heavy on my body, dragging at my steps, the way my heart was dragging as it sank. The key scraped against the lock for a long time before the door finally clicked open. The apartment was silent as a tomb. Vivian and I had lived here for three years. After graduation, to save money and look out for each other, we’d split the rent on this two-bedroom. I used to think we were each other’s anchor in this cold, indifferent city. When she ran a fever, I stayed up all night pressing cool cloths to her forehead. When I worked late, she’d leave the hallway light on and keep a bowl of soup warm on the stove. The first time I introduced Ethan to her, she’d looped her arm through mine and jokingly promised to vet him thoroughly, to make sure he was good enough, to protect me from any man who might hurt me. Now, every one of those memories felt like a barb turning inward, shredding tissue with every breath I took. I walked barefoot to the bathroom. Two towels hung side by side on the wall. Blue and pink. The pink one was mine. I remembered folding it into a neat square before I left this morning. Now one corner drooped loose, still damp, the fabric holding the vague imprint of someone else’s use. On the edge of the sink, the inside of my pink cup held a smeared, blurred stain near the rim. Lipstick. The rotten-tomato red that Vivian always wore. I lurched toward the toilet and heaved, my stomach turning itself inside out until my eyes were streaming. Every detail had been there the whole time. I just hadn’t wanted to see it. My phone started vibrating violently in my pocket. The name on the screen read: Ethan’s Mom. His mother. Linda Crawford. I swiped to answer. On the other end of the line came ten, fifteen seconds of loaded silence — just the weight of someone’s controlled breathing. “Our family has always had a spotless reputation.” Linda’s voice finally came through. Cold and hard as iron. “We don’t bring in filth.” “What happened tonight at the party made us the laughingstock of this entire city. We agreed to this engagement because we thought you were a decent, respectable girl. I had no idea you were this kind of person.” “You’ve seen the prenuptial agreement. Misconduct on one party’s part constitutes absolute fault.” “You leave with nothing. The gifts, the cost of tonight’s event, the jewelry — Ethan will come to collect them tomorrow. You’d better have every single item accounted for and ready. If anything is missing, we’ll see each other in court.” The line went dead. Silence rushed back in. I sat holding the phone. The screen lit up on its own. A new message. From Ethan. Five words: Give me back the ring.

I didn’t reply to Ethan. I didn’t shed another tear. All the rage and grief seemed to have evaporated somewhere in that downpour, leaving behind only a hollow shell packed with cold, hardening hatred. I walked into my bedroom and pulled open the closet door. My clothes hung in a neat row. At the far end was a piece I’d treasured more than anything else — a Chanel haute couture dress. I’d bought it last year when I won the company’s top sales award. A gift to myself for something I’d worked incredibly hard for. Last week, it vanished. I tore the apartment apart looking for it, panicked and sweating, while Vivian said with a shrug: Haven’t seen it. Maybe you put it somewhere and forgot. Now it was hanging right there. Perfectly still, perfectly in place. But at the neckline, there was the faintest trace of something I knew immediately — the cold cedar scent of the men’s cologne Ethan always kept in his car. I picked up my phone. My fingers pressed down so hard the blood left my fingertips. I opened a mutual friend’s Instagram. A post from three days ago. A grid of photos, captioned: Weekend yacht party — best time!! In one of the group shots, Ethan and Vivian were standing side by side. Vivian’s smile was radiant. She was wearing my Chanel dress — the one I’d been desperately searching for. Ethan’s arm was resting on the railing behind her in a way that looked casual but wasn’t. It formed a loose circle around her, the kind of posture that says mine. I zoomed in. Then zoomed in again until the image broke into pixels. On Vivian’s pale neck was a delicate white gold chain. The pendant was a small, simple star. It was my mother’s. The only thing she’d left behind. I kept it at the very bottom of my jewelry box like something sacred, too precious to ever wear. A short, cold laugh came out of me. It sounded strange in the empty apartment. My towel. My clothes. My mother’s necklace. My man. Vivian. You really outdid yourself.

A little past ten that night, I heard the lock turn. Vivian was home. She came in carrying two large bags of my favorite snacks, wearing an expression of perfectly calibrated concern and exhaustion, like a hero who had dropped everything to rescue me. “Serena, look what I got you — dried mango and those yogurt bites you’re obsessed with.” She set the bags on the coffee table with a rustling crash that ripped through the silence in the room. “Please don’t take what happened today to heart,” she said, moving toward me, arms already opening out of habit. “Ethan is such a jerk. You’re way too good for him. Good riddance. I already chewed him out for you!” I was sitting on the couch. I shifted back slightly without thinking about it, just enough that her arms closed around empty air. She froze in that awkward half-embrace, and the perfect mask of concern cracked just slightly. “Serena? Are you okay? Are you still upset?” I didn’t answer. I just looked at her. Took her in, slowly — her face, her eyes, the nude polish on her fingertips. Seven years I’d looked at this face. Right now it made me feel physically ill in a way I couldn’t suppress. She recovered quickly. The mask resettled. She pressed on with her performance, her voice thick with manufactured warmth. “I know you’re hurting right now, and that’s okay. I’m here. Once the dust settles, I promise I’ll introduce you to someone ten times better than Ethan. Someone who actually deserves you.” Oh, shut up. Still sitting there with that dead-fish expression. Ethan’s fiancée — that’s going to be me. He was so worried about me after I fell on that stage. Spent the whole car ride home comforting me. Once you’re gone, the first thing I’m doing is throwing out every last thing of yours. Can’t stand looking at it. And that tacky little necklace from your dead mother — I’ve been sick of it for a while. Tomorrow I’m having Ethan buy me a real one. Each thought was more vicious than the last. More certain. More smug. And each one left me a little clearer. A little colder. A little more ready.

I reached over and picked up the bag of dried mango. Tore it open, unhurried. The sticky sweetness coated my fingers. I pinched a piece and held it out toward her — right in front of her startled face. “Isn’t this your favorite?” My voice was soft. Almost tender. Completely flat. Vivian’s body went rigid. Clearly she hadn’t expected this. What is she doing? Is she trying to poison me? Please. She doesn’t have the nerve. She’s probably just shaken up and trying to get on my good side. She pushed down the suspicion, forced a smile. “Thanks, Serena. You always know what I like.” She leaned forward, opening her mouth to take the piece of mango. A half-second before it reached her lips, I turned my wrist. The mango slice grazed her cheek and dropped to the floor. Then I raised that same sticky hand and, with just my fingertips, slowly — deliberately, insultingly slowly — patted her smooth cheek, right over her expensive foundation. “Vivian.” I watched her pupils contract. I breathed the next word out, barely above a whisper. “Dirty.” The smile collapsed off her face. She knows? Impossible. I was so careful. I even paid someone to swap the names on that hospital report. She’s too stupid to figure this out. She’s having a breakdown. That’s all this is. She’s losing it. I pulled my hand back, the way you’d pull it back after touching garbage. I turned and walked to the balcony, picked up the used litter box in the corner — the one I’d been meaning to throw out — and carried it back into the living room. In front of her wide, furious eyes, I upended the entire box into both bags of snacks. Gray clumping litter, along with the damp, reeking clumps it had already absorbed, cascaded down over the neatly packaged snacks in a gray, stinking avalanche. The sharp smell of ammonia hit the room like a wall. Vivian’s face went from white to green, then from green to a deep, mottled purple-red. “Serena! What is wrong with you!” She finally dropped the act and screamed, stumbling backward, desperately protecting her shoes from the mess. I dropped the empty box at her feet. The plastic hit the floor with a hollow, sharp crack.

“Wrong with me?” I smiled for the first time. But the smile didn’t reach my eyes. It was colder than the floor under my bare feet. I ignored her screaming and walked straight into her bedroom. I yanked open her closet. The smell hit me first — an unfamiliar expensive perfume. And then the things hanging inside: several pieces of luxury clothing I had never seen before, still carrying the soft gleam of new fabric. I reached in and pulled one out. A silk jumpsuit, still with the tags on. She’s touching my things?! Ethan bought me that last week. It was over two thousand dollars. I was going to wear it for our date tomorrow. I didn’t register her shrieking. I walked back out to the living room holding the slippery, beautiful fabric. “Vivian, your monthly take-home after rent barely covers groceries. How exactly are you buying any of this?” I threw the jumpsuit at her. The tag swung out, the price printed clearly: $2,880. “That alone would take you half a year to save for.” She stumbled catching it, clutching it to her chest like a lifeline. “I — it’s a knockoff! I found a deal. It’s a replica, it was super cheap!” Her eyes darted everywhere but at me, her voice losing air with every word. She can’t know. She absolutely cannot know. If she figures out Ethan paid for it and makes a scene with his family, his mother will destroy me. “Is that right?” I nodded, keeping my expression deliberately neutral, as if I’d swallowed her terrible lie whole. Then I unlocked my phone and opened my banking app right in front of her. “Funny timing — I’ve been wanting to treat myself too. Why don’t you pass me that hookup of yours?” “Actually, I just remembered — when we first moved in, we opened a shared account for splitting utilities and household expenses. It’s registered under your name, but the monthly statements have been going to my email this whole time.” My finger scrolled slowly down the screen. My eyes stayed on her face, cutting across it inch by inch. “Let me just pull up this month’s statement…” Vivian stopped breathing. She stared at my phone like it was a live grenade. The screen cast its pale light across my face. The statement was long, every large transaction recorded in precise, unforgiving detail. Not one of them was from any so-called deal-finder. But there was a charge of $2,880 at a luxury retailer. And a charge of $1,200 at the Park Hyatt — one of the most expensive hotels in the city. The timestamp: last Friday night. The night my Chanel dress disappeared. I enlarged the hotel charge so it filled the screen, centered it, and took a screenshot. The small click of the shutter cut through the room like a blade. “The Park Hyatt Presidential Suite.” I looked at her. “Does your deal-finder include a room for the night?” Vivian’s lips were shaking so badly she couldn’t form a single word.

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For seven years, Hudson Calloway — the crown prince of the capital’s elite circle — had spoiled me rotten. On the day we were supposed to walk into the county clerk’s office with the whole city’s media watching, he didn’t show up. Instead, he issued twelve lockdown orders at the airport to keep his childhood sweetheart from leaving — the girl who’d been diagnosed with depression. Everyone laughed and said my fairy tale had shattered. Hudson was convinced I’d wait for him like a loyal dog. He didn’t even bother hiding the condescension when he tried to smooth things over: “Sophia, Evelyn is sick. You’re perfectly healthy — can’t you be the bigger person here? The title of Mrs. Calloway will be yours eventually.” What he didn’t know was that I walked away and tore up the engagement contract on the spot. Then I dialed the number of the man who actually ran things in this city. “Mr. York,” I said. “That alliance marriage you mentioned — is the offer still on the table?” Later, Hudson Calloway ended up on his knees outside the York estate, kowtowing until his forehead bled, begging for just one chance to see me.

September in the capital. The autumn wind carried a bone-deep chill. Outside the county clerk’s office, the plaza was packed wall to wall with reporters and camera crews. Today was the seventh anniversary of my relationship with Hudson Calloway, CEO of Calloway Group. It was also supposed to be the day we officially made things legal. I was wearing a white custom couture dress, sitting quietly on the leather sofa in the VIP waiting room. The clock on the wall ticked steadily. The hour hand had already slipped past ten in the morning. Hudson hadn’t arrived. My phone screen lit up. It was a photo sent by Hudson’s personal assistant. The photo showed the crowded main terminal of an airport. Hudson had a frail woman pulled tight against his chest, her face buried against him, while he barked orders at the bodyguards around him, clearing the crowd. Then a voice message from Hudson popped up. “Sophia, Evelyn’s depression hit her out of nowhere. She’s insisting she wants to leave the country and disappear forever. There are too many people at the airport and she panicked. I have to get her to the hospital right now.” His voice was soaked in barely-contained urgency, but at the end he forced it down and shifted into something softer — the tone of someone doing you a favor. “I’ll have the PR team handle the media outside. They’ll say the company had an emergency international call. Be good and head home for now. That pink diamond necklace you liked yesterday — I already had someone set it aside. I’ll make it up to you tonight. We’ll take care of the paperwork tomorrow.” Tomorrow. Over the past seven years, I’d heard those two words more times than I could count. “Sophia, Evelyn is afraid of the dark. I need to stay at the hospital with her tonight — let’s do our New Year’s together tomorrow.” “Sophia, Evelyn doesn’t have any family. It’s Christmas Eve and she’d be completely alone. I’m bringing her to the house for dinner. Please don’t take it personally.” “Sophia, Evelyn made a mess of that project. Can you take the blame for her? You’re capable — the board won’t come after you too hard.” I looked down at the plain band on my ring finger. I’d worn it for seven years. Suddenly I found the whole thing almost funny. So this was all my seven years of waiting had been worth — crumbling the moment Evelyn White threw a tantrum. I didn’t reply with my usual “okay, I’ll wait.” I didn’t scream at him either. I just calmly saved the photo, then dragged Hudson’s number — along with every other way to reach him — straight into the blocked list. “Miss Sutton, Mr. Calloway isn’t—” The staff member eased the door open with a pained expression. “He’s not coming.” I stood up, smoothed out a wrinkle in my skirt, and my voice came out completely flat. “Please let the media outside know — there’s no registration today. There’s a broken engagement instead.” The staff member stared at me, stunned. I pushed past her, clicked across the floor in my heels, and walked out of the county clerk’s office without a single backward glance. Blinding camera flashes swallowed me the moment I stepped outside. Microphones came at me from every direction. “Miss Sutton — why didn’t Mr. Calloway show up? Did the relationship fall apart?” “Miss Sutton — there are rumors Mr. Calloway shut down part of the airport for another woman. Is that true?” I stopped. My eyes swept across those eager lenses. A thin, cold smile touched the corner of my mouth. “Since Mr. Calloway has someone who needs him more, I won’t be sticking around. As of today, we go our separate ways. It’s over.” I pushed through the crowd and got into a black Maybach that had been waiting at the curb. The moment the car door shut, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I’d only saved once — but had memorized completely. Three rings. Someone picked up. “Sophia Sutton?” A man’s voice. Low and unhurried, carrying the effortless ease and quiet pressure of someone used to being in charge. “Mr. York.” I watched the street blur past the window. My voice was steady. “The alliance marriage you mentioned at the charity gala — is that offer still open?” A brief silence on the other end. Then a soft, low laugh. “Where are you?” “Outside the county clerk’s office.” “Stay right there. I’m coming to pick up my future wife.”

