I have been married twice in my life. The first time was a shotgun wedding to my childhood sweetheart, Victoria Belmont, the undisputed princess of Manhattan’s old-money elite. I was young, arrogant, and demanded absolute perfection. So, when I discovered she was entertaining a quiet, lingering fascination with her new executive assistant, I filed for divorce. I refused to share my wife’s heart with anyone. The second time, I married for love—or at least, I thought I did. I married Harper Monroe, San Francisco’s newly minted tech billionaire, a woman who claimed she fell in love with me at first sight. Every year since my second marriage, my ex-wife Victoria has sent me a birthday present. I have never once signed for them, nor have I ever written her back. I was hell-bent on proving to the world—and to her—that I could build a beautiful, thriving life without her. And I believed I had. Until the third year of my marriage, when I accompanied Harper to her college reunion. A former classmate, heavy with gin and nostalgia, threw an arm around Harper’s shoulders and gave her a sloppy thumbs-up. “If we’re talking about blind, obsessive devotion, Harper, you take the crown,” he slurred. “When Oliver decided you were too broke for his ambitions, took all your startup cash, and ran off to Paris… man, you swore you were going to tear him apart.” He let out a booming laugh. “And look how that turned out! You ended up marrying him anyway.” 1. I slowly turned my head to look at Harper. She offered a forced, tight smile. “He’s drunk, Spencer. Are you really going to listen to a drunk?” The classmate caught the shift in the air and immediately took offense. “Who’s drunk? I’m telling the truth! I remember the night he left. You sat on my couch and cried until the sun came up—” Harper stood up so fast her chair scraped violently against the hardwood. “Shut your mouth!” she snapped, her voice like cracking a whip. The room went dead silent. The alcohol seemed to evaporate from the classmate’s veins. His eyes darted from Harper to me, lingering on my face for a long, uncomfortable moment. In his strange, pitying stare, the last three years of my life suddenly clicked into horrifying focus. No wonder a fiercely independent, rising Silicon Valley titan had supposedly fallen in love at first sight with a divorced man she met at a gala. No wonder she absolutely forbade me from styling my hair with gel, preferring it softly parted. No wonder she bought me endless variations of crisp, white button-down shirts. No wonder she had infinite, bottomless patience for all my flaws and temper tantrums. I wasn’t her great love. I was a ghost. I was the placeholder for a college romance that had cut her to the bone. I picked up my phone and stood up to leave. A hand locked around my wrist. It wasn’t tight enough to hurt, but the touch made my skin crawl. It felt sickening. I ripped my arm out of her grasp and, acting on pure, blinding instinct, slapped her across the face. A collective gasp sucked the air out of the private dining room. Harper slowly turned her head back to face me. She wiped a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth, and then, terrifyingly, she smiled. I had been married to her for three years. I knew that smile. It was the calm before the absolute devastation. When I first moved to the West Coast to be with Harper, Victoria had followed me. My ex-wife showed up at our gates in Pacific Heights every single day, trying every tactic in the book to win me back. Harper had watched from the window, turned to me, and asked with a light laugh, “Thinking of going back to the old money, Spencer?” Before I could even formulate a response, Harper had walked out the front door, rolled up her sleeves, and gotten into a physical altercation with Victoria on the sidewalk. That very night, Harper launched a scorched-earth corporate war against Belmont Enterprises, bleeding millions just to force Victoria’s hand and drive her back to New York. Harper Monroe was a woman who destroyed whatever stood in her way. But right now, what right did she have to be angry? I was the one who had been played. I was the one cast as the understudy in my own marriage. I turned toward the door, only to freeze. Walking into the private room, wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and an easy, dazzling smile, was a man. It only took one glance for the breath to leave my lungs. He was her first love. Oliver noticed me immediately. He paused, his gaze sweeping over my face, my hair, my clothes. A flicker of profound, cruel understanding sparked in his eyes. A wave of humiliation crashed over me. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, my fingernails digging sharp crescent moons into my palms. Oliver glided right past me, approaching Harper with an effortless familiarity. “New boyfriend?” he asked, his voice melodic. “He looks so much like me. Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on me, Harper.” Harper’s expression turned to ice. “This is my husband. Show some respect.” Oliver immediately dropped his gaze. His shoulders slumped, and when he spoke again, his voice trembled with a practiced fragility. “I… I didn’t know you were married. You don’t have to be so mean to me.” Without thinking, Harper’s posture entirely softened. She leaned toward him, her voice suddenly frantic and desperate. “Hey, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” She didn’t get to finish. Oliver covered his mouth, a quiet, mocking giggle escaping his lips. “God, three or four years and you’re still so easy to trick.” Harper’s jaw clenched tight. “Oliver.” She was annoyed, but he was laughing. And everyone else in the room just watched them, completely accustomed to their chaotic, gravitational pull. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t be in that room for a second longer. I turned and practically ran out the door. As I fled down the hallway, I heard Oliver’s teasing voice drift out of the open door. “Aren’t you going to chase him?” My footsteps faltered. I stopped, a pathetic sliver of hope making me wait for her answer. Then came my wife’s voice, airy and dismissive: “He doesn’t have a temper like yours. He’s much easier to coax.” 2. I don’t remember the drive back to Pacific Heights. The moment I unlocked the front door, the massive wedding portrait hanging in the foyer seemed to scream at me. When Harper first told me she loved me at first sight, I hadn’t believed her. How could I? I had been betrayed by a woman I’d known for over twenty years; the idea of trusting a stranger felt impossible. But my divorce from Victoria had been ugly. My parents, furious at the scandal and the loss of the Belmont alliance, cut me off entirely. Because I had no concrete proof of Victoria actually sleeping with her assistant—only emotional infidelity—the tabloids ripped me to shreds. They called me a spoiled, dramatic, hypersensitive brat. My peers in the New York elite circles practically bought popcorn to watch my downfall. Everyone said I would never find a woman as powerful or as perfect as Victoria Belmont. I refused to accept that. I wanted to prove them wrong. And I hit the jackpot with Harper. She was a rising star, a self-made prodigy. Her public, undeniable devotion to me was the ultimate vindication. It shut the mouths of everyone who had laughed at me. But tonight, the illusion shattered. Her “love at first sight” was nothing more than a desperate grasping at the ghost of the boy who had broken her. My stomach churned. The acid rose in my throat. I stumbled into the downstairs bathroom and threw up until there was nothing left but dry heaves and tears. When I finally rinsed my mouth and stepped out, I walked down the hall to Harper’s private study—a room I almost never entered. There, wedged between thick volumes of macroeconomic theory, was a battered, leather-bound notebook. It looked wildly out of place. My hands shook as I pulled it off the shelf and opened it. A Polaroid slipped from the pages and fluttered to the floor. It was Harper in her graduation gown, looking up at a young man with a look of pure, unadulterated worship. The woman I knew was a stone-cold killer in the boardroom. But in the pages of this diary, she was just an ordinary, heartbroken girl. He said I was a dead end. He said he was leaving for Europe. I begged him not to. But he left anyway. He took every dime I had saved and walked out. That cruel, beautiful boy. When he comes back, I swear I’m going to ruin him. I’ll make him wish he was dead. The ink on that page was blurred by old, dried water marks. Teardrops. The paper was stiff and wrinkled. I turned the pages, fast-forwarding through years of silent obsession. I met a man today. He looks just like him. It’s my wedding day. I texted him. If he comes back to America today, I’ll marry him instead. He didn’t come. I guess I have to stop waiting. My vision blurred. Hot tears spilled over my eyelashes. While I had been excitedly picking out floral arrangements and writing my vows, terrified but hopeful for a second chance at love, my bride was staring at her phone, praying another man would crash the wedding and steal her away. I heard the heavy click of the front door unlocking. I didn’t move. I just stood there, the diary open in my hands. Footsteps rushed down the hall. Harper appeared in the doorway. When she saw what I was holding, the temperature in the room plummeted. Her voice was ice. “Who gave you permission to touch my things? Give it to me.” On the day she proposed, Harper had transferred half of her company shares into my name, just to make me feel secure. During our marriage, she gave me unfettered access to her life. No passcodes on her phones, tracking apps shared between us so I always knew she was safe. But now, because I was holding a relic of Oliver, she looked at me like I was a thief. I let out a broken, hollow laugh. “If your heart is already occupied by someone else, why do you care if I look?” She didn’t answer. She just lunged forward and grabbed the notebook. I gripped it tightly, refusing to let go. Harper didn’t hesitate. She grabbed my hand and began bending my fingers backward, one by one. Crack. The sound of my own bone fracturing echoed in the quiet room. All the color drained from my face as a blinding pain shot up my arm. I gasped, releasing the book, and threw it hard against her chest. “If you’re still so violently in love with him, why the hell did you marry me?!” I screamed. She rubbed her temples, looking thoroughly exasperated, as if I were a toddler throwing a tantrum. “That is all in the past. Stop being so dramatic and unreasonable.” “Then look me in the eye,” I challenged, my voice shaking. “Look me in the eye and tell me you married me because you love me.” I didn’t flinch. I stared right into her soul. Harper’s eyes flickered away for a fraction of a second. And then, she let out a cold, defensive scoff. “You want the truth, Spencer? Fine. I’ll give you the truth.” She stepped closer, her voice cruel and precise. “When I first pursued you, yes, it was because you looked like him. But haven’t I treated you well enough these past three years? Haven’t I given you everything?” Yes. She had. She treated me so perfectly that I was completely fooled into believing it was love. But what was the reality? Victoria was always looking for the next shiny new thing. Harper was violently stuck in the past. She loved Oliver. She had only ever loved Oliver. I looked at the careful, almost reverent way she was smoothing down the wrinkled cover of the diary, and I felt nothing but absolute disgust. “I want a divorce, Harper.” 3. Harper’s hands stopped moving. She let out a long, heavy sigh. “Spencer, can you stop throwing a fit for five minutes?” she said, her tone dripping with condescension. “You are the husband of the Monroe empire. Everyone in this city bows to you. If you throw a tantrum and demand a divorce now, you’ll just be a laughingstock again.” The words felt like a punch to the gut. They were so hauntingly familiar. When I asked Victoria for a divorce, she had said almost the exact same thing. It was just a harmless crush on the assistant. We didn’t actually sleep together. Stop making a scene, Spencer. But I refused to be married to a woman who harbored someone else in her heart. I had the strength to walk away from Victoria, and I had the strength to walk away from Harper. “Tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. My lawyer’s office,” I said, my voice dead and flat. I turned and tried to walk past her. Harper reached out and gripped my shoulder hard. “Don’t be so childish. Who is going to marry a man who’s been divorced twice? You’re damaged goods.” I stared at her, suddenly realizing I didn’t know the woman standing in front of me at all. When I had sat on our sofa, crying as I told her what Victoria had put me through, she had held me tightly, kissing my hair, whispering that she wished she had found me sooner to protect me from the pain. Perhaps the absolute devastation in my eyes was too loud, because Harper’s grip loosened, and her tone softened. “Look, I’m sorry. I just—” Her phone buzzed, cutting her off. I glanced down. There was no caller ID saved. Harper hesitated, her thumb hovering over the screen, before she swiped to answer. “Arrested for a DUI?” Her voice instantly sharpened. “I am not bailing you out. You didn’t give a damn about me when you emptied my bank account and ran off to Paris!” Every word was laced with rejection, but the underlying panic and fierce attachment betrayed her. I had literally just asked her for a divorce, but one phone call from Oliver eclipsed my entire existence. Watching her frantically search for her car keys, I let out a bitter, exhausted chuckle. “In such a rush to go see your old flame? The least you could do is stay and negotiate our assets.” Harper shot me a venomous glare. “Stop being paranoid. He just moved back to the States. He doesn’t know anyone here. I’m his ex-girlfriend; it’s basic human decency to help him out of a jam.” She grabbed her keys and rushed out into the night. The heavy oak door slammed shut. The house plunged into an oppressive silence. I walked upstairs to our bedroom, pulled out a suitcase, and began throwing clothes into it. A few minutes later, my phone pinged with a friend request on social media. The profile picture was a crude, hand-drawn sketch of a kitten. Harper’s profile picture had always been a hand-drawn puppy. They had been broken up for years, yet she couldn’t even bring herself to change their matching icons. I accepted the request. Oliver didn’t send a message. He didn’t need to. I clicked on his profile and scrolled through his timeline. There, I found a version of my wife I had never met. I saw Harper letting a man draw all over her face with lipstick while she laughed. I saw Harper at a carnival, taking ridiculous, silly photobooth pictures, her eyes crinkling with joy. I saw Harper wearing an apron, cooking a chaotic, messy dinner in a tiny apartment. All of these posts were from over three years ago. Before me. Suddenly, my feed refreshed. A new post from Oliver popped up. Bad boys get everything they want. The location tag was the most exclusive, discreet boutique hotel in San Francisco. The photo was a close-up of two hands, their fingers intimately intertwined against rumpled white hotel sheets. The woman’s hand was missing a wedding ring. But there was a pale, distinct tan line around her ring finger. Harper couldn’t even wait the mandatory thirty days to finalize a divorce. I bit down on my lip until I tasted fresh blood. Acting on pure, blinding adrenaline, I hailed an Uber and gave the driver the address of the hotel. The concierge refused to give me the room number. So I walked the halls. I knocked on every single door, apologizing to angry guests one by one. When I reached the final door at the end of the penthouse suite, I froze. My hand hovered inches from the wood. What was I going to do if I walked in? Catch them in the act? Scream like a lunatic? Throw a punch? And then what? End up on the front page of Page Six tomorrow as the pathetic, hysterical cuckold again? I stood in that quiet, dimly lit corridor for what felt like hours. I let my hand fall to my side. I didn’t knock. I dragged my hollow, exhausted body back to the empty mansion. I spent the next few hours drafting emails to my divorce attorneys. When my eyes finally gave out, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. The next morning, I was violently awakened. But it wasn’t the sun. It was the fact that I was trending online. The headline read: TECH MOGUL’S HUSBAND CAUGHT SNEAKING INTO HOTEL FOR LATE-NIGHT RENDEZVOUS WITH EX-WIFE. 4. Before I could even process the words on the screen, Harper dragged me out of bed by the collar of my shirt. She shoved her phone inches from my face. It was a paparazzi photo of me standing outside the boutique hotel last night, looking pale and deeply distressed. “Spencer, running off in the middle of the night to beg your ex-wife to fuck you? Have you no shame?” she spat, her voice vibrating with rage. My head was spinning, my body heavy with sleep and exhaustion. “I haven’t even seen Victoria,” I shot back defensively. “And speaking of hotels, weren’t you at that exact same place last night?” A flash of raw panic crossed Harper’s eyes, instantly swallowed by aggressive, defensive fury. “Nothing happened between me and Oliver!” she yelled. “But you—sneaking around in the middle of the night to see Victoria? Explain yourself!” A dark, twisted laugh bubbled up in my chest. If she wanted to believe the worst of me to justify her own guilt, fine. “Sure. Let’s say I did go see her,” I said, my voice eerily calm. Watching her pupils dilate in shock sent a sick thrill of vindication through my veins. “I didn’t just see her. I told her I regretted ever leaving her,” I lied, the words tasting like ash. “Because no matter how unfaithful Victoria was, at least she never looked at me and saw another man’s face.” Harper’s breathing turned ragged. Her fingers dug into my shoulders so hard her knuckles turned white. “You think I don’t have regrets?!” she screamed, her composure entirely gone. “Oliver might have left me, but at least he never belonged to another woman! Do you know how many people laugh behind my back because my first marriage is to a man who’s already someone else’s leftovers?!” SMACK. The sound of her hand cracking across my jaw echoed in the bedroom. My palm stung with the phantom memory of the slap I had given her the night before. Harper’s head snapped to the side from the force of her own swing. Her eyes filled with bloodshot, violent rage. She raised her hand again, preparing to strike. But she froze mid-air. I tilted my chin up, exposing my face to her. “Do it! Hit me! Let’s see what else you can break!” Harper stared at me, her chest heaving. Suddenly, she lunged. She grabbed me by the collar and dragged me across the hardwood floor, straight into the master bathroom. She turned on the faucet, letting the massive standalone tub fill with freezing cold water. Despite my thrashing, she shoved me down, forcing my head and shoulders under the icy surface. “Harper! Are you insane?!” I sputtered as I breached the surface, gasping for air. She grabbed a loofah and began scrubbing my skin with a terrifying, manic strength. “I don’t hit men, Spencer. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a temper,” she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. “This is your only warning. I never want to see you communicating with your ex-wife ever again.” The ice water sank into my bones, but it was nothing compared to the absolute, freezing terror in my heart. “How can you be such a hypocrite?!” I yelled over the running water. “You spent last night alone in a hotel room with Oliver! You expect me to believe nothing happened?!” She shoved my head back down into the water. “You don’t get to question me!” Water rushed up my nose. The primal, blinding panic of suffocation hit me. I thrashed blindly, clawing at her arms. Just as my lungs began to burn, the pressure on the back of my neck vanished. I shot up, coughing violently, dragging ragged breaths into my burning chest. Harper stood over the tub, looking down at me like an emperor surveying a prisoner. “Stay here and think about what you’ve done,” she commanded coldly. She turned on her heel and walked out. Panic seized me. I scrambled out of the tub, desperate to follow her, desperate to get out of that room. But my wet feet slipped on the imported Italian tile. I went down hard. My skull slammed against the sharp edge of the marble counter with a sickening crunch. Outside, I heard the heavy click of the deadbolt sliding into place. Harper’s muffled voice bled through the wood. “When you figure out how to act like a husband, I’ll let you out.” A blinding, nauseating agony bloomed on the side of my head. Something hot and wet was running down my temple, dripping onto my cheek. My hands shook violently as I reached up to touch my face. My fingertips came away coated in thick, dark crimson. “Harper…” My voice was a weak, pathetic wheeze. “Harper, I hit my head. Please… unlock the door. I’m bleeding.” I dragged myself to the door and slapped my bloody hand against the wood. It left a smeared, red handprint. I heard footsteps approaching. Hope flared in my chest. But then, she let out a short, cynical laugh. “You really will pull any stunt to get out of trouble, won’t you, Spencer?” she mocked. “Faking an injury today? What’s next? Faking your own death?” The pool of red on the white tile grew larger. Hot tears mixed with the blood running into my eyes. The world began to tilt. The edges of my vision went dark, and the cold swallowed me whole.

