Brianna Harrington, my obscenely wealthy roommate and the undisputed queen bee of our campus, loved nothing more than tormenting her boyfriend, Rae. To the rest of the world, Rae Caldwell was just a penniless, crippled charity case. And once again, Brianna had ordered me to tip his wheelchair over and kick him into the freezing, bone-chilling waters of the campus lake. But as I raised my hands to do it, a stream of glowing, translucent text suddenly scrolled across my field of vision, hovering in the winter air like a glitch in reality. [The spoiled heiress FMC and the secretly-a-billionaire-heir MMC… this is my favorite toxic trope!] [The worse our female lead treats him now, the harder the spicy groveling scenes will be later. It’s just a shame about that pretty little extra. Doesn’t she know the MMC is going to take out all his repressed rage on her? She’s going to die a gruesome death.] [Hey, it’s her own fault for being greedy and doing the villain’s dirty work for cash. She deserves what’s coming to her.] [This is the turning point! He almost drowns here, finally gives up his ‘poor and crippled’ act—which was just a test to see if the FMC would love him at his worst—and reclaims his empire to force her into a dark romance.] My hands froze mid-air. The icy wind bit at my cheeks. I looked at the dark, churning water, then at Rae’s rigid, shivering form. I didn’t want to be the disposable extra. I wanted to be the main character. Without a second thought, I threw myself into the freezing lake, hauled Rae’s thrashing body to the surface, and dragged him all the way back to my dirt-cheap basement apartment. 1 Rae was unconscious for a long time. When he finally opened his eyes, I was boiling tap water in a battered, salvaged pot to dissolve a cheap fever reducer. A cockroach scuttled across the concrete floor near his foot. The leg that was supposedly paralyzed gave an involuntary twitch. He nearly performed a medical miracle and jumped right out of the bed. I pretended I didn’t see a thing. I brought the mug of dissolved medicine to his lips, my expression a mask of nervous guilt. “Your fever is really high. Please, drink this.” Rae’s face was flushed an unnatural, feverish red, but it didn’t stop him from swatting the mug away. It shattered against the wall. He opened his cracked lips to snarl something, but I beat him to the punch. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I pushed you into the lake.” My eyes were bloodshot, but I forced a fragile, trembling smile. “I know a simple apology doesn’t make up for what I did. But please… just let me take care of you until this fever breaks. Let me try to make amends.” My hands were shaking violently. Rae’s dark, calculating eyes swept over the damp, dimly lit basement, finally settling on my flushed cheeks. “You’re burning up too,” he noted, his voice a hoarse rasp. I widened my eyes in feigned surprise, then shook my head. “That was the last fever pill I had. You need it more.” “Drop the act.” Rae let out a cold, breathless scoff. “Every time you help Brianna humiliate me, she pays you. You’ve racked up quite a bit of cash by now. Don’t tell me you can’t afford a bottle of Tylenol.” My spine stiffened. Of course he knew. He was the sole heir to the Caldwell empire, the most ruthless family in the corporate world. Tracking the few hundred bucks Brianna threw at me was child’s play for him. Looking at the sneer forming in his eyes, I remembered the floating text. After this incident, Rae was supposed to shed his disguise and ascend his throne. Once he was back in his penthouse, a girl like me would never get within a mile of him. This was my one and only window. I lowered my head, staring at my frayed sneakers. “That money… it has to go somewhere more important.” Rae rolled his eyes, his patience exhausted. He braced his arms against the mattress, preparing to stand up and walk right out the door. But a second later, his arms gave out. He collapsed back onto the cheap sheets, half-conscious. He blinked, fighting to stay awake, but his body refused to obey. I watched him slip under, giving a satisfied little nod. Then, I pulled an empty syringe from my pocket, snapped the needle, and tossed it into the trash. He was right. Brianna’s money did have more important uses. Like buying a heavy-duty muscle relaxant on the black market. As I struggled to carry Rae’s dead weight on my back, hauling him out of the basement and toward the nearest hospital, I made sure to cry hysterically, begging him to stay with me. The glowing text above my head was having a meltdown. [Is this extra insane?! She pushed him in and then pulled him out, and now she’s made him completely miss his family’s extraction team! He can’t get his identity back right now! How is he supposed to do the dark romance trope with our FMC?] [She’s literally broke. What’s the point of dragging him to a hospital? She’s going to accidentally kill him!] I didn’t have money, true. But I had blood. I dropped to my knees in the ER lobby, Rae’s scorching body sliding off my back. I grabbed the triage doctor’s coat, rolling up my sleeve to reveal a map of faded puncture marks. “I’m due to donate! Take my blood!” I sobbed, my voice cracking. “Do whatever you have to do, just please save him. I can’t lose him. I can’t.” The doctor looked utterly conflicted. “June, you’re already severely malnourished. You donate plasma every month just to keep your mother’s life support running. You finally paid this month’s installment early, you don’t need to do this… why do this for a stranger?” “It’s what I owe him,” I cut him off, my voice dropping to a desperate whisper. The doctor sighed a heavy, defeated sigh and called for the nurses. I endured the dizzying, nauseating pull of the blood leaving my veins. Afterward, weak and shivering, I sat by Rae’s hospital bed. I held his face in my hands, my thumbs brushing his jawline. “You have to get better, Rae,” I whispered into the quiet room. “As long as you wake up, I don’t care if they drain me dry.” Eventually, the sheer exhaustion and blood loss pulled me under. I collapsed with my head resting on the edge of his mattress. When I woke up, the room was pitch black, save for the glow of the streetlights outside. I blinked sluggishly, realizing someone had draped a heavy jacket over my shoulders. Rae was sitting up, leaning against the pillows, scrolling through his phone. He lowered the device, his gaze pinning me to the spot—dark, unreadable, and heavy. Instinctively, I reached out to press the back of my hand against his forehead. His skin was cool. The fever had broken. I let out a massive breath of relief. “Are you hungry? I’ll go find the cafeteria,” I said, scrambling to stand. A wave of vertigo hit me hard. I stumbled. A strong, calloused hand clamped around my wrist, steadying me. He didn’t let go. “You almost drowned me, and then you almost killed yourself to save me.” His voice was low, vibrating with suspicion. “What exactly is your endgame here, June?” 2 I cast my eyes downward, searching for the right words, but a knock at the door interrupted me. “June?” The doctor stood in the doorway, his expression soft. “Your mother just woke up. She’s asking for you.” The breath caught in my throat. I tore my hand from Rae’s grip and bolted out the door. When I reached her ward, my heart shattered all over again. My mother lay there, her body reduced to little more than a skeleton beneath the hospital blankets. Her sunken eyes darted around the room in a blind panic until they found me. My vision blurred. I dropped to my knees beside her bed, taking her frail, paper-thin hand and pressing it to my cheek. “Mom. I’m here. I’m right here,” I coaxed, my voice trembling. “Are you in pain? Tell me what hurts. I’ll fix it. I promise I’ll fix it.” Her dry, cracked lips parted. It took her several agonizing seconds to push the words past her vocal cords. “June… let me… go.” Her voice was a ghostly rasp. “No more… treatments.” “Mom, don’t—” “Go back to school,” she wheezed, a single tear slipping down her hollow cheek. “Just… live your life, baby.” It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to my ribs. The tears I’d been fighting spilled over, hot and fast. I wiped them away violently. I couldn’t let her see me break. “Mom, I have a plan,” I lied, my voice painfully bright. “You’re all I have left in this world. You have to stay alive so I have a reason to stay alive.” “June… you’re so young. The bills… how are you supposed to…” I gently dabbed the moisture from the corners of her eyes and gave her a watery smile. “Don’t worry about the money. I found a way. You always said I was a terrible liar, right? So you know I’m telling the truth.” I stayed with her, murmuring sweet, empty promises until the exhaustion pulled her back into unconsciousness. I stared at the deep creases between her brows for a long, quiet moment. Finally, gripping the bedrail, I forced my stiff legs to stand. When I stepped out into the quiet corridor, Rae was waiting. He was sitting in his wheelchair, shrouded in the dim hallway light. I had no idea how long he had been sitting there. I rushed over, instantly grabbing his hands. They were freezing. I stripped the scarf from my neck and wrapped it tightly around him, crouching down so we were eye-level. “Why are you out here? The draft is freezing. What if your fever comes back?” I fussed, brushing a stray piece of lint from his shoulder. “I’m so sorry I made you wait. I’ll go get food right now.” “The money Brianna gave you,” Rae said suddenly, his eyes locking onto mine like heat-seeking missiles. “You used every cent of it for her hospital bills?” My eyelashes fluttered. I wrung my hands together, suddenly hyper-aware of how pathetic I looked. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have helped Brianna hurt you just for a paycheck. But I was backed into a corner. I couldn’t just stand by and watch my mom die.” “Then why did you spend what little you had left to save me?” Rae reached out, his long fingers gripping my chin, forcing me to look at him. His brows were pulled tight. He was a man who understood spreadsheets, leverage, and power dynamics. He couldn’t compute this. Tears welled in my eyes, unbidden this time. “I… I used to have an older brother.” The fingers holding my chin flinched. I pretended not to notice. “He wanted to pay for my college tuition. He wanted to pay for Mom’s meds. So he took a sketchy job down by the docks in the middle of a storm. He drowned in the river.” The tears spilled over, splashing silently onto the back of Rae’s hand. I stared up at him, my heart laid entirely bare. “In every nightmare I have, I see his eyes when they pulled him out of the water. They were wide open. He died terrified. And when they pried his hands open, he was clutching a cheap little hair clip he bought for me.” My breath hitched. “So, Rae… I couldn’t let you drown. I couldn’t let you die because of me. My nightmares can’t take another pair of dead eyes.” I leaned forward, resting my wet cheek fully into the palm of his hand. I looked up at him with total surrender. “I regret everything I did to you. Please, Rae. Give me a chance to make it right. I’ll do anything. I swear.” He didn’t speak. The hallway was dead silent, save for the distant beep of heart monitors. Slowly, his thumb moved, tracing the curve of my cheekbone, wiping away a tear. It was a silent concession. I stood up, gripping the handles of his chair, and wheeled him back to his room. [The sky is falling! The MMC just texted his family’s extraction team to stand down! If he doesn’t go back to the Caldwell estate, when am I going to get my spicy dark romance plot?!] [What is this extra playing at? Is she trying to seduce him to climb the social ladder? What a slut.] [Hey, back off. The extra doesn’t even know he’s secretly a billionaire. From her POV, this is just two broken kids finding solace in each other. Honestly, the mom dying, the brother drowning… it’s tragic. I’m kind of rooting for her.] [I only read for the official canon couple! I’m reporting this to the system admins. We need a plot correction.] The glowing text was fighting with itself, scrolling furiously. I ignored the vitriol, focusing entirely on that last comment. Plot correction. That made my stomach twist, but I shoved the fear down. Back in the room, I carefully fed Rae a bowl of warm oatmeal. Once he was finished, I brought in a basin of warm soapy water. “I know you got a change of clothes, but you fell into a dirty lake. You must feel gross. Let me give you a sponge bath.” Rae arched a dark eyebrow. “You’re volunteering to bathe me?” “Don’t worry,” I said smoothly. “I have to bathe my mom all the time. I know your legs don’t work, but I can handle the heavy lifting.” With pure, clinical determination, I began stripping off his shirt and sweatpants. That’s when my clinical detachment evaporated. Rae was built like a Greek god. Every inch of his torso was sculpted, tight, and perfect. My face caught fire. I let out an awkward cough, wrung out the sponge, and began wiping him down. I kept my eyes focused on the washcloth, completely professional, until I brushed past his waistline and noticed a very sudden, very obvious physical reaction. I froze, my eyes darting up to his face. “Um… does this part… work?” Rae, who had been aggressively staring at his phone to feign indifference, had a vein popping in his forehead. In one fluid motion, he grabbed my shoulder, pulled me forward, and pinned me flush against his bare chest. He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Why don’t you try it and find out?” he murmured, his voice a dark, lethal purr. “Didn’t you just say you’d do anything to make it up to me?” “I…” “So? Is this included?” A shiver violently ripped down my spine. My whole body burned. I looked into his deep, predatory eyes, bit my lip, and leaned in, pressing my mouth to his. The rest of the night was a blur of chaotic, breathless heat. Rae loved weaponizing his “paralyzed” legs, demanding I straddle him, letting him dictate the rhythm with his hands on my hips. We stayed in that hospital for five days. Rae ran me ragged. During the day, he acted like a spoiled prince—making me massage his calves, feed him sliced apples, and fetch him coffee. At night, he was insatiable. I also discovered his surprisingly boyish side; after getting a blood draw, he sulked until I hugged him and gave him a dozen kisses to “make it better.” By the end of the week, his guard was completely obliterated. He followed me around the room with his eyes, calling me “June-bug,” a far cry from the brooding, toxic billionaire the floating text obsessed over. When he was finally cleared, I signed his discharge papers and wheeled him back to the edge of campus. I crouched down in front of him, pulling his jacket tighter. “If you feel dizzy at all, call me. I’ll come get you. I bought ribs for dinner. You just recovered, so make sure you come back to the apartment to eat, okay?” He caught the slight waver in my voice. His eyes narrowed. “What about you? You don’t have classes today?” I looked away, staring at the pavement. “Yeah. No classes.” Before I could say another word, a sharp, manicured voice sliced through the air. “June Evans! You actually have the nerve to show your face here? Did you forget you’re not a student at this university anymore?” Brianna strutted over, her designer bag swinging on her arm, looking at us like we were gum on her shoe. “God, the stench of poverty is making me nauseous. You two losers really are made for each other. Rae, the only trash willing to take you is June. If you ever thought you had a shot with me, you were dreaming.” Rae’s eyes went dead. For the first time, he didn’t play the submissive victim for Brianna. He ignored her completely, his gaze fixed on me. “Don’t lie to me, June. Why were you expelled?” I kept my head down, swallowing the lump in my throat. Brianna laughed, a cruel, ringing sound. “I told her what would happen if she disobeyed me. She decided to play the hero and pull you out of the lake, making me look like an idiot. So, I made a few calls. The Dean expelled her this morning.” Rae’s hands gripped the armrests of his chair, his knuckles turning stark white. I quickly reached out, covering his hands with mine. “It’s fine, really! Now I have more time to pick up extra shifts. I can pay for Mom’s meds, and I can help cover your tuition.” [I’M BACK FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE! Who cares if the extra slept with him? The canon couple MUST be together! Plot correction incoming!] 3 The words caught in my throat as I read the glowing text. A sudden, suffocating wave of dread crashed over me. I gripped Rae’s hands tighter. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a fleet of matte-black SUVs pull up to the curb. A dozen men in immaculate tailored suits stepped out, moving in perfect unison toward Rae. The lead bodyguard bowed deeply. “Young Master Caldwell. The Patriarch requests that you end your… vacation. It is time to come home.” “Rae…?” I breathed, my voice barely a whisper. I stared at him. The vulnerable, needy boy from the hospital was gone. In his place sat a man with an aura so chilling, so inherently arrogant, he felt like a stranger. Rae let out an annoyed click of his tongue. Without a word of explanation, he casually stood up from the wheelchair he’d been confined to for months. He smoothed the front of his jacket and walked toward the waiting cars. The wind carried his indifferent voice back to me. “The old man has perfect timing. I was just starting to have fun with my new toy.” The car doors slammed shut. The SUVs peeled away, leaving me standing alone on the sidewalk, frozen in shock, next to an equally horrified Brianna. “He’s not a cripple?!” Brianna shrieked, her eyes bulging. “Why did they call him Young Master? What the hell is going on?!” I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. I was too busy staring at the floating text, which was currently throwing a massive celebration. [Yesss! He’s going back to inherit the Caldwell Empire!] [The first thing Rae is going to do is announce his arranged marriage to Brianna! Then our arrogant little FMC is going to fall from grace, and the beautiful, twisted dark romance can finally begin!] [Can the extra just go die now? Stop ruining the aesthetic of the plot!] My heart pounded against my ribs. I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and my fingers brushed against cold metal. It was a simple, unadorned silver ring. Rae had worn it on his pinky every single day. He must have slipped it into my pocket when he hugged me goodbye. The panic in my chest evaporated, replaced by a fierce, grounding calm. I shook off Brianna, who was clawing at my sleeve demanding answers. “I have no idea,” I said coldly, and walked away. Once I was out of sight, I pulled the ring out with trembling fingers. A smile ghosted across my lips. I had bet my life, and I had won. Over the next few days, Rae’s devastatingly handsome face was plastered on every billboard and financial news channel in the city. “Power transfer complete at Caldwell Group. Rae Caldwell becomes the youngest CEO in the dynasty’s history.” [Wait… that silver ring is his late mother’s heirloom. He’s only supposed to give it to his future wife! Why does the extra have it?!] Seeing that comment was the final validation I needed. I practically flew to the hospital, crying and laughing as I sat by my mother’s sleeping form. “Mom, I did it. We’re going to be okay. I can save you.” I sat in the quiet room, waiting for the fruits of my desperate gamble to arrive. But when the hospital door burst open at midnight, it wasn’t Rae. It was Brianna, her face twisted into an ugly mask of pure rage. She snapped her fingers, and two massive bodyguards lunged into the room. Before I could scream, they pinned me to the floor. A sharp crack rang out—Brianna had slapped me so hard the room spun, a high-pitched ringing echoing in my ears. Brianna rubbed her stinging palm, looking down at me like I was a cockroach. “Did you know who he was the whole time?” she hissed. “Did you plan this? Seducing him to steal him from me?” I spat out a mouthful of blood, my eyes watering from the pain. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just wanted to help him.” “Bullshit!” Brianna screamed. She crouched down, grabbing a fistful of my hair. “He gave you his mother’s ring!” My breath hitched. “You thought you could outsmart me? Make a fool out of me?” Brianna’s eyes gleamed with a manic, unhinged light. “Those glowing words… they told me everything. Why couldn’t you just accept your place as the pathetic extra? The only person worthy of standing next to Rae Caldwell is me. I am the Female Lead.” My blood ran cold. She could see the text too. “The words told me the plot has been corrected,” Brianna sneered, her breath hot against my face. “Don’t bother waiting for Rae. He isn’t coming.” She pulled a thick, embossed document from her designer bag and threw it in my face. It was a drafted marriage alliance between the Caldwells and the Harringtons. Their names were printed side-by-side, a perfect corporate fairytale. My pupils dilated. The text… the system… it had actually manipulated reality. “Now,” Brianna drawled, standing back up. “Are you going to hand over that ring, or are my guys going to unplug your mother’s ventilator? Your choice.” One of the bodyguards clamped his massive hand over my mother’s life support machine. “NO!” I shrieked, trashing against the men holding me down. “Don’t touch her!” Hot tears streamed down my face. I broke. “Take it. Just take it! Please, don’t hurt her.” With shaking hands, I pulled the silver ring—still warm from my body heat—out of my pocket and placed it in Brianna’s outstretched, perfectly manicured palm. I felt like I was suffocating. Brianna inspected the ring, a cruel smirk spreading across her face. Then, she pulled out her phone and hit record. “You got your filthy hands all over my property,” she said coldly. “I think I’m owed some compensation.” She looked at her bodyguards. “Have fun. Just don’t kill her.” The men grinned, a sickening, predatory look in their eyes. I screamed, thrashing wildly. I managed to grab a fruit knife from a nearby tray and slashed blindly, but one of the men casually twisted my wrist, disarming me, and tossed the knife into the trash. He ripped the sleeve off my shirt, his heavy weight crushing my chest, pinning me down. “Just lie still, sweetheart. You might actually enjoy it,” he grunted. [This is exactly what the extra deserves. Anyone who stands in the way of the Main Characters should be ground into dust.] I stared at the ceiling, silent tears tracking into my hair. The absolute despair of knowing that I had fought a literal universe, only to lose. Just as the man’s hands moved to tear my jeans, the heavy hospital door was kicked off its hinges. “Who the fuck is touching my wife?