Adrian York. The real crown prince of the capital’s inner circle. Head of the York financial empire, with its fingers in the arteries of the global economy. Hudson Calloway might have commanded respect in this city, but in front of Adrian York, even he had to bow his head and say “Mr. York” like everyone else. Half an hour later, I was back at the downtown penthouse I’d shared with Hudson for five years. The moment I pushed the door open, a familiar cool fragrance drifted over me. Traces of our life together were everywhere. Matching slippers at the entrance. The antique oil painting he’d paid a fortune for at auction because I loved it. And in the dressing room, rows of couture gowns he’d had custom-made from all over the world, all cut to my exact measurements. He’d once covered my eyes and pressed a set of keys into my palm — keys to this apartment worth thirty million dollars — and said with all the tenderness in the world: “Sophia, this is the cage I built just for you. Don’t even think about flying away.” I used to believe that was the deepest kind of love. Now I understood it for what it was. A leash. I pulled out a black rolling suitcase and started packing. I only took my own documents, a few outfits I actually wore, and the belongings my parents had left me. Everything Hudson had bought me — the jewelry, the bags, the clothes — I didn’t touch a single piece. Halfway through packing, the digital lock on the front door beeped. Hudson’s assistant, Liam, walked in. His face went pale the moment he saw the suitcase on the floor. “Miss Sutton — what are you doing? Mr. Calloway just went to check on Miss White at the hospital. Please don’t act out over this.” “Act out?” I set down what I was holding and looked at him. “Liam, you’ve worked for Hudson for years. Can’t you tell? I’m leaving.” Liam blinked. Then a helpless, pained smile crossed his face. “Miss Sutton, please don’t joke like that. Everyone in this city knows how much Mr. Calloway loves you. Today was genuinely unexpected. Miss White has severe depression — she had a piece of broken glass in her hand. He didn’t have a choice—” “Didn’t have a choice?” I cut him off. My voice held no warmth at all. “He had a choice to lock down an airport. He had a choice to abandon me in front of the entire city’s media. He had every choice in the world except the one that mattered — keeping his word to me.” I shoved the last piece of clothing into the suitcase and zipped it shut. “Miss Sutton!” Liam panicked and stepped in front of me. “Mr. Calloway said to ask you to wait at home. He’ll be back soon. If you just leave like this, I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to him.” “That’s your problem, not mine.” I pushed past him and wheeled the suitcase toward the door. Right then, Liam’s phone rang. Hudson. Liam answered fast and hit speakerphone. “Liam, is Sophia home? Tell her I’ll be there soon. Tell her not to look at the news online — I’m handling it.” Hudson’s voice was tired, but underneath the exhaustion was the same unshakeable certainty he always carried. “Mr. Calloway…” Liam shot me a glance. His voice came out shaky. “Miss Sutton is — she’s packing to leave.” Two seconds of dead silence on the other end. Then Hudson laughed. Cold and short. “Sophia, what is this now? I already explained everything. Evelyn’s life was at stake. You’re completely fine — why do you have to make this into something with a sick person?” His voice shifted, turning sharp. “Do you have any idea what the media is printing about me right now? You pull a stunt like this and what — you think I’m going to come crawling to you?” His self-righteous anger hit like a sledgehammer, knocking loose the very last piece of whatever I’d still been holding onto. Seven years. He’d always been exactly like this. The moment Evelyn cried, the fault was always mine. “Hudson.” I spoke toward the phone. My voice was so calm it surprised even me. “I’m done. You don’t need to come crawling anywhere.” “What is that supposed to mean?” His tone dropped, edged with cold fury. “Exactly what it sounds like. We’re finished.” “Sophia!” Hudson’s voice exploded through the speaker. “Don’t push your luck! You think walking out that door means you’ll find someone better than me? I’m telling you right now — if you take one step out of this apartment, I don’t care if you get on your knees and beg me later. I will never look at you again.” “Fine.” I said it quietly. Then I took the phone right out of Liam’s hand and smashed it against the wall. The screen shattered. Hudson’s shouting stopped cold. I slipped the apartment key off my keyring, then pulled the plain band off my finger — the one I’d worn for seven years. I set them both on the console table by the door. “Liam, please tell Mr. Calloway something for me. I don’t do recycling. Especially not garbage.” I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and walked out the door without looking back, leaving behind the apartment that had kept me caged for five years. Downstairs, a black Rolls-Royce Phantom sat waiting at the curb. The window came down. Adrian York’s profile appeared — clean, sharp, almost carved. His dark eyes found mine. A faint, unreadable smile curved his mouth. “Didn’t waste any time, did you, Mrs. York.” I walked over, handed my suitcase to his bodyguard, and got in. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. York.” Adrian turned his head. His gaze dropped to my bare ring finger. Something shifted behind his eyes. Then he leaned toward me — slow, unhurried — until his presence surrounded me completely, warm and overwhelming. My breath caught. Every muscle in my body pulled taut. But he didn’t do anything else. He simply reached across and pulled my seatbelt over, clicking it into place. “Sophia.” His voice was low, rough at the edges, somewhere between a warning and a promise. “You got in my car. There’s no getting out.”

The car smelled faintly of sandalwood. Calming, and somehow invasive at the same time. Adrian didn’t take me to his private estate. He had the driver head straight to Pinnacle — the most exclusive private club in the city. The panoramic suite on the top floor looked out over a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. The capital’s nightline stretched endlessly below. Adrian shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the arm of the sofa. Underneath he wore a black dress shirt, the collar open just enough to reveal the hard line of his collarbone. He walked to the bar, poured two glasses of whiskey, and held one out to me. “Drink. It’ll warm you up.” I took the glass. The cold liquid slid down my throat and left a trail of fire behind it — but my head felt clearer for it. “Mr. York.” I met his eyes directly. “Why me?” The head of the York empire could have had anyone. So why approach me — Hudson Calloway’s fiancée — at a charity gala with a marriage proposal? Adrian carried his glass to the window and looked out over the city below. “Because you’re ruthless.” He turned back to face me. His gaze was steady and direct. “Seven years. You ended it without blinking. Sophia, you’re sharp. The York family needs a woman with a clear head, real instincts, and the nerve to act on them — not someone whose whole world revolves around keeping a man happy.” He paused, then closed the distance between us and looked down at me. “And honestly — I’ve never liked Hudson Calloway. Taking what he values most? I find that very satisfying.” I looked at the ambition and possessiveness sitting openly in his expression, and I laughed. “You’re straightforward. I can work with that. But I have conditions.” “Name them.” “I want full controlling interest in Sutton Group.” I said it one word at a time. Sutton Group was everything my parents had built. When they died in a car accident, Hudson had folded it into Calloway Group under the pretense of protecting me. For seven years, while I stayed quietly in the background for him, he’d hollowed out everything my parents had left behind. Now I was taking it back. Adrian studied me. Something like approval moved through his eyes. “Done. My legal team will bring the transfer papers to you first thing tomorrow morning.” He reached up — long, deliberate fingers — and let them skim lightly across my cheek. A small shiver moved through me. “Then we have a deal, Mrs. York.” I didn’t pull away. I raised my glass and touched it to his. “Deal.” Across the city, at the Calloway estate. Hudson sat on the couch, his expression dark enough to fill the room. The phone he’d thrown lay shattered on the floor. Liam stood nearby, not making a sound. “She actually left?” Hudson asked, his jaw tight. “Yes, sir. She barely took anything — a few of her own clothes. She left the key. And the ring.” Hudson let out a sharp laugh and kicked the coffee table over. “Classic move. She thinks playing hard to get is going to break me? Seven years under my roof — everything she had came from me. Without me, Sophia Sutton is nothing.” He yanked at his tie, restless and irritated. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop seeing the look in her eyes when she walked away. The way she hadn’t hesitated. A knot formed somewhere in his chest, one he couldn’t name. Then, from upstairs — the sound of something ceramic shattering. A housekeeper’s startled cry. “Miss White, please — don’t do this!” Hudson’s expression shifted. He was up the stairs in seconds. In the guest room, Evelyn White stood in a thin nightgown, a piece of broken glass pressed against her wrist, tears streaming down her face. “Ethan, this is all my fault. I ruined everything between you and Sophia. Just let me go — if I’m gone, she won’t be angry with you anymore.” Hudson’s chest clenched. He crossed the room in two strides, pulled the glass from her hand, and wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t do that, Evelyn. This isn’t on you. Sophia’s the one being unreasonable.” He held her, rubbing slow circles on her back. But his eyes went cold. “If she wants to throw a fit, fine. Cancel all her cards. Put the word out — no one in our circle helps her. I want to see how long she lasts out there on her own. When she’s desperate enough, she’ll come back. She always does.”

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1 During the Winter Carnival, my worst enemy kidnapped my husband and my son. The psychopaths packed two tons of TNT right under their seats, broadcasting the hostage feed directly onto the massive jumbo screen in the Grand Plaza. “Everyone says Captain Pamela is the bedrock of the bomb squad, a hero who has saved countless lives!” “So today, I want to see what our great expert will do. Cut the red wire, and your husband dies. Cut the blue wire, and your son dies. How will you choose, Captain?” Every citizen in the city knew this was a trap designed to destroy me. No matter which wire I chose, I would be branded a monster forever. Amidst the terrified screams of the thousands of onlookers in the plaza, I casually posted a comment in the live chat. “A human firework show should be spectacular. Make sure to record it for me!” On the giant screen of the Grand Plaza, the faces of my husband, Raymond, and my son, Toby, were magnified to an agonizing degree. The barrels of explosives beneath them were hooked up to two brightly colored wires, one red, one blue. A woman wearing a grotesque clown mask stared back at the camera, her voice digitally altered to a high-pitched, mocking screech. The live-stream chat cascaded down like a waterfall. “Is this real? Is this some insane movie promo? Who pulls a stunt like this on New Year’s?” “Look at their faces! That’s not acting! Their mouths are duct-taped, and they’ve cried themselves dry!” “I just looked it up! Captain Pamela is the head of the city’s bomb squad! Her family has really been taken!” My father-in-law, Ron, grabbed my arm, his fingernails digging deep into my skin. “Pamela! You’re always so damn capable! Why are you just standing there? Say something!” I peeled his fingers off my arm and calmly adjusted the cuffs of my jacket. “Dad, what’s the rush? They aren’t asking for money, they’re only forcing me to choose. It’s obviously a setup.” “A setup? What kind of setup is more important than your husband and son’s lives? Is your heart made of stone?” His chest heaved violently with rage. “If you make the wrong move, you’ll destroy this family! Do you understand?” My mother-in-law, Beatrice, rushed over, swinging her hand to slap me. “You cursed woman! It’s because of you that our family is being targeted! If anything happens to my son, I will kill you myself!” I stepped aside, dodging her hand, my eyes cold and empty. “So, by your logic, I should choose my son, right?” The moment those words left my mouth, it was like a bucket of ice water dumped over their heads. The elderly couple exchanged a panicked look, neither of them daring to speak. On the screen, the clown woman’s voice rang out again, dripping with sadistic amusement. “Captain Pamela, it seems your family knows how to choose better than you do!” “Don’t waste time. Come on, tell the whole city, do you love your husband, or do you love your son?” The chat comments began to turn. “Holy hell, this kidnapper knows exactly how to tear someone’s soul apart.” “Yeah, Captain Pamela is a hero. She’s saved so many people, and now she has to decide who dies. That’s brutal.” “I believe in Captain Pamela! She’ll find a way!” Seeing the comments, the clown woman seemed to grow irritated. She ripped the duct tape off my husband’s mouth. Raymond’s hoarse, sobbing voice immediately echoed through the plaza. “Pamela! Forget about me! Save Toby! He’s our only son!” Tears streamed down his face, his eyes shining with the tragic light of noble fatherly love. The citizens watching the stream were deeply moved. My father-in-law burst into tears, nearly falling to his knees. “Pamela, did you hear him? Raymond wants you to save Toby! Tell the kidnapper right now!” “Tell her what?” I pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and blew a slow ring of smoke. “Dad, your son has already made peace with his sacrifice for his boy. We shouldn’t let his noble gesture go to waste, should we?” The clown woman seemed highly entertained by Raymond’s heroic performance. She panned the camera down to show a close-up of the detonator. It was a device linked directly to the central control system of the city’s holiday fireworks display. “Captain Pamela, see this? When the midnight bells ring, it will toll the death knell for your family!” “The countdown is less than twenty minutes.” She paused, letting out a wild, screeching laugh. “Oh, and I forgot to mention. This detonator works both ways.” “Not only can I blow them up from here, but I’ve installed a voice-activated receiver in the chandelier of your living room. The moment you say ‘I choose’ followed by a name, the other person will explode instantly!” I looked up at the ornate crystal chandelier hanging above me and sighed softly. Then, I turned to my mother-in-law. “Mom, you heard her. It’s not that I don’t want to save them, but the kidnapper isn’t giving me a real choice. One is my husband, the other is my son. Both are my own flesh and blood. How do you expect me to say those words?” Beatrice’s face flushed red, then went pale. Her lips trembled, but she couldn’t find a single word to say. Before I could say anything else, the front door was kicked open, and a squad of tactical officers swarmed in. Leading them was my deputy, Captain Briggs. His face was grim as he hurried over to me. “Captain, the situation is critical. We can’t locate the kidnapper in time, and we can’t disable the link to the city’s fireworks system.” He glanced at me, lowering his voice. “The brass has issued a strict order. We must guarantee public safety and avoid mass panic, so…” Before he could finish, Ron lunged forward, shouting. “Did you hear that? Even your colleagues are telling you to choose! What are you waiting for? Do you want to kill everyone in this city?” I stubbed out my cigarette and slowly stood up. “Captain Briggs, officers, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. I’m not making a choice. The life or death of the hostages should be determined by us, the police, not a criminal!” The room fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Everyone stared at me as if I had completely lost my mind. Beatrice’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed, caught just in time by a nearby officer. “Pamela! You heartless monster!” Ron pointed a shaking finger at my nose, his voice cracking with rage. “Those are your own family members! How can you… how can you just stand there and watch them die? Do you have any humanity left?” Briggs tried to reason with me. “Captain, we know how hard this is. But under these circumstances, saving one is better than losing both.” “Yes, Captain, no matter who you choose, we will understand. The public will understand.” Faced with their well-meaning advice, I let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Easy for you to say.” “If you were in my shoes, forced to choose between your wife and your child, who would you kill?” My gaze swept across the room, and one by one, they lowered their heads, unable to meet my eyes. “I’ve been a cop for ten years. I’ve defused more bombs than you’ve had hot meals! My duty is to save lives, not to decide who gets to die! And today is no different!” Ron completely snapped, raising his fist to strike me. But just before his fist could connect with my face, Briggs’s radio crackled to life. “Captain Briggs! We’ve got a lock on the kidnapper’s location!” Briggs immediately led his men and rushed out the door. I didn’t move. I just kept my eyes on the screen. Seeing that I still hadn’t made a move, the clown woman on the screen lost her patience. She pulled out a taser, the crackling blue electric arc buzzing menacingly in the dim background. “Captain Pamela, it seems you won’t make a choice until you see some blood!” With that, she violently jammed the taser into Raymond’s ribs. Raymond let out an agonized, inhuman scream. His body convulsed violently, curling into a tight ball. The crowd watching the broadcast gasped in horror. In the corner of the screen, Toby was sobbing hysterically, terrified out of his mind. The clown woman’s voice grew twisted and manic behind her mask. “Captain Pamela, you should have received the remote by now!” “Oh, wait, I forgot, there is no remote this time!” “We have fifteen minutes left before the fireworks show. From now on, for every minute you stay silent, your husband gets another shock! Until you open your mouth!” Watching my husband writhe in agony on the screen, Beatrice, who had just regained consciousness, rushed at me. “Pamela! Choose! Do you want to watch him get tortured to death?” I looked down at her calmly and spoke in a soft, even voice. “Mom, instead of begging me, why don’t you make a call and ask him?” I raised my hands, mimicking the shape of a phone. “Ask him if he’s actually in that much pain.” Beatrice froze, clearly baffled by my words. “What… what do you mean? Are you wishing death upon your own husband?” I smiled. “My husband studied finance. He can barely lift a suitcase. But look at that man on the screen. He’s been tasered for so long, yet his screams are still incredibly loud and full of energy. Don’t you find that strange?” “Besides, he doesn’t seem to have that mole on the back of his neck that we all know so well.” My words struck the room like a thunderbolt. Even Beatrice stopped her hysterical crying, her eyes locking onto the screen. Several young officers began to sweat, and Ron stood frozen, unable to move a muscle. Seeing this, an officer remaining in the room snatched my tablet, trying to zoom in on the video. “Captain Pamela, lives are on the line here! How can you play games like this?” I watched my husband still screaming in agony on the screen, the corners of my mouth curving upward. “Playing games?” “Either way, one of them has to die. Why should I care which one it is?” The officer was left speechless, his brow furrowed in disbelief. “Captain Pamela, those are your family members! Aren’t you worried at all?” I flashed him a bright, cold smile. “Why should I be?” “If my husband dies, I get to inherit half the estate. If my kid is gone, I can always have another. But if I actually say the words, I become an accomplice to murder.” The technical department’s call came through, Briggs’s voice frantic. “Pamela! The hospital network was rigged! The signal source is a spoof! We can’t find them!” The last shred of hope vanished. Seeing that I was completely unfazed, the clown woman on the screen flew into a homicidal rage. She tossed the taser aside and dragged a metal bucket from behind her, pouring a thick, yellow liquid all over my husband. The overwhelming stench of gasoline seemed to drift right through the screen, filling the living room. “Pamela! I’m giving you one last minute! If you don’t choose, I’ll turn him into a human torch!” The clown woman produced a lighter, the pale blue flame dancing before the camera lens. The live stream’s viewer count hit an unprecedented peak. The comments surged so fast the feed began to lag. “She’s insane! The kidnapper has completely lost it!” “What is the Captain waiting for? He’s going to burn!” “You don’t get it, she can’t choose! Choosing makes her a killer! This is a nightmare!” The clown woman roared at the camera. “Pamela, I’m counting to three! If you don’t open your mouth, get ready to collect his ashes!” “Three!” “Two!” I took a deep breath, and under the horrified gazes of everyone in the room, I dialed a number. The call was answered instantly. My voice, broadcasted through the speaker, echoed clearly through the room and the city’s live stream. “Captain Pamela, speak your choice! Let everyone see who you love most!” On the other end, the clown woman’s voice was filled with a sick, ecstatic thrill. “No, no, I think you’ve misunderstood,” I let out a soft laugh, speaking slowly and deliberately. “I called to tell you one thing.” “Those two people you kidnapped have nothing to do with me. Burn them, blow them up, do whatever the hell you want.” The clown woman froze, entirely caught off guard by my answer. A second later, she let out a piercing, screeching howl, flicked the lighter, and threw it onto my husband. A massive, deafening explosion erupted as the screen was engulfed in a wall of fire. The entire room fell into a dead, horrified silence. “No!” Beatrice let out a blood-curdling shriek and fainted once more. “Pamela! You murderer! You killed my son! I’ll kill you!” Ron grabbed a heavy glass ashtray from the coffee table, his face contorted in a demonic rage as he lunged at me. The scene descended into utter chaos. But I, the catalyst of it all, simply sat back down on the sofa, completely unbothered. “Dad, what’s done is done. My condolences.” I stood up, dusted off my coat, and looked at the hysterical room. “Alright, stop shouting. You guys can keep playing your games. I’m going to take my son out for some pancakes.”