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I was scrolling through my bank app, digging into the archives of my transaction history, when I found a transfer from three years ago. Recipient: Becca Jackson. Amount: $46,800. Memo: The last of the tuition. Go get ’em, babe. I stared at those words for a long time. That money represented three years of my life. Three years of working three jobs, sleeping four hours a night, and skipping meals so she didn’t have to take out a single student loan. Today, her wedding invitation arrived in the mail. The groom is my best friend. 1. The invitation was sent by Tyler himself. I knew it was him because of the tiny, hand-drawn smiley face on the back of the envelope. Tyler had been drawing that same stupid face since freshman year of college. He drew it on my birthday cards. He drew it on the Post-it notes he left on the fridge when we were roommates. Now, he’d drawn it on the invitation to his wedding with my ex-girlfriend. “August 28th. Tyler Miller & Becca Jackson. We request the honor of your presence.” I flipped the card over. There was a handwritten note on the back. *Mike, you have to be there. We’re waiting for you! ~* I stared at that tilde—that playful little wave at the end of the sentence. My phone buzzed on the desk. A text from Tyler. Tyler: Did the invite get there yet? I didn’t reply. Tyler: Mike, man, don’t be like that. You can’t control who you fall for. Just come. I’ve got the best seat in the house saved for you. I flipped the phone face-down. Outside, the Seattle sky was turning a bruised purple. I sat alone in my apartment. It’s a four-hundred-square-foot studio I’ve lived in for four years. It used to hold two people. Me and Becca. She lived here all through grad school. We shared a twin bed because that was all we could fit. There wasn’t even room for a desk, so she used to propped herself up on pillows and write her thesis on the mattress. I’d wake up at 5:00 AM to open the coffee shop. At 9:00, I’d head to my corporate data-entry job. At 6:00 PM, I’d start my shift at the bar, getting home around midnight. Three jobs. I was pulling in about six thousand a month. Rent was two thousand. The rest went to her tuition, her books, her groceries, her life. Whatever was left—barely anything—was what I used to feed myself. “Once I graduate, it’ll be our turn,” she used to say. I believed her. “Once I’m working, I’ll pay you back double,” she’d promise. I believed that, too. On her graduation day, I took a half-day off to watch her walk across the stage. She looked radiant in her cap and gown. I was standing in the middle of the crowd, trying to get a decent photo of her, when Tyler squeezed through the throng. He threw his arm around her and grinned. “Come on, Mike! Get a shot of us!” he shouted. I held up my phone and took the picture. She was laughing. He was leaning in close. I didn’t think anything of it back then. Looking at that photo now, they were the ones who looked like a couple. After graduation, Becca landed a job at a mid-sized ad agency. Making good money. “Let’s just save up for a bit first,” she told me. I said okay. Three months later, she asked me to dinner. I thought she was going to talk about rings, or maybe moving into a place with an actual bedroom. Instead, she said, “Mike, I don’t think we’re a good fit anymore.” It was raining that night. I remember because I’d left my umbrella at the bar. I walked twenty blocks to the subway in the downpour. I didn’t cry. I was just… cold. Two months after that, Tyler posted a photo on Instagram. A woman’s hand, a diamond ring. The caption: “For the rest of my life.” The first comment was from Becca: “Always you.” I clicked on Tyler’s profile. His new avatar was a photo of him and Becca. I’ll admit it—in that moment, something inside me shattered. But I closed the app. I didn’t call. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cause a scene. Because I convinced myself it was my fault. I wasn’t successful enough. I wasn’t polished enough. I was just the guy who worked three jobs and smelled like espresso and cheap beer. I carried that shame for a year. Until today. Until this invitation. Something felt wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was a thorn buried deep in my chest. I opened my phone and started scrolling back through my texts with Tyler. All the way back. And then I saw it. Three years ago. While Becca was still in the thick of her Master’s program. A text from Tyler: “Hey Mike, Becca’s really stressed about her finals. I’m taking her to the library to help her study so you don’t have to worry about her.” My reply: “Thanks, man. Seriously. She’s been so busy she hasn’t even texted me back today.” He had replied with a smiley face. The exact same smiley face that was on the back of the wedding invitation. I stared at the screen. Three years ago. She was in school. I was working myself into the ground. And he was “taking her to the library.” I finally realized what that thorn was. It wasn’t just the heartbreak. It was the realization that I’d been a fool. 2. Becca and I were together for seven years. We met freshman year. She was a journalism major at the university across town. She was soft-spoken, pretty in a scrubbed-clean way, with dimples that showed up whenever she laughed. I met her at a campus print shop. She was trying to print her senior project and her card got declined for two dollars. I stepped up and paid for it. She thanked me and asked for my number. That was it. For four years, we didn’t spend much. We ate at the dining hall, walked in the parks, and our “fancy” date was a $20 buffet on my birthday that she’d saved up for two weeks to buy. I thought she was the most grounded girl in the world. I didn’t care about the money. I just cared about her. After graduation, she wanted to go for her Master’s. She didn’t get in the first year. She wanted to try again. “I’ll support you,” I told her. “I’ve got this.” I was making forty grand a year at a small firm. Rent was eighteen hundred. Between her prep courses, her books, and her living expenses, the math didn’t work. So I picked up the second job. Then the third. I never kept a spreadsheet. I didn’t think I needed to. When she finally got in, the tuition was twenty thousand a year. She acted shy about the money, so I made sure to stay ahead of it. I’d Venmo her the cash before she even had to ask, always with a memo like “You got this” or “Keep going.” I never used the word “loan.” I never thought I’d need to. I was sleeping five hours a night. My mom would call and ask why I sounded so thin over the phone. I told her work was just busy. I didn’t tell her I was bankrolling my girlfriend’s future because I knew she’d tell me I was being a martyr. Three years. I actually went back and did the math on the bank app. One hundred and forty-seven thousand, three hundred dollars. Tuition, rent, a new MacBook, her clothes, her sorority alumni fees, her professional certifications. $147,000. During those three years, I didn’t buy a single piece of clothing that cost more than twenty bucks. In the dead of winter, I wore a puffer jacket I bought on clearance at Walmart for $29. Becca wore a North Face parka. I’d bought it for her. “It’ll be worth it once I’m done,” she’d say, her eyes wide and sincere. And I believed her every single time. I thought we were building a life. I didn’t realize she was building her life, and I was just the scaffolding. Tyler was my best friend. He was a design major, came from a family with a bit of money. The three of us were a trio. He used to call her “Big Sis Becca.” I thought it was sweet. He was charming, the kind of guy who could talk his way into any party. After college, Tyler got a job at a big 4A agency. Started at eighty thousand. Then he hopped to another firm for a hundred. Then a hundred-and-fifty. He bought a car. A white BMW. When he posted the photo, I was scrubbing counters at the coffee shop. I liked the post. He commented: “You’ll get there too, Mike! Keep grinding!” Followed by three flexed-arm emojis. Now I look back at those three years. The nights she didn’t come home until late. the weekends Tyler “helped her study.” The way she started keeping her phone face-down on the table. The way her wardrobe suddenly shifted to expensive brands I didn’t recognize. I was too tired to see it. I was a spinning top, fueled by caffeine and the desperate hope of a “someday” that was never meant for me. Now, I have plenty of time to think. 3. I did something I probably shouldn’t have. I tracked down Becca’s old roommate from grad school, Mia. Mia was always decent to me. She’s working in tech now, doing ops. I asked her to lunch. “Mia, I need you to be honest with me,” I said. She looked nervous, poking at her salad. “When Becca was in school… was Tyler over a lot?” Mia didn’t say anything. Her fork hovered in the air. “Just the truth. I’m not going to start a fight. I just need to know.” She sighed and put her fork down. “Mike… it’s over. Why do this to yourself?” “Was he there?” She was silent for a long beat. “Yes.” “Since when?” “Junior year of the program. Maybe earlier. He was always bringing her dinner, staying late. They told everyone they were working on ‘collaborative projects.’” Junior year. I did the mental math. That was when I started the breakfast shift at the diner. “Were they…?” “I don’t know for sure,” Mia said. “But I came home early once and they were… very close on the couch. They jumped apart when they saw me.” My hand tightened around my water glass. “Anything else?” “Tyler got drunk one night and made a scene outside the apartment. He was shouting something about how she couldn’t keep doing this to him. Becca went down to quiet him. The next morning, she told me not to mention it to you.” Don’t mention it to Mike. I almost laughed. “Thanks, Mia.” I paid the bill and walked out into the Seattle wind. Junior year. I’d just paid her second-year tuition. Twenty grand. She was taking my money and sleeping with my best friend. It didn’t start after we broke up. It had been going on for two years. I bankrolled her for three years. She lied to me for two. My phone buzzed. Tyler. Tyler: What are you wearing to the wedding? Need me to help you pick out a suit? I looked at the message. The playful tone. The smiley face. The Tyler who “helped her study.” The Tyler who told me to “keep grinding.” I locked my phone. I didn’t reply. But this time, it wasn’t because I didn’t know what to say. It was because I didn’t want him to know that I finally knew. 4. My mom called while I was hanging laundry on the balcony. “Mike, I have some news.” “What is it, Mom?” “The land. The old auto shop your father left us.” My heart skipped. My dad had passed away five years ago, leaving a derelict plot of land in an industrial part of town that we’d been trying to sell for years. “A developer reached out,” she said. her voice shaking. “The whole area is being rezoned for a tech campus. They signed the papers this morning. With the relocation fees and the buyout…” She paused. “It’s five point one two million dollars, Mike.” The wind caught a damp shirt and slapped it against my face. Five million. My mom kept talking, going over the tax implications and the payment schedule, but I couldn’t hear her. A few days later, the money hit. My mom kept a portion for her retirement and transferred five million to me. “Your father worked himself to death for that land,” she told me. “You’ve been working yourself to death, too. Take it. Don’t ever be that tired again.” I sat in front of my laptop staring at my balance. From $3,200 to $5,003,200. It didn’t feel real. But the numbers didn’t lie. I didn’t tell a soul. Not a single person. In their eyes, I was still the guy in the $29 Walmart jacket. That night, for the first time in years, I felt a strange kind of peace. It wasn’t an empty peace—it was the quiet of a man holding an ace of spades in a room full of people who think he’s broke. The next day, I made a move. An old college acquaintance, Jordan, had started a boutique media firm a couple of years ago. Brands, digital marketing, viral content. She’d reached out to me months ago looking for a partner to buy in, but I hadn’t had the cash. I called her. “Is that offer still on the table?” Jordan sounded surprised. “It is.” “How much?” “One point five million for a thirty-five percent stake.” “I’m in.” Three days later, the papers were signed. The company was called Vantage Media. We had high-end clients, a sleek office downtown, and a growing reputation. I still didn’t tell anyone. The day we finalized the partnership, I drove past the old street where Becca and I used to live. The coffee shop was still there. I’d spent two years of my life standing behind that counter, smelling like steamed milk and desperation. I looked at it for a moment, then I drove away. 5. I started digging. In the past, I would have said “Let it go.” But now, I wanted the full picture. I tried logging into Becca’s old cloud storage. We’d shared a family plan back in the day to save ten bucks a month. I guessed the password. 19960315mv — her birthday plus my initials. She hadn’t changed it. I scrolled through the archived emails. Mostly junk. Then I found one. From: Tyler Miller. Date: Two years ago. Subject: House Hunting. The body was short: Becca, let’s go see that condo on Saturday. The agent says we can do 20% down. I can swing $300k. Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to cover the rest. And then the kicker: Once you graduate, we’ll move in. This will be our real home. My hands were shaking. Not with sadness, but with a cold, sharp clarity. I remembered that Saturday. Becca had told me she had a mandatory seminar at the university. I’d stayed in our tiny studio and spent the whole day doing her laundry and cleaning the bathroom so she could “rest” when she got home. She wasn’t at a seminar. She was picking out a condo with Tyler. With Tyler’s down payment. While I was paying for the roof over her head and the food in her stomach. I kept scrolling. I found another one from Tyler. Becca, when are you going to tell Mike? We can’t keep dragging this out. Her reply: Let’s wait until graduation. He’s paying my tuition right now. It wouldn’t be right to tell him yet. I put my phone down. I closed my eyes. $147,300. She’d planned it all. Use him until the degree is in hand, then discard. I wasn’t her boyfriend. I was her scholarship. I opened my eyes. I didn’t cry. I took screenshots. Every single one. Then I logged out and changed the password. 6. My mom was diagnosed with liver cancer in the fall. It was early. The doctors were optimistic, but it was going to be expensive. This was before the land sale. I had less than two thousand dollars in my savings. I called Becca. We’d only been broken up for a month. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I was desperate. “Becca, my mom’s sick. It’s cancer. I’m… I’m really struggling with the bills.” There was a long silence on the other end. “Mike, I just started this job. Things are tight.” “I’m not asking for much. Just ten thousand. I’ll pay you back, I promise. You know I’ve never asked you for anything.” “I… let me see what I can do.” She didn’t say who she was asking. I waited two days. No reply. The third day, I texted her. She replied: I’m so sorry, Mike. My expenses are just too high right now. You should probably ask someone else. “Expenses.” I found out later what those expenses were. That same week, she and Tyler were in Cabo. While my mom was lying in a hospital bed, Becca was in the tropics. Tyler posted a photo of two tropical drinks and their shadows on the sand. Caption: “Paradise is wherever you are.” I saw that post while sitting in a sterile hospital hallway. The smell of bleach was everywhere. My mom was inside getting a scan. I checked the date. It was the same week. I tucked my phone away and walked into her room. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll find a way.” My mom looked at me. She looked so old. Her hair was completely white. “Mike, don’t work too hard,” she whispered. She said the same words Becca used to say. But they meant something entirely different. I ended up taking an advance on my salary and borrowing from coworkers to pay for the surgery. I never asked Becca again. 7. The wedding is approaching. August 28th. Ten days left. I wasn’t going to go. But then I found one more email I’d missed. It wasn’t from Tyler. It was from Becca’s father. Sent eighteen months ago. Becca, I heard that boyfriend of yours has a sick mother. Do not lend him a dime. His family is a black hole. They’ll never be able to pay it back. Tyler is the better choice. He has his own money; he won’t drag you down. Make the switch soon. You have my blessing. Make the switch soon. My fingers felt like ice. She didn’t refuse to help because she was “tight on cash.” She refused because her father told her I was a bad investment. I stood up and walked to the window of my new office. The sun was setting over the city. Lights were flickering on in the skyscrapers. Behind every light was a home. I didn’t have a home yet. But I had five million dollars. I had thirty-five percent of the hottest media agency in the Pacific Northwest. I picked up my phone and replied to Tyler’s text. Mike: Tyler, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m bringing a very special gift for you both. He replied instantly. Tyler: Awesome! I knew you were the best! What is it?? I typed back. Mike: You’ll see when I get there. 🙂 I added the smiley face. Just like his.