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414021”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It was New Year’s Eve, and my little sister was begging me to play hide-and-seek. The second I covered my eyes and started counting to thirty, that eraser in my brain started moving again. It’s a strange, smooth sensation—the feeling of a chalkboard being wiped clean while the chalk is still writing. I stood there for a few seconds, staring into the blackness of my palms. Then, I simply turned around, walked back into the house, and started watching the New Year’s countdown on TV. An hour later, my mother was kneeling in front of me, her hands gripping my shoulders. “Elena, where’s your sister?” Sister? I blinked, the flickering light of the television reflecting in my eyes. “I don’t have a sister.” The look on my mother’s face shifted instantly. It wasn’t just worry; it was a flash of pure, unadulterated horror. Nobody stayed for the New Year’s dinner. They abandoned the roast and the wine, charging out into the driving blizzard. But no matter how loud they screamed her name, Sophie didn’t appear. My mother’s hand flew up, catching me across the face with a sickening crack. Her eyes were rimmed with a violent red. “Did I not tell you to watch her? Did I not tell you to stay by her side every single second?” “Where is she, Elena? Which way did she go? Answer me!” She shoved me, and I tumbled backward, sinking into the freezing slush outside the porch. “Why couldn’t it have been you?” she wailed, her voice breaking over the wind. “Why couldn’t the idiot be the one who got lost? You don’t remember anything anyway!” “You forgot your sister today. What’s next? Me? Your father? Are we just going to disappear from your head too?” She lunged at me again, but my father caught her, pulling her back. They were both sobbing now, their grief a physical weight in the air. I felt a hollow ache in my chest. She was right. Why couldn’t it have been me? 1 My father held my mother’s wrist tight, stopping her hand just inches from my cheek. “Enough!” his voice was a jagged rasp. “She’s sick, Diane. You know she’s sick.” “Because she’s sick is exactly why I told her not to leave the house!” My mother wrenched her hand free, though she didn’t come near me again. She just stood there, staring at me with those bloodshot eyes. “She’s only four… it’s freezing out there. Where could she go?” Four? I tried to speak, but no sound came out. Was the sister four years old? My mind was a blank slate. Beyond the muffled sounds of the TV and the swirling white flakes falling from the sky, there was nothing. No memories of a little girl, no echoes of laughter. The neighbors started arriving, drawn by the commotion. “Check the nearby houses,” someone shouted. “A kid can’t get far in this. Maybe she’s at a friend’s?” My father pulled my mother up from the snow. “What are we doing sitting here? Move! We have to find her! Talking to Elena is a waste of time—she doesn’t understand!” My mother’s eyes cleared for a second, sharpened by a desperate mission. “Right. I have to find my Sunny…” She didn’t look at me again. She grabbed a heavy-duty flashlight and vanished into the white veil of the storm. I stood there alone, the crowd’s shouts fading as they called out for “Sunny.” “Sunny… isn’t that my name?” A fragment of a memory flickered—I was three years old, and my parents were calling me Sunny. “Elena! What are you doing just standing there? Get moving and help find your sister!” Elena. When did my name change again? I couldn’t wrap my head around it, so I stopped trying. As I stood up, a cry erupted from the distance. “Found her! She’s here!” Everyone rushed toward the old oak tree at the edge of the property. There was a shallow depression there, a hollow in the earth now partially filled with snow. Sophie was inside it. Her face was a terrifying shade of blue-purple, her golden hair matted with icicles. My mother let out a harrowing scream and threw herself into the pit. “Sunny… my baby!” As if sensing the heat, Sophie’s eyes fluttered open. But she didn’t look at our mother. She looked straight at me. “Laney… why didn’t you come find me?” She began to cry, a weak, thin sound. “You promised you’d count to thirty and find me. I hid so well. I was waiting for you…” My mother’s head snapped toward me. She placed Sophie down gently and walked toward me with a terrifying, slow gait. Slap. The blow landed this time. My left ear rang instantly, a high-pitched whine that drowned out the wind. “Are you happy now?” My mother’s voice trembled with a lethal rage. “Are you satisfied seeing her nearly freeze to death?” “How did I give birth to a monster like you?” “This disease… this goddamn disease! You forget your sister, you forget us—I bet you’re just waiting for the day you can forget yourself!” The tears finally spilled over her cheeks. “Or maybe… maybe you’re faking it? Maybe you did this on purpose? Pretending to forget just so she’d die out here alone in the cold?” “That’s enough.” My father finally spoke, but he didn’t look at me. He was busy wrapping Sophie in his coat. “Get her inside. Get her warm. The paramedics are on their way.” No one said a word in my defense. I didn’t know how to argue anyway. It was my fault. My mother gave me one last look of pure loathing. “You stay out here. Stay right here and feel exactly how cold and scared your sister was.” They turned their backs on me. The neighbors, sensing the family’s private collapse, whispered among themselves and retreated to their own warm homes. 2 The snow began to fall harder, heavy and silent. I slowly crouched down, mimicking Sophie’s posture, and curled myself into that same shallow pit. The biting cold soaked through my clothes instantly. So, this is what it felt like. I was a horrible person. How could I have forgotten something so important? But I was just sick. The doctors called it a rare form of early-onset progressive memory impairment. They said my hippocampus was being eaten away, bit by bit. New memories couldn’t take root, and the old ones were being erased. My mom called it the “Eraser.” I didn’t know why there was an eraser in my head. I only knew that things I remembered in the morning became blurry by noon. My mom said I was an idiot. Maybe she was right. The sky grew darker. In the distance, the lights of the town twinkled one by one, and I heard the faint pop of early fireworks. I should go home. I tried to move my stiff legs. As I stood up, that familiar, dizzying sensation washed over me again. I blinked, looking around. The trees were white. The road was white. I turned in a circle. What… what was I supposed to be doing? Home. Right. Go home. But where was home? My heart started thumping against my ribs. I pressed my hand to my chest, gasping for air. Think. Today is New Year’s Eve. Sophie wanted to play hide-and-seek. Mom hit me… And then what? I couldn’t remember. It’s okay. I’ll just wait. They’ll realize I haven’t come back. They’ll come looking for me. Just like they looked for Sophie. I hugged my knees in the pit, counting the distant firecrackers. One, two… by the time I got to seventeen, I forgot what came before. I waited until the midnight bells chimed. Fireworks exploded in the sky, lighting up the world in bursts of neon green and crimson. It was beautiful. Once, my dad used to set off fireworks for me. He’d tell me to make a wish. What did I wish for? I forgot that, too. I curled up tighter. Strangely, the cold began to fade. I started feeling hot—unbearably hot. I pulled off my heavy coat. Then I pulled off my sweater. But the heat was still there, pulsing under my skin. By the time I was down to my thin thermal undershirt, I felt light. Weightless. Like I was floating. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was back in the house. The TV was still on. My mom was on the sofa, cradling Sophie, feeding her ginger tea with a small spoon. “Drink up, Sunny. Just a little more. It’ll get the chill out of your bones.” Sophie’s cheeks were rosy again. She was wrapped in a thick wool blanket, her eyes peeking out. “Where’s Laney?” Sophie asked suddenly. My mother’s hand stiffened. “Don’t talk about her.” “But she’s not back yet…” “She deserves it! She needs to know what it feels like to freeze. She’s nearly an adult, and she can’t even look after a child.” I wanted to walk over and say I was sorry, but as I moved, I drifted right through the coffee table. I froze. “Elena isn’t back,” my father said, standing by the window, staring into the white abyss. “The storm is getting worse.” “Oh, now you’re worried?” My mother didn’t even look up. “What if something had really happened to Sunny tonight? What then?” My father was silent. “She did it on purpose,” my mother hissed. “She’s jealous of her sister, so she fakes the memory loss. That disease… who knows if it’s even real? Even the specialist said he’d never seen a case progress like this.” “The doctor said it was organic brain damage, Diane,” my father whispered. “Organic brain damage that only makes her forget her sister but lets her remember to watch TV?” Her voice rose to a shriek. “She hates that we had another child! She hates that we gave Sunny the love she thinks she’s entitled to!” Sophie whimpered, shrinking into her mother’s arms. Diane immediately softened her tone, patting the girl’s back. “It’s okay, baby. Mommy isn’t mad at you. My sweet, sweet Sunny…” My father stood there for a long time before finally turning away from the window. “When she gets back, I need to have a talk with her.” “Talk about what? How she almost killed her sister?” My mother let out a cold laugh. “If you ask me, we should just put her in a facility. She doesn’t remember anything anyway. What difference does it make where she lives?” My father didn’t answer. I stood beside them, opening my mouth. “I…” No sound. I reached out to touch my mother’s shoulder, but my hand passed straight through her body like smoke through a screen. I realized then. I was dead. Maybe it was for the best. At least now, I wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting anymore. 3 My father sat up all night, but I never walked through the door. When my mother came out of the bedroom the next morning, her face was gaunt. “Is that brat still not back?” My father sat at the kitchen table, an ashtray full of cigarette butts in front of him. “I went to the neighbors this morning. No one’s seen her.” “She’s probably hiding in some corner, trying to make us feel guilty.” My mother slammed a pile of dirty laundry onto the floor. “That’s her favorite trick. Screw up, then play dumb and act like a victim so we’ll go easy on her.” “Well, not this time. Not after what she did to Sunny. When she shows her face, I’m going to make sure she never forgets this lesson.” Sophie was sitting on a small stool, playing with blocks. She looked up. “Mommy, don’t hit Laney.” “Sweetie,” my mother said, her voice instantly turning to honey. “Laney was very bad. She almost let you freeze. When people do bad things, they have to be punished. Do you understand?” Sophie nodded vaguely and went back to her blocks. My father sighed, crushing out his cigarette. “This town isn’t that big. Where could she go? She probably spent the night at a friend’s because she felt slighted.” Before he could finish, a neighbor’s voice boomed from the yard. “Hey, Rob! Time to head to the Old Oak for the New Year’s bonfire!” My father stood up. “Everyone in town will be there for the ceremony. If she shows up there, God help her.” My mother untied her apron. Her eyes fell on a tattered rag doll sitting on the sofa—my doll. She had given it to me years ago. A few days ago, Sophie had ripped its arm off, and the stuffing was leaking out. Mom had promised to fix it. Suddenly, my mother stepped forward and grabbed the doll. Rrrrrip. The fragile fabric gave way completely. Stuffing exploded from the wound, scattering across the rug. I flinched, trying to stop her, but I was just a shadow in the room. I watched as she tossed the ruined pieces into the trash. “She’s too old for this crap anyway! Spending all day acting like a child, caring more about a doll than her own sister!” One of the doll’s button eyes popped off, rolling across the floor until it stopped at Sophie’s feet. Sophie picked it up and squeezed it in her tiny palm. “Let’s go,” my father said. “She’s probably at the tree already, watching the crowd.” “Good. I’m not letting her off easy this time. She loves to forget? I’ll give her a memory she’ll never lose.” They locked the door and led Sophie toward the edge of the woods. “Elena’s still not back?” a neighbor asked as they joined the group. “She’s spoiled rotten!” my mother replied instantly. “I scolded her yesterday, and she ran off to sulk. Seventeen years old and not a lick of sense.” “You have no idea… that ‘illness’ of hers… who knows? She remembers what she wants and forgets the rest. Last time I disciplined her, she turned around a minute later and asked what was for dinner with a smile on her face. Can you believe that?” “Well, the girl is sick, Diane. Maybe have some patience…” “Patience?” My mother’s voice went sharp. “If I give her any more patience, she’ll burn the house down! This time, she learns.” I followed them silently, tears I couldn’t feel prickling at my non-existent eyes. So that was what she really thought of me. A crowd had gathered under the Old Oak. Ribbons were tied to the branches, fluttering in the morning light. A table of offerings had been set up, and the scent of pine and woodsmoke filled the air. My mother’s eyes scanned the faces, her expression growing darker with every passing second. “She’s not here.” “Maybe she’s hiding,” my father muttered. “We’ll search house to house after the ceremony. She can’t have vanished into thin air.” I looked at them. Mom, Dad… I’m right here. I’m in the pit behind the tree. 4 The ceremony began. The town elder said a few words of blessing, and people stepped forward to light candles. My mother bowed her head, but her mind was clearly elsewhere. When the town prepared to light the traditional New Year’s firecrackers in the clearing, my mother suddenly shouted, “Wait!” Everyone turned to her. “My daughter isn’t here yet,” she said, her voice sounding thin. “The whole family needs to be here for the blessing.” I squinted. Maybe she did still care, just a little. “She’s probably watching from the bushes,” someone said. “Let’s light it. We can’t miss the auspicious hour.” “But—” “Mommy.” Sophie tugged on her mother’s coat, pointing her small hand toward the shallow pit partially hidden by the snow. “Was Laney… was she there yesterday?” My mother followed her finger. There was something at the bottom of the pit. My father saw it too. He frowned and walked over, brushing away a layer of fresh powder. It was my sweater and my coat. They were frozen solid, stiff as boards. My father’s hand stopped mid-air. My mother walked up behind him. She stared at the pile of clothes for a long time, then looked around at the vast, empty white field. Sophie squeezed the button eye in her hand and whispered, “If Laney took off her clothes… isn’t she cold?” My father picked up the sweater. He didn’t move. “What is this girl playing at? Leaving her clothes here like some kind of dramatic stunt?” My mother snatched the sweater from him and shook it. Ice crystals fell like salt. “She thinks if she leaves these here, we’ll get scared? We’ll come crawling to find her? Dream on! If she freezes, it’s her own fault! She’s so incredibly selfish!” My father’s face went pale. “Did she… did she stay out here all night?” My mother’s hands faltered, but then she threw the sweater back into the snow with more force. “A stunt! It’s a total stunt! She wants us to worry. She wants us to regret yelling at her. I bet she’s sitting in someone’s warm kitchen right now, laughing at us!” Sophie let go of her mother’s hand and ran to the edge of the pit. She started digging with her small hands, just like Dad had. Suddenly, she pulled something small out of the snow. It was my hair tie. Sophie held the hair tie and the button eye together in her tiny, freezing hand. She looked up at her parents. “These are Laney’s.” My mother grabbed the hair tie, her knuckles turning white. The neighbors sensed the shift in the air and began to gather around. “She left her clothes and disappeared? She didn’t come home last night?” “In this weather? With only an undershirt on? Where could she go? Unless…” “Don’t you dare say it!” my mother snapped. “She’s fine! She’s doing this on purpose!” But I saw it. Her hand was shaking. My father didn’t say anything. He began to circle the tree, searching. The neighbors joined in, their festive mood evaporated. Sophie, still held in her mother’s grip, looked up and asked quietly, “Is Laney hiding? Like I was yesterday? Is she in the pit?” My mother froze. She looked down into the hollow. “Elena… stop scaring me. If I find out you’re lying, I swear I’ll kill you!” Even as she said the words, she let go of Sophie and knelt by the pit. She began to claw at the snow. “If you’re playing a joke on us, I’m done! I’ll forget you entirely! I’ll—” Her words cut off as a flash of pink thermal fabric appeared. And then… she saw my face.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414020”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It took me ten years to claw my way out of the subterranean black site where they’d been running their augment experiments. Ten years to finally break free. Only to find that while I was buried in the dark, the world above had ended. The outbreak had swallowed everything. And my best friend—the only anchor I had left in my fractured mind—was currently being backed into a corner by her husband’s survival crew, ordered to surrender her meager rations. “Everyone else chipped in, Rachel. Why are you being so selfish? You’re really hoarding a couple of candy bars?” Rachel’s voice was small, defensive. “I wanted to save them for Tommy.” A teenage girl standing nearby let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Oh, come on. Every time you want a sugar fix, you use the kid as an excuse. It’s pathetic.” Under the judgmental glare of the entire scavenging party, I unslung the heavy canvas backpack from my shoulder and hurled it. It caught the sneering teenager squarely in the back of the head. “Is that enough?” My voice came out flat, stripped of whatever inflection normal humans used. “Say one more word to her, and I’ll kill every single one of you.” 1 I hadn’t zipped the bag all the way. Dozens of foil-wrapped chocolate bars spilled out, scattering across the cracked asphalt like glittering debris. “What the hell?! Who do you think you’re talking to?” The teenage girl spun around, her voice shrill with shock and rage. Nobody answered her. Every pair of eyes in the vicinity was glued to the dirt. The collective sound of dry swallows echoed in the dead air. “Chocolate… that’s a whole fucking bag of chocolate…” “I’m sweeping it with my kinetics. It’s real. It’s not a mirage.” They surged forward. A desperate, scrambling frenzy broke out as hands clawed at the dirt. Nobody cared about the teenager’s bruised ego. She bit her lip, grabbing the arm of the tall, broad-shouldered man beside her, shaking it. “David, look at them!” The man furrowed his brow, his voice dropping into a low, authoritative rumble. “Stand down. Don’t touch it.” He looked over the group. “All scavenged supplies go to Kelsey’s tether. She inventories and rations. Did you all suddenly forget how this crew operates?” The scrambling stopped. The survivors froze, hands hovering over the candy. The girl, Kelsey, giggled. She strutted forward, confiscating the chocolate from their unresisting hands. A faint, pale blue light pulsed against her palms. A spatial tether. A pocket dimension. Through the entire chaotic display, Rachel—her face ashen, stripped of all color—hadn’t even glanced at the food. She was just staring at me. Her voice trembled, thick with a disbelief that seemed to crack her chest wide open. “Margo? Is that you? You’re alive?” 