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1 The day I got laid off from the tech firm, I suddenly realized I could see everyone’s real-time net worth. The guy in the cubicle next to mine who always complained about living paycheck to paycheck had a glowing green number hovering right above his head. It read exactly 5.2 million dollars. I thought the stress of losing my job was making me hallucinate. That is, until I went home that night, stared into the bathroom mirror, and saw a string of digits above my own head that matched my bank balance down to the last cent. While I was still reeling from the shock, my girlfriend of three years, Sally, pushed open the door and slipped a heavy, gold luxury watch onto my wrist. “Don’t let the layoff get you down, babe. I got this just for you. A little something to change your luck.” My heart swelled. I reached out to pull her into a hug, but my eyes flicked back to the mirror. The glowing number above my reflection had plummeted. Without any warning, twelve thousand dollars had just vanished from my net worth. Confusion hit me like a physical blow. I turned my head to look at Sally. The second my eyes locked onto the space above her forehead, I froze completely. The number floating above Sally’s head had just jumped by exactly twelve thousand dollars. I stared down at the gold watch gripping my wrist. I had been eyeing this exact piece for six months. I knew the retail price by heart. Twelve thousand dollars flat. “What’s wrong, honey? You don’t like it?” Sally noticed my pale face. Her smile faded into a look of genuine hurt. “I know twelve grand isn’t pocket change, but you just lost your job. I only wanted to cheer you up. If you hate it, I can take it back tomorrow.” Her eyes welled up with tears. She reached out, pretending to unbuckle the leather strap. “No, I love it.” I snapped out of my daze and clamped my hand over hers. Cold sweat slicked my palms, sticking to her warm skin. I forced the biggest smile I could muster and pulled her into a tight embrace. “I’m just overwhelmed. Thank you, Sally. Seriously.” She melted into the hug, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I’d spend every dime I have if it makes you smile.” “I’ve been sweating all day. Let me grab a quick shower.” I let go of her, mumbled a weak excuse, and practically bolted into the bathroom. The lock clicked shut. I immediately yanked my phone from my pocket and opened my banking app. The harsh glare of the screen reflected in the mirror. My checking account balance matched the floating digits above my head perfectly. It was exactly twelve grand lighter than it had been this afternoon. My breathing turned ragged. I frantically tapped into my transaction history. Checking accounts, savings, credit cards, digital wallets. I scoured every single receipt and statement from the past twenty-four hours. Nothing. Not a single notification. The money had simply evaporated into thin air. And at the exact same moment, Sally’s net worth had increased by the exact same amount. I stared at my pale, terrified face in the mirror. A creeping chill crawled up my spine. The transfer happened the very second the watch touched my skin. This was no hallucination. But how was this even possible? Sally and I had been together since college. We had a rock-solid relationship. Our wedding was set for the seventeenth of next month. The down payment on our new house was split down the middle, and both our names were on the deed. If she needed cash, she would just ask me. She had absolutely no reason to siphon my funds like a ghost in the machine. Plus, the incredibly expensive watch was physically sitting on my wrist. “A coincidence. It has to be a glitch.” I turned the shower dial all the way to cold. The icy spray pelted my face, forcing my racing thoughts to slow down. Wedding expenses had been bleeding us dry lately. Caterers, venue deposits, floral arrangements. Maybe that twelve grand was a delayed charge from the wedding planner. And the bump in Sally’s net worth? Maybe her corporate office finally paid out those third-quarter bonuses. Yes. That had to be it. I stepped out of the bathroom feeling marginally saner. The bedroom was dark, lit only by a single bedside lamp. I just wanted to crawl under the covers and sleep off the insanity of the day. Then Sally lunged at me with a massive hug. She spun around and pulled a sleek, black garment bag from the closet. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. “Surprise! I had a friend custom-make your wedding suit. Try it on!” I looked at the sharp edges of the black fabric, catching the soft light. It screamed high-end luxury. The blood in my veins turned to ice. The watch had already drained twelve thousand from my accounts. Now a bespoke suit? “Let’s do it tomorrow, babe. I’m completely wiped out.” I backed away instinctively, pasting another fake smile on my face. “Just put the jacket on.” Sally grabbed my arm, her eyes pleading. “It’s handmade. If the tailoring is off, we still have time to send it back to the studio. The wedding is only a month away. What if it doesn’t fit?” She unzipped the bag and held the jacket out, boxing me in. There was no escape. The large bedroom window acted like a dark mirror, reflecting everything in the room perfectly. I locked eyes with my own reflection, staring intensely at the glowing numbers above my head. Gritting my teeth, I reached out. The very millisecond my fingertips brushed the premium wool, the numbers in the glass violently shifted. Another eight thousand dollars, gone. My neck cracked as I stiffly turned to look at Sally’s head. Her net worth, which had just absorbed my twelve grand, instantly ticked up by another eight thousand. Twelve for the watch. Eight for the suit. Twenty thousand dollars vaporized in under two hours. This was no glitch. “Looks amazing, right? I knew it would.” Sally smoothed out the lapels, looking at me with pure adoration. “You really get what you pay for. You’re going to be the most handsome groom on the planet.” Looking at her blissful, radiant smile, I felt like I was drowning in a frozen lake. As a shred of logic returned to my panicked brain, an even more terrifying thought surfaced. Sally might not even know these gifts were bought with my money. She came from a wealthy family, worked at a top-tier international firm, and made double my salary. She could easily afford these things herself. She had zero motive to steal. More importantly, my phone and my physical cards never left my sight. I never set up any joint digital wallets, and my passcodes were locked in my own head. Even if she wanted to secretly drain my accounts to buy me presents, she lacked the means to do it. “Cat got your tongue? Or are you just exhausted?” Sally waved a hand in front of my face, chuckling. I swallowed hard, trying to sound casual. “Where did you get this made, Sally?” “Zanetti’s. That bespoke place down at Oakwood Galleria. Why? Is the cut weird?” She tilted her head, confused. “No, it’s great. Fits perfectly. Just curious.” The words tasted like ash. Looking into her clear, innocent eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else. How could I even begin to explain something this insane? Tell her I had developed a mutant ability to see bank balances? Tell her that her romantic gifts were magically draining my life savings? She would think the layoff had triggered a psychotic break. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. The missing twenty grand was a cold, hard fact. Whatever sick magic trick was playing out, I had to get to the bottom of it. At the first crack of dawn, I slid out of bed. I carefully packed the gold watch back into its velvet box and shoved the suit into its garment bag. I was going to see exactly what kind of scam these stores were running. I marched straight into Oakwood Galleria and slammed the velvet box onto the luxury watch counter. “Hi. I need you to pull up the purchase history for this piece. Check under the name Sally, or use my phone number.” The saleswoman maintained her polished retail smile. She took the box and opened it. But the moment her eyes landed on the gold casing, her expression shifted. She didn’t type anything into her tablet. Instead, she slipped on a pair of white cotton gloves, grabbed a jeweler’s loupe, and studied the face of the watch in absolute silence. When she finally looked up, her eyes were filled with a very specific kind of pity. “Sir, are you absolutely certain this was purchased at our boutique?” “My fiancée bought it here yesterday. Is there a problem?” A knot of dread tightened in my stomach. The clerk placed the watch back in its velvet cradle. Her tone dropped an octave, turning frosty. “I’m sorry, sir. This specific piece is a limited run. Due to microchip shortages, it sold out completely across all city branches last month. Furthermore, the item you brought in…” She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “The craftsmanship is sloppy. The serial stamp on the movement is incorrect. It’s a counterfeit.” “Impossible!” I slapped the glass display case, my voice echoing through the quiet mall. “I saw her bring it home yesterday! The packaging, the warranty cards, everything is intact!” “Please lower your voice, sir.” She turned her tablet around to face me. “This is our global inventory system. The absolute last piece in this state was transferred out over forty days ago. As for the warranty card, these underground counterfeit rings can forge a receipt that would fool a bank teller. You are welcome to take it to the official service center upstairs for authentication, but I assure you, we have no record of this sale.” The glowing red “INVENTORY: 0” on the screen burned my retinas. But the twelve grand was undeniably missing from my account. If the watch was fake, where the hell did my money go? I took a shaky breath, grabbed the garment bag off the counter, and pointed at the embroidered logo. “What about Zanetti’s? The bespoke tailor. Where are they located in this mall?” The clerk glanced at the bag and shook her head. “They pulled their investments from this region two years ago. The shop closed down and vacated the premises last winter.” Closed down a year ago. A discontinued fake watch. A phantom tailor. I stood under the blinding fluorescent lights of the mall, feeling like the floor had just dropped out from under me. Sally was lying. But why construct such a bizarre, easily disproven web of lies? If she was handing me cheap knockoffs, was she also the mastermind draining my bank accounts? What kind of dark-web technology was she using to vaporize my money the exact second she handed me a gift? A tidal wave of questions crashed over me, threatening to pull me under. Before I could catch my breath, my phone vibrated violently in my pocket. Sally’s contact photo flashed on the screen. I took a deep breath, fighting the tremor in my hands, and hit accept. “Hey babe!” Sally’s bright, beautiful face filled the screen. She was beaming, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she winked at the camera. “Guess what massive surprise I have for you today?” Before I could spit out a single word, she flipped the camera around. The screen filled with the aggressive, aerodynamic curves of a brand-new Porsche. It was sitting on a showroom floor, complete with an absurdly large red silk bow on the hood. Sally’s voice practically vibrated with joy through the speaker. “You’ve been obsessing over this exact model for years! We’re getting married next month, so I used the trust fund my parents gave me to pay it off in full! Are you freaking out right now?” Staring at a machine worth well over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and hearing Sally’s sweet, loving voice, a wave of pure terror violently crashed over me. Twelve grand for the watch, twelve grand vanished. Eight grand for the suit, eight grand vanished. If she handed me the keys to a six-figure sports car… I couldn’t even stomach the thought. “Return it! Cancel the transaction right now!” I screamed into the phone, the veins bulging in my neck. The camera jerked wildly. Sally’s face reappeared, the color draining from her cheeks. Her smile was completely gone. “Cole, what’s wrong? It’s the Porsche. You always wanted…” “I said cancel the damn car! How long are you going to keep lying to me?!” I roared, my chest heaving. “Stay exactly where you are. Don’t move. I’m coming to you!” I killed the call, sprinted out of the mall, and threw myself into the back of a taxi, barking the address of the dealership at the driver. My heart hammered against my ribs the entire ride. If that car was finalized, my entire life savings would be wiped out instantly, and I’d likely be slammed with massive, unexplainable debt. When I shoved the heavy glass doors of the dealership open, Sally was standing alone next to the Porsche and its ridiculous red bow. She looked small and terrified. A few sales reps hovered nearby, sharing uncomfortable glances. She rushed toward me the second I walked in. “Cole, what is going on? You’re scaring me.” I threw the velvet watch box and the garment bag onto the polished showroom floor. The plastic hangers clattered loudly against the tiles. “When does the act end, Sally?!” I yelled, completely ignoring the staring crowd. “The watch is a fake! The boutique sold out a month ago! And Zanetti’s went out of business last year! Why the hell are you playing these twisted games with me?!” Sally stared at me, trembling. Her face was paper-white. Frantically, she dug into her purse, pulled out her phone, and shoved the screen an inch from my face. “I’m not lying to you! I swear to God I’m not!” Tears streamed down her face. The screen showed a photo of Sally holding the gold watch. The background was unmistakably the luxury boutique inside Oakwood Galleria. The timestamp at the bottom clearly read yesterday afternoon. She swiped to her messaging app, opening a thread saved as ‘Zanetti Master Tailor’. It was filled with months of dense, detailed conversations about my measurements, fabric choices, and shipping logistics. I froze, completely paralyzed. A man in a sharp suit, clearly the floor manager, stepped between us. “Sir, I don’t know what kind of domestic issue you’re having, but whatever you’re arguing about is pocket change. Your fiancée just swiped her card and paid for this vehicle in full. Why would she forge receipts for a few pieces of clothing when she’s dropping six figures on a car for you?” Paid in full. Swiped her card. The words hit me like a sledgehammer. My vision blurred. “No. No, that’s impossible.” I grabbed fistfuls of my own hair. If she really bought them, why did the saleswoman tell me the shop was gone? Why did she say the watch was discontinued? Who was lying to me? I looked at Sally’s tear-streaked face and finally cracked. I spilled the insane secret I had been hoarding since yesterday. “Every single time you give me something, my bank account drains at the exact same second. You gave me the watch, I lost twelve grand. You gave me the suit, I lost eight. If you give me the keys to this car right now…” The sales reps were openly staring at me like I was an escaped mental patient. Sally looked utterly bewildered. Seeing me having a total breakdown, she grabbed my arm. “Cole, look at me. My account was charged. I have the bank notifications right here! If your money is actually disappearing, someone has hacked your accounts. This is wire fraud. We are going to the police station right now.” She dragged me out of the dealership and flagged down a passing cab. Halfway to the precinct, my phone pinged loudly. It was an email from the HR department of my former tech company, sending my final severance breakdown and offboarding documents. I took a deep breath and opened the PDF attachment. I was looking for the severance payout amount, but as I zoomed in on the document, a line of bold text slammed into my line of sight. My pupils dilated. A bomb went off in my head. “Driver, turn around!” I shouted. Sally jumped in her seat and grabbed my jacket. “What are you doing? We’re two blocks from the station!” I looked her dead in the eye, my voice deadly calm. “Cancel the police, Sally. I know exactly what’s happening.”