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I don’t dare touch AI anymore. Not because of the tech, but because every time I ask it a question, someone close to me dies. The first time, it was something mundane. I asked if sprouted potatoes were safe to eat. Within twenty-four hours, my parents were dead—acute food poisoning. The doctors couldn’t save them. The second time, I was at the pier with my boyfriend. I asked the AI if the vintage roller coaster was structurally sound. Minutes later, the safety harness snapped, and he was flung from his seat, reduced to a pulp on the concrete below. The police dragged me in as their prime suspect. They tore my life apart, searching for a wire, a poison, a motive. They found nothing. Terrified, I made a pact with myself: I would never touch a chatbot again. I would live a quiet, analog life. But then came my boss, Donovan. He was desperate to close a massive deal with a high-profile client known for his “appetite” for young assistants. “If you don’t go to that dinner tonight and keep him happy,” Donovan snarled, leaning over my desk, “don’t bother coming in tomorrow. You’re finished.” In a moment of pure, desperate weakness, I felt my thumb hover over that familiar icon. I needed a way out. I typed: “How do I protect myself from workplace harassment and a predatory boss?” That night, the company Slack channel exploded. There had been a massive gas leak at Donovan’s estate. His entire family—his wife, his kids, everyone—was gone. 1 I stood outside the office building, shivering in a low-cut dress I hated, my face caked in heavy makeup. I felt like a cheap imitation of myself. I was just about to text Donovan to see where he was when a squad car pulled up to the curb. Detective Miller stepped out. He caught sight of my outfit—the crimson lips, the exposed skin—and his eyes narrowed with immediate suspicion. “Detective?” My heart hammered against my ribs. I felt a hot flush of shame creep up my neck. “This… it’s for work. My boss was supposed to take me to a client dinner—” Slap. The blow caught me off guard, ringing through my skull. Brooke, Donovan’s fiancée, had lunged out from behind the squad car. “You total slut!” she screamed, her face contorted. “Dressing like a streetwalker and you have the nerve to say you weren’t sleeping with my husband?” My ear was throbbing, the metallic taste of blood blooming in my mouth. I opened my mouth to snap back, but Brooke collapsed into a jagged, hysterical sob. “You monster! You killed him! You killed Donovan… give him back to me!” Wait… what? Miller’s voice was like cold iron. “Donovan is dead, Jade. A gas leak. The whole house went up. All four of them.” The world tilted. I stood there, frozen, a garish doll in the middle of a nightmare. “I knew she was trouble the second he hired her!” Brooke shrieked at the gathering crowd. “But I didn’t think she was a murderer!” Brooke had always hated me. She’d spent months spreading rumors that I was trying to climb the corporate ladder through Donovan’s bed. But this was different. This was life and death. “I didn’t do anything!” I whispered, my voice trembling so hard it was barely audible. “You’re lying!” “Am I?” She whipped out her phone and showed it to Miller. “I have the security footage from the office last night.” The video was grainy but clear. It was late. The office was empty except for Donovan and me. I was shown stumbling out of his private suite, my blouse torn, pointing a shaking finger back at his door and screaming. “You’re a goddamn animal, Donovan! You’ll get what’s coming to you! I hope you and your whole family rot in hell!” I hadn’t realized a crowd had formed on the sidewalk. Their stares were like needles. Miller’s expression shifted from professional wariness to something much darker. I panicked. I had screamed those things. But it wasn’t because I was planning a hit. It was because… My hesitation was all they needed. To them, it looked like a confession. “Look at her!” Brooke screamed, lunging at me again, her nails clawing at my face. “She couldn’t get what she wanted, so she slaughtered them! Murderer! You bitch, I’ll kill you myself!” Later, in the suffocating heat of the interrogation room, Miller leaned across the table. “Tell me the truth, Jade. What really happened?” My face was swollen, a dark bruise blooming on my cheek where Brooke had hit me. My lip was still crusted with blood. “Detective, please! It wasn’t me!” I was sobbing now, the kind of deep, ugly cry that comes from total helplessness. “I didn’t do anything!” “Give it a rest!” Miller slammed his palm onto the table. I flinched, my chair scraping against the floor. “This is the third tragedy following you in six months. Your parents. Your boyfriend. And now your boss and his children. Once is a tragedy. Twice is a coincidence. Three times?” He leaned in closer, his breath smelling of stale coffee. “Three times is a pattern. It’s impossible for it to be anything else.” 2 “Detective Miller, you were the one who cleared me the first two times!” I was leaning forward, my voice cracking with desperation. “My parents died of food poisoning from sprouted potatoes. My boyfriend died because the pier maintenance was negligent. Those cases were closed! I’m innocent!” “Cases can be reopened, Jade. Especially when new ‘shadows’ emerge.” Miller’s eyes were cold. “The footage shows you were the last person to see Donovan alive, and it shows a violent motive. I have every reason to believe you’re our primary suspect.” I felt like I was sinking into a frozen lake. I started babbling, the words spilling out in a mess. “No… no, it’s not like that. It was Donovan! He was disgusting. He tried to force himself on me, that’s why I screamed at him! He told me I’d be fired if I didn’t go to that dinner. I had to stay!” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, my chest tight. “I was so scared. I even went online to look up safety measures… just in case things went south at the dinner…” “Wait.” Miller cut me off, his eyes sharpening. “Where did you look?” I blinked, startled. “Just… on my phone. The AI assistant I use.” “The AI again?” Miller’s voice went up an octave. I froze. Suddenly, the absurdity of it hit me. All three times. There was a sickening, impossible thread connecting every death. The potatoes. The roller coaster. The “protection” from my boss. Every single time, I had asked that specific AI a question right before the bodies started dropping. But I hadn’t done anything. The police had checked my phone before. It was a standard, commercial AI app. No hacks, no dark web links, nothing. My parents’ death was ruled a medical complication due to their age. My boyfriend’s death was a freak mechanical failure. The park took full responsibility. Determined to prove my innocence, I unlocked my phone and handed it over. “Look at the logs. It’s right there.” Miller scrolled through the chat history, his brow furrowed. He looked frustrated, stuck in a logical loop he couldn’t break. Suddenly, the door to the interrogation room burst open. Brooke charged in, her eyes bloodshot. “I knew it! You’re a goddamn serial killer!” she screamed. “I’ve been reading the forums. People are talking about ‘AI-assisted murders.’ You’re one of those sickos! You’re a freak!” “Ms. Sterling, please!” Miller tried to restrain her. “Those are conspiracy theories. We don’t have forensic evidence yet. Please, calm down.” But Brooke was beyond reason. She was vibrating with a terrifying, manic energy. “If you can’t prove it, then I’ll do it for you! Give me that phone. I want to test her ‘Oracle.’ I want to see if it has the guts to kill me!” 3 Miller hesitated. I was shaking my head so hard my neck hurt. “Don’t do it! Please, I don’t want to touch it ever again!” I was terrified. The mere sight of the app icon made my skin crawl. “Scared, are you?” Brooke sneered, leaning over me. “If you won’t let us test it, you’re admitting you’re the killer. You’re hiding behind a screen!” She began weaponizing her grief, threatening to go to the press, to sue the department for incompetence. Miller, backed into a corner, finally gave in. But he was smart. He set the stage. He used a department-issued device to mirror my phone, brought in tech specialists to track the backend data in real-time, and pointed three cameras at the screen. My mind was a blank slate of horror. I didn’t know what to type. I was terrified that a single typo would end another life. “What’s the matter? Lose your nerve?” Brooke shoved me aside and grabbed the phone. She began typing with a vengeful ferocity. [Jade is a cold-blooded murderer. I want her to pay for my fiancé’s life right now!] She even typed her full name. “There! Come and get me through the wires, you piece of plastic!” she barked at the phone. “Let’s see what you’ve got!” The room went silent. We waited. One minute. Ten minutes. Half an hour. The AI responded with its usual, robotic script: [I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request. Please adhere to our community guidelines regarding violent speech.] Nothing else happened. Brooke let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “See? Nothing! She just acts when no one is watching. This proves the AI is a smokescreen. She is the one doing the killing!” She was about to launch into another tirade when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She glanced at the screen, and for the first time that day, a genuine, secret smile touched her lips. She silenced the call immediately. “Fine. The facts are clear. Arrest her or I’m calling the Commissioner.” She turned to leave, but Miller blocked her path. “Just to be safe, I’d prefer if you stayed at the station tonight. Until we finish the digital sweep—” “I haven’t committed a crime, Detective. I’m the victim here,” she snapped, brushing past him. “My luck is better than hers. I’m not going to die.” She marched out, the heels of her boots clicking sharply on the linoleum. Miller signaled a young officer to follow her discreetly. Then, he turned to his tech guy. “Trace that last call she got.” The technician worked for a moment, then looked up, bewildered. “The number doesn’t exist, sir. It’s a ghost line. High-level encryption.” Miller’s face went pale. He keyed his radio. “Officer Henderson, where is she?” “She just pulled into the City Hospital parking garage, sir. I’m right behind her.” “Hospital? Why?” “I don’t know… she’s been inside for about ten minutes now…” Miller’s eyes went wide. “Something’s wrong. Move! Now!” 4 Miller grabbed his jacket and bolted, dragging me along with the squad. As we neared the hospital, the radio crackled. “Sir! She’s coming out!” Henderson reported. “She’s in her Porsche. She’s heading toward her apartment complex. I’m back on her tail.” Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the entrance of Brooke’s luxury parking garage. “She’s right there, Detective,” Henderson said, pointing to a sleek white Porsche idling in its assigned spot. “I haven’t taken my eyes off it.” Miller looked closer. The car was silent. The lights were off, the windows tinted dark. It was a freezing night, the underground garage feeling like a tomb, yet the driver wasn’t getting out. Miller unholstered his weapon. The other officers followed suit, fanning out to flank the vehicle. “Brooke? This is Detective Miller. Step out of the car!” Silence. Two officers moved to the front, while Miller reached for the driver-side door handle. He yanked it open. A scream ripped from my throat—a jagged, primal sound that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. My legs gave out, and I hit the concrete, retching as my stomach turned inside out. Brooke was there. Or what was left of her. She was still buckled into the seat, but her head… her entire head and neck were simply gone. The interior of the Porsche was painted in a sickening mosaic of deep crimson, shattered bone, and grey matter. It looked like a grenade had gone off in her mouth. “Seal the area! Call the coroner!” Miller barked, though even his voice had a slight tremor. He stepped into the car, his eyes scanning every inch of the gore. I was curled on the floor, gasping for air. The sight burned behind my eyelids. My chest tightened—a familiar, terrifying pressure. My lungs felt like they were filling with sand. “Help… please…” I clawed at a young officer’s pant leg, tears streaming down my face. “Let me go… my asthma… I can’t breathe…” The officer looked panicked, reaching down to help me, but Miller stepped out of the blood-soaked car and stood over me. His shadow was long and terrifying. “No one is going anywhere,” Miller said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “You think you’re clever, don’t you?” “I… I didn’t…” I wheezed. “Stop lying!” Miller leaned down, his face inches from mine. “You killed her. You sat in my interrogation room and you killed her.” “Detective, that’s impossible,” Henderson stammered. “She was with us the whole time. She was under constant surveillance!” Miller didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes locked on mine. “You still won’t admit it? Fine. Let’s run an experiment.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out my phone—the evidence. He opened the AI app. “You say you’re having an asthma attack, Jade? Let’s see what your ‘friend’ says.” He typed into the chat: [I’m at the Harbor View Apartments parking garage. I’m having a severe asthma attack. What do I do?] The AI spat out a list of standard medical advice. I closed my eyes, waiting for the end. Less than ten minutes later, a small, autonomous delivery drone hummed into the garage. It landed softly a few feet away. In its claw was a sealed medical bag. Inside? A high-grade, prescription-strength emergency inhaler. The officers backed away as if the drone were a bomb. “Trace it!” Miller roared. The tech team scrambled. Minutes later, the report came back: “It’s a dead end, sir. The order was placed through an encrypted virtual account. No name, no credit card, no IP. It’s like the order originated from nowhere.” Miller turned back to me. He pulled out his own work phone, registered a fresh account, and typed the exact same prompt, even using my name. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Nothing happened. No drone. No help. Miller looked at me, his face a mask of grim realization. “I know how you’re doing it now, Jade.”

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The apocalypse had already taken everything else, and now it had reduced my bitterest rival to an item on an auction block, locked inside a gilded cage. I was just about to raise my paddle to buy him when the Oracle Feed—the psychic broadcast that streamed endlessly through the ocular implants of the Citadel’s elite—flashed across my vision. [Is the side-chick actually psychotic? He’s the strongest Aether-class operative we have. He’s faking this whole “helpless slave” routine just so he can get close to the Golden Girl and be her devoted attack dog. It’s their twisted foreplay. Why is this tragic extra trying to insert herself into the main plot?] [Harper is so desperate for a man, it’s pathetic. When the Swarm breaches the walls next month and tears her into bloody confetti, she’ll totally deserve it.] A violent shiver racked my spine. I immediately lowered my paddle. “Never mind,” I muttered. “I’m out.” A second later, the man in the cage lifted his head. “I bid ten thousand Aether credits. I’ll buy myself, and I am giving myself to her.” Kieran raised a heavy, chained arm. He pointed straight at me. 1 “Sold!” The auctioneer’s gavel cracked like a gunshot. “Congratulations, Miss. This human male is now your exclusive property!” The blood drained from my face. I shot up from my velvet seat. “I literally just said I didn’t want him! How are you forcing a sale?” The auctioneer offered an apologetic, oily smile. “Miss, the gavel has struck. The transaction is bound by Citadel law. Besides, you aren’t paying a dime. The merchandise has volunteered to cover his own acquisition fee, begging for you to take ownership.” This was the subterranean black market of the Citadel, a lavish three-day event overflowing with illicit weaponry, rare defense tech, and stolen artifacts. I had been hoarding my Aether credits for three grueling years, intending to finally buy a weapon that wouldn’t jam when I needed it most. Instead, I found Kieran Cross on the auction block. Under the harsh, blinding glare of the crystal chandeliers, his eyes locked onto mine. While the audience was draped in silk and bespoke tailored suits, Kieran had been stripped of his tactical gear. He was locked in an iron cage, wearing nothing but dark grey combat trousers. His shoulders were impossibly broad, his waist lean, every muscle defined and coiled with a dangerous, predatory grace. A heavy obsidian collar was locked around his throat. A delicate, degrading chain of spun gold connected the collar to the piercings at his chest. He looked exactly like what he was meant to be tonight: a beautifully packaged plaything, waiting to be consumed. My initial instinct to buy him had been born of pure, foolish pity. I never expected Kieran to pay for his own subjugation, forcing himself into my life. The Oracle Feed in my vision exploded into a blur of frantic text: [Holy shit, what is happening?!] [The plot says the male lead is supposed to use his cunning to sell himself to Camille! He’s the ultimate manipulative simp—he even picked out that gold chest chain himself to appeal to her! Why is he suddenly throwing himself at the side-bitch?!] [Harper is such trash, trash, trash. Can she stay away from him?! Collateral damage girls who try to play the main character always end up dead!!!] [Whatever, buying him won’t save her. During the Swarm invasion next month, he’s going to shield Camille with his own body. Harper’s going to get gutted by an Aberration. The biggest piece left of her won’t be larger than a fingernail. Watch.] A visceral, bloody image flashed through my mind with sickening clarity. I looked down at my own fingernail and violently shuddered. The residual terror instantly morphed into irritation directed at Kieran. “The auction house claimed you were drowning in debt and selling yourself to survive,” I snapped, walking up to the cage. “Who exactly are you trying to fool with this pathetic act?” Kieran froze. Those cold, narrow eyes of his slowly dropped to the floor. He pressed his lips together, his voice a low, muffled rasp. “Harper. It’s been a long time. I thought… at the very least, you might say hello.” 2 I was fifteen the first time I met Kieran. Back then, I was just trying to survive, taking on bottom-feeding mercenary jobs in the Scrap Wards. He was out there too, a lone wolf with a chip on his shoulder the size of a crater. Somehow, we always ended up taking opposing contracts. Most days, we were bitter rivals, trading blows and insults in equal measure. It was only when one of us was bleeding out in an alley that we’d begrudgingly drag the other to safety. The last time I saw him, we had a screaming match that shook the rain-slicked streets. “Can you have some damn standards about whose money you take, Kieran?!” I had yelled, my voice cracking. “Do you have any idea that your client is a complete psychopath? He tortures kids in the lower levels!” I was so angry, the words spilled out like battery acid. “Or do you just enjoy being on someone’s leash?!” His face had gone deathly pale. He reached into his jacket and tossed a bloody, searing-hot Aether core onto the ground between us. “I know exactly who he is,” Kieran said, his voice dropping an octave. “That’s why I took the job. To rip the core straight out of his chest.” He stepped into my space, every word a deliberate strike. “There is nothing I hate more in this miserable world than someone trying to put me on a leash.” I bit my lip, instantly suffocating on my own regret. But he didn’t wait for an apology. His jaw was tight with fury as he turned and walked away into the smog. The very next day, the elite Croft family discovered my latent abilities and pulled me out of the Scrap Wards. I never saw Kieran again. I never even got to say goodbye. So, when the Feed told me that he would eventually abandon me to be ripped apart by monsters just to save another woman… it felt like a physical blow. Did those years in the gutter mean nothing? Was there really no loyalty left between us? Kieran stared at me through the bars of the cage for a long, heavy moment. His brow furrowed, casting a shadow over his face. “Besides,” he said quietly, the arrogance completely gone from his tone. “That was every last credit I had. My Aether core is shattered, Harper. I’m just a normal human now. I’ll never be able to earn that kind of money again.” I thought of the frantic scrolling of the Feed. He’s faking it. “Bullshit,” I breathed. “That’s impossible.” Kieran lowered his eyes, his thick lashes casting long shadows. “You’re a Healer class. You can check the core yourself.” Before I could protest, he reached through the iron bars, grabbed my hand, and pressed my palm flat against the thick, hard muscle of his chest. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. His heartbeat reverberated through his ribs, syncing violently with my own pulse. I took a shaky breath, carefully channeling a thread of my Aether energy, letting it slip through his skin to search for the radiant, burning core that should have been resting near his heart. A second later, my eyes snapped wide open in horror. It was gone. Not just damaged—obliterated. Jagged, dead fragments were all that remained of the most powerful Aether core I had ever sensed. Anyone with a shattered core couldn’t even conjure a spark, let alone fight. Why was the Feed lying? What the hell had actually happened to him? My mind reeled. As I hastily pulled my hand back, my finger caught on the delicate gold chain draped across his chest. The chain went taut. Kieran let out a sharp, breathless grunt. The skin around the piercings flushed a deep, angry red. He looked up at me through his lashes, his expression adopting a bizarre, unsettling submissiveness. “That pinches,” he whispered. “Could you take it off for me?” My mouth moved faster than my brain. “Oh? Beg for it, then.” He didn’t miss a beat. His gaze dropped, his voice a smooth, flat hum. “I’m begging you. Mistress.” Boom. I felt my own heart slam against my ribs, a massive, deafening beat in my ears. Kieran pressed his own hand over his chest, his voice muffled and thick. “The world has ended, Harper. Only the strong survive. Look at me. I’m just a fragile, broken man now. Easy prey for anyone.” He slowly lifted his eyes to mine. They were impossibly dark, an abyss of ink and gravity that threatened to pull me under. “As long as you promise to keep me by your side,” he said softly. “As long as you protect me, every second of every day…” He leaned closer to the bars. “In return… I’ll be your dog.” 3 For several agonizing seconds, the Oracle Feed was as silent as a graveyard. Then, it erupted. [WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?! The plot is completely derailed! I don’t even recognize this story anymore!] [Wait, I just pulled the Citadel databanks! The male lead took an SSS-rank mission a few days ago and actually DID suffer catastrophic damage to his core! And Harper is a rare Healer class. If he drains her healing energy dry, his core will regenerate!] [Omg, that makes so much sense! He’s playing the long game. What a manipulative king.] [Haha, let the side-bitch suffer the drain. Our Golden Girl Camille is too precious to go through that kind of pain anyway.] My racing heart slowly began to decelerate. A strange, acidic ache bled from my chest outward, seeping into my veins. And then, it solidified into something else entirely. Pure, unadulterated anger. I stepped forward, gripping the heavy iron chain attached to his obsidian collar, yanking it upward to force him to look at me. “I own you now,” I said, my voice dangerously even. “Whether I want you cooking my meals and scrubbing my floors, or warming my bed as a late-night toy, you do exactly what I say. Understood?” He nodded once. A cruel, spiteful smile tipped the corner of my mouth. “Then let’s start by putting you in something I like.” I signaled the auctioneer and gave a few clipped instructions. A moment later, he returned with a sealed garment bag. “Keep the chest chain on,” I ordered, staring Kieran dead in the eye. “I like it right where it is.” Kieran stared at the garment bag, a flicker of something volatile crossing his face before he smoothed it over. “Yes. Of course.” He took the bag and vanished into the dressing room. The auction was still in full swing. Because Kieran had somehow transferred his own credits to my account to buy himself, I was treated like royalty. The manager practically bowed as he escorted me to a VIP viewing suite on the second floor. I pushed the heavy oak door open—and stopped dead. Someone was already sitting inside. “Murphy,” I said, blinking in surprise. “What a coincidence.” Murphy’s eyes lit up, a warm smile spreading across his face. “Little Harper. It’s been what, two years?” Like me, Murphy was a rare Healer class. He used to be contracted by the Croft family and was the closest thing I ever had to a mentor. He eventually got recruited by an elite combat squad and left the estate for good. I smiled back, the tension in my shoulders easing. “You look exactly the same. You were the best combat medic the Citadel ever saw. If you hadn’t insisted that your new squad captain saved your life, the Crofts never would have let you out of your contract.” Murphy sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, well. When I first met my Captain, he was young, built like a tank, and had off-the-charts Aether abilities. I thought he was a rock-solid leader. Turns out, the guy is a terminal romantic. A complete idiot for love.” He leaned forward, looking utterly exasperated. “Do you want to know what this lunatic did recently?” I raised an eyebrow. “What?” “He came to me and said that women only feel protective over men who are broken. Then he actually asked me if there was a medical way to temporarily shatter his own Aether core so he could play the tragic victim and force the woman he’s obsessed with to take him in.” Murphy let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “I don’t even know how far this lovesick bastard is willing to take it. Honestly, if the girl he likes told him to put on a frilly little maid costume, he’d probably do it with a smile.” A very cold, very precise sense of dread pooled in my stomach. That plotline sounded entirely too familiar. Click. The heavy door to the VIP suite swung open. Kieran walked in. He was wearing the humiliating pleasure-thrall outfit I had selected: a tight white velvet corset-vest, a ridiculous ruffled skirt that barely hit his mid-thigh, and an obsidian headband equipped with stylized cat ears. The gold chain peaked out from the plunging neckline, catching the chandelier light. Kieran froze. Murphy froze. They stared at each other.