2 She slammed into me. I stood there, slightly paralyzed by the sudden impact. My arms felt heavy, but some deeply buried, vestigial instinct forced my hand up to awkwardly pat her back. “Is that… my name? Margo?” “You don’t remember?” She pulled back, her hands frantically roaming over my shoulders, my arms, checking for broken bones, crying and laughing all at once. “The director at the group home said you got adopted. I begged him to tell me by who, but he wouldn’t say a word. I spent years looking for you, Mags. I searched everywhere…” I let her rapid-fire words wash over me in absolute silence. Of course she couldn’t find me. For a decade, I had been locked inside a classified, subterranean labyrinth, subjected to extreme human-limit augmentation trials. I couldn’t even count how many times they had cracked open my skull, how many microchips were threaded into my cerebral cortex, how many synthetic serums had burned through my veins. My memories and emotions were a blurred, static-filled wasteland. I didn’t even remember my own name. I only had one fragile, lingering fragmented image from the “Before.” I had a friend. Her name was Rachel. And she… loved me. 3 “Who are you? And where the hell did you get high-tier rations?” Rachel was still running her hands over me, checking my pulse, my temperature. The tall man—David—stepped forward. His eyes were cold, sweeping over me with practiced, paranoid scrutiny. I accessed my limited social-response protocols. “I passed through the city. Picked it up on the way.” David’s eyes narrowed into slits. “You just picked it up? Do you have any idea what’s out there right now—” Before he could finish the sentence, Rachel stepped between us. She spread her arms, shielding me with her own body. “David, this is her. This is my best friend. The one I told you about. The most important person in the world to me.” She turned back to me, her eyes wet. “Mags, this is David. We got married five years ago.” She looked back at him, her voice desperate but firm. “She’s coming with us.” David didn’t say a word. Behind him, Kelsey, the spatial-tether girl, stepped up, crossing her arms. “Look, Rachel, no offense, but we’re an elite runner crew. We’re already dragging you around, and you’re a Baseline. No augments, no nothing. You’re dead weight.” “If we drag your stray friend along too, we might as well just give up on reaching the Portland Safe Zone.” Rachel’s face hardened. Her voice dropped an octave. “Kelsey, if you’re not taking her, then empty your pockets. Give her back her food.” “Excuse me?!” Kelsey’s face flushed an ugly, mottled red. She immediately turned to David, her tone shifting into a whining drawl. “David, are you hearing her? Why is she taking a stranger’s side over her own crew?” “Enough. Both of you.” David delivered the final verdict. “She surrendered a massive haul to the communal pool. That buys her our protection. Rachel, your friend walks with us. That’s the end of it. I don’t want to hear another word.” Rachel’s eyes curved into a brilliant, relieved smile. Beside her, Kelsey’s face went stone-cold. She shot me a venomous glare, rolling her eyes. I let my kinetic senses bleed out, sweeping over Kelsey’s body. Her internal energy signature was pathetic. Less than three cubic meters of spatial capacity. The most rudimentary, entry-level tether I had ever seen. I could snap her neck with a single thought. But I looked down at Rachel, who was still holding onto my sleeve like I might vanish. …I’d let her live. For now. 4 We walked for two days before making camp in a gutted suburban town. Just like when we were kids, Rachel couldn’t stand the silence. As we walked, she filled in the ten-year gap. After my “adoption,” she got into college, started dating David her sophomore year, and married him right after graduation. Two months ago, the contagion hit globally. David woke up with a rare Ferrokinesis augment—he could manipulate metal to tear through the infected. Kelsey, I learned, was David’s stepsister. No blood relation. “They’re incredibly close. Honestly, sometimes I was jealous of how much they had each other’s backs. Especially after you left. I was always just… alone.” Rachel let out a soft, tired sigh. “I have a son, Mags. Tommy. He just turned four. The day the outbreak hit, he was at a summer camp down in San Diego. I begged David to go get him, but it was pure chaos. He couldn’t find him. We finally got a radio signal from the camp counselors later—they evacuated early and flew the kids up to the Portland Safe Zone.” “That’s why we’re heading there. It’s a massive military quarantine zone. Once we get inside, you can meet him.” Rachel rested her chin in her hands, looking at me with that same warm, bright expression from our childhood. “He knows all about you, you know. I always told him his mom had the bravest, best friend in the world named Margo. I told him how much you loved paper cranes when we were in the foster home. He folded hundreds of them. He said he’s saving them to give to Auntie Margo.” I stared at her smile. Deep inside my skull, behind the titanium plating and the synthetic neural webbing, something shifted. Like a glacier that had been frozen in darkness for a decade, just barely beginning to weep water at its edges. “Okay.” I opened my palm. Sitting in the center were three untouched chocolate bars. Rachel’s eyes went wide. I tried to mimic her smile. “For Tommy.” 5 That night, we camped in the rusted shell of an old auto factory. Rachel sneaked over to me, clutching two stale dinner rolls against her chest. “Here. You need to eat.” After countless surgical modifications, my biological shell barely required caloric intake to function. But looking at the fierce, protective gleam in her eyes, I took the bread. Rachel bumped her shoulder against mine, taking a bite of her own roll. “Where were you, Mags? These last ten years… where did you go? How did you suddenly find me?” I sat in silence, staring at the slightly warm, squishy bread in my hands. The sterile, blinding white of the underground lab flashed behind my eyes. The hum of surgical machinery. The endless parade of white coats blurring past the reinforced glass. “Inject Subject 09 with the latest serum compound!” “Increase the neural-chip current!” “Code Red! She’s breaching! Subject 09 is breaching!” The deafening roar of shattering glass. My kinetic output had been so massive it atomized the containment tank. When the red haze of my rage finally cleared, the sector was dead quiet. The pristine white floors were painted crimson, littered with severed limbs and broken bodies. I had grabbed a discarded lab coat, stepping barefoot over the corpses, staring blankly at the metal blast doors. “Rachel… I need to find Rachel…” … “I was in a… specialized facility. I wasn’t allowed to contact the outside world.” It was the most sanitized version of the truth I could offer. “When I finally got out, I just wanted to see you. So I tracked you down.” “Oh, Mags.” Rachel threw her arms around my neck, burying her face in my shoulder. “I knew it. I knew you still loved me. David kept saying you probably got adopted by some rich family and forgot all about the trashy group home kids. But I never believed him. I told him he just didn’t understand us.” She was right. Who could possibly understand? For ten years, not even the world’s most brilliant neuroscientists understood. The sheer volume of neuro-stimulants they pumped into my spine should have killed a human being purely from the pain. But I survived hundreds of injections. Out of the one hundred children brought to that black site, I was the only one left breathing. Through the one-way glass, I used to hear them whisper: “Subject 09 is a gift from God.” There was no God down there. There was only a faded memory of a little girl holding my hand, saying: “Mags, we’re gonna be best friends until we’re a hundred years old.” I had to live to be a hundred. I couldn’t break my promise. 6 Sometime after midnight, Rachel fell asleep, her head resting heavy on my shoulder. I carefully shifted my weight, easing her into a more comfortable position against a duffel bag, and stood up. Across the dark factory floor, David was awake. His eyes were locked on me, heavy with suspicion. He started walking toward me. In the palm of his hand, I could sense the sharp, deadly hum of kinetic energy molding a spike of solid iron. A second later, a shrieking siren shattered the dead silence of the night. “INCOMING! WE GOT A HORDE!” The rusted iron doors of the factory, barricaded by two abandoned sedans, groaned and gave way. A tidal wave of infected bodies poured through the breach, rotting limbs scrambling over one another. The crew snapped awake, instantly deploying their augments. There were six “gifted” in the crew, but aside from David’s mid-tier ferrokinesis, the rest were pathetic, entry-level parlor tricks. Within minutes, their stamina gauges hit zero. The defensive line collapsed. Three infected broke through, their jaws snapping wildly as they lunged toward where Rachel and Kelsey were huddled. “DAVID!!” “David, help!” Over the chaotic screaming, David didn’t even hesitate. The iron spike in his hand flew across the room, impaling the zombie leaping at Kelsey, pinning it to the concrete. Only then did his head snap toward Rachel, realizing he had left his wife exposed. He turned just in time to see it. Squelch. The heavy steel rebar in my hands pierced flawlessly through the eye sockets of both infected attacking Rachel. I pulled it back in a smooth, sickening arc, and they dropped like heavy sacks of meat. Rachel was gripping the hem of my jacket, her face ghostly white. “Mags, are you hurt? Did they scratch you?!” “I’m fine.” I reached up, wiping a smear of black blood from my cheek with my thumb, my eyes scanning the perimeter. More thermal signatures were swarming the breach. “Get in the vehicles. I’ll hold the rear.” David gritted his teeth, his voice straining. “Move out! Get the engines running, now!” 7 For hours the next day, Rachel didn’t say a word. We had managed to outrun the horde at dawn, barricading ourselves inside an abandoned suburban house to catch our breath. Rachel sat on the floor, obsessively picking at the fraying thread on her sleeve. I reached out, gently covering her trembling hands with mine. I looked her dead in the eye. “I will protect you.” She looked up at me. The image from the factory was burned into both our retinas. In the split second where both his wife and his stepsister were about to be ripped apart, David had made his choice. “All our food and meds are in Kelsey’s tether. Tactically, she’s the VIP. I know that. I understand the logic, I do. But…” Rachel choked back a sob, tears finally spilling over. “Does that make me a horrible, selfish person, Mags?” I shook my head. “You’re the best person I know.” And she was. To me, Rachel was the only good thing left in the world. My biological parents dumped me at the steps of the group home when I was four because I didn’t speak. The state doctors stamped “Severe Autism” on my file. In the system, I was easy prey. The older kids used me as a punching bag. Until Rachel, three years older and half their size, charged at them with a literal cinderblock, chasing them across the yard. “Don’t you touch her! You leave her alone!” When I was nine, the home’s director called me into his office late at night. He said a special doctor was there to give me a checkup. I went. There were two strange men in the room. They told me to take off my dress. The director stood in the corner, laughing softly. “She doesn’t talk. It’s perfectly safe.” That was the exact moment the heavy oak door to the office was kicked off its hinges. Rachel came screaming into the room, wielding a rusted iron spade from the gardening shed, swinging it like a battleaxe at the director and the two men. “Get away from her! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you!” Over their screams, the spade connected, splitting open scalps. The fallout was massive. The cops came. The director and the men were taken away in handcuffs. That night, shivering in the dark, Rachel held my hand, her fingers constantly smoothing down my messy hair. She whispered, “Don’t be scared, Mags. If the bad things come back… you just scream my name.” … Sitting in the dusty living room of the safe house, I clumsily tried to mimic her cadence from all those years ago. “Don’t be scared, Rachel. If the bad things come… you just call my name.” She stared at me, stunned. Her lower lip began to tremble violently. “Mags…” Before she could say another word, the light from the hallway was blocked out. I looked up. David, flanked by the rest of the crew, had us boxed into the corner. Rachel immediately stood up, stepping in front of me. “What is this?” Kelsey stepped out from behind her brother. “Rachel, I get that you want to blindly trust your childhood bestie, but are you really that dense? Have you not noticed anything wrong with this picture?” Rachel frowned, her muscles tensing. “What the hell are you talking about?” Kelsey gave David a loaded look. David remained silent, but his hand flexed. A vicious, serrated blade of solid iron materialized in his grip. Beside him, a wiry man with a rat-like face spoke up. “Think about it, Rachel. The world’s gone to shit. Finding a rusted can of beans is a miracle. And your ‘friend’ here wanders out of the wasteland, untouched, carrying a twenty-pound bag of pristine chocolate? Surviving solo for two months in the red zones? Claiming she’s just a normal Baseline girl? It’s bullshit.” Rachel gripped my hand tighter. “Make your point.” David took a slow step forward, his voice a low, dangerous gravel. “Rachel, I know what she means to you. But we can’t afford blind spots. We’ve been moving for a month. Sticking to the backroads. We barely saw a single roamer.” “Yesterday, she joins us. And twelve hours later, a massive horde magically zeroes in on our exact location.” “The military broadcasts have been warning us. The virus is mutating. There are Variants out there that look perfectly human. Alphas. Things that can mind-control the swarms.” He raised the iron blade, pointing the jagged tip directly at the space between my eyes. “I think your friend is an Alpha.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414019”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It was April Fool’s Day when my boyfriend’s female best friend shoved a piece of paper into my hands, daring me to read it aloud for the livestream. In my past life, to keep the peace, I swallowed my pride and read the vicious words: I, Harriet, will lose my hair, my skin will rot, and I will become a monster. My little sister will be dragged into an alley and violated. My parents’ bistro will serve poisoned food, killing a customer and ruining our family. That very night, every single one of Bernice’s sick, twisted curses came true. My sister was assaulted in a dark alley. She jumped off her high school roof. My parents’ viral farm-to-table bistro was shut down after a man died from eating their food. They were thrown in prison. My face broke out in weeping, rotting sores, making me the target of relentless internet bullying. Meanwhile, Bernice won a ten-million-dollar lottery. She took over my influencer account with its millions of followers. She married my boyfriend. I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, choking on a grief too heavy for one lifetime. Then I opened my eyes. The blinding ring light. The camera. The exact same April Fool’s Day. Bernice was staring at me, a sickeningly sweet smile plastered across her face. “Harriet! Come on, don’t be a buzzkill. Are you brave enough to play the prank stream or not?” I let out a low, breathy laugh. “Oh, I’ll play. I’m just worried you don’t have the stomach for it.” … 1 “Here! Read this!” Bernice’s smile didn’t reach her eyes as she thrust the folded slip of paper toward me. I didn’t take it. I just sat back, letting the silence stretch, smiling right back at her. “If it’s a game, it’s no fun if I’m the only one playing,” I said, keeping my voice light. “Let me write a slip for you, too. We’ll read them to each other. You know, for the engagement metrics.” Bernice blinked, her hand faltering. She let out a dry, nervous laugh. “Oh, let’s just stick to you. Today is about pranking you, I’m just the host…” I mirrored her usual passive-aggressive, baby-voice cadence. “Bernice, don’t tell me you’re scared? Our fearless internet bad-girl, suddenly backing down?” A few of Corey’s frat brothers were lounging on the sofa behind us. One of them snorted, tossing a beer cap onto the table. “Damn, Harriet, chill out. Bernice’s practically one of the guys. There’s nothing she won’t do for a laugh.” My boyfriend, Corey, flushed a deep crimson. He kicked his friend’s shin under the table, hissing, “Watch your mouth on the livestream, man.” Yet, his body language told a different story. He shifted entirely, angling his broad shoulders to physically shield Bernice from me. “Just play the game, Harriet. What are you so afraid of?” he coaxed, though his eyes were hard. Then he glanced back at Bernice, his voice softening. “Don’t worry, B. I’ve got your back.” With Corey defending her, Bernice’s spine stiffened. She puffed out her chest, suddenly emboldened. “Who’s scared? You first, Harriet. Read it!” In those few minutes of tension, the viewer count on my livestream had skyrocketed to two hundred thousand. The chat was a blur of rapid-fire text, demanding action. I looked down, slowly unfolding the paper in my hands. The blood roared in my ears. Black spots danced at the edge of my vision. It was the exact same wording. When I didn’t speak, Bernice sneered. “Read it, Harriet. What, did you freeze? If you can’t take a joke, you have to get on your knees and call me ‘Mommy’ on camera.” The peanut gallery on the sofa erupted into hoots and applause. “Read it! Read it!” “Call her Mommy!” Corey nudged my arm, irritated. “Harriet, stop stalling. Just read the damn thing. You’re ruining the vibe.” The chat was a relentless wave of peer pressure: [Is the host a sore loser?] [If u can’t play, log off.] [Just read it omg so annoying.] I curled my hands into fists under the table, my manicured nails biting half-moons into my palms. I forced the blinding, suffocating hatred down into my chest, locking it away. I held the paper up to the camera and read it. Word by agonizing word. “I, Harriet, will lose my hair, my skin will rot, and I will become a monster. My little sister will be dragged into an alley and violated. My parents’ bistro will serve poisoned food, killing a customer and ruining our family.” The living room went dead silent for two agonizing seconds. Then, one of the guys slow-clapped. “Holy shit. That is brutal! Bernice, your brain is a dark place. Top-tier content right there.” Corey laughed. He actually laughed. He reached over and playfully snapped the bra strap visible beneath Bernice’s oversized flannel. “You’re toxic as hell for that one,” he joked. Bernice covered her mouth, giggling uncontrollably. “Wow, Harriet, I can’t believe you actually read it! Aren’t you worried putting that out into the universe will make it come true?” Anyone else would have flipped the table. I kept my breathing steady. I grabbed a sticky note, grabbed a Sharpie, and scrawled a single sentence. I slid it across the glass coffee table, stopping right in front of Bernice. “My turn is over. Yours now. Read it.” The smug smile slid right off Bernice’s face. She tucked her hands into her sleeves, refusing to touch the bright yellow square. Her eyes darted around the room, and suddenly, she swayed in her chair. “Ugh. God. I’m so dizzy. My blood sugar is crashing again.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Let’s just wrap the stream here. We’ll do part two another day.” Her visceral panic confirmed everything. In my past life, I had agonized over how a few mean words on a piece of paper could destroy my entire world. Later, I realized Bernice was obsessed with dark web occultism and twisted manifestation rituals. She believed that by making me speak the curses aloud, she was legally transferring my good karma to herself and cementing my doom. She reached for the mouse to end the broadcast. I clamped my hand over her wrist. “You’re the one who begged to play,” I said, my voice carrying cleanly over the microphone. “And now your blood sugar is low? Two hundred thousand people are watching.” I leaned in, amplifying my voice for maximum humiliation. “You’ve been trying to build your own channel for months. If you back out of a dare on a live feed, how are you ever going to make it in this industry? Nobody likes a flake.” 