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For our corporate retreat, the company booked a thousand-foot zipline over a gorge. I refused to ride it. My defective heart simply couldn’t take the drop. But Richard, nursing a petty grudge, just sneered at me in front of the entire office. “If she drops dead, put it on my tab.” I silently triggered the SOS alert on my phone. Hours later, an ambulance hauled me away on a stretcher, and a squad car took him away in handcuffs. The exact same coworkers who branded me a toxic, selfish liability are now practically begging on their knees for my forgiveness. But if my heart had actually exploded a thousand feet in the air that day, who exactly would you be crying your apologies to? 1 At the company town hall two days ago, our CEO, Richard, took the microphone with a smug grin. “In past years, our end-of-year bonuses have just been direct deposits. A little boring, right? This year, we are shaking things up. We are taking the entire team to the Apex Extreme Adventure Park!” A smattering of unenthusiastic applause echoed through the conference room. Richard kept pacing, completely blind to the room’s energy. “They just opened the Condor Drop. It is the highest zipline in the state. A vertical drop of a thousand feet, right over the Blackwood Gorge! I expect every single one of you up there. I’ve already booked the tickets for Friday, and the company is covering every dime.” Murmurs rippled through the rows of chairs. Some people looked thrilled. Others looked sick. I fell into the latter category. I was born with a congenital heart defect. A faulty valve and chronic arrhythmia. While it was well-managed with medication, my cardiologist had made one rule crystal clear: absolutely no extreme sports, no roller coasters, and nothing involving massive drops in altitude. “Kate, you look like you’re going to pass out. You okay?” Brenda, a senior accountant sitting next to me, whispered with genuine concern. I shook my head, my palms already sweating. After the meeting, a few of the older employees and those terrified of heights lined up at Richard’s office to ask for a pass. Surprisingly, he played the benevolent boss, nodding and approving their PTO requests one by one. Taking a deep breath, I walked up to his desk. “Richard, I need to…” He didn’t even let me finish. He raised a hand, his eyes cold. “Kate. Don’t even think about asking for Friday off.” The blunt rejection felt like a slap. “Why not?” Richard leaned back in his leather ergonomic chair, tapping a very expensive pen against his mahogany desk. “At the quarterly review last month, you stood up in front of the entire board and tore apart my Q3 projection model. You practically called my math garbage.” My stomach dropped. I never expected him to hold a grudge over that. It was a standard data review. I pointed out a massive miscalculation in his algorithm, and time proved I was entirely correct. I saved the company thousands. But ever since that day, he had treated me like a ghost in the office. He was punishing me. “Richard, work is work. This is my health. I have a congenital heart condition. I physically cannot…” “Oh, come on, Kate.” He dragged out my name, rolling his eyes behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He slapped on a fake, patronizing smile. “You always do this. You blow every little inconvenience completely out of proportion. We are going to a team-building retreat, not a war zone. Look around.” He gestured toward the open floor plan outside his glass office. “Everyone out there has a family, a bad back, or some kind of phobia. What makes you so special?” Before I could argue, he stood up, clearly done with the conversation. He walked out of his office, clapping his hands loudly to get the floor’s attention. “Listen up, everyone! The deadline for PTO requests is officially closed. If you aren’t on the approved list, attendance on Friday is mandatory. If even one person no-shows, I am pulling the performance bonuses for the entire department next month!” He turned his head and shot me a dead, warning look. 2 The memory of that threat tasted like bile in the back of my throat. Today was Friday. The Apex Extreme Adventure Park sat on the jagged edge of a massive canyon. The most terrifying feature was the thick steel cable strung between two mountain peaks. Even from the parking lot, I could see tiny, colorful dots screaming as they shot across the sky. A massive metal sign by the ticketing booth glared in bright red paint. “WARNING: The following individuals are STRICTLY PROHIBITED from riding the Condor Drop. Pregnant women, individuals under the influence of alcohol, and those suffering from high blood pressure or HEART CONDITIONS.” While handing out the heavy climbing harnesses, the park attendant shouted over the wind. “Listen up! Does anyone here have a heart condition, blood pressure issues, or any medical reason avoiding extreme stress? If so, step out of the line right now. Safety is our top priority.” I immediately raised my hand. “I have a heart condition.” The attendant’s face went dead serious. “What kind? Is it severe?” “Congenital valve defect with arrhythmia,” I answered, projecting my voice. “My cardiologist explicitly banned me from activities like this.” The attendant immediately turned to Richard. “I’m sorry, sir. We cannot outfit this employee. She is absolutely not permitted on the zipline.” Richard’s face darkened into a furious scowl. “She’s just trying to get out of it because she’s scared of heights. She works fifty hours a week and is perfectly fine. Put the harness on her.” “Sir, this is a strict liability issue,” the attendant said firmly. Richard grabbed the young guy by the elbow and pulled him a few steps away. I couldn’t hear everything, but I clearly caught the words “hundred bucks” and “look the other way.” A minute later, the attendant walked back, refusing to make eye contact with me, and actually gave a reluctant nod. “Are you insane?!” I yelled, my voice cracking with panic. “You are responsible for my safety!” Marcus, our slimy sales manager, stepped out of the line and walked over to me. “Kate, come on. Don’t ruin the vibe.” Richard saw the opportunity and delivered his final ultimatum to the crowd. “Listen up, team. We bought a group package. If one person backs out, the group discount is voided, and the difference falls on you. So, if Kate sits this out, every single one of you owes the park an extra thousand dollars.” The crowd erupted. “That is complete bullshit!” someone muttered. Richard simply shrugged, playing the crowd beautifully. “A team shares the highs and the lows. If someone is too selfish to participate, it’s only fair the rest of you cover the cost of her ticket, right?” The trap snapped shut. The anger of twenty coworkers shifted instantly from the boss to me. “My life is worth more than a thousand dollars,” I said, my voice trembling but cold. I pointed directly at the red warning sign. “It is in writing. Do you actually want to kill me, Richard?” Richard let out a loud, theatrical laugh, acting like I had just told a hilarious joke. “God, you are dramatic! Do you know why they put those signs up? Legal liability. It’s just a waiver. They have to make it sound terrifying so they don’t get sued. I went bungee jumping in Mexico last year, saw the exact same sign, and I was completely fine!” He looked around at the staff, baiting them. “Am I wrong? Rules are just guidelines, guys!” He turned back to me, dropping the smile. “And watch your mouth. Accusing me of trying to kill you? The company paid good money for you to have a luxury experience, and you’re acting like a spoiled brat.” The sycophants in the crowd immediately piled on. “Yeah, Richard is right. Those signs are just legal mumbo jumbo.” “You’re just psyching yourself out, Kate. Just breathe.” “You look totally healthy. You never complain about your heart at the office.” “Stop acting like you’re going to drop dead. It’s embarrassing.” 3 Marcus stepped closer, playing the role of the peacemaker, but his hand clamped down on my shoulder with bruising force. “Kate, read the room. Richard put a lot of effort into this. He just wants us to bond. If you bail, we all have to pay out of pocket, and it kills the whole mood. Teamwork is about sacrifice. Don’t make this weird.” I shoved his hand off me, my whole body shaking with adrenaline. “Marcus, what is more important? My actual life, or a thousand bucks? If my heart gives out over that canyon, who is going to take responsibility? You? Richard? The company?” I looked desperately around the group. Sarah, the HR rep who always preached about “workplace wellness,” was suddenly fascinated by her phone screen, an annoyed grimace on her face. Kevin, the tech guy I had spent countless late nights coding with, turned his head entirely, staring blankly at the pine trees. Seeing that peer pressure wasn’t enough, Richard decided to go nuclear. He pointed at the attendant. “Give her the harness. If she has a panic attack, the company assumes full legal responsibility.” The attendant held out the heavy canvas and metal rig, his eyes darting nervously. I backed away, refusing to touch it. Other tourists were starting to stop and stare, pointing at our group. Richard lost his temper. His voice echoed off the rocks. “Kate, you listen to me very carefully. If you do not get on that zipline today, do not bother coming into the office on Monday. Consider yourself terminated. And I promise you, I will personally call every tech firm in this city. I will make sure you never find a job in this industry again. Let’s see who wants to hire a selfish, toxic employee who uses fake medical excuses to hold her team hostage!” My stomach plummeted. He was holding my entire livelihood hostage. I needed this job. My medical bills and monthly cardiology checkups were astronomical. Without decent insurance, I would be drowning in medical debt within a month. But a job meant nothing if I was dead. I looked at my coworkers. The annoyance in their eyes had shifted into something far more dangerous. A cold, calculated indifference. They had accepted Richard’s twisted logic. My compliance was the price for their comfort. “Richard,” I said, my voice barely a whisper but laced with absolute certainty. “If I go on that wire, I will not survive the day.” “Fine by me,” Richard snapped back. “Then everyone, pull out your wallets. A thousand bucks a head. Pay up right now.” The crowd instantly turned vicious. “A thousand bucks? Are you kidding me?” “Kate, stop being such a selfish bitch! You’re the only one complaining. You think you’re royalty?” “Just put the damn harness on! You’re ruining everything!” “My aunt has a murmur and she went skydiving! You’re faking it to get attention!” The vitriol hit me like physical blows. There was no pity in their eyes. Only the furious, feral anger of people being told they had to part with their own money. I felt like an animal backed into a corner. The blood rushed to my head. My chest tightened, a familiar, terrifying pressure building right behind my sternum. The stress was triggering an episode. My boundaries, my medical reality, my actual right to live. All of it meant absolutely nothing to them. I was just an obstacle standing between them and a free vacation. 4 My heart rhythm broke. It started skipping beats, then accelerating into a frantic, chaotic hammering. A band of iron clamped down around my chest. I reached blindly into my jacket pocket, my trembling fingers searching for my pill bottle. Richard lunged forward and grabbed me by the bicep. “You are doing this.” “Let go of me!” I screamed, thrashing wildly. Not a single coworker stepped in to help me. In fact, a few of them moved closer to block my escape. “Put the harness on her,” Richard barked. “No! Get away from me!” I scrambled backward until my spine hit the cold metal railing of the queue line. There was nowhere left to run. “Did you really think you had a choice?” Richard sneered. He gave a sharp nod. Kevin, along with two guys from the logistics department, actually stepped forward. They looked embarrassed, but their eyes were hard. They had convinced themselves they were doing the right thing for the group. “Just stop fighting, Kate. It’ll be over in two minutes,” Kevin muttered, grabbing my left arm. “Everyone is waiting. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” “Just close your eyes.” They grabbed my limbs. One of the logistics guys shoved the heavy canvas harness over my shoulders. I fought like a cornered wildcat, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Get your hands off me! This is assault! Someone call the police!” A couple of tourists walking by looked alarmed and started walking toward us. Sarah and Brenda immediately intercepted them, blocking their view with fake, polite smiles. “She’s just having a little panic attack. Fear of heights. We’ve got her, thanks,” Sarah lied smoothly to the strangers. I was suffocating. The pain in my chest was turning sharp, stabbing through my ribs with every breath. Through the sheer panic, I remembered the emergency protocol on my iPhone. I managed to twist my wrist and aggressively clicked the side button on my phone five times in rapid succession. It was a feature I had set up with my best friend, Sam. Five clicks sent an automatic SOS text with my live GPS coordinates. I never thought I’d use it to survive my own coworkers. Richard caught the movement. Thinking I was trying to dial 911, he slapped my hand violently. The phone clattered onto the concrete. “This is a crime!” I gasped, tears streaming down my face. “You are forcing me into a lethal situation!” “Shut up with the drama!” Richard roared, completely unhinged now. “If you won’t walk, we’ll carry you!” The four men dragged me, kicking and sobbing, up the metal stairs to the launch platform. Standing on the edge of a thousand-foot drop, the wind howled like a jet engine, nearly knocking me off my feet. The canyon floor was a blur of jagged rocks far below. The steel cable vibrated, emitting a low, terrifying hum. The invisible hand crushing my heart squeezed tighter. Cold sweat soaked through my shirt. My vision began to tunnel, the edges of the world turning gray. Every breath was a battle. “Richard, please,” I begged, my voice weak and raspy. “I’m dying. I can’t do this.” “Stop acting,” he spat back, his face devoid of any humanity. “It’s a two-minute ride.” The launch operator was buckling me into the chair. He looked at my ghostly pale face and hesitated. “Sir, are you sure? She looks like she’s going to pass out.” “It’s vertigo! She’s fine!” Richard screamed at the poor kid. “Launch her! Look at the line of people waiting behind us!” “I need verbal confirmation from the rider,” the operator insisted. I opened my mouth to scream no. I wanted to tell him I had a heart condition. But my throat was paralyzed. The chest pain was so severe I couldn’t draw enough air to make a sound. I used every ounce of strength left in my body to slowly, deliberately shake my head. Richard stepped up, grabbed the top of my helmet, and violently jerked my head up and down. “She nodded! Push the damn button!” Richard yelled. “If she dies, it’s on my tab! Now go before I have your manager fire you!” The heavy steel carabiner locked shut with a deafening click. The metal gate dropped. I was shot out of a cannon into the abyss. Hurricane-force wind slammed into my face. The sheer terror of the drop hit my nervous system like a lightning bolt. My defective heart fluttered wildly, misfired, and then felt like it exploded. The sky spun into a chaotic blur of blue and green. The wind roaring in my ears was drowned out by the horrific, thunderous pounding in my own chest. Midway across the gorge, the zipline hit a steep decline, accelerating violently. The sudden G-force was the final nail. A crushing, unbearable agony radiated down my left arm and up into my jaw. Halfway across the sky, my vision went completely black. I felt warm liquid bubbling past my lips. Was it blood? I didn’t even know. In my final fading seconds of consciousness, I caught a blurry glimpse of the landing platform. There were flashing red and blue lights. People running. Did Sam get my signal? Was it a hallucination? I couldn’t raise my arm. I couldn’t breathe. The smartwatch strapped to my wrist shrieked. Through the darkness, I saw the glowing red digits. 210 beats per minute. Then, the world went entirely dark.