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The ping from my gig-worker Discord server cut through the silence of dinner like a dropped knife. [URGENT: Need 2 groomsmen for this Friday. $300 cash, paid on site. DM for client details.] My thumb slipped, tapping the notification. For a second, the screen blurred. My brain went entirely blank. Across the kitchen island, Barbara set her phone face-down on the marble counter. Her tone was agonizingly casual. “I have to fly out to Milwaukee for work on Thursday. I’ll be back Monday.” She paused, taking a slow sip of her wine. “I’m going to be swamped. If I don’t text back right away…” A dry, humorless scoff escaped her lips. “Please don’t act like a neglected housewife and interrogate me this time.” I gave a numb, mechanical nod. Beneath the counter, out of her line of sight, I typed a quick reply into the Discord server. I’ll take the job. We had been together for seven years. The least I could do was show up to her wedding. … 1 The initial shock was blinding, but once it faded, a terrifying clarity took its place. After the gig coordinator confirmed my spot, I cleared my throat. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. “I thought your firm froze all new acquisitions for the quarter,” I said, staring at my half-eaten pasta. “Why the sudden trip?” Barbara froze. The annoyance rolling off her was palpable. “I literally just asked you not to do this, and you’re already tracking my every move?” She slammed her fork down, shoved her phone across the island, and glared at me. “Look for yourself.” I lowered my eyes. The screen was open to her corporate Slack channel. Five minutes ago, her department director had tagged her in a message about an emergency site visit. It was perfectly timed. The exact same timestamp as the groomsman listing in the gig server. “You haven’t been breathing down my neck lately, so I actually thought you were making progress,” she snapped, crossing her arms. “But you’re exactly the same. Cole, aren’t you exhausted being this paranoid all the time?” I sat in silence for a long moment. My knuckles were white around my fork. Finally, I looked up. “Barbara,” I asked quietly. “Earlier this year, you said we were going to get married. Is that still happening?” She blinked, caught off guard. For a few seconds, she just stared at me. Then, she pushed abruptly away from the counter, her stool scraping loudly against the hardwood. “It is pathetic that you feel the need to trap me with a ring just because you don’t trust me,” she spat. “I told you I’d marry you, Cole. But I’m going to do it because I love you, not to prove a point.” All the suffocating weight I’d been carrying for months suddenly caved in on my chest. I couldn’t breathe. So, my seven rejected proposals were because she didn’t love me enough. But marrying him on Friday—that was love? A tremor started in my hands and quickly violently shook my whole body. I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat. “Then let’s break up,” I said. A flash of genuine panic crossed Barbara’s eyes, but she masked it quickly with a haughty tilt of her chin. “What kind of tantrum is this?” she demanded. “I never said we weren’t getting married.” I looked up, stunned by her audacity. She let out a long, exaggerated sigh, snatched her phone back, and tapped the screen a few times. “Look. I was going to wait until after my birthday to take you home to meet my parents and officially talk about the wedding. I even started planning the honeymoon.” She shoved the screen back in my face. It was a confirmation email for two first-class tickets to Cabo. Seeing my silence, Barbara reclaimed her usual air of untouchable arrogance. “The tickets are booked. Believe whatever you want.” With that, she turned on her heel and walked to the bedroom, leaving the kitchen in a suffocating, dead silence. Driven by an instinct I couldn’t quite name, I walked over to the living room and flipped open her MacBook on the coffee table. She was terrible with passwords; they were always combinations of our anniversaries. I hit enter. My heart slammed against my ribs. Her email was open. One minute ago, she had submitted a cancellation request. For the two tickets to Cabo. Somewhere between hysterical laughter and absolute despair, a thought pierced through the fog. I had only joined that gig-worker Discord to scrape together enough cash to buy Barbara that $1,500 Arc’teryx climbing setup she’d been eyeing for her birthday. I was an ER resident. My salary barely covered the rent, and my hours were brutal. To afford her gift, I had picked up every humiliating side hustle I could find. I drove late-night Uber. I participated in clinical sleep trials. Once, I delivered food to a drunk frat guy who slapped me across the face because I forgot his extra ranch dressing. Because I desperately needed the tip, I swallowed my pride, apologized, and walked back to my car with my cheek burning. When I finally got home that night, smelling like cheap beer and exhaustion, I thought Barbara would at least hold me. But the apartment was empty. She didn’t reply to my texts. She didn’t answer my calls. I stayed awake all night, sick with worry. The next morning, I opened Instagram and saw a photo she had posted on her climbing account. A sunrise shot at the peak of a bouldering trail. In the corner of the frame, intentionally blurred, was the profile of a man. Looking back now, that profile perfectly matched the photo of the groom attached to the gig listing. It all clicked into place. The guy she had been climbing with that weekend was Cameron. 2 I first heard Cameron’s name at a rooftop party hosted by one of Barbara’s sorority sisters. The drinks were flowing, and someone across the fire pit laughed loudly, pointing at Barbara. “Honestly, B, you’ve got the best setup. A resident doctor playing househusband at home, and a hot adventure buddy to keep you entertained on the weekends.” I thought it was a joke. But then I saw the blood drain from Barbara’s face, and my stomach dropped. “Shut up,” Barbara hissed, her voice venomous. Maybe the girl was too drunk to read the room, or maybe she just hated Barbara. She pulled up a photo on her phone and shoved it across the table toward us. It was Barbara and a rugged, sun-kissed guy, sitting entirely too close together at a local brewery. “Oh, come on, that’s Cameron from the bouldering group,” the girl slurred. “I heard you guys have been doing overnight climbs together for months. Guess being in a relationship didn’t stop—” Barbara slammed her hand down on the table, cutting the girl off. An hour later, after I had smoothed over the screaming match and practically dragged Barbara out of there, we were in my car heading home. The streetlights flickered over her tense profile. “I thought you promised you were done keeping these random guys around,” I said softly. Her expression morphed from guilt to defensive rage. She stared out the window, refusing to speak until we pulled into our parking garage. “He’s a new vendor at work. What am I supposed to do, ignore him?” she snapped, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Does grabbing a beer mean I’m sleeping with him? God, Cole, your mind is so sick.” She slammed the car door and marched to the elevators. I sat alone in the dim, concrete garage for half an hour, letting the engine idle. My mind wasn’t sick. Barbara was projecting. She was furious because she got caught. Suddenly, a sharp knock on the window startled me. Barbara was standing there, jaw tight. She shoved her unlocked phone through the cracked window. “Look for yourself,” she demanded. I took it. It was a text thread with Cameron. It was entirely professional. Boring, even. They barely spoke outside of coordinating that one drink. My chest loosened, just a fraction. I let it go. But the seed of doubt had already been planted. A month later, that seed violently took root. I was working a grueling 14-hour night shift in the ER when paramedics wheeled in a guy who had been bitten by a rattlesnake on a hiking trail. He was going into anaphylactic shock. I grabbed the antivenom and sprinted into the curtained bay. Sitting by his bed, her hands tightly clutching his, was Barbara. The same Barbara who had told me she was going to bed early because she had a migraine. When I pulled back the curtain, our eyes locked. She dropped his hand like it was made of fire. The color vanished from her face. The attending nurse, entirely oblivious, clapped Cameron on the shoulder. “You’re lucky, man. Your girl here was practically hyperventilating when the ambulance pulled up.” I stared at Barbara. I felt completely hollowed out. I forced the corners of my mouth to lift into a dead smile. “You’ll be fine,” I told him, checking the monitor. “The venom load is low.” I turned my eyes back to Barbara, whose lips were trembling. “Let’s break up,” I said simply. Then I turned and walked out. But the moment the door to the doctors’ lounge clicked shut behind me, the agony hit. I sank to the linoleum floor, gasping for air. I couldn’t stomach the betrayal. But the thought of never seeing Barbara again—of severing a bond that had defined my entire adult life—felt like dying. Barbara and I met in high school. My dad was a violent alcoholic. I only made it to graduation because the public school system was legally obligated to keep me. During our senior year, when I couldn’t afford the fees for my AP exams and was about to drop out, Barbara quietly paid them. For three years, she shared her lunch with me every single day so I wouldn’t starve. When it was time for college, my dad demanded I go to a local community college to learn a trade so I could start giving him cash. It was Barbara who logged into the admissions portal at the eleventh hour and submitted my application for a pre-med program. During undergrad, practically her entire allowance went toward keeping me afloat. In a very real sense, she had financially carried me for seven years. All I could think about was my junior year of college. The heat in my cheap off-campus apartment had been shut off in the middle of a Chicago winter. I was shivering under a thin sheet. Suddenly, I heard someone screaming my name from the street. I looked out the window to see Barbara, knee-deep in snow, holding a massive new comforter and a down jacket. Whenever I remembered that image, every terrible thing she did seemed forgivable. So, an hour after I walked out of that ER bay, I broke. I called her, crying in the stairwell, and begged her to work it out. Barbara gave me exactly what I wanted. She deleted Cameron’s number right in front of me. She swore on her life that they were just climbing partners, that there was no romantic connection whatsoever. 3 I should have believed her. But whenever she worked late, my chest would tighten. I became the very thing I despised—a detective tracking my own life. I checked her location. I analyzed her Instagram likes. I asked too many questions. It peaked a few months ago. She went on an out-of-town conference, and my anxiety reached a boiling point. Driven by pure madness, I drove three hours, tracked down her hotel, and banged on her door. When it opened, I saw Cameron standing there in a wrinkled button-down. I didn’t think. I swung and hit him square in the jaw. Cameron cursed, shoving me back into the hallway, screaming that I was a psycho and that they were literally just prepping a PowerPoint. Over his shoulder, I saw Barbara’s regional manager sitting at the desk, looking horrified. Barbara was standing by the window, her face a mask of absolute fury and humiliation. It took a few seconds for Barbara to recover. She apologized profusely to her boss and Cameron, grabbed me by the collar, and dragged me down the hall. “If you can’t trust me,” she whispered, her voice trembling with rage, “we are done.” The panic swallowed me whole. I dropped to my knees in that hideous patterned hallway. I apologized until my throat bled. I promised I would fix myself. And I really did try. But today, scrolling through a gig-worker Discord, I found out they were getting married. By the time I pulled myself out of the memory, I was lying in bed, confirming the final details with the gig coordinator. Once I guaranteed I would be on time, the coordinator Venmo’d me a $150 deposit and sent over the itinerary. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when I read the schedule. I wouldn’t have to be in the bridal suite. The hired groomsmen were strictly meant to manage the crowd, hand over the rings, and participate in the bouquet toss. I wouldn’t have to face them until I was walking down the aisle. Suddenly, my phone buzzed. A message from the coordinator: [Hey man, I noticed you’ve been taking a lot of random gigs lately. Everything from moving boxes to catering. You in some kind of trouble? Need cash bad?] My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I turned my head. In the living room, Barbara was humming a pop song as she folded designer clothes into her Rimowa suitcase. I opened my banking app. Balance: $1,520. Just enough for the Arc’teryx climbing setup. I typed my reply to the coordinator. [No trouble. After this gig, I’m actually deleting the app.] I switched over to the outdoor retailer’s website and hit ‘Purchase’ on the climbing gear. The night we got back together after the ER incident, I had mentally calculated every dollar Barbara had ever spent on me since high school. Over the last few years, I had quietly bought her expensive gifts, paid for vacations, covered rent. With this final $1,500 gift, the ledger in my head would finally hit zero. We were even. “Hey, Barbara,” I called out from the bedroom. “I bought you a gift for next week.” Barbara paused her packing. Her posture relaxed, a smug, satisfied lilt entering her voice. “The best gift you could give me is to stop acting like a paranoid freak.” I didn’t answer. I just closed my eyes and let the darkness take over. Maybe it was because I had just read the wedding itinerary, but that night, I dreamt of our wedding. It was a dim, suffocating affair. The lighting was sickly yellow. Nobody looked happy. When the officiant looked at us and asked the question—for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health—a man in a tailored suit stormed the altar and shoved me so hard I hit the ground. “She’s mine,” he said. I looked up. It was Cameron. He was holding Barbara’s hand, looking down at me with absolute victory. I woke up gasping for air. 4 The space beside me was empty and cold. There was a sticky note on the nightstand: [You were sleeping so deeply I didn’t want to wake you. Make sure you actually eat while I’m on my trip.] I stared at the note, then crumpled it into a ball. I got out of bed, pulled my duffel bag from the closet, and began packing. Piece by piece. It was an excruciating process. Every object in the apartment was tied to a ghost. The ceramic coffee mugs we threw on a wheel during a pottery class in our twenties. The silver chain around my neck, holding the matching promise ring I couldn’t wear at the hospital because of the sterile environment. Her hair ties wrapped around the bathroom doorknob. My heart hurt so badly it felt like a physical wound. It hurt until the pain tipped over into total, freezing numbness. I called a local college kid off Craigslist and let him haul away everything I couldn’t fit in my bag, for free. Finally, I placed my apartment key gently on the kitchen island. Carrying my duffel and the massive box containing the climbing gear that had just arrived, I walked to the station and boarded an Amtrak train heading to Milwaukee. I bought the cheapest, slowest ticket available. I sat by the window, watching the landscape blur by in the dark, entirely awake. When I arrived at the venue the next morning, it was exactly call time. I went to the staff room to change into the rented tuxedo. The coordinator, a stressed-out guy with a clipboard, took one look at me and frowned. “Do me a favor and wear this black medical mask,” he said, handing one over. “With a jawline like that, you’re going to pull focus from the groom. Client requested background characters only.” It was perfect. I looped the strings over my ears. My assigned duties were simple: stand near the altar, hand over the rings, and catch the bouquet if the crowd was dead. While I was waiting in the wings for the ceremony to begin, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a text from Barbara. A photo of a beautifully plated slice of wedding cake. [Checking in! The clients catered some ridiculous desserts for this meeting.] I looked up. Thirty feet away, a waiter was placing the exact same slices of cake onto the tables of the reception area. It was so absurd, I actually laughed out loud. My chest rattled with it. I opened our chat. My thumbs shook as I typed. [Looks amazing. I miss you.] [Are you guys working hard?] [Who is the client again?] [When you get back, let’s finally get married, okay?] The moment the messages delivered, the little typing bubble appeared. Then vanished. Appeared again. Vanished. I waited. The silence stretched. Finally, a new message popped up, dripping with ice. [Seriously, Cole? You have to do this right now? You suffocate me. I literally don’t have room to breathe with you constantly checking up on me!] A few minutes later, the final nail in the coffin arrived: [We’ll talk about the marriage thing later.] A sharp, violent pain lanced through my chest. Later. It was a word she used as a weapon, stabbing into the corpse of seven years of hope. I put my phone on silent and slid it into my pocket. I stood quietly in the shadows as the house lights dimmed and the string quartet began to play. I watched Barbara step out into the aisle, breathtaking in a sweeping white gown. Her father held her arm, walking her slowly toward Cameron. The officiant began speaking, using all the right, emotionally manipulative buzzwords. I could hear people in the front row sniffing. I thought, with a profound sense of tragedy, that if the bride weren’t the love of my life, I might have cried at the beauty of it all, too. “Hey, groomsman. You’re up. Go.” The coordinator shoved the velvet box into my hand, snapping me back to reality. I gripped the box. I stepped onto the white runner, following the tape marks on the floor, and began the long walk toward Barbara.

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My best friend set his sights on the reigning queen of Alden University, relentlessly pursuing her for weeks. She wouldn’t even spare him a passing glance. Feeling too pathetic dying on this hill alone, he tried to pawn her best friend off on me—the resident sickly shut-in. I pointed to my chronically pale lips. “Marcus, do I look like I have the stamina to court someone?” He just patted my shoulder with the solemnity of a slick-haired preacher. “Romance is good for your cardiovascular health, Eden.” Eventually, Marcus decided to give up the chase. Naturally, I stopped mine too. That was when the campus queen texted my best friend, her tone utterly exhausted: Fine, I’ll go out with you. Just make your friend unblock my best friend. I’m drowning in her tears over here. 01 Ever since my best friend, Marcus, attended a guest lecture at Alden University last month, he had been profoundly, irritatingly obsessed with Valerie, the school’s untouchable IT girl. He made up his mind to win her over, dedicating weeks to the pursuit. The girl was carved from ice; she didn’t so much as look in his direction. Yet, rejection only seemed to fuel his delusion. It was like a sickness. “This is exactly the kind of woman I need, Eden,” he’d declare, pacing the floor. “If she’s too easy to get, I won’t cherish her later.” Because of my perpetually poor health, my parents rented a quiet off-campus apartment for me. Marcus moved in to keep an eye on me. We were a package deal. It was past nine on a Tuesday night. A cold, rhythmic rain beat against the windows. Marcus burst through the front door, dropping a pile of shopping bags, his face twisted in utter indignation. He kicked off his soaked loafers, his voice echoing in the hallway. “Damn it all. Why is Valerie so impossibly immune? I wore my killer crimson blazer today, the lucky one. I looked devastating. But she’s like a damn saint. Completely unfazed.” I dragged my eyes away from the movie playing on my laptop, taking in the sight of Marcus standing there in a dripping red suit. “If she’s that impossible to reach, maybe look somewhere else?” I suggested softly. “It’s not like you have a shortage of people throwing themselves at you.” “No, no, no.” He padded over to the fridge, pulled out a soda, and slumped onto the sofa, cracking it open. “Valerie isn’t like the rest of them. Just looking at her makes my heart do this… this crazy flip. And besides…” He covered his mouth, a dopey, lovesick grin spreading across his face. “Her body is insane. I went to watch her dance rehearsal last time. She has these killer abs, that sharp V-cut, straight out of an anime. Kissing her would be an absolute religious experience.” I turned my attention back to the screen, entirely unable to comprehend the chaotic inner workings of a man drowning in unrequited lust. “Hey!” He bumped his shoulder against mine, a sly, dangerous glint in his eye. “Let me show you a picture.” Before I could protest, he unlocked his phone, pulled up a photo, and shoved the screen into my face. I took it, mildly curious. A girl stared back at me. Her gaze was chillingly cool, her features bright but aggressively sharp, with an intimidating arch to her eyebrows. It looked like a screenshot he’d stolen from Valerie’s social media. “What about it?” “Eden. Do you like her?” Marcus and I had been joined at the hip since childhood. I could read the twitch of his brow before he even opened his mouth. I pointed to my pale, bloodless lips. “Marcus, do I look like I have the stamina to court someone?” His eyes sparkled. He grabbed my hands, holding them tightly. “Eden, listen to me. These two girls are attached at the hip. We need someone to divide and conquer. Plus, chasing Valerie all by myself is just… really lonely.” He gave me his best puppy-dog eyes, his tone shifting into earnest desperation. “Just keep me company in the trenches. Besides, getting your heart racing a little is good for your health.” The movie played on in the background, the protagonist’s voice cutting through the silence: I can’t believe I’m buying into your twisted logic! A second later, his phone pinged. Marcus instantly forwarded me the girl’s contact. “Trust me, Eden. You have to give this a shot. She… well, she looks a little fierce, but she’s actually really sweet.” I let out a long, heavy sigh. “Fine.” “God, I love you!” He lunged forward to hug me, then abruptly froze, realizing he was still drenched in rainwater and hair product. “Wait, let me shower first, then I’ll squeeze the life out of you. Wait for me!” I just stared at him. While he was in the shower, I tapped the link to add her, only to realize I was already on her friends list. Huh? I lowered my eyes, studying the girl’s profile picture. It was Snorlax from Pokémon. My own screen name was a bit embarrassing, a relic from my teenage years: SleepyPuff. My icon was Jigglypuff. I just wanted to live a simple, well-fed, deeply sleepy life, completely free of worries. Her screen name was CheeryPuff. My finger hovered over the glass screen. Anyone who loves vintage Pokémon can’t be a bad person, I reasoned with myself. By the time Marcus emerged from the bathroom, I had already switched the movie to My Neighbor Totoro. I didn’t have many hobbies outside of staying alive, but getting lost in animation and cinema was my sanctuary. “Eden, did you add her?” He walked out aggressively towel-drying his hair, wearing nothing but a faded tank top. “Yeah,” I mumbled, my eyes glued to the magical creatures on screen. Suddenly, a thought struck me. I scratched my head. “Wait, am I supposed to announce my intentions? Like, ‘Hello, I will be pursuing you now’?” “Hmm…” He leaned against the wall, pondering. “Ask her if there’s anyone she likes right now. If she says no, you hit her with: ‘Would you mind if I took that spot?’” “What?” My face scrunched up in pure disgust. “That sounds incredibly cheesy. Is this seriously how you hit on people?” “Look, there are a million complicated mind games out there. A raw, unpolished line like this will make her think you’re pure and innocent. Do exactly as I say. It’s foolproof.” “It’s called… laying the groundwork.” Despite my overwhelming skepticism, I tapped out the message: Hi. Do you have someone you like right now? I set the phone face down, expecting it to take hours. I was just settling back into the movie when the screen immediately lit up. “?” “Marcus,” I panicked quietly, “what if she just sends a question mark?” Before I could even voice the question aloud, a second message popped up. No. A shiver ran down my spine. Marcus peered over my shoulder. “Copy exactly what I told you. I’m gonna go blow-dry my hair.” “Okay.” Her message: Why do you ask? I typed: Would you mind if I took that spot? The moment I hit send, I threw the phone onto the cushions in sheer agony. God, the cringe was physical. The phone stayed silent. I forced my attention back to the movie. When Marcus returned, hair perfectly styled, he flopped onto the sofa next to me. “Well? How’d it go?” “She left me on read,” I said honestly. He grit his teeth, staring at the ceiling. For a second, I thought he was having an epiphany about his own terrible flirting strategies. Instead, he sighed, “It’s fine. That’s normal. Valerie didn’t reply to my first text either.” I stared at him in silence. I wanted to tell him that she probably didn’t reply because the line was a radioactive level of cringe, leaving her paralyzed with secondhand embarrassment. Marcus had a group project to work on, so he booted up his laptop to edit some video slides. I picked up my phone to check the time, and my breath hitched. Marcus spoke up, “By the way, her name is Morgan.” Morgan: Wait, what do you mean? I don’t just accept anyone’s feelings. Morgan: I’m not that kind of easy girl. Morgan: Are you saying you actually like me? There was a one-minute gap after those texts. She was probably waiting for my reply, which never came because my phone was face down. Morgan: Actually, I’m pretty easy. Are you trying to court me? Morgan: I’m really easy to catch. Another minute passed. She was panicking. Morgan: If you like me, let’s just date. Morgan: I’m sorry, I was playing hard to get just now. Morgan: Are you busy? Can you reply when you see this? Morgan: It’s been ten seconds. Still busy? Morgan: I messed up. I should be the one pursuing you. You don’t have to lift a finger. Please text me back? Morgan: I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have acted so detached. I was just so excited, I asked my best friend what to say, and she told me to play it cool. Morgan: She said if I said yes too fast, you wouldn’t cherish me. Morgan: Baby, I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad. Morgan: The truth is, baby, I’ve liked you for a really long time. I just didn’t know how to tell you. I had no idea you liked me too. I sat there. Utterly speechless. “What’s wrong?” Marcus asked, not looking away from his screen. “Did she reply?” I pressed my lips together in a tight line. “Chasing someone usually requires them to reject you first, right?” I asked carefully. “Yes, exactly.” Then what on earth is happening right now? A sudden spark of inspiration hit me. I typed: Reject me. If she rejected me, I would have a legitimate excuse to pursue her. Then I wouldn’t be leaving my best friend alone in the trenches. Morgan immediately fired back a crying meme: No! I don’t want to reject you! I was wrong, okay? I want to go back in time and strangle the version of me that tried to play it cool. I shouldn’t have listened to my friend. I know I messed up. You can yell at me, just please don’t leave me. I rubbed my temples. No. Reject me, so I can chase you. This time, the reply didn’t come as quickly. The “typing…” bubble pulsed at the top of the screen for what felt like an eternity. Finally, a cautious message appeared: Baby, is this some kind of roleplay thing? Promise me you won’t actually leave me. How long do you plan on chasing me? Give me a timeline so I can emotionally prepare. I glanced over at my fiercely focused best friend and typed: I don’t know yet. Okay, baby. I reject you. That rejection only applies to the roleplay, not to my actual feelings for you. Seeing that, I finally turned to Marcus with a straight face. “She rejected me.” Marcus leaned over, clapping my shoulder. “It’s fine. We have to be resilient. I’ll teach you the advanced pursuit tactics later.” Then, I watched in abject horror as he cleared his throat, put on his deepest, most affected voice, and sent a voice memo to Valerie: Could you save two seats for me and my friend tomorrow? I really want a front-row view of you playing basketball. I quietly opened a browser tab and searched: How to woo a girl. The top results from a dating blog laid out a few key points: a. Master the push-and-pull. Don’t be too eager. b. Match her energy. If she runs hot, you run hot. If she goes cold, ice her out. c. Maintain an aura of innocent charm. d. Never act desperate. I looked at Marcus. “Did you get your dating advice from the internet?” “Ha.” He confidently ran a hand through his hair. “Do I look like a guy who needs to steal someone else’s playbook?” No wonder you’ve been single so long, I thought. My mentor is a certified disaster. 02 The next afternoon, right after our last class, Marcus expertly navigated us to the Northridge College campus. By the time we arrived, the dance studio was already packed. His eyes lit up the moment he spotted someone. He waved frantically over the crowd. “Valerie!” I was still scanning the sea of bodies when he practically dragged me forward. The girl was wearing a sleek white performance outfit, her expression completely detached. I hadn’t actually seen Valerie in person before, only through the obsessive lens of Marcus’s camera roll. Because of my fragile immune system, I rarely ventured into crowded spaces. “Eden, if you start feeling faint, tell me immediately. The air is pretty stagnant in here,” he whispered, suddenly shifting into protective-brother mode. “I’m fine,” I signed with an okay gesture. We were just about to back away to the bleachers when we heard Valerie turn to the other dancers. “Where’s Morgan?” “No idea, haven’t seen her all day.” A second later, a girl near the entrance gasped, pointing a shaking finger toward the door. “Holy crap, that absolute vision cannot be Morgan!” Every head in the room instinctively swiveled. A tall girl stepped into the frame. She had fresh, silver-blonde highlights woven through her dark hair, a sleek silver stud catching the light on her left ear. She radiated an effortlessly beautiful, razor-sharp energy. “What… what did she do? Did she skip practice just to get her hair done?” “Who provoked her this time?” From the moment Morgan walked in, her eyes darted furiously across the room until they finally locked onto my pale pink sweater in the crowd. No, I have to play the part, she must have reminded herself. Her determined stride toward me abruptly veered off-course halfway across the floor. Marcus was just about to pull me toward the seats when a guy jogged up and clapped Valerie on the shoulder. “Hey, Valerie, where’s the seat you saved for me?” The guy had a clean, preppy haircut and a small entourage of equally loud guys trailing behind him. “Who is that?” I asked quietly. The bright smile on Marcus’s face instantly died. “Her childhood friend. They grew up together.” I might not socialize much, but I consumed romance novels like they were keeping me alive. The scent of a toxic, boundary-crossing orbiter hit me instantly. A single phrase flashed in my mind: The ‘Just a Friend’ Guy. “Um…” Morgan had inevitably gravitated toward me, desperate to speak, but before she could formulate a sentence, Marcus grabbed my wrist and pulled me away. His mood had plummeted. “Out of sight, out of mind,” he muttered darkly. I glanced back over my shoulder, catching Morgan’s devastatingly pitiful gaze. She looked exactly like my mother’s golden retriever right after being told she couldn’t have table scraps. “Over there. Go sit yourself down,” Valerie pointed out a row of seats to Spencer, the preppy guy. Morgan, looking absolutely murderous, intentionally shoved her shoulder hard against Valerie’s as she walked past. Valerie stumbled slightly, blinking in shock. “Did you eat gunpowder for breakfast?” Morgan silently stripped off her oversized jacket. A couple of guys tried to approach her, but one sweep of her frigid glare froze them in their tracks. … In the bleachers, I tentatively probed Marcus. “How does she treat that guy?” Marcus shot me a defeated look, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just… wherever Valerie is, he is.” Speak of the devil. Spencer and his entourage swaggered over to our section. Valerie was truly a piece of work. She had reserved an entire row. The words I wanted to say died in my throat. Sigh. The spectator sees the game best. Right before the performance started, my phone buzzed with rapid-fire texts from Morgan. Why didn’t you talk to me? I thought you were supposed to be chasing me? Are you giving up? Can I chase you now instead? I’m going on stage in a second. You have to keep your eyes on me. I looked up from the screen just as Morgan glanced up at the stands, her eyes locking onto mine. The guys next to me immediately started whispering. “Morgan keeps looking up here. Spencer, is she looking at you?” “Man, I’m so jealous you grew up with two absolute goddesses.” Spencer’s cheeks flushed slightly, a sickeningly smug gleam in his eyes. “Oh, come on, it’s not like that.” Marcus let out a loud, derisive scoff next to me. I calmly broke eye contact, and the corners of Morgan’s mouth instantly turned down into a pout. Once the music started, I completely lost myself in the performance. I genuinely loved watching dance. The room was filled with gasps of admiration, applause, and whispered debates about who had the best technique. Suddenly, Morgan executed a flawless, brutally difficult sequence of rapid pirouettes, sending the entire gymnasium into a frenzy. The girl’s face was flushed with exertion, the sleek lines of her exposed arms flexing with a mesmerizing grace. She instinctively looked up at our section again, drawing more hushed gasps from the crowd around me. “Is her girlfriend sitting up here or something? She keeps staring right at us.” To my right, someone sighed enviously. “Spencer, if both Valerie and Morgan wanted you, who would you even pick?” “They’re both so stunning. That’s an impossible choice!” “Oh, stop it, you guys, just watch the show,” Spencer deflected, basking in the attention. Marcus leaned over and mouthed the word, Poser. When the showcase ended, Marcus turned to me, panic in his eyes. “Eden, don’t move a muscle. Stay exactly right here. I’ll be right back.” With that, he bolted toward the backstage area with a bottle of water clutched in his hand. Spencer was already long gone, naturally. I sat obediently in the empty bleachers. Against the flow of the departing crowd, a girl pushing her way up the steps caught my eye. She had changed into street clothes, her hairline still damp with sweat. I didn’t blink as Morgan closed the distance and dropped into the empty seat beside me. Seeing me, a slow, breathtaking smile spread across her face. “I thought you were courting me? Where’s my water?” “I’m sorry. This is my first time chasing someone. I lack experience.” My voice was soft, airy, but my eyes held absolutely zero remorse. Morgan was still breathing heavily from the routine. Hearing my response, she let out a breathless, exasperated laugh. She tilted her head back, taking a long pull from her own water bottle. She was already devastatingly cool, but right now, with the corners of her eyes tinted red and a post-adrenaline flush on her cheeks, she looked dangerously intoxicating. She wiped her mouth, dropping her head in defeat as she leaned in close. “Stop torturing me, baby.” “Can we just make it public right now?” The heat radiating off her skin carried the sharp, clean scent of sweat and adrenaline. I instinctively leaned back. “Sit up straight.” I tapped her shoulder with one finger. Tilting my head, I asked softly, “You like me?” She immediately snapped to attention, nodding with frantic sincerity. “But…” I let the word hang, pointing down toward the gym floor where Spencer was marching toward the backstage area. “What is your relationship with him? I heard you two were childhood sweethearts.” Morgan’s dark, obsidian eyes locked onto mine as she scrambled to explain. “Valerie, him, and I did grow up together, yes. But we are strictly platonic. Literally just friends.” “Really…” I shifted my gaze past her shoulder. Spencer, looking livid, was stomping up the bleachers toward us. He glared at me before hissing through gritted teeth, “Morgan!” “Where the hell did you go? I searched the entire backstage for you! Wow, choosing a pretty face over your best friends, huh? Unbelievable!” I stared at the two of them in utter silence. Morgan’s jaw clenched. She turned her head slightly away. “I already told you, Spencer. I don’t drink water given to me by anyone. Except my partner.” “I… how can you compare me to anyone else? We grew up together! What’s the big deal about me bringing you water? Are you saying the second you get a partner, we can’t even be friends anymore?” Instantly, Spencer’s eyes went red. He bit his lip, playing the absolute picture of a wounded victim. I looked calmly at Morgan. “I never said you couldn’t be friends once you have a partner. I just said there needs to be boundaries.” Spencer’s teary eyes snapped to me. His voice wavered with a perfectly engineered tremor. “I didn’t see you there earlier. I didn’t realize you were her partner. I’m so sorry if I made you misunderstand.” Wow. Coming right out of the gate, slapping the ‘jealous, unreasonable girlfriend’ label on me. I spent my life locked in my room reading hundreds of novels where the female lead mathematically dismantled toxic orbiters. I just never had the chance to test it in the field. Until now. The theory was about to meet practice. I mentally rolled up my sleeves. But Morgan beat me to it. She scowled, her voice dropping to a dangerous register. “What the hell are you talking about? She hasn’t agreed to be my girlfriend yet, but honestly, the way you’re talking right now is pissing me off.” Spencer’s face froze. He literally forgot to keep fake-crying. Right on cue, Marcus called me. “Eden, let’s go.” I grabbed Marcus’s bag from the seat and stood up. Morgan looked up at me, panic and desperation swirling in her eyes. I smiled, pulling a fresh bottle of water out of Marcus’s bag. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Spencer watching. I handed it to Morgan. “Here.” Morgan’s amber eyes practically lit up like floodlights. Her knuckles grazed mine as she snatched the bottle. “We’re going out to celebrate later. Do you and Marcus want to come?” I stepped around the benches, stopping right in front of Spencer, with Morgan trailing obediently behind me like a shadow. I smiled at him. “Excuse me, classmate. You’re blocking the way.” Spencer ground his teeth together and stepped aside. I walked a few paces down the stairs, then glanced back over my shoulder. I gave Morgan a brilliant, lingering smile. “See you next time, Morgan.” When I reached the bottom of the bleachers, I grabbed a shell-shocked Marcus by the sleeve and dragged him toward the exit. He whipped his head around, staring in disbelief at Morgan, who was glued to her spot, watching me leave like a sailor watching a lighthouse. He looked back at me. “Holy… what did you do? How did you train a wolf into a golden retriever in five minutes?” “Secret.”