2 Bernice whipped her head around, glaring at me with pure, unadulterated venom. I had hit her deepest insecurity. I had the effortless aesthetic, the wealthy background, the million followers who loved my lifestyle vlogs. Bernice spent her days photobombing my posts, desperate for a crumb of clout, barely scraping together a fraction of my audience. Now, I was calling her out in front of half a million eyeballs. She was practically vibrating with rage. One of the frat boys jumped to her defense. “Harriet, you’re being a bitch. She said she feels sick. Why are you forcing it? It’s just a game, drop it.” Another chimed in, eager to earn points with Corey. “Seriously. Zero empathy. No wonder Corey says you’re exhausting to date.” Bolstered by her audience, Bernice let her legs give out. She collapsed neatly against Corey’s chest, letting out a frail sigh. “Corey, my head is spinning. I can’t breathe. Can you help me up?” Corey immediately wrapped a protective arm around her waist. He turned his head, his face a thundercloud of resentment, and barked at me. “So you have some internet followers, who cares? Stop acting like you’re better than everyone!” He stood up, hoisting Bernice with him. “I’m taking Bernice home. Sit here and think about how you’re acting.” He began half-carrying her toward the door. I stood up, taking one massive stride to block the entryway. I held the yellow sticky note right at Bernice’s eye level. My voice was ice. “It’s one sentence. Read it, and you can walk out that door.” I paused, letting my eyes bore into hers. “Otherwise, I have every reason to believe you’re using this ‘prank’ as a cover to actually wish death upon my family.” Everyone in the room stared at me like I belonged in a psych ward. The loudest of Corey’s friends pointed a finger in my face. “Are you psychotic? There’s a limit to being a jealous girlfriend! Cursing your family? What is this, a CW teen drama?” I stood in the doorway, an immovable object. Seeing I wasn’t going to budge, the guys started groaning. “Bernice, just read the damn thing so we can leave. Placate the crazy lady.” I had backed her into a corner. If she didn’t read it, she proved she was terrified of the words. She shot me a look of pure hatred, snatched the sticky note, and scanned it. The color drained from her face, leaving her a sickly, ashen gray. Her hand trembled violently, though she tried to mask it with an exaggerated scoff. “Jesus, Harriet, your handwriting is atrocious. I’m too dizzy to even focus on this. I’m not reading it.” She moved to crumple it up. I grabbed my phone from the tripod and shoved the camera lens inches from her face. “Can’t read it? Want me to have two hundred thousand people decipher it for you? Bernice, if you don’t read this right now, the second anything happens to my family, the police will be knocking on your door. And my entire comment section will be the witnesses.” The live chat was moving so fast it was a blur, thousands of voices calling her out for being fake, dramatic, and suspicious. Bernice ground her teeth. Her jaw locked. She took a shallow, shaky breath, and read the words with the enthusiasm of someone walking to the gallows. “Whatever misfortune befalls Harriet’s family, it will rebound onto me, ten times worse.” The room erupted. Corey’s friends exploded, yelling over each other. “Harriet, you are a toxic, vindictive bitch!” “Wishing karma on her? That is so dark. What the fuck is wrong with you?” A sharp, humorless laugh tore its way out of my throat. “Five minutes ago, she wished rape and death on my family, and you all sat there clapping like seals!” I swept my gaze over the room of hypocrites, letting it land squarely on Corey. “But when I simply hand the exact same energy back to her, suddenly I’m the dark, vindictive one?” I clicked my tongue. “The double standards in this room are suffocating.” Corey’s face went dark. He stepped forward and shoved me hard in the chest. “Enough, Harriet! I never realized how utterly ugly you are on the inside.” My back slammed against the entryway console table. Pain shot up my spine. I touched the wood to steady myself, a cold smile pulling at my lips. “You just realized? Perfect.” I stared him dead in the eye. Every ounce of love I had ever held for this man had evaporated in my previous life. “We’re done. We’re breaking up.” 3 The air was sucked out of the room. No one expected me—the girl who had compromised and accommodated Corey for two years—to end it over what they considered a minor spat. Bernice’s head snapped up. A flash of wild, uncontainable triumph sparked in her eyes, though she quickly arranged her face into a mask of distress. “Oh my god, stop! This is my fault. You guys are talking about getting engaged. Don’t break up over me!” I rolled my eyes. “Save the acting, Bernice. Your lips are about to tear from smiling so hard.” “Harriet! Watch your tone! What did Bernice ever do to you?” Corey reached out to grab my arm. I slapped his hand away with a resounding smack. I walked out and slammed the door behind me. I practically sprinted through the parking garage. I threw myself into the driver’s seat of my SUV, my heart hammering against my ribs. There was no room for heartbreak. I needed to move. My mind kept replaying Bernice’s terrified expression when she read the rebound clause. The dread in her eyes wasn’t an act. That meant that in this lifetime, if the tragedy struck, the catastrophic blowback would hit her. I let out a long, shaky exhale. But I wasn’t leaving my family’s survival up to mystical karma. I fumbled for my phone and dialed my younger sister, Sophie. She was a sophomore at a prestigious boarding school on the edge of the city. It rang forever. Finally, a hushed voice answered. “Harriet? I’m in study hall.” The moment I heard her voice, the dam broke. Hot tears pricked my eyes. I gripped the steering wheel, forcing the tremor out of my voice. “Soph. Listen to me very carefully. No matter what happens today, you are not to step foot off campus. Do you understand me? You don’t leave the gates.” She was startled by my intensity. “Why? It’s the weekend. I don’t have afternoon classes.” “Don’t ask questions!” I snapped, harsher than I meant to. “I don’t have time to explain, but I would never hurt you. Stay on campus. Do not go anywhere!” Sophie was a good kid. Sensing the sheer panic radiating through the phone, she promised me, swearing she wouldn’t leave her dorm. Half the weight lifted from my chest. I threw the car into drive and hit the gas. Fifteen minutes of aggressive city driving later, I pulled up to my parents’ trendy downtown bistro. It was the peak of the lunch rush. There was a line out the door. I stormed past the hostess stand, grabbed the microphone from the manager, and hit the PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am so sorry! We have an emergency situation. We are closing immediately. Please evacuate the dining room.” The customers stared at me, forks suspended in mid-air. Then, the uproar began. “Are you kidding me? We waited an hour for a table!” “What kind of management is this?” My parents rushed out of the kitchen, their faces pale with shock. They grabbed my arms. “Harriet, have you lost your mind? It’s the lunch rush! Do you know how much money we’re losing?” my dad hissed. Looking at my parents—vibrant, healthy, alive—the back of my throat burned. The image of them in orange jumpsuits, hollowed out and weeping behind reinforced glass, crashed over me. My knees gave out. I dropped to the floor right there in the entryway. “Mom. Dad. I’m not crazy. I’m begging you. Close the doors right now.” Terrified, they dropped to their knees beside me, trying to pull me up. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Talk to us.” I pulled them close, dropping my voice to an urgent whisper. “Dad, I got a tip. The health department is doing unannounced sting operations today. They’re looking for any excuse to shut places down, arresting owners on the spot for code violations…” In the restaurant industry, the FDA and local health boards are the ultimate boogeymen. My dad’s face tightened. I gripped his wrists. “Close the restaurant. We need to scrub this place top to bottom. But more importantly—the walk-in freezer. Every single piece of inventory in the back alley needs to go into the dumpster. Do not save a single ounce.” Our sourcing was impeccable. We had never had a health violation. But in my past life, someone had eaten something toxic and died. I wasn’t taking a single gamble. My parents exchanged a long, stressed look. It was thousands of dollars in premium ingredients. But seeing me pale, shaking, and on the verge of a breakdown, they caved. “Okay. Okay, Harriet. We’ll lock up.” For the next two hours, I was a woman possessed. I stood by the loading dock, personally overseeing the kitchen staff as they hurled every side of beef, every crate of organic produce, every tub of prep into the industrial trash compactor. When the metal jaws crushed the last of it, the stone sitting on my chest finally dissolved. My mom untied her apron, wiping sweat from her brow. She gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Take a breath, honey. Par for the course when you own a business.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, her tired face breaking into a radiant smile. “You know, your sister is really growing up. Mother’s Day was weeks ago, but she insisted on getting me a late present.” I froze. I stretched my neck to look at the screen. It was a photo of Sophie. She was holding a little pink bakery box, standing at the entrance of a dark, graffiti-lined alley. Smiling. The blood in my veins turned to ice. I grabbed my mom’s forearm, my fingers digging into her skin. My voice cracked. “When did she post this?!” My mom jumped, startled by my aggression. “Just… just now. Maybe ten minutes ago?” The world tilted on its axis. My body was seized by violent, uncontrollable tremors. This was the alley. The exact alley where, in my past life, a group of men had cornered her. I snatched the phone from my mom’s hand, my fingers shaking so badly I dropped it twice. Suddenly, my own phone began to ring. It was Sophie’s dorm mother. I hit speakerphone, my breath caught in my throat. “Harriet? It’s Sophie. You need to get to the school. Right now.” 4 I blew through every red light. Before the tires even stopped screeching against the asphalt of the school parking lot, I kicked the door open and bolted. My parents were right behind me, sprinting toward the main academic building. There was a crowd of students and faculty gathered on the lawn, pointing up in horror. On the rooftop, Sophie was standing on the ledge. She looked like a ghost—swaying in the wind, entirely hollowed out. I threw open the fire doors, taking the stairs three at a time until I burst onto the roof. “Soph! I’m here! Step down, baby, please!” Hearing my voice, Sophie turned her head in agonizing slow motion. When I saw her face, my heart physically stopped. One side of her cheek was swollen and purple. Her lip was split. Dark, violent bruises bloomed across her collarbones where her uniform shirt was torn open. She looked at me, and a devastating, guttural sob tore from her throat. “I’m sorry… Harriet, I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have left.” She was clutching the crushed pink bakery box to her chest, shivering violently despite the afternoon sun. “I just… I just wanted to get Mom her favorite strawberry cake.” Her voice broke. “The alley was so dark… They put a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t scream…” Behind me, my mother let out an inhuman wail. Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed onto the concrete, unconscious. My dad dropped to his knees, his face buried in his hands, screaming until his vocal cords shredded. “My baby! Daddy’s begging you, step away from the edge!” I swallowed the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I took one agonizingly slow step forward. “Soph, look at me. This is not your fault. Come to me. Let me take you home.” My voice was fierce, vibrating with a desperate promise. “I swear to God, I will hunt them down. I will ruin them.” Sophie flinched, taking a half-step backward. Her heel hovered over nothing but empty air. “Don’t come closer!” she shrieked, shaking her head frantically. The light had completely died in her eyes. It was just a vast, empty wasteland. “I’m dirty now, Harriet… I can’t live like this.” She set the crushed pink box gently on the ledge. She looked down at our unconscious mother. “Happy Mother’s Day,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and leaned back. “NO!” I lunged across the concrete, my fingers grazing the edge of her pleated skirt before she slipped through my grasp. A sickening, heavy thud echoed from the courtyard below. Then, the deafening screams of the crowd. In that moment, the entire world went completely, terrifyingly silent. I knelt on the edge of the roof, staring down at the pavement, the tears falling silently onto my hands. I had done everything right. I had warned her. I had rushed against the clock. Why? Why did the tragedy still happen? The ambulance came. My parents were sedated and taken to the hospital. My phone was vibrating relentlessly in my jacket pocket. Numbly, I pulled it out and opened my messages. In our mutual friend group chat, Corey had just dropped a news link. Headline: Tragic Accident: Local Prep School Student Falls from Roof After Assault. His text below it was dripping with malicious glee. See? Harriet’s sister actually died. I told you Bernice had a gift for manifestation. She was just trying to warn Harriet on the livestream. But Harriet had to be a psycho about it. Karma’s a bitch. A chorus of sycophants immediately chimed in. Bernice’s literally a prophet. Hey B, manifest some lottery numbers for me! Then, Bernice tagged me. So, Harriet. Don’t you think you owe me a thank you? My thumb trembled as I held down the audio record button. I let out a feral, jagged scream into the mic. “Go to hell! You vultures are feeding on my sister’s corpse. I swear to god, I will make you pay!” I deleted the chat and threw the phone back in my pocket. I wandered aimlessly through the school courtyard. As I walked, students backing away from me, gasping, covering their mouths in horror. A cold realization washed over me. I reached into my bag and pulled out my compact mirror. I stopped dead in my tracks. Vast chunks of my hair had fallen out at the roots. My cheeks were covered in weeping, blistered red lesions, spreading like wildfire across my skin. A deep, bone-chilling dread crawled up my spine. Every single thing on Bernice’s list had come true. But why? I refused to accept that magic had killed my sister. In a daze of grief and rage, I pulled up the archive of the April Fool’s livestream. I watched it frame by frame. I stared at the screen, my eyes burning, scanning every pixel. Then, I hit pause. Right before the game started, Bernice had handed me an open bottle of water. I had taken a long drink before reading the note. My pupils dilated. The truth hit me like a freight train.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414018”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Cassidy and I had been “just friends” for twenty-six years. There was always a line, of course, but she was the kind of girl who never quite learned how to be alone—a spoiled princess who needed someone to tuck her in, figuratively and literally. Every time she started dating someone new, I did the only thing I could to keep my sanity: I cut ties. I disappeared until the honeymoon phase crashed and burned. Then came my twenty-seventh birthday. Maybe the pressure from her parents had finally reached a breaking point, but Cassidy showed up at my front door at dawn, looking breathless and beautiful in that effortless way that always wrecked me. “Mitch,” she said, her voice small. “Maybe we should just… settle for each other.” The sarcasm was already on the tip of my tongue, ready to bite. But she cut me off. “I’m serious.” It was the first time she had ever truly crossed the line. She reached out, her hand hovering between us, an invitation I’d been secretly dying for since we were teenagers. I looked at her, the silence stretching for heartbeats as I weighed the risk. “Cassidy,” I said, my voice low. “If we do this—if we become a ‘we’—there’s no going back. If we break up, I’m not going to be your best friend anymore. I’m gone for good.” She gave me that mischievous, dimpled smile. “We’re never going to break up. I couldn’t bear to lose you.” So, I took her hand. That “settling” lasted for three years. Or so I thought. We were at our engagement party, a lavish affair at a private estate in the Hamptons. I was looking for Cassidy when I heard voices drifting from the balcony. She was hidden away with her best friend, Barbara, sharing a quiet moment away from the champagne-sipping crowd. “Cassidy,” Barbara whispered, her tone hushed but urgent. “You were so scared your dad was going to cut off Parker’s funding that you begged Mitch to step in as a shield. But looking at him today… he looks like he actually believes this is real.” A pause. Then Barbara’s voice again, sharper: “Wait. You did tell him this was a performance, right?” 1. The mist from the ocean air seemed to blur the edges of the balcony, but Cassidy’s voice was crystal clear—cold and terrifyingly calm. “Things were moving too fast that day. I forgot.” I froze at the corner of the stone pillar. In my hand, I held a glass of water and the sinus medication I’d grabbed for her because she’d complained of a headache earlier. Barbara let out a sharp, jagged breath. “You bitch,” she hissed, though there was a note of dark admiration in it. She leaned closer. “So what’s the deal now? Are you actually marrying him, or is this all a long con?” “I saw Parker’s Instagram story yesterday,” Barbara continued. “You were at his place at midnight the night before your own engagement party, wearing nothing but a silk robe and making him late-night snacks.” Cassidy let out a light, airy laugh. “Parker is my boyfriend. Obviously.” “As for Mitch? He’s the ‘fiancé.’ Honestly, what’s the difference? Real marriage, fake marriage… it’s all just paperwork and optics. I’ve known for years that he’s hopelessly in love with me. Giving him a ‘perfect’ marriage and a title in my family’s world isn’t exactly a bad deal for him.” The glass in my hand felt scorching hot. I looked down, my vision tunneling. The white pill had begun to dissolve in the sweat of my palm, leaving a chalky, bitter smear. But the real burn was on my face—the humiliation of having my deepest, most private secret stripped bare and treated like a cheap bargaining chip. “You have no idea how easy he is to read,” Cassidy continued, her voice dripping with casual cruelty. “I’ve been in the game way too long. No one holds their ‘business partner’s’ hand with a racing pulse and eyes they’re too afraid to lock with mine unless they’re obsessed.” “He plays it so cool, acting like he doesn’t care, but he’s so incredibly patient. He indulges every whim I have.” She coughed twice, a small, delicate sound. “Two days before the party, I lied and told him I had an emergency business trip. He didn’t even blink. He just helped me pack my bags.” “Last night, Parker and I got a little… wild by the window. When I finally got home at 3 AM, my head was splitting and my old meds were expired. Mitch got out of bed, threw on a coat over his pajamas, and drove to a 24-hour pharmacy. He made me tea and tucked me in before he even thought about sleeping. He probably checked my forehead for a fever every thirty minutes after that.” She laughed again, a sound that made my stomach turn. “He doesn’t even realize how pathetic he is for me.” Barbara made a sound of pure disbelief. “Cass, the guy has worshipped the ground you walk on for decades. Are you telling me you don’t feel anything? Not even a spark?” I stood there in the shadows, feeling like the punchline of a joke I wasn’t in on. My eyes burned, but I couldn’t move. I had to hear her answer. Cassidy didn’t hesitate. Her tone was mocking. “Don’t ask stupid questions. Of course not.” “Mitch and I have known each other since we were in diapers. If something was going to happen, it would have happened twenty years ago. I like my men like Parker—wild, young, and a little bit dangerous. Mitch is a ‘cool guy,’ sure, but he’s stiff. He’s predictable. He’s the opposite of my type.” “Love is a lightning strike,” she added, her voice full of a sickening self-assurance. “I don’t believe in ‘growing’ to love someone. Even in thirty more years, the spark won’t be there.” She took a deep breath. “But Mitch is my ‘forever’ person. He’s family. Even if I don’t love him, I’ll take care of him. I want him and I want Parker. And I’m going to have both.” A sharp, stabbing pain flared in my chest, followed by a hollow, hysterical urge to laugh. What did she think I was? An object? A piece of furniture she could rearrange whenever she felt like it? How low must she think of me, to believe that marrying me was an act of charity? On the balcony, Barbara sighed and patted Cassidy’s shoulder. “Come on, the party’s starting. Tonight, Parker is supposed to be pretending to be my ‘cousin,’ right?” I turned and walked away before they could see me. I ducked into a downstairs bathroom and leaned over the sink, dry-heaving. The years of devotion felt like a stagnant swamp suddenly flooding my lungs, suffocating and foul. My phone buzzed in my pocket. The group chat was exploding. [Engagement party of the century! Where are the stars of the show?] [Barbara: Coming down now! Bringing my cousin with me tonight.] [Where’s Mitch? He’s gone radio silent.] I found an empty guest room, locked the door, and splashed cold water on my face. I straightened my tie and checked my reflection. Every time Cassidy had a boyfriend, I walked away. I wanted to see this “Parker.” I wanted to see what kind of man was worth this level of deception. As for Cassidy and me? She probably thought my warning three years ago—that if we broke up, I was gone—was a romantic flourish. A joke. But she was wrong. I don’t lack for friends. And I was done being the patron saint of a woman who looked at my heart and saw a safety net. 2. “Babe, what took you so long?” The moment I sat down at our VIP table, Cassidy was there, her voice dripping with honey. She leaned into me, her head resting on my shoulder, looking for all the world like a woman in love. “I haven’t taken my meds yet,” she pouted, blinking up at me. “My cough is getting worse.” She looked nothing like the cold-blooded strategist I’d heard on the balcony ten minutes ago. The friends at the table started hooting and cheering. “Get a room! We don’t need all this PDA!” “These two are nauseating,” Dex, one of our oldest friends, joked. “If they weren’t so perfect for each other, I’d have kicked them out of the group years ago. This is what ‘happily ever after’ looks like, guys. Childhood sweethearts, meant to be. Cassidy finally settled down for our boy Mitch. It almost makes me believe in love.” The sticky residue of the dissolved pill was still on my palm. I suppressed a wave of nausea and forced a thin, practiced smile. I leaned