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1 “Has anyone here ever heard a goose scream at three in the morning?” I have. Right outside my front door. My neighbors were convinced I was slaughtering live geese in my living room. They swore the sound of a meat cleaver hacking through bone gave them nightmares every single night. They even posted a video to the building’s group chat. There was blood. There were agonizing shrieks. The evidence was irrefutable. I couldn’t defend myself. That is, until the police took my spare key and unlocked the door to the apartment right next to mine. In that moment, everyone finally shut their mouths. But then my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: “The game continues. This time, you’re the goose.” … When Brenda from 1603 tagged me in the tenant group chat, I was curled up in my gaming chair, deeply invested in a match of Goose Goose Duck. My phone vibrated violently against the edge of my desk, rapid-fire notifications popping up on the screen. I frowned and tabbed out of the game. [Brenda – 1603]: @1601 Sweetheart, I am begging you. Can you please stop slaughtering geese in your apartment? It’s been three days in a row! The smell of raw blood is drifting into the hallway, and the screaming is waking up my grandson! He can’t even take a nap! Slaughtering geese? I stared at the screen, completely baffled. 1601 was my unit. Top floor. I lived alone. I hadn’t touched a live bird in my entire life. My fingers flew across the keyboard. [1601]: Brenda, are you sure you have the right apartment? I don’t have any animals here, let alone geese. I’m at work most of the day anyway. The group chat went dead silent for a moment. Then, a few of the usual lurkers chimed in. [Dave – 1502]: @1601 I think I heard it too. Late at night, you can hear some weird bird noises… [Sarah – 1404]: Yeah, I definitely heard it. Sounded like ducks or geese squawking. I let out a breathless laugh, eager to clear up the ridiculous misunderstanding. [1601]: Guys, I promise I’m not running a slaughterhouse! I play this online video game called Goose Goose Duck. It’s a social deduction game, and you have to use voice chat. Maybe my speakers are too loud, or you’re hearing my voice through the vents? I am so sorry! I’ll wear a headset from now on. The tension in the digital room seemed to evaporate. A few people even asked what the game was about and if they could play. I let out a sigh of relief. I was just typing out another apology when Brenda fired back. This time, it was a video file. [Brenda – 1603]: You don’t believe me? Watch this! I recorded it this afternoon! My grandson is terrified! I tapped the video. It started in Brenda’s living room. I could hear a toddler whimpering and a faint, high-pitched honking sound. The camera moved, tracking the sound out into the hallway. The noise grew louder and more frantic as whoever was filming climbed the stairs. The camera finally stopped in front of a door. My door. Unit 1601. In the video, the horrific, desperate shrieking reached a fever pitch. It sounded like an animal being tortured, and it was undeniably coming from behind my door. But what made the hair on the back of my neck stand up was the bottom edge of the doorframe. There was a thick, dark, viscous smear seeping out from under the crack. It caught the glare of the phone’s flashlight. It looked exactly like coagulated blood. The video ended. A cold chill crawled down my spine. The group chat exploded. [Sarah – 1404]: Oh my god, that noise is making my skin crawl! [Dave – 1502]: Is that blood under the door?! That’s sick! [Brenda – 1603]: @1601 What the hell are you doing in there?! The smell of copper is sickening! You’re terrorizing the whole building! [Mark – 1501]: Just because you live on the top floor doesn’t mean you can turn the place into a butcher shop! My ears were ringing. My fingers felt like ice. Impossible. Absolutely impossible. I threw my headset off, sprinted to my front door, and yanked it open. The hallway lights flickered on. The polished concrete floor outside my door was spotless. There wasn’t a speck of dust, let alone a pool of blood. I whipped out my phone, snapped a crystal-clear photo of the clean hallway, and retreated back inside. I practically ran through my apartment, taking rapid-fire photos of my living room, my spotless kitchen, and even the inside of my fridge. I dumped the photos into the group chat. [1601]: Look for yourselves! There is nothing outside my door! There are no birds in my apartment! That video has to be fake! [1601]: @Brenda I don’t know why you are doing this, but I swear to you, I am not killing anything! 2 Brenda immediately sent an audio message. Her voice was thick with a heavy, rural accent and trembling with fake tears. “I’m an old woman! I don’t even know how to edit a photo, let alone a video! My little grandson was taking a nap, and that horrible screaming woke him up! He cried until he threw up! I only recorded it to show my son!” “You… you can’t just bully an old woman and a baby like this…” The moment her voice note played, the entire building turned on me. [Sarah – 1404]: She’s an old lady raising a kid, @1601. Just apologize and stop doing whatever you’re doing. [Mark – 1501]: Yeah, stop arguing with an elder. The video is clear as day. The noise is coming from your place. [Dave – 1502]: Who knows what goes on in there? She claims she’s ‘at work’ all day. [Tom – 1204]: Haha, maybe that isn’t a goose screaming. Maybe it’s just how she ‘works’ from home. Tom followed it up with a sleazy, winking emoji. The blood rushed to my face. My hands shook with pure, unadulterated rage as I typed. [1601]: What the hell is wrong with you people?! This is slander! I haven’t done anything wrong! The pushback was instantaneous. [Mark – 1501]: Then explain the video! Explain the blood! Are you saying the entire building is hallucinating? [Sarah – 1404]: She probably threw the carcass down the trash chute and bleached the floor before taking those pictures. [Dave – 1502]: Blood seeping out from under the door… honestly, it sounds like some kind of cult ritual. [Brenda – 1603]: Oh my lord, don’t say that! Is our building cursed? The conversation derailed rapidly, shifting from noise complaints to wild accusations about my morality, and finally settling on bizarre, supernatural conspiracy theories. A heavy weight pressed down on my chest. There was no reasoning with a mob. I muted the group chat, slammed my phone face-down on the desk, and fought back angry tears. Why was this happening to me? Eventually, Martha from 1503 stepped in to play peacemaker. She told everyone to calm down, drop the witchcraft talk, and just agree to keep the noise down tomorrow. The chat finally went quiet. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the agonizing shrieks and saw that thick, dark sludge creeping under my door. I woke up late on Saturday morning, feeling like I had a hangover. When I unlocked my phone, the red notification bubble on the group chat made my stomach drop. Brenda had tagged me again. This time, her tone was frantic and furious. [Brenda – 1603]: @1601 You sick freak! I complained in the chat yesterday because I was worried about my grandson, and this is how you retaliate?! What did we ever do to you?! Panic seized me. I scrolled up rapidly. Brenda had posted a series of photos. The first image was of her front door. The steel door was splattered with massive, irregular splashes of dark, rotting blood. It dripped down the metal like thick oil. The second photo was of the welcome mat. Sitting in the center of the mat was a severed, bloody goose head. The neck was jagged, like it had been hacked off with a dull blade. The bird’s eyes were half-open, staring blankly at the camera. I gagged, a surge of bile rising in my throat. The chat was a warzone. The messages were scrolling faster than I could read. Brenda dropped another audio file, her voice cracking into hysterics. “My grandson opened the door this morning and passed out from the shock! He’s running a massive fever! He’s hallucinating! We’re at the emergency room right now!” “@1601 I am begging you! If you have a problem with me, take it out on me! Don’t hurt my baby! I’ll get on my knees and apologize! I shouldn’t have said anything yesterday…” Before I could even type a response, Brenda’s son, Greg, hijacked the chat. His messages were explosive, violent, and laced with profanity. He uploaded a picture of his kid lying in a hospital bed, a cooling patch stuck to his forehead. The boy’s face was flushed red, his tiny brow furrowed in pain. The digital mob descended on me. [Sarah – 1404]: That is evil! This is actual witchcraft! [Mark – 1501]: Psycho bitch! You do this just because someone complained about the noise? [Dave – 1502]: Call the cops! This is harassment and assault! [Greg – 1603]: @1601 Get the hell out here! Stop hiding! My mind went completely blank. My hands and feet felt like ice. What the hell was going on? Who was doing this? 3 My fingers trembled as I typed. [1601]: It wasn’t me! I have no idea what is happening! I didn’t even leave my apartment yesterday! Greg fired back instantly. [Greg – 1603]: Bullshit! Who else could it be?! The video proved the blood was at your door, and now there’s a severed head at mine! You think we’re stupid?! You’re dead meat! [1601]: I swear to God it wasn’t me! This is a massive misunderstanding! [Greg – 1603]: Misunderstand this, you crazy bitch! [Greg – 1603]: You want to play games? Fine. Open your damn door! A second later, I heard the heavy, thundering sound of boots sprinting up the stairwell. A man was screaming at the top of his lungs. Smash! Smash! Smash! Deafening blows rained down on my front door. The heavy steel frame actually shuddered on its hinges. “Open the door, you psycho! Get out here! I’m going to kill you!” It was Greg. I was paralyzed with terror. My knees buckled, and I practically crawled to the door, pressing my eye against the peephole. Greg was standing in the hallway. He was a massive guy, his face flushed purple with rage. His eyes were wild. And in his right hand, he was gripping a massive, gleaming meat cleaver. He was hacking at my deadbolt like a madman. Behind him, hovering near the stairwell, a small crowd of neighbors had gathered to watch the execution, but none of them dared to step closer. “Greg, stop! You need to calm down! It wasn’t me! I’m calling the police!” I screamed through the door, my voice cracking in absolute terror. My hands shook so violently I dropped my phone twice before I managed to dial 911 and then the building’s security desk. “Call the cops! Good! Let them see what kind of sick freak you are!” Greg roared, switching from hacking at the lock to kicking the heavy door. The metal groaned under his weight. “Do you smell that?” Someone in the crowd whispered loudly enough for the sound to carry up the stairs. “Yeah. It smells like rotting meat.” “She didn’t clean up the carcass. Sick.” “She brought this on herself. I hope he breaks the door down.” The whispers drifted under the door, stinging worse than physical blows. I was terrified, exhausted, and crying hysterically. The building’s security team arrived first. Two guards and the property manager had to physically tackle Greg to rip the cleaver out of his hands. The manager pounded on my door, ordering me to open it so we could “talk this out.” I wiped my face, my hands shaking uncontrollably, and slowly unlatched the deadbolt. The second the door cracked open, Greg shoved past the guards like a bulldozer. Before I could even process his movement, a massive hand cracked across my jaw. The slap sounded like a gunshot. My ears rang violently, and sparks danced in my vision. He grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my head back, spitting profanities in my face. His breath reeked of stale cigarettes. “Let her go! Step back!” The guards tackled him again, prying his fingers out of my hair. I huddled behind one of the guards, my hair a tangled mess, my cheek burning like fire. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. “I didn’t do it… I swear to God, I didn’t touch those birds… You can search my apartment! Check the fridge! Check everywhere!” I screamed at the manager, my voice raw and broken. “Search your place? You probably threw the evidence down the chute!” Greg bellowed, struggling against the guards. Right then, the elevator pinged. Two uniformed police officers stepped out. Taking one look at the chaotic scene, they immediately took control. They separated everyone and started taking statements. I clung to the older officer like a lifeline, sobbing as I quickly explained everything. I swore I didn’t kill anything, didn’t leave the head at the door, and begged them to investigate to clear my name. The older officer listened to my frantic rambling. As I spoke, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper. He looked around the hallway, and suddenly, his nostrils flared. He cut Greg off mid-rant. His voice was dangerously calm. “What is that smell?” Everyone froze. Instinctively, we all took a deep breath. The older officer’s face turned completely rigid. He raised a hand, demanding absolute silence. He stepped slowly into the hallway, tracking the scent like a bloodhound. He stopped directly in front of Unit 1602. 1602 belonged to Diane, a single mother with an eight-year-old son. We rarely spoke, but we’d exchange polite nods in the elevator. The officer knocked firmly on the door. Thud. Thud. Thud. No answer. He pounded harder. “Police! Open the door!” Dead silence. Except the heavy knocking seemed to disturb the air inside, pushing an even thicker wave of that putrid odor into the hallway. A terrible, dark dread settled in my stomach. A memory suddenly snapped into focus. “Officer,” I stuttered, pointing at the door. “Diane… the woman who lives there. She gave me a spare key.” “She said she works late sometimes, and her kid gets home early. She gave it to me for emergencies, but I’ve never used it.” The officer’s eyes locked onto mine. “Go get it.” I ran into my apartment, dug through my junk drawer, and pulled out the key with the red plastic tag. I handed it over. The older officer took the key, stared at the heavy wooden door for a second, and shot a silent look at his partner. The younger officer immediately unclipped the safety on his holster, resting his hand on his weapon. “Everyone, step back. Right now,” the older officer commanded. The crowd of neighbors instinctively shrank toward the stairwell. Even Greg went dead silent, staring at the door with wide eyes. The key turned in the lock. The door slowly creaked open. A tidal wave of absolute, concentrated rot exploded out of the apartment. It was so potent, so overwhelmingly foul, that the three of us standing near the door immediately started dry heaving, stumbling backward to escape the stench. The living room was pitch black. The heavy blackout curtains were drawn tight. But the sliver of hallway light spilling into the apartment was enough. The hardwood floor was a disaster zone, smeared with massive, dark pools of liquid. And lying perfectly still in the center of that carnage, were two bodies.

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The day before the President’s Fellowship defense, I was standing outside the lab when I heard Garrett talking to the department sweetheart. “I copied all of his data. You can use it directly tomorrow.” I stood in the hallway, frozen for three seconds. Then I pulled out my phone and checked the local Git logs. Last push: three months ago. I slid my phone back into my pocket. That version had three hundred and twenty-seven bugs. And the comments were absolutely loaded with my warmest regards for Garrett. Tomorrow’s defense was going to be a masterpiece. 1 November 15th, 9:40 PM. I grabbed a bottle of iced tea from the vending machine, planning to head back to the lab to run one last batch of data. The lab was at the far end of the seventh floor of the Science Hall. Two of the hallway lights were dead, casting fractured, ghostly pools of pale white light across the floor. I unscrewed the cap and took a sip, my footsteps swallowed by the quiet corridor. As I neared Room 706, I noticed the door was cracked open. The lights were on. I figured it was empty, since I was usually the only one in the lab at this hour. Just as I reached out to push the door, Garrett’s voice drifted through the gap. “Don’t worry, he won’t even make it onto the stage tomorrow.” My hand froze in midair. A second later, Gina’s voice followed. “Are you sure? What if he finds out?” Garrett let out a laugh, that condescending, smug chuckle of his. “So what if he does? I copied everything off his machine, the raw data, the modeling scripts, the lab logs. I wiped his local drive clean, too.” I pulled my hand back and took half a step away from the door. “Tomorrow, you just walk up there and present it as yours. The committee will just think he tried to piggyback on your project at the last second, got rejected, and threw a temper tantrum.” “But what if he has a backup?” “A backup?” Garrett scoffed. “I’ve seen how he works. He only runs things on that one lab desktop. A slob like him probably doesn’t even own a second USB drive.” The sliver of light from the doorway fell across my slippers. I looked down, left foot blue, right foot black. Okay, fair point, I was a bit of a slob. Normally, hearing someone trash me like that might have rubbed me the wrong way. But right now, only one thought consumed my mind: Which computer did this idiot actually rob? I pulled out my phone and accessed my private server dashboard. Project folder: “Fellowship_v2.7”. Last modified: today at 3:14 PM. Status: normal. Thirty-seven source files, completely intact. I scrolled down. The last time my local Git repository had pushed anything to that lab desktop was August 23rd, eleven weeks ago. The version back then was v0.3. I remembered v0.3 vividly. It was a steaming pile of garbage that could compile but couldn’t produce a single correct result. The convergence conditions in the core algorithm were reversed, the feature extraction module leaked memory like a sieve, and the data preprocessing was a caveman-era workaround that I eventually scrapped and rebuilt from scratch. Worse yet, I had treated that version’s code comments as my personal diary, filling them with my deepest thoughts. What kind of thoughts? For instance, line 47: // If you don’t understand this code, don’t worry. I wrote it, and I don’t understand it either. Line 128: // TODO: There is a bug here, but it’s Friday. Even bugs deserve a weekend. Line 203: // If Garrett is peeking at my screen again, please raise your eyes by three centimeters and look at this line. What are you looking at? Go write your own. I added that line in September because he kept making excuses to walk by and sneak glances at my screen. I hadn’t thought much of it then, assuming he was just curious. Looking back, he was scouting his target. I tightened the cap on my iced tea and quietly backed down the hallway. On the walk back to the dorms, the crisp night air cleared my head. Should I report him? Yes, but the paper trail wasn’t solid enough yet; it would be my word against theirs. Should I confront them right now? I could, but where was the fun in that? I pondered it for about ten seconds, then sent a text to my roommate, Wyatt. Are you coming to the fellowship defense tomorrow? Wyatt replied instantly. Is there drama? Massive drama. Bring popcorn. On it. I locked my phone and stepped into the dorm building. The faint sounds of someone screaming at their gaming teammates echoed down the hall. What a beautiful world. Tomorrow was going to be even better. 2 Back in our room, Wyatt was sitting cross-legged on his bed, engrossed in a mobile game. “Spill,” he said, his eyes glued to the screen. “What’s the drama?” I kicked off my slippers, climbed onto my bed, and flipped open my laptop. “Garrett stole all the data off my lab computer. He’s giving it to Gina to present at the defense tomorrow.” Wyatt’s thumbs froze. The game’s voiceover chimed from his phone: An ally has been slain. “What did you say?” He whipped his head around. “I said Garrett stole my—” “No, I mean, how are you so damn calm?” he yelled, staring at me. “Your research got stolen! The fellowship data! The defense is literally tomorrow! You should be marching to our advisor’s office right now!” I yawned, looking at my laptop screen. “What’s the rush? He stole v0.3.” “What the hell is v0.3?” “The build from three months ago. A scrapped draft.” Wyatt went quiet for three seconds. “What does ‘scrapped draft’ mean in this context?” “It means the code compiles but won’t run. If it runs, it won’t produce results. And if it does somehow produce results, they’re entirely wrong.” Another three seconds of silence. Then, Wyatt slowly set his phone down, his eyes lighting up with a familiar, wicked spark. It was the look of a man who smelled premium, grade-A gossip. “Hold on, hold on.” He slid off his bed and lunged over to mine. “Are you saying he stole a pile of garbage code?” “Not complete garbage,” I corrected him. “The basic framework is solid. But the core logic is entirely broken. Plus…” I pulled up the backup of the old build and scrolled to the pages heavy with comments. Wyatt leaned in and read for five seconds. Then he lost it. “Oh my god, you actually called him out in the comments?” “I wouldn’t call it calling him out,” I said, scrolling to line 203. “Just a friendly warning.” Wyatt read it aloud: “If Garrett is peeking at my screen again, please raise your eyes by three centimeters and look at this line. What are you looking at? Go write your own.” He laughed so hard his shoulders shook. “There’s more,” I said, scrolling down further. Line 315: // This function is named garrett_is_watching. No explanation provided. Line 472: // The following algorithm is inspired by the ring topology of my advisor’s horseshoe baldness. Confidential. Line 519: // If this code appears in anyone’s presentation slides other than my own, I highly recommend they check themselves into a psychiatric ward. Wyatt literally fell off my bed, laughing. “Did you know he was going to steal it back then?” “Nope.” I closed my laptop. “I just like talking to myself in the comments. I’m telling you, coders who don’t write comments have no souls.” “That’s not comments, man. That’s a burn diary written in C++.” “Call it what you want.” “So what’s the game plan for tomorrow?” Wyatt climbed back onto his bed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Just present like normal.” “That’s it?” “What else do I need to do?” I set my laptop aside and pulled up the blanket. “Think about it. Gina is going to stand before the committee with a piece of junk code riddled with over three hundred bugs. She doesn’t even know what the functions do. How long do you think she can survive their questions?” Wyatt thought for a moment. “Three minutes?” “You’re giving her too much credit.” “Besides,” I turned over, facing the wall, “Professor Harrison is on the panel.” “Harrison? The balding guy?” “He supervised my undergraduate capstone project.” Wyatt grinned again. “He knows my coding style like the back of his hand. My variable names, my indentation habits, my function structures. Those things are like digital fingerprints. You can’t steal them, and you can’t fake them.” The room fell quiet, save for the muffled sounds of video games from next door and a distant alarm ringing down the hall. “Ryan,” Wyatt called out. “Yeah?” “You are an absolute menace.” “I know. Now go to sleep.” “No, seriously. You usually look like a lazy slacker, but you’re cold-blooded when it counts.” I didn’t reply. I was already running through the possibilities. The defense order was determined by a random draw. If Gina went before me, the fallout would be glorious. If I went before her, she’d get a front-row seat to the difference between v2.7 and v0.3. Either way, it was a win. I closed my eyes. I slept like a baby. 3 November 16th, 8:00 AM. The defense was held in the lecture hall on the third floor of the Science Hall. I walked out of the dorms wearing my favorite grey hoodie, the one that had been washed at least a thousand times. Wyatt insisted on tagging along. “You’re not even presenting.” “I’m the audience,” he insisted. “You told me to bring popcorn, and I did. You can’t lock me out now.” “There are actual seats in the lecture hall, Wyatt.” “It’s the spirit of the popcorn that matters.” I didn’t bother arguing with him. As we entered the lobby, I spotted Garrett and Gina standing near the main bulletin board. Garrett was wearing a crisp navy shirt today, his hair slicked back with enough gel to withstand a hurricane. Gina was in full makeup, clutching a stack of printed materials to her chest. They were whispering to each other, looking completely relaxed. When Garrett caught sight of me, he paused for a fraction of a second. Then, a smug, oily smile spread across his face. It was the kind of smile that said, I ruined your life, and you don’t even know it yet. “Ryan,” he said with a nod. “Big day. Ready for the defense?” “I’ll get by,” I replied. His eyes swept down to my faded hoodie and my mismatched slippers. Yes, I had shown up to a prestigious fellowship defense in slippers. His smile widened, likely assuming I had given up on life because my data was deleted. “Hang in there, bud,” he said, patting my shoulder with just the right amount of patronizing warmth. “Yeah, you too.” I glanced at Gina. “Good luck, Gina.” Gina nodded, tightening her grip on her papers, but she refused to meet my gaze. Guilty people never look you in the eye. That rule hasn’t changed since middle school. Wyatt and I headed up to the third floor. A crowd had already gathered outside the lecture hall. Fellowship defenses were public events. Anyone from the department could sit in. It always drew a massive crowd because, let’s face it, there is no entertainment quite like watching academic careers crash and burn in real-time. Wyatt slid into a seat in the back corner and pulled out his phone. “I’m taking this spot. Perfect angle.” “What, are you livestreaming this?” “Pretty much. I’ll record your set.” “Don’t.” “Come on, you might go viral.” I ignored him and found a seat in the middle row. At 8:20 AM, the five-member committee walked in. Right in the center was Professor Harrison. He was in his late fifties, his horseshoe baldness having expanded over the years from a small bay into a full-on ocean. I had roasted his hair in line 472 of my old code, and seeing him in the flesh made my stomach do a slight flip. I really hoped Gina wouldn’t scroll down to that specific line on the projector. Whatever, what happens, happens. Professor Harrison scanned the room, his gaze lingering on me for half a second. He knew me. I had worked under him for an entire year on my undergraduate thesis. He knew my coding style the way a mother knows her child’s handwriting. In other words, he could spot my work instantly. At 8:30 AM, the moderator announced the presentation order. Gina was third. I was fifth. She was going before me. I took a slow, deep breath. Perfect. Time to let the drama unfold. 4 The first two students gave decent presentations. One was on smart traffic optimization, the other on NLP sentiment analysis. The committee asked some standard questions, and the atmosphere remained calm and academic. Then the moderator announced, “Next up, Gina.” Polite applause rippled through the room as Gina stood up and walked to the podium. Wearing a tailored white shirt, black dress pants, and an elegant updo, she looked every bit the rising star of academia. If you didn’t know any better, that is. She plugged in her flash drive, and the projector flared to life with her title slide. “Good morning, members of the committee. My research is focused on multi-objective path planning optimization using deep reinforcement learning.” Yep. That title. It was the exact title of my v0.3 build back in August. I had completely shifted gears by v1.0, abandoning path planning to focus on graph neural networks in dynamic topologies. She hadn’t just stolen outdated code; she had stolen a research direction I had already discarded. “The core innovation of this study lies in a modified DQN algorithm, which integrates an attention mechanism to achieve multi-objective balance.” I listened, my lips twitching. That was the abstract from my v0.3 documentation, lifted word-for-word. The committee members nodded as she spoke. The first five minutes of her presentation were smooth. Anyone can memorize a script and click through pre-made slides. But the real test of a defense isn’t the presentation. It’s the Q&A. Gina concluded her final slide with a polite, “Thank you. I welcome your feedback.” Professor Harrison flipped through the printed report in his hands. He looked up, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Gina, in your modified DQN algorithm, what is the theoretical foundation for your reward function?” Gina froze for a fraction of a second. “Uh… it is based on the Pareto optimality theory in multi-objective optimization.” The answer itself wasn’t wrong, but Professor Harrison didn’t stop there. “And how exactly did you map the Pareto frontier to the reward signals? What was your normalization strategy?” Gina’s lips parted. “It was… a weighted sum approach.” “Weighted sum?” Professor Harrison frowned. “Your slide on page seven shows adaptive weights. Why are you suddenly talking about a simple weighted sum?” Gina’s fingers tightened around the presentation clicker until her knuckles turned white. “I apologize, Professor. I misspoke. I meant to say an adaptive weighting approach.” “Then how did you implement the adaptation mechanism? How did you tune the hyperparameters?” Silence. Three seconds. Five seconds. Gina’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. That kind of silence is the kiss of death in a defense. Another committee member interjected, “Why don’t you show us your source code? If we look at the actual implementation of this algorithm, it should clear things up.” I sat in the audience, my breathing steady and my pulse calm. But if anyone had looked closely, they would have seen a slow, wicked grin creeping onto my face. I knew what was coming. The second she opened that source code, the real show would begin. Gina hesitated, her hand trembling as she opened the file explorer. She located the project directory and double-clicked the main script. Lines of dense code flooded the projector screen, visible to the entire room. The first line was the standard file header. The second and third lines imported the libraries. The fourth line, however, was a comment I had written at 11:00 PM on August 20th. It stared back at the entire room in bright green font: // Another day of burning my life away for science. Too bad I’m burning my liver, not writing actual papers. A quiet chuckle rippled through the back of the lecture hall. Professor Harrison adjusted his glasses, his gaze locking onto the screen. Gina panicked, her fingers frantically scrolling down. Line 47. // If you don’t understand this code, don’t worry. I wrote it, and I don’t understand it either. Let’s all be confused together. More laughter broke out, louder this time. Gina’s face drained of color. She scrolled faster, trying to find the core math, but she had no idea how the project was structured. The faster she scrolled, the worse it got. Line 128 flashed onto the screen. // TODO: There is a bug here, but it’s Friday. Even bugs deserve a weekend. I’ll deal with it next week. The lecture hall erupted into giggles. Even some of the committee members couldn’t hide their grins. Professor Harrison’s face remained stoic, but I knew him well enough to see the slight flare of his nostrils. He was holding back a laugh. Gina finally reached the core algorithm section between lines 203 and 250. Right above the main function was a massive, glaring comment block. Nobody could miss it. // If Garrett is peeking at my screen again, please raise your eyes by three centimeters and look at this line. What are you looking at? Go write your own. The laughter stopped instantly. It was replaced by a wave of sharp, sudden whispers. Garrett’s name was printed in plain English on the giant screen. People in the audience immediately began turning their heads, searching the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Garrett sitting in the second row. He looked completely petrified. In a span of two seconds, his face flushed a deep crimson and then went entirely sheet-white. Professor Harrison slowly took his eyes off the screen and looked directly at Gina. “Gina,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but the room went so quiet you could hear the low hum of the ventilation system. “This code explicitly mentions your colleague’s name. Can you explain what this comment is doing in your program?” Gina’s hand shook violently. The presentation clicker slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly against the wooden floor.