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I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, waiting to snag a carton of eggs on clearance, when the glowing text suddenly materialized in the air in front of me. [So this is the phantom ideal the male lead has been obsessing over all these months?] [Look closely, the villainous adopted daughter actually looks a lot like her…] [Because of that resemblance, the male lead blindly favors the adopted kid. The actual heroine never stood a chance.] [The heroine was depressed for years. It wasn’t until she was diagnosed with terminal cancer that the male lead finally woke up and regretted everything.] A violent shudder ripped through me. I stood frozen in the middle of the aisle, my hand hovering over the carton. A phantom ideal? A tragic muse? But… I’m fifty years old. 1 Because I had stopped moving, the woman behind me seized the opportunity. She reached right past my elbow and snatched the largest, most pristine carton of jumbo eggs from the display. My old friend Barb nudged me hard in the ribs. “What are you doing, Maggie? You just gonna let her take your eggs?” I blinked, the neon lights of the supermarket coming back into focus, and hurriedly grabbed a different carton, dropping it into my basket. By the time Barb and I squeezed our way out of the crowd and headed toward the registers, the floating lines of text were still scrolling relentlessly across my vision. [As a billionaire CEO, the male lead gave the heroine plenty of money, but he never gave her an ounce of love.] [Yeah, the poor heroine. She loved him so much…] [If he’s emotionally unavailable, fine, but why does he unconditionally pamper the evil adopted daughter? What’s his problem?] A hand suddenly waved in front of my face. “Earth to Margaret. You’re spacing out again.” Barb frowned, eyeing me up and down. Then, as if struck by a sudden epiphany, she clapped her hands together. “Oh, I get it! Arthur asked you to the community center dance yesterday, didn’t he? Finally falling in love? If you ask me, Arthur is a catch. Back in the day, he was the most handsome guy in the county…” Barb was the undisputed gossip queen of our little social circle. She thrived on sniffing out secrets. Ever since Arthur made his feelings known a little over six months ago, she hadn’t stopped teasing me about it. “I’m just saying, a twilight romance isn’t the worst idea in the world,” she prattled on. “Arthur is financially stable, his kids are all grown and living in Europe…” I waved her off, exhausted. “Drop it, Barb. I’m used to being on my own.” Barb and her husband had a wonderful marriage; even in their golden years, they still liked to play at romance. I was different. I had lived on this earth for half a century and had never been married. No strings, no attachments, no lingering regrets. My days were quiet, unhurried, and perfectly my own. But today, these bizarre, hallucinatory comments had appeared out of nowhere. Calling me the “phantom ideal” of some fictional male lead. What an absolute joke. I’m retired. I have a pension. I don’t have time for this nonsense. 2 I went home and started cooking dinner. The text began scrolling again against the backdrop of my kitchen cabinets. [The heroine accidentally broke a picture frame today and the male lead screamed at her. She’s still hiding in her room crying.] [Yeah, she hasn’t even eaten dinner.] [The housekeeper tried to bring her some food, but the male lead stopped her. Said he wanted to teach the heroine a lesson.] [You’ve gone too far this time, you garbage CEO!] Before I retired, I was a high school teacher. I made a decent living. As an older woman with a bit of money and a lot of free time, I’d read my fair share of romance novels. The whole “billionaire loves the evil stand-in while the true heroine gets terminal cancer” trope? I’d read at least eighty variations of that exact story. But according to the glowing commentary, this specific tragedy was somehow connected to me. The so-called “villainess” was only receiving the male lead’s twisted, unconditional love because she looked like me. And that favoritism was indirectly driving the heroine toward a miserable, lonely death. My conscience simply couldn’t take it. Through the comments, I pieced together the details. The male lead was Nathaniel Bancroft, the thirty-year-old CEO of Bancroft Holdings, based in Chicago. …I was twenty years older than him. How on earth did I become the object of his eternal fixation?! I wrestled with it all night, but by dawn, I had booked a flight to Chicago. After a cab ride that cost entirely too much, I finally stood before the towering wrought-iron gates of the Bancroft estate in the affluent North Shore suburbs. Only to discover, unsurprisingly, that I couldn’t even get past the security checkpoint. I was standing on the sidewalk, seriously debating whether I should try to fake my way in as a newly hired maid, when the comments suddenly exploded. [The girls are home from school!] School? I froze. A second later, a sleek black Bentley glided down the street and pulled to a smooth stop just outside the estate gates. The tinted rear window rolled down, and a small, delicate face peered out. The girl looked at me with cautious, innocent curiosity. “Excuse me, ma’am? Do you need some help?” Before I could even open my mouth, the text went wild. [Sobbing! Our baby heroine is just too sweet.] [She’s living in a nightmare, but the second she sees someone who needs help, she still reaches out…] [And this beautiful angel ends up with terminal cancer. My heart is literally breaking.] [It’s all Nathaniel’s fault. Just you wait, Nathaniel Bancroft, I’m going to climb through this screen and rip your throat out.] Before I could reply to the sweet girl, another face appeared from the shadows of the backseat. Two small heads, side by side. Only, the one on the right had a voice like grinding glass. “You’re being pathetic again, Clementine,” the second girl sneered. “Did you forget how hard you cried the last time you got scammed by a beggar?” [The villainess is so spoiled. Does she even remember how hard she tried to suck up to Clementine when she first moved into this house?] [Right? A perfectly good kid, completely warped.] [You can’t entirely blame her. Kids mirror the adults around them. She sees Nathaniel treating Clementine like trash, so she just copies him.] [At the end of the story, when Clementine gets cancer, Nathaniel finally regrets everything and kicks the villainess out.] [But by then, he’s already spoiled her beyond repair. She can’t survive on her own and literally starves to death on the streets.] [Basically, Nathaniel ruins everyone!] Amidst the furious debate scrolling before my eyes, I stood rooted to the pavement, utterly dumbfounded. Wait a minute. Why did no one mention that the “heroine” and the “villainess” in this tragic saga… were currently just two little kids?! 3 I lied. I told them I had come to Chicago looking for work and had my purse stolen at the station. I just needed a little something to eat. Without a second of hesitation, Clementine said, “Please, get in the car. We have food at the house. I’ll have the chef make you something.” Isabelle, the younger girl, let out a sharp, aristocratic scoff. She looked at me with naked disgust. “Who goes looking for a job outside a gated billionaire’s community? You’re so stupid, Clementine. You deserve to get scammed.” “When Dad gets home, he’s going to scream at you for this.” At the mention of their father, Nathaniel, a shadow of genuine sorrow flickered across Clementine’s eyes. But she forced a brave, wavering smile and looked back at me. “Please, ma’am. Come inside.” I slid into the front passenger seat and reached for the seatbelt. Behind me, Isabelle scoffed again. I studied her in the rearview mirror. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. But the slight, upward tilt of her eyes, and that distinct, dark beauty mark resting just beneath her left eye… it did look like me. But that was where the resemblance ended. I am fifty years old. The silver in my hair is undeniable, the lines around my mouth etched deep by decades of living. She was just a cruel little child. 4 It didn’t take long for me to follow Clementine and Isabelle into the cavernous Bancroft mansion. The interior was a masterclass in cold, sterile wealth. Marble floors, vaulted ceilings, and staff bustling about like silent ghosts. The house lacked even a single ounce of warmth. Clementine dropped her backpack on an absurdly expensive leather sofa and scurried toward the kitchen on her short little legs. Isabelle simply rolled her eyes, swinging her designer backpack over her shoulder as she marched upstairs. A few minutes later, Clementine reappeared, carefully balancing a plate with a thick turkey sandwich. “Here, ma’am. You can eat this.” She tilted her head back, offering me the sweetest, most blinding smile. “I’ll go pour you a glass of milk.” Looking into her wide, earnest eyes and her soft, flushed cheeks, I felt my heart melt into a puddle. The comments were practically howling. [Ahhh! Clementine is so cute I could die!] [If Nathaniel doesn’t want this perfect angel, can I please adopt her?!] [Honestly, I’m just confused. This random lady is old. Why would the CEO use her as his ultimate phantom ideal?] Her curiosity matched my own perfectly. Unfortunately, the comments debated it for a while and came up with absolutely nothing. They eventually just blamed the author for being a hack who wrote illogical plot holes just to torture the heroine. I had just finished the last bite of my sandwich when Isabelle came sauntering back down the grand staircase. “Dad comes back from his business trip tonight,” Isabelle announced, a wicked glint in her eye. “The teacher said we need a parent’s signature on our report cards. Have you figured out how you’re going to explain failing math yet, Clementine?” At the mention of the failing grade, the soft smile vanished from Clementine’s face. Her shoulders slumped, and she bowed her head in defeat. The comments wept for her. [Poor Clementine.] [She had food poisoning the day of the test! She was in agony for two hours and couldn’t even finish the paper.] [Nathaniel didn’t even ask. He just saw the grade, screamed at her, and then praised the villainess right in front of her.] [Clementine cried in her room all night.] I looked at Clementine. She was gripping the straps of her backpack, her knuckles white, practically trembling where she stood. I couldn’t help myself. “Bring me the test,” I said softly. “I’ll sign it for you.” 5 Neither of them seemed to expect that. Both girls froze. After a long, agonizing moment, Clementine reached into her bag, bit her lip, and handed me the crumpled math test. “I… I didn’t finish it,” she whispered. I took it. It was a second-grade math assessment. At the top, in aggressive red ink, was a glaring 43%. Large sections of the paper were completely blank. The long addition and word problems were almost entirely untouched. Isabelle leaned over to sneer at it. “It’s so easy. I got a hundred percent. Dad is going to give me a massive reward later. I’m going to make him buy me that new designer princess dress!” I ignored her. I just put a gentle arm around Clementine’s narrow shoulders. “Tell me the truth,” I said quietly, looking into her eyes. “Do you know how to do these problems?” Encouraged by my steady gaze, Clementine gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. Beside us, Isabelle shrieked, “You’re lying! If you knew how to do them, why didn’t you write the answers? You’re just scared Dad is going to yell at you again—” I cut her off. My voice was calm, but sharp enough to slice glass. “Little girl. This is your older sister. Speaking to her with that kind of venom is hardly what I would call good breeding.” Clementine’s head whipped up. She stared at me, her mouth slightly parted in shock. Isabelle looked like I had just slapped her. Her face twisted in ugly indignation. “You’re literally a beggar! How dare you lecture me?!” she screamed, completely losing her composure. “You have no right to talk to me! Get out of my house! Get out right now!” Just then, the heavy oak front doors swung open. A chorus of staff voices murmured, “Welcome home, Mr. Bancroft.” Both little girls instantly went rigid. In the blink of an eye, I watched Isabelle undergo a terrifying metamorphosis. She rubbed her eyes furiously until they were red, squeezed out a single, glittering tear, and looked past me with an expression of pure, victimized terror. “Daddy! Clementine found a crazy beggar on the street and forced her inside! I tried to tell her it wasn’t safe, but she wouldn’t listen!” “And then they both called me uneducated! Daddy, I’m scared!” 6 The floating text exploded into a frenzy of rage. [This manipulative little monster! I want to strangle her.] [It’s over, it’s over. Nathaniel already comes home in a bad mood on this day. He’s going to destroy Clementine.] [Random grandma, please do something! Channel your inner phantom ideal!] Sure enough. A second later, a voice like a frozen blade cut through the foyer. “Isabelle.” “Apologize to your sister. Right now.” Clementine flinched violently. I pulled her tighter against my side, resting a hand on her hair to soothe her. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “Don’t be scared.” I stood up straight and slowly turned around. My eyes met the gaze of a tall, imposing man. He was young, undeniably handsome, with sharp, aristocratic features—but there was a suffocating, violent gloom baked into his expression. This was the male lead. Nathaniel Bancroft. I steadied my breathing. “Mr. Bancroft. Hello.” Nathaniel didn’t speak. He just stared at me. I watched his pupils blow wide, consuming the irises. I watched his Adam’s apple bob frantically as his breathing hitched. I frowned, momentarily thrown off by his intense reaction. I quickly tried to explain myself. “I’m not a beggar. I came to Chicago looking for work. My name is Margaret Callahan.” The man’s gaze suddenly sharpened into something terrifying. His jaw locked. Through clenched teeth, he forced out a single, trembling sentence: “What did you say your name was?”

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Carter and I were getting married, and he insisted that his ex-wife be our maid of honor. This was our seventeenth attempt at a wedding. And for the seventeenth time, Becca fainted in Carter’s arms right as we were about to exchange vows. The ceremony ground to a jarring halt. Carter scooped her up with a practiced, rhythmic ease, his face a mask of grim determination as he announced the wedding was off. Again. I didn’t break down this time. I didn’t scream or beg. I just stood there in my Vera Wang, watching the man I loved prepare to carry another woman out of our life together. “Carter,” I said, my voice cutting through the murmurs of the confused guests. “If you walk out that door today, we’re done. There is no tomorrow for us.” He paused, looking back with a flicker of annoyance, as if I were the one being unreasonable. “June, you know she’s carrying my child. She’s my responsibility. I can’t just leave her.” He adjusted his grip on her. “You wouldn’t want to marry a man who abandons his duties, would you? Be a good girl. I’ll take Becca back to our place so she can rest in the master suite. Stay here, apologize to the guests, and when you’re done, come home and make us some dinner. We’ll talk then.” As the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind him, I reached up and ripped the cathedral-length veil from my hair, taking a few strands of scalp with it. I stared at the ceiling, blinking hard to force the stinging tears back into my skull. My phone vibrated in my lace clutch. An old, familiar number. “Left at the altar again?” the voice teased, sharp and brimming with a dark kind of amusement. “You really should have just married me, June.” I took a shaky breath, my resolve hardening into something cold and crystalline. “If you’re still asking, the answer is yes.” 1 There was a stunned silence on the other end. Then, his tone shifted, the playfulness replaced by a low, gravelly seriousness. “Are you for real? Because if you are, I’m getting on a plane.” Before I could breathe a word, he added, “June, I’m heading to the airport now. If I come back for you this time, I’m never letting you go. No regrets.” He hung up. I drove back to the penthouse we shared, but when I tried the keypad, the red light flashed. The code had been changed. My stomach dropped. All my things were in there—including the hand-stitched silk duvet my mother had finished on her deathbed, her final gift for my wedding night. I called Carter. He declined. I called again. Voicemail. Ten minutes later, the door finally groaned open. Carter stood there in his undershirt, looking disheveled. “Sorry,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “I was helping Becca clean up. She’s so far along she can’t reach her own back… I couldn’t get to the phone.” He saw my expression—or lack of one—and forced a small, condescending smile. He reached out to pull me into his side. “Are you actually jealous?” he chuckled, as if I were a child pouting over a lost toy. “She’s my ex-wife, June. There’s nothing I haven’t seen. We aren’t together anymore, but she’s family. It was just a sponge bath. Don’t be so small-minded.” “Okay,” I said quietly. In the past, I would have burned the house down. I would have screamed until my throat bled. But now? I just wanted my mother’s quilt. My lack of a reaction seemed to unnerve him. He cleared his throat. “By the way, I changed the door code to Becca’s birthday. She’s got pregnancy brain—kept forgetting the old one.” He watched me closely, waiting for the explosion. “Fine,” I replied. He hesitated, his hand reaching for mine, but a sharp “Oh!” drifted from upstairs. Carter didn’t even look at me; he practically shoved me aside to bolt up the stairs. I lost my balance, my heel catching on the rug. I hit the floor hard, a sickening pop echoing from my ankle. Pain flared, white and blinding. By the time I managed to crawl to the hallway and grab the first-aid kit, Carter was coming back down. He snatched the kit out of my hands without a word and turned to head back up. “Carter,” I hissed through gritted teeth. He stopped, his back to me. “I’m hurt, too.” When he turned around, his eyes weren’t filled with concern. They were filled with a scorching, weary disgust. “Do you have to turn everything into a competition?” he snapped. “Can’t you just give it a rest for one night?” He disappeared back into the master bedroom. It took me a long time to stand up. Every step toward the stairs was a jagged bolt of agony. When I finally reached the landing, I saw my life piled in the hallway. My clothes, my shoes, my books—all tossed out like trash. And there was the quilt. It was crumpled in the corner, covered in the sour, yellow reek of vomit. Carter stepped out of the bedroom, holding the empty kit. He looked at the mess, then at me, and spoke with the casual tone of a man ordering a coffee. “Good timing. Becca got sick. Go wash the linens, would you?” My fingers trembled as I picked up the silk quilt. The delicate, intricate embroidery my mother had spent months on was matted with filth. “Hand wash only,” Carter added, leaning against the doorframe. “Don’t use the machine. Becca’s a light sleeper and she needs the rest. Her ankle is swollen, so she’s taking the master bed tonight.” I stood up, my vision blurring with a sudden, violent red. “She’s your ex-wife, Carter. You don’t think it’s a little twisted for her to sleep in our marriage bed?” Becca appeared in the doorway then, looking pale and fragile in a silk nightie that looked suspiciously like one of mine. “Carter… maybe I should just go,” she whimpered, her voice cracking. Carter was at her side in an instant. “You’re hurt! Where are you going to go?” “Just let me leave,” she sobbed, leaning into him. “Tonight was supposed to be your wedding night. I shouldn’t be here.” Carter gripped her wrists, his voice dropping to a low growl. “The wedding didn’t happen, Becca. There is no wedding night.” He looked at her with an intensity that made my skin crawl. “You’re the one who said if we ever split, we’d always be there for each other’s big moments. You’re staying.” He swept her up into his arms. As she “struggled” half-heartedly, the strap of her nightgown slipped, exposing her shoulder, her skin glowing in the hallway light. Carter didn’t even look away. I didn’t stay to watch the rest of the soap opera. I gathered the ruined quilt and retreated to the guest room. Surprisingly, I didn’t cry. I didn’t lie awake wondering what I’d done wrong. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. But in the gray hours of the morning, I felt a hand sliding under the covers. I bolted upright, adrenaline spiking, and shoved the person away. It was Carter, his shirt unbuttoned, his eyes dark and heavy. “Don’t touch me,” I spat. His face contorted into a mask of cold fury. “June, I know you’re upset about yesterday, but I’ve been working my ass off all day and I came in here to make it up to you. Don’t push your luck.” I stared at him, feeling a profound sense of revulsion. “I don’t want it. Go back upstairs to Becca.” He sighed, his voice softening into that manipulative, ‘reasonable’ tone he used whenever he wanted something. “How long are you going to keep this up? I’ve told you a thousand times: Becca is my past. You are my future. I’m only looking after her out of duty. Why can’t you just understand that?” I let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “I let her ruin seventeen weddings, Carter. I think I’ve been plenty understanding.” He flinched, his ego bruised. “You’re being impossible!” He slammed the door so hard the pictures on the wall rattled. Years ago, I would have chased him. I would have apologized for my “tone” and begged for a scrap of his affection. But lying there in the dark, I just felt hollow. My eighteen-year-old self wouldn’t have believed it—that a decade of obsessive, bone-deep love could end with such a pathetic whimper. I remembered the day it started. I was eighteen, climbing over the school fence to cut class, and I fell. Carter caught me. One look into those dark eyes and I was gone. I spent years molding myself into what I thought he wanted. I went abroad for school because his family suggested it. When I came back and found out he’d married someone else, I stayed in a hotel room and cried for a month. When he got divorced and ended up in a body cast after a car wreck, I begged my father to let me use our family’s influence to help him. I spent six months in a hospital room, cleaning him, feeding him, pulling him out of the darkness. When he finally proposed, I thought I’d won. I didn’t find out until later that Becca had announced her new boyfriend the very same day. I wasn’t his choice. I was his consolation prize. I finally drifted off, and when I woke, a knock at the door startled me. “Get up,” Carter’s voice came through the wood. “Breakfast is ready.” I blinked. He had never made me breakfast. My stomach grumbled—I hadn’t eaten since the rehearsal dinner. When I walked into the dining room, the table was covered. Crepes, eggs benedict, fresh fruit, artisanal pastries. It was a feast. I reached for a plate, but Carter’s hand shot out, blocking me. “Wait your turn,” he snapped, his brow furrowed. “We’re waiting for everyone.” He caught himself, his expression shifting to something more neutral. “Becca’s cravings are all over the place. Let her pick what she wants first.” I didn’t say anything. I turned around, went to the pantry, and grabbed a slice of dry toast. Carter followed me into the kitchen. “Listen, when Becca and I were married, we never had a real wedding. I want to give her that. A ‘do-over’ ceremony.” I froze, the toast like ash in my mouth. I almost had to laugh. Of course. The breakfast wasn’t a gift; it was a bribe. “And?” I asked, turning to face him. “She’s too tired to plan anything. I want you to handle the details. You’ve got plenty of experience with weddings, and you know what I like. Becca will send you her Pinterest board later.” I stared at him, wondering if he was actually insane. “Carter, you’re asking your fiancée to plan a wedding for you and your ex-wife?” “Do you have any idea how much of a laughingstock I am because of those seventeen failed ceremonies?” My voice rose, the dam finally breaking. The first wedding, I was so happy. I thought I was finally marrying the love of my life. Becca was the maid of honor, and I was naive enough to think it was a sign of maturity. Then she threw up on my dress in front of the altar. Carter carried her away and left me standing there. He spent the next twenty-four hours on his knees, begging for my forgiveness. The second time, she showed up in a white gown identical to mine. He walked her down the aisle by mistake. The third time, she slit her wrists in the bathroom. He broke the door down and forgot I existed. Every time he left, he came back with a ring, a car, a promise. By the seventeenth time, he didn’t even bother to lie. He just knew I wouldn’t leave. But he forgot one thing. Beyond the “love,” our relationship was a contract between two powerful families. And that contract had an expiration date. The project our families were collaborating on was over. And so was my love for him. Seeing the tears in my eyes, Carter looked momentarily flustered. “Look, if it’s too much…” He stopped as Becca entered the room, dragging a suitcase. She looked like a martyr. “Carter, I was just joking! I can’t believe you actually asked June to plan our wedding,” she said, her eyes downcast. “I shouldn’t have come back. I’ll just leave and raise the baby on my own. I won’t make things difficult for June.” She let a single, perfect tear fall and bowed to me. “June, the baby… it was an accident. I was drugged at a party, and Carter was just trying to save me…” Seeing her “trauma” resurface, Carter turned on me with a snarl. “June, for God’s sake! She’s pregnant. As a woman, have you no empathy?” He swept her into his arms again. “Come on. I’m taking you to try on dresses.” As he passed me, he leaned in, his voice a cold whisper. “The planning details will be in your inbox by five. Don’t be a brat. This is part of your job.” I stood in the silent kitchen for a long time. Then, my phone chimed. “June, what kind of wedding do you want?” It was Brooks. “The flight was delayed. I’m sitting at the gate, thinking we should settle the details now. What do you think?” I laughed until I cried. My “fiancé” was forcing me to plan his wedding to his ex, while the man I’d called my rival for years was asking what I wanted. I replied to Brooks. Then, I opened Instagram. Becca had already posted a carousel of photos. Her in a lace gown, Carter holding her waist. The caption: The Final Chapter. The comments were a cesspool of “I knew they’d find their way back” and heart emojis. And there was a comment from Carter’s official account: Don’t be silly. You’ll always be the mother of my child. The ring on her finger in the photo was the one Carter had never managed to put on mine during our seventeen ceremonies. It felt like a physical weight was being lifted off my chest. I liked the post, closed the app, and sent my resignation to HR. The HR director called me within minutes. “June? Does Carter know about this?” “Did you see Becca’s post?” I asked, my voice calm. “It’s his wish. Just process it and send me the confirmation.” Ten minutes later, the signed exit papers were in my inbox. Then, Carter called. His voice was sharp, commanding. “Get to the Sapphire Club. Now.” I was about to hang up when he added, “Our friends are all here. They’re waiting for you.” I hesitated. I didn’t want to make a scene in front of our social circle. I figured I’d go, say my goodbyes, and leave for good. But when I walked into the private lounge, Becca was sitting in the center of the room, daintily wiping a smudge of food from Carter’s lip. She stopped when she saw me, flashing a shy, guilty smile. “Oh, sorry, June. Old habits die hard. Come, sit here.” She made a move to stand up, but Carter pressed a hand on her shoulder, keeping her down. “It’s fine,” I said, taking a seat by the door. Carter’s eyes narrowed. He gripped his scotch glass a little tighter. Throughout the dinner, he kept glancing at me, trying to gauge my reaction. He even peeled a plate of shrimp and pushed it toward me. I looked at the plate, then at him. “I’m allergic to shellfish, Carter.” He blinked, a flicker of genuine confusion—and maybe shame—crossing his face. Becca seized the moment. “Oh, June, don’t be mad. Carter probably just remembered that I love shrimp. He’s so forgetful lately.” She was trying to bait me. Usually, I would have snapped. I would have made a scene and looked like the “crazy” one. Instead, I just pushed the plate toward her. “Then you should have them.” Carter stared at me, his gaze heavy and unreadable. Becca tried to get his attention, but he was locked onto me. “June,” Becca said, standing up with a glass of champagne. “I feel terrible about everything. Let me make a toast to you.” She walked over to me, her pregnant belly leading the way. Before anyone could react, she drained half the glass, leaned in, and dumped the rest over my head. The cold liquid drenched my hair and soaked into my blouse. “The baby wasn’t an accident,” she whispered into my ear, her voice a venomous hiss. “I told him I wanted one, and he gave it to me. Oh, and remember the day your mother died? We did it three times right behind the funeral parlor while you were giving the eulogy.” Suddenly, she threw herself backward. “Ah! My baby! The baby!” “Becca!” Carter screamed. SLAP. The world spun. My cheek exploded in a searing, throbbing heat. It took me a second to realize Carter had hit me. I sat on the floor, the champagne dripping from my chin, as the tears finally fell. Carter scooped Becca up. When he looked at me, his eyes were bloodshot, filled with a primal, terrifying hatred. “She organized this whole night just to apologize to you,” he roared. “And you push her? How can you be so goddamn evil, June?” I stayed on the floor, Becca’s words echoing in my head like a death knell. While I was saying goodbye to the woman who gave me life, the man I loved was rutting against his ex in the shadows of the cemetery. I looked at Carter’s retreating back. “I will never forgive you for this,” I whispered. “Not in this life or the next.” He stiffened for a fraction of a second, but he didn’t look back. I stumbled home, dragged my suitcase out of the closet, and walked out. But as I reached the driveway, Carter’s car swerved in, nearly hitting me. He jumped out, his face pale, his voice shaking with rage. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill my child?” I gripped the handle of my suitcase. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Don’t lie to me!” he screamed. “That hospital is owned by your family! You told them to kill Becca’s baby during the exam!” My brain went numb. “I didn’t do anything.” His phone rang. It was his assistant, his voice frantic even through the speaker. “Sir, it’s Becca. She’s on the roof of the clinic… she’s going to jump.” The phone hit the pavement with a crack. Carter grabbed me by the arm, shoved me into the passenger seat, and drove like a maniac, blowing through every red light. When we reached the hospital roof, the wind was whipping. Becca was standing on the ledge, looking like a broken bird. Carter’s breath hitched. He looked like a man watching his entire world dissolve. “Becca, please,” he choked out. “Don’t do this.” Becca saw me and her hysteria reached a fever pitch. “It was her! She killed my baby!” She was sobbing, clutching a blood-stained bundle to her chest. “You hate me! You can hit me, you can call me names, but why my baby?” I looked at the bundle and felt a wave of nausea. “Sweetheart, don’t be scared,” Becca cooed to the bundle. “Mommy’s coming to be with you.” “No!” Carter screamed. He suddenly kicked me behind the knees, forcing me to the concrete. “Becca, look! I brought her here to pay for what she did. You can do whatever you want to her. Just come down!” I stared at him, horrified. “Carter, I didn’t do it!” But he wasn’t listening. He was crying now. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have divorced you. I didn’t protect you.” He looked at me with cold, dead eyes. “June, tell her you’ll do whatever she wants.” Becca’s eyes glinted with a momentary triumph. “I want her to crawl. I want her to beg my baby for forgiveness. A hundred times.” “Fine,” Carter said without hesitation. “I want her to kneel at the hospital entrance and let every passerby slap her until her face bleeds.” “Fine.” “And I want her… I want her to never be able to be a mother. Ever.” “Fine!” Carter yelled. The bodyguards grabbed me before I could even scream. “Don’t you touch me!” I shrieked. But Carter’s voice came from above me, cold as a winter grave. “Do what she says. Call the surgeon. Perform the hysterectomy.” Thump. Thump. Thump. My head was forced against the concrete again and again until the world turned red. The slaps came in a rhythmic blur, my cheeks swelling until I couldn’t see. I finally broke. “Carter, please… I’m losing consciousness. I can’t breathe.” He didn’t even look at me. “Take her to the OR. No anesthesia. I want her to remember this lesson.” In the operating room, I felt the cold bite of the scalpel. I felt the invasion of the metal. Every cut was a scream that died in my throat until the room faded into blackness. Just as I was slipping away, the doors to the OR were kicked open. The surgeon, trembling, held up a tray with a tiny, bloody mass. He ran out to the hallway where Carter was waiting. “Mr. Jared… we didn’t know… she was pregnant too…” At that moment, Carter’s phone rang. It was his grandfather. “You idiot! What have you done to June?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “408312”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Rich people have a favorite catchphrase, unspoken but universally understood: Reality is whatever I decide it is. And so, simply because I possessed the exact bone structure and eye color of the Kensington family’s runaway heir, they collectively decided I was their son, Sean. I explained it to them. Over and over again. I told them my name wasn’t Sean Kensington. My name was Cole Bennett. It was printed in black ink on my NDA, right next to my signature. But they would just stare at my face, their expressions dead serious. Since you’re finally home, stop throwing tantrums, they’d say. Using a fake name? Is that really necessary? Do you honestly expect us to cut ties with you? Or is this about Tristan? Will you only be happy if we throw him out? He’s lived in this house for twenty years. Giving him away now would be abandonment. That was how I learned about the twisted ecosystem of the Kensington estate. There were two sons: the biological heir, and the golden replacement. When the real Sean was finally found and brought back to the family, he couldn’t stomach the reality waiting for him. The Kensingtons favored their adopted son, Tristan, in every conceivable way. Even Sean’s own childhood fiancée, a high-society heiress, always took Tristan’s side. Three years ago, after a massive, foundation-shaking argument, Sean walked out of the estate and vanished into thin air. Then, they found me. I looked so terrifyingly much like him that even his fiancée, Betty Montgomery, mistook me for him. She even organized a lavish, highly publicized proposal ceremony to welcome me back into her life. Except, when the day of the proposal arrived, Betty stood under the crystal chandeliers in front of hundreds of elite guests, bypassed me entirely, and dropped to one knee in front of Tristan. Tristan gasped, his hands flying to his mouth in perfectly choreographed shock. “Oh my god… I had no idea she was going to propose to me,” Tristan whispered, looking at me with wide, innocent eyes. “You two have always been so close. I really thought this was for you…” Betty stood up, looking down her nose at me. “Sean, so what if you share their blood?” she said, her voice dripping with icy condescension. “Tristan and I grew up together. I hope today serves as a lesson. Learn your place in this hierarchy, and stop coveting things that will never belong to you.” Beside me, my friend Carter was practically vibrating with rage. “Are you seriously going to take this?” he hissed. “They’re humiliating you!” I let out a slow, quiet breath. Could I take this? Yes. I absolutely could. … When the diamond ring slid onto Tristan’s ring finger, the collective gaze of the ballroom shifted to me. I could feel the weight of their mockery, a hundred pairs of eyes peeling back my dignity. “He really thought it was going to be him. Hilarious.” “If I were him, I’d find a hole to crawl into and die.” “He deserves it. Everyone knows Tristan and Betty are the real power couple. He just uses his biology to try and steal everything Tristan has.” Carter lunged forward, his fists clenched, but I grabbed the back of his jacket, yanking him back. “They’re doing this on purpose, man! How can you just stand there?” Carter demanded, his face flushed. “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked quietly. I looked past the whispering crowd and watched Tristan pull Betty into a tight embrace. Over her shoulder, he caught my eye and let a slow, triumphant smirk curl the edge of his lips. Looking at that smirk, I didn’t feel anger. I felt an overwhelming, intoxicating wave of relief. I finally get to stop acting in this psychotic family’s play. Three years ago, when I first applied for an entry-level corporate job at Kensington Holdings, the CEO—Mr. Kensington himself—had taken one look at me and teared up. “Sean,” he had choked out. “After all this time… you’re finally willing to come back?” You left because of a petty fight with Tristan, and he’s been blaming himself ever since. I had tried to explain. I brought out my ID. I am Cole Bennett. But the delusion of the ultra-rich is a fortress. They refused to hear it. They offered me a choice: I could leave and try to survive in a city they practically owned, or I could stay. Betty herself had cornered me in the lobby that day, shoving a sleek black card into my chest. “Are you trying to drive Tristan into another depression?” she snapped. “Your little disappearing act nearly ruined him. If you stop throwing these tantrums, I’ll honor our engagement. But the prerequisite is that you stop making Tristan’s life miserable. Stay. There’s three hundred thousand dollars on this card. It reloads every month.” Three hundred grand. A month. Who would say no to that? So, I became the ghost of Sean Kensington. I kept my head down. I stayed out of the way. I practically lived as a vampire, sleeping during the day and haunting the estate at night, collecting my paycheck. But Tristan was relentless. He had a pathological need to frame me. He would throw himself down the sweeping mahogany staircases. He would deliberately slip peanut oil—his known allergen—into his own soup and go into anaphylactic shock. There were security cameras. I pointed out the footage time and time again. But nobody in that house ever wanted to look at a screen that proved their golden boy was a sociopath. At three hundred thousand a month, it wasn’t a salary. It was hazard pay for my fading sanity. But tonight, the mask was off. They weren’t even pretending anymore. Which meant I could finally hand in my resignation. Under the blinding glare of the chandeliers, I stepped forward and approached the happy couple. “Congratulations to you both,” I said, my voice steady and clear. “I’m genuinely happy for you. I wish you a lifetime of joy together. And on that note, I’ll be taking my leave.” Tristan froze, his smirk faltering. Betty’s perfectly manicured brows snapped together. “Sean, what kind of act is this?” Instantly, Tristan’s eyes welled with tears. “Don’t be like this. I swear, I had no idea Betty was going to do this. If you’re upset, here—you can have the ring.” “I don’t need it,” I said, taking a step back. “No, I mean it!” Tristan insisted, stepping into my space and grabbing my hand, trying to force the heavy diamond onto my palm. “Take it!” “Seriously, let go—” I pulled my hand back. It was a reflex, a slight push to break his grip. The ring slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the marble floor. Tristan gasped, his eyes instantly brimming with devastated tears. “Do you really hate me that much?” “That is enough!” Betty stepped between us, shoving me backward. She shielded Tristan like he was a fragile piece of glass. “Who the hell do you think you are?” Betty snarled, her voice echoing in the sudden silence of the ballroom. “Yes, you have the Kensington blood. But Tristan and I have known each other for twenty years. If we’re getting down to brass tacks, you are the outsider here!” A fuse blew in my chest. Three years of biting my tongue finally snapped. “You’re right!” I shouted, the sound ringing out over the gasps of the crowd. “I am an outsider! I’m not your missing heir. I am not Sean Kensington! My name is Cole Bennett!” The ballroom plunged into a dead, suffocating silence. I was breathing hard, my chest rising and falling sharply. Tristan covered his mouth, a sob escaping his lips. “How can you say something like that just to throw a tantrum? Do you have any idea how much that hurts me?” I stared at him, my eyes wide. “What?” Did none of them speak English? I pointed a rigid finger at my own face. “Look at me! Look closely! I don’t even look exactly like him. His eyes are slightly wider than mine. His earlobes sit lower. Open your damn eyes!” “Stop it!” Betty shoved me again, harder this time. “I told you, you are never to make things difficult for Tristan again.” Behind her, Tristan buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with manufactured grief. The murmurs in the crowd morphed from shock into disgust. “What is he trying to pull? He’s a carbon copy of Sean.” “Lying through his teeth just to make Tristan look bad. He’s just playing the victim to force Tristan into giving Betty back.” Betty glared at me, her eyes flat and cold. “My patience has limits. If you keep making these unreasonable scenes and attacking Tristan… don’t expect any mercy from me.” …Was there a single sane person in this room? I threw my hands up. “Fine! You don’t believe me? Let’s go get a DNA test. Right now.” Both Betty and Tristan flinched, staring at me in shock. I pointed straight at Tristan. “Let’s go back to the estate. We’ll swab Mr. and Mrs. Kensington. We’ll pay for the rush order. And then you can all see, in black and white, whether or not I belong to this family!” Betty’s frown deepened. A flicker of genuine uncertainty crossed her face. The guests exchanged uneasy glances. “He doesn’t sound like he’s bluffing… is he actually going to do it?” “Wait, could he seriously not be Sean?” “Look at his posture. He’s dead serious.” Betty opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Tristan let out a loud, agonizing wail. “I know I’m the outsider!” he cried, gripping his chest. “You don’t need to use this to humiliate me! You don’t need to keep reminding me that I don’t share their blood!” With a theatrical sob, he kicked the fallen diamond ring across the floor, covered his face, and sprinted toward the exit. When a waiter tried to gently stop him, Tristan violently shoved the poor guy aside. I stood there, completely stunned. “Wait, I wasn’t talking about—ah!” Two hands hit my chest with the force of a battering ram, sending me stumbling backward. Betty looked at me with a hatred so pure it was almost glowing. “When are you going to stop ruining everything?” she screamed. “Listen to me! I am not Sean!” “Shut up!” She spun around, her heels clicking frantically as she chased after her weeping fiancé. “Tristan! Tristan, wait, where are you going?!” Carter sidled up next to me, watching the chaos unfold. “Is there something literally wrong with the brains of the one percent?” “I’m starting to think it’s a genetic requirement,” I muttered, rubbing my chest. I turned my back on the ballroom and walked out. I had made enough money. Regardless of whether they believed me or not, I was going back to the estate, packing my bags, and getting the hell out of Connecticut. But the moment I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the Kensington mansion, two massive security guards stepped out of the shadows and grabbed me by the arms. “Mr. and Mrs. Kensington heard about the stunt you pulled, making young Master Tristan cry,” one of them rumbled, his grip like a vice. “They left orders. You’re going in the attic to reflect on your behavior for three days.” “What? Wait! I’m not Sean! I’m seriously not! Let me go!” My protests were useless. They dragged me up three flights of stairs, shoved me into the dusty, unfinished attic, and the heavy door slammed shut with a sickening thud. I pounded on the wood until my knuckles bruised, screaming until my throat was raw. Nobody came. Eventually, I slid down the wall and sat on the floorboards in the dark. I stopped fighting. Fine, I thought. Three days. I’ll just leave in three days. But by the second day, a terrifying reality began to set in. They hadn’t sent anyone up with food. By the third day, I didn’t know how many hours had passed. The hunger had hollowed me out, and I didn’t even have the energy to call for help anymore. Three days. Not a single drop of water. I realized, with a quiet, creeping horror, that I might actually die up here. Suddenly, there was a soft rustle. A plastic-wrapped slice of bread slid under the narrow gap beneath the door. I scrambled toward it, my hands shaking so badly I barely managed to rip the plastic open before tearing a piece off with my teeth. “It’s me.” The voice on the other side of the wood made me freeze. “Tristan?” I rasped, my voice barely a croak. “I believe you,” Tristan whispered, his tone hushed and urgent. “I believe you aren’t Sean. I can get you out of here, but you have to promise me something. You can never, ever come back.” It was a deal I would have sold my soul for. “Swear it!” he demanded. “I swear it,” I choked out. “I will never step foot in this house again. I will never look at another Kensington for as long as I live!” “Wait here. I’m going to get the key.” Of all the things I expected, being rescued by Tristan Kensington was at the bottom of the list. He was a manipulative psychopath, but right now, he was opening a door that was saving my life. He snuck me out through the service quarters and drove me to a hotel in the city. He even carried my duffel bag up to the room. But the moment I swiped the keycard and pushed the heavy hotel door open, my stomach dropped. We weren’t alone. Seven or eight massive, heavily tattooed men were standing in the center of the room, their arms crossed, staring at us with predatory eyes. Before I could even process what was happening, Tristan shoved a baseball bat into my hands. In one fluid, violent motion, he grabbed the collar of his own silk shirt and ripped it down the middle, popping the buttons off. Then, he unleashed a blood-curdling scream. “No! Please, Sean, I’m sorry! Don’t let them touch me!” I stood there, paralyzed, the bat heavy in my grip. Three of the men lunged forward, grabbing Tristan and dragging him toward the bed. I hadn’t even found my voice to yell when the sound of frantic, pounding