forward, reaching for a glass of sparkling wine, pointedly shifting my body so she had to sit up. “Where’s Barbara?” I asked. Cassidy froze for a split second, surprised by the subtle rejection, before recovering. “She went to grab her brother—I mean, cousin. Oh, there they are.” Barbara walked in, followed by a lean, pale boy in a crisp white shirt. They sat down across from us. “Barbara, you lucky girl,” someone teased. “Since when is your family this good-looking? You’ve gotta introduce him to the single ladies here.” Barbara looked uncomfortable, stealing a quick, nervous glance at Cassidy. “This is Parker. He’s… he’s a bit shy. Don’t overwhelm him.” In the middle of the raucous laughter, I looked at Parker. His eyes were wide, watery, and fixed entirely on Cassidy. Cassidy, who had been trying to drape herself over me just moments ago, quietly pulled back, creating a sliver of space between us on the sofa. A dull, throbbing ache pulsed in my temples. No matter how much I tried to numb myself, the sight of it—the raw, bleeding reality of her betrayal—ignited a cocktail of grief and fury in my gut. Parker didn’t know how to hide it. Or maybe, because he was the one she actually loved, he felt he had the right to be arrogant. His gaze lingered on Cassidy with a proprietary intensity. Dex noticed my expression. He didn’t know the truth, but he knew me. He turned to Parker with a sharp grin. “Hey, kid. Careful where you look. That one’s taken. They’re getting married.” Parker’s face turned bright red. He looked down, his voice trembling slightly. “Sorry. I… I have a girlfriend.” Cassidy’s face remained composed, but her voice had a sharp, defensive edge when she spoke. “Dex, just because you’re a player doesn’t mean every guy is looking for trouble.” Dex, never one to back down, bristled. I placed a hand on his arm, silencing him. I looked directly at Cassidy and smiled. “You’re acting like you’re some saint, Cass. Dex has never cheated on anyone in his life. Can you say the same?” The table went silent. Cassidy stared at me, her eyes darting as she tried to gauge if I knew something. She forced a laugh. “Of course I can, babe. Why are you being so moody?” She picked up a shot of tequila and slammed it back. “My bad. I shouldn’t have snapped at Dex. Let’s just move on.” Through the chatter, I saw Parker looking at Cassidy with eyes full of pained devotion. As if I were the villain in their tragic romance. As if I were the one standing in the way of true love. “Alright, let’s play a game!” Barbara shouted, trying to break the tension. “Photo Roulette. Pick a date, everyone pulls up their camera roll.” “I’ll pick,” she said, her fingers flying over her phone. “May 17th, last year!” Everyone grabbed their phones. The rule was simple: whatever you were doing that day, you had to share it on the big screen in the suite. The bottle spun and landed on me first. My phone mirrored to the screen. Waves. A private beach. A candlelit dinner for two. And a screenshot of a delivery confirmation from a pharmacy. “Oh man, I remember that! That was Cassidy’s birthday trip to the Cape!” Dex laughed, nudging me. “I asked you back then if twenty-eight years of waiting made the ‘festivities’ more explosive.” I gave Dex a tight smile. Looking at those “beautiful” memories now felt like swallowing broken glass. “Wait,” someone said, pointing at the screen. “You guys ordered delivery at 2 AM? What was it? Late-night snacks or… protection?” The table erupted in laughter. Cassidy, usually the life of the party, didn’t join in. She was staring at Parker, whose face had gone ghostly pale. “No,” Cassidy said quickly. “Just some cold medicine. Don’t be gross.” A surge of pure, unadulterated malice rose in my chest. “You know exactly what I bought that night, Cassidy,” I said, my voice smooth and terrifyingly gentle. I was tearing open my own wounds just to watch them bleed. “You were all over me. I couldn’t figure out why you were so frantic, so… desperate.” I leaned in, my voice carrying across the silent room. “You acted like you’d never been in a bed with a man before. Your technique was so clumsy. Was it because the guys you actually ‘liked’ never let you get that close?” Amidst the shocked gasps and awkward chuckles of our friends, I watched Parker bow his head, wiping a stray tear from his eye. I saw the flash of fury in Cassidy’s eyes, masked by a strained, suffocating silence. I was smiling, but my heart was breaking. “Next!” Barbara shouted, her voice shaking. She spun the bottle again. It landed on Parker. He gave a fragile, broken little smile. “My photos aren’t very interesting.” Dex narrowed his eyes, looking between me, Cassidy, and the kid. “Hey, kid. If you can’t play the game, don’t sit at the table.” Cassidy opened her mouth to defend him, but I beat her to it. I grabbed her hand, pulling her close, leaning in until our lips were inches apart. From the outside, it looked like a passionate whisper. “Babe, I’m starving. Go order some sliders for the table?” Cassidy hesitated, her eyes flickering to Parker, then back to me. She stood up and walked over to the server with the iPad. “I can play,” Parker snapped. I knew he’d seen us. I could hear the grit in his voice. He looked at me with a sudden, reckless hatred. His phone synced to the screen. The first image was a screenshot of a text thread. A friend started reading it out loud: “Did you sleep with him? You promised me this was just a merger. You promised you wouldn’t touch him!” The reply: “But I was thinking of you the whole time, Parker.” 3. “Mitch, do you want fries with that?” The voice of a friend asking about the food order overlapped perfectly with the last name in the text on the screen. The room went deathly quiet. I finished the order and handed the iPad back to the server. I tucked my trembling hands under the table and smiled. “How coincidentally,” I said. “But from the tone of those texts, it sounds like Mr. Parker here is a home-wrecker.” “Mitch!” Cassidy barked. She caught my calm, empty eyes and forced a hideous smile. “Mitch, honey, don’t be so hard on the kid.” Before I could respond, Parker’s voice rose, cracking with emotion. “I’m not a home-wrecker!” He glared at Cassidy, his face full of stubborn defiance. “She and I were each other’s firsts. First kiss, first everything. Her family is just too controlling. They wouldn’t let us be together. That’s the only reason we were ever apart!” “She told me her ‘fiancé’ was just a business arrangement. She said he was obsessed with her and her parents forced the match.” The boy was unraveling now, swiping through his photos like a man with nothing left to lose. “The day before May 17th? We spent her entire birthday together. Her flight was at 11 PM, but she stayed with me until 9. She almost missed her plane.” “She bought me flowers. We had cake. We spent hours in bed together.” “And look at this. This was my birthday gift. I mentioned I liked it once, and she bought it for me immediately.” It was a photograph of a massive, brilliant sapphire ring. “She told me I’m the only man she’ll ever buy a ring for.” I went numb. I remembered that auction. I had wanted that exact ring, but a mystery bidder had blown the price out of the water. Cassidy had squeezed my hand that night, telling me she’d find me something even better. We were engaged. I looked down at my bare fingers. Cassidy had never bought me a ring. Parker swiped back to the 17th. I saw the timestamps. While she was sitting next to me on that private beach, she was texting him from dawn until dusk. Every sunset I showed her, she sent a photo to him. Every piece of jewelry I bought her on that trip, she logged in her notes to tell him “the package was in the mail.” Then, a photo of a cake. In the background, in the shadows, I saw the edge of my own shirt and the line of my jaw. I saw myself, eyes closed, hands clasped in prayer, wishing that the woman I loved would stay with me forever. And there, on the screen, was the text she sent him while I was making that wish: “This cake is amazing. I’ll buy you one just like it when I get home.” 4. It was sickening. I felt Dex’s leg tense next to mine. The second he saw that photo, he reached for a heavy glass bottle. “Mitch… that’s… that’s you in the background!” “Relax, Dex,” I whispered. I gave him a small smile, even though I could see the tears of rage in his eyes. He muttered a string of curses under his breath. The atmosphere in the suite was suffocating. “Are you finished, Parker?” I asked calmly. I reached out and spun the bottle again. “My turn to pick a date. Let’s go with… April 2nd, 2025.” “Want to play, Cassidy?” For the first time tonight, Cassidy lost her cool. She grabbed my shoulder. “Mitch, I have a headache. I just remembered I took some meds earlier, I shouldn’t be drinking. Let’s go to the hospital. Now.” I peeled her hand off my shoulder, one finger at a time. “No.” I opened my phone and synced it. The screen filled with the sterile white walls of a hospital room. Photos of post-operative care instructions. Medical notes. A screenshot of a text I’d sent my mother: [The doctor says I might never be able to run again.] [Mom, they still haven’t found the driver who hit us.] [Let’s push back the wedding paperwork for now.] April 2nd, 2025. Five days after the accident. We were on our way to the courthouse to sign the marriage license. A man had lunged in front of the car. There was plenty of distance; a simple brake would have worked. Cassidy was a trained driver; she’d done amateur racing. But she had panicked. Or so she said. She’d jerked the wheel so hard the passenger side—my side—smashed into the guardrail. I was in the ICU for three days. When I woke up, they told me I’d come within inches of losing my leg. I remember Cassidy kneeling by my bed, sobbing, looking like she’d lost ten pounds in a week. She told me she was so sorry, that she’d spend the rest of her life making it up to me. “Stop it, Mitch,” Cassidy whispered, her face ashen. “I’m not feeling well. Please, let’s just go.” Parker reached for his phone, trying to hide it, but Dex was faster. He snatched it and swiped to the same date. A photo of Parker in his underwear, taking a mirror selfie. And then, a video. The camera was shaky, pointing at a messy floor. Through the heavy, frantic breathing of the recording, I heard Parker’s voice: “I thought you hated me. I thought you never wanted to see me again. Why are you here?” The sound of a woman pulling him into a hard, desperate kiss. “Shut up,” Cassidy’s voice hissed, breathless and raw. “Parker, he was in a car crash. We don’t even know if he’s going to wake up.” “And if he does?” Parker sounded small, hurt. “If you want to ‘make it up to him,’ then stay away from me.” I heard Cassidy sigh on the recording. “I love you too much to lose you. He’ll never know.” … I watched the end of the farce. I finished my wine, set the glass down, and felt the weight of thirty years finally slide off my back. “Cassidy,” I said. “We’re done.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414017”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My boyfriend dragged me to a magic show, and as luck would have it, he was chosen as the volunteer for the grand finale—the Vanishing Act. The crowd roared with applause when he disappeared right before their eyes. I slipped out to the restroom for a quick minute, but when I returned, he still hadn’t reappeared. When I asked the staff where the volunteers go after the show, they looked at me like I was speaking a dead language. They claimed there was no “Vanishing Act” on the program tonight. Worse, a complete stranger was sitting in my boyfriend’s seat. The people around me insisted, with eerie synchronicity, that I had come to the show alone. But I knew the truth. We came together. He couldn’t just evaporate. I caused a scene, screaming for the organizers to give me an answer, until the police were finally called. They searched every inch of the theater and checked every ID, but there wasn’t a trace of him. I tried to show them the photos on my phone—the selfies of us in the lobby, the candid shots of him laughing—but they were gone. Every single one. Deleted, as if he had never existed at all. My parents called me a psychotic. They washed their hands of me. In a daze of grief and confusion, I wandered into traffic and felt the bone-shattering impact of a car. Then, I blinked. I was back. Back at the theater. Back on the day he took me to the show. 01. “Cass, come on! What are you staring at? The show’s about to start and we can’t be late.” Ben grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the entrance of the grand theater. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow: I was back. I had been given a second chance. Ben Montgomery had been my world for five years. He was the kind of guy who spent his weekends perfecting card tricks just to see me smile. This tour by the legendary illusionist, Victor Blackwood, was something he’d been obsessed with for months. In my past life, I’d gone just to make him happy. I never could have imagined the nightmare that would follow. Ben vanishing into thin air. The world collective-forgetting he ever lived. The digital erasure of our entire history. It was as if a giant, invisible hand had reached down after that magic show and scrubbed his existence from the fabric of reality. And I, the only one who remembered, was branded a lunatic. Ben stopped abruptly, turning to look at me with those warm, worried eyes. “Cass? You okay? You’ve been quiet since we parked. That’s not like you.” I bit my lip, my throat tight. “Ben… what if we don’t go? What if we just go grab dinner instead?” The pain of losing him was still a raw, screaming thing in my mind. If we didn’t enter that theater, he wouldn’t disappear. I couldn’t survive that kind of heartbreak twice. Ben looked stunned, his face falling. “But I’ve been waiting for this forever. Victor Blackwood is the reason I even picked up a deck of cards, Cass. He’s my hero.” He sighed, seeing my distress. “Look, if you’re really not feeling it, I can go alone. I’m the one who should be making it up to you anyway, dragging you to this.” I took a shaky breath. I couldn’t tell him the truth—he’d think I was the crazy person everyone said I was. But I knew Ben. His obsession with magic was deep-seated; he wouldn’t stay away. And I couldn’t let him go alone. I had to play dirty. “Ben, my stomach… it really hurts.” I hunched over, clutching my midsection, forcing a grimace of agony. I made sure my knees buckled slightly. “What? Cass! What’s wrong?” He was at my side in an instant, his hands steadying me. “I think my gastritis is flaring up,” I groaned. “It feels like I swallowed a hot coal.” I’d had stomach issues in the past, so the performance was easy to sell. Ben’s face twisted with genuine panic. I waved a hand weakly, a pale imitation of a brave smile. “It’s okay. Go ahead. You’ve wanted this for so long. Just go. I’ll take an Uber to the ER. Don’t worry about me.” Even as the words left my mouth, I felt like a master manipulator. A “green tea bitch,” as some might say. Ben’s gaze flickered between the theater doors and me. Then, he didn’t even hesitate. He turned his back on the theater. “The show can wait. There’s only one Cassidy Miller in the world.” A wave of warmth flooded my chest. Ben was a good man. He always put me first. It was why I had gone mad searching for him in that other life. We were two halves of the same soul. But just as I thought I’d escaped the trap, a man stepped out from the crowd. “Excuse me? I couldn’t help but overhear. Is everything alright?” He looked like he’d stepped out of a J.Crew catalog—clean-cut, professional. “I’m Dr. Whitlock. I’m actually a gastroenterologist, here for the show. Would you mind if I took a quick look?” Ben looked like he’d found a saint. “Oh, thank God. Please, Doctor.” I froze. I could only watch as this stranger approached. He pressed a hand to my abdomen, his touch cold, and after a few moments of “examination,” he looked up at Ben with a knowing smile. “She’s fine. Just a bit of nerves, likely. The tension should pass in a few minutes. If it persists tomorrow, see your primary, but you shouldn’t miss your evening over this.” Ben beamed at me. “That’s amazing news! See, Cass? We can still make it.” I opened my mouth to protest, to say the pain was still there, but the doctor leaned in. He whispered into my ear, his voice a sharp, icy blade. “I’d suggest you go to the show, Cassidy. Unless you want me to tell your boyfriend that you’re faking it.” My eyes widened. I looked at him, but his expression was perfectly placid, the image of a helpful stranger. There was no warmth in his smile. It made my blood run cold. 02. Before I could demand to know who he was, the doctor gave a polite nod and vanished into the throng of people entering the theater. Ben was already pulling me toward the doors. “Can you make it, honey? If it’s too much, I’ll take you home. Seriously.” “I… I’m okay,” I lied, forcing my feet to move. “The doctor was right. I’m feeling better already.” We were minutes away from the curtain call. I was out of excuses. I had to go in, but I promised myself this: I would not let him out of my sight. I would keep him off that stage. I would make sure everyone in that building knew we were together. We found our seats. Ben was buzzing with excitement, his eyes fixed on the velvet curtains. I sat beside him, my fingers tracing the small velvet box in my pocket. Inside was a ring. In my previous life, I’d planned to propose to him after the show. It was supposed to be a surprise, a grand gesture to celebrate our five years. I never got to give it to him. But now, I realized I needed a witness. I needed a spectacle. If I proposed now, in front of a thousand people, they couldn’t pretend he didn’t exist. I turned to the girl sitting on my other side—a young woman in a white dress. “Hi there, sorry to bother you,” I whispered. “But my boyfriend is a huge fan of Victor Blackwood, and this is a big night for us. Would you mind taking a photo of us?” She looked at Ben, then at me, and nodded with a smile. “Of course.” I pulled Ben close, ignoring his confusion as the flash went off. The moment was captured. Digital proof. But I wasn’t done. I stood up, feeling the eyes of the rows behind us shift. I dropped to one knee in the narrow aisle. Ben stared at me, his mouth hanging open. “Cass? What are you doing?” I spoke loudly, my voice carrying over the pre-show chatter. “Ben Montgomery, I love you. I don’t ever want to be without you. Will you marry me?” I wanted people to look. I wanted them to stare. And they did. The surrounding rows went silent, then erupted into whispers. Ben’s face turned a deep, embarrassed crimson. “Cass… yes. Yes, of course.” He pulled me up and slid the ring onto my finger. Cameras flashed around us. Strangers cheered. I leaned into him, my eyes scanning the crowd. Remember us, I thought fiercely. Remember his face. The girl in the white dress handed my phone back. The photo was perfect—us, glowing, the ring visible on my hand. When the show finally started, Victor Blackwood himself acknowledged us. “I hear we have a newly engaged couple in the house tonight! Let’s hear it for them!” The spotlight hit us. Our faces appeared on the giant screens flanking the stage. I seized the moment and kissed Ben, long and hard, making sure everyone saw. I felt a surge of triumph. There was no way they could deny him now. Thousands of people were witnesses to our love. Nothing could go wrong. “Cass?” I turned back to Ben. The joyful, embarrassed man from a moment ago was gone. He was staring at me with a cold, expressionless gaze. “Is there something you aren’t telling me?” 03. My heart leaped into my throat. “What do you mean?” “Why the big show?” he asked, his voice low and strange. “The public proposal? The kissing for the cameras? You’ve never been one for ‘spectacle’ before.” He tilted his head, his eyes searching mine. “Do I have a terminal illness? Am I dying, Cass?” Then, just as quickly, the coldness vanished. He looked worried, the Ben I knew returning. I let out a shaky laugh and gripped his hand. “Don’t be silly. I just… I wanted the whole world to know how much I love you. I wanted them to see you.” Ben looked away, his cheeks flushing again. “The show’s starting. Pay attention.” I watched the magic with him, my eyes never leaving his profile for more than a second. Finally, the moment arrived. Victor Blackwood announced the Vanishing Act. He called for a volunteer. I felt every muscle in my body lock. I held my breath. It was Ben. Of course, it was Ben. As the ushers moved toward our row, I stepped out into the aisle, blocking them. “I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice firm. “I’m actually feeling quite ill, and my fiancé needs to stay here with me. He can’t go up.” Ben blinked, startled, but then he nodded. “She’s right. I should stay with her.” The ushers moved on. I watched, breathless, as Victor Blackwood chose someone else—a middle-aged man from the front row. The fear that had been suffocating me finally began to lift. I looked down at the Tiffany ring on my finger, already imagining our wedding, our life, our safety. But then, the act ended. The lights in the theater plunged into total, absolute darkness for the transition. Panic flared in my chest. I reached out for Ben’s hand, but my fingers met only cold, empty air. My heart dropped into my stomach. The house lights surged back on. The audience stood, cheering for the volunteer who had just “reappeared” at the back of the hall. But I was looking at the seat next to me. It wasn’t Ben. It was a stranger—a man in a grey suit. Ben was gone. Again. I stared at the man in the