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1 The day I finally decided to divorce Tom Sinclair, I brought him a home-cooked meal in his executive suite, just like I always did. He took a bite, and his eyes immediately lit up. “This broth is incredible. Make it again tomorrow.” I nodded slowly. “Sure. I’ll write down the recipe for the housekeeper.” Tom looked up, his brow furrowing slightly. “Do you have somewhere to be tomorrow?” “Tom, I want a divorce.” My voice was completely flat. It was so terrifyingly calm that everyone, Tom included, assumed I was just throwing another one of my pathetic tantrums. But they had no idea. In exactly twelve hours, I would be boarding a military-grade transport plane with an elite polar expedition team, leaving the civilized world behind for good. Hearing my words, Tom didn’t even bother to blink. “If you don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow, you cook. I can’t stomach the garbage the new chef makes.” “Then hire someone whose food you can actually swallow.” As I spoke, I reached into my designer tote, pulled out the pristine divorce papers, and slid them across his mahogany desk. “I’ve already signed. I just need your signature.” Tom didn’t reach for the pen. Instead, he leaned back in his leather chair, his dark, calculating eyes locking onto mine for a long, suffocating moment. Then, a low chuckle escaped his lips. “Attempt number eighteen. I have to admit, you’re really selling it this time.” I knew exactly what he meant. Before today, whenever his filthy hotel rendezvous with whatever A-list actress or Instagram model hit the tabloids, I would lose my mind. I would scream, cry, and threaten divorce. He would call me hysterical, pack a bag, and move into his penthouse suite at the company. And a few days later, terrified of losing him, I would swallow every ounce of my pride and beg him to come home. A toxic, degrading cycle. Seventeen times. But what he didn’t know was that yesterday, while hiding in a bathroom stall at my research institute, I overheard my colleagues tearing me apart. “Did you see the Daily Mail? Dr. Hazel’s billionaire husband got caught sneaking out of the Plaza with that new pop star.” “Hard to miss it when it’s trending everywhere. I honestly don’t get why Hazel stays with a guy who humiliates her like that.” “Are you kidding? Look at his bank account. She’s staying for the lifestyle. Plus, let’s be real… she’s got zero self-respect.” Their laughter had echoed off the tiles, fading down the hallway. Inside the stall, I had bitten my lower lip so hard I tasted copper. With trembling fingers, I had dialed Tom’s private number. He answered just as it was about to go to voicemail. “What now?” “You promised me you wouldn’t make the headlines again. Do you have any idea how people look at me at work?” “Is that it?” His voice dripped with raw impatience. “If you can’t handle a few whispers, quit your little science job and stay home. Hazel, there is a line of women begging to be Mrs. Sinclair out the door. If you’re tired of the title, step aside.” Before I could even breathe, a sickeningly sweet female voice drifted through the receiver. “Tom, baby, I wouldn’t mind being Mrs. Sinclair for a while.” “Done. Soon as Hazel packs her bags, the ring is yours.” The call ended to the sound of heavy, breathless panting. Staring at the black screen of my phone, I realized my colleagues were right. I really had zero self-respect. Pulling myself back to the present, I looked at the man across the desk. “Don’t worry. Even though you’re the one who couldn’t keep his pants zipped, I’m not touching a single cent of the Sinclair fortune. I left all the jewelry and black cards on the vanity.” “Enough!” Tom slammed his silver spoon down, splashing broth onto the polished wood. “We are at the office. If you want to pitch a fit, do it at home. I don’t have time for your high school drama.” I pressed my lips together, offering no response. I just stared at him, my eyes devoid of the adoration that used to fuel his ego. After a heavy silence, he sighed, running a hand through his hair like he was dealing with a stubborn toddler. “Fine. I’ll have my assistant send that diamond collar you were looking at to the estate tonight. As for Montanna…” “Mr. Sinclair.” My voice was ice. “I don’t need the diamonds. And I couldn’t care less about whatever new plaything you’re entertaining. I’m here for a divorce.” If my father hadn’t dragged Tom’s grandfather from a burning car wreckage decades ago, a woman with my modest background would never have been allowed anywhere near the Sinclair empire. The Manhattan elite knew I didn’t belong. They looked down on me. Even though my doctoral thesis had once sent shockwaves through the global biological community, I still felt unworthy. So, I clipped my own wings, hid my brilliance, and bent over backwards to become the perfect, submissive wife. Now, the spell was broken. Five years of swallowing glass, all for a joke of a marriage. It was time to reclaim my throne. “Hazel…” Tom barely got my name out before the heavy oak doors swung open without a single knock. 2 Montanna fluttered into the room like a moth dressed in couture, making a direct beeline for Tom. “Tom, honey, I came to drag you to lunch. Oh, you’re already eating? It smells divine. Did your little maid make it?” Tom despised people barging into his sanctuary. He once fired an intern on the spot for forgetting to knock during an emergency. Even I, his legal wife, had to pass through three layers of security to bring him lunch. But clearly, Montanna was the golden exception. Instead of kicking her out, the rigid lines of his face softened, and he beckoned her over. “Yeah, the maid made it.” He shot a mocking glance in my direction. “Looks edible, but honestly, it tastes like garbage.” The corner of my mouth twitched upward. I calmly reached over, picked up the designer thermos, and dropped it straight into his executive trash can. Tom’s face instantly darkened. Before he could snap at me, Montanna had already draped herself across his lap, tracing his lapel with manicured nails. “If it’s garbage, don’t eat it. A new Michelin-star French place just opened down the block. Let’s go there.” “Alright. We’ll go.” As he stood up, adjusting his custom suit, he shot me a freezing glare. “I’ll have PR handle the tabloid mess. It won’t happen again. But listen to me very carefully, Hazel. This is the last time I’m entertaining this divorce game. Pull this stunt again, and I will happily give you exactly what you’re asking for.” A bitter chill swept through my chest. I took a step sideways, blocking their path to the door. “Tom, our marriage has been an ugly, public disaster. Let’s at least end it with a shred of dignity. There’s no need to wait for a next time. Sign it today.” Montanna wasn’t stupid. She instantly clocked what was happening, her eyes lighting up with poorly concealed greed. French food was suddenly the last thing on her mind. “Oh my god, Tom, I am so sorry. Am I interrupting something serious?” She batted her lashes innocently. “Maybe I should wait in the lobby?” She made a fake move to leave, but Tom’s hand clamped down on her wrist. “You aren’t going anywhere.” He turned his glacial stare onto me, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. He was standing on the absolute edge of a volcanic eruption. In the past, this look alone would have had me shaking in my heels, scrambling for ways to appease him. But today, I held my ground, meeting his lethal gaze without a flinch. “Sign the paper. I’ll walk out of this building, and you will never have to look at me again.” The temperature in the room plummeted. Montanna’s eyes darted between the two of us. Then, in a theatrical display that belonged on a soap opera, she dropped to her knees right on the Persian rug. “Mrs. Sinclair, you can take your anger out on me, but please, please don’t torture Tom! This is all my fault!” “If slapping me makes you feel better, do it! I’ll take it all!” Before I could even process the absolute absurdity of her performance, she raised her own hand and raked her nails violently across her own cheek, leaving a bright red welt. Tom let out a furious shout. He hauled her off the floor, cradling her face like it was made of spun glass, before turning on me like a rabid dog. “Hazel, you psychotic bitch! She is a public figure! How could you be so vile?” He didn’t even give me a second to speak. With a few crocodile tears and a self-inflicted scratch, the verdict was delivered. I was the villain. “Montanna, I am so sorry you had to endure this,” he murmured, his voice dripping with sickening sweetness. “I promise you, the lead role in that new studio blockbuster is yours.” Over his shoulder, where he couldn’t see, Montanna flashed me a smug, venomous smirk. She mouthed the words slowly so I wouldn’t miss them. The ring is mine. Watching her, I felt absolutely nothing. Not a single ripple of jealousy. I was throwing the whole man into the garbage. Why would I care who scavenged him? I ignored her completely, standing firm in the doorway. “Tom Sinclair. Sign the damn paper.” 3 The silence in the room was deafening. Suddenly, the heavy oak doors were violently shoved open. My mother stormed into the office, her eyes skipping right over me to lock onto the divorce papers on the desk. She snatched them up, ripped them in half, and then grabbed me harshly by the shoulders, shaking me with manic energy. “Have you lost your goddamn mind? You have a perfect life, and you’re throwing it away!” She planted her hands on her hips, her voice piercing enough to shatter glass. She wanted to make absolutely sure the billionaire standing behind me heard every word of her loyalty. “Look at Tom! The looks, the pedigree, the wealth! You leave him, and what do you think you’re going to get?” “A divorced woman in her thirties is damaged goods! Who is going to want you?” “If it weren’t for the Sinclair family, do you think you could afford your little designer clothes on a researcher’s pathetic salary? Over a tiny little disagreement, you’re throwing a nuclear tantrum!” “Listen to me, Hazel. Only pathetic, weak-willed men stay tied to one woman. It’s not that they don’t want mistresses, it’s just that they can’t afford them! A man of Tom’s status is allowed a few flaws!” I pressed my tongue against the inside of my cheek, a suffocating wave of exhaustion washing over me. To the outside world, my marriage was a fairytale. But the rotting core of it was something only my mother and I truly understood. Yet, her solution was always to swallow the poison and smile. She was publicly humiliating me in front of my husband and his mistress, all to protect her VIP country club membership. A hollow, self-deprecating smile touched my lips. Misreading my silence as submission, my mother softened her tone slightly, though the words remained dripping with venom. “Hazel, sweetie, every marriage has hiccups. Your father and I fought like cats and dogs.” “Be a good girl. Go apologize to Tom. Bow your head, and from now on…” I slowly raised my eyes, my voice quiet but forged from steel. “I am not bowing to anyone.” “This marriage is over.” “My entire life, I played by your rules. I studied what you wanted, took the safe job, married the golden boy. I lived to fulfill everyone else’s expectations, letting myself bleed dry in the process.” “Not anymore. For the rest of my life, I belong to me.” “You ungrateful little brat!” My mother shrieked, raising her hand as if she wanted to strike me down. But when she met my dead, unflinching stare, her hand froze in mid-air. She dropped her arm, her face twisting in disgust. “Fine! Ruin your life! But when you’re crying in the gutter, don’t you dare come crawling back to my doorstep!” She spun on her heels and marched out, slamming the door so hard the framed degrees on the wall rattled. The office plunged back into a suffocating quiet. Without missing a beat, I reached into my bag and pulled out a backup copy of the divorce agreement. “Sign it.” “You are going to regret this, Hazel!” Tom was officially unhinged. He snatched a gold-plated Montblanc pen from his desk and violently slashed his signature across the bottom of the page. “You want out? Fine. But you walk away with nothing. Not a single red cent of my money.” I carefully picked up the paper, checking the signature before sliding it safely into a manila folder. There was no heartbreak. Only a profound, dizzying sense of relief. A massive, crushing weight lifted off my chest. When I first met Tom Sinclair, I fell stupidly, blindly in love. I knew he was Manhattan’s most notorious playboy. I never in a million years expected him to honor his grandfather’s dying wish and actually marry me. Surrounded by his glamorous exes, I was just a quiet, nerdy ugly duckling. When he slipped that diamond on my finger, I thought I had won the lottery. I was naive enough to believe that underneath his cold exterior, he actually cared for me. My reward for that delusion came on day three of our honeymoon, when TMZ leaked photos of him leaving a club with a Victoria’s Secret model. I cried. I screamed. But I didn’t leave. I foolishly believed my pure, unwavering love could fix him. Instead, I became a neurotic, shattered ghost of myself. I traded my title as a brilliant young scientist to become a miserable, paranoid socialite. If I could just turn a blind eye like the other billionaire wives, my life would be luxurious. Aside from his chronic infidelity, Tom was incredibly generous. On every anniversary and holiday, even if he was in another timezone with another woman, his team ensured massive floral arrangements and rare diamonds were delivered to my door. When I caught a nasty flu while he was partying in Ibiza, he flew a private medical team to the house to monitor me. That was why everyone, my own mother included, thought I was insane for leaving. But waking up every single day in a cavernous, empty mansion, feeling the pitiful stares of my friends and colleagues, it felt like I was drowning in a velvet ocean. I just wanted to breathe again. I looked up at Tom, my gaze completely devoid of the desperate affection that used to anchor him. “Keep your money. I don’t want it.” I was heading to the frozen wasteland of Antarctica. In the middle of absolute nowhere, a black card was just a useless piece of plastic. “You two have a lunch reservation to get to. I won’t keep you.” I turned on my heel, walking toward the door. Just before I crossed the threshold, I paused. “Since my cooking is garbage, I won’t bother leaving the recipes.” Tom glared daggers at my back. “Don’t flatter yourself. You think I’ll starve without you?” Fair enough. It was a stupid thing to say. “Enjoy your French food.” Without looking back, I walked out of the building and into the crisp city air.