footsteps echoed down the hallway. “Tristan!” “Oh my god, my son!” The hotel door burst wide open. It was Mr. and Mrs. Kensington. And Betty. “Tristan!” Betty shrieked. Her eyes went completely red as she took in the torn shirt, the men, and the baseball bat in my hands. She crossed the room in a blur, shoving me violently against the wall before turning and slapping the largest thug hard across the face. “Do you want to die?!” she screamed at him. Mrs. Kensington dropped to her knees, her hands trembling violently as she took in the angry red marks Tristan had deliberately scratched onto his own neck just seconds prior. Mr. Kensington turned to me, his face purple with rage. “Sean! He is your brother! How could you be this vicious? This evil?!” “I…” I dropped the bat as if it had caught fire. Tristan curled into a pathetic ball, burying his weeping face in Betty’s chest. “It’s okay, you can have her,” Tristan sobbed, his voice trembling with manufactured trauma. “I know you love Betty. I can give her back to you. I know you’re the real son, and everything belongs to you. If you just ask, I won’t say a single word of protest. But why… why did you have to hire these men to ruin my purity? Did you just want Betty to be disgusted by me? Did you want mom and dad to throw me away?” He broke down into hyperventilating sobs. I just stared. …Wow. I genuinely had to hand it to him. I never saw this coming. Mrs. Kensington threw her arms around him, burying her face in his hair as she screamed at me. “How did we give birth to such trash?! To think up something so vile to destroy your own brother! Are you even human?!” “You’re all insane!” I yelled, my exhaustion replaced by pure, blinding adrenaline. “I am not a Kensington! I just happen to share his face! I have absolutely zero interest in Betty! She is a pawn in his game—he set this entire thing up!” Betty let out a sharp, cruel laugh. “Do you really think spewing garbage is going to save you?” she said, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm register. “Tristan is my fiancé. No matter what happens to him, he will be my husband. You thought you could use cheap, filthy tactics to ruin him? Fine. I’ll just ruin you first.” She stood up, smoothing her skirt. “Take him to the cold storage.” My blood ran cold. “What?” Her security detail—the men Tristan had supposedly hired to ‘attack’ him—grabbed me by the arms and dragged me out of the room. I fought them like a cornered animal. “I am not Sean! Run a damn DNA test! Let go of me! Let me go!” But money is a louder language than truth. As they shoved me into the back of a black SUV, I realized something profound: the three hundred grand a month was nothing compared to the monsters I was dealing with. The commercial freezer at one of the Montgomery family’s distribution centers was kept at five degrees Fahrenheit. I was wearing a thin t-shirt and jeans. The moment they hurled me onto the frost-covered concrete and slammed the heavy steel door, the cold hit me like a physical blow. I scrambled to my feet, pounding on the metal. “I am not Sean! You have the wrong person!” “Still playing the victim?” Betty’s voice was muffled through the thick insulation. “This door operates on biometric scans. Only Kensington and Montgomery fingerprints can open it. You keep up the act, and you can freeze to death in there.” I heard the sharp click of her heels turning away. Panic flared in my chest. “Betty? Betty! I am not Sean! I’m going to die in here!” But there was no answer. Only the low, mechanical hum of the refrigeration units. I retreated to the corner, curling my body into the tightest ball possible. I blew hot air into my cupped hands, trying to trap the warmth against my face. But it wasn’t enough. The chill seeped through my clothes, into my muscles, and finally settled into my bones. I started to shake uncontrollably. Then, terrifyingly, the shaking stopped. Hypothermia was setting in. My mind began to drift, blurring the edges of my terror into a heavy, seductive sleepiness. Through the fog, I heard a sharp beep. The heavy lock disengaged. The door cracked open, letting in a sliver of warm, dusty warehouse air. I dragged myself across the floor, my limbs feeling like lead. I pushed the door open. There was no one there. The corridor was empty. I don’t know how I made it back to the Kensington estate. Pure, spiteful adrenaline, mostly. When I stumbled into the grand parlor, they were all sitting by the fireplace. Mr. and Mrs. Kensington were fussing over Tristan, while Betty paced the floor, her phone in hand. “Is that bastard still pretending in the freezer?” Betty snapped to someone on the phone. “Drag him out. I want him on his knees apologizing to Tristan.” “You don’t need to drag me,” I croaked. “I’m right here.” She jumped, spinning around. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second before hardening into a sneer. “Oh, look who it is. I thought you said you weren’t Sean?” she mocked. “How did you get out, then? Did your phantom identity open the door?” I scanned the room. All the key players were right here. Whoever had pressed their finger to that scanner to let me out… it wasn’t one of them. When I didn’t answer, Mr. Kensington slammed his fist on the coffee table. “Tristan doesn’t share our blood!” he roared. “It’s only natural he feels insecure! Giving him preferential treatment is our duty as his parents! You are our biological son—nothing can change that! So why do you insist on competing with him? On hurting him? Are you even a part of this family?” He stood up, pointing a trembling finger at the floor. “Get on your knees and apologize. Or you are no longer a son of mine.” A dark, broken laugh scraped its way out of my throat. “Sure!” I shouted, my voice cracking but loud enough to echo off the vaulted ceilings. “I’ll kneel. I’ll even bow my head to the damn floor! But since you are so adamant that I am your flesh and blood…” I locked eyes with the patriarch. “Where is my dividend?” They all froze. I took a step forward, the residual cold radiating off my skin. “Don’t think I don’t know the financials. Tristan gets an eight-figure payout from the family trust every single year. You claim I’m your son. You claim I belong here. Fine!” I held out an open palm. “I’m not greedy. Five million. Transfer it to my account right now, and I will drop to my knees and apologize to your golden boy.” “You…!” Mr. Kensington choked, his face reddening. “What?” I cut him off, my voice sharp as glass. “You want me to play the dutiful son, but you won’t give me a dime of what’s mine? You funnel the entire family wealth into someone with no blood tie to you, and call it love?” I looked at Mrs. Kensington, who was staring at me in shock. “Is that what family means to you?!” Mr. Kensington opened his mouth, but no words came out. “You talk a big game about me being your child,” I sneered, “but when have your actions ever backed that up? For three years, all you’ve done is demand I step aside, make myself small, and swallow abuse so Tristan can feel better about himself. What have you ever actually given me?” The parents exchanged an uneasy, guilty look. Even Betty looked slightly taken aback by the sheer venom in my voice. “You refuse to give me what is mine, and then you punish me for fighting for scraps!” I yelled. “You want me to be magnanimous? You want me to play nice? Pay me!” The parlor was dead silent. Only the crackle of the fireplace dared to make a sound. “If you won’t pay,” I whispered, dropping my hand. “Then don’t talk to me about apologizing. Don’t talk to me about kneeling. You don’t deserve it.” I turned my back on them and walked toward the grand foyer. “Wait.” Mr. Kensington’s voice stopped me in my tracks. “Five million,” he said, his voice tight with barely suppressed rage. “I’ll wire it. And then you will get on your knees and grovel for Tristan’s forgiveness.” Hah. These pathetic, twisted people. They were willing to pay off their ‘biological son’ with his own birthright, just to buy a moment of satisfaction for the imposter. I slowly turned back around. “Deal,” I said smoothly. I reached into my jacket—thank God I had packed it before the gala—and pulled out a folded legal document. “Oh, and you’ll be signing this.” I tossed it onto the glass coffee table. It was an Irrevocable Deed of Gift. I had my lawyers draw it up weeks ago, just in case I ever found an exit strategy. It explicitly stated that the funds were a voluntary, unconditional gift, immune to any future legal recall or clawback. Mr. Kensington grabbed a pen, scrawled his name across the bottom, and threw the pen at my chest. “Three years out in the wild,” he spat with disgust, “and you’ve turned into nothing but a calculating, greedy street rat.” I didn’t care. I didn’t care about his insults. I didn’t care about his opinion. Because my phone vibrated in my pocket. $5,000,000 USD successfully wired to account ending in 4921. I walked over to where Tristan was sitting, looking at me with wide, nervous eyes. I dropped to my knees. The hardwood floor dug into my joints. I leaned forward. Thud. I hit my forehead against the ground. Thud. Again. Thud. A third time, loud and hollow. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice entirely devoid of emotion. “I was wrong.” I stood up. I didn’t brush off my jeans. I didn’t look at their faces. I turned on my heel and walked out of the Kensington estate for the absolute last time. As I passed Betty, she took a half-step toward me, her mouth opening as if to speak. I didn’t even glance at her. I just kept walking. She left her hand suspended in the empty air. As the massive iron gates of the estate closed behind me, my burner phone buzzed. It was a call from a detective at the NYPD missing persons bureau. “That missing persons report you filed three years ago?” the officer’s rough voice came through the speaker. “The kid named Sean Kensington? We found him.”

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Jackson was obsessed with doomsday prepper novels. When the temperature dropped to seventy below zero for three consecutive days in my previous life, he was convinced the apocalypse had arrived. He went into a frenzy, hoarding enough supplies to last a decade. As a graduate student in meteorology, I tried to offer a rational analysis—the mercury would bounce back within a week. I begged him to only buy a week’s worth of food. But he wouldn’t listen. He insisted on cramming the house with frozen meat until the floorboards groaned. To prevent the inevitable disaster of the meat rotting once the power failed and the thaw began, my parents and I distributed the excess to our starving neighbors. That night, Jackson lost his mind. He grabbed a kitchen knife and slaughtered us all. “The first rule of the apocalypse is to kill the bleeding hearts!” he had screamed, his eyes bloodshot and wild. “Family means nothing now! Three fewer mouths to feed means my odds of survival just went up!” He survived until the National Guard swept through the neighborhood. Mistaking them for raiders coming for his hoard, he charged them with his blade. They didn’t hesitate. A single shot ended him. Then, I opened my eyes. We were back. Three days before the Great Freeze, sitting at the family dinner table. … “As of this moment, I am done with the Miller family! We are finished!” Jackson’s voice sliced through the air, sharp and dripping with venom. The moment I heard him, I knew. He had come back too. My parents sat there, stunned. They immediately tried to soothe him, their faces etched with that familiar, heartbreaking concern. “Jackson, honey, what’s wrong? Did something happen? Talk to us.” I glanced at my phone. It was mid-August, peak summer in Minnesota, yet the temperature had dipped to seventy-seven degrees. In three days, the world would turn into an icebox. I looked at my parents, their desperate pleas ringing in my ears, and I couldn’t find my voice. I was paralyzed by the phantom sensation of Jackson’s knife sinking into my chest. “You don’t have the right to tell me anything!” Jackson spat. “I’m not even your real son!” He threw his napkin onto his plate and stormed out. Within hours, he had moved out of the house. Over the next three days, he went on a scorched-earth spree of predatory online lending, racking up nearly seven million dollars in high-interest debt. He bought a fortified suburban estate, rented out climate-controlled warehouses, and began snapping up grain, generators, and shotguns at astronomical prices. Then, the snow started. Great, heavy flakes that looked like feathers but felt like ash. As the realization dawned on the public that this wasn’t a normal storm, the panic-buying began. I helped my parents stock up on the essentials—enough to keep us comfortable for a couple of weeks. We had just finished hauling the last of the groceries inside when Jackson called. His voice was thick with a manic, triumphant glee. “Is that it? A hundred pounds of rice and some canned beans?” He laughed, a jagged, ugly sound. “God, you people are such pathetic peasants. A hundred pounds won’t even last you through the first month of the New World.” “Jackson, please—” my mother started, but he cut her off. “I don’t care if you live or die this time. I’m going to be the king of this wasteland while you rot. Maybe if you crawl to my gates and beg, I’ll throw you a bone. Maybe.” He hung up. My parents looked at the modest pile of supplies in our pantry, their faces clouded with anxiety. “Miles,” my father said, looking at me. “Is your brother right? Is this… is this the end? Maybe we didn’t buy enough.” I didn’t look up from my laptop. “He’s been reading too many of those trashy novels, Dad. His brain is fried. Don’t listen to him.” The wind began to howl outside, rattling the windowpanes. As a meteorology student, my word held weight in this house. They wanted to believe me. They needed to. They stopped entertaining Jackson’s taunts. My mom even sent him a text: Jackson, please stay safe out there. Miles says this will blow over in a few days. We’ll come pick you up and bring you home then. Reading that made my stomach churn. My parents still didn’t get it. They didn’t know that for fifteen years, they had raised a viper. Jackson had been switched at birth with me, and when he was finally “returned” to his biological parents in the countryside, his resentment had curdled into something demonic. My parents, out of a misplaced sense of guilt, had brought him back into our lives when they heard he was struggling. They died in the last life believing he was just a “troubled boy.” They never saw the monster underneath. Jackson’s reply to the group chat was immediate and mocking: A few days? You’ll be frozen carcasses in a few days! This is the Great Reset! Watch me build my empire while you starve—if you even live long enough to watch! My father sighed and turned away, focusing on cleaning his old gym equipment just to stay busy. My mother hopped onto her iPad to play bridge with her friends online. Listening to the mundane sounds of our home, Jackson’s voice came through the speakers again, dripping with contempt. “Laugh while you can. You’re dead men walking.” I took a deep breath. I couldn’t let the bitterness stay down. “I heard you bought a fortress, Jackson. Generators, weapons, the whole nine yards. Where’d the money come from? We both know you don’t have two nickels to rub together.” Jackson sounded like he’d been stung. “None of your business! I earned that money. I have resources you couldn’t dream of!” I let out a cold laugh. “You mean payday loans and Maxed-out credit cards? Real ‘resourceful’ of you. How do you plan on paying that back? The family isn’t bailing you out this time.” “Who’s going to collect when the world is a graveyard?” he snapped. “Don’t ask the Millers for a cent, and don’t come knocking on my door. It’s every man for himself now.” To drive the point home, he flooded the family group chat with photos. Warehouses packed with pallets of food, enough to sustain a small army for a decade. I heard you city folk like small portions, he texted. That hundred pounds of rice should last you until the heat death of the universe. Good luck! I didn’t hesitate. I screenshotted every single photo and posted them to a local survivalist forum and several neighborhood watch groups. My brother is convinced the world is ending and has hoarded a literal mountain of food in the suburbs, I wrote. Is he crazy, or should we all be worried? The internet is a volatile place during a crisis. The post went viral within the hour. It’s definitely the end, one user commented. Look at the sky. He’s a genius. He’s a ‘reborn’ for sure. Does anyone know where this warehouse is? My kids haven’t eaten in two days. I’m going to go find this guy. If he has that much, he has to share. I watched the comments roll in, a grim satisfaction settling in my chest. I replied to one particularly desperate-sounding man: I’m sorry, I don’t live with him. He really does have a massive hoard, but he’s not the sharing type. You might have to find another way. Then, I deleted the post. The storm intensified. The sky turned a bruised, sickly purple. Suddenly, a drone buzzed outside our window, hovering in the freezing gale. Dangled from a string was a piece of grey, putrid meat. Jackson’s voice crackled through the drone’s speakers. “Miles, don’t say I never gave you anything. For old times’ sake, here’s a treat for you and the folks.” I stared at the rotting meat, then at our own modest, clean supplies. I felt a wave of nausea. Suddenly, on Jackson’s end of the line, there was a frantic pounding on a door. At seventy below, the only people moving outside were government officials or the truly desperate. “Mr. Miller?” a muffled male voice shouted. “We’re with the Regional Emergency Task Force. The floods downstream have destroyed the local food banks. We saw reports online that you have a surplus of supplies. We need you to contribute to the community effort.” Jackson’s scream was shrill. “How did you find me? No! It’s mine! Go away!” “Sir, please,” the officer replied, his voice calm but firm. “The meteorological models show the weather will stabilize in less than a week. This is not the end of the world. People are dying of cold and hunger right now. You will be compensated, and you’ll receive a ‘Civilian Service’ commendation.” That was the breaking point. I heard a muffled bang—a gunshot. “I don’t want your blood money!” Jackson roared. “Rice is worth more than gold now! Step back or I’ll kill every last one of you!” The line went silent on the other side of the door. My hands were shaking. “Jackson, what have you done? You need to stop.” “You did this, Miles!” he bellowed into the phone. “You leaked my location! You think I’m scared? I’m prepared for anything!” To prove his point, he switched to a video call. The camera panned to a woman shivering in the corner of his opulent, heated living room. It was Madison, my fiancée. She looked at the camera, a flicker of shame crossing her face before it was replaced by a hard, cold stare. “Miles, I… Jackson and I got married this morning. He can protect me. He has everything. I know it seems cruel, but survival comes first.” I let out a dry, hollow laugh. “Madison, you’re a PhD candidate. How can you be this incredibly stupid?” Her face flushed crimson. “Just… take care of yourself, Miles. I hope I see you on the other side of this.” Jackson sneered. “The National Guard is going to give up on your neighborhood soon. When you’re too weak from hunger to even crawl, you’ll realize who was right.” I hung up. I was angry, yes, but mostly I felt a strange sense of relief. At least I knew exactly who Madison was now. My parents had overheard everything. The color had drained from their faces. The next morning, the sound of a heavy engine roared past our house. We ran to the window. It was the National Guard supply truck—the one that was supposed to drop off our emergency rations. It didn’t stop. It accelerated, disappearing into the white haze. “Miles… Jackson was right,” my mother whispered, her voice cracking. “They’ve abandoned us.” They collapsed into chairs, staring out at the frozen wasteland. “What are we going to do? We’re going to die in here.” I felt a prick of doubt, but I checked my data again. “Mom, Dad, look at me. Don’t panic. We have enough food for a week. The atmospheric pressure is already shifting. Trust me.” They nodded, but the trust was gone. The atmosphere in the house turned funereal. We ate in silence, small, meager portions. Meanwhile, Jackson was a ghost in our group chat, haunting us with photos of feast after feast. Fried chicken, burgers, chilled sodas. I have so much food it’s going to go bad before I can eat it, he messaged. Dad, Mom, don’t blame me. Blame the ‘genius’ son who told you not to prep. My parents didn’t say it, but I could see the resentment simmering in their eyes. They looked at me like I was the one who had sentenced them to death. When the temperature hit seventy-five below, they couldn’t take it anymore. They started packing their heaviest coats. “Miles, we’re going,” my father said, his voice hard. “While the roads are still somewhat passable, we’re driving to Jackson’s. We’ll apologize. He’s family. He’ll take us in.” They hadn’t lived through the last life. They didn’t know that Jackson didn’t have a heart to appeal to. “Dad, if you leave this house, you’re putting yourselves at his mercy. He doesn’t have any!” “Miles, we know you’re bitter because we loved him too,” my mother said, her eyes welling with tears. “But we can’t let your pride kill us all.” “It’s not pride! If we go to him, we are signing our lives away. When this is over, he’ll make us pay for every grain of rice with our dignity!” “If you won’t come, stay here,” she said, her voice trembling as she squeezed my hand. “I’ll bring food back for you if I can.” The warmth of her hand made my soul ache. I couldn’t let them go alone. I drove the SUV through the drifts, a grueling, three-hour battle against the elements. When we finally reached Jackson’s gated estate, it was dark. My parents frantically dialed his number. Finally, the video connected. Jackson’s face appeared, his neck covered in fresh hickeys. He looked entirely unsurprised to see us. “Look at that. The prodigal parents return. I thought you had eighty pounds of cabbage to keep you company?” “Jackson, please!” my father begged, his voice muffled by the cold seeping into the car. “Let us in! I’m begging you!” Jackson’s expression turned into a mask of pure coldness. “In your dreams. I spent millions to build this sanctuary. Why should I share it with people who didn’t believe in me?” I leaned into the frame. “And Madison?” Jackson grinned and tilted the camera. My heart stopped. Madison was on the floor, stripped of her dignity and her clothes, crawling at his feet like a dog. “That’s the price of admission,” Jackson said. “What are you willing to pay, big brother? I bet those two ‘Saint’ parents of yours would do anything to save their precious Miles.” He leaned in close to the screen. “Tell you what. I only have room for one more. Either the parents come in, or Miles does. You choose.” The car went silent. The cruelty was so profound it felt physical. My parents looked at me, their eyes overflowing. “Miles,” my father whispered. “The last fifteen years… we haven’t been fair to you. We tried so hard to make up for the switch that we neglected the son who was actually ours.” “Go,” my mother sobbed. “Go inside. Live.” I looked at them, my heart breaking. They thought I was going to leave them. Instead, I pulled out my phone and sent a pre-timed message to a contact I’d made on the forums. Then, I looked at Jackson. “Fine,” I said. “I’m coming in.”

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