suit. I recognized him. He was the same man from my first life—the one who claimed the seat was his. The roar of the crowd felt like it was miles away. I let out a scream that sliced through the applause. “Who the hell are you? Where is my fiancé?” The theater went quiet. People turned, their expressions shifting from joy to annoyance. The man in the suit looked at me with genuine confusion. “Ma’am, what are you talking about? I’ve been sitting here the whole time. This is my seat.” “Liar!” I screamed. “You weren’t here! Ben was here! We just got engaged!” He shook his head slowly. “Ma’am, you came in alone. I noticed you because you were talking to yourself earlier. You don’t have a boyfriend.” It was a carbon copy of the previous nightmare. The same words. The same gaslighting. But this time, I had proof. I turned to the girl in the white dress. “You! You took our picture! You saw me propose! Tell them!” The girl looked at me with a blank, pitying expression. “I never took a photo for you. Are you feeling okay? Like the gentleman said… you’ve been alone all night.” The blood in my veins turned to ice. I looked around. A sea of faces, all looking at me like I was a broken thing. A lunatic. “No,” I whispered. “No, that’s impossible. We were on the screen! Victor Blackwood congratulated us!” People began to mutter. “What engagement?” “Is she high?” “She’s ruining the show.” The theater security hurried over. “Ma’am, please. You’re disturbing the performance. We’re going to have to ask you to leave.” “I’m not going anywhere! Check the security cameras! I came in with him!” I demanded to see the footage. I refused to budge until they dragged me into the security office. When they played the tape, I felt the world tilt on its axis. The footage showed me walking through the lobby. Alone. It showed me sitting in my seat, turning to my left and talking to an empty chair. Ben Montgomery wasn’t there. He had never been there. Even my phone… I opened the gallery, and the photo was there, but it was just a selfie of me, smiling at nothing, my arm draped over a vacuum of space. My memories of him—every touch, every conversation—felt like they were being forcibly rewritten. But then, as I looked down at my hands in despair, I saw it. The one thing they hadn’t accounted for. 04. I thrust my hand toward the security guard and the manager. “Look! Look at the ring!” The Tiffany setting caught the fluorescent light of the office. “Ben put this on my finger tonight. Right there in Row F. This ring exists! That means he exists!” The manager sighed and pointed back at the screen, rewinding the footage of me entering the theater. “Ma’am, look at your hand as you hand the usher your ticket. You were wearing the ring when you walked in.” I stared at the grainy footage. My hand. The ring. It was already there. My heart hammered against my ribs. That wasn’t right. I knew I had it in my pocket. I knew he had placed it there. The despair was a physical weight, crushing the breath out of me. But then I remembered the way Ben smiled. The way he smelled of old paper and peppermint. My love for him was a tether to reality. “The footage is fake,” I said, my voice deathly quiet. “I don’t know how you did it, but it’s fake. My fiancé went missing in this building, and I’m not leaving until the police get here.” The police arrived shortly after. Captain Jack Dalton, a man with a face like granite, took my statement. “Miss Miller, you’re telling me a man vanished in a room full of witnesses, and not one of them—including the cameras—saw him?” “I know how it sounds,” I said, my voice trembling. “But he was there. His name is Ben Montgomery. Please, just find him.” Dalton looked at me with a mix of pity and professional exhaustion. “We’ve swept the building. We’ve checked every exit. We’ve verified the IDs of every attendee. There is no Ben Montgomery on the guest list. There is no Ben Montgomery in our database matching your description.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping an octave. “Miss Miller, making a false police report is a crime. If this is a stunt, or a breakdown, you need to tell me now.” I was sweating, my mind racing. “It’s not a stunt! He exists!” And then, I saw a familiar face through the glass of the office door. It was the doctor. Dr. Whitlock. I jumped up, pointing at him. “Him! He saw us! He checked my stomach outside the theater! He spoke to Ben!” Dalton signaled for his officers to bring the man in. “Sir, did you encounter this woman earlier this evening?” Whitlock nodded calmly. “Yes. I saw her outside. She seemed to be having a panic attack, complaining of abdominal pain. I checked her over as a courtesy.” I almost cried with relief. “Tell him! Tell him Ben was with me!” Whitlock’s brow furrowed. He looked at me with a soft, clinical sadness. “I remember you clearly, Cassidy. I remember because of that distinctive Tiffany ring you were wearing.” My heart soared—then plummeted. “But you were alone,” Whitlock said. “You were clutching your stomach and talking to the air as if someone were standing there. I assumed you were having a private episode. I certainly never saw a ‘Ben’.” The light in the room seemed to dim. I collapsed back into the chair, the world spinning. Am I really crazy? Is he just a ghost of my imagination? But then, a detail from Whitlock’s sentence snagged in my mind. A tiny, jagged edge of a lie. I stood up slowly, my eyes locking onto the doctor’s. “You’re sure I was alone? And you’re sure you remember me because of the ring?” Whitlock nodded, looking puzzled. “Yes. It’s a very beautiful piece.” I felt a cold, sharp smile spread across my face. I had him. “Captain,” I said, turning to Dalton. “I know exactly where my fiancé is.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414016”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The day my parents’ marriage finally dissolved, my brother—born with a hair-trigger temper and a soul made of spite—already knew the score. He knew our father had clawed his way into the inner circle of a Chicago real estate heiress. Bennett didn’t want a family; he wanted a dynasty. He wanted to be a blue-blood. He shoved me aside, practically stepping over our mother to grab my father’s hand. “I’m going with Dad,” he declared, his voice high and sharp. I didn’t say a word. I simply reached down, took my mother’s trembling hand, and helped her up. I stood by her side, a quiet shadow in the wreckage of our living room. In my first life, Bennett had been the one to stay. He’d snuck into Mom’s private journals and discovered that Grandma wasn’t just some estranged relative—she was the matriarch of one of the most powerful old-money families in Manhattan. He stayed because he thought he could use her to rule New York. He hadn’t expected the reality: Mom never went back to the manor. She worked as a janitor by day and sold hot dogs from a cart by night just to keep him fed. She’d spent every cent of her meager savings to rent a cramped, one-bedroom apartment near a decent school, leaving them with barely enough for groceries. He grew to hate her for it. Meanwhile, I was the one who went with Dad. As the son of the most notorious social climber in the Midwest, I lived a life of obscene luxury. I had every resource at my fingertips. I wasn’t just a straight-A student; I was a world-ranked chess prodigy and a semi-pro racer. Bennett’s jealousy turned into a sickness. When I returned home for a tournament, exhausted and vulnerable, he met me in the parking lot. He stabbed me seven times in front of a cheering crowd. When I opened my eyes, I was back on the day of the divorce. Looking at the feral, triumphant glint in my six-year-old brother’s eyes, I knew he had come back, too. He thought he’d made the winning move this time. He thought he’d traded a life of poverty for a throne. He had no idea he’d just signed up for a nightmare. 1 I kept my head down, masking the cold fire of my hatred. “Matt,” my father, Adam, said, his voice hesitant. “Are you sure about this? You don’t want to come with me?” Adam actually preferred me. Just like with my brother, Adam had only pursued my mother because he’d smelled the “Manhattan Elite” on her. He wanted to be the trophy husband of a billionaire heiress. But my grandmother had seen right through his cheap suit and cheaper soul. She’d forbidden the marriage. When Mom was torn between her family and the man she thought she loved, Adam made sure she got pregnant. He spirited her away, thinking the old woman would eventually cave and write a check. He was wrong. Once it was clear Grandma had cut Mom off for good, Adam started looking for a new mark. He played the part of the tortured, bohemian artist, using his charms to infiltrate the circles of powerful women. He was leaving now because he’d finally landed May Stanford. May was Chicago royalty—stunning, ruthless, and trapped by the one thing money couldn’t fix: a biological inability to have an heir. After her family marginalized her for it, she’d spent her twenties systematically dismantling and then rebuilding their corporate empire from the inside. Now, in her thirties, her kingdom was secure, but she needed a successor. A son she could mold. Adam had offered us up like prize cattle. May’s “vetting team” had already decided I was the better candidate. In my last life, I’d gone willingly, unaware of the trap. The moment we arrived at the Stanford estate, May had me thrown into a decorative pond stocked with alligators. “Matt,” she’d said, her voice like silk over gravel, “if you want to be my son, you have to learn how to survive. The gates will open in three hours. Get ready.” “No!” I’d screamed, thrashing in the water. “Dad! Help me! Please!” But the elegant woman only smiled. “Matt, you have to save yourself.” 2 I’d looked to Adam, who was standing right behind her, hovering like a loyal dog. “Dad! Do something! Please!” Adam ignored my terror. He leaned over the edge, his eyes cold. “Matt, your mother is right. Listen to her. Do this for me. You have to survive.” “She’s not my mother!” I yelled. May knelt down, gripping my chin with fingers that felt like steel talons. “Matt, if you want a mother’s love, you have to forget Claire ever existed. Pass this test, and you can take the Stanford name.” I didn’t answer. I leaned forward and bit her wrist, hard enough to draw blood. Adam panicked, trying to pry my jaws open. “Matt! You little animal! Let go!” May didn’t flinch. She looked at her bleeding wrist, then back at me. “Matt, even if you tear my hand off, the gators are still coming in one hundred and sixty minutes.” That was the moment I realized I was powerless. I let go. I swam to the center, forced my heart to slow down, and began to watch the shadows in the water. I had to live. I fought those beasts for three days. When May finally killed them, she didn’t give me a bed; she put me in a kennel and fed me raw protein. The “domestication” never stopped. I grew up “perfect.” In public, she was the devoted, sophisticated mother, and I was the genius son she adored. But every time I fell short of her impossible standards, the punishments became more inventive, more psychological. By the time I was twenty, I was a “prodigy” to the world, but inside, I was a hollowed-out shell. If Bennett hadn’t killed me, I would have eventually killed May and then myself. But now? Now I was going to let Bennett be her dog. I was going to stay with Mom and find a way to heal. 3 Terrified of losing his “golden ticket,” Bennett grabbed Adam’s leg and nodded feverishly. “Dad! I want to go with you! You’re the only one who cares about me! I’ll be the best son, I promise!” Adam hesitated, his eyes flickering toward me. At that moment, Mom knelt down so we were eye-to-eye. Her voice was a soft balm. “Matt? What about you? Do you want to go with your father?” “I’m staying with you, Mom,” I said instantly. She had just been rejected by her youngest, and my words brought a sudden, fragile light to her eyes. She pulled me into a hug. “I promise you, Matt. I will make sure you grow up happy. I’ll give you everything I can.” “I’ll stay with you forever,” I whispered, meaning it. In my last life, she had given Bennett all of her love, and he’d spat on it. This time, I would be the one to cherish it. “Claire!” Adam shouted. “I didn’t agree to this! You can’t just take Matt!” Mom didn’t even look at him. She told me to take Bennett upstairs to pack our things. I nodded and took Bennett’s hand. I forced my voice into the pitch of a frightened seven-year-old. “Come on, Ben. Let’s go upstairs.” My brother’s small face contorted with a sneer that no six-year-old should possess. He followed me, but I could feel the malice radiating off him. As we climbed the stairs, I was already calculating. I needed a way out—a way to ensure May wouldn’t come for me. A few steps from the top, I felt his hand on my back. He shoved. In that split second, I saw my opening. Instead of catching myself, I leaned into the fall. I tumbled backward, aiming my forehead for the sharp corner of the mahogany banister. The pain was white-hot and immediate. My seven-year-old body wasn’t as resilient as my adult mind, and the agony forced a jagged scream from my throat. Bennett scrambled down next to me, forcing out fake tears. “Matt! Oh my god, you fell! Mom! Dad! I’m so scared!” Mom was there in a heartbeat, screaming for an ambulance. Adam, however, just stared at the gash on my head. “Matt! You idiot! Look what you did! What if that leaves a scar?” May Stanford was a perfectionist. She viewed her children as curated works of art. A scarred heir was a flawed product. Seeing Adam’s panicked face, I knew I’d won. 4 “Get out, Adam!” Mom screamed. “Stop yelling at him and just get out! Matt is staying with me. You don’t get to touch him ever again!” Adam couldn’t explain his real motives without admitting he was selling his children to a socialite. He could only stall. “Fine! But we’re not deciding anything until he’s out of the hospital.” Mom was too worried about the blood to argue. “Fine.” Adam stepped outside to “smoke,” but I knew he was calling May. In the hospital, Bennett hovered by Mom’s side, playing the innocent. “Mom, he was just jumping around on the stairs. He tripped over his own feet. You should tell him to be more careful…” Mom cut him off. “Go sit down, Bennett.” An hour later, Adam returned, his face a mask of feigned indifference. May had clearly given him new orders. “Claire, I’ve made my decision. I’m taking Bennett. You keep Matt. And after today, I don’t want to hear from either of you unless it’s an absolute emergency.” “Good,” Mom snapped. Just like in the previous life, they sold the house. Mom walked away with eighty thousand dollars in cash—a pittance to Adam, but a fortune to her. May must have been footing the bill to make the “problem” go away quickly. While I was still in the hospital, Adam whisked Bennett away to Chicago for “inspection.” I could only imagine the look on May’s face when she saw what she’d bought. Once I was discharged, Mom moved us to Boston. She wanted a fresh start. She fell back into the same routine: cleaning offices by day, selling rotisserie chicken and sides from a small stand at night. I didn’t care about the grease or the long hours. I did everything I could to help her. The only “gift” May had given me in my past life was a high-functioning brain. I stopped hiding it. I let my intelligence show, little by little. By the time I finished middle school, I was the top-ranked student in the district. When I won a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship, Mom cried. She looked at me, her eyes red and hesitant. “Matt… are you ashamed of what I do? If you keep being this successful, people are going to ask. The reporters will want to know who your mother is. Do you really want to tell them I’m a janitor?” I took her hands. “I’ll tell them the truth. I’ll tell the whole world that my mother is the strongest woman I know. That without you, I’d be nothing.” She sobbed and pulled me into her arms. “You’re my pride and joy, Matt.” 5 With the scholarship money and our savings, I convinced Mom to open a small, brick-and-mortar rotisserie bistro. During the grand opening, it was a madhouse. We offered ninety-percent-off deals for the first three days. By the fourth day, things had settled into a steady, profitable rhythm. I was in the back prepping vegetables when the bell rang. Two figures walked in, both dressed in tailored Italian wool. Adam and Bennett. I stepped out from the kitchen, blocking their path. “What are you doing here?” Bennett adjusted his silk tie, looking around the small shop with a sneer. “Matt, please. You think this little ‘business’ is impressive? My tie costs more than your mom makes in a month.” He looked comfortable in his wealth, but there was a frantic, hollow look in his eyes. He clearly wasn’t handling May’s “training” well. If he’d actually been reborn, why hadn’t he improved? Adam cleared his throat, looking uncomfortably at me. “Be nice, Ben. Remember why we’re here.” He turned to me with a plastic smile. “Matt, son. It’s been years. We just wanted to stop by and support your mother’s little hobby.” “We’re doing fine,” I said coldly. “We don’t need your support. Please leave.” “Don’t be an arrogant prick, Matt!” Bennett snapped. “Get out,” I barked. Adam stepped between us. “Matt, listen. May… your Aunt May… she wants to see you. She’s been following your academic progress. She’s very impressed.” So, May was willing to overlook my scar now because Bennett was a disappointment. She was trying to trade up. “I have one mother,” I said. “Her name is Claire. I don’t have a father, and I don’t have a brother.” Adam’s face darkened. “You think because you’re a big fish in a small pond that you’re special? The Stanford family has more money than God. This is your one chance to actually matter.” “I’ll pass.” Bennett exploded. “Dad, forget it! He’s just a scholarship kid! There are thousands of them! May can just find some other charity case to adopt! Look at him—he’s a peasant. In three years, my SAT scores will bury his!” Adam spat on the floor. “Ungrateful brat.” He turned to Bennett. “Let’s go. We’ll tell May he’s not worth the trouble.” As they left, I turned around and saw Mom sitting at a table, her face pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Matt… I’m so sorry. I should have told you…” 6 She was going to tell me about Grandma. But I knew there was a reason she hadn’t reached out in eight years. Even when we were starving, even when she was working four jobs, she never called Manhattan. There was a wound there I didn’t want to poke. “Mom, don’t,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. You raised me. I’m staying with you until the day I can take care of you.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but she just whispered, “Thank you, Matt.” We went back to work. I tried to shake the feeling of dread, but it sat in my stomach like lead. That night, as we were closing up, the door didn’t just open—it was kicked in. Bennett walked in, followed by a phalanx of twenty-two private security guards in black suits. I ran to the front. “What the hell is this? Get out!” Before I could move, two guards grabbed my arms and pinned me against the wall. Bennett kicked over a table, the crash of breaking ceramic echoing through the empty restaurant. He looked at the few remaining customers. “If you want to live, get the hell out! Now!” The customers scrambled for the exits, terrified. I knew Bennett was unstable, but this was a new level of mania. “Bennett, there are cameras here,” I said, trying to stay calm. “The footage is being uploaded to a cloud server on my phone at home. If you do anything, you’re going to prison.” Bennett laughed, a shrill, jagged sound. “I don’t care about your cameras. I have the Stanford lawyers.” He leaned in close. “You’re coming to Chicago with me. If you don’t, things are going to get very bloody, very fast.” I struggled against the guards. “I’m not going anywhere.” I’d already hit the silent alarm under the counter, and I had my phone in my pocket, dialing 911. I just needed to buy a few minutes. Suddenly, a guard dragged Mom out from the back. Her hands were zip-tied, her mouth duct-taped. He threw her onto the floor like a sack of grain. She let out a muffled cry of pain, but when she looked at me, she tried to smile, shaking her head as if to tell me not to worry. “Mom!” I screamed. I fought with everything I had, breaking free for a second before four guards swarmed me, kicking me back down. “Bennett! Stop! She’s your mother too!” Bennett pulled a switchblade. He knelt down, grabbing Mom by the hair and pulling her head back, the blade resting against her throat. “My mother is May Stanford. Now listen to me, Matt. If you refuse me one more time, I’ll start with her face. Do you want to see what this does to her skin?” “Don’t you touch her!” Bennett smirked, the blade nicking her cheek. A thin line of red appeared. “Try me.” “Stop! Okay! Stop!” I yelled, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Good,” Bennett said, his eyes wild with triumph. “Then you’re coming home. You’re going to be the perfect little ward for May.” Mom was shaking her head violently, ignoring the blade at her throat, begging me with her eyes not to give in. I was about to say the words—anything to save her—when the sound of sharp, rhythmic footsteps echoed from the doorway. A woman walked in. Her hair was silver, her suit was Chanel, and her aura was pure, unadulterated power.