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For her birthday, I spent two months writing a custom immersive mystery game. The storyline traced our seven-year journey, from two broke nobodies building a startup together to the life we had now. Hidden in the final act was an Easter egg: a marriage proposal. If she recognized it was our story, the lights would come on, and I would walk out to get on one knee. But throughout the entire game, she held the hand of her new assistant. She helped him solve puzzles, analyzed clues for him, and even handed over her most crucial survival items. Not once did she recognize the struggles we had endured or the promises we had whispered in the dark. In her mouth, our history was twisted into a joke. “The female lead is such a pathetic doormat,” she scoffed. “Giving up so much for a guy? She is out of her mind.” Her assistant covered his mouth, giggling in agreement. During the final voting phase, the players had to choose which character to protect. She cast her vote for the secondary male lead. Her reasoning was brutal: “The main guy is way too much work. He isn’t worth it.” On the surveillance monitor, I watched the two of them laughing together, completely oblivious to the man sitting in the dark. No one knew the author of this script was quietly slipping a velvet ring box back into his pocket. I wiped my face, pulled out my phone, and sent a single message to the airline: “Cancel my return flight for the day after tomorrow. I won’t be needing it.” 1 The harsh overhead lights of the game parlor flickered on. I sat in the surveillance room behind a one way mirror, burying the diamond ring that had cost me half a year’s savings deep into my coat pocket. On the screen, they were still laughing. I looked down at my phone and officially canceled my return ticket from London. When I pushed the door open and walked out into the lobby, Victoria was unscrewing the cap of a bottled water and handing it to Toby. “You were running around looking for evidence. You must be thirsty,” she said, her voice dripping with a gentleness I hadn’t heard in years. Toby took the water and let out a dramatic, childish sigh. “Victoria, the main guy in this script was so incredibly stupid. Splitting a single plain bagel in a freezing bus shelter just to save money for the girl’s laptop? You don’t see that kind of pathetic, broke romance in real life.” Victoria let out a soft chuckle. Her tone was completely dismissive. “It is definitely melodramatic. If you are broke, you should just go make money. Brainwashing yourself into feeling loved over a stale bagel… that trick only works on naive little boys.” My footsteps faltered. I stopped dead in the shadows of the hallway. That exact scenario happened during our very first winter in Chicago. It was a massive blizzard. After paying our rent, we had exactly five dollars left to our names. Victoria’s hands were bright red from the cold as she tore that cheap bagel in half, giving me the softer, warmer center. Her eyes had been red with tears as she made a vow to me. “Oliver, one day I am going to buy you the most expensive French tasting menus. I swear I will never let you suffer with me again.” Now, she took Toby out for thousand dollar Michelin dinners. And the boy who shared that bagel with her in the freezing snow had just become a naive joke in her mouth. “Oliver! Where did you wander off to?” Toby spotted me and called out. “I had to take a call,” I replied, walking over with a perfectly calm expression. We headed down to the underground parking garage. Out of sheer habit, I walked toward the passenger side of her car. Just as I reached for the handle, Toby smoothly slipped into the seat. He even reached into the glove compartment with practiced ease and pulled out a pack of mango flavored fruit drops. “Wow, Victoria! You actually bought this brand! I casually mentioned last week that these help with my car sickness, and you actually remembered.” Victoria pulled open the driver side door and shot me a brief glance. “You sit in the back. Toby gets carsick easily.” I didn’t say a single word. I quietly withdrew my hand and climbed into the backseat. The engine roared to life, and the Bluetooth automatically connected. But the playlist that popped up on the dashboard screen wasn’t the one titled “Seven Years Together” from my phone. It was Toby’s phone. Upbeat, obnoxiously loud pop music flooded the speakers. My gaze drifted to the back of the driver’s seat. Victoria had terrible allergies. She always hated artificial scents in enclosed spaces. For seven years, her car had remained completely free of any air fresheners. But now, clipped to the air conditioning vent, was a bright yellow daisy diffuser. It was emitting a sickeningly sweet peach scent. The exact kind of trendy fragrance a young boy in his early twenties would like. “By the way, Victoria,” I said softly, watching the city lights blur past the rainy window. “Next Monday is our seventh anniversary. I booked that omakase place you like a month in advance.” The music in the car was deafening. Victoria glanced at me through the rearview mirror, her brows pulling together in annoyance. “Next Monday? That is the final day of the gaming expo. The sponsors are hosting an appreciation banquet. It is Toby’s first time handling a major project like this. I need to take him to network.” She paused, her tone shifting into the patronizing voice one might use to soothe an unreasonable child. “It is just a dinner, Oliver. We can eat sushi any day. Just cancel the reservation so we do not lose the deposit.” Toby turned his head, giving me an incredibly fake look of guilt. “Oliver, I am so sorry. My work schedule is ruining your anniversary.” “It’s fine.” I pulled out my phone, opened the restaurant app, and hit the cancel button without a second thought. The car rolled to a stop at a red light. A notification popped up on Victoria’s dashboard family calendar screen: [Oliver’s Gastritis Reminder: Buy Stomach Medicine.] She quickly scanned the words. Then, she reached out and casually swiped the alert away, hitting the delete permanently button. 2 It was past midnight by the time we returned to our shared apartment. After washing up, I walked into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. When I opened the refrigerator, I froze. The entire shelf of lactose free milk I drank every morning was gone. In its place was a massive, fully stocked row of sparkling water and chilled sodas. My stomach lining was severely damaged. I could not drink anything carbonated or ice cold. Victoria walked out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel. “Oh, Toby came over yesterday to grab some files,” she said casually. “He said he was thirsty, but we didn’t have any fizzy drinks in the fridge. I picked up a case on my way home today. You drink your milk too slowly anyway.” “But I just opened a brand new carton yesterday.” I looked at her, my voice eerily calm. “I threw it out. It doesn’t stay fresh once it is open,” she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She walked over to the kitchen island and picked up the kettle. Years ago, whenever I couldn’t finish a glass of milk, she would gladly drink the rest, insisting we couldn’t afford to waste a single drop. Now, she thought a carton open for twenty four hours was trash. I didn’t argue with her. I just poured myself a glass of lukewarm water and walked back to the bedroom. The next morning at the studio. Our creative agency was small, barely a dozen people in total. I was the core art director, and Victoria handled all the external business and client relations. Right after I sat down at my desk, my phone buzzed with a bank notification. The joint family credit card linked to Victoria had just been charged nearly four thousand dollars. The purchase receipt listed a premium tactile mechanical keyboard and a high end ergonomic gaming chair. I turned my head and looked through the glass partition into the main office area. Toby was excitedly tearing open a massive shipping box. Victoria stood right next to him, helping him assemble the bright blue keyboard. “Boys type with a heavier hand. These specific switches will make sure your fingers don’t get tired,” her voice drifted into my office. I looked down at my own desk. My hand was resting on a generic, three year old mouse with a broken left click button. Last year, I had asked to buy a basic ergonomic mouse for forty dollars. Victoria had immediately shut it down. “Oliver, we just signed the lease for this new office space. Cash flow is incredibly tight right now. We have to save wherever we can. Once we get through this rough patch, I promise I will buy you the best top tier equipment on the market.” We survived the rough patch. She did buy the best top tier equipment. But the person sitting in that chair was not me. At noon, everyone decided to order lunch. A massive thunderstorm had flooded the streets, so most places weren’t delivering. Victoria stood in the center of the room, waving her phone. “Lunch is on me today, guys! Let’s just order a massive spread from that authentic Szechuan place.” Forty minutes later, the food arrived. Every single plastic container was swimming in a thick layer of blood red chili oil. Spicy boiled beef, fiery chili chicken, mapo tofu. Toby was obsessed with spicy food. He ate until his face was flushed, sweating happily. Victoria stood next to him, gently handing him napkins. I stood by the communal dining table, staring at the sea of red chili flakes. “Victoria, my gastritis flared up again recently. I really can’t eat spicy food,” I reminded her quietly. She paused, her chopsticks hovering in mid air. It was obvious she had completely forgotten about me. “Oh, my bad. I wasn’t really thinking when I placed the order. Why don’t you just rinse the beef slices in a cup of hot water before you eat them?” She pointed her chin toward the water cooler. Her tone carried a distinct trace of annoyance, as if I was deliberately ruining the mood. “If that doesn’t work, just go down to the convenience store and grab a sandwich to hold you over. The rain is too heavy right now. Ordering a separate meal just for you is too much of a hassle for the delivery drivers.” Toby bit the end of his chopstick, looking up at me with wide, innocent eyes. “Oliver, do you want my bowl of rice? I haven’t touched it yet.” “No thanks.” I turned around, walked back into my private office, and shut the door. I booted up my computer and opened our shared studio cloud drive. Inside were thousands of folders containing every travel photo and personal memory from our seven years together. I didn’t click open a single picture to reminisce. Instead, I went straight to the administrative settings. I permanently removed my account from the shared access list. 3 At three in the afternoon, a panicked gasp erupted from the main floor. “Oh my god! Victoria, I think I just overwrote the master file for the Harrison project…” Toby’s eyes were rimmed with red. He looked like he was on the verge of a total breakdown. The Harrison project was due first thing tomorrow morning. I had led the design team through three sleepless nights just to render those intricate layers. Victoria practically sprinted to his desk. She leaned over his shoulder, her brows knitting together as she inspected the screen. “Hey, don’t cry. It is fine. It is not a big deal. You are new to this software, making a mistake is totally normal.” She coaxed him softly for a few moments before turning her sharp gaze toward my office. “Oliver, Toby accidentally merged and saved over the layers. You drew the original concept. You need to stay late tonight and redraw the entire thing from scratch.” I stared blankly at the empty history log on my screen. “Redrawing this will take a minimum of eight hours,” I stated flatly. “And I wasn’t even supposed to be the one handling tomorrow’s pitch.” “You are the art director of this studio. If you don’t draw it, who will?” Victoria’s voice hardened. “Toby is practically in tears. As his senior, what is the big deal about helping him clean up a tiny mess?” “Fine. For the sake of the company.” I didn’t look at Toby again. I simply opened a brand new, blank canvas. Slowly, the rest of the studio packed up and went home. By eleven at night, the only sound left on the entire floor was the rapid clicking of my mouse. Victoria didn’t leave. She sat on the velvet sofa in the lobby, playing a multiplayer mobile game with Toby. “Ah! Victoria, come save me! I’m completely surrounded!” Toby’s excited shouts echoed through the quiet office. “Hold on, I am on my way,” Victoria laughed, her voice light and entirely stress free. I sat glued to my monitor, watching the intricate lines slowly form on the screen. Sharp, stabbing pains radiated through my stomach. I dry swallowed two antacid pills and continued to move my mouse like a machine. Three in the morning. I added the final stroke of color and hit the save button. The sounds of the video game outside had stopped hours ago. When I walked out, I saw Victoria fast asleep on the sofa. Toby’s designer jacket was draped carefully over her shoulders. Toby was sitting nearby with his headphones on, watching a show on his tablet. When he saw me walk out, he quickly jumped to his feet. “Oliver, are you finally done? Thanks for working so hard.” His tone carried a hint of artificial flattery, but there was absolutely no panic in his eyes. Because he knew a fundamental truth. As long as Victoria was protecting him, he would never have to face any real consequences. I completely ignored him and walked straight back to my desk. I packaged the master files and emailed them directly to Victoria’s inbox. Then, I opened the company’s internal HR portal and submitted a formal leave request. [Applicant: Oliver] [Leave Type: Accumulated PTO and Sick Leave. Total: 45 days.] I didn’t type a single word in the reason box. Because we were never legally married, I didn’t even have to go through the hassle of a divorce. Before I left, I took the physical banking security token for the company’s accounts and placed it quietly on her desk. I took one final look around the office I had poured my blood, sweat, and tears into for seven years. I did not wake Victoria up. This was the very last time I would ever clean up her mess. From now on, whatever storms she faced had absolutely nothing to do with me. 4 By the time I walked back into the apartment, the sky outside was turning a pale grey. I didn’t go to sleep. Instead, I went to the deepest corner of the closet and dragged out my dusty twenty four inch suitcase. I actually owned very little. Over the years, almost every dollar I made went straight back into keeping the studio afloat. I never bought expensive clothes. My entire wardrobe consisted of cheap, basic essentials. I packed the few outfits I had organized over the last few days, along with my passport and legal documents. When I walked into the bathroom to grab my toiletries, I stopped. Sitting on the sink were two identical electric toothbrushes. But the brush head on one of them had just been swapped for a brand new one. And resting perfectly between the two brushes was a bright pink tube of peach flavored toothpaste. “Toby said this brand is amazing for teeth whitening, so I bought a tube for the house to try out.” That was the excuse Victoria gave me a few days ago. I stared at the peach tube. Someone had squeezed it aggressively from the dead center. I calmly picked up my own tube of mint toothpaste and dropped it straight into the trash can. At ten in the morning, the electronic lock on the front door beeped loudly. Victoria pushed the door open, holding a cheap plastic bag with a convenience store breakfast inside. When she saw the large suitcase sitting in the middle of the living room, she froze. A deep frown instantly formed on her face. “Why is your luggage out? Are you going on a business trip?” She walked over and tossed the cold, pre packaged sandwich onto the coffee table. “Why didn’t you wake me up last night when you finished the drawings? Toby feels so guilty that he practically begged for the day off today. He was too scared to even show his face at the office. Could you seriously stop throwing these massive tantrums?” “I am not going on a business trip.” I pulled the zipper of the suitcase shut. “I have forty five days of unused PTO. I am starting my vacation today.” The color completely drained from Victoria’s face, replaced by a dark, simmering anger. “Taking PTO? Right now? We are in the middle of our end of year sprint, and you are taking forty five days off?” She marched right up to me, looking down her nose with that habitual, suffocating pressure she always used on her employees. “Oliver, can you please act like an adult? All I asked you to do was fix a minor mistake for a new hire. Did you really have to make everyone so miserable?” “Throwing a fit over something this trivial. You are being unbelievably selfish.” A second later, the front door slammed shut with a deafening crash. I stared at the space where her self righteous face had just been. Inside my chest, there was nothing but a hollow, peaceful silence. I picked up the trench coat draped over the sofa. I sat in the quiet room for a few moments longer, then grabbed the handle of my suitcase, walked to the entryway, and opened the door. I walked out of the home I had once loved so desperately. A moment later, my phone vibrated with a new text message. [You are required to attend the client dinner tonight. You do not have permission to take a vacation.] [If you do not show up, you can forget about celebrating our seventh anniversary entirely.] I didn’t type a reply. I simply pressed her contact name and hit delete. … That evening, Victoria sat in the private dining room of an upscale restaurant. Staring at the completely unresponsive chat log, a wave of intense irritation and creeping anxiety washed over her. She sent me another angry message, but the screen instantly flashed a red exclamation point indicating she had been blocked. Her brow furrowed deeply. She convinced herself I was just throwing another dramatic fit. A moment later, her driver pushed open the door to the private room. “Victoria, I couldn’t get ahold of Mr. Oliver. But I went to the apartment and found this USB drive on the table.” Annoyed, Victoria plugged the drive into her laptop. When the file opened, her pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks of pure horror.

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1 My wife was raped and murdered by my best friend in our new home. And yet, I stood in court and defended him, securing his acquittal. My father-in-law had a massive stroke right there in the courtroom and was rushed to the hospital. Now, my brother-in-law was standing in front of me, pressing a knife to my throat. “Jared, that was your wife! When she was killed, she was hanging up framed pictures of your wedding in your new house!” “Why are you protecting that animal Wes? Are you even human?!” His eyes were bloodshot, his voice a primal scream as the blade bit into my skin. I didn’t even blink. Feeling the sharp sting of the metal, I smiled, completely empty. “Go ahead. Do it.” “Send me down there to be with her.” “Let her ask me herself why I did it.” Tyler’s hand shook violently, the blade trembling against my neck. He was on the verge of a total breakdown. “Jared! You think I won’t?” The hospital hallway was packed with onlookers, cell phone cameras flashing in our faces. “Is that the lawyer? Jared?” “Yeah, I heard he defended the guy who killed his own wife just for a massive payout.” “Disgusting. Eating off his wife’s grave like that.” “What a parasite. He should rot.” I listened to the whispers, my expression flat. I even let a faint, mocking smirk slip onto my face. The ward door banged open. My mother-in-law rushed out, her hair disheveled and frantic. Her eyes locked onto the blood dripping down my neck. She didn’t call for a doctor. She didn’t try to pull the knife away from Tyler. Instead, her hand flew across my face. Slap! My cheek burned hot. My head jerked to the side, and I tasted the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. “Get out! Get the hell out of here!” She pointed a shaking finger at my nose, her voice shrill and breaking. “You killed Hannah! Now you want to kill her father too? Why couldn’t it have been you?” Tyler’s grip loosened, the knife clattering onto the linoleum floor. He collapsed against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably. Holding my bleeding neck and feeling the fresh welt on my cheek, I wiped the blood away with the back of my hand. No explanations. No apologies. I didn’t even look back at them. I turned and walked toward the elevators. Behind me, my mother-in-law’s curses and Tyler’s gut-wrenching sobs echoed down the hall. I kept my back perfectly straight. The moment I stepped out of the hospital, my phone buzzed in my pocket. The screen read: Wes’s Mother. I picked up, my voice instantly shifting into a calm, professional tone. “Hello, Mrs. Finch.” “Jared! Oh, thank God,” her voice crackled with tears of relief. “The police just called. They said there isn’t enough evidence, and they’re releasing Wes…” I stopped and looked back up at the towering hospital building. “Don’t worry. I have everything under control. Just follow my instructions, and he’ll be fine.” Heavy, frantic footsteps echoed behind me. Tyler had run out after me. He was staring at the phone in my hand, his eyes wild. He heard me. And I wanted him to hear me. “Jared!” He lunged, grabbing my collar and slamming my head hard against the brick wall. “You took their money, didn’t you? You sold your wife’s life to a murderer! How do you sleep at night?” Passersby stopped, pointing and whispering. “Is that the corrupt lawyer?” “Looks decent on the outside, but he’s rotten to the core.” Staring into Tyler’s burning eyes, I didn’t say a word. My right hand was buried deep in my trench coat pocket, my fingers desperately clutching a ball of unfinished, thick gray yarn. It was a scarf Hannah had been knitting for me before she died. “Say something! Are you deaf?” Tyler threw a heavy punch, catching me square in the cheekbone. I stumbled back, leaning against the wall to keep from falling. I kept my head down, letting my messy hair cover my eyes. My throat tightened, but I forced the emotion down. “Are you done?” I spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the pavement. “If you’re done, go back inside and take care of your father.” Pushing past him, I hailed a cab and got in. When I got home, the house was dead silent. I didn’t turn on the lights. I pulled a bottle of cheap whiskey from the cabinet, cracked the cap, and took a long, burning swig. The alcohol scorched my throat, and the tears finally broke free. I pulled out my phone. The faint blue light illuminated my twisted face. On the screen was a photo from the police files. Hannah lay in a pool of blood, her eyes still half-open, staring blankly as if looking right at me. I reached out, my trembling finger gently tracing her pale face on the glass. “Hannah…” A ragged, animalistic sob escaped my throat. I stared at her picture and smiled through the tears streaming down my face. “Soon, baby. Very soon.” The next morning, I was jolted awake by the sound of smashing wood and shattering glass. The living room was a war zone. Tyler and a few of his cousins were tearing the place apart with baseball bats, smashing the small memorial I had set up for Hannah. The candles were crushed underfoot, the incense burner kicked over. “Wreck it! Destroy everything this monster owns!” Tyler stomped his heavy boot right onto Hannah’s framed portrait. The sound of the glass shattering was incredibly sharp. I stood at the bedroom door, watching the carnage. My fists clenched so hard my knuckles turned white. But I didn’t move. I just watched, cold and detached, like a ghost in my own home. 2 The sky was a heavy, suffocating gray, and the rain fell in relentless sheets. At the entrance of the cemetery, a makeshift wooden sign blocked the path. JARED AND DOGS NOT ALLOWED. The words were sloppily painted in dripping red paint, looking like fresh blood. Dressed in a black suit, I kept my arms wrapped tightly around a bouquet of wet white lilies. They were Hannah’s favorite. Ignoring the sign, I walked straight past the gate. “Stop him!” Tyler’s roar echoed through the rain, and five or six burly men rushed me. Without a word, their fists came down like a hailstorm on my back and head. I curled into a ball on the wet grass, doing everything I could to shield the flowers. “Get him out of here! Don’t let his filthy feet step near Hannah’s grave!” Tyler kicked me hard in the ribs. An agonizing pain shot through my chest, forcing a gasp from my throat, but I refused to let go of the bouquet. Finally, someone violently pried my fingers back and snatched the lilies away. “You think you deserve to give her flowers?” Tyler threw them into the mud, stomping them repeatedly until the pristine white petals were ground into black filth. “You belong in hell!” I lay in the mud, staring at the ruined flowers, my eyes burning. I tried to crawl toward them, but a heavy boot slammed down onto the back of my hand, pinning it to the gravel. Tyler looked down at me, pulling a photograph from his pocket and throwing it in my face. “Take a look, everyone!” He pointed at the photo, his voice piercing through the downpour. “This is who he really is! Six months before Hannah died, he was already cozying up to the killer, Wes, at a bar!” The photo was real. But it was taken when Wes had come to my office to ask for legal advice. The gathering crowd of relatives and friends erupted. “Oh my God, so it was premeditated?” “How is this sick bastard not in jail?” Someone spat on my face. Then came plastic bottles, clods of dirt, and small stones. “Scumbag!” “Rot in hell, you freak!” I was treated like a rabid dog, surrounded by a mob of angry people. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t utter a single word of defense. I just let the filth wash over me. The squeak of wheelchair wheels cut through the noise. The crowd parted. My father-in-law sat in the chair, his face a sickly yellow, his lips trembling violently. With the last of his strength, he threw a heavy shoe at me. It struck me right on the forehead, leaving a muddy smudge. “You… monster… get out…” His voice sounded like a broken bellows, his entire body shaking with rage. “Dad…” The moment I opened my mouth, two men grabbed my shoulders. “On your knees!” Tyler kicked me hard behind the knees. “Bow to Dad! Apologize to Hannah!” My knees slammed brutally against the rough concrete. Before I could even process the pain, a heavy hand pressed down on the back of my head, slamming it forward. Crack! My forehead hit the stone steps with a sickening thud. Warm blood immediately flowed down my brow, blurring my vision in a crimson haze. All around me were screams of curse, rain beating down, and absolute humiliation. It gnawed at my heart like venom. I forced my head up, my face completely smeared with blood. Through the red mist, I looked toward Hannah’s cold headstone. And then, I smiled. A twisted, eerie grin. “Dad. Tyler.” I stared at them, my voice quiet but laced with a bone-chilling coldness. “You will regret this.” “I am the only one who actually wants her to rest in peace.” Tyler flinched, taking a step back from my gaze. But he quickly recovered, his embarrassment turning into fury. “Still acting tough? Throw this trash out!” They dragged me out of the cemetery like a dead dog, dumping me unceremoniously into the muddy ditch by the roadside. The dirty water stung my fresh cuts. The torrential rain washed over me, mixing with the blood and grime. I lay there in the mud, staring up at the dark sky. My body was in absolute agony, but my mind had never been clearer. Hannah. Just wait a little longer. The show isn’t over yet. 3 Two strips of yellow police tape hung across the front door of our new home, bright and mocking. Dragging my limping left leg, I ignored the warning and tore them down. I pushed the door open. The air inside was thick with the smell of copper and decay. On the hardwood floor, a large, dried patch of dark brown stain remained. This was where Hannah took her last breath. I grabbed a rag from the bathroom and dropped to my knees. Over and over, I scrubbed at the dried blood. “Hannah loves a clean house. I can’t let it stay dirty…” I muttered to myself, my eyes vacant as I worked. A mocking voice drifted in from the hallway. “Oh look, the creep is back.” Mrs. Gable, the neighbor from down the hall, shouted loudly enough for the whole building to hear. “Sold his own wife’s life and still has the nerve to live here. Who would ever buy this place now? It’s cursed.” “Exactly. I heard he defended the killer. He’s lucky her ghost doesn’t drag him to hell in his sleep.” My hands paused for a second. I didn’t look up. I just kept scrubbing. I rubbed until the floorboards began to fade, and my fingertips wore raw and bleeding. Frantic footsteps echoed in the hallway. Tyler burst through the door with a couple of guys, waving a stack of papers in his hand. “Jared! You explain this to me right now!” He threw the papers, and they scattered across the wet floor in front of me. It was a copy of a life insurance policy. Payout: Ten million dollars. Beneficiary: Jared. Tyler’s eyes were wild, like a rabid beast ready to tear me apart. “No wonder you got Wes off! No wonder you didn’t care!” He lunged, grabbing my collar and shoving the paper into my face. “Because you were in on it! You planned the whole thing for the payout!” I stared at the policy, completely frozen. When did Hannah buy this? I remembered right before my birthday, she had mysteriously promised me a huge surprise. So this was it. That foolish, loving girl… was she so worried about me that she wanted to make sure I’d be taken care of if anything happened to her? My heart felt like it was being crushed by a giant fist. I couldn’t breathe. But my silence only confirmed Tyler’s suspicions. “Nothing to say? Guilty as charged, huh?” Tyler grabbed a baseball bat from near the door and swung it with all his might. Thwack! The bat slammed into my ribs. My stomach cramped instantly, and I doubled over like a wounded animal. Cold sweat drenched my back. But I clenched my teeth and didn’t make a sound. “Tell me! Did you set it up?!” Tyler brought the bat down again. “Stop it!” A man’s voice called out from the doorway. Owen, our next-door neighbor, stepped inside, wearing a mask of self-righteous concern. “Tyler, I’ll testify for you.” Owen pointed a finger at me, his eyes shifting nervously. “A few days before the murder, I heard him and Wes arguing in the stairwell. They were talking about ‘how to split the cash’ and ‘making sure it looks clean.’” The onlookers in the hallway gasped. “My God, there’s a witness?” “He’s done for!” I lay on the floor, forcing my head up to look at Owen’s smug, hypocritical face. He had pursued Hannah before we got married, and he had harbored a bitter grudge ever since she rejected him. Excellent. The rats were finally coming out of the woodwork. A wheezing laugh escaped my throat, tasting of copper. I dragged myself up, grabbing a half-empty bottle of whiskey from the wreckage on the counter. In front of everyone, I tilted my head back and took a massive gulp. The liquor spilled down my chin, mixing with the blood at the corner of my mouth. “Yeah,” I spat, looking at Tyler with a mocking, arrogant sneer. “The money’s cleared. Ten million. I’m practically throwing a party.” “With that kind of cash, do you really think I’ll have trouble finding another woman?” Silence. Dead silence. The next second, Tyler completely lost his mind. He grabbed a heavy metal shovel leaning against the wall from our remodeling work and raised it high. “Then you can take that money to your grave!” The shovel sliced through the air, aiming straight for my skull. I closed my eyes. I didn’t move. Clang! A dull thud. But the expected pain never came. I opened my eyes to see a small, frail figure sprawled over me. Warm, thick liquid dripped onto my cheek. It was Wes’s mother, Helen. The edge of the shovel had grazed her temple, and blood was pouring down her face. “Don’t hurt Jared… he’s a good man…” The elderly woman shielded me with her body, her voice trembling. The crowd erupted into chaotic murmurs. Tyler froze, but his anger only flared hotter. He pointed at Helen, the veins in his neck bulging like writhing worms. “Look at this, everyone! The killer’s mother is protecting this piece of garbage!” “You really are in this together! You disgusting freeloaders!” The mob of neighbors was completely whipped into a frenzy. “Beat them both!” “Shameless bastards!” “Selling his own wife’s life for cash!” Someone threw a brick, others hurled garbage and rotten vegetables. Tyler pulled out his phone, aiming the camera right at me to start a live stream. “Look at this, guys! This is Jared! The monster who had his wife killed for insurance money!” The comment section exploded instantly. Put him in the electric chair! Dox him! Find out where he lives! Why is this waste of space still breathing? I had become public enemy number one. The wail of police sirens grew louder down the street. Two police cruisers pulled up, and several officers pushed their way up the stairs. “Stand back! Everyone stand back!” They quickly set up a perimeter, barely holding back the rioting crowd. But Tyler wouldn’t stop. He shoved his phone camera right into my face. “Jared, in front of the police, in front of the whole world, tell them! Admit you paid Wes to kill her!” “Swear it! Swear that if you’re lying, you’ll rot in hell!” The shoving crowd pushed forward, knocking me back to the floor. Someone grabbed a bowl of cold rice left as an offering for the deceased. Splush! The cold, soggy rice mixed with incense ash was thrown directly over my head. Some of it got in my mouth. “Eat up! Consider it a gift from us!” “Beg your wife for forgiveness!” I lay there in the dirt, completely stripped of my dignity. I stuck out my tongue and tasted the bitter, ash-covered rice on my lips. Slowly, I pushed myself up. I brushed off the officer trying to help me up. Using my sleeve, I slowly, meticulously wiped the rice and blood from my face. My movements were so deliberate it made the room grow quiet. I looked up, my eyes passing over Tyler, passing over the cops. My gaze locked onto a figure hiding in the back corner of the crowd. I let out a raw, guttural roar that echoed through the entire hallway. “Wes didn’t do it!” I pointed a finger directly at the trembling man in the back, pronouncing every syllable with icy precision. “The real killer is standing right here in this room!”

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