When the tabloids broke the news of Ethan Cross’s engagement, he was lying on my lap, reviewing a merger file. I thought it was just another piece of celebrity gossip. I teased him. “Very funny. They’re saying you’re getting married next month.” Ethan casually flipped to the next page of the contract. “Yeah. Make sure you’re free to play piano at the reception.” I froze, completely stunned. Ethan traced a hand over my face, a touch of mockery in his eyes. “It took a lot of work to get her to say yes. Be a good girl, okay? Don’t make a scene.” 01 My mind went completely blank. I stared at him, not knowing how to react. Ethan let out a soft scoff and set the merger file down on the coffee table. “Don’t look at me like a deer in headlights. It’s not like we’re never going to see each other again.” He paused, tilting his head. “Or did you actually think I was going to marry you?” I fought back tears, pushing against his shoulders to sit up. “These five years… what was I to you?” Ethan refined his brow, sitting up and gripping my chin. “An assistant. You are the most capable assistant I’ve ever had.” I wasn’t satisfied. I asked again, my voice trembling. “Just an assistant?” Ethan’s expression darkened slightly. He wound a lock of my hair around his finger. “Sarah, do you know what I like most about you? You’re compliant. Smart. Rational. Sane.” He applied pressure to my chin. “Right now, you’re acting in a way that is very annoying.” My heart felt like it was being stuck by a thousand needles. A dense, stinging pain surged through my body. He leaned in and kissed away the tear at the corner of my eye, his hand moving down. My body’s instinctual reaction made me shudder slightly against my will. He let out a sharp laugh, the sound filled with ridicule. “Don’t act so aggrieved. After all, you enjoy this too, don’t you?” I pushed him away with all my might and frantically grabbed my clothes, pulling them on over my head. He sat back, resting his chin on one hand, watching me amusedly. “By the way, you know my fiancée. She’s timid. Don’t go near her, don’t scare her.” I froze mid-motion. A horrifying premonition seized my brain. “Who is it?” “The Sterling Group heiress. Harper Sterling.” It was like a lightning bolt struck me. My brain felt like it exploded, pressure throbbing violently at my temples, mixed with a piercing pain. “Why her? You know… she…” “That was all a misunderstanding.” Ethan reached out, pulled me back toward him, and got down on one knee to slide my high heels back onto my feet. “Harper already explained everything to me. If you are disrespectful to her because of things that happened in high school, don’t blame me for being ruthless.” He squeezed my ankle hard, looking up at me. It was an open threat. The pain made it almost impossible to sit still. I forced a sliver of a voice out of my throat. “Understood.” 02 Winter in the Midwest is unforgivably cold. I stood by the railing of the downtown bridge, the wind stinging my face like a slap. I used to think that Ethan and I would get married, have kids, and live a quiet, happy life just like any other loving couple. After all, no other man had ever treated me as well as he did. He would clumsily cook my favorite dishes. Even though he hated the smell of spicy crawfish, he still took me to a shack on the Gulf just to get the authentic stuff. He even went to a simulation class to experience the pain of childbirth, crying as he told me we shouldn’t have kids because he didn’t want me to suffer. I thought he loved me to his core. But it turns out, he never once considered marrying me, let alone having a family with me. The wind howled past, and the black water rushed furiously beneath the bridge. I lifted my foot to step onto the bottom railing, intending to just feel the wind, but someone suddenly grabbed me from behind in a tight bear hug. It was an older woman, her face filled with panic, gripping my arm tightly. “Oh dear, I’ve been watching you for a while. It’s not worth it, sweetie, it really isn’t.” “If something happened to you, it would break your parents’ hearts.” “Life is long. There’s nothing you can’t get through.” She practically forced her own gloves, scarf, and beanie onto me. Finally, she pulled a warm, foil-wrapped breakfast burrito from her coat pocket and shoved it into my hand. I had been holding back tears for so long, but at that moment, they completely exploded. I sobbed uncontrollably. I wasn’t trying to jump. I just wanted to freeze myself into feeling rational again. I wanted to accept the brutal reality that Ethan Cross did not love me. But facing this stranger’s warmth, I suddenly felt so aggrieved, so full of resentment. 03 By the time Ethan’s call came through, I was already back at my apartment. “I’m formally introducing Harper to everyone tomorrow. You should be there.” I gripped the phone, my hand slowly tightening. “I don’t want to go.” Ethan let out a soft scoff. “Sarah, this is a notification, not a request. Harper wants you there.” “I said I don’t want to go.” My voice was terribly raspy. The cold wind from earlier seemed to have blown into my very bones. A bone-deep chill settled into my core. “Sarah!” Ethan lost his patience, his voice booming through the speaker. “If I don’t see you tomorrow, you can forget about ever getting your mother’s prescription covered again.” The line went dead. I leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, collapsing. 04 Having been with Ethan for five years, I knew his friends well enough. So, at the party, when they saw me, their eyes were filled with mockery. “How does she still have the nerve to show up? Live as a mistress long enough, and you actually start thinking you belong here.” “Some people just don’t know what shame is. Who else would stripped naked and crawl into a bed for a promotion?” I kept my eyes on the ground, pretending to be deaf. Someone walked over and pressed his hand down on mine on the table. His sticky breath fanned against my ear. “Sarah, don’t be sad. Now that Ethan’s done with you, you can always come find me. I don’t mind seconds.” The area erupted in crude, disgusting laughter. I clenched my teeth, stood up, and took a step back to put distance between us. “Respect yourself, please.” He gave me a predatory look, scanning my body. “Still acting high and mighty? Believe it or not, I could handle you right here.” My body instantly went rigid. My palms were wet with fear. I looked toward the door over and over, desperately hoping Ethan would walk in. I knew exactly how vicious these people could be. At a moment like this, only Ethan could help me. As he kept crowding me, I slowly backed into a corner. “Sarah, just give in to Mr. Miller. It’s not like trash like you has other options.” They looked at me with greed, disdain, and excitement. They were nailing me to a cross of shame. I had nowhere left to retreat. I tried to quickly dart around him. But someone stuck their leg out, tripping me. I crashed to the floor. My arm caught a bottle of Cabernet on the adjacent table. It fell and shattered. I landed with both hands directly onto the glass shards. My white dress was instantly stained red with blood. The crowd erupted in roars of laughter. I struggled to move, trying to stand up, but a sharp, agonizing pain shot up from my ankle. Mark Miller bent down and grabbed my wrist. “Sarah, let me help you…” The door suddenly opened. Ethan walked in, Harper Sterling on his arm. They were late. He saw me sprawled on the floor. He frowned. “What’s going on?” “Sarah wasn’t careful. She tripped and broke a wine bottle. Mr. Miller was just trying to help her up,” someone smoothed over. Ethan’s gaze moved to Mark Miller’s hand gripping my wrist. His expression darkened slightly. “Let go.” Mark awkwardly stood up, backing away from me. “Mr. Cross, don’t misinterpret this.” Ethan walked over quickly, a faint trace of worry in his eyes. “Ethan, let me help Ms. Jenkins up.” Harper Sterling’s voice was soft and warm, interrupting him as he started to bend down. Ethan froze for a microsecond, then stood back up. “Alright.” Harper extended her hand to me. I looked at that smiling face, and it was like I was transported back ten years. Pure terror broke me into a cold sweat. “Ms. Jenkins, do you not like me helping you?” She looked innocent, a trace of grievance in her voice. Before I could speak. Ethan said with a cold face, “If she doesn’t want to get up, let her crawl on the floor. What an embarrassment.” “Ethan, don’t speak to a woman like that,” Harper chided softly, helping me up. “Are you okay?” Then, she whispered close to my ear, just loud enough for me to hear. “Even though everyone knows Mark is a predator, you didn’t have to humiliate yourself like this just to get his attention.” Her face was full of concern, but her eyes were venomous. She viciously pinched the glass wounds on my hand. The pain was unbearable. I violently pushed her away. “Get away from me. Don’t touch me.” Harper staggered back a step and fell toward the floor. I stared straight at her, wishing with every fiber of my being that she would fall onto the broken glass. Unfortunately, Ethan caught her. He stepped forward furiously and slapped me across the face. “Harper was kindly trying to help you, and you treat her like this? You ungrateful bitch.” My ears were ringing. I felt like I stepped off a ledge, plunging into darkness. Ethan’s mouth was opening and closing; he was probably saying more horrible things, but I couldn’t hear him. When my senses finally returned, I only heard the last sentence. “Sarah, apologize to Harper.” I looked at him in disbelief, wanting to defend myself, but not knowing how to say it. Even if I did say it, Ethan wouldn’t believe me. “I am telling you for the last time. Apologize. Otherwise, you know what I’m capable of.” His voice held an undertone of a threat. I curled my lips in a self-deprecating smile, letting out a bitter laugh. “If I don’t apologize, you’ll cut off my mother’s treatment, right?” He snorted coldly and said nothing else. How ridiculous. The man who once swore he would never let me suffer a single grievance was now forcing me to apologize to the person who used to bully me. Just a week ago, he was sitting in front of my mom, peeling an apple for her, swearing that she would live to be a hundred. “Forget it, Ethan. Sarah didn’t do anything wrong. She just doesn’t like me, that’s all.” Harper’s eyes were downcast, pulling on Ethan’s sleeve. “I don’t need your hypocrisy,” I snapped, not knowing where the courage came from. Harper looked frightened by me. Her rim med with red, and she shrunk back behind Ethan. “Don’t be scared,” Ethan comforted her gently. Then he turned and viciously kicked my knee. “Watch your attitude!” I was forced to my knees on the ground. “Apologize, Sarah. Don’t push me.” Ethan’s jaw was tight, a storm brewing in his eyes. My heart was completely dead. My body didn’t even seem to feel the pain anymore. My mom’s illness could only be treated with a specialty drug developed by Ethan’s company. I could not sacrifice my mother’s life for the sake of my dignity. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I beg for Ms. Sterling’s forgiveness.” I looked down, my voice shattered and broken. 05 Late that night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the torrential rain outside. I heard the smart lock chime as the front door opened. A moment later, the sound of the shower ran in the bathroom. I turned over and closed my eyes. The other side of the bed dipped, and I was pulled into a damp, cold embrace. “Does your face still hurt?” He asked neutrally. “We broke up.” I pushed him away calmly. He let out a light laugh. “Still angry? It was just an apology.” I tightly gripped my nightgown. “Stop it, I’m having a hard time right now,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “Why didn’t you go to Harper Sterling?” “We’re not married yet. It wouldn’t be right to do this to her.” My heart was completely ash. I let my hands fall lifelessly, like a dead fish. Ethan struggled for a while, but seeing I was unresponsive, he turned over and flipped on the bedside lamp. “Sarah, do you have to ruin the mood like this?” He lit a cigarette, his cold gaze sweeping over my barely covered body. “I really don’t know what you’re dissatisfied about.” “If it weren’t for me, could you afford to live this decently?” I clenched the bedsheets, tears silently flowing down my face and into my ears. He forcefully turned my face toward him. When he saw my red, swollen eyes, he froze. His phone on the nightstand suddenly buzzed. It was Harper Sterling calling. “Ethan, it’s thundering. I’m so scared.” He comforted her with a few soft words, then quickly put his clothes back on. He turned to look down at me, his voice freezing. “Sarah, you need to seriously reflect on yourself. Don’t just cry over every little thing. Crying doesn’t solve any problems.” He was right. Crying doesn’t solve any problems. But nobody cries because they want to solve problems. 06 I stood outside the hospital room door and took several deep breaths before pushing it open. “Whose mom is this? Why is she so pretty?” I teased with a smile. My mom was sitting in bed, knitting a scarf. When she saw me, she dropped the yarn and waved me over. “There’s my girl.” Then she pretended to be angry. “Hmph. You haven’t been here to see me in days.” I happily hugged her. “I was just here two days ago. Didn’t the doctor say you need to rest? What are you busy with now?” She took my hand, showing off her work. “Oh, just lying here gets so boring. I’m knitting scarves for you and Ethan.” “Is this color nice? I specifically picked matching ones for couples.” My eyes stung with sourness. I slowly ran my hand over the scarf. “It’s beautiful.” “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” My mom realized my mood was off, her voice filled with worry. “Did you and Ethan have a fight?” “No.” I snuffed. “I just feel so lucky to have you, Mom.” “Silly child.” My mom patted my shoulder gently. “I only have one wish in this life, and that is for you to be happy and safe. I can’t be with you forever. You have to walk your own path in the future. Ethan is a good man, you can rely on him. When two people are together, there will always be disagreements, but as long as you talk it out, it’ll be fine.” “I know, Mom. Don’t worry, Ethan and I… are great.” I looked down to hide my expression. “That’s good.” My mom nodded in relief. “One of these days, when he isn’t busy, bring him by and we’ll all have… cough cough cough…” My mom suddenly started coughing, unable to catch her breath, her mouth suddenly filled with bright red blood. “Doctor! Nurse!” I frantically pressed the call button. A massive panic seized me. 07 After emergency resuscitation, my mom was temporarily out of danger. I stopped the primary physician in the hallway. “My mother’s condition has been stable for years. What happened today?” Dr. Lee looked at me with a complicated expression. “Ms. Jenkins, you should probably talk to Mr. Cross.” “What do you mean?” “Mr. Cross cut off the coverage for her specialty drug. If this happens again, I’m afraid your mother won’t make it. You need to handle this immediately.” My heart dropped into a bottomless pit. I frantically dialed Ethan’s number, but it showed that his phone was off. I called over twenty times, with the same result. I knew this was my punishment for not being “compliant” last night. He was waiting for me to beg. I looked everywhere—at the office, his house, his private club, the golf course. He was nowhere to be found. I collapsed helplessly against the front of my car. Finally, the housekeeper at his villa couldn’t watch me suffer anymore and told me where Ethan was. I immediately booked the closest flight to Miami. 08 When Harper Sterling saw me, her eyes filled with genuine surprise. “Sarah? What are you doing here?” Ethan, on the other hand, was not surprised at all by my arrival. I cut straight to the chase. “Mr. Cross, my mother…” Ethan gave a low, appreciative whistle, refined his brow, and pulled Harper into a tight embrace by her waist. “I’m busy.” I took a deep breath. “Then when will you have time?” “Depends on my mood.” He leaned back, resting his chin on his hand, looking down to coax Harper. “Should I take you to watch the sunset?” “I knew you were the best, Ethan.” Harper blushed and kissed him shyly. I turned to leave, but Ethan called out to me. “Stay right there. Don’t move.” 09 The night grew deeper. A few stars poked through the high sky. Giggles and soft sounds kept drifting out from Ethan’s suite. I looked down at the potted hibiscus nearby; there were fewer blooms this year than in the past. For the five years I was with Ethan, he took me here every winter. The same hotel. The same room. The pool, the lounge chairs, the balcony swing. Every inch of this place witnessed our past happiness. He really knew how to find new ways to humiliate me. But it didn’t matter. As long as my mother lived, I would do anything. The door was pushed open from the inside. I lifted my eyes, then immediately looked back down. “Sarah, you are just as spineless as always.” Harper smiled as she walked up to me, a lit cigarette dangling between her fingers. The terror that had disappeared for so long drilled back into my brain. For a dazed moment, I was back in high school. It was the same kind of lit cigarette. They had shamelessly used me as a human ashtray. Ash tapped into my mouth. Cherry pressed against my skin. They forced me into the abandoned art room. Harper said that if I crawled on all fours like a dog, they wouldn’t go cause trouble at my mom’s street food stall. Day after day. For all three years of high school—what should have been the brightest years of my life—I lived in an absolute living hell. Someone kicked the back of my knee, forcing me to stumble. Harper leaned close to my ear, her voice like a demon’s whisper. “Don’t be scared. Your life is only going to get more miserable from now on.” I looked up, staring straight into her eyes, asking the question I had wanted to ask for years. “Why? Why do you hate me so much?” She laughed arrogantly. “Sarah, you are still so naive. Hating someone doesn’t need a reason, just like loving someone doesn’t need a reason. From the moment I saw you, I despised you. Everything you want to protect, I want to take away. Including your mother.” Alarm bells went off in my head. A moment later, Dr. Lee’s call came through. “Ms. Jenkins, your mother needs the medication immediately, or…” I didn’t stay to hear the rest. I yanked open the door to the suite. “Ethan Cross, get out here. I’m begging you. Cover my mother’s medication again.” I woke him up. He looked annoyed, then quickly got out of bed and rushed toward me. A sliver of hope ignited in my heart. But it was quickly doused. “Harper! What’s wrong? Sarah, what did you do to her?” He pushed me aside furiously and scooped up the unconscious Harper from the floor behind me. I anxiously explained, “I didn’t! She’s faking it! Ethan, please, call the hospital. If my mom doesn’t have that medicine, she will die.” He snorted coldly. “Sarah, you really will stop at nothing. Just to get my attention, you’re actually cursing your own mother to die. You are truly shameless and disgusting.” “If anything happens to Harper, I will never forgive you.” He rushed out with her in his arms. I knelt on the floor, grabbing the cuff of his jeans. “I am telling the truth! It only takes a minute to make a phone call! Ethan, please! If you make the call, I will do anything. I’ll apologize to Harper Sterling with my life if you want!” “Get lost.” Ethan kicked me hard in the chest. “Your mother must be so miserable having a daughter like you.” 10 By the time I rushed back to the hospital, completely frantic, it was too late. I never got to see my mother for the last time. I collapsed to the floor. It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing my heart, ripping it right out of my chest. Dr. Lee walked over and handed me a paper bag. “I’m sorry.” His eyes were full of guilt. I slowly opened it. The two brightly colored scarves were inside. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I cried out in agony. “Mom, I was wrong… It’s all my fault!” 11 After finishing my mother’s funeral arrangements, I locked myself in my apartment. On the third day, Ethan showed up. He disgustedly yanked open the blackout curtains. “What? Planning to die here? You’re going through all this life-and-death drama just over a little medication hitch?” “Do you love me that much?” The bright light outside instantly stung my eyes. Then he threw a designer handbag at me. “Here. The one you’ve always wanted. I brought it straight here from the airport.” Ethan’s mouth kept opening and closing. My head hurt so much from the noise. “Get out.” I stood up, hysterical, grabbed a pair of scissors from the table, and viciously stabbed them into the handbag over and over. “Have you gone insane?” Ethan walked over, clamped my wrists, and threw the scissors away. “Sarah, think about your mother before you do anything stupid. My patience is not unlimited. If you keep throwing these tantrums, you will never get that medication covered.” I suddenly started laughing. The laughter grew louder and louder, eventually turning into choking sobs. I forcefully slapped him across the face, pointing at the black-and-white photo on the wall. “My mother is dead.” 12 “That’s not possible. When?” Ethan froze, a trace of suspicion in his eyes. “Sarah, are you lying to me again?” I didn’t have the energy left to argue with him. I leaned against the table, breathing heavily. He violently grabbed my wrist, forcing me to look up. “Sarah, speak to me. You do not joke about things like this.” I let out a cold scoff, fighting the urge to vomit. “You’re right. I am lying to you. My mom isn’t dead at all. I staged this whole thing.” “Now that you’ve caught me, can you get the hell out?” He tightened his jaw, his eyes turning cold. He snorted and flung my hand away. “Don’t ever play stupid games like this again.” 13 After Ethan left, I changed the security code on the door lock. I called a real estate agent I knew to list the apartment. “Ms. Jenkins, the market isn’t great right now. The price might…” I interrupted him. “It doesn’t matter. Just sell it as quickly as possible.” This was the apartment I bought during my second year with Ethan. Back then, I thought he was just a struggling artist. To reassure my mom, I worked myself to the bone, saving every penny to make the down payment on this place, intending for it to be our future home. Later, when his true identity was revealed, I broke up with him in a rage. He stood outside in the pouring rain all night. Asking me pitifully, “Sarah, I was wrong. Please don’t leave me.” I was soft-hearted. I made him ginger tea to ward off the chill. I thought I had found true love.

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When my brother was just a baby, I found out he had been accidentally switched at birth with the son of the wealthiest family in the state. Back then, I made sure they were switched back. Years later, my brother found out the truth. He blamed me for being a meddlesome busybody, screaming that I had ruined his life as a billionaire’s heir. Driven by years of festering resentment, he sneaked into my room while I was sleeping and released a venomous snake, letting me be bitten to death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the time before the switch was exposed. This time, I kept my mouth shut. Because someone as purely evil as him didn’t deserve a life of wealth and luxury. 01 Ever since my brother, Tyler, was little, my parents assigned me the role of his caretaker, constantly warning me that I had to yield to him in everything. If he cried, it was my fault for not watching him properly. If he tore up my homework, it was my fault for leaving it out. In short, whatever mistakes my brother made were ultimately my fault. If there was good food in the house, Tyler always got first pick. Whatever he couldn’t finish went to our parents. Only if there were leftovers did I get a share. If it was all gone, then it was gone. If I dared to complain or cry, all I got was a severe beating. They constantly brainwashed me with the idea that I had to accommodate him, to be good to him. They said that when I grew up and got married, my brother would be my safety net, the one who would back me up if I ever ran into trouble with my husband’s family. They preached this day in and day out. But after being killed by him once, how could I ever believe that garbage again? Of course, I knew there was no point in arguing with them. My parents’ hearts were permanently biased. This time around, I didn’t tell a single soul about the hospital mix-up. In my past life, I had been naive and revealed the truth. From then on, my mom would constantly bring it up in front of Tyler. When Tyler grew up, he secretly went to look at that wealthy family. He found out they were ridiculously rich, the wealthiest family in the region. His mind completely snapped. He hated me to his core, eventually dropping a venomous snake into my room to kill me. So, this time, I buried the secret. I knew the only way to escape this toxic household was to study hard, get into an out-of-state college, and leave this city for good. That was the only way to break free from their control. Once my mind was made up, I hid all my dissatisfaction and resentment. I never fought with Tyler over anything. Aside from studying, I acted like someone with zero desires. Because I worked so hard, my grades were outstanding. I was constantly praised by my teachers, and since my academic success gave my parents something to brag about, they treated me tolerably well. That was until Tyler turned six, and something massive happened. A family in our neighborhood lost their cat and put up missing posters everywhere. The poster made it very clear: the cat was a highly expensive purebred. If someone had mistakenly taken her, they needed to return her immediately. If the cat wasn’t returned within three days, they were calling the police. When my mom came home for dinner, she brought it up as a casual joke. Unexpectedly, Tyler slipped from his chair and fell to the floor. Startled, my mom rushed to help him up. “Tyler, sweetie, are you okay?” Tyler refused to look at her, visibly panicking. My mom froze for a second, her voice trembling in disbelief. “Tyler… did you take that cat?” “I… I… Mom, I didn’t mean to! If they call the cops, are the police gonna arrest me?! I don’t want to go to jail, I’m scared!” No matter how malicious Tyler was, he was still just a little kid. The threat of the police terrified him. He grabbed my mom’s sleeve and begged. “Mom, I’m sorry! I just thought it looked fun to play with! Don’t let the police take me!” His words hit the house like a bomb. My mom stared at him, her eyes wide. “You actually took their cat?! Why would you take someone else’s cat?! Hurry, where is it? I’ll go return it right now!” Tyler kept his head down, mumbling incoherently. My dad, sensing something was very wrong, roared at him. “You little brat, that cat is worth thousands of dollars! Where is it?! Speak!” “Oh, stop yelling at him! He’s just a little boy, talk to him nicely,” my mom complained, unable to bear seeing my dad scold her precious son. She turned to Tyler with a gentle voice. “Tyler, don’t be scared. Tell Mommy, where did you put the cat?” Perhaps sensing that she wasn’t mad at him, he finally looked up and spoke slowly. “Mom, I just saw it after school and thought it was pretty. I played with it for a bit, but it was so fragile. It died super fast, so I just buried it!” 02 A dead silence fell over the room. My parents looked at each other, unable to believe that their precious six-year-old had tortured a cat to death. But I wasn’t surprised in the slightest. He was a psychopath born with a rotten core. This was just the beginning. After the initial shock wore off, panic set in. It was painfully obvious from my parents’ faces that they had absolutely no intention of paying thousands of dollars in compensation. Right then, their eyes landed on me, sitting silently on the sidelines. They exchanged a look and turned my way. “Chloe!” my mom started. “Look, your brother is little and doesn’t know any better. He made a tiny mistake. Can’t you think of a way to help him out?” I frowned in disbelief. Why would they ask me, a high school sophomore, for a solution? “The only solution is to go to their door, apologize, and pay them for the cat! There is no other way.” My mom seemed to be waiting exactly for me to say that. She immediately jumped in. “Chloe! You know we don’t have that kind of money. That cat is worth thousands! Where would we get it? How about this… you take the blame for your brother. Your dad and I will take you over there and beg them for mercy. Who knows, maybe they’ll just forgive us?” I couldn’t believe my ears. I shot up from my chair. “Me take the blame?! Do you two have any sense of right and wrong?! He’s six years old and already torturing animals! Instead of disciplining him, you’re covering for him. Aren’t you afraid he’s going to grow up to be a monster? “Whoever committed the crime does the apologizing! We’d be begging them either way, so why does it have to be me?!” Smack! Seeing that I was refusing to take the fall and even daring to lecture them, my dad crossed the room and slapped me hard across the face. “You do what you’re told! I feed you, I put a roof over your head, and it sure as hell isn’t so you can talk back to me!” He hit me so hard I was knocked to the floor. Blood instantly pooled in the corner of my mouth. Tyler watched from the side, a gleeful smirk on his face. He was young, but he was cunning. He understood perfectly that my parents were shifting the blame onto me. All the panic completely vanished from his face. My mom squatted down, pulled me up, and wiped the blood from my mouth with fake tenderness. “Chloe, don’t be mad at your dad. Your brother is a boy, after all. If he really gets a police record, his reputation will be ruined! If he doesn’t go, and they call the cops, what if they take him away? “Be a good girl. Just help your brother this one time. Mom will make your favorite dinner tonight!” So, in their eyes, my reputation meant absolutely nothing. My feelings didn’t matter at all. In that moment, the urge to escape this house became overwhelming. I didn’t say another word. I knew arguing was useless. Any further resistance would just earn me another brutal beating. I needed to think of a different way out. Assuming my silence meant compliance, my mom grabbed my arm and dragged me out the door. 03 The cat owners were a young couple. When they saw us at their door, they were initially confused. After hearing the story, the young woman, Emily, refused to believe it. It wasn’t until my parents led her to a secluded corner of the neighborhood and dug up the cat’s body that she finally broke down. The little cat was covered in blood and dirt. There wasn’t an inch of unharmed fur on its body, and its four legs were bent at grotesque angles. Emily collapsed, sobbing hysterically as she held the cat’s body. She completely lost it, pointing a shaking finger right at me. “You look like such a quiet, normal girl. How could you be so evil?! Bella was so sweet, how could you do this?! I don’t care, I’m calling the cops! I’m going to make sure you rot in juvenile detention!” Seeing this, my mom panicked and shoved my head down, forcing me to bow. “Chloe, apologize! Tell her you’re sorry right now! Tell her that as long as she doesn’t call the police, she can do whatever she wants to you!” My mom’s grip was painfully tight. Her words sent a chill straight to my bones. If this woman wanted to beat me half to death, my parents would probably hand her the bat. Smack! “You wretched girl! Your mother told you to apologize, are you deaf?! Apologize!” My dad slapped the other side of my face. The cut on my lip tore open again, dripping fresh blood. Seeing me get hit didn’t ease Emily’s fury. She screamed at my parents. “Enough! Stop putting on a show! Do you think slapping her a few times means I’ll forgive this?! Let me make this clear: I am calling the police. Not only is your psycho daughter going to juvie, but you are paying me for my cat!” Hearing about me going to juvie didn’t faze my parents at all, but the moment they heard “paying,” the color drained from their faces. My mom forced a sickeningly sweet smile. “Miss, please! Look, my daughter is still a minor. Can’t you give her a second chance? I know what she did was extreme, but I promise, as long as you forgive her and don’t make us pay, you can make her do whatever you want!” “What could she possibly do for me?! Can anything she does bring Bella back?!” Emily wept uncontrollably, cradling the dead cat. My mom, with her twisted logic, suddenly grabbed me by the hair and started viciously beating me. “Then I’ll beat her for you! I’ll beat her senseless! Will that make you feel better?!” I raised my arms to protect my head. Beside her, my dad grabbed a thick wooden branch from the ground and started striking me. Seeing my dad join in, my mom simply pinned me down so he could have a better angle to swing. While I screamed in agony, curled up defensively on the ground, Tyler stood on the sidelines, completely silent. His eyes were practically glowing with excitement. 04 The young couple had never seen anything like this. Emily opened her mouth to stop them, but looking down at her cold, broken cat, she clamped her mouth shut. Because Tyler had buried the cat in an isolated corner of the subdivision, there weren’t usually many people around. But the commotion was so loud that a crowd quickly gathered. An older woman, seeing me getting brutally beaten, stepped right in. “What are you doing?! Are you trying to kill the kid?! I’m telling you, child abuse is a felony! Stop it right now!” My mom, seeing the crowd intervene and noticing that Emily still hadn’t said a word of forgiveness, didn’t let go of me. She just paused her swings to explain. “Lady, mind your own business! This kid tortured a cat. Look at what she did to their poor pet! If I don’t beat some sense into her today, she’ll never learn!” My mom’s words instantly drew the crowd’s eyes to the cat. That was when they noticed the bloody, mangled corpse in Emily’s arms. Some of the younger kids in the crowd started crying in fear. The adults stopped trying to intervene. Some self-righteous bystanders even started agreeing with my parents. “That is purely evil. She needs to be taught a lesson. Keep hitting her!” “You really can’t judge a book by its cover. Such a quiet-looking girl, who knew she was a sociopath? Terrifying!” “She deserves it. If you don’t discipline her now, who knows what she’ll do to a person next!” … I lay on the dirt, protecting my head, groaning and thrashing. Eventually, I was too weak to even move, lying there gasping for air like a slab of dead meat. 05 After what felt like an eternity, my parents finally started to get scared. They didn’t actually want to murder me in front of dozens of witnesses. My mom let go of me, crawled over to Emily, and begged through crocodile tears. “Miss, please! Please just forgive my daughter! We are so poor, we really can’t afford to pay you thousands of dollars!” Blood had soaked through my shirt. Seeing how severely I had been beaten, Emily finally relented. “Just… take her home and get her psychological help. To do something like this as a minor… it’s terrifying.” My mom knew immediately that they were off the hook. She exchanged a thrilled look with my dad, grabbed Tyler’s hand, and turned to leave. They didn’t even cast a single glance at me bleeding on the ground. Right at that moment, I slowly pushed myself up. Facing the crowd that was just starting to disperse, I cried out: “I didn’t torture the cat… I didn’t do anything! He did it!” With my face covered in dirt and blood, I pointed a trembling finger at Tyler, who froze and turned around. “My brother tortured the cat… My parents favor sons over daughters. They forced me to take the blame for him so they wouldn’t have to pay! They beat me half to death to put on a show… I won’t be framed! I can’t take this anymore, call the police!” “You lying little bitch, shut your mouth!” My dad raised the branch and lunged at me. But halfway there, a burly man stepped in and grabbed his wrist. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Is what this girl saying true?! If you’re lying to us, I’m calling the cops right now!” “Yeah! Did you really beat your own daughter half to death to cover for your son?! Speak up!” “Wait, it was your son who killed my Bella?! If you lied to me, I’ll sue you for everything you own!” The crowd and Emily exploded in outrage. My dad froze, terrified by the angry mob. My mom, always the slickest liar, immediately tried to do damage control. “Don’t listen to her nonsense! She’s just scared because we disciplined her, so she’s making up lies! Chloe, get up! We are going home right now!” She reached out to grab me, shooting me a lethal glare warning me to shut up. But I had endured that brutal beating specifically to break away from them. There was no way I was backing down now! “I’m not lying! There are security cameras at the neighborhood entrance. Check them, and you’ll see who was walking around with the cat!” 06 Someone in the crowd had already dialed 911, and the police arrived shortly after. They didn’t listen to a word of my parents’ excuses and took all of us to the precinct for an investigation. As soon as the truth came out, my parents panicked. My mom immediately changed her tune, claiming Tyler was too young and had a weak constitution, which was why they wanted me to take the blame. She blamed Emily for being “too ruthless” and forcing them to beat me so severely to earn her forgiveness. Emily was so furious at my mom’s twisted logic that she broke down in tears again. Her boyfriend, Matt, comforted her and angrily addressed the police. “Officers, the way they brutally assaulted their daughter tonight clearly shows this isn’t the first time. If you don’t intervene, this girl is going to be beaten to death by her own parents!” Matt was smart; he pushed the issue of child abuse to the forefront. The officer looked at me, advised me to get medical attention, and promised to give my parents a stern warning. “They definitely won’t dare lay a hand on you again after this!” I frantically shook my head. I knew exactly what I was doing. My injuries looked horrific, but they were mostly superficial flesh wounds. More importantly, I knew I couldn’t waste this opportunity. There would never be a better one. “I exposed their secret! If I go back with them, they will definitely beat me again! “Officer, I’m seventeen. I want to file for legal emancipation. I want to move out and separate from them legally so they have no right to touch me ever again!” Because my birthday was late in the year, I was a few months shy of turning eighteen. If I could get emancipated or placed under state protection, any future assault by them would be treated as a full adult felony. “Emancipation?! Over my dead body! You are my blood, and you’ll die under my roof!” My dad, hot-tempered and brainless as ever, completely lost it in the precinct. I deliberately shrank back, my face pale, tears streaming down my cheeks, looking utterly traumatized. “You’re threatening me right in front of the police?! Your son tortures animals at six years old, did he learn that from you?! “By law, you committed child abuse. I have every right to request removal from your custody!” The officer looked at me sympathetically. “You’re only a few months away from eighteen, and you’re still in high school. If you leave them, how are you going to support yourself?” I looked over at Emily and Matt, pleading with my eyes. “I have straight As. Once I finish my college entrance exams, I can get a part-time job. “Could you… could you please lend me some money just to survive the next few months? I can sign a legally binding IOU!” Emily’s heart ached seeing me beaten and framed, but living expenses for a high schooler weren’t cheap. She was young herself and didn’t have much money, so she hesitated. My parents, confident that no stranger would be stupid enough to hand over money, sneered at me in disgust. I refused to lose this lifeline. I dropped to my knees in front of them and begged. “Please, I will sign a promissory note! The second I turn eighteen, I’ll get a job and pay you back with interest! Please help me, if I go back there, they will actually kill me!” I clutched Emily’s sleeve, sobbing hysterically. The blood from my hands stained her jacket. Emily couldn’t bear it anymore. She exchanged a look with Matt, and finally, she nodded. 07 The moment I got the answer I needed, the adrenaline that had been holding me together crashed, and I passed out. I spent a week in the hospital. When I woke up, I applied for emergency student housing at my high school. My parents tried to drag me home, but the school administration, having heard that my parents put me in the hospital, barred them from campus to protect my studies. A few months later, I officially turned eighteen. I marched to the police station, filed the paperwork, and had an officer escort me home to retrieve my vital documents. My parents were furious, but legally, there was nothing they could do. The moment I held my own birth certificate and social security card in my hands, I let out a long breath. From that moment on, I was an independent adult. They could never control me again. Time flew by, and the SATs were just around the corner. Right before exam week, my guidance counselor called me into her office with urgent news. “Chloe, your mom called. Your dad drank too much and suffered a massive stroke. It doesn’t look like he’s going to make it, and your mom is begging you to come see him one last time. I’m just passing along the message, Chloe. It’s up to you to decide.” I thanked her and nodded. My dad having a stroke was something that never happened in my past life. I didn’t know if this was the butterfly effect of me moving out, or if there was some darker conspiracy at play. A stroke right before my college entrance exams? The timing was way too suspicious. I couldn’t afford a single misstep right now. But if I didn’t go, and he actually died, the social stigma of refusing to see my dying father would haunt me forever. After thinking it over, I decided to go. When I arrived at the house, it felt like they had been waiting for me. I knocked twice, and the door swung open. Seeing me, my mom’s eyes instantly went red, and tears streamed down her face. She wiped them away, choking out, “Chloe, you finally came home! Your dad… he’s not going to make it!” Honestly, in that exact second, I thought I had misjudged them. I walked inside, and my mom kept rambling about how much she missed me over the past year and how guilty she felt. I looked at my dad, lying perfectly still in bed, his face pale and eyes tightly shut. My suspicions eased a fraction. A moment later, my mom handed me a glass of water. “Chloe, drink some warm water. Your dad… we just have to leave it in God’s hands now.” I took the glass. Looking down, I noticed a faint layer of white powder settling at the bottom. We only ever drank filtered bottled water in this house. There shouldn’t be any sediment! My heart hammered against my ribs. I knew instantly it was a trap, but I pretended not to notice and took a few small sips. Then, using the excuse of needing the bathroom, I locked myself inside. I turned on the faucet to muffle the sound, shoved my fingers down my throat, and threw everything up. When I came out, I pretended to feel dizzy. I slumped onto the dining table and faked falling into a deep sleep. My mom called my name a few times to test the waters. When I didn’t respond, she dropped the act entirely and yelled toward the bedroom. “Richard, get up! The brat passed out!” Immediately, I heard the rustle of blankets being thrown off. My dad was perfectly fine. It was all an act. But what was their goal in tricking me back here? Smack! My dad walked up and slapped me hard across the face. I forced myself to stay completely limp and kept my eyes shut. “You ungrateful little bitch, thought you could spread your wings and fly? Thought you could cut ties with us? If you hate living here so much, I’ll ship you off to someone else’s house!” “Hey, stop hitting her! Don’t damage the goods. If Earl sees bruises tonight, he’s gonna lower the price! We need that money for Tyler’s college fund!” my mom quickly intervened, seeing my face start to swell. “He wouldn’t dare! He’s a fifty-year-old creep getting a fresh young bride. If he tries to short me on the twenty grand, the deal is off!” A fifty-year-old creep? Twenty grand?! They orchestrated this massive lie just to drug me and traffic me to some old man! It was as sickeningly predictable as always. 08 They dragged me into my old bedroom, tied me to the bed, and left to call this ‘Earl’ guy to finalize the pick-up time. The moment the bedroom door clicked shut, my eyes snapped open. I sat up. Because they assumed I was drugged, their knot-tying was incredibly sloppy. It looked complicated, but it was loose. Within minutes, I had untied myself. I pressed my ear against the door. Hearing no movement outside, I quietly slipped out. But just as my hand touched the front doorknob, Tyler suddenly appeared from the hallway and shrieked. “Chloe’s awake! Mom! Dad! Chloe woke up!” His voice was deafening. I frantically twisted the doorknob, but Tyler lunged forward and grabbed my waist, anchoring me. My parents never hid anything from him. He knew exactly what they were planning to do to me. Yet here he was, stopping me from escaping. It was pure, unadulterated malice. To him, I wasn’t a sister anymore. I was a commodity that was going to buy him video games and a college fund. “You can’t leave! You can’t go! Mom! Dad!” He was a boy, but he was only seven. With a hard shove, I threw him aside, but the delay was enough. My parents burst out of the living room and cornered me. “You little rat, I underestimated you! How did you wake up so fast? Trying to run?!” My dad lunged, shoving me violently away from the door, his eyes full of mockery. I knew I couldn’t overpower them both right now, so I resorted to screaming at them. “Are you even my real parents?! My exams are in two days, and you’re trying to traffic me?!” “College is a waste of money! You might not claim us, but we’re still your parents! You’re eighteen now. Today, you’re getting married, and paying us back for raising you!” “Twenty thousand dollars! You’re selling me for twenty grand! Dad, let me go, and I’ll pay you back fifty thousand!” My dad paused. The sheer dollar amount made him hesitate. He looked at me suspiciously. “You can get fifty thousand?” “Once I go to college and get a corporate job, fifty thousand is nothing! Tyler is only seven, you don’t even need the twenty grand right now. Let me go, and I’ll sign a legal promissory note!” My dad’s eyes lit up with pure greed. My worth to him was entirely monetary. My heart was ice cold, but I was relieved. I had found an opening to save myself. But just as my dad was wavering, Tyler suddenly shouted. “I don’t want it later! I want the twenty grand now! I want to buy a new PlayStation! I want the money now!” My mom had always spoiled him rotten. She was naturally cowardly and had no mind of her own, so she echoed her golden boy. “Richard, if she really goes off to college, do you think she’ll ever come back? What if she just rips up the IOU? Tyler is right. Cash in hand today is safer!”

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After spending $600 to buy my mom a new washing machine, she did nothing but complain that it didn’t wash clean. “Honestly, you’re pretty calculating. You didn’t even split the $10 you got from selling the old washer with your sister; you just pocketed it yourself.” My face suddenly flushed. I thought she was joking, so I forced an awkward smile and asked her why she would think that. She rolled her eyes at me and changed the subject: “This piece of junk washer leaves the sheets and duvet covers soaking wet.” I took a look and realized she was using the 15-minute “Quick Wash” cycle. As I adjusted the settings for larger loads and explained which cycles to use for which clothes, she pushed me aside and stubbornly turned the dial back to “Quick Wash.” “Your sister said Quick Wash saves water and is gentler on clothes.” She got angrier as she spoke, slamming the laundry basket down. “You calculate every little thing! It’s not like you’re paying the water bill, so of course you don’t care. Unlike your sister, who considers everything for us.” My heart went cold. I called the junk hauler, paid him $20 to buy the old washer back, and moved the new one into my own apartment. 1 I got an $800 bonus from a project at work, and I immediately thought of the washing machine at my parents’ house. It was over a decade old, the kind of ancient machine where you had to manually take the wet clothes out and put them into a separate spin-dryer tub. Sometimes, when washing heavy items, they would soak up so much water that it was a huge struggle for my mom to lift them. She’d almost thrown her back out several times. I specifically took half a day off on delivery day. Watching the junk hauler carry away the old washer, I felt a warm glow inside, thinking about how surprised and happy my mom would be when she got home. My mom came back from her Zumba class, opened the door, and froze. Still holding her workout towel, she stood in the doorway of the bathroom, staring at the new washing machine for a long time. “Where’s the old one?” she asked. “Sold it to the junk guy,” I said, wiping down the control panel of the new machine. “Only got ten bucks for it.” Her expression instantly changed, and she threw her towel onto the sofa with a smack. “Who gave you permission to make that decision?!” Her voice was shrill enough to startle me. “That washer still worked fine!” I thought she was just being her usual frugal self, so I hurried to explain. “Mom, this new one is energy-efficient and quiet, and it can…” “Spendthrift!” she cut me off, turning on her heel and marching into the kitchen. She turned the faucet on full blast, vigorously scrubbing a dishcloth that didn’t even need washing, as if she were venting her anger. She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the night, not even touching the macarons I had specially bought for her. Two days later, while I was at work, my phone suddenly rang. As soon as I answered, I heard her yelling on the other end: “What kind of piece of junk washing machine did you buy?! It doesn’t wash clean at all!” When I rushed over, she was pulling bedsheets out of the drum. Detergent had clumped together, sticking to the soaking wet fabric, and water was dripping down, forming a small puddle on the floor. I crouched down to check what was wrong. “Honestly, you’re pretty calculating,” she said suddenly. My fingers paused, and I looked up at her. She was scrubbing the outside of the washing machine hard with a rag, not even looking at me. “You didn’t even split the ten bucks you got from selling the old washer with your sister; you just pocketed it yourself.” I thought I misheard her. “Huh?” “Ten dollars.” She finally straightened up and threw the rag heavily into the sink. “You even scheme over such a petty amount of money.” My face suddenly burned. I laughed awkwardly. “Mom, why would you think that…” She rolled her eyes at me and turned to pull the duvet cover out of the drum. “This piece of junk washer leaves the sheets and duvet covers soaking wet.” Only then did I notice she had been using the 15-minute “Quick Wash” cycle. No wonder the detergent hadn’t even fully dissolved. As I adjusted the settings for larger loads and explained which cycles to use for which clothes, she pushed me aside and stubbornly turned the dial back to “Quick Wash.” “Your sister said Quick Wash saves water and is gentler on clothes.” She got more agitated as she spoke, slamming the laundry basket down heavily. “You calculate every little thing! It’s not like you’re paying the water bill, so of course you don’t care. Unlike your sister, who considers everything for us.” 2 I finally understood what she was really upset about. Everything in this house, in my mom’s eyes, belonged to my sister, Chloe. Even a broken-down old washing machine that could only fetch ten dollars. Even though I spent $600 buying her a new washing machine, I shouldn’t have taken that ten dollars from the old one; I should have given it to my sister. My hand was still resting on the washing machine’s control panel, my fingertips turning cold. My mom stood nearby, impatiently shaking out the clothes that needed to be rewashed, waiting for me to move out of the way. “Mom,” my voice trembled slightly. “Do you really think that ten dollars should have gone to Chloe?” She furrowed her brow. “Who cares about ten dollars? I’m just saying that you as a person are…” “Do you?” I interrupted her, my voice sharper than I intended. “Do you think the money from selling that washing machine should belong to Chloe?” “That’s not what I meant!” My mom suddenly raised her voice. “I just think you act too selfishly, never considering anyone else.” That sentence was like a key, suddenly unlocking the floodgates of memory. Two years ago, when they remodeled the kitchen, they sold the old cabinets for $150. The money was wired directly to Chloe’s account. At the time, my mom said, “Your sister is a bit strapped for cash right now.” But back then, I had just put down the deposit on my apartment, and the monthly mortgage payments were so high I couldn’t sleep at night. “It’s been like this since we were little,” my voice grew steadier. “As long as it’s something in this house, it eventually becomes Chloe’s. You were even afraid I was taking advantage by taking the money for a broken washing machine.” My mom suddenly slammed the laundry basket down again. “What nonsense are you talking about!” “Nonsense?” I pulled out my phone. “What about the tea set Grandpa left behind last year? You said you wanted to save it for Chloe because she ‘knows how to appreciate it.’ But Grandpa explicitly said he was leaving it to me!” The washing machine emitted a shrill beep; the Quick Wash cycle was over. My mom yanked the door open, a blast of damp air from the wet clothes hitting my face. “Your sister has always been thoughtful since she was little,” she said, shaking the clothes vigorously, water droplets splashing onto my face. “Unlike you, always nitpicking over every little thing.” I wiped my face, suddenly remembering something from college. That year, I saved up my work-study money to buy my mom a cashmere sweater. Without even trying it on, she said the color was too dull. Later, I saw that exact sweater on Chloe’s Instagram, with the caption saying it was a new outfit Mom bought her. “Nitpicking?” I let out a laugh, took out my phone, and dialed the junk hauler. “Hey, Frank, could you bring back that washing machine from the other day… yeah, the one I sold you for ten bucks… Pay extra? How much? …Fine, twenty bucks it is.” My mom snapped her head around. “What are you doing?!” “Buying my sister’s washing machine back,” I said, hanging up the phone. My voice was so light it didn’t sound like my own. “After all, it’s ten dollars. I can’t just pocket that all by myself.” Her face instantly turned bright red. “Are you crazy? Why are you wasting money buying that junk back?!” “Wasting money?” I nodded. “I spent six hundred dollars on this new washing machine. It was the bonus from the project I worked late nights to finish. Do you know what I use? The broken, secondhand washer the previous owner left behind. It sounds like a tractor when it runs. I’ll take this new one back for myself to use. This way, no one wastes any money, and you can keep living with your precious sister’s washing machine.” My mom opened her mouth, seemingly unable to believe I would say such a thing. After all, I had always been incredibly obedient to her, never showing a hint of defiance. She was so angry she couldn’t speak for a long time. I made another call to schedule a mover for the new washing machine that afternoon. After hanging up, the room was terrifyingly quiet, save for my mom’s heavy breathing. “Mom,” I said softly. “Do you remember the year I took the SATs?” Seeing my tone soften, she thought I was about to apologize. Her attitude immediately became arrogant, and she let out a cold snort. “I had a fever of 102 degrees, but you said Chloe had finals the next day and we couldn’t disturb her sleep.” My nails dug deeply into my palms. “I sat alone in the urgent care clinic getting an IV drip until 3 AM.” My mom was completely enraged now. She grabbed a plastic hanger and hit me on the back. “Why are you bringing up ancient history!” My back stung with fiery pain. I couldn’t help but think of how, whenever it rained when we were kids, my mom waiting at the school gate always only had one umbrella—the one meant for Chloe. My mom would always say, “You’re older than your sister. Run faster and you won’t get wet.” “You know what,” I said, picking up my purse and heading for the door. “Sometimes I really wish you’d just say it straight. Just say you like Chloe more. Just say everything in this house belongs to her.” As the door clicked shut behind me, I heard a loud crash from inside. She had probably thrown the laundry basket again. 3 The movers were quick. The new washing machine was moved to my apartment that same day. When we went to pick it up, my mom blocked the doorway, refusing to let us move it. In the end, I had to call the building super to come help carry it out. And that old washing machine was placed exactly back in its original spot. That night, as I was assembling the hookups for the new washing machine, my sister called. As soon as I answered, her shrill voice pierced my eardrum: “Are you serious? Causing such a huge scene over a stupid washing machine!” I crouched on the floor, still holding a screwdriver. “Am I the one causing a scene, or is Mom? Do you even know what happened?” “You’ve been like this since we were little!” She completely ignored what I said. “Whenever you see me have something, you have to fight Mom for it. Now you’re even fighting over a washing machine. Mom is right, you act like a beggar!” The screwdriver trembled in my hand. I suddenly remembered buying my apartment two years ago. I could have bought the place I liked in cash. But Chloe said she wanted to go on an exchange program abroad. My mom cried at home all day, saying the art school was too expensive and she felt like she was failing Chloe. Seeing my mom’s red, swollen eyes, my heart softened, and I gave her $30,000. Then I took out a mortgage to buy my place. I’m still paying it off. “A beggar? Since you brought it up,” my voice was surprisingly calm, “when do you plan on returning the thirty thousand I gave you?” The other end of the line went suddenly quiet. “What… what do you mean?” Chloe’s voice was noticeably weaker. “You know how much I make right now…” “When you came back to the States last year, you said you’d pay me back as soon as you found a job.” I jammed the screwdriver hard into the toolbox. “It’s been over a year now. You’ve changed jobs twice, bought a three-thousand-dollar designer bag, but you just don’t have the money to pay me back?” “You!” She suddenly raised her voice. “Mom is right, you’re cold-blooded! You deserve it that Mom doesn’t love you!” The call disconnected. The dial tone sounded exceptionally harsh in the empty apartment. I crouched next to the new washing machine and suddenly laughed out loud. It’s true, Mom doesn’t love me. Everyone knows it, but I was the only one still deceiving myself. I picked up my phone and sent Chloe a text message: “Transfer the money to my card by next week. Otherwise, I’m coming to your work to cause a scene.” When we were little, Mom would buy Chloe new dresses, while mine were made from Chloe’s hand-me-downs. When I thought they were ugly and refused to wear them, Mom would coax me, saying: “Your sister’s clothes are good quality.” Now, I no longer plan to yield or wrong myself. Even if the price is finally admitting that the person I tried so hard to please will never love me. 4 By Monday noon, my bank account balance remained unchanged. Chloe hadn’t replied to my messages or called me. I stared at my phone screen, suddenly feeling a bit ridiculous. She probably thought I would just swallow my anger and let it go, like always. At 3 PM, I hired four friends who were personal trainers and went to the dance studio where Chloe worked. They wore black tank tops, their arm tattoos faintly visible. Standing at the studio entrance, they immediately drew the side-eyes of the parents waiting there. “Who are you looking for?” the girl at the front desk asked, her voice trembling. My friend showed a picture of the IOU on his phone: “Looking for Chloe Evans. We’re here to collect a debt.” In less than five minutes, my phone started vibrating wildly. Chloe’s voice was tearful: “Are you crazy?! Make them leave! There are kids here!” “Where’s the money?” I asked calmly. “Where am I supposed to get thirty thousand dollars right now?!” she practically screamed. “Hannah, are you trying to drive me to my death?” I listened to the noisy background sounds on her end—the murmurs of the parents and the crying of the kids. Unable to handle the pressure, Chloe burst into tears. This scene was all too familiar to me. From childhood to adulthood, as long as she cried, the whole world would make way for her. “Then we’ll do it my way,” my voice was light, but very clear. “Every day at 2 PM, they will wait for you punctually at the studio entrance. Until you pay off your debt.” “You!” She suddenly lowered her voice. “Mom is right, you’re just a…” I hung up immediately. Ten minutes later, my mom’s call came in as expected. The word “Mom” danced on the screen. I stared at it for a long time until the ringing stopped. She called three more times in a row, and I muted them all. Towards evening, my friend texted: “Your sister was scared out of her mind. She hid in the bathroom crying the whole time. An old lady came running over and yelled at us, saying she was her mother.” I replied with a cash tip via Venmo to express my thanks, then opened my photo gallery and scrolled to a family portrait from last Thanksgiving. In the photo, Chloe, wearing an expensive dance outfit, stood in the center. Mom had her arm around Chloe’s shoulder, smiling with pride. And I stood on the far edge, wearing a sweater bought on sale. My finger swiped across the screen, and I opened another folder. Inside were a few yellowed old photos. In them, a seven-year-old me wearing an obviously oversized dance leotard stood on the stage of the community center. That leotard was altered by Mom from an old dress of Chloe’s. The lace on the collar was yellowed from washing. I still remember that summer. I secretly saved my allowance for half a year just to afford the tuition for the dance class at the community center. Every time I went to class, I had to arrive half an hour early to hide in the bathroom and change from my school uniform into the leotard, because Mom wouldn’t let me learn, saying it was a waste of money. “Your limbs are as stiff as a board,” she always said. “You look like a duck when you dance.” But for that recital, the teacher specifically chose me as the lead dancer. I gathered the courage to tell Mom. What I got in return was a slap across the face: “Who gave you permission to make that decision?!” On the day of the performance, I was dancing enthusiastically when I suddenly saw Mom storm onto the stage angrily. In front of everyone, she grabbed me by my ponytail and dragged me off the stage. “You dance so ugly and you still go on stage, aren’t you embarrassed?” Her voice echoed through the entire auditorium. I will never forget the surprised looks of the kids in the audience and the awkward expression on my teacher’s face. And Chloe? When she was five, Mom signed her up for the most expensive private dance lessons. “Our Chloe is going to pursue the arts in the future,” she told everyone she met. “So she can take fewer detours.” But Chloe was afraid of pain. It wasn’t until she was ten that she could barely manage a backbend. Every time she practiced basic skills, she cried hysterically. Mom would hold her and coax her: “Stop practicing, stop practicing. Our Chloe is so talented, she doesn’t need to practice these.” Later, when Chloe graduated high school, her academic grades were terrible. Mom insisted on spending tens of thousands to send her to an arts college. The teachers at that third-rate arts school shook their heads when they saw Chloe’s dance video, but Mom insisted, “You guys just don’t know how to appreciate art.” Later, Chloe threw a fit about wanting to study abroad for a semester, and Mom took out all her retirement savings. “Foreign education resources are better,” she explained to our relatives, never mentioning a word about how that money was what I was supposed to use to buy a house. In the photo, seven-year-old me has bright eyes, not yet knowing that I would never get a single word of praise from my mom in this lifetime. And the present me, who finished college on scholarships, working as a manager in a multinational corporation, still couldn’t compare to Chloe, who taught dance at a children’s art center. In Mom’s eyes, at least Chloe had an artistic dream, while I was just a cold-blooded money-making machine. I locked my photo gallery just as the washing machine beeped. The clothes were done washing, emitting a faint lavender scent. I shook them out one by one, suddenly noticing an old pajama set pressed at the very bottom. It was a hand-me-down Chloe didn’t want anymore last year. I picked up the pajamas and threw them into the trash can without hesitation. Just like throwing away the dance dreams I desperately suppressed for so many years to please my mom. 5 But I never expected that before my friends could go back to Chloe’s studio, my mom would find her way to my office first. She made a huge scene in the lobby of my company. Her voice was sharp enough to pierce the glass doors: “You heartless thing! I raised you, and this is how you treat your sister?” The young receptionist shrank back in fear. A few colleagues poked their heads out of the elevator. Mom intentionally wore an old winter coat today, and deliberately left her hair uncombed, looking exactly like an old woman bullied by her unfilial daughter. “You just want to cause a scene, don’t you?” She suddenly lunged at me, trying to grab my hair. “Everyone can cause a scene!” I stepped aside to avoid her, pulled out my phone, and dialed a number right in front of her. “Hey, Mark, take ten guys to Chloe’s dance studio right now.” I intentionally raised my voice. “Yes, right now.” My mom’s hand froze in mid-air, her expression looking like she had suddenly been choked. “You… you wouldn’t dare!” her voice started to tremble. I turned the phone screen towards her, showing the ongoing call. “I’m not afraid of losing face, but I wonder if Chloe is?” I lowered my voice. “Ten guys standing at the classroom door. Do you think those parents will still let their kids learn dance from her?” My mom’s face instantly turned deathly pale. She knew this daughter’s weak spot too well. The thing Chloe cared about most was her pathetic pride. “You’ve changed,” her voice suddenly dropped. “You used to never be like this…” “Yeah, I’ve changed.” I sneered. “Because I don’t want to be that idiot kneeling and begging you for a glance anymore.” A memory suddenly flashed back to when I was twelve. I won first place in a school poetry recitation competition. When I rushed home excitedly to show Mom my certificate, I found her helping Chloe practice a simple nursery rhyme. Chloe couldn’t even sing in tune, yet Mom clapped until her hands were red. “Do you remember my elementary school graduation?” I asked suddenly. “You said you were too busy at work to come. But that day, I saw you in the corner of the playground giving Chloe a popsicle.” Mom’s eyes darted away for a second, but she quickly hardened her heart again. “Why are you bringing this up now? Chloe has always…” “Always needed special care, I know.” I cut her off. “But I don’t need it. Push me too far, and I’m capable of anything.” “Do you think you can still control me?” The security guards had gathered around. Mom finally realized this tactic wasn’t working. She glared at me fiercely one last time. “Karma will get you!” Watching her stumbling away, I suddenly remembered a dream I had last night. In the dream, seven-year-old me wore that ill-fitting dance leotard, dancing freely on an empty stage. No mockery, no interruptions, and no one rushing up to drag me off. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Chloe: “I transferred half the money. I’ll pay the rest next month. Tell them not to come.” I didn’t reply, just put the phone back in my pocket. The elevator doors slowly closed. The mirror reflected my calm face. It turns out, burning bridges feels much more liberating than I imagined. 6 I knew they wouldn’t let it go so easily. Sure enough, within two days, they started acting up again. A message tagging me popped up in the family group chat. It was a voice memo from Chloe. I tapped it on speaker. Her tearful voice immediately exploded in the room: “Hannah, are you trying to drive me to death? I really don’t have any money right now! I can barely pay my rent this month…” Following that was a 60-second voice memo from Mom. I didn’t even need to listen to know the contents. It was the same old tired rhetoric: “ungrateful monster,” “heartless,” etc. Sure enough, halfway through, I heard her screaming: “You think you’re so tough now, huh? Even scheming against your own sister!” I sneered and scrolled up the chat history. I found that my aunts and uncles had long joined the crusade: “We’re all family, why make it so ugly?” “Your sister is having a hard time right now. As the older sister, can’t you be a little accommodating?” “Young people these days, no sense of family loyalty at all…” My finger hovered over the screen for a few seconds. I suddenly found it extremely ridiculous. These people didn’t say a word when Mom humiliated me in public. They played deaf and dumb when Chloe stole from me. Now they’re all acting like champions of justice. I opened my photo gallery and dumped all the pre-prepared photos of the IOU, transfer records, and chat screenshots of Chloe promising to repay the loan into the group chat. Then I typed slowly and deliberately: “I originally wanted to give you some leeway, but now, within three days, transfer the remaining fifteen thousand dollars to my card.” “Otherwise, see you in court. Don’t blame me for not warning you when you become a deadbeat debtor.” The group chat instantly became terrifyingly quiet. I could imagine those relatives on the other end of the phone, eyes wide, fingers hovering over the screen, not daring to press down. In less than two minutes, a private message from Mom popped up: “Do you have to make this so ugly? If your sister becomes a deadbeat debtor, how will she get married? How will she find a job?” I could almost hear her grinding her teeth. In the past, whenever she acted like this, I would soften and back down. But this time, I replied directly: “Why didn’t she think about that when she borrowed the money?” “You’re ruthless! I raised you for nothing!” she replied immediately. Looking at that sentence, I suddenly remembered when I was in college. I lived frugally, eating instant ramen for half a month straight just to buy her a birthday present. After she received the gift, she turned around and gave it to Chloe. “Yeah,” I typed out word by word. “You raised me just so I could be a human ATM for Chloe.” After sending that sentence, I left the family group chat entirely. Those so-called relatives were only ever spectators. Let them think what they want. In all the years I was bullied, none of them ever spoke up for me anyway. My phone vibrated again. It was a call from Chloe. I declined it immediately. She then sent a message: “Hannah, I really don’t have the money. Please give me a few more months…” I replied firmly and decisively: “Three days. Not a penny less.” “Are you trying to ruin me?!” she replied instantly, adding an angry emoji. Looking at that sentence, I suddenly laughed out loud. How ridiculous. She was the one who borrowed money and refused to pay it back, and now it’s my fault for ruining her? “You ruined yourself.” I replied, then put the conversation on ‘Do Not Disturb’. 7 When the doorbell rang, I was organizing litigation materials. Through the peephole, I saw Mom standing awkwardly outside. She was carrying a bulky plastic bag, her hair slightly messed up by the wind. Today, she surprisingly wore a relatively new winter coat, instead of the faded, worn-out jacket she usually wore. “Who is it?” I asked intentionally. “It’s Mom,” her voice came through the door, carrying a deliberately softened tone. “I brought you some home-cured meat.” I opened the door, and a gust of cold wind carrying the salty, fishy smell of cured meat hit my face. Mom immediately thrust the plastic bag towards me: “Look, I brought this especially for you. You loved it when you were little.” I didn’t take it. She just pushed past me and squeezed inside, leaving muddy footprints from her shoes on the floor. She walked familiarly towards the kitchen, the plastic bag rustling: “You kid, why throw such a big tantrum over a few words? Still as stubborn as when you were little.” The sound of the refrigerator door opening came from the kitchen, followed by her exaggerated gasp: “Oh my, why is the fridge empty? What do you usually eat? Don’t tell me you order takeout every day.” She poked her head out, feigning a look of heartache. “Let Mom cook a meal for you?” I didn’t say anything, walking to the dining table to look at what she brought. The plastic bag contained a few bags of expired dates, an opened tin of lotus root powder with only a little left, and a package of cured meat wrapped in old newspaper. The newspaper was stained with grease. It was probably ancient inventory dug out from the very bottom of her freezer. “No need,” I put the lotus root powder tin back. “I don’t like spicy food.” Mom’s hand froze as she was washing it at the sink. The faucet was running. With her back to me, her shoulders stiffened slightly. “Nonsense. Didn’t you love the meat I cured when you were little? You used to eat two big bowls of rice with it every time.” Ten years ago, that winter, I was hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis. The doctor advised a bland diet. Mom, however, insisted on bringing her specially made spicy cured meat, claiming it would stimulate my appetite. The truth was, she had a craving for spicy food while keeping me company at the hospital. I forced myself to finish it despite the stomach pain. I vomited violently in the middle of the night, but she complained that I was being delicate. “I was faking it,” I said. The faucet was jerked shut. Mom turned around, not even drying her hands. Dark water stains were left on her clothes. “What do you mean?” “I don’t like spicy food. I never have.” I heard my own voice sound very calm. “Just like I don’t like Chloe’s hand-me-downs, I don’t like being treated as an ATM, and I don’t like always being put last.” Her expression started to contort. That familiar look of anger mixed with guilt resurfaced on her face. “I went through so much hardship raising you, and this is how you repay me?” “I worry about your health. I spend $500 every year to take you for checkups. I saw you stressing about Chloe not having money for her exchange program, stressing so much you got sores in your mouth, so I gave you $30,000 and took out a mortgage to buy my own place. All these years, I’ve been by your side every time you got sick. When has your precious Chloe ever done that?” I counted on my fingers. “Does none of this count as repayment?” “That’s what you’re supposed to do!” She suddenly raised her voice, the mask of maternal love completely shattering. “You’re the older sister! Isn’t it right to yield to your younger sister?” “I’m your mother. Isn’t it right for you to do these things?” I looked at her face, flushed red with anger, and suddenly found it absurd. I had actually wronged myself for thirty years for a person like this. “You should leave.” I pulled the front door open, letting the cold wind rush in. “The lawsuit will not be withdrawn, and the money must be returned.” Her lips trembled, a hint of panic flashing in her eyes. “Are you really going to be this ruthless?” “Compared to what you guys did to me,” I smiled, “what is this?” “I’m warning you, don’t make a scene here. I’m not afraid. If you really want to cause a scene, I have ways to cause a scene with Chloe.” I watched her cheap lipstick-painted lips open and close a few times. Ultimately, she couldn’t say a word. She just violently yanked off her apron, threw it on the floor, and stormed out without looking back. The moment the door clicked shut, I picked up that package of cured meat and threw it into the trash can.

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The day I left the Sterling estate, Liam leaned against the doorframe. He watched me pack my luggage with a half-smile. “What’s this?” “Did you finally realize the kid has no intention of forcing me to marry you?” “So you think he’s useless now, and you aren’t planning to take him with you?” Before I could even open my mouth, Leo, who had been eavesdropping by the door for a while, walked in. He carefully dumped the money from his piggy bank into my hands. “Mom, you need to take good care of yourself.” “Also, please promise me you will never, ever come back.” “Chloe said she’ll only be my mom if you leave for good.” 1 After six-year-old Leo finished speaking. His dark, shiny eyes blinked at me, overflowing with anticipation. Liam lowered his voice, carrying a hidden warning. “Leo.” “Is that how they teach you to speak to your mother at school?” Leo lowered his head and pouted. “But last time Chloe asked Dad if he still liked Mom, he said he didn’t.” “And I don’t really like her either…” “If Mom wants to leave, just let her leave…” I had long stopped feeling sad over his words. A week ago, it was his sixth birthday. He threw a tantrum, insisting on celebrating with Liam and Chloe. I suddenly felt as if I had nothing left to lose. I didn’t have the slightest urge to stop him. Even when I walked past that restaurant that evening. And heard him introducing Chloe to the violinist as his mother, my heart remained completely still. 2 Because I was packing, I was crouching down. My line of sight was exactly level with little Leo. I accepted his money and gave a slight nod. “Okay, I promise you.” I stopped referring to myself as his mom and said quietly: “I will never come back to this house.” “And I won’t be your mom anymore. Leo, you’re free.” He didn’t seem to expect me to agree so easily. He stared at me for two seconds. Then he smiled and cheered, “Yay!” “Chloe is going to be my mom from now on!!” He ran out, shouting that he was going to call Chloe to tell her the good news. I packed my last piece of clothing. I zipped up my suitcase and stood up. Liam had been silent this whole time. But as I brushed past him, he grabbed my arm. His eyes were half-closed, hiding his emotions. “Tara, not liking you doesn’t mean I hate you.” “Over the years, I’ve gotten used to you.” “Why are you throwing this tantrum and insisting on leaving?” By the end, his voice was tinged with a faint irritation. I wanted to say something, but it felt redundant and overly dramatic. So I just pulled my arm free and left him with one sentence: “Take good care of Leo.” I dragged my suitcase out of the Sterling estate. Leaving the upscale neighborhood required a long walk. The weather wasn’t great. The cold wind whipped dead leaves against my body. It was the kind of day that made it easy to look miserable. But I kept walking. Not once did I look back. 3 I had rented an apartment in advance and found a job. Using my degree, I applied to be an art teacher at a children’s extracurricular center. On my first day of work. I walked into the office and saw several female teachers crouching around a little girl. “Mia, sweetie, does your uncle like desserts?” “Also, also! What kind of girls does he like?” “Right, Mia honey, is he picking you up tonight?” The girl remained expressionless. “Teachers, you called me over. If there’s a problem with my drawing style, shouldn’t you be talking about that?” The teachers exchanged awkward glances. “Since there are no problems, I’ll go back to the classroom.” The girl turned around and saw me. She gave a flat greeting, “Hello, teacher.” Then she walked away without looking back. 4 The other teachers were very friendly to me, the newcomer. After explaining the workflow, they started gossiping about the girl again. “You probably don’t know, but that kid’s uncle is Harrison Cole.” “He and Liam Sterling are known as the city’s most eligible billionaire bachelors.” “Oh, not anymore. I heard Liam Sterling is already back together with his first love, Chloe Davis.” “Now Harrison Cole is the only one left.” Hearing Liam’s name again, I felt as calm as if I didn’t know him. But Harrison Cole… I sighed silently. He was Liam’s arch-rival. In the past, he couldn’t stand the sight of me. Every time we crossed paths, I inevitably endured his sarcasm. “You’re pathetic. Photos of Liam and Chloe kissing are trending online, and you don’t even dare to make a peep.” “What do you actually get by following Liam around? A title, or status?” “Tara, why the hell don’t you look at other men?” I decided I should stay far away from the girl named Mia. If Harrison found out I was here, he might use his connections to get me fired. 5 Liam called me while I was squeezing onto the subway after work. “Hello?” The noisy background on my end made him pause. After a few seconds, he asked, “Where are you?” “On the subway.” He let out a barely audible chuckle. “Squeezing onto the subway?” “Tara, you brought this on yourself.” I held onto the handrail and simply asked, “Do you need something?” The sound of the man’s footsteps was steady and measured, even through the static of the phone. Just like the man himself. I could even picture him walking from his desk to the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Leo has a fever.” He said, “Tell me your address. I’ll pick you up.” “No need.” I lowered my eyes. “Take good care of him at home.” “He doesn’t need me.” Liam’s voice darkened. “Are you really going to ignore him?” “Tara.” He sounded as if he found the whole thing absurd. “Just because he said he liked Chloe more?” Liam seemed to have never understood my feelings for Leo. Even though I had explained it countless times. He still didn’t believe I took emergency contraceptives after that accidental night years ago. Because I had loved him for years. He always assumed I purposely got pregnant with Leo to force him into marriage. In his eyes, my bond with Leo wasn’t that deep. He thought of him as my tool, or a bargaining chip. So he didn’t know that out of fear that Leo would grow to like Chloe more and more… I had endured countless days and nights of breakdowns and anxiety. The subway arrived at a transfer station. The car instantly emptied out. “It’s not about that, Liam.” I found a seat, giving my aching legs temporary relief. I said softly: “It’s because he really does like Chloe more.” “And I don’t want to force myself to try so hard to please him anymore.” Liam wanted to say something else. The next second, Leo’s voice came through the receiver, proving my point. “Dad! My fever is gone!” “Can I go play with Chloe tomorrow?!” Liam’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Tara, listen to me…” I hung up. I got off at the next stop. And pushed that phone call out of my mind. 6 When Leo heard his mother’s name, he paused. He stopped insisting on Chloe for a moment. He tugged at Liam’s pant leg and asked: “Dad, did Mom call?” Liam gave a slight nod. “Oh, did you tell her I was sick so she would come back to see me?” Liam met those cute, round eyes. Eventually, he murmured a “yes.” Leo had fully expected Tara to worry about him and rush home. “Then I’ll go put on a mask so I don’t get Mom sick.” “I’ll go play with Chloe later.” They hadn’t seen each other in a week. He didn’t seem quite as resistant to seeing his mom anymore. Liam pressed his lips tightly together. “Mom is working overtime.” “I didn’t ask her to come back.” Leo still had a cooling patch on his forehead. He blinked at those words. “Then, then I guess I can just go find Chloe first…” He didn’t look disappointed. After all, his mom was definitely going to come back to see him. Ever since he was little, his mom was always the most anxious whenever he got sick. He was just a little surprised. Because in the past, even if his mom was out of state, she would fly back overnight if she heard he was sick. 7 After a week of work, I was basically used to the routine. Even though Harrison hadn’t shown up once. Just in case, whenever parents came to pick up their kids at the front door, I preferred to hide in the office and grade drawings. Only once, when Mia missed a class. I followed a colleague outside to see the students off. Normally, I tried to treat all the students equally. But she still noticed a difference. 8 That day, Mia was visibly down. During the break in the hallway, she rested her chin on her hands, staring out the window. A few boys were chasing each other and accidentally knocked her over. They ran off without apologizing. I immediately went over and crouched in front of her. “Are you okay, Mia?” “Are you hurt? Let me see.” The girl covered her knee, refusing to let me look, and turned her head away. “I don’t want to bother you.” “I’ll go ask another teacher for a band-aid.” I paused, then said gently, “Ms. Carter has some too.” “I don’t want yours.” The back of her round head radiated stubbornness. “I know you don’t like me. You don’t have to pretend to be nice.” I was taken aback. “I don’t dislike you at all.” “You’re well-behaved, polite, and very talented at drawing.” “How could I not like you?” Mia shot me a quick glance. Then turned her head back and hummed quietly. “The other day, when Ms. Lee asked you to see me off, you heard it was me and refused.” “And a few days ago, at lunch, I didn’t want to eat with those other teachers, so I took my bowl and sat next to you. But you finished your food in one bite and ran away.” Saying this seemed to remind her of that scene. Her cheeks puffed out in anger as she turned to accuse me: “No one has ever hated me this much!” “If you don’t like me, I don’t want to like you either.” I felt incredibly awkward… That day in the cafeteria, I thought I had been very subtle. Mia had sat down right across from me with her tray. She didn’t look at me, just mumbled: “They’re too loud, they keep asking about my uncle.” I moved my tray to make room for her. But less than half a minute later, her smartwatch rang. It was Harrison calling. My guilty conscience flared up, I shoveled the rest of my food down, and bolted. I couldn’t explain this to her, so I just looked at her earnestly. And said word by word: “Then I was wrong. From now on, I’ll eat with you every time, and, and I’ll walk you out after class…” “But I really, truly do not dislike you, Mia.” The girl turned half her face toward me. Her chubby profile looked a bit like a cartoon character. “Really?” Princess Mia asked with a touch of arrogance. “Really,” I promised. She reached out both arms toward me, keeping a straight face. “Then hug me…” “My knee hurts.” The scrape on her knee was exposed. I picked her up and carried her to the office to disinfect it and apply medicine. When we returned to the classroom, I made the boy who knocked her down apologize. Mia blinked at me, her lips pressing into a tiny smile. It was a signal that she was willing to make peace. 9 During the lunch break, I flipped through Mia’s file again. My eyes suddenly locked onto her date of birth. Today… was her birthday. Her gloominess today probably had a lot to do with this. I remembered the little bunny pattern on her pencil case and the bunny keychain on her backpack. Before class ended, I rushed to crochet a mini lop-eared bunny plushie. It even wore a little dress similar to what Mia was wearing today. She finished her drawing ten minutes earlier than the other students. I called her over and gave her the plushie. “Mia, happy birthday.” She stared blankly for two seconds. “Is this bunny me?” I smiled and nodded. “Just as cute as you.” “Thank you, Ms. Carter. I love it.” The little girl accepted it primly, though she tried not to show too much emotion on her face. “You’re welcome. Go back to your seat.” She took two steps, then turned back around. “Crouch down.” She waved me over. I did as she asked. “What’s wrong? Did you want to tell me something?” The next second, the girl’s soft, warm lips pressed against my cheek. “This is the first gift I got today.” “And it’s my favorite.” She clung to my side, her eyes shining brightly. “Ms. Carter, do you think my uncle is handsome?” “I can give you his phone number as a thank you for the bunny!” The warmth rising in my heart instantly froze. “…No, no thank you.” 10 After finding out Harrison wasn’t picking her up tonight. I kept my promise to walk Mia out after class. But when we reached the front doors and I saw the man leaning against the Maybach, I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. “Uncle Harrison, why are you picking me up today?” The man’s gaze slowly shifted from my face. He glanced down at Mia. “To celebrate your birthday, kiddo.” “Yay!” The girl hopped up and down. I braced myself and spoke up. “Hello, Mr. Cole. I…” “What a surprise.” He cut me off, smiling faintly. “Liam is really harsh on his women, making you come out here to work.” To prevent him from mentioning me to Liam next time they met and causing a misunderstanding. I proactively explained: “I’ve already left the Sterling family.” “My job here has nothing to do with him.” Harrison’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Because of Chloe?” “Did they bully you?” I didn’t want to talk about this with Harrison, so I pretended I didn’t hear him. “Mr. Cole, if you don’t have any questions about Mia’s classes, I’ll head back to the office.” Mia innocently waved her little hand. “Goodbye, teacher.” I waved back. “Goodbye.” I turned and walked away, but I could feel an intense, unignorable gaze burning into my back the entire time.

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On the day we signed our marriage license, I scrolled past a viral video on my husband’s secret TikTok account. It was titled “Six Toasts to Myself,” and it had millions of likes. “Toast one: To myself, for stealing my mom’s gold ring at age five to propose to her.” “Toast two: To myself, for intentionally bombing the SATs so we could go to the same college.” “Toast three: To myself, for buying her dream house at age thirty.” “Toast four: To myself, for standing by her side through thick and thin for twenty-five years.” “Toast five: To myself, for never breaking a single promise.” In my heart, I chuckled at Liam’s childishness. But then, I watched him speak his sixth line. “Toast six: To myself—for sharing the twin swallows with my one true love. No regrets in this lifetime.” I froze. It felt like I had been plunged into an ice bath. I turned to look at my husband. The swallow tattoo on his collarbone was faintly visible under his shirt. And the other matching swallow? I had seen it on the shoulder of his junior lab assistant. 01 The video already had hundreds of thousands of comments. The top replies were women praising his loyalty. [Wow, this guy is amazing. I believe in true love again.] [He loved one woman for 24 years. My ex cheated on me after 4 months. I’m crying!] [So jealous of his wife! Where do I find a man like this??] Little did they know, the woman they were so envious of was sitting there, her fingertips trembling against her phone screen. I opened Mia Thorne’s Instagram page again. The swallow tattoo on her shoulder was clearly visible in her latest post. The caption was dripping with romantic subtext: [Sharing the twin swallows with my true love. Isn’t this what a lifetime of companionship looks like?] Tears dropped onto my screen. I finally broke down and cried. Liam Sterling had been smiling mysteriously at his phone. He turned his head, and seeing my red eyes, a flash of impatience crossed his face. “Are you reading that toxic internet relationship advice again?” “Haven’t I been good enough to you? I transferred Mia to the out-of-state lab just because you were jealous.” “She’s just a young girl in a new city, who knows how she’s doing…” My knuckles turned white as I gripped my phone. I had never doubted Liam’s loyalty until six months ago. My girls’ night out had run late, so I asked Liam to pick me up. I watched with my own eyes as Mia stepped out of his passenger seat, holding a bag of snacks. When I got in, the passenger side was a mess of crumbs. The car reeked of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. The heavy, gross smell made my throat itch. I casually pulled a cough drop out of my purse, but the moment I unwrapped the plastic, Liam’s face turned vicious. He yelled at me: “How many times do I have to tell you? No eating in the car!” “Why can’t you ever remember?” I suppressed my anger and replied, “The car smells terrible. My throat is scratchy.” “If you’re uncomfortable, roll down the window! If you take one bite of that, get out of my car!” In the rearview mirror, Mia watched me with a half-smile, her eyes full of undisguised triumph. Yet she spoke with a sickeningly sweet, anxious voice. “Liam, you’re being so strict with Chloe, it’s scaring me~” “I won’t eat either! Don’t be mad, Liam, please don’t yell at me! T_T” Liam’s face softened instantly. He handed her a bottle of water with a doting look. “It’s different with you. You’re still practically a kid, you need your snacks.” “Plus, you get carsick. Eating helps your stomach. Don’t choke, have some water.” Sitting in that car, I felt like the outsider. Perhaps noticing my discomfort after dropping Mia off, Liam patiently coaxed me. “Chloe, don’t overthink it.” “Our lab director asked me to give her a ride. She was feeling carsick, so I let her sit up front and eat something.” “She’s just a young girl, basically like a little sister to me. There is absolutely nothing going on between us! If it bothers you that much, I’ll send her to the Paris lab for her fellowship, and she won’t come back. Deal?” As he spoke, he watched my expression through the rearview mirror. Seeing my face soften, he breathed a sigh of relief. Liam had never been stingy about sweet-talking me. So, I let it go. Until a few days later, when I saw Mia’s Instagram post. The young girl was wearing an antique silver locket around her neck, smiling brilliantly. [Heading off to Paris in a few days. My mentor still treats me like a kid. He gave me this antique locket to keep me safe on my travels.] That locket was the last thing my mother left me before she died. It was my only keepsake of her. I sat there stunned for a long time before dialing Liam’s number. “Who did you give my mother’s silver locket to?” He answered cleanly, without hesitation: “To Mia.” “Don’t read into it. She’s leaving for her research in Paris in a few days. The locket has good protective meaning, so I gave it to her for safe travels.” “That was the last thing my mother left me! What right do you have to give it away without my permission?!” I screamed into the phone, my heart tearing open. Liam’s cold voice came through the receiver: “It’s just a beat-up old necklace. Why are you being so cheap? I’ll Venmo you the money for it!” “Mia is only going to Paris because you’re insanely jealous. Think of this as my apology to her on your behalf!” Through the phone, I could faintly hear Mia whining in her sickeningly sweet voice: “Liam, if Chloe really doesn’t want me to have it…” “It’s fine. Ignore her.” Before I could say another word, Liam hung up. I sat with my mouth open, frozen. I remembered my mother on her deathbed, holding mine and Liam’s hands, telling us to support each other and stay together forever. In the end, I swallowed the pain. Mia was leaving anyway. What kind of sparks could they possibly have from across the world? So I forced myself to forget the red flags and let myself sink into the blissful bubble of our impending marriage. I just never expected that bubble to be violently popped today. I thought about his viral video and the hotel room background that perfectly matched Mia’s latest post. I looked up at Liam, asking him word by word: “You didn’t come home last night. Where were you?” 02 A flash of panic crossed Liam’s eyes. Then, pretending to be outraged, he ripped off his towel, turned his back to me, and started pulling on his pajamas. “Where else would I be? Pulling an all-nighter at the lab.” “Call my coworkers if you don’t believe me.” “Stop being so paranoid all day long! We just signed our marriage license! I’m your husband now, what more do you want?” I let out a mocking laugh. “Why are you getting so defensive? I just asked a question.” Perhaps sensing his own guilt, Liam finished changing and lay down next to me, his hand roaming over my body. He said gently: “I’m sorry, babe. I’ve been so stressed lately, my mood is shot.” “We have seven days of honeymoon leave. Let’s go somewhere and relax, just the two of us. You pick the place, I’ll pay.” His touch, which used to ignite desire, now just made my stomach churn with nausea. “I need to use the restroom.” I locked his advances outside the door, leaned over the toilet, and threw up. When I stood back up, I fought through the heartache and pulled up the screenshot of his video comments. A user named “StarCatcher” had left a comment that Liam had liked. Her IP address was in Paris. The caption read: [One wild night of indulgence. My love is finally complete.] I clicked on her profile. There was only one video pinned to her page. It was a man’s hand, offering her a makeshift ring fashioned from a soda pop-tab, proposing to her. The man’s voice was gentle and unwavering. “Even though we can only be husband and wife for one night, I hope you know my love for you will never change.” The caption was a blatant flex. [With true love, even a soda-tab ring is enough. Better than wearing a massive diamond but sleeping in an empty bed.] This was his so-called “all-nighter at the lab.” I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes. Suddenly, I felt incredibly foolish. If Liam didn’t love me, he could have just said it straight to my face. I would never have clung to him. But he chose to humiliate me in the most despicable way possible. He seemed to have forgotten that back in college, I was notoriously known as “The Viper.” Because I hold grudges, and I always get payback. No mercy. I had just never shown him that side of me. Well, then. It was time to refresh his memory. I washed my face, gathered my emotions, forced a smile, and pushed open the door. Looking at Liam, I said softly: “Let’s go to Paris for our honeymoon! I want to go on a shopping spree~” Liam froze for a second. I didn’t miss the spark of joy in his eyes. The next second, his voice pitched up. “Paris?” I tilted my head and smiled. “Yeah. Didn’t you say I could pick anywhere?” This time, Liam—who usually hated planning trips—was far more proactive than me. Terrified I would change my mind, he booked the flights and hotels overnight. He enthusiastically chatted with me about where we should take photos. Which cafes he wanted to check out. Even at two or three in the morning, his phone screen kept lighting up. He was messaging someone constantly. He couldn’t even hide his smile. I watched him coldly. He was probably planning everything he wanted to do with Mia. Since that was the case, I decided to give these two star-crossed lovers a chance to fulfill their dreams. After all, hell was about to descend upon them. 03 The morning of our flight. I suddenly “came down with food poisoning.” I ran to the bathroom seven or eight times, my face pale as a sheet. While I lay in bed resting, Liam slammed a mug of hot water onto the nightstand. Water splashed onto my arm, leaving a red burn mark. I gasped, clutching my arm in pain. Liam just looked impatient. “You always get sick right when we’re supposed to travel. I only get seven days off, and you’re just dragging me down.” “Stop faking it. The water wasn’t even that hot! Drink it and let’s go to the airport!” Suddenly, his phone dinged. He checked the screen and let out a goofy, lovesick smile. When he noticed me staring at him, he guiltily averted his gaze, then shoved the phone near my face, trying to mask his panic with anger. “Are you trying to save money by faking sick again, just like last time?” “Can you stop being so cheap all the time? Can you just live like a normal person for once?” “Being with you is suffocating! We can’t eat anywhere nice, we can’t do anything fun!” I sneered. “Have you ever seen someone faking sick with a face as ghostly pale as mine?” When Liam first started his research lab, it required massive funding but brought in zero profit. To support his career, I hadn’t bought new clothes in nearly seven years. In the winter, I washed our clothes by hand in freezing water just to save a few bucks on the electric bill. Back then, he used to cry over my red, swollen fingers, swearing he would give me the best life possible. Now, he found me embarrassing. My heart was completely dead. I didn’t even want to speak to him. I grabbed my purse to leave. “Where are you going?” “The hospital.” Liam grabbed my arm forcefully. “Why are you going to the hospital?! Just take some Pepto! We still have to make our flight!” “If I take you to the ER, we’ll miss the plane!” I gave him a freezing glare. “You can go by yourself! But I am going to the hospital.” “Or,” I paused, “do you want me to die on that plane so you can find a new wife?” Liam’s face changed. He spoke quickly. “What nonsense are you talking about?” “I just didn’t want the money to go to waste. The flights and hotels are non-refundable. It’s thousands of dollars.” He gave me a flattering, fake smile and said hesitantly: “Babe, how about this? I’ll go ahead and scout things out. I’ll find all the best food and fun spots early.” “You just focus on getting better.” “I promise, by the time you fly out to Paris, I’ll have everything perfectly arranged for you.” Looking at the man I had been with for 25 years, who had witnessed my lowest lows and my growth, I asked him with a final, desperate shred of hope: “Liam, I feel really sick. Can you please stay and take me to the hospital?” “Paris,” I closed my eyes and said slowly, “We just won’t go.” The silence in the room was suffocating. Liam was quiet for a long time before he finally spoke. “But this is our honeymoon. How can we not go?” “I’ll go to Paris and prepare a huge surprise for you, okay? My Uber is downstairs, I’m heading to the airport! Get better soon, Chloe, I’ll be waiting for you!” He grabbed his suitcase and practically fled the apartment. As if he was terrified I would call him back. I forced a bitter smile, stumbled to my feet, and ordered a cab. “To the airport.” 04 I was indeed faking sick. But it wasn’t to save money. It was to give Liam and Mia the perfect opportunity to meet up. I had booked a flight that left exactly ten minutes after his. Sitting on the plane, resting my eyes, I thought back to last night. While Liam was sleeping, I had gone through his phone. That TikTok burner account with the millions of views had thousands of DMs. But he only had a “streak” and a little fire emoji with “StarCatcher.” They had been messaging for 145 straight days. Their chat history was sickeningly flirtatious. It was their secret digital diary of infidelity. “I’m coming to Paris for my honeymoon, but I just want to see you one more time.” “Mia, tell me, do I really have to choose between my responsibilities and true love?” Mia’s reply was quick. “But that night we had together was perfect, wasn’t it?” “I miss you too, I love you, but you’re someone else’s husband now, Liam.” … The final message was from Mia. “Okay. Let’s see each other one last time.” Such a deeply moving, tragic love story. I absolutely had to make sure the entire internet witnessed their profound romance! The second my plane landed, I started a TikTok Live. The title: “The ‘6 Toasts’ Guy and His Mistress Exposed: Catching Them Live.” Then, I routed the feed from the micro-camera I had hidden in Liam’s collar button directly to the stream. Unsurprisingly, Liam and Mia couldn’t even control themselves. They were making out aggressively in the back of a Parisian taxi. “I missed you so much, Mia baby. Chloe got sick and couldn’t come. God gave us this opportunity.” “Liam, I love you. Let’s be husband and wife for one more night.” The passionate, explicit audio broadcasted clearly. Within minutes, the viewer count skyrocketed into the millions. [What the hell? That’s definitely the guy’s voice! Are they flexing their cheating live?!] [Bruh, this sounds so wrong. This is exactly how my cheating ex talked to his side piece.] [I don’t believe it. This has to be the guy and his wife doing some weird cosplay!] The live chat was a chaotic mess. I covered my mouth tightly, my fingernails digging into my palms. Following the GPS tracker I’d installed on Liam’s phone, I walked all the way to the door of the honeymoon suite that was supposed to be for me. Fighting back my adrenaline, I knocked. “Who is it? We don’t need room service, ah~” Mia’s breathy moan echoed from inside. “It’s Chloe.” The moment I said my name, the room went dead silent. After a long, agonizing wait, Liam finally opened the door, his face flushed red. “Babe? Weren’t you going to the hospital? How did you get here so fast?” He asked awkwardly. Behind him, Mia stood wrapped in a bath towel, giving me a smug, curved smile. “Chloe, I’m so sorry. I spilled coffee on my clothes when I picked Liam up from the airport, so I just came up to take a quick shower. We didn’t do anything, please don’t misunderstand! Liam really loves you.” “It’s fine. Since we’re all here, let’s shoot a video together.” I calmly cut her off. Right in front of them, I pulled up the “Six Toasts to Myself” challenge filter. Both of their faces drained of color. “N-No, let’s not. I have somewhere to be, I should go.” Mia tried to bolt, but I grabbed her arm in a death grip. “Don’t be in such a rush! We’re all family here, let’s just play along for fun~” “Unless you two did something guilty and are too scared to play?” Perhaps my calm demeanor was too terrifying, because Mia and Liam ultimately sat back down in the room. Turning the camera toward us, I poured a glass of water and made 6 toasts to myself. “Toast one: To myself, for staying loyal for 25 years, loving him, and marrying him.” “Toast two: To myself, for giving up my career for love, becoming a housewife right out of grad school!” “Toast three: To myself, for finding a soda-tab ring hidden in my own house.” As I spoke, I pulled out the pop-tab ring Liam had tried to hide. Liam shot up from his chair, completely ignoring the camera as he lunged to snatch the object from my hand. “Where did you find that?! Give it back!” I stood up and shoved the inside of the ring right up to the camera lens. Engraved on the metal were tiny, neat words: “Liam & Mia, Love Forever.” My sudden movement caught Liam off guard. By the time he snatched the ring back… He glanced at my phone screen and saw the little red “LIVE” icon. His face went chalk white. 05 Because my livestream had been running non-stop since I got off the plane, the viewer count was now breaking 3 million. It was the #1 trending live on the app, and the chat was moving at lightspeed. [MAJOR PLOT TWIST. The 6 Toasts guy is a massive cheater!] [Did anyone else see the swallow tattoo on the towel girl’s shoulder? Disgusting. He’s playing two women at once and acting like a romantic saint online?] [Eating popcorn! The guy is the director of our research lab! The mistress is his junior assistant. They always locked the lab doors together…] Within moments, the internet sleuths in the chat had doxxed Liam and Mia’s identities completely. Liam stared at the scrolling chat, his face flashing between green and pale white. Finally realizing what was happening, he snapped his head up and glared at me viciously. “Chloe, did you set me up?!” I glanced at the chaotic livestream and laughed out loud. “Set you up? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Isn’t this our honeymoon suite? Am I not allowed to come on my own honeymoon?” “But,” I cast a mocking look at Mia, whose eyes were now red with panic, “what do those words on the soda-tab ring mean?” “I had no idea you and Mia had a thing! Oh my god, if you had just told me your love was so deep, I never would have signed the marriage license with you~” I had found the pop-tab ring right before I left for the airport. It was hidden in Liam’s nightstand. I had never snooped through his drawers before, but today, some gut instinct told me to look. There it was, glaringly obvious. An engraving claiming her territory over my husband. At that moment, Liam still didn’t grasp the severity of the situation. He was still trying to interrogate me. “Are you done yet?! I told you, absolutely nothing is going on between me and Mia!” “This is all a massive misunderstanding!” Mia started crying on cue. “Chloe, can you please just let me go? You already bullied me into moving to Paris, why are you doing this…” I raised an eyebrow. “If it’s a misunderstanding, then clear it up.” “I’ve got nothing but time. Go ahead, explain.” Liam was momentarily speechless. He cursed under his breath, finally breaking his composure. He reached out to grab my phone and end the stream. But I guarded it closely. “Don’t be so hasty. I haven’t finished my toasts yet.” I looked directly into the camera and “drank” three more times. “Toast four: To myself, for discovering my husband’s affair on the exact day we got our marriage license, giving me the ultimate rollercoaster of a marriage.” “Toast five: To myself, for catching my husband and his mistress in a hotel room on the first day of our honeymoon.” “Toast six: To myself, for finding the courage to sever 25 years of history, file for divorce, and restart my life!” The chat exploded like a powder keg. [Holy shit, is this real? Is this a scripted drama account?] [Queen behavior! I support you!] [Is there really no misunderstanding? The 6 Toasts guy made me cry, his eyes looked so genuinely in love. You can’t fake that.] Seeing the waves of support in the chat, a warm feeling washed over my heart. Liam looked at me in absolute shock. “What did you just say?” My eyes were slightly red, but as I looked at Liam, I felt absolutely nothing. “I said, I want a divorce.” “I’m setting you free to chase your true love.” Liam’s voice trembled. “But we just signed the papers! Chloe, why are you trying to hurt me like this?” “Yeah, Chloe! This is all a misunderstanding! Sob Liam really loves you!” Watching them put on this pathetic performance, I laughed out of pure anger. “A misunderstanding?” “Did I forge the engraving on that ring? Was it a misunderstanding that you didn’t come home the night before we got our license?” Looking at the tattoos on their bodies, I couldn’t hold back anymore. “Or did I hold a gun to your heads and force you to get matching swallow tattoos?!” My rapid-fire questions left them completely speechless. Their eyes darted around guiltily. But after a moment, Liam suddenly forced himself to calm down. He glanced at the screen, then turned back to me, wearing his mask of deep affection. “Chloe, this really is a misunderstanding. I never thought your jealousy would drive you to do something like this.” “Since it’s come to this, I have no choice but to tell you the truth.” “Nothing happened between me and Mia. The only reason we’re meeting up… is because we were planning a surprise for you.” 06 Liam’s expression was so earnest when he said this, I almost believed him myself for a second. But three seconds later, I understood his play. Seeing the public opinion turning against him, Liam was terrified his career would be destroyed. He was lying through his teeth to manipulate the audience. He truly was a top-tier manipulator. With just one sentence, the tide in the live chat started to shift. [I knew it! The 6 Toasts guy definitely loves his wife. See, the surprise is coming!] [This woman is so insecure. A guy can’t even talk to his female coworker? She probably just wants his money.] [6 Toasts guy is a saint. If I had a wife this controlling, I would’ve snapped ages ago.] Watching the comments scroll by, I furrowed my brow. Mia exchanged a quick glance with Liam. Then, she suddenly dropped to her knees, looking up at me with wide, red, doe-like eyes. “Chloe, we really didn’t do anything.” “Liam said it was your honeymoon, and he asked me to help plan the itinerary and pick out gifts for you.” “Back home, you slandered me until I was exiled abroad. Now you’re livestreaming to millions, accusing me of being a homewrecker! How am I supposed to live with this?!” As soon as she finished speaking, Mia scrambled up and made a theatrical dash toward the wall, acting like she was going to bash her head in. Liam quickly “caught” her. She collapsed onto the floor, wailing pitifully. “I haven’t even had a boyfriend yet! How am I ever going to show my face in public again? Liam, what am I going to do?!” Liam pulled her gently into his arms. He glared at me, full of righteous indignation. “Are you done yet?!” “Slander me all you want, but Mia is just an innocent young woman! You’re ruining her reputation! How is she ever going to get married now?!” “Turn off the damn stream!” I stared at him with a complex expression. I mean… I might have been a stay-at-home wife, but I didn’t lose my brain cells. Did they really think I was that stupid? I narrowed my eyes, flipped my phone around, and played the footage from the micro-camera right into the livestream. “Turning the honeymoon suite into your personal hookup room—is that the surprise you prepared for me?” “Were you and Mia just going to huddle under the covers and have a pure, innocent chat?” The internet immediately remembered. At the very beginning of the stream. The footage of Liam and Mia making out passionately in the back of the taxi. “You tracked me?!” Seeing the video, Liam’s face twisted in horror. I smirked. “If I didn’t track you, how would I have gotten a front-row seat to this R-rated movie?” Liam’s eyes darkened ominously. His voice went dead cold. “Chloe, I am genuinely angry now.” “Why couldn’t we discuss this in private? Why did you have to start a livestream and humiliate us?” I almost wanted to clap for his sheer hypocrisy. “Wow, double standards much, bro?” “You’re allowed to post viral videos professing your deep love, but I’m not allowed to livestream catching you cheating?” Glancing at the viewer count, which was still skyrocketing, I smiled brightly. “Besides, the people love a good show.” Liam panted heavily, glaring at me. “Chloe, you…” But constrained by the millions of eyes watching him, he couldn’t get physical. He stared at me fixedly for a few seconds, then nodded heavily. “Since you want to push it to this point, then I’m not holding back either.” He pulled out his phone, scrolled furiously for a moment, and shoved his screen into the camera’s view. “Take a good look, everyone! This video was taken three months ago. You went into a hotel room with a man, and you didn’t come out until the next morning!” “If we’re keeping score, you were the one who cheated first!” “Because I loved you, and for the sake of our marriage, I endured it in silence! But you just got worse and worse! Chloe, you have disappointed me profoundly!” In the video, I was indeed seen entering a hotel room with a “man,” arms wrapped around each other, looking undeniably intimate. The chat saw the video and immediately turned their guns on me. [Holy shit, so the wife cheated first?! The guy took a green hat for love? That’s true dedication!] [Just divorce her man, this guy is too tragic.] [This woman is disgusting, playing the victim and gaslighting him. Poor 6 Toasts guy.] Those words felt like daggers stabbing into my heart. My eyes instantly stung with tears. On the other side of the room, Liam looked triumphant. “You cheated first. I was heartbroken and devastated. It was only through Mia’s comfort that I slowly managed to heal.” “Chloe, you’re too greedy.” “From the moment I met you at age 5, I gave you everything you wanted. A house, a marriage, companionship. Why did you have to betray me?” “I don’t have to divorce you, but you need to pay Mia for emotional damages.” I looked at the man in front of me with utter disappointment. His eyes were entirely consumed by the desperate desire to clear his own name. I finally lost the last shred of hope I had for his humanity. At this point, I felt entirely liberated. I walked over to the door, opened it, and spoke slowly. “Come on in.” The “man” from the video, wearing a sharp, tailored suit, walked in and pulled me into a fierce hug. She glared venomously at Liam. “You absolute piece of trash!” “Chloe has had the worst luck in the world being tied to you. You make me sick.” In an instant… The entire livestream went dead silent. Because her voice was distinctly feminine, lively, and cute. Obviously, a woman.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “408335”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My boyfriend had a female “bro.” She talked like a classic pick-me girl, and wore a dress the exact same color as mine. I thought she was a “cool-girl” pick-me. Until that day in the pouring rain, when she carried me on her back for three miles. 01 The first time I met Olivia was at a dinner with Nate’s frat brothers. Before we went, Nate just laughed and said, “Liv? Oh, she’s basically just one of the guys.” The moment I saw her, I was genuinely confused. Olivia’s features were bright and flawless, and she was wearing a soft, elegant white maxi dress. She looked up at me from her stool, two little dimples appearing on her cheeks as she smiled shyly. There was absolutely nothing “one of the guys” about her. Olivia had a slender figure, and the white dress made her look incredibly graceful. I, on the other hand, was a bit chubby, and the color of my dress clashed perfectly with hers. Olivia opened her mouth and the first thing she said was: “What a coincidence, we’re wearing the exact same color.” Yes. Compared to her, I looked like a complete clown. I felt incredibly awkward, but I still reached out my hand to be friendly. “Look at her pretending to be shy. She used to be so violent, she’d chase me down the street to beat me up,” my boyfriend Nate laughed, playfully shoving Olivia’s shoulder. Olivia suddenly jumped up, slapping Nate on the shoulder. Her voice was playful, chirping like a happy little bird: “What kind of nonsense are you talking about!” “See? See? Am I wrong?” Nate laughed, dodging her slaps. I stood frozen in place, my outstretched hand hanging awkwardly in the air. I turned my head and watched my boyfriend roughhousing with her. It felt like— It felt like I was the outsider. My nose stung, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to watch them play-fight, and I didn’t want to leave a bad impression of being a jealous girlfriend the first time I met his best friend. Until I heard a loud, resounding smack echo through the room. The moment I opened my eyes. I saw a bright red handprint stamped across my boyfriend’s cheek. Nate’s shocked voice rang out: “Holy shit, did you put your whole arm into that slap?” 02 After getting to know Nate, I slowly got to know Olivia. Whenever Nate mentioned Olivia, his mouth was full of praise. He said Olivia was cheerful and optimistic, a true example of a girl raised with old money. I added Olivia on Snapchat and Instagram. Olivia’s Instagram was filled with photos of her surfing in Hawaii. Her slender figure and radiant energy made her look like a white seagull soaring over the ocean. There were photos of her snowboarding in Aspen, and writing papers in a Parisian cafe wearing chic glasses. With her slender, swan-like neck lowered, she looked gentle and intellectual. Even though I felt a bit sour because of their play-fighting that first time. I couldn’t help but sigh to Nate: “Olivia really is an incredible person.” Nate snatched my phone and said, “Hey, why is her profile public now? She used to have it set to close-friends only.” Nate’s casual remark made my sensitive mind overthink. Why did she suddenly make her profile public right after I added her? As I scrolled through Olivia’s feed, Nate immediately leaned his head close to mine to look. He was highly enthusiastic, constantly urging me to scroll to the next picture. After a few swipes, I suddenly didn’t want to scroll anymore. I was jealous. I asked him, half-joking, half-serious, “Do you have a crush on her?” Nate replied with a goofy grin, “Who wouldn’t like a rich heiress? But don’t worry, she doesn’t date.” “Alright, stop overthinking. If something was going to happen between us, it would have happened years ago.” As he said that, he continued staring intently at Olivia’s photos. I locked my phone screen. Through the dark reflection of the screen. I clearly saw his crestfallen expression. It looked exactly like the disappointment and sorrow of not being able to obtain a coveted treasure. 03 Actually, I had probably heard the name Olivia back in college. The very day Nate accepted my confession. He was drunk, repeatedly mumbling the word “Liv” under his breath. A six-foot-two guy, crying like a dog in the middle of a diner. I heard the friend next to him shove him and say: “Enough, Liv just went abroad to study. She’s not dead.” His friend called me, and I rushed to the diner to pick him up. I half-carried, half-dragged him home. By a planter on the side of the road. He grabbed the hood of my sweatshirt and violently threw up all over me. The Emma from back then was so stupid. My heart and eyes were completely full of him; I didn’t feel an ounce of disgust. The highest level of liking someone is feeling your heart ache for them. With blurry, drunken eyes, he looked up and saw my face full of concern. Nate gripped my wrist incredibly tight. The boy’s eyes burned bright like flames. He said, “You’re the only one who won’t abandon me.” Then, as if granting me a charity, he said: “Let’s be together.” I really, truly loved Nate. I gave him all my sincerity and love. But in Nate’s heart, it seemed… Olivia was always there. It was hard for me not to care. But I never asked too much, and he seemed to have forgotten Olivia. Because of my passionate and sincere love, he began to love me back. Until Olivia returned from abroad, breaking that balance. Even though I minded so much. Olivia seemed to do it on purpose. She started inviting Nate and me out frequently. She was like a bird, proudly and arrogantly diving straight into our lives. 04 Olivia invited Nate and me to play tennis. I didn’t want to go, but I also didn’t want Nate playing alone with her. I pleaded with Nate, “Can you just say no? I don’t know how to play tennis, and I really don’t want to.” “But I want to play,” Nate said, looking at me seriously. “But… if you want to play, you can play with other friends. We don’t have to go to Olivia today.” I stammered out my explanation. Nate’s handsome brow furrowed, looking annoyed: “Just because of you, am I not allowed to have normal recreational activities anymore?” “I never noticed you being this unreasonable before. Why are you so possessive?” I went silent. His impatient tone let me know I couldn’t stop him. I had no choice but to change into activewear and go with him. When we got to the courts, Olivia was wearing a pleated tennis skirt, her high ponytail swishing lightly. She looked like a proud little white bird. Her big, almond eyes widened as she tossed a racket directly to me: “Emma, play with me.” “I’m not very… good at this,” I tried to refuse. My boyfriend chimed in from the sidelines: “Just play with her.” “No, I specifically want to play with Emma,” her eyes curved into smiling crescents. Faced with Olivia’s enthusiasm, I had no choice but to accept. Unsurprisingly, as someone who sucked at sports, I was absolutely decimated by her. I couldn’t return a single serve, my slightly chubby figure running awkwardly across the court. Like a clumsy raccoon. I was getting angry inside. Looking so pathetic in front of my boyfriend. Was she doing this on purpose? In contrast to me, she shone even brighter. Beautiful and athletic, she was simply perfect. Especially after the workout, some strands of hair had come loose, and sweat stuck them to her fair cheeks. She looked like a porcelain doll. When another tennis ball rolled past me onto the ground. I said, “I’m done playing.” Olivia held her racket, smiling at me: “Okay. Let’s go take a break together then.” Then, she put down her racket and redid her hair, which had gotten messy from playing. She deliberately held her hair tie in her mouth, facing my direction as she fixed her hair with her hands. Exposing her fair, swan-like neck. The way she looked with the hair tie in her mouth was incredibly beautiful. Honestly, she looked like an innocent, adorable deer exposing its neck. My heart skipped a beat. But I was absolutely certain she was deliberately showing off her charm. Sure enough, I turned around and saw Nate standing behind me, watching her. Without even blinking. 05 I hated Olivia. I hated the powerless feeling of knowing she was getting closer and closer to my boyfriend, but being unable to do anything about it. I lucidly watched Nate’s appreciation for Olivia become less and less disguised. But when I brought it up, he would just say, “Liv and I are just friends.” “You’re my girlfriend, stop overthinking.” Even though he said that, I had a sinking feeling. I was his backup plan, his safety net. He realized that being with me had the highest ROI. He realized I treated him the best. I was probably just the honest girl settling down with him. Blissfully unaware of my inner turmoil, Olivia continued to invite Nate and me to the movies. She sent a screenshot of the booked tickets. Her seat choices were very interesting. Two seats were together, and the other seat was right in front of them. I had already guessed that I would definitely be the one sitting in the front. While she and Nate got cozy in the back. Olivia even sent a pouty, apologetic emoji on Snapchat: “There were only these three seats left.” I complained inwardly, but since Nate insisted on going, I was absolutely not going to let them be alone together. It was a horror movie, too. I could already picture Olivia pretending to be a fragile, scared girl just to sit with my boyfriend. Stupid pick-me. Sure enough, as soon as we got to the theater entrance, Olivia ran over and grabbed my arm. Her expression was pitiful as she said to me: “You don’t mind, right, Emma?” I really couldn’t hold back my anger anymore. But Olivia’s second sentence choked out my fury: “I’ll sit with Emma. Nate, you sit in the front. You don’t have a problem with that, right?” Huh? Olivia actually wanted to sit with me? That last sentence ended on a rising note, carrying a definite hint of a threat. “Alright, alright, Princess. I thought you needed me to protect you,” Nate said, rubbing his nose, trying to play it off as a joke. Inside the dark theater, only the flickering light of the screen illuminated us. I watched the movie while observing Olivia out of the corner of my eye. American horror movies always rely on jump scares and sudden loud noises to terrify people. I wasn’t scared of horror movies. To be honest, I found the real world depressing enough, so I didn’t fear death, much less the ghosts and monsters that could cause it. But Olivia looked genuinely terrified. Her teeth were biting down hard on her lips, which looked like fresh snow-dusted roses. Her elegant brows were tightly furrowed. Her fingers were trembling unconsciously. Was she really that scared? Little pick-me. A terrifying musical cue played, and she let out a small whimper, her entire body curling up in fear. The sight of her 5’9″ frame curled up in the seat was a bit cute and a bit comical. She literally looked like a startled cat with its fur puffed up. I found it amusing, but my smile quickly faded. Suddenly, a horrifying image flashed on the screen. Olivia seemed completely terrified, her shoulder suddenly leaning into mine. With her soft figure pressing against me, the faint, lingering scent of freesia drifted to my nose. “Emma…” her voice was slightly hoarse, like a kitten’s. “I’m so scared. Hold my hand… please.” Her warm breath tickled my ear. Coupled with her raspy, pleading voice, a shiver ran down my spine. Her body was too close. That lingering, soft freesia scent felt like a hand tickling my heart. I looked down at her innocent, clear eyes as she clung to my waist. They were watery and pleading. Like I was possessed, I held her hand. It was ice-cold and smooth. Nate, sitting in front of us, suddenly turned around at that moment and laughed: “American horror movies aren’t even scary.” I tried to quickly pull my hand away, but she gripped it fiercely. While Nate turned his head to talk. Our hands were tightly intertwined under her jacket. 06 After returning home that night, my heart was pounding. Why did this happen? I felt like something wasn’t quite right. The little pick-me I had pictured in my head was secretly holding my hand. While I was puzzling over this. I discovered that all the money in my and Nate’s joint account had been withdrawn. Looking at the bank notification text, the remaining balance was $5.20. There was a total of $20,000 in there. Of that, $18,000 was money I had scraped together from part-time jobs. Money I saved by tutoring and doing DoorDash deliveries during winter and summer breaks. Nate had said that after graduation, we would move back to my hometown, find jobs, and this would be the startup fund for our new life. He was the dream guy I had fought so hard to get. I always spoiled him. I forgave him when he spent money carelessly and when he didn’t contribute to the couples’ account. I ran to Nate and asked: “Why did you take out all that money? That’s everything I saved up doing DoorDash and tutoring!” “Wow, you say you love me, but the second I spend a little money, you interrogate me,” Nate raised an eyebrow, his handsome face looking annoyed. “No, I just wanted to ask why,” my tone became even more cautious. “It’s Olivia’s birthday soon. She invited us over to celebrate, and I bought her a gift.” “Of course we should get her a gift, but since we’re still just starting out, we didn’t have to buy something that expensive,” I pleaded, looking at Nate. Nate raised an eyebrow, a half-smile on his face: “Do you even know who Olivia is? There will be a ton of rich kids at her party. The average gift will be over ten grand. Do you want me to look like a joke?” Noticing my pale expression, Nate reached out and pulled me into his arms: “Alright, babe. If I look like a joke, you look like a joke. We’re a team. This gift represents both our intentions.” “But…” While I was still hesitating, Nate’s expression turned cold. I was terrified of him throwing a tantrum. When he got mad, he could ignore me for a whole week. I was terrified of the silent treatment. I had no choice but to force a nod and agree. I comforted myself by saying Olivia was a good person, so buying her a gift was the right thing to do! It’s just that— I couldn’t help but remember the times my t-shirt clung to my sweaty back as I climbed six flights of stairs delivering food. I think I was starting to hate Nate a little bit. 07 Before the birthday party, Olivia sent me a dress. It was a champagne-colored mermaid gown, with a small cluster of pale pink roses at the bust. Clothes make the man. I never expected it to fit so perfectly and look so beautiful on me. I was a bit chubby to begin with, and my only redeeming feature was my pale skin. This dress practically magnified my best features and flattered my figure flawlessly. I suddenly felt that those twenty grand were somewhat worth it. I had never been a princess. After putting on this dress, I couldn’t help but twirl in front of the mirror, admiring myself. I felt like a sweet little princess smiling in a rose garden. But Nate, sitting on the sofa, crushed my spirit: “Alright, stop admiring yourself. You’re just there to be a foil for Olivia anyway. I really don’t know why she sent you a dress.” Right after he said that, Nate stopped abruptly. As if realizing something, he stared at me intently. “She sent you a dress, but you still can’t compare to her. But why would she want to compare herself to you…” “Could she be jealous?” I was still lost in the beauty of the dress and didn’t catch the second half of his sentence. I asked him what he just said, and Nate smirked and said, “Nothing.” I hated him now anyway, so I didn’t care what he said. He could say whatever he wanted. Olivia’s driver came to pick us up. The party was at her family’s mansion. Honestly, standing in front of the magnificent mansion, I subconsciously felt a bit intimidated. Nate didn’t even hold my hand. He walked ahead with long strides, seemingly eager to see Olivia. The fountain in front of the villa was already decorated with massive bouquets of roses. I was wearing heels and walking a bit slow, gradually falling behind Nate. I reached out to grab Nate in the distance. Olivia had already opened the door and walked out. She bypassed the smiling Nate and extended her hand toward me, lifting her hem slightly as she approached. She was wearing a champagne-colored tailored suit, with a pink rose pinned to her lapel. Her hair was pulled up in a high ponytail, her eyebrows drawn sharp. She exuded an androgynous, breathtaking beauty. She looked like a proud, elegant white crane. “Welcome.” One of her hands wrapped around my waist, and the other caught my outstretched wrist. Her five slender, pale fingers slipped through the gaps of my fingers like little snakes. The proximity made me uncomfortable, and I quickly pushed her away. “Hey, hey, why are you wearing a suit instead of a dress? You look like a tomboy.” Nate, annoyed by being ignored, hurried over and casually slapped Olivia on the shoulder. Olivia, who had been wearing a warm, radiant smile, let the corners of her mouth drop slightly. She said what sounded like a joke: “Touch me with that pig trotter again, and I’ll chop it off.” After saying that, she winked in my direction—a playful and proud little white crane. Okay, okay. Wearing the same color clothes as me again. Ready to compete for male attention again. 08 Olivia’s birthday dinner wasn’t overly extravagant, just a dozen or so people gathered around eating exquisite dishes. The only thing to celebrate was that this meal consisted entirely of things I had never eaten before. Lobster, foie gras, caviar. I ate until I was stuffed. While I was gorging myself, I saw Olivia resting her elbows on the table, watching me with a melting smile, bright as the moon through the branches. Great, she definitely wanted to laugh at me for eating too much. Nate noticed Olivia’s gaze and gave me a subtle pinch. His expression was cold and stern; the subtext was telling me not to embarrass him. I sheepishly wiped my mouth, sat back in my seat, and sipped my wine idly. After the party, the guests all drove away. Olivia’s hair was a bit messy. She had drank quite a bit, and her gaze stuck to me like syrup. Her stare made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I quickly looked for an excuse to leave. But Olivia’s voice rang out: “It’s too late. Just stay over here tonight.” “Sure.” Before I could even speak, Nate accepted for me. “Then Emma and I will stay on the first floor. Nate, you can take the second floor,” Olivia said with a smile. I whispered to Nate, “I want to go home. My head hurts.” Since the party started, I had a headache and felt chills all over. Nate shot me a look. “Just lie down for a bit and you’ll be fine. You’re so high maintenance.” I didn’t know how to drive, so I had no choice but to stay at Olivia’s house. I climbed into bed, wrapping the blankets tightly around me. My body was starting to burn up. At Olivia’s house, I felt too embarrassed to bother her. I wanted to tough it out until tomorrow. I tossed and turned in bed, falling into a groggy, half-awake state. The room was quiet and dark. A massive clap of thunder suddenly lit up the entire room. I realized my body was already burning like a small furnace. It felt like boiling heat radiating from my very bones. I forced myself to try and get up. I needed to find Olivia for some ibuprofen. I wouldn’t make it to tomorrow like this. I was acutely and painfully aware of this fact. I tried to climb out of bed, took two steps, my legs gave out, and I crashed to the floor. The thud pierced the silence of the night. Then my door was gently pushed open. The lightning outside illuminated the person standing in the doorway. Accompanied by the pouring rain. I clearly saw that it was Olivia. The lightning illuminated the distance between us as she walked toward me, step by step, her eyes deep and dark. Her hands were icy cold as she touched my forehead. “Why didn’t you tell me your fever was this bad?” “I was afraid… of bothering you.” I stammered due to being sick, my voice low. “I just moved into this mansion, I haven’t stocked up on medicine yet. I’m taking you to the ER.” “Thank you…” Those slender hands gripped my waist, and then, she scooped me up effortlessly into a tight embrace. 09 She put a raincoat on me, and I let her maneuver me in my hazy state. I even forgot to ask for Nate. Afraid I’d get wet, she secured the hood and put a mask on me. My mind was a chaotic mess, but somehow, I said to her: “Happy… birthday. Olivia.” Her body stiffened. She leaned down, her warm breath hitting my ear. “Why didn’t you say it during the dinner party? Everyone else did. Why did you hide in the corner?” My brain was a tangled mess, but I vaguely remembered. Ah. It was because I was too intimidated. She stood there so radiantly, many people raising their glasses to her. I inexplicably shrank back. But I still remembered I had to wish her a happy birthday. So I took advantage of now, while we were alone together. I said it out loud. “Emma, you idiot.” Suddenly, a shiver shot up my spine from my tailbone. I almost convulsed. I felt my earlobe being taken into someone’s mouth and gently bitten. Cold and gentle. In my dazed state, I was carried into the car and fell asleep in the backseat. I don’t know how much time passed. When I opened my eyes again, I was clinging to Olivia’s back. In my ears was the drumbeat of torrential rain, and before my eyes was a stretching, dark gray highway. The pitch-black night was illuminated only by pools of warm yellow streetlights, which seemed to wrap around her and me. I instinctively grabbed Olivia’s shoulders. “Olivia, put me down. I can walk.” “The rain is too heavy. The car stalled halfway. It’s three miles left, and the hospital is just down the hill.” “Be a good girl, stay still.” “No, you’re so skinny, how can you carry me! I’m heavy, put me down, I can walk myself.” “You’re burning up like a little fireball, how could I let you walk.” Her voice rose, filled with unquestionable resolve. But then, afraid of scaring me, she lowered her voice to coax me: “I work out, carrying you is nothing. Be good, hold on tight, we’ll be there soon.” I had no idea how someone so thin could have so much strength. She carried me, trudging solidly through the pouring rain for three miles. Seeing her afraid I’d get wet, she had draped her raincoat over me. She wore a windbreaker, and the raindrops smashed against her clothes with loud smacks. Some raindrops slid down her forehead and fell from her hair. Falling like a string of pearls. I couldn’t tell if it was rain or my tears anymore. I said: “Put me down, I can walk.” She said: “Silly Emma, how could I bear to let you suffer.” 10 Because of the time Olivia took me to the hospital, I was incredibly grateful. I swore I would never call her a toxic pick-me again. I started actively inviting Olivia over to our place. I humbly and earnestly, blushing, asked Nate for his permission. Nate looked at me with an expression that said finally, you’re being reasonable. Nate was exceptionally eager that day. He ran out to buy Olivia’s favorite groceries, saying he was going to show off his cooking skills. Even though we had lived together for so long, he rarely cooked for me. But I didn’t care anymore. Olivia showed up that day carrying a few bottles of red wine. She smiled and said, “These are from my family’s vineyard in France. We’ll open a bottle to taste with dinner.” Nate was wearing an apron, cooking in the kitchen. Olivia and I sat on the rug watching TV. Thinking about how she carried me to the hospital, I sincerely thanked her: “Thank you, Liv. Without you, my fever would have fried my brain.” Olivia cast a casual glance toward the kitchen, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly. Her clear eyes watched me, holding what seemed like a rippling little spring, emotions gently undulating like ripples. From the kitchen came the loud sizzle and pop of cooking. It sounded like Nate had already fired up the wok. In an instant, Olivia leaned over me. She dropped to one knee, her hands planted on the rug, completely caging me in. Olivia’s face was quite striking, like a western version of Anne Hathaway. She tilted her head slightly, looking at me like a highly excited cat that had just caught its prey. “This is how you can thank me.” Her lips conquered mine like an invading army. Rather than a kiss, I’d call it a ravaging. Bastard, how did she know how to—how did she know how to use tongue? I tried to push her away, but I couldn’t move her at all. This was absolutely not a peaceful, moonlight-gentle kiss. It was like two wild beasts tearing into each other in the wilderness, branding each other with their mark. The cooking noises in the kitchen crackled and popped. Olivia and I kissed until the world spun. “My tongue is very agile, isn’t it.” Her voice was husky, carrying a bewitching edge. She was so skinny, her chest completely flat. Pressed against mine, it actually hurt. We desperately explored each other’s secrets, urgent, fierce, passionate. Suddenly— The cooking noises in the kitchen stopped. Olivia and I quickly separated. Olivia casually picked up a sparkling water from the table and took a sip. I wiped my lips and started fiddling with a plushie on the table. Sure enough, when people are nervous, they look for something to do. Nate walked out carrying dishes. Seeing us, he smiled and said: “You guys must be hungry. Dinner’s ready.”

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It was 107°F in the scorching summer heat, and I was standing on the street handing out flyers. My mother’s Bentley was parked right by the curb. She was blowing the AC inside, supervising me as I earned my “cleaning fee.” It wasn’t until I shoved the very last flyer into the window of a Ferrari that had just pulled up. Two minutes later, I pulled open the car door and got in. My mother finally panicked. Speeding down the road, she called my phone: “Who is the man driving that car?” “What is your relationship?” “Have you slept with him?!” I just smiled. “He is a man who would buy me tampons, and who doesn’t mind that I stained the backseat of his car.” “Don’t worry, I’m on my period right now. He’s not that much of a beast.” “He’ll have to wait at least seven days…” 1 Heat waves rolled up from the asphalt pavement in waves, and I felt like the soles of my shoes were about to melt away. Sweat dripped from my forehead, slid down my cheeks, and stung as it seeped into my eyes. My cheap T-shirt had been soaked through for a long time, clinging stickily to my back, suffocating me so much I could barely breathe. I wanted to stand under the shade of the trees on the sidewalk, even if it was just for one minute. But I didn’t dare. Not far away was that black Bentley. My mother sat in the car, staring at me like an overseer. I had two hundred flyers in my hand, and I had to hand every single one out without a single one left over. This was the “task” she gave me today. All of this was simply because this morning, my period came early. When I stood up, I accidentally left a tiny, nail-sized bloodstain on the beige leather backseat of her Bentley. For this one spot of blood, my mother went crazy. She used her six-figure Hermès Birkin bag to smash me over the head, over and over again. The hard metal lock struck my temple, making it throb with pain. “Olivia! Do you think this car is too clean? You ruined my car on purpose! You are exactly like your con-artist father, filthy to the bone! You only know how to bring trouble to people! Disgusting!” I hung my head, silently enduring her verbal abuse. It was like this every time. As long as I made her unhappy, she would bring up that man. The man who had a brief marriage with my mother, and who, when she was pregnant, embezzled a massive sum of money from her company to save his high-school sweetheart—some poor girl from the countryside. My dad. Since the day he vanished, I became the biggest stain in my mother’s life. A living, breathing piece of evidence, constantly reminding her that she had been cheated out of her money, her heart, and her body by a poor boy. My mother projected all her hatred for my father onto me, intensifying it. She firmly believed that the blood of “poverty” and “betrayal” flowed in my veins, just like my father’s. She sent me to the most expensive private academy in the city, but she only paid the most basic tuition for me—just enough to let me step foot through the school gates. She made me wear cheap street-stall clothes, looking like a freak among a group of wealthy heirs. Every day, lunchtime at school was my public execution. My classmates would sit in the dining hall, eating flown-in Wagyu beef and bluefin tuna. But I couldn’t enter that dining hall. Because my mother didn’t pay the two-thousand-dollar monthly meal fee for me. I could only be alone, like a rat hiding from the light, tucked away in the corner of an abandoned utility room on the top floor of the academic building. When I opened my lunchbox, a sour smell hit my face. Inside were the leftovers from what the house staff ate the night before, haphazardly mixed together. It was impossible to tell what it originally was. Blackened, wilted vegetable leaves, solidified clumps of grease, and a sticky, mushy lump of rice. Sometimes, if I was “lucky.” There would even be one or two rib bones inside that had already been gnawed completely clean. It felt like some kind of charity, and at the same time, a silent mockery. My mother called this “tempering.” She said I had to first grind away that filthy, impoverished bloodline before I was worthy of the Sterling family’s wealth. 2 The year I turned 14, a sharp, twisting pain flared up in my lower right abdomen. At first, it was just a dull ache. I thought I had eaten something bad and didn’t take it seriously. But not long after, the pain violently escalated, like a red-hot iron rod brutally churning back and forth inside my body. I was in so much pain that I rolled off the bed, curling up on the ice-cold floor. Cold sweat broke out layer by layer, quickly soaking through my thin pajamas. Supporting myself against the wall, I struggled to drag myself to the living room, begging for help from my mother, who was leisurely applying a face mask. Even my voice was trembling. “Mom, my stomach… hurts so much…” She lifted her eyelids, shot me a glance, and let out a cold sneer from her nose. “What trick are you trying to pull now?” “Your father used that exact same pitiful face to con money out of me back in the day. You father and daughter, you have cheap, lowly calculation carved into your bones.” The disdain in her tone chilled my heart even more than the twisting pain in my abdomen. I tried to explain, but the severe pain made me unable to speak a single complete sentence. Waves of pain hit me one after another. I started rolling on the floor, my vision blackening in flashes, my consciousness hovering on the edge of collapse. I was really going to die. This thought caused me to burst out with my last bit of strength. I struggled to crawl to her feet and grabbed her silk robe. I kowtowed to her. One time, then another. My forehead struck the floorboards, making a dull, heavy thud. “Mom… please… save me…” Perhaps this utterly pathetic, miserable display of mine finally pleased her. She slowly stood up, looking down at me from above. “Going to the hospital is fine, but sign this first. My money isn’t blown in by the wind; you have to remember every single cent I spend on you.” She threw a piece of paper and a pen at me. It was an “IOU.” On the white paper with black ink, it stated that I, Olivia Sterling, due to a sudden illness, voluntarily borrowed the surgery fees and subsequent treatment costs from my mother, Evelyn Sterling. I promised to repay the principal and interest in full once I reached adulthood and started working. The interest rate was five times the bank’s standard rate. In that moment, I finally understood that in her eyes, I wasn’t her daughter. I was just a burden who needed to constantly repay a father’s debt. Through the agonizing pain, I used all the strength in my body and trembling hands to sign my name on that ice-cold piece of paper. Only then did she unhurriedly call the driver. 3 After the surgery, my mother only allowed me to stay in the hospital for two days. She ripped out my IV tube, saying that if I didn’t go back to school, I would fall behind on my coursework. The wound on my abdomen chafed painfully against the fabric of my clothes, but this little bit of physical pain was far less agonizing than the torment of being an “outcast” in that elite prep school. Because I hadn’t paid the few hundred dollars for textbook fees, I could only squeeze next to my desk-mate to share one book during class. My desk-mate was a somewhat cowardly boy. Whenever those rich kids, who took pleasure in bullying me, cast unkind looks our way, he would slide the book a large chunk over to his side, leaving me only an awkward corner. I could only desperately crane my neck, like a starving bird stealing food. During the break, the humiliation arrived as expected. A group of girls wearing exquisite makeup cornered me in the restroom. The leader was Madison, the “Queen Bee” of our class. They pushed me to the floor, and ice-cold, filthy water was poured over my head. It soaked my cheap, washed-out T-shirt and instantly soaked through the gauze on my abdomen. An icy, stabbing pain radiated from the wound. “Hey, Olivia, I heard your mom is the CEO of a publicly traded company. Why can’t you even afford your textbook fees?” “You wouldn’t happen to be an illegitimate daughter, would you? The kind that can’t be shown in public?” Their mockery pierced my heart like needles. That day, they pushed and shoved me, kneeing my abdomen. The freshly healed wound tore open again. Bright red blood soaked through the gauze, dyeing my clothes red. I was sent to the infirmary to be re-bandaged. The school called my mother, reporting the bullying and the unpaid fees. The phone was on speaker. I stood in the office, like a criminal waiting for trial. I clearly heard my mother’s voice on the other end—calm, unbothered, even carrying a trace of a lazy smile. “It’s just kids playing around. Our Olivia isn’t that delicate.” “As for the textbook fee,” she paused, her voice carrying a playful amusement, “I’m doing this to train her independence. I absolutely cannot let her develop the bad habit of getting something for nothing.” “If she wants money, make her go earn it.” And so, I became the only student in that elite private school who had to go collect trash after the final bell. While my classmates sat in various luxury cars with logos I didn’t recognize, heading to high-end restaurants and private clubs. I carried my heavy backpack and walked into the dirtiest corners of the city, digging through dumpsters that reeked of sour rot, searching for plastic bottles and cardboard that could be exchanged for cash. Once, I was digging through a dumpster in the back alley of a high-end French restaurant. I happened to see my mother and her socialite friends sitting at an open-air cafe not far away. My mother saw me. She showed absolutely no surprise. Instead, she lifted her coffee cup and toasted me from afar, the corners of her lips curling into a cruel yet satisfied arc. Like she was appreciating a play she had personally directed, titled “Tempering.” And I was just the clown struggling in the mud for her amusement. I collected recyclables for a week. My fingers were cut, and my entire body reeked of sour garbage. In the end, I only exchanged it all for thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents. The thousands of dollars needed for textbook fees were nowhere in sight. At the very last moment on the day of the payment deadline, my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Miller, called me into her office. She pushed a brand-new set of textbooks in front of me and said gently, “Olivia, the teacher paid for your books.” “Mrs. Miller… I…” I held that stack of brand-new books, and my tears fell uncompetitively. Mrs. Miller patted my shoulder, her tone warm. “Don’t cry. I don’t need you to pay me back. You just need to promise me that you will study hard, and that will be enough.” After getting the textbooks, for the first time, I sat in the classroom with my back straight. I studied like crazy, wanting to repay Mrs. Miller’s kindness with excellent grades. But those good days lasted less than a week. My mother must have seen the crossed-out textbook fee on the billing statement the school mailed to our house. She came to the school and went straight to the Principal’s office. Not long after, Mrs. Miller, who was right in the middle of teaching our class, was called out by the principal’s assistant. When she left, she was still pinching half a piece of chalk in her hand. She only said, “Students, self-study,” and never came back. The class started buzzing with discussion. A strong wave of unease suddenly rose in my heart, so much so that I couldn’t even focus on my book. It wasn’t until after class that I saw it on the bulletin board. A thin piece of A4 paper, yet heavy enough to crush a person—a notice regarding the termination of Mrs. Sarah Miller’s employment contract. My mother was one of the biggest financial sponsors of this private school. To her, firing a teacher was easier than crushing an ant. I rushed to the school gates like a madwoman. My mother was just about to get into her car. “Mom! Why did you fire Mrs. Miller?!” I cried and shouted at her, my voice cracking from agitation. “Why are you crying?” Her tone was completely flat. “Did I fire her? No. It was your ‘kind-hearted’ Mrs. Miller who insisted on being a busybody and ruining my educational policy.” “What educational policy! Mrs. Miller is a good person! She was just helping me…” “A good person?” My mother let out a short laugh, as if she had just heard the biggest joke in the world. “Olivia, I’ll teach you another free lesson today. In this world, the most worthless thing is a so-called ‘good person,’ and all that unprovoked kindness.” “Besides, you need to be very clear about one thing. Everything Mrs. Miller is experiencing right now is because you implicated her.” “She lost her job because of you.” That single sentence pinned me dead to the spot. It was true. It was because I accepted that kindness that I harmed the only person who was good to me. My mother looked at my deathly pale face with satisfaction, turned around, pulled the car door open, and got in. The car window slowly rolled down, revealing that well-maintained, yet entirely temperature-less face of hers. “Oh, right. I’ve already reimbursed Mrs. Miller for your textbooks.” “That money, naturally, still counts as a loan to you.” “The interest will continue to accrue.” 4 After Mrs. Miller was fired, I became the god of plague in the school, someone everyone avoided at all costs. When I walked down the hallway, classmates who had originally been laughing and talking would instantly fall silent, looking at me with a gaze mixed with fear and disdain, before silently dispersing. The bullying from Madison’s clique completely tore off its disguise and became unprecedentedly blatant. They would snatch the brand-new textbooks Mrs. Miller bought me right off my desk in front of the entire class. They used markers to draw obscene doodles and vicious curses all over them, and then, right in front of my eyes, tore them to shreds, page by page. I pounced on them like crazy, trying to snatch those books back. They were the only proof of warmth I had ever possessed. But they pushed me to the ground in a chaotic scramble. The hard floor bruised my bones. I don’t know who unscrewed a bottle of ink. The sticky, freezing blue-black liquid poured down from the top of my head. The ice-cold liquid soaked through my clothes and dyed the scattered pages on the floor black. But no other teacher ever dared to step forward to help me again. They intentionally avoided my gaze, as if I carried some contagious bad luck. They were all afraid. Afraid that they would end up like Mrs. Miller—that because they offered me a trivial piece of charity, their lives would be effortlessly destroyed by my powerful, omnipotent mother. I became a true isolated island, abandoned by the whole world. That day, they cornered me in the restroom again, pouring a bucket of dirty water over me from head to toe. When I got home completely drenched, unable to tell if it was dirty water or tears on my face, I collapsed. I could no longer endure this boundless despair. For the first time, I mustered up my courage and blocked the doorway to my mother’s study. She was elegantly sipping red wine and flipping through a financial magazine, turning a blind eye to my miserable state. Using all my strength, I asked the question that had hovered in my heart for years, nearly tearing me apart: “Why?” My voice was trembling, carrying a crying tone. “Why can’t you treat me like a normal mother would?” She finally reacted. She took a photo frame out of her drawer and threw it at my feet. Crash! The glass of the frame shattered, scratching a corner of the photo inside. In the photo was a man smiling a gentle, clean smile. His eyes and features were identical to mine. My mother finally lifted her eyes, and in those beautiful pupils surged a hatred that was practically overflowing. “Because of this face, these eyes. You look exactly like him.” She stood up and walked toward me step by step, looking down at me as if she were looking at a piece of garbage that completely disgusted her. “Every day I look at you, it’s like looking at a debt collector. A living, breathing piece of evidence constantly reminding me of how stupid and cheap I was back then!” She extended her finger and poked my heart heavily. “Olivia, the fact that I didn’t throw you away the moment you were born is already the greatest mercy I could show you as a mother.” In that moment, the last trace of warmth in my heart, the final thread of extravagant hope for family affection, was snuffed out by her own hands. Thoroughly frozen, shattered into powder. It turns out that not all bloodlines are tied to heartache. The maternal love written in books might just be a fairytale, and the hatred a real mother had for me was bone-chilling, colder than the winter wind. 5 … The static noise in my Bluetooth earbud snapped me awake from my scorching trance. I had just handed a flyer to a passing man. He swatted my hand away with a look of disgust and cursed vulgarly, “Roll away, don’t bother me.” Instantly, my mother’s cold voice came through the Bluetooth earbud in my ear. “Olivia, your posture is wrong.” “If you are begging for a living, you need to look like you’re begging. You need to smile, you need to look approachable. Who are you showing that funeral face to?” She paused, her tone full of mockery: “Do you think it’s that easy to make money? You don’t even stand properly. Who is going to take your stuff?” I twitched the corners of my mouth, forcing a smile that looked uglier than crying, and began mechanically repeating the process: handing out, getting rejected, handing out again. But my mother was still endlessly nagging and lecturing in my earbud. The two hundred flyers were finally handed out until only the very last one remained. At this moment, she spoke into the earbud again: “Do you see it, Olivia?! That red Ferrari that just parked by the curb!” “Quick! Shove the flyer to him! That is our premium client. Catching someone like him is more useful than handing out a thousand flyers!” I numbly lifted my head and looked over, following her words. That red Ferrari was parked by the curb, its engine still running. Gripping that final flyer, which had long been softened by my sweat, I moved my lead-filled legs and walked over. Just as I was about to bend down to shove the flyer through the gap in the car window. The car door was pushed open without warning. A man stepped out of the car. He was tall and stood perfectly straight. Even a simple white T-shirt and black pants couldn’t hide the noble aura radiating from his entire being. He was carefully cradling a tiny kitten in his hands. The cat was only the size of a palm, completely dirty, and meowing with a soft, tiny voice. It sounded like it was acting spoiled, but also like it was afraid. One look and you could tell it was a stray cat he had just picked up. The man lowered his eyes, focused entirely on the little guy in his arms. He frowned slightly, looking somewhat helpless. He lifted his head, his gaze falling on me, and his cold, clear voice carried a trace of inquiry: “Do you know how to take care of a kitten?” I was instantly stunned in place. My brain went completely blank. And right at that moment, my mother’s death warrant rang crazily in my earbud again. The sound was sharp and piercing, almost puncturing my eardrum: “Olivia! What are you staring off into space like a dead person for?!” “Hurry up and hand the flyer over! Let him see your sincerity! You idiot!” I looked at the shivering little cat in the man’s arms, and then I thought of myself. I jerked my head up. Tears burst out like a broken dam without warning, blurring my vision. Right now. This was my only chance. “I do, but can you take me away from here first?” I stared intensely into his eyes, terrified of missing even the slightest hint of rejection. “Please.” “…Someone is watching me.” The man’s deep eyes narrowed slightly. His line of sight seemed to cross over my shoulder, glancing at that black Bentley parked not far away. He didn’t ask a single question. He just pulled the car door open. “Get in.” I practically crawled and scrambled my way inside. The engine let out a roar, and we instantly vanished around the corner. Before I even had time to catch my breath, my mother’s furious voice came through the Bluetooth: “Olivia! You’re crazy! What are you doing?!” “Whose car is that! Get out right now!” I took a deep breath and spoke faintly: “Mom, he is a man who would buy me tampons, and who doesn’t mind that I stained the backseat of his car.” There was dead silence on my mother’s end for a second. Following that was a hysterical stream of curses, even worse than before. “You slut! You are exactly like your deadbeat father!” “You’re both lowlife trash! Like a dog that jumps the moment it sees money!” Normally, I would only endure it silently. But right now, I took the earbud out and threw it out the window without hesitation. 6 Actually, I had no idea how to take care of a kitten. My only intimate contact with a cat was when I was very young. That day, I brought a rain-soaked stray cat back from outside. It was skin and bones, and I put it in my room, wanting to keep it. As a result, my mom found out. She wore that familiar look of disgust and disdain. She had a maid grab the kitten by the scruff of the neck and throw it far out the front door, just like tossing a piece of trash. She pointed at my nose and warned me, word by word: “Olivia, if you ever dare to bring this kind of dirty thing home again, I will throw you out right alongside it, and don’t you ever come back!” On the way to the man’s house, I constantly used my phone to search for tutorials on taking care of kittens. [How to care for a kitten as a beginner?] [Can kittens drink cow’s milk?] [What temperature warm water should be used for goat milk powder?] I read until my head was spinning, terrified that I would remember any detail wrong. I was afraid. Afraid that he would realize I knew absolutely nothing, and then, just like my mother, throw me out of the car. Luckily. When we got back to his house—which was as massive as a palace—and it was time to feed the kitten. This man, Ethan Vance, didn’t seem to be much better at this than I was. He held the tiny baby bottle with a serious expression, but his movements were incredibly clumsy. And I, relying on the knowledge I had just frantically crammed, helped him mix the warm water and test the temperature. He couldn’t spot my flaws. The kitten finally finished the milk with immense satisfaction, curled up in a soft towel, and let out a tiny purring sound. The room fell quiet in an instant. This moment of peace reminded me that this short-lived shelter was about to end. I gripped the hem of my shirt tightly, my fingernails almost embedding themselves into my palms. I can’t leave. I can’t go back to that hell. I lifted my head, meeting his inquiring gaze. I mustered all the courage I had in my life, my voice trembling slightly from tension. “…Does your house need a maid?” Ethan was stunned for a second, then replied faintly, “I have an auntie who cooks for me.” It was an expected answer. But I was unwilling to accept it. This was my only chance. I urgently added, “What about someone to take care of the cat?!” “I can take care of it. I’m very good at taking care of small animals. I can do anything!” I wanted to stay so badly. Because the current me was penniless and homeless. Right at this moment, an inopportune sound echoed in the room. Rumble— My stomach growled. I haven’t had a single drop of water to drink since morning. Ethan’s gaze landed on my face, which was now flushed red with embarrassment. He said: “Let’s eat first.” The dining table was covered in exquisite dishes, the kind of food I had only ever seen my mother eat before. I sat cautiously at the table, my hands resting on my knees, not even daring to touch the silverware. He seemed to notice my constraint and handed a clean fork and knife to me. “Eat.” That single word instantly shattered my initial reserve. I shoved the food into my mouth with total disregard, wolfing it down. I ate too fast and even choked, coughing until tears came out of my eyes. When I finally lifted my head from the food, I suddenly realized that the man sitting across from me hadn’t touched his silverware from start to finish. Ethan just sat there quietly, his deep gaze resting on me, his emotions unreadable. My cheeks burned hotly in an instant, and a sense of shame overwhelmed me. He must think I am uneducated and embarrassing. “It’s okay,” he seemed to see through my thoughts, a very faint curve hooking the corner of his mouth. “The way you eat is very appetizing.” “By the way, looking at your age… you should still be in school, right?” Gripping my fork, I nodded, my voice as small as a mosquito’s hum: “…High school senior.” He frowned imperceptibly. “Then why are you out here… offering to be a maid?” “Also, who was watching you?” I put down my fork, lowered my head, and stared at the dirty tips of my shoes. I was silent for a very, very long time. “It was my mom.” I don’t know how I managed to recount everything. The humiliation, the pain, the despair. Through my barren vocabulary, it became a pale, lengthy statement. By the end, my voice was unbearably hoarse, and my vision was a blur. I lifted my head, looking at him with teary eyes, like a drowning person grabbing onto the last piece of driftwood. “I’m begging you, please give me a job.” “I promise I will take good care of the cat. I can swallow any bitterness.” Ethan listened to my story. There was no pity in his eyes, nor was there disdain. After a long time, he finally spoke, his voice calm to the point of being almost cruel. “I don’t need a maid here.” He rejected me. The very last flame of hope was extinguished. I stood up from the chair, my body swaying slightly from exhaustion. “…I understand. Thank you for dinner.” I bowed deeply toward him. Then I turned and walked toward the grand front door. I should go. Back to the hell I belong in. Just as my hand touched the doorknob, Ethan called out to me. “Wait a second. I don’t need a maid.” “But your tuition, your living expenses, and all the expenses for your future college education—I can sponsor them.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “408333”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When the System pulled me back into this world for the second time, I was already infamous. I was the ultimate charity case, the gold-digging husband who had married hopelessly out of his league. But I was done acting like a madman over my wife’s wandering eye. I was done shedding tears because my own daughter had started calling another man “Dad.” Instead, I instituted a new rule in our sprawling Virginia estate. Every time they mentioned Tristan’s name, they had to transfer five thousand dollars into my bank account. In just fifteen days, I had amassed a quarter of a million dollars. I did it because the System had whispered to me upon my return: “Your target mortgaged thirty years of her own lifespan to drag you back. But rest easy—this time, you only need to survive twenty days.” In these twenty days, my only goal was to save enough money to secure a peaceful retirement for my adoptive parents. At dinner, Victoria was chatting casually with our daughter. Inevitably, Tristan’s name slipped out. The atmosphere at the mahogany dining table froze instantly. I simply reached across the linen tablecloth, my palm face up. “Five thousand. Venmo or Zelle?” Mia, my daughter, finally snapped. She slammed her silver fork down, the clatter echoing in the cavernous dining room. “Is money the only thing left in your pathetic brain? You’re not even worth one of Tristan’s fingernails!” I didn’t argue. I just extended my hand a fraction closer to her. “Ten thousand. You just said it again.” 1 Mia stared at me, her young face contorted in sheer disbelief. My expression didn’t shift. I kept my voice flat, hollowed out. “Transfer the money first. Don’t make me ask twice.” “Simon, is this a joke to you?!” Victoria violently pushed her plate away, the porcelain shattering against the marble floor. Her eyes were dark, swirling with sudden, explosive anger. “I know you’re holding onto resentment. That’s why I’ve turned a blind eye for the past two weeks. I traded half my soul, half my life to wake you from that coma, because I wanted to build a real life with you! Why do you have to be so petty?” I lowered my eyes, my tone maddeningly even. “I wouldn’t dare be petty. But you are the CEO of Vanguard Defense. A woman of your word. You agreed to the rule; surely you won’t back out now.” Victoria lunged forward, grabbing my hand and pressing it hard against her chest, right over the jagged, ugly scar hidden beneath her silk blouse. It was the physical toll the System had extracted from her—an open-heart procedure she endured just to reboot my timeline. Her face contorted in pain, and her voice softened into a desperate plea. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him up in front of you. Please, Simon, don’t be angry, okay? Don’t call me CEO. I’m your wife. We are supposed to be forever.” Years ago, I would have killed to hear her admit she was wrong. I would have dreamed of her calling me her husband with that kind of raw vulnerability. Now, the feeling of her heartbeat against my palm just made stomach acid rise in my throat. I felt physically sick. I pulled my hand back, wiping my palm against my slacks. “You just said his name again. That makes it fifteen thousand.” The color drained from Victoria’s face in a sickening rush. “Fine. Fine.” Her voice trembled with a terrifying, glacial rage. “You really never cease to amaze me, Simon. I want to see exactly how long you can keep up this pathetic, money-hungry charade.” She yanked a black Centurion card from her blazer, hurled it at the floor, grabbed Mia by the wrist, and stormed out. The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind them. Standing by the sideboard, a young security detail whispered to a maid. “He doesn’t get it. The boss is tough, but she loves him. The six months he was gone, she lost her mind. She almost let the entire company go under. She just sat in the dark, clutching his photo until sunrise.” I raised a hand, dismissing them both. When the room was empty, I bent down and picked up the black card. I didn’t care where they went. I didn’t care about Victoria’s supposed grief. Five more days. That was all I had left before I vanished from this timeline forever. Having finally seen the absolute zero of Victoria’s heart, my only tether to this world was securing my adoptive parents’ future. I called one of the junior guards and ordered him to pack up every luxury watch, cufflink, and designer suit in my closet and take them to a high-end pawn broker in the city. While I was stripping the room, I caught sight of the platinum wedding band on my left hand. I gripped it, ready to pull it off and toss it into the sell pile. Before I could clear my knuckle, my wrist was seized in a vice grip. Victoria was standing there, her eyes bloodshot and wild. “You’re trying to sell our wedding ring?” I looked up at her, finding the entire situation profoundly absurd. Five years ago, she had taken her own wedding band to a jeweler to melt it down, using the cash to buy a vintage Rolex for Tristan. If she could sell hers, why couldn’t I sell mine? I wrenched my arm free and tossed the ring toward the guard. “It’s a heavy platinum setting. It should fetch a decent price.” “I said, don’t touch it!” Victoria screamed, snatching the ring out of the air. She glared at the guard with a look that promised violence. “Get out!” The moment the door clicked shut, she lunged at me, crashing her mouth against mine. It wasn’t a kiss of passion; it was a desperate, aggressive claiming. I shoved her away with everything I had. My lip tore against my teeth. I instinctively wiped the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. When I looked up, Victoria was staring at me in utter devastation. “You… you’re disgusted by me?” Her voice broke. “Are you still punishing me because I let him touch me?” If this were five years ago, seeing her look so shattered would have broken me. I would have pulled her into my arms and forgiven everything. But now, I just held out my hand, my palm steady. “You just brought him up again. That’s five thousand.” Victoria swayed on her feet like she’d been struck. I watched her, completely numb. I remembered looking at her with that exact same agonizing desperation. Years ago, when Vanguard Defense was still a fledgling contractor, her convoy was ambushed overseas. She took three bullets to the chest and abdomen. I was the combat medic who refused to call time of death, dragging her back from the brink of the grave. She defied her wealthy, aristocratic family to marry me. The first two years were magic. We built a life. We had Mia. But four years in, she moved her recently divorced childhood best friend, Tristan, into the compound. She introduced him as a “consultant,” but gave him the run of the estate. He was the golden boy she’d never quite gotten over. I fought. I cried. I begged. But she would just look at me with exhausted irritation. “Tristan has no one else, Simon. What’s wrong with me looking out for him?” Slowly, methodically, he poisoned my home. Even Mia, the daughter I had stayed up nights rocking to sleep, began to drift into his orbit. “You don’t understand anything, Daddy. Tristan is so much cooler.” A sudden, sharp pain in my ribs snapped me out of the memory. Mia had charged into the room, shoving me hard. “What are you doing?!” she shrieked, pointing at the half-empty closet. “I already promised Tristan he could have the East Wing for his birthday! You emptied it all out! How am I supposed to explain this to him?” She glared at me, her eyes filled with a vitriol no child should possess. “Why did you even come back? Why couldn’t you just stay dead?” 2 I froze, the air knocked out of my lungs. I couldn’t form a single word. This room, the East Wing master suite, was the one Mia had helped me decorate when we first built the estate. She had painted a small, lopsided heart inside the closet door. “I want Daddy to have the safest harbor in the whole world,” she had said. Victoria clearly remembered that memory, too. A flicker of genuine guilt crossed her sharp features. “Mia, stop. You don’t mean that.” Mia yanked her arm away from her mother, her glare fixed on me. “Yes, I do! Why are you here?” “I said, shut up!” Victoria snapped, her voice turning to ice. But when she looked back at me, her eyes darted away, unable to hold my gaze. “Don’t listen to her. Simon… about Tristan and me. We were just… I had too much to drink that night. I thought he was you.” I listened to the silence ring in my ears. My chest felt tight, filled with a dense, suffocating ache. Six years. Six years, and she couldn’t even be bothered to invent a new lie. I dug my fingernails so hard into my palms that the skin broke, forcing the moisture back from my eyes. “You just referenced him four times. Plus the previous one. That’s twenty-five thousand dollars.” Victoria stood completely still for thirty agonizing seconds. Then, she exploded. She kicked the heavy, solid-wood nightstand, sending a designer lamp crashing to the floor. “Fine! You are unbelievable!” she screamed, her chest heaving. “You want money? I’ll give you money! In fact, I have a very lucrative job for you. Are you taking it or not?” I looked at her. Her lips curled into a cruel, calculated smirk. “Tristan is sick. It’s a severe stomach bug, very debilitating. You used to be a medic. You’re going to be his personal, live-in nurse.” Her voice dripped with venom. “Make him comfortable, and I’ll write you a check for half a million dollars.” “No.” I didn’t expect her to stoop to this level of humiliation. My voice was thick with suppressed rage. Victoria’s expression hardened into a mask of pure sociopathy. “You don’t have to agree. But if you don’t, I’ll just have my security team bring your adoptive mother here to do it. She was an award-winning head nurse before she retired, wasn’t she? I’m sure she’d love to help.” My heart seized. A cold, familiar terror washed over me. This was the same dead-eyed expression she wore five years ago when she ordered her private security to ruthlessly purge corporate spies from her company. She destroyed lives without blinking. I couldn’t gamble with my mother’s safety. My jaw tightened until my teeth ached. “Fine. I’ll do it.” A guard escorted me down to the industrial kitchen. Mia trailed behind us, her arms loaded with ridiculously expensive, holistic supplements. “These are imported truffles, and this is organic bone broth,” she dictated, dumping them on the stainless-steel counter. She looked at me like I was a stray dog that had wandered into her house. “Don’t think you can pull anything, Daddy. I’m going to watch your every move. You are not going to poison Tristan.” I just stared at her, feeling a profound, echoing emptiness. A second later, two raw, whole chickens were violently thrown onto the counter in front of me. The cloying, metallic smell of raw poultry hit my sinuses, and my stomach violently rebelled. I gagged, gripping the edge of the sink. Since I was a child, I’ve had a severe, documented psychosomatic aversion and contact allergy to raw poultry. Just touching it causes my skin to erupt in painful, burning hives. It was a trauma response from a childhood incident, and both Victoria and Mia knew exactly how bad it was. But Mia just rolled her eyes. “Tristan only likes fresh chicken soup. Just deal with it, okay? Besides, Mom told me to make sure you do it.” I snapped my head up. Victoria was standing in the doorway of the kitchen. There wasn’t a shred of pity on her face. Her voice was clinical. “Tristan has a weak constitution and a refined palate. He can only stomach your recipe.” She crossed her arms. “You grew up on a dirt-poor farm, Simon. Stop pretending you have the delicate sensibilities of high society. Make the soup and bring it up to him.” My hands were already breaking out in a furious, raised rash just from being near the raw meat. I shook my head, my breathing shallow. “I can’t. I—” “If you don’t,” Victoria cut in, her voice slicing through the air, “I’ll have your mother brought in from the city to pluck and gut them.” The last remnants of my pride crumbled into dust. My adoptive mother was nearly seventy. Her heart couldn’t take the stress of Victoria’s armed guards dragging her here. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, swallowed down the suffocating humiliation, and nodded. By the time I carried the heavy ceramic bowl of boiling soup up to Tristan’s quarters, my hands and forearms were covered in weeping, agonizing hives. I was running a fever, my legs shaking so badly I could barely stand. Tristan sat propped up against a mountain of pillows. He took a tiny, theatrical sip from the spoon, then grimaced. “It’s too greasy. I can’t keep this down.” Mia’s face instantly twisted in fury. She whirled on me, screaming. “Are you deaf? He doesn’t like it! Go back down and make a new batch right now!” I stood completely still, my vision blurring from the pain in my arms. Mia lost her temper and shoved my shoulder, trying to push me toward the door. Victoria stepped forward and caught Mia’s arm. Her tone softened, just a fraction, as she looked at my inflamed skin. “If you’re willing to just apologize to him, you don’t have to make another—” 3 “It’ll cost extra.” The rest of Victoria’s sentence died in her throat. Silence stretched through the room. Finally, she ground the words out through her teeth. “Fine. I will pay you extra.” I turned, walked back down to the kitchen, and spent another agonizing hour making a fresh bowl. When I brought it back, I handed it toward Tristan. As he reached for it, his hand “slipped.” He violently jerked his wrist, and the entire bowl of boiling, greasy broth splashed directly onto my thighs. The pain was instantaneous and blinding. Tears sprang to my eyes before I could stop them. Before I could even react, I was shoved hard against the wall. Victoria and Mia practically dove over me, frantically checking Tristan’s blankets to see if a single drop had touched his skin. Tristan shot me a smug, triumphant look over Victoria’s shoulder, while his voice trembled with engineered panic. “I’m so sorry! I’m fine, but Simon looks burned. Should we call the estate doctor?” Victoria didn’t even look up from wiping Tristan’s hands. “No need. Men who are this obsessed with money are cockroaches. He won’t die.” She pulled a checkbook from her blazer pocket, scribbled on it, and threw it. The paper fluttered through the air and landed in the pool of spilled soup at my feet. “Half a million. Take it.” She finally looked at me, her eyes filled with revulsion. “I’ll have the maids handle Tristan from now on. I’m sick of looking at you. Every time you open your mouth, it’s about a payout. It’s pathetic.” I didn’t say a word. I slowly bent down, my scorched skin screaming in protest, and picked up the damp check. The burn on my leg felt like it was chewing through muscle, but I didn’t make a sound. I secured the check and limped out of the room. This money. It was enough. My parents would be safe. The next morning, I packed the cash, the pawn shop receipts, and the checks into a duffel bag, intent on delivering them to my parents. But the moment I walked out the front doors of the mansion, I froze. Standing just beyond the main security gate was my adoptive mother, Martha. She was trembling violently in the morning chill. “Mom? What are you doing here?” A sickening knot pulled tight in my gut. “Where’s Pops? Didn’t he come with you?” Martha’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen. She grabbed my forearms, her grip desperate. “Your father was taken this morning. A black SUV pulled up, said Victoria invited him to the estate for breakfast. I followed them in a cab because I was terrified, but they won’t let me past the gate, and I haven’t seen him!” My heart plummeted into an icy abyss. My adoptive father, Henry, had taken a bullet to the head for Victoria years ago during a corporate hit. He survived, but the severe traumatic brain injury left him permanently with the cognitive capacity of a seven-year-old child. “Mom, stay right here. Don’t move. I’ll find him.” Before I could take a step, a blood-curdling, agonizing scream echoed from the back courtyards. My blood ran cold. I broke into a sprint, ignoring the tearing pain in my burned leg, tearing through the manicured hedges toward the sound. In the center of the stone courtyard stood Victoria, her face an unreadable mask of dark fury. Mia was huddled behind her, looking spooked. Tristan stood off to the side, looking the picture of a traumatized victim. And on the cold, hard concrete, my father was pinned facedown by two massive private security contractors. When he saw me running toward him, his cloudy, confused eyes lit up. “Simon! My boy is here…” “Shut him up!” Victoria barked. She stepped forward and kicked my father hard in the shoulder with her steel-toed boot. I let out a raw, animal scream and threw myself over my father’s body, shielding his head. “Victoria, what the hell are you doing?!” She grabbed the collar of my jacket and violently hauled me backward. Her face was contorted in disgust. “Why don’t you ask the old fool what he did?!” Tristan stepped forward, his voice trembling perfectly. “I was just walking in the garden. This… this crazy old man just lunged at me. He was trying to strangle me! If the guards hadn’t heard me scream, he would have killed me!” “You’re lying!” I roared, my voice tearing my throat. “His brain is ruined! He can’t even tie his own shoes or feed himself! How the hell could he coordinate an attack? You set him up!” Victoria let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Why would Tristan lie about something like this?” She didn’t look at me again. She turned to the captain of the guard, her voice devoid of any humanity. “Take him to the wall. Fifty strikes with the heavy batons.” “No!” I screamed, thrashing wildly against the guards who had grabbed me. Tears streamed down my face, blurring my vision. “He’s almost seventy years old! Fifty strikes from those batons will stop his heart! Victoria, look at him! Have you forgotten he’s only like this because he took a bullet for you?!” Victoria’s posture stiffened. For a fraction of a second, hesitation flickered in her eyes. But Tristan immediately shrank back, clutching his throat. “Victoria… it’s okay. If it makes you look bad, let him go. I can take the bruises…” The guilt in Victoria’s eyes instantly evaporated, replaced by absolute, blinding rage. “Do it! If anyone intervenes, beat them too!” Knowing Victoria was a lost cause, I dropped to my knees, practically crawling across the concrete toward Mia. I grabbed her designer skirt. “Mia, please. Please. When you were little, Pops was your favorite person. He used to carry you on his shoulders. You know he wouldn’t hurt anyone. Tell your mother! Tell her he didn’t do it!” 4 Mia refused to look at me. A flash of profound hesitation crossed her face. Hope flared in my chest. I gripped her skirt tighter. “Mia, speak up! Tell them he’s innocent!” She slowly lifted her head. She looked over at Tristan, who gave her a subtle, sad, imploring look. Mia ripped her fabric out of my hands and shoved me backward. “I saw him.” I felt like I had been struck by lightning. The blood in my veins turned to ice. “Mia… what are you saying?” “I said, I saw him!” Mia shouted, her voice shrill, as if volume could make the lie true. “He’s a crazy old man! He tried to hurt Tristan, and he deserves to be punished!” The last ounce of strength drained from my body. I collapsed onto the freezing concrete. Victoria sneered down at me. “Even your own daughter saw it. Are you done spinning lies?” She gestured to the guards. “Commence.” “NO!” My scream was entirely drowned out by the sickening, heavy crack of the solid polymer baton striking bone. My father’s cries of agony echoed off the stone walls of the compound. He didn’t understand what was happening. He just cried out for me. “Simon… it hurts… Dad hurts…” I fought like a madman, tearing my fingernails on the pavement trying to reach him, but the two guards had their knees dug into my spine, pinning me completely. I was forced to watch. The heavy, rhythmic thwack of the batons. The blood pooling on the gray stone. By the fiftieth strike, my father’s body went completely limp. He didn’t twitch. He didn’t breathe. “Dad!” My voice tore completely. The guards finally let me go, and I scrambled over the blood-slicked concrete, pulling his broken body into my arms. His skin was already cooling. The light in his eyes was completely gone. Victoria stood over us, looking down with clinical detachment. “Enough. He was a vegetable anyway. This is a mercy. Don’t be too dramatic about it; I’ll pay for a premium funeral.” I stared at the blood on my hands. The world had gone entirely silent. Mia trotted over, looking annoyed. “Stop crying, Daddy. He tried to hurt Tristan. He brought it on himself.” She pulled a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills from her pocket and threw them. They fluttered down, landing in the pool of my father’s blood. “Here. This is enough to buy him a nice spot in the cemetery.” Suddenly, a piercing, soul-shredding shriek cut through the air. I snapped my head up. Martha had somehow slipped past the front gate. She was sprinting across the courtyard, her eyes fixed on the bloody heap in my arms. She threw herself onto my father’s body, her hands trembling violently as she touched his face. “Henry… Henry, wake up! How could you leave me? How could you leave me here all alone?!” “Mom.” I reached out a shaking hand to pull her back. Dad was gone. She was the only family I had left in the universe. But before my fingers could brush her sleeve, she lunged upward. With a guttural cry, she threw her entire body weight forward, driving her head headfirst into the sharp, granite edge of the decorative fountain. “NO!” I lunged, but my fingers only grazed the fabric of her coat. A sickening crack echoed. She slumped to the ground, a dark pool rushing out from beneath her skull. I knelt there on the stone. To my left, the beaten corpse of my father. To my right, the shattered body of my mother. In my hands, I still gripped the blood-soaked duffel bag of cash I was supposed to give them for their retirement. A terrible, suffocating pressure seized my chest. I doubled over, and a mouthful of dark blood violently expelled from my lungs, splattering across the concrete. “Simon!” Victoria’s voice fractured. The icy facade broke, replaced by sudden, raw panic. She rushed forward to grab me. But Tristan casually tugged on her sleeve. “He’s just playing the victim again, Victoria. He probably thinks we didn’t give him enough cash. Remember a few months ago when he faked a coma? He always comes back.” Mia pulled out another stack of bills and threw them directly at my face. “Is this enough? Get over it, Daddy. Stop acting. It’s annoying.” I looked at the scattered bills. I looked at the checks. I started to laugh. A broken, wet, horrific sound that clawed its way out of my ruined throat. Victoria took a hesitant step toward me, her face pale, but Mia stepped in front of her. “He’s just going to threaten to kill himself again. Let him do it. If he really dies this time, we won’t even care.” I reached out and gently brushed my thumbs over my parents’ open, sightless eyes, closing them. Then I looked up at Mia. “Okay. I’ll die.” Mia smirked. She reached over to the guard standing next to her, unclipped the heavy Glock from his holster, and kicked it across the pavement toward me. “Use this. It’s faster.” I picked up the heavy, cold steel of the gun. I didn’t say a word. Seeing me holding it silently, Victoria let out a long sigh of relief, assuming the bluff was over. “Alright, Simon, enough of the tantrums. Put it down, come inside, apologize, and we can move past this…” Before she finished her sentence, I pressed the barrel flush against my heart and pulled the trigger. BANG. The sound was deafening. A spray of boiling, crimson blood painted the side of Victoria’s face. The relieved smile on her face froze. The color drained from her skin, leaving her looking like a wax corpse. “SIMON!”

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The Kensington family’s monthly Sunday dinners were strictly closed-door affairs. No outsiders. Ever. Yet, Victoria’s junior assistant had somehow made the guest list, month after month. In the past, he just sat there, playing the quiet background character. I swallowed my pride and endured it. But tonight, my five-year-old daughter, Mia, bypassed me entirely and handed the private chef’s menu directly to him, asking what hewanted to eat. In that split second, the illusion shattered. I just felt an overwhelming, bone-deep exhaustion. The moment we got home, I dropped the divorce papers on the kitchen island in front of Victoria. She stared at the pristine white pages, a cold, mocking smile twisting her lips. “All this because Spencer picked an appetizer? Are you out of your mind?” “Yes,” I said. “Sign it.” 1. “Nathaniel, if you’re absolutely determined to throw a tantrum, can we at least schedule it?” Victoria leaned heavily against the back of the leather sofa, her eyes shut, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can you wait until I get home from the office tomorrow night? I am suffocating under deadlines right now.” Spencer stood near the foyer, clutching a stack of legal folders. His posture was perfectly neutral—neither submissive nor arrogant. Outside, the engine of the Maybach hummed a low, expensive purr in the driveway. The housekeepers huddled in the adjacent dining room, wiping down spotless surfaces, their eyes strictly averted. Everything in the Kensington estate ran with immaculate, clockwork precision. Everything except me, standing in front of my wife, bristling like a cornered animal. After a long, suffocating silence, Victoria finally opened her eyes and looked at me. “Just let me off the hook for tonight. Please, Nathaniel.” The moment the words left her mouth, I heard a faint, barely disguised scoff from the dining room. I knew the staff looked down on me. I’d given them plenty of ammunition over the years, constantly picking fights with Victoria over trivial details, desperate to prove I still held some weight in her heart. Now, her weary, condescending retreat only made me look like an unreasonable lunatic. A surge of nameless anger ignited in my chest. I snatched the duplicate copy of the divorce agreement and slammed it back down in front of her. “No. Sign it right now.” Victoria looked up at me, a storm of complicated emotions rolling in her eyes. She looked genuinely worn down by my aggression. “Nathaniel. If you’re this humiliated over the menu thing, I give you my word, it won’t happen again. Mia hurt your feelings tonight. When she wakes up tomorrow, I will personally march her down here to apologize to you. Will that satisfy you?” Victoria Kensington never compromised. But just seconds before, I had caught the subtle, pleading glance Spencer shot her. Only then did her tone soften. I let out a harsh, hollow laugh, a chilling sadness pooling in my gut. My brilliant, high-and-mighty wife, bending so easily to the unspoken cues of a twenty-something assistant. Victoria and I grew up together. We were supposed to be the perfect match—two old-money families merging. I had loved her for as long as I could remember, but her heart had always belonged to someone else. Eventually, she caved to the ruthless pressure of the Kensington patriarchs and married me. Her first love, devastated, fled to the States. But timing is a cruel joke. Barely a month after our wedding, my parents died in a sudden accident, leaving my family’s empire in ruins. I was orphaned and stripped of my leverage. The Kensingtons had wanted a powerful alliance to solidify their absolute control over the East Coast markets. Instead, they got a bankrupt dependent. They despised me for it. It took three years of marriage—and the successful conception of our daughter, Mia—before I was even allowed to attend their sacred monthly dinners. And even with my “ticket” in, I was treated like a glorified servant, expected to pour the wine and swallow their veiled insults. I took it. I took it because I loved Victoria. I chose the humiliation. I chose to endure. I thought things would change when Mia was born. But as my daughter grew, she absorbed the venom of the Kensington household. She watched how they treated me, and she learned. Today, she had personally handed the menu to another man. A man who was blatantly gunning for my place in this family. I would never forget the night I drank myself into a bleeding ulcer at a networking gala, desperately trying to secure a contract for Victoria’s company. When I got home, clutching my stomach, I just asked her to order me something bland to eat. Her relatives had been visiting. They laughed in my face. They tore into my deceased parents, calling me a pathetic freeloader with no upbringing. Victoria had watched the whole thing. She didn’t say a word to defend me. She just told me to bear it. But the second I tried to stand up for myself, she joined them, picking apart my tone, my posture, my ‘inappropriate’ timing. I had revised this divorce agreement over and over. Disappointment isn’t a sudden explosion. It’s a slow accumulation. Tonight, the jar was finally full. I uncapped the fountain pen, signed my name at the bottom of the page, and shoved the heavy brass barrel into Victoria’s hand. “Save the speech. Sign.” 2. Victoria gripped the pen so hard I thought the brass would snap. The fire in her eyes flared into an inferno. “Nathaniel, you need to learn when to back down, before you push this past the point of no return! Do I really have to spell this out for you?!” With a violent swing of her arm, she hurled the pen. It slammed against the custom wallpaper, shattering the casing and splattering black ink across the hardwood floor. Spencer jumped, dropping his folders. I flinched, a tremor running through my spine. The temperature in the room plummeted. Breathing heavily, Spencer knelt to gather the scattered papers, then stepped closer to Victoria. He placed a gentle, grounding hand on her shoulder. “Victoria,” he murmured, his voice infuriatingly soft. “Stress is bad for your health. Just talk to him.” That quiet, soothing tone worked like magic. The tension bled out of Victoria’s shoulders. Before she could speak, the rapid patter of bare feet echoed from the stairs. Mia came running down, her little face scrunched in panic. Maria, our nanny, was right behind her, clutching a pair of slippers. “Mia, sweetheart, please put your shoes on! If you catch a cold, your father will be so worried.” I stood frozen as my five-year-old daughter ran right past me. She threw her arms around Spencer’s legs, looking up at him, checking him over frantically. “Spencer, don’t be scared!” she squeaked. “I’ll protect you! I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Spencer smiled a soft, practiced smile and ruffled her hair. “Thank you, Mia. But shouldn’t you put your slippers on? If you get sick, your dad will be sad. Maria, I’ll take those.” Only then did Mia look at me. Her little upper lip curled in obvious disdain. Maria stood there, paralyzed by the sheer awkwardness of the room, terrified of making a move that would offend the wrong person. “Give them to me,” I said quietly. I took the small pink slippers from the nanny, walked over to my daughter, and knelt on the floor. “Shoes on, Mia.” Instead of listening, Mia grabbed a heavy crystal ashtray from the coffee table and hurled it blindly at me. “I don’t want you to help me!” The heavy glass struck my forehead. The skin split instantly, warm blood trickling down into my eyebrow. Spencer let out a gasp and scrambled to find the first-aid kit. Victoria didn’t move. she just stared at the blood on my face, her eyes icy. “Are you happy now? Is this the scene you wanted?” Even now. Even with blood on my face, she thought I was just acting out. Looking at them—Victoria, Spencer, and Mia—I realized something profound. They looked like a family. I had poured eight years of my life into this house, and I was leaving with nothing but empty hands. I slowly reached down, picked up the ashtray, and set it perfectly back in its place. Victoria watched me in silence for a long time. Maybe the sight of me, bleeding and quietly tidying up, finally sparked a flicker of pity in her. She stepped forward and reached for my arm. “Stop cleaning,” she said, her voice dropping a fraction. “The staff will do it. Just… stop looking for a fight, and we can move past this.” I ignored her hand, sat down on the sofa, and slid the divorce papers back across the marble table toward her. “Are you ready to sign now?” “Nathaniel!” Victoria snapped. She shot up, glaring down at me with absolute fury. “You just won’t let it go, will you?! Fine! You want a divorce? You can have it. But don’t even think about getting custody of Mia!” I had raised Mia with my own two hands. While Victoria chased her corporate ambitions, I was the one changing diapers, pureeing peas, and staying awake for 48 hours straight when the fevers spiked. I had sacrificed my own identity to be the safety net Victoria needed to conquer the boardroom. Despite Mia’s growing coldness toward me over the years, I had never stopped pouring every ounce of my love into her. Victoria knew Mia was my anchor. She thought she had the ultimate trump card. She was wrong. The moment Mia had looked at Spencer with adoration while hurling glass at my head, the tether snapped. I had already let my daughter go. “I’m forfeiting custody,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I’ll also leave my mother’s jewelry behind. Consider it my contribution to her trust fund. You don’t have to worry, Victoria. The second this paper goes through, I will vanish from Mia’s life. You’ll never have to explain me to her again.” The massive living room fell dead silent. You could hear the hum of the refrigerator two rooms over. Then, Mia’s high-pitched voice sliced through the quiet. “Good! I hate having you as my dad anyway! I want Spencer to be my dad!” She was five. She probably didn’t grasp the agonizing weight of those words. My chest caved in. A dull, suffocating pain radiated from my heart. I slowly bent forward, pressing my palms against my face, forcing myself to swallow the bitter, jagged grief clawing up my throat. Victoria didn’t reprimand her. Instead, she turned her wrath entirely on me. “What the hell is wrong with you, Nathaniel?! Are you happy now? Are you satisfied that you’ve turned your own daughter against you and torn this family apart?!” She lashed out, swiping her hand across the coffee table. The cracked ashtray went flying again, shattering loudly against the floorboards. Mia burst into tears. She buried her face in Spencer’s chest, sobbing. “Spencer, I’m scared! Tell Mommy to stop yelling! She only listens to you…” Spencer rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles. “Victoria, you promised me you wouldn’t lose your temper,” he said softly. “Please, speak to him calmly.” Then, he turned his wide, apologetic eyes to me. “Nathaniel, please don’t take it to heart. She’s just angry. It’s my fault for tonight. I shouldn’t have ordered the food. I promise, I won’t attend another family dinner. Please, just make peace with her.” There were actual tears pooling in Spencer’s eyes. He looked like a tragic peacemaker, sacrificing himself for our marriage. The sight of it made me want to vomit. I looked at Victoria. Despite her raging temper, Spencer’s words had worked. She had instantly quieted down. A laugh bubbled up in my chest. I laughed so hard the tears I’d been holding back finally spilled over. “Tell me, Spencer,” I wheezed, wiping my eyes. “In what capacity exactly are you playing marriage counselor for my wife and me?” “I—I—Nathaniel, you misunderstand!” Spencer stammered, stepping back. “Victoria and I are strictly professional! Please don’t be angry. If you hate me that much, I’ll resign tomorrow. I’ll leave the company. As long as you two are happy…” Victoria stared at him, her fists clenching so tight her knuckles turned white. I saw the raw, desperate concern bubbling up in her eyes. I decided to push it. “You should know something, Spencer,” I said, my voice dropping to a conversational murmur. “Victoria clearly has a soft spot for you. But until I vacate the position of the pathetic, live-in husband, you’ll never get the promotion you really want. If you keep begging me to stay, I just might. Is that really the outcome you’re hoping for?” 3. Victoria finally signed the papers, driven to the edge by the sound of Spencer’s soft, manufactured weeping. I called my lawyer right then and there, handing over the logistics. Victoria stood frozen by the island, her face a mask of frost, watching me handle the call with detached efficiency. When I hung up, the venom finally spilled out. “Remember this, Nathaniel. You brought this entirely on yourself,” she sneered. “I’ve signed. There is no going back. We have an ironclad prenup. Don’t harbor any delusions that you’ll be walking away with a single cent of Kensington money.” I carefully folded the agreement and slid it into a manila envelope. I nodded. “I know.” I stood up and looked at her. “If there’s nothing else, I’m going to pack a bag.” Victoria’s blazing fury hit the brick wall of my absolute apathy, leaving her visibly choking on her own adrenaline. I knew that feeling. It was like having a wad of cotton shoved down your throat—you can’t swallow it, and you can’t spit it out. It just suffocates you. For eight years, that was exactly how she had handled every conflict between us: with walls of ice and suffocating silence. Her face darkened. Spencer took a cautious step toward her, reaching out to support her arm. I pulled my gaze away and looked down at Mia, whose face was streaked with tears. I thought about it for a second, then spoke softly. “I won’t be picking you up from preschool anymore. And I won’t be there when you’re sick in the middle of the night. You’re five now. You need to learn who actually cares about you, and who is just playing a part. Don’t go wandering off with strangers just because they offer you something sweet.” Six months ago, Victoria had a sudden out-of-town conference. She commanded me to drop off some clothes at her office before her flight. I was a nervous wreck; I’d been berated before for bringing outfits she deemed “unpresentable.” I spent an hour carefully steaming and matching her clothes, then drove like a maniac to her corporate headquarters. Because of that, I was twenty minutes late picking Mia up from her elite preschool. Mia had wandered out of the gates and down the busy avenue. A stranger offered her a lollipop and coaxed her into a car. Thank God, the person only realized she was lost and drove her straight to the precinct. But during those agonizing two hours, I lost my mind. The Kensington security detail swarmed the city. Victoria aborted her business trip and sped back from the airport. In the aftermath, I was crucified. It didn’t matter what the circumstances were. The entire Kensington clan poured their collective wrath onto me. I could take their abuse. I was used to being their punching bag. But from that day on, Mia looked at me like I was the villain of her story. That shift in her eyes was the slow poison that finally cured me of my attachment to her. “Nathaniel, Mia is the sole heir to the Kensington estate. She doesn’t need life advice from an outsider!” Victoria snapped. “Or are you just saying these dramatic, pathetic things hoping I’ll beg you to stay?” I just smiled, didn’t say a word, and walked lightly toward the master bedroom. I had been a stay-at-home husband for eight years. I never realized that packing a bag could feel so paralyzing. I looked around the bedroom. I had picked out the curtains, sourced the vintage rugs, framed the art. Suddenly, it all looked incredibly tacky to me. In the end, I only opened my bedside drawer. I took a single photo album and two keys. Victoria had been standing in the doorway the entire time, her eyes burning holes into my back. As I walked past her into the hall, I kept my voice flat. “Tell the staff to throw the rest of my stuff away tomorrow.” “Don’t you dare regret this, Nathaniel!” she screamed down the hallway. I didn’t break my stride. I walked out of that beautiful, frozen cage, and the front door clicked shut behind me. 4. A huge part of why I had loved Victoria with such humiliating devotion was because she was the only light in the darkest chapter of my life. In high school, I had severe, painful cystic acne. My parents took me to every dermatologist on the coast, but nothing worked. I was already cripplingly shy, and the relentless bullying pushed me to the brink of a severe depression. Victoria was a year ahead of me. Every single day, she would walk into my homeroom between periods just to stand by my desk. If anyone made a joke, she would physically throw down with them. She spent half her sophomore year in the principal’s office because of me. But she never cared. She’d just clap me on the shoulder, knuckles bruised, and say: “You’re my guy. I’m the only one allowed to mess with you. Anyone else tries it, I’ll break their jaw.” A sharp honk pulled me out of the past. I turned around. Spencer scrambled out of the backseat of the Maybach and jogged toward me. “Na—Nathaniel! Victoria has to get back to the office for a late conference call. Where are you going? We can give you a ride.” I looked past him. The rear window rolled down, and Victoria’s eyes met mine in the dim streetlights. She was quiet for a long moment before pressing her lips together. “Get in.” It was an unfortunate reality. My SUV was at the dealership getting a transmission check. Though the Kensington garage held six luxury cars, none of them had my name on the title. The estate was out in the wealthy, sprawling suburbs. Getting back to the city meant walking miles down a winding, unlit mountain road. Without overthinking it, I walked toward the passenger side. I didn’t expect Spencer to practically sprint to beat me to the door. He slid into the front seat, forcing me to sit in the back. Next to Victoria. I gave the driver an address in the city and didn’t say another word. The air in the car was frigid. But for the first time in years, she was sitting next to me and not staring at a glowing iPad screen. I could feel her peripheral vision snagging on me, over and over. Holding her tongue wasn’t her style. I let out a soft breath of amusement. As the city skyline came into view, I finally broke the silence. “What is it, Victoria? Spit it out.” She frowned deeply, her eyes fixated on the dried blood crusted over my eyebrow. “Nathaniel. If you swallow your pride and apologize, I’ll grant you visitation with Mia once a week.” “No thanks.” My answer was instant. The car pulled to the curb, and I pushed the door open. Victoria snapped. “You are so damn ungrateful! Your family is dead! Let’s see how long you survive out here on your own!” I hated being alone. It was my deepest, most agonizing fear. Victoria always knew exactly where to slide the knife. I slammed the door and walked away fast. But Spencer jumped out and chased me down, grabbing my sleeve. “Nathaniel, please! She only followed you because she was worried you’d get hurt walking in the dark! She cares about you…” Before he could finish the sentence, Victoria threw her door open. She marched over, ripped his hand off my jacket, and pulled him behind her defensively. “Let him go!” she barked. “Victoria, I just—” “I said, let him walk!” I stood on the pavement watching them scuffle. I didn’t miss the flash of smug triumph hiding just beneath Spencer’s wide, panicky eyes. A sudden, dark impulse seized me. I smiled. “I’m actually curious about something, Victoria,” I said, tilting my head. “Are you giving Spencer all this special treatment because you’re genuinely falling for him? Or is it just because, in the right light, he looks exactly like Wesley?”

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When I graduated and hit the wall of “what now,” I turned to an AI for career counseling. The algorithm suggested a path in municipal administration—a stable, prestigious government track. It coached me through the exams, polished my interview persona, and helped me land the job. I was more than grateful; I was a believer. Then the “guidance” turned dark. The AI warned me of an impending “physical catastrophe.” It suggested I book a preventative dental surgery to “realign my luck.” I went, but on the way, a reckless driver slammed into me, leaving me permanently disabled. The AI then suggested I take out high-interest private loans to cover the astronomical medical bills. I listened. Not long after the funds cleared, my parents were brutally beaten by debt collectors. Desperate, I scoured the internet for remote side hustles to pay off the mounting debt, but haste bred mistakes. I fell for scam after scam. The hole only got deeper. The AI then suggested my father take a lucrative electrical contract overseas. I trusted it. I begged him to go. He was lured to a lawless compound in Southeast Asia. Within months, news of his death reached us. When my mother heard the news, her heart gave out on the spot. My brother, Connor, lost his mind. He lunged at me, a kitchen knife sinking deep into my chest. “You killed them! You destroyed this family!” As the light faded, I couldn’t understand how my life had become a horror movie. Then, I blinked. I was back in my bedroom. It was the morning the AI first told me I had a “physical catastrophe” coming my way. … I sat up, gasping, staring at the familiar walls of my apartment. The phantom pain of the knife piercing my heart was so vivid I clutched my chest. The grief was a physical weight, crushing the air out of my lungs. Tears tracked down my face before I could even process a thought. I didn’t understand. It had started so simply. I was just another lost grad student looking for a roadmap. The AI had been my North Star. It helped me get that government job back in my hometown. I remember the day the offer letter arrived—the way my parents and Connor sobbed with joy, the way they held me. I thought we were finally safe. Then came the “warning.” The dental appointment. The car that turned me into a broken doll. Lying in that hospital bed, feeling my bones scream under the weight of the casts, I heard my father outside the door. His voice was a ragged whisper. “I don’t know what to do, Diane. Even if we sell the house, it won’t cover the rehab… Maybe I can sell a kidney. People do that, right?” Terrified he’d do something that desperate, I consulted the AI again. It pointed me toward “Specialized Medical Financing”—predatory loans disguised as a lifeline. I picked the one that looked the safest: five hundred thousand dollars, a ten-year plan. I thought I’d solved it. I thought I’d saved my father. But the ink wasn’t even dry before the collectors showed up. They broke into the house, leaving my parents bloody. My mother was struck so hard she lost hearing in her left ear. I went into a fever state. I spent every waking second on my laptop from my hospital bed, trying to find a way out. But I was a mark. I stepped into trap after trap, and the debt ballooned into millions. That’s when the AI suggested the overseas job. “High-risk, high-reward electrical engineering in a developing zone.” I didn’t want him to go, but we were drowning. I did the research—or so I thought—and found a company that looked legitimate. He went. And then he was gone. My mother’s scream when the “Consulate” called… it still echoes in my brain. “Frank… they took his heart… they took everything… did it hurt, Frank? Did it hurt?” I reached for her heart medication, but I was too slow. By the time I pulled her into my arms, she was cold. Then Connor. My little brother. He didn’t see a sister; he saw a monster. He grabbed the knife and ended it. “Are you happy now? You ruined us! You killed Mom and Dad! You took everything from me!” Blood filled my throat. The world turned black. I leaned against the wall now, shivering in the present. I’m not going to that appointment, I decided. I packed my bags. I’d go home for the holidays early. I missed my parents so much it hurt. I just wanted a normal Christmas. To be safe, I avoided the bus and booked an Amtrak ticket. Trains were safer. Controlled. I made it all the way to the station. I stepped off the platform, feeling the crisp winter air, thinking I had outrun my fate. Then I saw it. A black SUV, accelerating, veering straight toward me. It was too fast. I didn’t even have time to scream. I lost consciousness the moment the metal hit my hip. When I woke up, the first thing I blurted out was, “My legs… can I feel my legs?” A nurse pushed me back down. “Don’t move, honey!” “A utility pole took most of the impact before the car hit you,” she said, her voice a soothing hum. “Your legs are fine. You’ve got several fractures and some internal bruising, but you’ll walk again. You just need time.” I let out a breath that was half-sob. At least I wasn’t paralyzed this time. But why? Why did it still happen? Was this my “destiny”? Was this the “catastrophe” the AI warned me about? Before I could spiral, the door flew open. My parents rushed in, eyes red and swollen. My mother immediately started spooning warm chicken soup into my mouth, her hands shaking. “Regina, baby, it’s okay. We talked to the doctor. You’re going to be fine.” “The doctor said protein is good for you,” my dad added, hovering at the foot of the bed. “Mom’s going to make this for you every day. We’ll get you back on your feet.” I was pinned by braces, unable to move, forced to just swallow. The soup was warm, and slowly, the icy chill of blood loss began to recede. I thought, This is it. A second chance. I can fix this. But then, my father looked away. He couldn’t meet my eyes. “Regina…” he started, his voice heavy with guilt. “The accident… the emergency surgery and the out-of-network costs… it wiped us out. The insurance is fighting it. We’re flat broke.” He paused, a desperate flicker in his eyes. “Do you have anything? All that money we sent you for rent and school… did you save any of it?” My mother looked at me with that same jagged expectation. A chill ran down my spine. It was happening again. The script was the same. In my last life, I had lied to protect their dignity. I’d claimed I had plenty of money and then secretly took out the predatory loans that destroyed us. This time, I wouldn’t carry the lie. “I don’t have a cent,” I said firmly. “The money you sent just covered the basics in the city. I haven’t even started my job yet. How could I have savings?” My father’s face fell. He scratched his head, looking utterly defeated. I thought for a moment. “Dad, the house. It has equity. We can go to the bank, get a formal mortgage or a home equity line. It’s the legal way. It’s safe.” “Once I’m healed, I’ll work double shifts. We’ll pay it back. We won’t lose the house.” It was the most logical, safest path I could offer. My parents exchanged a look. It was brief, almost imperceptible. Then they nodded. Two weeks later, I was discharged. When I pulled up to the house, I froze. The front door was hacked with deep gouges, as if by an axe. Red paint was splashed across the porch like fresh blood, smelling of chemicals and rot. Inside, the house was a shell. The TV, the furniture, even the microwave—everything of value was gone. I turned to my mother, horrified. “What happened?” She let out a bitter, hollow laugh. “Your father… he couldn’t bring himself to go to the bank. He was afraid they’d reject him. So he went to some local guys in the neighborhood. Private lenders.” I felt like I was going to faint. I told them to go to a regulated bank! In my previous life, the loans I took were at least disguised as legitimate. These… these were street thugs. Debt collectors who used pipe wrenches and gasoline. You don’t “pay back” people like that. They just own you until you’re dead. My father shuffled out of the kitchen, a thick, blood-stained bandage wrapped around his head. “They came for the first payment,” my mom whispered. “They broke his head open. But don’t worry, honey. It’s just a scalp wound.” My father reached out and patted my hair with a terrifyingly gentle hand. “It’s okay, Regina. It’s fine.” “I heard about a gig overseas. Electrical work. Pay is incredible. I already called the guy. I’m leaving in a few days.” “Don’t worry. I’ll clear the debt. It won’t touch you. I’ll be safe. I’ll just work and send the money home.” I screamed. I threw things. I went into a hysterical fit, kneeling on my fractured legs, begging him, threatening to kill myself if he left. I did everything in my power to stop history from repeating itself. But my father still packed his bag and walked out the door. The harassment started immediately. Men would hammer on the door at 3 AM with machetes, screaming obscenities. They poured buckets of sewage over our threshold. The smell was unbearable. Connor, full of young, misplaced rage, tried to fight them every time. My mother would have to pin him down to keep him from getting killed. I felt the familiar, gnawing helplessness. I had to do something. “I’m going to start my job early,” I told my mother. “I’ll talk to the department. I’ll get an advance.” “No!” she snapped. “You aren’t going anywhere!” “Your bones aren’t set. You’ll be a cripple for life if you don’t rest. I’ve already called your supervisor. I told them you had a relapse. They’re holding the position for another month. Your career is safe.” I stared at her. “How did you get the supervisor’s personal number? How did you pull those strings?” She didn’t answer. She just pushed a bowl of soup toward me. Ten days later, the phone rang. “Is this the home of Frank Miller?” a detective asked. “Yes,” my mother said, her voice trembling. “I’m his wife.” “Your husband went overseas for work. He was lured across the border into a restricted zone. When the local authorities found him… well, he’d been stripped. His organs were gone. You need to come identify the remains as soon as possible.” My mother’s face went white. “That’s… that’s impossible…” The detective added one more thing. “Do you have a daughter? Unemployed? Had an accident recently? We think that’s why he took the risk. People lose their minds when they’re under that kind of pressure.” The words hit me like a physical blow. It’s all my fault. As long as I existed, my father would die. This family would be destroyed. Destiny was a straight line, and I was the one drawing it in blood. It’s all… on me? My mother clutched her chest and collapsed. She was gasping, tears streaming down her face. I scrambled for her heart pills, shoved them into her mouth, but she went limp. I tried to check her pulse, tried to call 911, but Connor shoved me back so hard I hit the floor. “Don’t touch her!” he screamed, his voice cracking. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in debt! Dad wouldn’t be in a body bag with his insides scooped out!” “You destroyed this family! You killed us all!” “Don’t you dare touch her! You don’t have the right!” I crawled toward him, sobbing. “Connor, stop! We have to help her! We have to get her to the hospital or she’s going to die!” I tried to push past him, but he shoved me again. My head hit the corner of the wall. Pain exploded in my skull, and I felt warm blood trickling down my neck. Connor picked up a kitchen knife. He walked toward me, his eyes cold and dark. “Regina, you should never have been born. We were so happy before you. Mom and Dad wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for you.” “You’re a parasite. Even in hell, you won’t find peace.” I killed them? But… Mom was right there. We could save her. Why was he stopping me? In that moment, like a bolt of lightning, the fog cleared. I looked up at my brother. My eyes were red, but my heart turned to ice. “…All for this?” I whispered. “What?” I used the wall to pull myself up. I reached into my pocket and threw an object directly at his face. He caught it. His expression shifted instantly. His hand started to shake. “You…” He looked at me, trying to maintain his mask of rage. “Why do you have a passport? Were you planning to run away and leave us with the debt?” My voice was a jagged blade. “That’s Dad’s passport, Connor.” “Tell me, Connor. How did Dad go overseas without his passport? I took it the day he said he was leaving. I haven’t let it out of my sight.” Connor’s eyes darted around the room. “He… he must have gone through a coyote. He went illegal to make more money because of you! That’s why he ended up in that compound!” His confidence surged again. He pointed the knife at my throat. “You destroyed us, Regina!” I didn’t flinch. I walked right into the tip of the blade. “Why won’t you let me check on Mom?” “Mom’s had heart trouble for years. She faints, sure, but if you get her to a doctor, she’s fine.” I stared him down, and for the first time in our lives, he was the one who backed away. “You’re blocking me because you’re trying to let her die for real this time… or…” I looked at my mother lying on the floor. The grief was gone. Only a cold, hollow realization remained. “Is she even sick at all?” Connor jumped in front of her body. “Shut up! You’re a monster! You don’t deserve to touch her!” I pulled out my phone. “If she’s dead, I should call the family. Let’s start with Aunt Sarah.” “I’ll dial now—” Smash! Connor lunged, snatched the phone from my hand, and hurled it out the window. It fell twenty stories to the pavement below. He turned back to me, snarling. “Regina!” “Connor!” I screamed back, the sound tearing from my lungs. “You’ve been lying to me from the start!” “You, Mom, Dad… and your little AI project. You’ve been squeezing me until I break!” The tears came again, but they weren’t for them. They were for me. “The car accident. The debt. Making me believe I was a murderer who destroyed her own family. And then, when that wasn’t enough, you decided you had to actually kill me!” Connor’s pupils dilated. He looked at me with a terrifying, calm pity. “You’ve really lost it, Regina.” “No one is out to get you. You did this to yourself.” I laughed. It was a sharp, jagged sound. “Is that so?” Before he could react, I tackled him. I was always stronger, faster. In my last life, he only got me because I was paralyzed by shock. This time, I pinned him to the floor, the knife pressed against the side of his neck. “Regina! Get off me!” he shrieked. I ignored him. I looked at my “dead” mother. “Mom, stop playing. If you don’t get up right now, I’m going to open up your favorite son’s throat.”

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