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414015”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When my husband’s star student threatened to jump from the roof for the second time, I didn’t rush forward to save her. Instead, I took a step back. I felt the cold wind whipping against the hem of my coat, a stark contrast to the heat of the panic below. Down on the pavement, my husband, Robert, looked like he’d seen a ghost. His face was a mask of primal terror as he craned his neck, screaming up at me. “Don’t you dare move back! Hannah, what are you doing? Grab her! Pull her down!” In my previous life, at this exact heartbeat of a second, I had lunged forward. I’d tried to tackle Macy before she could slip. But the moment my fingers brushed her sweater, she had twisted, her small, nimble hands finding my shoulders. She didn’t slip. She pushed. As I fell toward the asphalt, I saw her face. There was no fear. Just a slow, satisfied curve of her lips. “Hannah,” she had whispered, her voice lost to the wind but clear in my mind, “with you out of the way, I finally get what I want. I’ll take such good care of Professor Matt for you. You can die in peace.” After my death, Robert had shut himself away for three days, refusing to eat or speak. I’d spent my existence as a ghost believing he was mourning me, hoping he would find justice. Instead, he used his influence to claim she’d had a “psychotic break.” He helped Macy vanish from the police reports. A year later, they were married. My mother, broken by the loss of her only daughter, ended her own life, leaving my father to wander the streets with a protest sign, a shell of a man seeking a truth no one wanted to hear. Then, I opened my eyes. And I was back on the roof. 1 “Hannah! Did you hear me? Save her!” Robert, usually the picture of academic composure, had eyes rimmed with red. He was gasping for air, his command sharp and serrated. He didn’t care about the ledge. He didn’t care about the height. He didn’t care about me. Just like last time. After I hit the ground, I died instantly. Robert hadn’t even looked at my body. He’d hurried Macy away, shielding her from the “trauma” of the scene. Ten years of marriage. Ten years of building a life, a home, a family. I realized then that to him, my life was a bargain-bin commodity. The hatred burned through my veins, cold and electric. I gave him one look—flat and empty—and turned my back on the edge. “Hannah, please!” Macy’s voice rose in a shrill, bird-like peck. “I’m so lost. Everything hurts. Please, just help me.” Tears streamed down her face. She looked like a terrified lamb, the perfect picture of a girl pushed to the brink. Below us, the crowd of students and faculty began to roar with moral indignation. “Professor Matt’s wife, don’t leave! Talk to her!” “She’s so young! She needs you!” “She looks up to you like a big sister! You can’t just walk away!” I felt a bitter laugh bubble up in my chest. Macy wasn’t going to jump. She had spent six months stalking my life, faking “cries for help” three times already. She didn’t want to die; she wanted me to die. And these people, with their cheap sympathy and their cell phone cameras, were handing her the weapon. The tension in my body was a physical weight. My temples throbbed. “Hannah, I’m an orphan,” Macy wailed, her voice projecting perfectly for the crowd below. “You and Robert… you’re all I have. You’re like the sister I never had. I know I’m not meeting your standards, but the pressure is too much! Death is the only way out!” She was good. She’d lost her mother young, her father had skipped town, and she’d grown up in the shadow of a grandmother who collected scrap metal to pay for her books. I had started sponsoring her in middle school. In high school, I’d paid for the best tutors to get her into this elite university. But Macy was a parasite. She started with shy, blushing refusals of my help. Then came the expectations. The latest iPhone. Designer bags. Jewelry. And finally, she wanted my husband. She wanted my life. Robert’s voice broke the air again, stripped of his usual gentlemanly veneer. “Hannah! A life is on the line! I don’t care what your grievance is—save her now!” The crowd took up the chant. “Apologize to her! Don’t be the reason she jumps!” “If she falls, it’s on your hands, Hannah! You’ll never wash it off!” Macy caught my eye, a flash of triumph glinting through her tears. She dangled one foot over the edge, creating the illusion of a wobble. “Ah!” she screamed, pitching forward slightly. The collective gasp from below was deafening. I saw the lenses of a dozen phones pointed up at us. “Hannah, please,” Macy whimpered, extending a hand toward me. “My legs are numb. I’m slipping. Just grab my hand. Just one pull and I’ll come back over.” Her voice was thick with fake terror, but her eyes were wide with a predatory hunger. I knew if I moved an inch closer, she’d drag me down with her. I didn’t say a word. I turned and walked toward the rooftop exit. Behind me, I heard the heavy thud of boots—the fire department had finally arrived. Macy’s eyes widened in genuine shock. She hadn’t expected me to simply leave the stage. 2 “Hannah!” As soon as I stepped out of the building’s lobby, Robert was there. He grabbed my arm, his grip so tight I felt the bone groan. “You’re so incredibly selfish,” he hissed, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and relief. “I don’t even recognize you. I am beyond disappointed.” I looked into his eyes, searching for a trace of the man I’d loved. There was nothing but a stranger. “Then let’s get a divorce,” I said, my voice as steady as a heartbeat. Robert recoiled as if I’d slapped him. The blood drained from his face. “What the hell are you talking about? You almost let a girl die, and you have the nerve to bring up divorce?” I opened my mouth to respond, but something hard and heavy struck me in the forehead. “You mean woman! Why are you mean to Macy? I hate you! I wish you weren’t my mom!” My son, Mitch, stood there, his face contorted in a sneer. He was standing right next to his father, a united front against me, all for the sake of the girl who had just tried to kill me. Blood began to trickle down my face. Robert’s expression flickered with a brief, ugly shame, but before he could reach for me, the paramedics emerged with Macy. She was being supported by two firemen, looking frail and broken. Robert and Mitch didn’t hesitate. They didn’t even look at me. They rushed toward her. The three of them huddled together, Macy crying into Robert’s chest while Mitch clung to her hand. To any observer, they looked like a grieving family. My colleagues stood around, stunned, their eyes filled with a pity that felt like an insult. I wiped the blood from my eye, turned around, and walked to my car. I spent the afternoon at the ER, getting three stitches and calling a divorce lawyer. As I was leaving the hospital, I ran into them again. They were bringing Macy to see a psychiatrist on the fourth floor. Robert was the picture of a devoted guardian. Mitch, usually a whirlwind of restless energy, was standing quietly, listening intently to the doctor’s instructions as if his life depended on it. A sharp, familiar pain stabbed at my heart. For years, Robert had been “too busy” for us. Research, lectures, projects—he was so busy he hadn’t even made it to the hospital the day Mitch was born. I’d raised our son alone, but Mitch resented me for the rules, the structure, the parenting. He preferred Macy, who took him to arcades and let him eat junk food. When my vision cleared, Mitch was standing in front of Macy, guarding her from me with a suspicious glare. “Hey! What are you doing here?” he snapped. “You’re probably planning something mean again!” “Don’t you touch her,” he added, his voice full of a child’s cruel bravado. “If you do, I’ll make Dad leave you for real!” He smiled, knowing exactly where to twist the knife. He remembered. When Mitch was six, Robert had a brief “entanglement” with a grad student. I’d lost my mind. I’d screamed, cried, even held a knife to my own wrist in a moment of sheer, shattered desperation. Back then, Mitch had hugged my legs and cried, “Mom, don’t be scared. Even if Dad leaves, I’ll always be with you. I’ll protect you forever.” I looked at him now. He would never understand that the only reason I’d fought so hard to keep this family together was for him. I didn’t say a word. I just turned and walked away. I saw the confusion flicker in Mitch’s eyes—the realization that his threats didn’t have a target anymore. Behind him, Robert’s face darkened. For the first time in our marriage, I hadn’t even glanced at him. 3 They brought Macy home. Renting her a separate apartment wasn’t enough anymore; now, they were moving her into my sanctuary. Macy caught my cold gaze and huddled closer to Robert, her shoulders trembling with practiced fear. Mitch immediately raised his voice. “Don’t worry, Macy. Dad and I are here. No one’s kicking you out!” Robert frowned at me, his voice heavy with “academic” authority. “Macy is traumatized, Hannah. As an educator yourself, you should have the grace to show some compassion to a student.” Compassion? Or a clear path to your bed? I looked at Mitch and kept the thought to myself. “She’s twenty-two,” I said calmly. “She’s months away from graduation. I’m stopping my financial sponsorship. Today.” Over the years, between tuition, tutors, and the designer “gifts” she’d lifted from my closet, I’d spent well over three hundred thousand dollars on her. I wasn’t going to throw another cent into a black hole. Macy’s head snapped up. Her eyes went wide with genuine panic. Tears began to flow—a well-practiced reflex. “Professor Matt… Hannah… am I such a burden? Maybe I should just leave. I’ll go live on the street, it’s fine.” She made a move toward the door. Robert grabbed her arm, spinning on me with a snarl. “Hannah, what is wrong with you? We aren’t hurting for money! She’s sick, and you’re being a monster!” Mitch lunged at me, his small fists thumping against my thighs. “Mean woman! Bad woman! Get out! This isn’t your house!” I stood there, numb, watching the son I nearly died to bring into this world treat me like an intruder. My heart didn’t break; it turned to ash. “Mitch, stop it. That’s your mother!” Robert pulled the boy back, but his eyes stayed on me, devoid of warmth. “If you can’t handle this, maybe you should go stay somewhere else for a few days. Until you’ve regained your senses.” The silence that followed was chilling. We had built this life together. Back when Robert’s stipend was barely enough for groceries, I was the one working double shifts at the learning center. I took the difficult classes no other teacher wanted just to afford the down payment on this house. Back then, Robert used to worry about me. He’d turn off my alarms and beg me to sleep. “Hannah, a house isn’t worth your health,” he’d say. Now, he was kicking me out of the home I’d paid for to make room for his mistress-in-waiting. It was perfect. Macy stood behind them, her arms crossed, a smirk playing on her lips. Her eyes said everything: Husband? Son? They’re mine now. You’re nothing. I didn’t argue. I didn’t tell her that this house was bought in my name before the marriage. I didn’t tell her that when the divorce finalized, they would be the ones on the street. I needed to leave so the security cameras could record exactly what happened when I wasn’t there. “Hannah,” Robert called out as I reached for my keys. “Your mother’s care… I’m still paying for the private facility and the advanced equipment. If you want her to stay comfortable, you’ll start acting like a wife again.” I froze. I turned slowly to look at him. My mother had late-stage ALS. She was on a ventilator. Robert’s brother sat on the board of the best private hospital in the state. He was using my dying mother as a hostage. I walked back across the room and slapped him so hard my palm went numb. Macy shrieked and tried to lung at me, but Robert, surprisingly, held her back. He just stared at me, his jaw tight. I walked out the door. For the next week, I stayed at the hospital with my mother. I watched the footage from my home security app. Macy had fully moved in. She was cooking in my kitchen, wearing my robes. She even slipped into the master bedroom late at night. I watched Mitch eat greasy takeout—the kind of food his sensitive stomach couldn’t handle, the kind I’d spent years carefully avoiding. He looked at the camera and shouted, “Macy, I wish you were my real mom!” I didn’t call. I didn’t text. Two weeks later, Robert messaged me: “You can come home now. This is getting ridiculous.” I ignored it. The next day: “I sent Macy back to the dorms. Come back. The house is a mess and Mitch needs you.” I still didn’t reply. 4 That afternoon, Macy burst into my office at the university. She looked like she’d been through a thresher—bruises on her arms, hair disheveled. She collapsed onto her knees in front of my desk. “Hannah, please! Please let me go!” Before I could breathe, a man stormed in after her. My stomach dropped. It was Greg Scott—a guy from Macy’s hometown, a known lowlife who had stalked her years ago. I’d paid for her legal fees to get a restraining order against him back in the day. How was he here? Robert followed right behind him. Macy scrambled into Robert’s arms, sobbing hysterically. “Robert, save me! Hannah… she told Greg where I was! She’s trying to sell me to him! He’s a monster!” Macy’s lip was bleeding. Her shirt was torn at the collar. She looked like a victim. Robert’s face turned a terrifying shade of purple. He glared at me and then at Greg. Greg, playing his part perfectly, looked at me with a sleazy grin. “Thanks for the tip, Mrs. Matt. And for the cash. I’ll take her off your hands now.” “What are you talking about?” I stood up, my heart hammering. Greg didn’t answer. He lunged for Macy. “Your grandpa sold you to my family years ago, girl! We let you finish school, but it’s time to come home and start having babies!” He grabbed her arm. Robert didn’t hesitate. He threw a haymaker that caught Greg right in the temple. Greg hit the floor, scrambled up, and ran out of the office, howling in pain. It was a farce. A cheap, poorly acted play. But Robert was fully immersed. He turned on me, his eyes glowing with a dark, predatory light. He pinned me against my desk, his fingers digging into my shoulders. “Get on your knees,” he rasped. “Apologize to her. Now.” The pain in my arms was excruciating. “They’re lying, Robert! Use your brain! Why would I ever contact that man?” His grip tightened. He looked like he was on the verge of snapping. But then Macy began to slap herself across the face. “It’s my fault!” she wailed. “I thought you loved me like a sister, Hannah! Why do you keep trying to destroy me? Do you want me to just die?” “THEN DIE!” I screamed, the frustration finally boiling over. Robert threw me to the ground. He looked at me with utter loathing. “I am so done with you, Hannah. You want to play hardball? Fine.” He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. My blood ran cold. “What are you doing?” “Is this Director Sterling at the hospital? Yeah. Pull the ventilator in Room 436. Now.” “NO!” I scrambled toward him, clawing at his legs. “Robert, please! You’ll kill her! Don’t do this!” He kicked my hand away, his voice devoid of any humanity. “Kneel. Apologize to Macy. Maybe I’ll call them back.” My brain felt like it was being split by a chisel. The world blurred. I stood up, a ghost in my own body, and walked over to Macy. She looked up at me, a tiny, sickening smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. I dropped to my knees. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, each word tasting like ash. “It’s all my fault.” Macy reached out, pretending to be the bigger person, and pulled me into a hug. “I forgive you, Hannah,” she whispered into my ear, her voice a venomous hiss. “But you should probably get to the hospital. If you run, you might catch her before the lights go out.” I shoved her away. She fell back with a cry of “pain,” but I was already out the door. “Hannah! Running won’t save you!” Robert yelled after me. I drove like a maniac, my vision tunneled. I reached the hospital ten minutes later, drenched in sweat. As I reached the hallway of the intensive care unit, the doors to Room 436 opened. A nurse was slowly wheeling out a gurney covered in a white sheet. The world went black. I stumbled forward, my legs giving out. I reached out and pulled back the sheet. A scream ripped from my throat, raw and jagged, echoing through the sterile halls. “MAMA!” At that exact moment, across town, Robert’s heart skipped a beat. He looked at his phone, a strange sense of dread pooling in his stomach. Before he could call Hannah, he got a call from the hospital director. “Mr. Matt? I’m calling about Hannah’s mother. The body is being moved. Do you have instructions for the morgue?” The world tilted. Robert’s breath hitched. But I never actually got through to the director earlier… the call hadn’t connected. How was she dead?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414014”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My wife brought her male assistant home for a shower. She even let him use her favorite plush bath towel. I sat on the living room sofa, my hands buried in my lap, white-knuckled, forcing the bile back down. I told myself to stay calm, to wait for an explanation that wasn’t an insult. Then, she started looking for an ashtray. Jordan walked out of our master bedroom, a lit cigarette dangling from his lip, wearing nothing but that towel—the one I’d bought Rachel for our first anniversary. The sight of him, so casual and proprietary in my sanctuary, was the final spark. I stood up, my voice dropping into a low, dangerous register. “Rachel, don’t you think this has gone a little too far?” Rachel didn’t even flinch. She spared me a glance that was as cold as a winter morning in Chicago. “What is wrong with you now?” “What’s wrong with me?” I let out a jagged, hollow laugh. I pointed a trembling finger at Jordan. “You told me you hated the smell of smoke. You made me quit cold turkey three years ago because you said it made you nauseous. So why is he allowed to light up in our bedroom when I’m not even allowed to touch a pack?” I took a step closer, the air between us thick with things unsaid. “You brought a man into our home to shower. He’s wearing your towel. Do I even exist to you anymore?” Rachel adjusted her watch, her expression bored. “He’s not like you, Nicky.” … I stared at her, the words echoing in the quiet of the apartment. Jordan was her assistant. I was her husband. Of course we weren’t the same. But the subtext in Rachel’s voice wasn’t about our roles; it was about our value. To her, I was less than the man she paid to pick up her dry cleaning. Jordan looked at me, a smug, lopsided grin tugging at his mouth. He turned to Rachel, flicking an ash onto the hardwood floor. “Boss, the ash is getting long.” “We don’t have an ashtray,” Rachel said, her voice softening for him in a way it hadn’t for me in years. “Just use the kitchen bin.” Then, she turned back to me, her voice returning to that sharp, commanding tone. “Go to the kitchen and bring the trash can out for Jordan.” “You want me to be his personal valet?” I was reeling. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold hand. I looked at the woman I had spent two years supporting, wondering when she had become this stranger. “Don’t just stand there, man. Hurry up before I drop this on your rug,” Jordan urged, his voice dripping with mock impatience. I sat back down on the sofa, my gaze hardening. I didn’t say a word, but I stared directly into Rachel’s eyes. I was finished with the games. I wanted—I needed—her to give me one reason not to walk out that door. “Jordan closed the Matt account tonight,” Rachel said, as if that explained everything. “He’s the hero of the firm right now. Can’t you just swallow your pride for one night?” I laughed again, though there was no humor in it. “He signs a contract, so he gets to bathe in our house and use your towel? Should I just leave right now and give you two some privacy?” Before Rachel could even respond, Jordan flicked a massive clump of ash directly onto the floor and gave me a shark-like grin. “That’d be great, actually.” I shot him a look of pure venom, a silent warning that usually made men twice his size back down. But he didn’t blink. He had Rachel as his shield, and he knew it. I looked back at her. If she had scolded him, if she had shown even a flicker of respect for our marriage, I might have found a way to forgive her. Instead, she gave me nothing but a deafening silence. Her lack of defense for me was a roar of betrayal. It told me exactly where I stood: I was the obstacle in the room. I was the one who didn’t belong. I stood up slowly. “Rachel, do you really want me to go?” “Go take a walk. Get some air,” she said, not even looking at me. “Come back when you’ve calmed down.” The last bit of warmth in my chest died then. Jordan’s face lit up with a triumphant, ugly smirk. I nodded slowly. “I hope you two are very happy.” I turned and walked toward the door without looking back. There was no hesitation, no dramatic pause. I realized now that bringing Jordan home wasn’t a lapse in judgment; it was a tactical move. She wanted me to quit. She wanted to push me until I broke so she didn’t have to be the villain who ended us. Fine. If she wanted a life without me, I wasn’t going to beg for a seat at her table. I don’t do charity cases, and I certainly don’t value love that has to be negotiated. I reached the door and stopped for just a second. Jordan’s voice drifted from the living room, laced with mockery. “Hey, Nicky? Did you remember where the ashtrays were on your way out?” I looked over my shoulder at him. I memorized that look of petty victory on his face. I’d be seeing it again soon. “Is there something else?” Rachel asked, her brow furrowed with irritation. “Rachel, I want a divorce.” The room went dead silent. Rachel froze, her eyes widening as the words finally registered. “You… what did you just say?” “I said I want a divorce. I’ll have the papers at your office tomorrow for you to sign.” With that, I stepped out of the apartment—the place that used to feel like home—and didn’t look back. That night, I called my best friend. When he heard the news, he didn’t offer sympathy; he offered a night out. He’d never liked Rachel. He’d seen the cracks in the foundation long before I was willing to admit the house was falling down. After a night of heavy drinks and a clarity that only comes with rock bottom, I spent the morning at a law firm. Then, I headed straight to the corporate headquarters of the Zachary Group. When I saw Rachel in her office, she looked refreshed. Radiant, even. There was a faint mark on her neck—a bruise she had tried to cover with foundation, but I knew what it was. The “green hat” she’d made me wear wasn’t just a one-night affair. I wondered how long she’d been playing me for a fool. I didn’t say a word. I simply dropped the divorce settlement on her desk. Rachel picked it up, scanning the pages. Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re serious? You… you’re walking away with nothing?” She had clearly expected a fight. She’d probably spent the morning bracing for me to demand half the company, half the assets, a monthly check. Instead, I was leaving with exactly what I came with: nothing. She looked genuinely confused, almost suspicious. Before she could speak, the door burst open. Jordan didn’t even knock. He stormed in, his eyes darting between me and the papers in Rachel’s hand. He lunged across the desk, snatched the settlement, and ripped it into shreds. “Rachel, don’t sign anything this loser gives you! He’s trying to play you.” Rachel, who had been about to chastise him for the intrusion, turned her gaze back to me, her eyes flaring with sudden anger. “Nicky, I see what’s going on now. No wonder you were so quick to ask for a divorce. No wonder you didn’t ask for a dime.” She stood up, leaning over her desk. “You’ve been cheating on me, haven’t you? This is all just a guilt trip so you can run off with whatever trash you’ve been seeing behind my back. You’re disgusting.” I stared at her, amazed by the sheer audacity of her projection. I didn’t argue. I just looked at Jordan and asked, “And which one of your ‘sources’ told you I was cheating?” “Oh, please,” Jordan sneered. “I knew you were a snake. I’ve been keeping an eye on you.” He reached into his pocket and tossed a handful of photos onto the desk. Rachel and I both looked down. The top photo was clear: it was me, entering a hotel with a woman. I was carrying her bags. “Well, well,” Rachel laughed, the sound cold and biting. “You’ve been busy, Nicky. Here I am, pouring my soul into this company, and you’re out playing house while you coast on my paycheck. You’re a lazy, pathetic excuse for a husband. And her?” She pointed at the woman in the photo. “You really have no taste, do you? What does she have that I don’t?” I opened my mouth to explain—to tell her that the woman was my sister visiting from out of town—but I stopped. What was the point? Suddenly, without warning, Jordan swung his hand. Slap. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the small office. My head snapped to the side. For a moment, I was just stunned. Jordan puffed out his chest, convinced he’d won. “She’s the boss, Nicky. Even if you leave, you don’t get a cent of her money after what you did.” Rachel nodded, her expression hardening. “Good call, Jordan. I almost felt bad for a second.” She looked at me with pure loathing. “Nicky, you’re fired. Effective immediately. My legal team will draft a new settlement. You leave with nothing, and you leave knowing this was your fault, not mine.” I rubbed my stinging cheek, my eyes locking onto Jordan’s smug face. “What are you looking at?” Jordan barked. “You don’t like it? Do something about it, you coward—” I didn’t let him finish. I lunged forward and buried my fist in his jaw. CRACK. A muffled scream erupted from him as he hit the floor. Outside the glass walls of the office, the staff stopped dead, staring in shock. Jordan clutched his mouth, blood beginning to seep through his fingers. “Call the police!” Jordan wheezed. “He’s trying to kill me!” Rachel was frozen for a heartbeat, then she screamed, “Security! Get him out of here!” Three guards burst through the door a moment later. “Throw him out!” Rachel pointed at me, her voice shrill and hysterical. “Don’t bother,” I said, straightening my jacket. “I can find the exit myself.” “You’re going to jail for this, you son of a bitch!” Jordan yelled as I walked away. Rachel tried to quiet him down; she didn’t want a scandal affecting the company’s reputation. As I walked through the bullpen, every employee watched me. Most of them had smirks on their faces. To them, I was just the “trophy husband” who sat in an office and did nothing. I was the guy who came in late and left early, the one who didn’t care about the grind. They called me “The Freeloader” behind my back. Seeing me get tossed out was the highlight of their week. I heard the whispers—serves him right, finally getting what’s coming to him. I ignored them all. I walked toward the lobby, my head held high. Just as I reached the glass front doors, I ran into a man getting out of a black sedan. It was Mr. Blackwood, the biggest client the Zachary Group had. He was the powerhouse behind the massive deal Jordan had supposedly “closed” the night before. When Blackwood saw me, his stern face immediately broke into a wide, respectful smile. He reached out his hand. “Nicky! It’s been too long.” I shook his hand, giving him a weary smile. “It has been, Arthur. Though today isn’t my best day.” “Oh? Something wrong?” Before I could answer, Rachel came sprinting toward us. “Mr. Blackwood! I am so sorry, I didn’t realize you’d arrived already. Please, forgive the chaos. Let’s head upstairs,” she said, her voice dripping with sycophancy. She gave the security guards a sharp nod. “Why is he still here? Get him off the property!” The guards stepped toward me, but Blackwood threw up a hand, stopping them in their tracks. “Nicky, what is going on?” “I’ve been fired, Arthur,” I said simply. Blackwood’s face went pale. He turned to Rachel, his voice dropping an octave. “Mrs. Matt, is this true? You fired him?” “Mr. Blackwood, this is an internal matter, I promise it won’t affect our work,” Rachel said, her smile wavering. “Please, ignore him.” As she gestured for the guards to move again, Blackwood’s expression turned to stone. “Mrs. Matt,” he said, his voice echoing through the lobby. “If Nicky is no longer with this company, then Blackwood Industries is no longer with the Zachary Group. All contracts are terminated, effective immediately.” The silence that followed was absolute. Rachel wasn’t just confused—she looked like she’d been struck by lightning. The entire office staff stood paralyzed.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414013”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The tradition was supposed to be a joke—a series of “challenges” my bridesmaids set up before the groom could take me to the church. After the chaos of the games finally wound down, Ben was pushed into the center of the room by his groomsmen. He held the bouquet, dropping to one knee in front of me with practiced grace. The room erupted. “Speech! Speech! Vows! Vows!” I looked down at him, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might bruise. My fingers white-knuckled the edge of the silk duvet cover, waiting for the romantic declaration I’d been dreaming of for five years. He looked up, meeting my eyes, and offered that soft, boyish smile I loved. “Honey,” he said, his voice steady. “Before I carry you out of here, I’ve got a little something for you to sign. Just a promissory note. For us.” 01 The cheering died instantly. The groomsmen’s hands stayed frozen in mid-air, their palms hovering as they traded confused glances. My best friend, Jade, stood by the bed, her smile curdling into a mask of pure disbelief. “What the hell?” she muttered, the words slipping out before she could catch them. “Did he just say he’s putting her $360,000 in the hole before the ‘I dos’?” Every eye in the room pivoted to her, and she instinctively clamped a hand over her mouth. I sat there, paralyzed. My brain felt like it was trying to process a language I didn’t speak. “What did you just say?” Ben didn’t flinch. He kept that same pleasant expression, the bouquet resting casually on his thigh. He reached into the inner pocket of his tuxedo, pulled out a perfectly folded sheet of paper, and smoothed it out on the bedspread. It was a debt agreement. Black ink on white paper, clinical and cold. It laid out a total of $360,400. It specified a monthly repayment of $1,500. It listed the borrowers as Ben Miller and Norma Rory, and the lender as Margaret Miller. Margaret. His mother. “Stop playing,” I said, my hand trembling as I tried to push the paper back toward him. “Give me the flowers, Ben. Everyone’s waiting. This isn’t the time or the place for a joke like this.” He didn’t move. “I’m not playing,” he said, his tone conversational. “Sign it, and the bouquet is yours. We need to hurry, Norma. The limo is downstairs, and the photographer is on a clock. If we keep dallying, we’re going to miss our window.” I searched his face. He was still smiling—the same gentle, considerate smile he’d worn when he walked through the door. The same smile he’d given me every morning for five years. One of the groomsmen tried to break the tension with a nervous laugh. “Come on, Norma, just sign the thing. Ben’s just doing his due diligence… it’s probably just a formality for the tax man.” Jade snapped her head toward him. “Shut up, Mike!” Ben reached back into his pocket and produced a small, leather-bound ledger. He flipped it open for me to see. It was an itemized account of our life together. Columns of tiny, cramped handwriting: May 4, 2020: Down payment on house – $280,000. July 2024: Kitchen renovation – $45,000. October 2025: Wedding venue deposit – $12,000. February 2026: Engagement ring and ceremony costs – $23,400. “This ledger tracks every cent I’ve had to borrow from my mother since I graduated,” he explained, his voice light, as if he were discussing the weather. “I actually gave us a discount. I didn’t include the jewelry sets, the rehearsal dinner, the bridesmaids’ gifts, or the smaller gifts for your parents. I left out the petty cash.” He looked at me with an air of profound maturity. “We’re adults now, Norma. It’s embarrassing to keep living off my mother’s grace. She worked hard for that money. When she helped me buy the house, I signed a note for that $280k back then. And let’s be honest, I spent a lot on us while we were dating, and I never paid her back.” “So, since we’re getting married, I had my mom tear up that old $280k note. I wrote a new one that covers everything—including the wedding we’re about to walk into…” Ben’s voice faded into a dull hum in my ears. My thumb brushed over the pages of the ledger. He had recorded everything. Down to a $15 charge for a three-pack of tissue boxes. My stomach dropped. He wasn’t performing. This wasn’t a prank for the cameras. He was dead serious. 02 “Ben,” I said, looking directly into his eyes. “What exactly are you doing?” He looked genuinely puzzled, as if I’d asked a remarkably stupid question. “Honey, you’re the one who always says marriage is about radical transparency.” He pointed a manicured finger at the signature line where he had already signed his name. “I signed this last night. I wanted to bring it to you then, but you know the tradition—can’t see the bride before the ceremony. We’re a team now. I couldn’t keep this from you. I told you the very first second I saw you. You can’t be mad at me for being honest.” I stared at his innocent face, unable to tell if he was a brilliant actor or a functional sociopath. I took a slow, jagged breath, swallowing the scream that was clawing at my throat. When I didn’t speak, Ben’s smile faltered. He began smoothing the creases in the paper, muttering under his breath, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. I wasn’t even going to ask you to help me pay it back anyway.” So now, somehow, this was my fault for being informed? Seeing my lack of movement, Ben’s face darkened. He snatched the document back. “Fine. If you won’t sign it, don’t sign it. I’ll pay it back myself. My salary is $120k. I’ll just send $8,000 a month to my mother’s account. I won’t touch a dime of your money.” The room, draped in celebratory white and gold, fell into a suffocating silence. One of the groomsmen nudged Ben’s shoulder. Ben took a breath, shoved the papers back into his tuxedo, and brushed the dust off his knees. He stood up. The shadow on his face vanished like a cloud passing the sun, and the “Perfect Groom” mask was back in an instant. “Alright, forget it. Don’t sign. Don’t be mad,” he said, reaching out to ruffle my hair affectionately. “Norma, it’s our big day. Let’s not let a little paperwork ruin the mood.” I flinched away from his touch. His hand froze in mid-air. He didn’t seem to care. He turned, took the bouquet back from his best man, and dropped back onto one knee. “Norma!” he shouted, his voice booming for the benefit of the room. “Will you marry me?” The groomsmen, eager for the nightmare to be over, started clapping rhythmically. “Kiss her! Kiss her! Kiss her!” The cheering started up again, louder than before, as if they could drown out the reality of what had just happened through sheer volume. Jade was standing next to me, her face white with rage. Her mouth opened to speak, but I squeezed her hand, signaling her to wait. I looked down at Ben and felt a cold, sharp smile spread across my face. “You won’t touch a dime of my money, huh?” I asked. “So, how do you plan on paying your $3,500 car note? The utilities? The mortgage? Our groceries? How do we survive if your entire paycheck goes to your mother?” Ben’s eyes darted away. The clapping faltered and died. A flicker of genuine embarrassment crossed his face. “Norma, can we talk about the logistics at the reception? We’re running out of time.” “Then let them wait.” “What’s the matter, Ben? Is the ‘honest’ man suddenly short on answers? You seemed pretty chatty a minute ago.” Ben stood there in silence for a long time. Eventually, he leaned in, his voice a low, frantic whisper. “I was going to bring this up after the honeymoon. Your dad gave you that $60,000 SUV as a wedding gift, right? You told me you almost rear-ended someone last week—you said you were nervous about driving it. I’m worried about you, Norma. There are so many accidents these days. I thought… maybe you shouldn’t drive it. My company car is fine. I can pick you up. I’ll sell my current car, pay off the remaining loan, and I’ll probably have $20,000 left over. I’ll give that all to you.” He reached out to hug me. “See? Everything is fine. Can we go now?” I looked at him and felt a sudden, hysterical urge to laugh. I twisted out of his reach. “Ben, since we’re being ‘transparent,’ let’s put all the cards on the table. You want to give your mom ten grand a month? Fine. You want to drive my car? Fine…” “Norma, have you lost your mind?” Jade hissed. I ignored her, staring straight into Ben’s eyes, which were now sparking with hope. “But I have two conditions.” I held up one finger. “First, we call a lawyer right now. We draft an agreement that gives me fifty-percent equity in the house. Don’t look at me like that—it’s only fair. Once we’re married, our income is marital property. Half of what you earn is legally mine. If your half goes to your mom for ‘your’ house, then my half is paying for our entire lives. I want my name on the deed.” Before he could protest, I held up a second finger. “The SUV was $65,000, but let’s call it $60k. If I’m giving it to you, you owe me $30,000. We’ll notarize a post-nuptial agreement stating that money is my personal, non-marital asset. I’ll transfer the title to you, and it’s yours. As for the other $30,000? You can pay my father back $2,000 a month until it’s settled.” “Agree to that, and we can walk out that door right now.” Ben’s face turned a shade of bruised purple. My heart, meanwhile, felt like a block of ice. He understood exactly what I was doing. I felt a sudden, sharp pang of self-loathing. Five years. I had spent five years with this man, and I was only seeing the real him now, while wearing a three-thousand-dollar veil. But at least I was seeing him. 03 Ben stood up slowly. He didn’t look like a groom anymore. He looked like a debt collector. He looked down at me, his stature meant to intimidate. “Norma, if you don’t want to get married, just say so.” The room went dead silent. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking up at him. He was standing, I was sitting, yet I had never felt like I saw him more clearly. “What did you say?” I asked. “I said,” he repeated, punctuating every word, “if you want to back out, do it now. But don’t use these ridiculous conditions to insult me.” Jade exploded. “Ben, are you kidding me? You brought a freaking invoice to your own wedding, and you’re talking about ‘insulting’ people?” He ignored her, his eyes locked on mine. “Norma, I’ve been more than good to you. My mother bought that house. She let you live there. She never asked you for a cent of rent. I’m taking the debt on myself so you don’t have to. And now you’re asking me for money for a wedding gift? Do you even know what a dowry is? That car was a gift to us, to our family. What does it matter whose name is on the title? Can you even hear yourself right now?” I smiled. It was a cold, empty thing. “A gift to ‘us’?” “Of course,” he said, righteous and indignant. “You marry me, your dad gives us a car. That’s how it works. Why does it matter who drives it?” “By that logic,” I countered, “the house was bought with a loan from your mother. You haven’t paid back a cent of the principal. You’re planning to pay it all back after the wedding using marital funds. So, I’m paying for half of that house. I want half the equity.” “Oh, and that note? It wasn’t just the house. It included the renovations and the engagement ring. My family put $15,000 toward the kitchen too. Do I need to write a note for that? Is your mother the only one whose money is hard-earned? And the reception—is your mother keeping all the cash gifts from the guests, or is she giving them to us?” He stammered, his logic crumbling. “And you say you’re letting me live there ‘for free’? Ben, if you give your mom your whole paycheck, who pays the property taxes? Who pays the insurance? Who pays for the light, the water, the food on the table? Who pays for the children we talked about having? It’s me. It’s all me.” I stood up, leveling my gaze with his. “Ben, stop playing dumb. You’ve crunched the numbers better than an actuary. The house stays yours, but the debt becomes ‘ours.’ I can hear the gears in your head grinding from five miles away.” His face went from pale to flushed in a rhythmic pulse. A crisp knock on the door broke the standoff. My mother peeked her head in, her face tight with anxiety. “Is the game over? The limo driver is losing his mind, and the wedding coordinator just called. They’re supposed to be starting the rehearsal. Why aren’t you guys moving?” Ben turned to my mother. In a heartbeat, his expression transformed. He looked devastated, wounded—a man who had been pushed to his breaking point. “Mrs. Rory,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “Norma… she won’t get in the car.” My mother froze. “What?” “She’s saying she won’t go unless I put her name on the deed to the house today,” he whispered, looking at the floor. “And she wants me to sign a $30,000 note for her own wedding gift. Mom, it’s not that I don’t want her on the deed, but how am I supposed to handle legal paperwork ten minutes before the ceremony?” 04 “Mom, that’s not what happened—” I started to speak, but Ben stepped forward, physically placing himself between me and my mother. “Mrs. Rory, could you give us a second?” he said, his tone dripping with protective concern. “Norma’s just… she’s overwhelmed. Nerves. Let me talk to her alone. I promise, I’ll get her calmed down.” My mother looked at him, then at me. I could see the hesitation in her eyes, the fear of a public scandal. “Norma,” she said softly, her voice the one she used when I was a child with a scraped knee. “Sweetie, it’s your wedding day. Let’s just get through the ceremony, okay? We can talk about everything later. I’ll be waiting outside.” Ben escorted her to the door, and with a polite but firm authority, he cleared the room of bridesmaids, groomsmen, and the bewildered photographer. Jade lingered, her eyes burning holes in the back of Ben’s head, but I nodded to her. It’s okay. Go. The door clicked shut. We were alone. Ben turned around. The “wounded groom” mask fell away, leaving something cold and sharp behind. He looked at me with a detached, clinical stillness. “Norma,” he said, his voice a low hiss. “Are you quite finished with this little tantrum?” I looked at him. Five minutes ago, he was playing the victim for my mother. Now, he looked at me like I was a problem to be solved. A laugh bubbled up in my chest. Five years. I really was the world’s greatest fool. He was a better actor than anyone I’d ever met. “Ben,” I said. “The wedding is off.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “414012”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel