Julian was obsessed with me to the core; he had a miniature bio-chip implanted in the bone of my left ring finger. If I moved more than a thousand meters away from him, or if my heart rate exceeded 120 beats per minute, he would drag me back to that pristine white cage like a madman. Everyone in New York envied me, a golden canary pampered in Julian’s clutches. But no one knew that to truly trap me, he had personally cut off my brother’s life-saving bone marrow supply. He thought that by breaking my wings, I would forever be subjugated to him. But he forgot, a golden canary, pushed to its limits, will also peck out its owner’s eyes, and tear them apart. In the VIP lounge of a top-tier charity gala, the air conditioning was set impossibly low. I was wearing a red velvet backless gown, my back already drenched in cold sweat. Deep in the bone of my left ring finger, the miniature bio-chip pulsed with a sharp, piercing pain as my heart beat too fast. It was a warning, a ticking time bomb. Bang! The heavy wooden door was locked from the inside. Before I could even turn around, a large hand clamped down on the back of my neck. The immense force, radiating a destructive pressure, slammed me against the dressing mirror. In the mirror, Julian stood impeccably dressed in a suit, exuding an aura of controlled power. But his eyes were as sinister as a viper eyeing its prey. “Just now, by the exhibition stand, that man’s coat brushed your left shoulder,” Julian murmured, his voice so gentle it could drip, yet imbued with an icy chill. “In that exact second, your heart rate shot up to one hundred and thirty. Mia, were you feeling something for another man, or were you signaling for help?” “I wasn’t, I just bumped into him by accident,” my voice trembled as I frantically shook my head. Julian didn’t listen. He scoffed, tearing off his silk tie with one hand. “Julian, don’t do this. There are people outside.” My plea was roughly cut off. Julian used the tie to tightly bind my wrists, tying me to the back of the chair. The silk dug into my pale skin, instantly leaving glaring red marks. He turned to the bar, grabbed a bottle of high-proof liquor, and pulled out a handful of rough medical cotton balls. “Things that get dirty need to be cleaned.” Julian walked back, ruthlessly tearing open the red velvet over my left shoulder. My rounded shoulder was instantly exposed to the cold air. He twisted open the bottle, pouring the stinging liquor directly onto the cotton balls. A pungent smell of alcohol permeated the air. The next second, the rough cotton ball was pressed firmly against my left shoulder. “Ah!” I cried out in pain. Julian’s hand didn’t stop, like a madman in the throes of OCD, he scrubbed with all his might, repeatedly, at that patch of skin. The rough cotton ball, mixed with the liquor, scraped away my delicate epidermis like sandpaper. “It hurts! Julian, I’m hurting! Please, stop scrubbing!” Tears streamed down my face, and I struggled violently in the chair. The chip in my left ring finger, due to my accelerated heart rate, released an even stronger electrical current. The double torment pushed me to the brink of fainting. Julian ignored me. He stared intently at my skin, pressing harder and harder. Until my pale shoulder was scrubbed red and raw, oozing glaring blood. Crimson streaks flowed down my arm, dripping into the red velvet, blending seamlessly. Only then did Julian stop. He tossed away the blood-stained cotton ball, and with alcohol-scented fingers, gently stroked the bruised and bleeding wound. “See, now it’s clean.” He smiled, satisfied, then leaned down and pressed a kiss on the edge of the wound. I spasmed from the pain, gasping for breath. I lowered my head, biting my lower lip hard, not daring to make another sound. I knew too well that resistance would only invite more sadistic torment. Julian straightened up, pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from inside his suit jacket, and tossed it lightly onto the dressing table. It was the ICU bill from New York’s best hospital. “Ethan’s bone marrow match, I’ve had it intercepted overseas.” Julian reached out and pinched my chin, forcing me to look up. “Stay by my side, be the good little canary you’re supposed to be. As long as you’re obedient, your brother will live. If you dare to harbor any improper thoughts again.” His fingers tightened abruptly, knuckles turning white. “I’ll immediately cut off his ventilator, and make sure he has a very ugly death.” I looked at this man in the mirror, towering, controlling everything. Tears flowed down my pale cheeks, and I trembled as I nodded, my voice fragmented yet utterly submissive. “I understand. I’ll be obedient.” Julian released my chin, satisfied, then untied the silk from my wrists and gently tidied my messy hair. “That’s right. There’s a cocktail party tonight, come with me.” Julian turned and walked into the bathroom to wash his hands. Listening to the rushing water, I slowly raised my head. In the mirror, the fragile, fearful canary had vanished. I stared at the fresh blood on my shoulder, my downcast eyes no longer holding fear. Instead, there was a boiling intent to kill!

In the middle of the night, my phone ringing sliced through the dead silence. I jolted awake. The moment I answered the call, my blood ran cold. The hospital had issued a critical condition notice. My brother, Ethan, had a severe lung infection and wouldn’t make it through the night. The bone marrow transplant had to be done immediately, and the exorbitant surgery fee was also due by the deadline. And the successfully matched donor and the life-saving money were all in Julian’s hands. I didn’t bother to put on shoes, stumbling into the master bedroom. Julian leaned against the leather headboard, carelessly swirling half a glass of red wine. Seeing my disheveled state, a sneering curve tugged at his lips. He already knew. “Please, save Ethan.” I dropped to my knees on the cold floor. Julian looked down at me from above, as if I were a dog. He put down his wine glass and got out of bed barefoot. His large hand suddenly gripped my long hair, dragging me out without mercy. A tearing pain ripped through my scalp. Biting my lip hard, I stumbled and crawled on the floor, shielding my head with my hands. At the end of the corridor was a giant glass conservatory. Outside, the rain poured down, thunder roared. The conservatory had no heating; it was cold as an ice cellar. Julian suddenly flung his hand, slamming me hard onto the white tiles. He walked to the liquor cabinet and pulled out several bottles of fine red wine. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bottle after bottle exploded around my feet. Dark red wine splattered, and sharp glass shards covered the floor. Julian grabbed a large bunch of red roses from the flower bucket. He tore off the petals with his bare hands, then violently threw the thorny stems into the scattered glass shards. He took off his silk robe, tossing it onto the back of a chair. He then sank into the velvet sofa, crossing his legs, his gaze sinister. “You want money? You want the bone marrow?” He pointed at the wreckage, a mix of glass and thorns. “Show me your sincerity. Dance for me, right on that. Dance until I’m satisfied.” I stared at the execution ground before me, a place that could cripple my feet. The chip in my left ring finger sensed my heart rate soaring, releasing a bone-chilling microcurrent. I didn’t hesitate, didn’t beg. I slowly stood up, my bare feet stepping without hesitation into that dark red wreckage. My first step landed. Sharp glass instantly pierced the soles of my feet. Blood welled up. I spasmed from the pain, biting down hard, forcing back a cry of agony. I slowly raised my arms, striking a classical dance opening pose. Lightning flashed, its pallid light illuminating my bloodless face. Second step. Third step. The glass shards dug deeper and deeper, firmly embedded in my flesh. Rose thorns savagely cut my ankles, tearing open my skin. I began to spin. Every jump, every landing, was a heart-piercing, bone-chilling pain. Cold sweat drenched my nightgown, clinging to my back. Red wine and blood mixed together, dragging out shocking crimson trails on the pure white tiles. I was like a crimson butterfly with broken wings, forced to dance on knife-edges. Julian leaned back on the sofa, staring intently at me. Watching my pained, enduring face, watching my movements, still submissive despite the pain and spasms. The brutality and excitement in his eyes peaked. His breathing grew shallow, his gaze feverish like a madman’s. This was what he wanted. He wanted this proud golden canary to be completely crushed, her soul forced to grovel at his feet. Ten minutes, stretched out like a century. The soles of my feet were raw and bleeding, deep enough to see the bone. After completing the final spin, I finally couldn’t hold on, collapsing heavily into the shattered glass. Shards dug into my knees and palms, bleeding profusely. I gasped for breath, struggling to look up. My eyes were broken, submissive, gazing up at the man on the sofa. Julian was finally satisfied. He stood up and walked closer. His leather shoes squelched sickeningly on the blood and wine. He bent down, stroking my sweat-drenched face as if caressing a beloved pet. “Such a good girl.” He dialed Mr. Davis, his assistant. Instructing him to transfer funds to the hospital. To have the donor ready overseas, on standby. After hanging up, Julian scooped me up from the floor into his arms. “Does it hurt?” He asked, knowing full well, his voice resuming that chilling tenderness. I leaned against him, my nails digging hard into my palms, suppressing the urge to tear him apart. I forced out a fragmented smile: “No, it doesn’t. Thank you, Julian.” Julian chuckled softly, then carried me swiftly out of the conservatory. I lay on his shoulder, looking back over his neck. On the white tiles, there were countless bloody footprints. The searing pain in my feet and knees pulsed through me. I closed my eyes, hiding the monstrous killing intent within. From beginning to end, I hadn’t shed a single tear. I finally understood. As long as Julian lived, my brother and I would always be lambs to the slaughter. Julian had to die! I would flay this madman alive with my own hands, send him to hell!

In the bedroom, the smell of blood was pungent. Dr. Oliver, Julian’s chief private physician, knelt on the carpet with a medical kit. He shone a powerful flashlight on my feet and gasped. Glass shards had pierced through the skin, fragments embedded in the bone seams. Dr. Oliver picked up a pair of tweezers, clamping onto the largest piece. “Bear with it,” he whispered. As the glass was pulled out, blood welled up. I bit down hard on the pillowcase, cold sweat soaking my nightgown, yet I didn’t utter a sound. Cleaning, disinfecting, applying medicine. The only sound in the room was the sharp clink of tweezers against the tray. Julian had gone to the office. In the four corners of the bedroom, surveillance cameras blinked red. I stared at a camera, then suddenly reached out. The water glass by the bed tipped over. The water streamed down the nightstand, precisely hitting the power strip on the carpet. Sizzle. The camera screen went black, the red light extinguished. Local power outage. Dr. Oliver’s hand paused, and he looked up sharply. “Don’t be nervous,” I said, leaning against the headboard, my voice weak yet chillingly calm. “I tampered with the power strip. The backup power won’t switch over for ten minutes. For these ten minutes, Julian is blind and deaf.” Dr. Oliver’s brow furrowed. “Ms. Amelia, what are you planning?” I stared at him, my eyes like knives. “Dr. Oliver, fourteen years ago, at the Southwood Orphanage. If it weren’t for my mother anonymously donating that fifty thousand for your overseas tuition, you’d still be working odd jobs in a shady clinic, not serving as Julian’s lackey here.” Dr. Oliver’s face changed drastically. Clang! The tweezers dropped into the tray. “How do you know?” He stared intently at me. That money was anonymous; it took him ten years to find out the benefactor’s surname was Lin. “My mom gave me all the donation records before she died.” I pushed myself up, closer to Dr. Oliver. “Dr. Oliver, you’re a man of loyalty. You’ve been secretly looking for my mom all these years, haven’t you?” Dr. Oliver’s throat moved, speechless. “My mother was driven to her death by Julian’s family,” my eyes were bloodshot, my voice laced with ice. “Now, Julian is threatening my brother’s life, treating me like a dog.” I held out my left hand, my ring finger right in front of Dr. Oliver. Beneath the skin, the bio-chip pulsed with a faint glow. “If my heart beats too fast, or if I leave the designated range, this thing will discharge electricity,” I sneered. “Dr. Oliver, you’re a skilled physician; you must know that prolonged exposure to this kind of bio-electrical stimulation can lead to a nervous breakdown.” Dr. Oliver stared at the chip, then at my feet, deep enough to see the bone, his eyes filled with shock and internal struggle. “What do you want me to do?” Dr. Oliver whispered. “Help you remove it? No, once it’s removed, Julian will receive an immediate alert.” “I’m not removing it.” My eyes hardened. “I want him dead.” Dr. Oliver shot up. “Ms. Amelia, you’re insane! Julian’s security is airtight, and all his food is checked. You can’t kill him!” “I’m not killing him.” I stared coldly at Dr. Oliver. “I want him utterly disgraced, to become a complete madman. Dr. Oliver, help me. Consider it repaying my mother for saving your life.” Dr. Oliver fell silent. Looking at the woman before him, battered yet fierce as a wolf, the scales in his heart finally tipped. He knelt down again, reaching into the bottom compartment of his medical kit, and pulled out a thumb-sized transparent glass vial. A colorless, odorless liquid. “New-type neuro-hallucinogen,” Dr. Oliver pressed the vial into my hand. “One drop each time. Regular blood and urine tests won’t detect it, I guarantee.” “What are the effects?” I clutched the vial. “It slowly erodes the central nervous system,” Dr. Oliver’s expression was grave. “Initially, severe insomnia, irritability, paranoia. Long-term use will induce extremely realistic, terrifying hallucinations, eventually leading to severe mania. By then, not even a miracle could save his mind.” I looked at the vial, a cruel smile playing on my lips. “Good. This is perfect.” Dr. Oliver continued to explain, “It must be taken continuously for at least half a month. No interruptions. You’ll have to find a way to mix it into something he consumes daily. Ms. Amelia, once the arrow is shot, there’s no turning back. If we’re exposed, we both die.” I hid the vial against my body, under my clothes, my eyes showing no trace of hesitation. “Don’t worry. I’m not even afraid to die, why would I be afraid of him finding out?” Dr. Oliver quickly bandaged my foot wounds and packed up his medical kit. “The backup power is about to activate,” Dr. Oliver instantly reverted to his cold demeanor. “Don’t let the wounds get wet, change the dressing regularly.” Just as he finished speaking, the lights flickered. The red lights on the surveillance cameras came back on. Heavy footsteps sounded from the corridor. The door opened. Julian walked in, bringing with him a chill, his gaze sweeping the room like a hawk. “What happened? Why did the monitoring cut out?” Julian walked to the bed, looking down at me. Dr. Oliver lowered his head. “Mr. Julian, I accidentally knocked over a water glass earlier, short-circuiting the power strip. It’s all cleaned up now.” Julian scoffed, his gaze falling on my foot. The thick bandage was oozing glaring blood. “Are the injuries taken care of?” “Yes, they are. No bone damage, but she needs rest,” Dr. Oliver replied flawlessly. Julian waved his hand, dismissing Dr. Oliver. The door closed. Julian took off his jacket and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out and touched my pale face, his fingers deliberately brushing my chapped lips. “Were you scared when the power went out?” His voice had reverted to that sickening tenderness. I suppressed the churning in my stomach, submissively pressing my face into his palm, like a bird completely tamed. “No. I knew you’d protect me, Julian.” Julian smiled, satisfied. He leaned down and pressed a kiss on my forehead. “Good girl.” I closed my eyes. The glass vial pressed against my chest was cool, yet it felt like a burning fire of revenge.

My foot injuries hadn’t even scabbed over when I got out of bed. Changing into Julian’s favorite white silk nightgown, I walked barefoot into the kitchen, sending away the terrified housekeepers. Grinding, brewing. Boiling water poured in, a bitter coffee aroma filled the air. In the rising steam, I stood with my back to the surveillance camera, pulling the thumb-sized transparent glass vial from the hidden pocket of my nightgown. I pulled out the stopper. My wrist tilted slightly. Drip. The colorless, odorless liquid fell into the dark coffee, instantly dissolving. I picked up the white ceramic cup, glancing at my left ring finger. The chip beneath the skin lay dormant. I suppressed my heart rate, then turned and walked towards the study on the second floor. The door was ajar. Julian leaned back in his executive chair, flipping through documents, his brows furrowed. I pushed the door open, walked in. The coffee was gently placed on the mahogany desk. Julian looked up, his gaze like a knife, finally settling on my bandaged foot. “Who told you to get out of bed?” His voice was sharp. “You didn’t sleep well last night, so I wanted to make you a cup of coffee.” I didn’t flinch, meeting his gaze with soft, submissive eyes. Julian narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing me. He was accustomed to my fear and trembling; this active attempt to please him felt novel, yet it also made him suspicious. He reached out and pinched my chin, forcing me to look up. “Mia, what game are you playing now?” My eyes shimmered with unshed tears. I reached out and covered his hand, gently rubbing it. “Julian, I’ve thought it through,” my voice was as light as a feather. “I can’t escape you. As long as you’re willing to save Ethan, I’ll listen to whatever you say. I’ll be a good girl from now on, okay?” Julian stared intently at me. The chip in my ring finger remained still; my heart rate was steady, indicating no lies. The gloom in his eyes receded. He released his grip, then pulled me into his lap. “You should have been this obedient earlier.” He picked up the coffee, brought it to his lips, and took a large sip. I leaned against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, watching that sip of black coffee, laced with hallucinogen, slide down his throat. In the blind spot where Julian couldn’t see, a chilling curve played on my lips. Over the next half-month, I transformed. Shedding all my defenses, I became the perfect golden canary. Whatever Julian wanted, I gave. Even the most disgusting, perverse requests, I accepted completely, proactively accommodating him. Every morning, a spiked cup of black coffee was served without fail. Julian reveled in my submissiveness. His guard dropped sharply; he no longer constantly monitored the cameras, even allowing me to stay in his study to organize documents. I acted like a beautiful, thoughtless doll, quietly categorizing files. In reality, I was burning his access passwords and project vulnerabilities deeply into my mind. Half a month later, the effects of the drug became evident. Sleep was the first thing to collapse. Julian began having sleepless nights, waking up in a cold sweat even after taking sleeping pills. His eyes were bloodshot, his temper extremely volatile. Late one night. A loud crash exploded from the study. I threw off the covers and rushed over. Mr. Davis, his assistant, stood outside the door, drenched in sweat, not daring to provoke him. I pushed the door open. The study was a wreck. Antique vases lay shattered on the floor, papers flew everywhere. His laptop was smashed against the wall, its screen fractured. Julian stood in the center of the ruins. Like an out-of-control beast, his eyes bloodshot, his chest heaving violently. He stared intently at the shadows in the corner, guttural gasps escaping his throat. “Get out! All of you, get out!” He screamed frantically at the empty air, veins bulging in his neck. The hallucinogen was starting to damage his nerves; he was experiencing hallucinations. I walked barefoot, stepping over the scattered ceramic shards, approaching the madman on the brink of rage. Hearing footsteps, Julian spun around. He gripped my throat, slamming me against the bookshelf, with enough force to nearly crush my neck. “You want to harm me! All of you want to harm me!” Julian gritted his teeth, his eyes wild and unfocused. I couldn’t breathe, my face flushed, yet I didn’t struggle. I painstakingly raised my hands, cupping his twisted face. “Julian…” I managed to gasp, my voice incredibly gentle. “It’s me. It’s Mia. No one wants to harm you.” Despite the searing pain in my neck, I hugged his trembling body tightly. “Don’t be scared. I’m here. I’ll always be with you.” Those words were like a spell. The madness in Julian’s eyes abruptly paused, and the strength in his hands instantly left him. Like a drowning man grasping for a piece of driftwood, he wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his face deep into my neck. He took deep breaths of my scent, his whole body trembling. “Mia… Mia…” he murmured incoherently, his pathological dependence peaking at that moment. “Don’t leave me.” My bones ached from his tight embrace. I reached out, gently stroking his back, soothing him like a rabid dog. Looking up at the opulent crystal chandelier, my eyes were as cold as ice.

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For three years, my husband, a renowned nutritionist, doted on me. He even pre-sorted my daily vitamins. But my best friend, Chloe, noticed my pallor, saying I looked like someone on long-term medication, and urged me to get checked. I took the vitamins he gave me for testing. The lab report starkly read: “Spironolactone.” It turned out, the man who constantly told me, “Your health is paramount, darling,” had been feeding me sterilizing drugs with his own hands all along. “Scarlett, are you feeling unwell lately?” My best friend, Chloe, sat across from me, suddenly putting down her coffee cup and looking at me intently. I paused, then smiled and shook my head. “No, I’m perfectly fine. Julian keeps a close eye on me; how could I be unwell?” Julian was my husband, a highly respected young nutritionist. Our marriage was the envy of all our friends. He was incredibly attentive, especially when it came to my health. Every morning, he would meticulously portion out my daily supplements into small boxes, hand them to me himself, along with a cup of honey water at just the right temperature. “Darling, your health is the most important thing. Make sure you take these on time,” he’d always say, his eyes full of concern. He’d adjust my meal plans based on my work intensity and seasonal changes, precisely calculating the calories and nutrients for each meal. Under his “meticulous care,” I hardly ever got sick, not even a cold. So, I couldn’t understand why Chloe was asking. Chloe frowned, leaning closer, scrutinizing my face. “No, something’s off. Look at your complexion. It’s sallow, completely dull, and you have dark circles under your eyes. This isn’t what a healthy person looks like. Honestly, you look like you’ve been chronically ill or on heavy medication.” I instinctively touched my face. Lately, when I looked in the mirror, I did feel my skin wasn’t at its best, but I just attributed it to being tired from work and not getting enough rest. Her words made a seed of doubt begin to sprout in my mind. “Long-term medication? I haven’t taken anything other than the vitamins and various supplements Julian prepares for me,” I explained. “Then that’s the problem,” Chloe’s expression grew more serious. “Scarlett, don’t think I’m meddling. Julian might be a nutritionist, but are you really sure what’s in those things he gives you? Have you ever checked the ingredients yourself?” I was speechless. I had never doubted Julian. He was my husband, the person I trusted most. He said it was good for my body, and I believed him. Every morning, he would hand me those colorful pills, and I wouldn’t even glance at them, just swallow them with water. It had been like that every single day for three years. “You trust him too much,” Chloe sighed. “I’m not trying to cause trouble between you two. But it’s your body; you need to be more careful. Listen to me, find some time to get a full physical check-up. Don’t tell Julian anything, just go secretly.” Chloe’s words were a stone dropping into the still waters of my mind, creating ripples of doubt. I started to reflect on the past few years. Julian was indeed good to me, impeccably so. He took care of all the housework, and my every need — from clothes to food to daily activities — was perfectly arranged. He remembered all my preferences, my menstrual cycle, and even my occasional mood swings. He pampered me like a princess who didn’t have to worry about anything. But was my body really getting better and better, as he claimed? I remembered how I’d recently been feeling cold in my hands and feet, and sleeping restlessly at night, often dreaming. I’d thought it was due to work stress. Now that I thought about it, these symptoms seemed to have been going on for a long time. “Chloe, it shouldn’t… it couldn’t be, right?” I sounded uncertain, a tremor in my voice I hadn’t even noticed. “Better safe than sorry,” Chloe squeezed my hand. “Listen to me, get it checked out. If it’s nothing, that’s best, and we’ll all be relieved. But if there is something, we can find it early.” I looked into her worried eyes and nodded. After leaving Chloe, I walked aimlessly down the street alone. Her words echoed repeatedly in my mind: “You look like you’ve been chronically ill or on heavy medication.” I walked into a nearby drugstore. Inside, there was a large mirror. I went to the mirror and carefully examined myself. The woman in the reflection had a sallow complexion, pale lips, and eyes that couldn’t hide the fatigue and dark circles. Was this really me? Scarlett, who was cherished by her husband and lived a happy life? I took out my phone and scrolled through old photos. A year ago, even two years ago, the me in the pictures had rosy cheeks and a vibrant spirit. When did I become like this? My heart sank a little more. When I got home, Julian had already made dinner. A perfectly balanced meal with several dishes, all my favorites, blending nutrition and taste. “Darling, you’re back! Go wash your hands and eat,” he said, wearing an apron, bringing out the last bowl of soup from the kitchen, his smile gentle. I looked at him, a flood of conflicting emotions swirling inside me. Did I really have to suspect him? The person who was supposedly the best to me in the whole world? Perhaps Chloe was just being overly sensitive. “What’s wrong? Why are you standing there?” Julian walked over to me, reaching out to check my forehead. “Are you not feeling well?” “No, just a little tired,” I forced a smile, subtly avoiding his touch. During dinner, I was preoccupied. Julian, as usual, served me food, reminding me to eat more. “Eat more of this broccoli, it’s good for vitamins. And this fish, it’s great for your skin.” I looked at the food in my bowl and suddenly felt a wave of nausea. That night, before bed, Julian came in with water and the pill organizer again. “Darling, it’s time for your last supplements of the day.” He skillfully opened the box, poured out a few capsules and tablets, and held them out to me. I stared at the pills in his palm, just like I had for over a thousand days and nights. Only this time, I didn’t take them immediately. “What are these?” I asked. “The usual, darling. Vitamin C, grape seed extract, and melatonin to help you sleep,” Julian’s tone was natural, betraying no hint of anything unusual. I stared at the pills, a voice screamed in my head: Don’t take them! I took the pills, pretending to drink water, and when he wasn’t looking, I hid them under my tongue. Then I took a big gulp of water and tilted my head back, mimicking a swallow. “There, now get some rest,” he smiled contentedly, leaning down to kiss my forehead. Once he was sound asleep, I quietly got up and went to the bathroom, spitting the pills onto a tissue from under my tongue. There were three in total: one white, one yellow, and one clear capsule. I carefully wrapped them up and tucked them into a hidden pocket in my makeup bag. After doing all this, I lay back in bed, looking at my sleeping husband, spending a sleepless night. Once the seed of doubt is planted, it grows wildly.

The next day, I called in sick to work. Julian left early; he had an important academic conference to attend. As soon as he left, I immediately hailed a cab to the biggest, most reputable hospital in the city. I registered for appointments in both gynecology and endocrinology. Sitting in the waiting area, my palms were sweating. I was scared — scared of a bad diagnosis, and also scared of finding nothing, which would make me seem overly suspicious and foolish. “Scarlett.” When my name was called, I took a deep breath and walked in. The doctor was a kind-looking female specialist in her fifties. She asked about my general condition, and I answered each question. “Doctor, I’ve mainly been feeling extremely tired lately, my complexion is terrible, and my hands and feet are always cold,” I tried to keep my voice calm. The doctor nodded and ordered a series of tests for me. “First, let’s do a full hormone panel and thyroid function tests, and also a comprehensive pelvic ultrasound.” Blood tests, urine tests, ultrasound. I spent the entire morning moving between various departments at the hospital. The wait for results was agonizingly long. I sat on a hospital bench, watching people come and go, feeling completely lost. If Julian really had a problem, what would I do? Were our three years of marriage nothing but a deception? In the afternoon, the test results gradually came in. I walked back into the specialist’s office, clutching a stack of reports. The doctor flipped through them, one by one, her brow furrowing deeper and deeper. My heart was in my throat. “Doctor, how is it?” I asked softly. She looked up, her expression serious. “Your endocrine system is severely out of balance. Estrogen levels are abnormally low, and follicle-stimulating hormone is unusually high. These indicators are not typical for someone your age.” “What… what does that mean?” I was utterly confused. “Simply put, your ovarian function is declining, and it’s declining very rapidly.” The doctor’s words were like a heavy hammer, striking my heart. “How can this be? I’m only 28.” “There are many reasons for this condition, such as autoimmune diseases or genetic factors. But judging from your reports, I lean more towards one possibility.” The doctor paused, looking into my eyes, and asked, word for word, “Have you been taking any medication long-term recently?” The exact same question as Chloe. My blood ran cold. “I… I only take the vitamins my husband gives me,” my voice trembled. “What does your husband do?” “He’s a renowned nutritionist.” The doctor’s gaze became somewhat complex. She pushed up her glasses. “Prescribed by a nutritionist? What exactly has he been giving you?” “Just some vitamins, grape seed, fish oil, things like that,” I said, taking out the pills I’d hidden last night from my bag. “Doctor, could you please tell me what these are?” The doctor took the pills I had wrapped in tissue paper and held them under the light, examining them carefully. She was very thorough, even using tweezers to pick up one of the white tablets and hold it against the light. “Just by appearance, I can’t be sure what these are. This clear capsule contains powder, the yellow one looks like ordinary Vitamin B, but this white tablet has no markings. It doesn’t look like a legitimate health supplement from a reputable manufacturer.” She handed the pills back to me, her tone becoming even graver. “I recommend you take these to a professional drug testing facility to analyze their components.” “Doctor, if… if I’ve been taking drugs that cause ovarian decline long-term, what would be the consequences?” I asked, clinging to a last shred of hope. “Consequences?” The doctor looked at me, her eyes filled with sympathy. “The most direct consequences would be irregular periods, premature menopause, and ultimately… infertility.” Infertility. Those two words exploded in my mind like a thunderclap. I understood everything in that instant. Julian and I had been married for three years and hadn’t had children. I thought it was because we were busy with work and under a lot of stress. Julian always comforted me, saying we should let nature take its course, and that he didn’t care about having children as long as I was healthy. Turns out, it wasn’t that we couldn’t have children. It was him. He had been preventing me from having children all along. I don’t know how I walked out of the hospital. The sunlight outside was blinding, but I felt utterly cold. I hailed a cab home and locked myself in my room. I replayed every little detail of the past three years. His meticulous care, his gentle and thoughtful words — they all became the most malicious mockery now. He was “regulating” my body. Yes, regulating it into a barren wreck. Why? Why would he do this to me? I covered my face, finally breaking down and sobbing uncontrollably. This seemingly perfect marriage had been a meticulously planned conspiracy from the very beginning. And I was the most foolish prey, willingly walking into the cage he had woven for me.

After crying for a long time, I wiped away my tears. Now was not the time for weakness. I had to find out why he did this. I also needed the most direct evidence. The doctor was right; I needed to get those “vitamins” tested. I opened the elegant pill organizer Julian had prepared for me. It was divided into seven small compartments, labeled Monday to Sunday. Each compartment was filled with colorful pills. I counted them; he made me take nearly ten pills every morning, noon, and night. For three whole years, how much of this unknown medication had I actually consumed? A wave of nausea and fear washed over me. I took a few pills from each compartment, especially the white tablets with no markings. I sorted them into sealed bags, labeling each one. After doing all this, I started planning my next step. Going directly to a testing facility with these things was too risky. If Julian found out, he would become alarmed. I needed a foolproof excuse to leave home for a few days. The next day, I told Julian that my company was sending me to a neighboring city for a three-day training session. “So sudden?” He seemed surprised. “Yes, it was a last-minute notification for a very important project,” I said, looking down, afraid to meet his eyes. “Three days? Remember to take your supplements on time; I’ll pack them for you to take,” he said, getting up to retrieve my suitcase. Watching his busy back, my heart was filled with nothing but cold hatred. He was still acting. Still playing the role of the loving husband who adored me. “Okay,” I replied calmly. He neatly folded my clothes and placed the pre-portioned pill organizer in the most conspicuous spot in my suitcase. “Darling, take care of yourself while you’re away. Make sure you eat three meals a day on time, okay?” He hugged me, whispering the reminder into my ear. I remained stiff in his embrace, but inside, I scoffed. Take care of myself? I listened to you too much, and now look at the mess I am. I didn’t go to the neighboring city. I hauled my suitcase and checked into a hotel in the city. The first thing I did after checking in was to search online for professional drug testing facilities. I found one that seemed the most authoritative and discreet and called them. The staff on the phone was very professional. He told me that personal submissions required samples and detailed requests, the fees were not low, and it would take time. “I need it expedited, cost is not an issue,” I said. “For expedited service, the fastest we can provide preliminary results is 48 hours.” “That works.” After hanging up, I immediately hailed a cab to the testing facility. It was a secluded campus with very strict security. I handed over the prepared samples to the staff and filled out the request form in detail. I asked them to perform a comprehensive analysis of the components of each pill, especially the white tablet. After paying the hefty expedited fee, I walked out of the testing facility, feeling a little calmer. Now, I just had to wait. Wait for the results that would pronounce the death sentence on my marriage. The two days in the hotel crawled by like years. I didn’t dare turn on my phone, afraid of receiving Julian’s calls. I didn’t know what tone or expression to use to face him. I replayed the doctor’s words over and over: ovarian function decline, ultimately leading to infertility. I asked myself, over and over, why. Our families were well-matched, our jobs respectable, so it wasn’t possible he was after my money. Our relationship had always seemed good, at least on the surface. He had no reason to hate me enough to destroy me this way. I couldn’t figure it out. There had to be a more terrifying secret behind all this that I didn’t know. On the morning of the third day, I received a call from the testing facility. “Is this Ms. Scarlett? Your sample test has preliminary results. You can pick up the report, or we can send you an electronic copy.” “Please email it to me,” my voice was hoarse. After hanging up, I opened my laptop, my hands trembling so much I could barely hold the mouse. The email arrived quickly. I clicked on the PDF file. The screen was filled with dense chemical names I couldn’t understand. I scrolled directly to the bottom, to the conclusion section. “…Among the submitted samples, the main component of the white tablet labeled A1 is Spironolactone…” Spironolactone. What was that? I immediately searched for the term online. The moment the search results appeared, my breathing stopped. Spironolactone, also known as Aldactone, is a synthetic steroid. Clinically used as a diuretic, but it has a very strong side effect—anti-androgenic action. Additionally, in some illegal uses, it’s used as a component in long-acting contraceptives. Long-term use can severely interfere with the female endocrine system, inhibit ovulation, and even cause irreversible endometrial damage. To put it more bluntly, it was a sterilizing drug. My husband, the man who told me every day, “Darling, your health is paramount,” had been feeding me sterilizing drugs with his own hands. My world, in that moment, completely collapsed. I looked at the words on the computer screen and laughed. I laughed, and then the tears streamed down. So that was it. All that gentle care for three years was just a sugar coating wrapped around poison. Julian, you truly have a cruel heart.

I walked home like a ghost, clutching the lab report. Pushing open the door, Julian was sitting on the sofa, reading. Seeing me, he immediately put down his book and came over. “Darling, you’re back! Was the training tiring? You don’t look so good.” He reached out to embrace me. I took a step back, avoiding him. His smile froze for a moment; he looked at me, confused. “What’s wrong?” I didn’t speak. I just walked up to him and threw the printed lab report onto the coffee table in front of him. “Julian, explain this to me. What is this?” He picked up the paper. The moment his eyes landed on the words “Spironolactone,” his face instantly turned ashen. His hands began to tremble, his lips quivered, unable to utter a single word. The shock and panic on his face didn’t seem feigned. This made me even more confused. If this was his meticulously planned conspiracy, he shouldn’t be so distraught. “You… how did you find this out?” He finally found his voice, but it was filled with terror. “Don’t worry about how I found out,” my voice was as cold as ice. “You just need to tell me why. Why were you feeding me this? For three years of marriage, you’ve been feeding me sterilizing drugs every day. Why?” I expected him to argue, to deny it. But he didn’t. He looked at me, his eyes filling with pain and despair, and then, he did something I never would have expected. He dropped to his knees in front of me with a thud. A man over six feet tall, kneeling on the floor without an ounce of dignity, clutching my pants leg, sobbing uncontrollably. “Darling, I’m so sorry, I failed you…” He cried hysterically, like a guilty child. I was stunned by his sudden action. What was this? Repentance? “Get up! Don’t put on an act here!” I angrily tried to shake him off, but he held on tight. “I won’t get up! Darling, please listen to me, it’s not what you think!” He looked up, his face tear-streaked. “I did all this for your own good!” “For my good?” I let out a bitter laugh. “You fed me sterilizing drugs and claim it was for my good? Julian, do you take me for a fool?” “It’s true!” He wailed. “Darling, I… I have a disease, a family genetic condition!” My heart suddenly skipped a beat. A genetic condition? “The men in my family, none of them live past forty. It’s a rare neurodegenerative disease. When it flares up, you become completely paralyzed, lose all sensation, and eventually die in agony. My father had it, and my grandfather had it too…” He choked, almost unable to continue. “I love you, I love you so much, Scarlett. I couldn’t let you bear the pain of giving birth to a child, only to watch them suffer the same fate as me. I also couldn’t bear for you to lose your husband in middle age and struggle to live alone with a sick child.” “So, I could only use this method. I didn’t want you to get pregnant, I didn’t want us to have children. I fed you the medication because I wanted you to never experience the agony of seeing a child suffer.” His voice was filled with sorrow and helplessness, every word like a knife piercing my heart. He sounded so sincere, so heartbroken, I almost believed him. “Then why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I demanded, though my voice softened. “How could I say it?” He gave a self-deprecating laugh, tears flowing even harder. “Tell you I’m a dying man? Tell you our marriage was doomed to be a tragedy from the start? I couldn’t! I was afraid you’d leave me. I was selfish, I wanted you by my side, even if only for a few short years.” He got up from the floor, took a medical record file from his study drawer, and handed it to me. “This is my medical record, and my father’s and grandfather’s death certificates. I didn’t lie to you.” My hands trembled as I took the file. Opening it, I saw a series of complex medical reports and diagnostic papers. The diagnosis section clearly read: Hereditary Sensorimotor Neuropathy. Attached were his father’s and grandfather’s medical records, with the same disease listed as the cause of death. My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the couch. So, all of this wasn’t betrayal, but a man’s deep and twisted love? To spare me future pain, he chose this method, preemptively robbing me of my right to be a mother? I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. “Darling, I’m so sorry…” Julian knelt before me, carefully taking my hand. “I know I was wrong, terribly wrong. I should have told you everything sooner. But I truly just didn’t want you to suffer. Hit me, curse me, do anything you want, just don’t leave me, please?” My mind was a tangled mess. Hatred was replaced by an overwhelming sense of grief and absurdity. If what he said was true, how was I supposed to face him? This man who used the cruelest method to “protect” me. I looked at his tear-reddened eyes, at his face full of pleading and remorse. I pulled my hand away and stood up. “Julian, I need to be alone.” I locked myself in the room. I slid down the door to the floor, clutching the “medical record.” My mind was blank. Should I believe him?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “413768”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

“Dad, when is that awful woman leaving? I don’t want to call her Mom anymore. I want my real mom.” Those were the words from the son I had raised for five years. Clutching my first-place trophy from the Paris International Jewelry Design Competition, I stood at the entrance of my own living room, watching my husband embrace another woman. “Once she finishes all your designs for next season and helps you truly establish yourself in New York, I’ll send her away.” He kissed the woman’s fingertips. “Seraphina is nothing more than a useful tool. A free nanny.” The trophy slipped from my grasp. That dull thud shattered all the dreams of the past five years. He never loved me. I wiped away my tears and dialed a number I had not dared to call in five years. “I want to come home.” They thought I was a helpless orphan. They did not know that Jasper Clarke, the elder brother of the powerful Clarke family in Los Angeles, had been waiting for that call for five long years. Seraphina POV The plane landed in New York, a biting chill seeping through the early autumn night air. I clutched the first-place trophy from the Paris International Jewelry Design Competition, my heart full of joy as I pushed open the door to our mansion in the exclusive hillside community. I had intentionally changed my flight, ending my trip fifteen hours early, just to surprise Ethan Thorne. After half a month apart, longing had grown like a wild vine, burning me. It wrapped around every breath I took. The living room was brightly lit, but it wasn’t the quiet I had expected. “Dad, when is that mean lady leaving? I don’t want to call her Mom anymore. I want my real mom.” The innocent child’s voice hit me like a dull, heavy hammer. That was Leo, the son I had raised for five years. Five years ago, Ethan brought baby Leo home, covered in blood, his eyes red-rimmed. He told me Leo was the last living relative of a close friend who had died in a tragic accident. My heart ached for Ethan, and even more for the crying infant in his arms. I took the child without hesitation and raised him as my own. For five years, I spent countless sleepless nights when Leo had asthma attacks. To care for him, I even put my jewelry design career, the thing I loved most, on hold for a time. But now, this child I had poured my heart into was calling me an awful woman? I froze in the shadow of the doorway, my gaze fixed on the center of the living room, past the open door. On the leather sofa, Ethan had a slender, beautiful woman in his arms. Leo was nestled in her lap. They looked so happy. “Soon,” Ethan’s voice was low, tinged with a tenderness I’d never heard directed at me. “Once she finishes all your designs for next season and helps you truly establish yourself in New York, I’ll send her away.” The woman chuckled softly, her fair fingers stroking Ethan’s stern face. “Ethan, is there truly no affection left for Seraphina? She did raise the child for five years and created designs for me all this time. People will call you heartless if this gets out.” “Elara, you’re my only priority.” Ethan took her hand, kissed it, his voice resolute and cruel. “Seraphina is nothing more than a useful tool. A free nanny. If you hadn’t insisted on going to Paris for advanced studies back then, how would she ever have taken the position of Mrs. Thorne?” The trophy slipped from my grasp. With a dull thud, the pure gold trophy hit the thick, handmade rug, rolled twice, and bumped against the edge of the table. That faint sound, in the dead silence of the living room, exploded like thunder. All three on the sofa turned their heads at once. A fleeting look of surprise flickered in Ethan’s eyes, but it vanished instantly, replaced by chilling composure and indifference. He released Elara, calmly stood up, and straightened the hem of his custom-tailored suit, as if the dirty betrayal he’d been caught in was an insignificant matter. “Weren’t you supposed to be on tomorrow afternoon’s flight?” His tone was flat, even carrying a hint of annoyance at being disturbed. I trembled all over, my nails digging into my palms. The sharp pain barely held onto my wavering sanity. “So, Leo isn’t the orphan of a good friend at all, but your and Elara’s biological son?” I stared into Ethan’s deep eyes, my voice hoarse as if I’d swallowed coarse sand.

Seraphina POV Ethan frowned slightly, seemingly quite annoyed by my questioning. “Yes.” He admitted it without evasion, looking down at me haughtily. “Since you’ve heard it all, I no longer need to waste words hiding it from you.” The cruel truth became countless sharp blades, tearing my heart to shreds. Five years! My husband, whom I had deeply loved for five years, and my son, whom I cherished as a treasure, were all a lie! What I thought was mutual love and sincere affection was nothing but a long-planned scheme and exploitation. Elara stood up, subtly leaning back into Ethan, her eyes shimmering as she looked at me, appearing utterly pitiful. “Seraphina, don’t blame Ethan. I was the one who insisted on leaving back then. He only resorted to marrying you to protect Leo. Don’t worry, I won’t ruin your marriage. All I want is Leo.” “Shut up!” I sharply interrupted her, my eyes bloodshot. I pointed to the door. “This is my home! Get out, and take your fake sincerity with you!” The words had barely left my lips when Leo rushed over like a protective little animal, pushing me hard. “Don’t you dare yell at my mom! You ugly freak, you get out of my house!” Caught off guard, I stumbled back half a step, my lower back hitting hard against the corner of a cabinet by the door. I gasped in pain. I stared in disbelief at the hostile little boy before me. This was the child I had cared for through countless sleepless nights, the one I had held in my arms when he had a fever, not daring to close my eyes. Could a blood tie really erase five years of shared life so easily? Ethan stepped forward, shielding Leo behind him, his eyes as cold as ice, as if I were some detestable criminal. “Seraphina, watch your attitude. Elara isn’t well; she can’t handle any stress.” I laughed in anger, tears streaming silently down my pale cheeks. “She can’t handle stress, but what about me?” I pounded my chest, my voice raw with agony. “Ethan, for these five years, I stood by you, from being the unfavored son of the Thorne family to becoming the heir of Thorne Group today. I put all my design passion, all my talent, under Elara’s name, helping you pave the way for her. I gave my whole heart to you and your son. Is this how you repay me?” Ethan’s eyes were as hard as steel, completely unfazed. “Just tell me what compensation you want. Money, a downtown property, or shares in Thorne Corp. I can give you all of it.” His tone was condescending, as if he were shooing away a beggar. “As long as you cooperate and publicly claim that all those designs were Elara’s inspiration, you can keep the title of Mrs. Thorne. As long as you stay in your place, there will always be a spot for you in the Thorne family.” I looked at this man, both familiar and strange, and felt a wave of nausea. I once believed that Ethan was the man who loved me most in the world. In the dead of winter, if I casually mentioned a craving for tiramisu from a specific bakery, he’d drive across half of New York to get it. When I hit a design block and felt anxious, he’d hold me all night, comforting me. It turned out all that deep affection was a disguise, all that favoritism a mere chip to pave the way for another woman. I took a deep breath, pushing down all the brokenness and despair in my eyes, and straightened my spine. “Ethan, we’re getting a divorce.”

Seraphina POV “Divorce?” Ethan looked as if he had heard a ridiculous joke, a sneer of contempt appearing between his brows. He strode forward, closing in on me, his tall frame casting me in his shadow. “Seraphina, stop making a scene.” He looked down at me, his tone carrying the arrogance of someone used to getting what he wanted. “You won an award in Paris this time. Tomorrow, I’ll have the PR department release a statement giving the credit to Elara’s studio. As compensation, I’ll give you whatever you want. A limited edition couture dress? The mansion on the east side? I’ll make it happen.” His casual tone made it sound as if the heartbreaking betrayal that had just happened meant nothing. As if I were nothing more than a pet needing a treat to be quiet. I lifted my head, my bloodshot eyes filled with stubbornness and resolve. I gritted my teeth and repeated, “I said, I want a divorce. Ethan, are you deaf?” Ethan’s eyes darkened abruptly, the temperature around him instantly dropping to freezing point. “Seraphina, I advise you to face reality.” He slipped one hand into his pants pocket, his voice cold and unforgiving. “I’m giving you two choices.” “First, continue to be Mrs. Thorne obediently. Under the protection of Thorne Group, you can enjoy endless wealth and luxury. But you must accept Elara and Leo moving in, continue to be Elara’s shadow designer, and not question my private life.” “Second, leave the Thorne family now. The consequence is that you will leave empty-handed, and all bank accounts under your name will be frozen. I will have the entire New York design community blacklist you, and you will find it impossible to get by in this industry, unable to even make a living.” He leaned in slightly, his warm breath fanning my ear, but his words were like a serpent’s hiss. “So, do you still want a divorce?” Elara stood not far away, a secretive smirk playing on her lips. “Seraphina, Ethan is doing this for your own good. Where can a helpless orphan like you go if you leave the Thorne family? As long as you’re willing to stay, we can still be one big happy family.” One big happy family? That term was the greatest insult to me. I stared intensely at Ethan’s incredibly handsome face, the tearing pain in my heart making me momentarily disoriented. I suddenly remembered that snowy day five years ago. Back then, Ethan had just taken over Thorne Corp., facing enemies on all sides. To secure investment, he stood in the snow for an entire night. It was I who took all my savings, even sold my mother’s keepsakes, to help him through his toughest time. That day, he knelt in the snow, slipped a plain ring he had personally polished onto my ring finger, and swore with red-rimmed eyes, “Seraphina, my life is yours. As long as I live, I will never let you suffer any injustice.” But now, the man who swore never to let me suffer was holding a knife, carving into my flesh, piece by piece. Five years of marriage, five years of giving my all, only to be called a “free nanny.” I closed my eyes, completely extinguishing the last flicker of weakness. When I opened them again, my gaze was as clear and cold as water, devoid of any love. “No need to choose.” I took a step back, widening the distance between us. “I find it disgusting.” Ethan’s face instantly turned ashen, a vein throbbing faintly on his temple. “Fine, very good.” He laughed in anger, his eyes glinting with terrifying malice. “Since you’re so ungrateful, don’t blame me for being ruthless.” He turned and walked to his study, retrieving a pre-drafted divorce agreement and slamming it onto the table. “Sign it. I’d like to see how long you can remain so stubborn once you leave the Thorne family!” Without hesitation, I walked over, picked up the pen, and decisively signed my name in the signature space. I tossed the pen down and coldly looked at Ethan. “Ethan, from today on, you and I have no connection whatsoever. What you owe me, one day, I will make you spit it out, principal and interest.” Ethan scoffed. “Big words. I’ll be waiting for the day you come crying, begging me to take you back.” “Alfred!” Ethan barked, his voice sharp. “Watch her pack her things. Aside from the junk she brought herself, she’s not allowed to take anything from the Thorne house!” With that, he put his arm around Elara’s shoulders and, with Leo, went upstairs without a backward glance, as if even a second look at me was too much. In the vast living room, I stood alone. I straightened my spine and walked towards the bedroom I had personally decorated, filled with five years of memories. It was fine. I, Seraphina Clarke, was never a helpless orphan to be slaughtered at will.

Seraphina POV In the bedroom, I numbly stuffed my clothes into a suitcase. I didn’t even glance at the expensive jewelry or couture gowns Ethan had bought me. I only took the few old clothes I had brought with me, and a few worn design sketches. Footsteps sounded outside the door. “Mean lady, are you stealing our family’s stuff?” Leo stood at the doorway, clutching a Transformer toy, glaring at me with suspicion. My hands paused as I packed, and I turned to look at the child I had cherished for five years. Once, if Leo so much as coughed, I’d be too anxious to sleep all night. To help him with his health, I’d scoured medical books and personally brewed herbal remedies, burning my fingers with countless blisters. But now, the defensiveness and disgust in his eyes were like a rusty, dull knife, repeatedly cutting at my heart. “I’m not stealing anything.” My voice was flat and emotionless. “Once I have my things, I’ll leave.” But Leo was relentless. He rushed into the room and snatched the jewelry box from my bedside table. It was my mother’s only keepsake, a delicate antique pocket watch. “My dad bought this! You’re not allowed to take it!” Leo screamed, throwing the jewelry box hard onto the floor. “Stop it!” I cried out, lunging to catch it, but I was too late. With a sharp crack, the jewelry box flew open, and the delicate pocket watch shattered into several pieces. I froze, my mind blank. I tremblingly reached out to pick up the fragments, but my fingertip was sliced by a sharp metal edge. Blood instantly welled up, dripping onto the pristine white rug, a shocking sight. “Oh, Leo, how could you be so clumsy?” Elara’s voice came from the doorway. She walked in on high heels, glanced at the broken pocket watch on the floor, and a barely concealed sneer played on her lips. She stepped forward, her slender high heel seemingly accidentally treading on a larger piece of the watch, grinding it with force. “Seraphina, I’m so sorry. Leo is still little; he doesn’t know any better. You’re an adult, surely you wouldn’t hold it against a four-year-old child, would you?” Elara apologized falsely, her voice full of provocation. I suddenly looked up, my eyes red, staring at Elara. I stood up abruptly, raising my hand to slap her. “Stop it!” A sharp male voice suddenly rang out. Ethan strode in, seizing my wrist. His grip was so strong it felt like my bones would shatter. “Seraphina, are you insane? How dare you cause a scene in the Thorne house?” Seeing this, Leo immediately burst into tears, clinging to Elara. “Mommy, I’m scared! The mean lady wants to hit me!” Elara hugged Leo tightly, her eyes slightly red, looking utterly wronged. “Ethan, don’t blame Seraphina. It’s all Leo’s fault for accidentally breaking her thing. But… but Leo is your own flesh and blood, how could she be so harsh?” Ethan’s face was utterly grim. He looked at my bleeding fingers, his eyes completely devoid of pity, only profound disgust. “It’s just a cheap old pocket watch, it’s not worth anything! I’ll buy you ten better ones.” Ethan coldly flung my hand away. “Apologize to Elara and Leo immediately!” I stumbled, my back hitting the wardrobe. I looked at my husband, who was protecting another woman and child, listening to him disparage my mother’s keepsake as a “cheap old pocket watch.” I suddenly burst into laughter. My laughter grew louder, but tears streamed from my eyes. “Ethan, you want me to apologize to a little bastard who smashed my mother’s keepsake? You’re dreaming!” Slap! Ethan raised his hand without hesitation, delivering a resounding slap across my face. My head snapped to the side, and five distinct red marks instantly appeared on my pale cheek. A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of my mouth. The entire room fell into a deathly silence. Ethan’s hand froze in mid-air, a flicker of panic in his eyes that even he might not have noticed. But he quickly suppressed that emotion, replacing it with a cold, stern expression. “Seraphina, this is to teach you manners. In this house, Elara and Leo are the masters.” I slowly turned my head, raising the back of my hand to wipe the blood from my mouth. My eyes were completely dead, like a stagnant pool that stirred no ripples. “Ethan, this slap has severed the last shred of affection between us.” Without another glance at the broken pocket watch on the floor, I picked up the suitcase filled with old clothes, straightened my back, and walked out of the mansion without looking back. The night wind outside was cold, chilling my thin clothes. I looked back at the cage that had trapped me for five years, a cold smile curving my lips. The New York night was just beginning.

Seraphina POV I stayed at a cheap motel for a night. Early the next morning, I dragged my suitcase to my “Starlight” design studio, where I had poured countless hours of effort. However, as I reached the entrance, I froze. The “Starlight” sign that once hung there had been replaced by a brand new one: “Elara’s Radiance.” The studio’s glass doors were locked, and two burly security guards blocked the entrance. “Ms. Clarke, Mr. Thorne has instructed that you’ve been dismissed from the studio. Everything here now belongs to Ms. Vance, and you are not allowed to enter.” The security guard blocked me, his face expressionless. I was furious, but I laughed. “Dismissed? I’m the founder of this studio, and I’m the legal representative. On what grounds can he dismiss me?” “On the grounds that the initial funding for this studio came from Thorne Corp., and every client resource here was provided by Thorne Corp.” An arrogant female voice came from behind me. Elara Vance, flanked by several socialite friends, strolled over on high heels. She was wearing the latest couture trench coat that I had rushed to finish over three sleepless nights, looking utterly condescending. “Seraphina, Ethan said that since you left empty-handed, the studio naturally has to be reclaimed.” Elara walked up to me, lowering her voice to a volume only we two could hear, mocking me. “Did you really think you were some genius designer? If Ethan hadn’t promoted you, you wouldn’t have achieved anything. Now, everything you had is mine.” A socialite nearby scoffed, loudly echoing, “Exactly! A fake, she actually thought she was Mrs. Thorne? Now that the real owner is back, shouldn’t she hurry and leave?” “She occupied the position of Mrs. Thorne for five years, truly shameless.” Facing their malicious taunts, I merely looked at Elara with cold eyes. “Elara Vance, aren’t you afraid of getting burned by stolen goods?” “You!” Elara’s face changed. She was about to erupt in anger but then, seeing past me, she instantly put on a wronged expression. “Ethan, look at her…” Ethan stepped out of a black Maybach, his perfectly tailored suit making him look tall and imposing. He strode to Elara’s side, shielding her, and his gaze swept over me, cold and sharp. “Seraphina, what are you doing here, causing a scene?” I looked at him, my voice clear and cold. “I’ve come to retrieve my design drafts.” “Those drafts are now assets of ‘Elara’s Radiance’.” Ethan refused without mercy. “Since you signed the divorce agreement, you should know the rules. Everything here belongs to Elara. Leave immediately.” I took a deep breath, suppressing the surging pain in my chest. “Fine, Ethan, you’re truly ruthless.” I turned to leave, but my phone rang abruptly at that moment. It was an international call from the Paris International Jewelry Design Competition organizing committee. I pressed the answer button. The person on the other end said, “Ms. Clarke, we regret to inform you that the committee has just received an anonymous complaint accusing your winning work, ‘Starlight,’ of plagiarizing Ms. Elara Vance’s discarded sketches. After initial verification, we will temporarily revoke your gold award and issue a public reprimand across the industry. You will be banned from participating in any international competitions for the next five years.” My phone slipped from my ear. I froze, all the blood in my body seemingly drained in an instant, as if I had fallen into an ice abyss. Plagiarism? ‘Starlight’ was my brainchild, the culmination of countless hours, like a mother carrying a child for ten months. Every line, every gem setting, was the crystallization of my dedication over countless days and nights. Now, it was being tainted with accusations of plagiarism? I suddenly turned my head, staring intently at Ethan. “Was it you?” My voice trembled, raw with despair. “Ethan, did you report me to the committee?” Ethan met my broken gaze, his eyes completely unfazed, chillingly calm. “Yes,” he said flatly. “Elara is about to negotiate a partnership with the international luxury brand V Group. She needs a prestigious international award to establish her status. The concept of ‘Starlight’ was originally inspired by her, so letting her have this award is what you owe her.” I felt my soul being completely torn apart at that moment. I looked at the man before me, feeling he was more terrifying than any demon from hell. He not only wanted to strip me of my marriage and my dignity but also to personally destroy the career and dreams I valued more than my life! “Ethan, you’re not even human!” I screamed, my eyes brimming with intense hatred. “To promote her, you’re willing to crush me into the mud, never to rise again?” Ethan frowned, seeming annoyed by my loss of control. “This is your own doing. If you had just behaved and not brought up divorce, things wouldn’t have escalated to this point.” He coldly delivered his final judgment. “Seraphina, in New York, if I say you’re guilty, you’re guilty. From today on, the design world will have no place for you.”

Seraphina POV That evening, in the ballroom of a top-tier Hilton Hotel in New York. It was a charity gala, gathering all the business elites and design gurus of New York. I wore a simple black dress, moving through the crowd. I needed investment, funding to rebuild my studio, and to clear my name from the plagiarism accusation. But every time I offered my business card, those CEOs who once greeted me with smiles now avoided me as if I were a demon. “Ms. Clarke, Mr. Thorne has already made it clear that anyone who works with you is opposing Thorne Group. We can’t afford to go against Thorne Corp.” “A plagiarizer dares to show her face here? Get out of here!” The mockery enveloped me like a tide. I clenched the business card in my hand, my knuckles white. Just then, the ballroom doors were respectfully pushed open by a waiter. All eyes instantly converged. Ethan, in a perfectly tailored custom suit, entered with Elara Vance on his arm, dressed to the nines. Elara wore a dazzling starry-blue gown, and around her long, elegant neck, she sported the brilliant necklace, ‘Starlight.’ That was my masterpiece. Ethan had once told me, “Seraphina, this necklace is the crystallization of your soul. I will lock it in the Thorne family’s safe as an eternal testament to our love, never letting anyone touch it.” Now, that necklace hung around another woman’s neck, a symbol for Elara to flaunt. I stood in the corner, watching them walk to the head table, the center of attention. My heart felt as if it was being crushed by an invisible hand, making it impossible to breathe. Elara’s gaze swept through the crowd, quickly locking onto me in the corner. A malicious smile played on her lips. She picked up a glass of red wine and sashayed over. “Well, well, isn’t this Seraphina? Why are you hiding by yourself? Can’t even afford to rent a decent gown?” Elara deliberately raised her voice, causing people around us to turn and look. I looked at her coldly. “Move.” “Still so temperamental.” Elara chuckled softly, then suddenly stumbled, causing the red wine glass in her hand to tilt. The crimson liquid spilled precisely onto Elara’s own diamond-encrusted high heels. “Ah!” Elara shrieked, instantly putting on a tearful expression. “Seraphina, I know you hate me for taking your award, but you can’t just throw red wine on me. These shoes were custom-made for me by Ethan from Italy…” A chorus of accusations immediately erupted around us. “This woman is so malicious!” “Plagiarizing someone else’s work is bad enough. Now she’s publicly throwing wine on someone? How uncivilized!” Ethan strode over, and seeing the wine stains on Elara’s dress and shoes, his face instantly turned ashen. “Seraphina, haven’t you caused enough trouble?” He pulled Elara behind him, his gaze piercing me sharply. I was speechless, but I straightened my spine, meeting his devouring gaze. “I didn’t throw it on her; she spilled it herself.” “You’re still lying!” Ethan was furious. “Elara is so frail, how would she spill it on herself? Seraphina, you’re truly disgustingly malicious!” He pointed to the high heels on Elara’s feet, issuing a cold command. “Get down immediately and clean Elara’s shoes. Otherwise, I guarantee you won’t leave this door tonight, and tomorrow you’ll be sent to jail for commercial fraud!” The mocking laughter intensified. I looked at Ethan’s cruel, emotionless face and suddenly felt an absurd sense of irony. The man I once loved so deeply now wanted me to publicly clean another woman’s shoes just to please her? The last flicker of light in my eyes completely died out. I didn’t cry. Instead, a smile curved my lips. I slowly crouched down. Under everyone’s scornful gazes, I took a tissue from a waiter’s tray and, bit by bit, wiped the red wine stains from Elara’s shoe. Elara looked down at me, her eyes full of a victor’s wild triumph. After wiping away the last speck of dirt, I stood up. I balled the wine-stained tissue and threw it hard at Ethan’s chest. “Ethan, these past five years, consider me blind.” With that, I didn’t bother looking at Ethan’s enraged face. I pushed through the crowd and walked out of the ballroom without looking back. Outside, a torrential rain had started at some point. I didn’t open an umbrella. My thin figure was instantly swallowed by the downpour. The cold rain lashed against me, but it was far less chilling than the cold in my heart.

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I sponsored a poverty-stricken student for seven years. He finally graduated. He sent me a message saying he wanted to come to my city to “repay” me. On the day we met, he handed me a ten-page “repayment list” detailing every expense his entire family would need for the foreseeable future — and demanded that I marry him on the spot. I frowned and refused. He grabbed my wrist, looked me dead in the eye, and said: “Leah, you’ve been investing in me for seven years. I’m the interest you’ve earned. It’s time to collect.” Aaron graduated. He messaged me while I was stuck in a long cross-department meeting. My phone lit up with a SnapChat notification. It was him: “Leah, I graduated. I’m coming to your city in June. You’ve supported me for seven years — I have to find a way to repay you.” I stared at the screen and felt a quiet warmth in my chest. Seven years ago, I had joined a nonprofit program and was matched one-on-one with Aaron, who was in high school at the time. His family had very little money, but his grades were exceptional. For seven years, we kept in touch through emails and the occasional phone call. I watched him grow from a shy, awkward teenager into someone who earned a spot at a top university and made it all the way to graduation. It was one of the most genuinely satisfying things I’d ever done. I typed back: “Congratulations. Have you lined up a job yet? Let me know if you need any help.” Aaron replied quickly: “I’ve got a few offers, actually. I’d love to talk it over with you in person. Can I take you to dinner? I want to thank you face to face.” I didn’t think much of it and said yes. We agreed to meet at a nice restaurant I liked — upscale, the kind of place with white tablecloths and a wine list. I thought it might be a new experience for someone just out of college. A small way to welcome him into the next chapter. I arrived a few minutes early and waited. Then a young man in a crisp white shirt walked through the door. He was tall and lean, with something still a little collegiate about his face — but his eyes were more complicated than I’d expected. He walked straight toward me with a practiced smile. “Leah.” This was the first time we had ever actually met. I stood and smiled back. “Aaron. Congratulations on graduating.” He seemed a little nervous, his eyes drifting around the restaurant, taking everything in. I invited him to sit and handed him a menu. He waved it off. “You order, Leah. I’m fine with anything.” I ordered for us both. After the server left, a brief silence settled over the table. I broke it: “So — have you figured out what you want to do about the job offers?” He reached into the briefcase he’d brought and pulled out a thick stack of papers. He set them on the table deliberately, then slid them toward me. “Leah, before we get to the job stuff — I want to talk about something else first. About repaying you.” I was a little surprised. I looked at the papers. “What is this?” “It’s my repayment plan. Take a look.” His expression was completely serious, and beneath it, something almost expectant. Puzzled, I picked it up. The title on the first page read: “Aaron’s Family Financial Plan — 30-Year Budget Projection.” I went still. I turned to the second page, and what I found there left me genuinely speechless. It was a detailed, itemized list: “1. Parents’ retirement support: $10,000 per month for 20 years. Total: $2,400,000.” “2. Brother’s wedding costs and down payment on a home: $880,000.” “3. Renovation of family home in hometown: $500,000.” “4. Family emergency medical fund: $1,000,000.” The list went on for ten full pages. Every item had a specific figure attached. The grand total at the end was a number I had to count the digits of twice before I could believe it. I felt something close to absurdity rising in my chest. I looked up at Aaron. “What exactly is this?” My voice had gone cold. He didn’t seem to notice the shift in my tone. He leaned forward, his eyes bright and intent. “This is my plan for repaying you. You supported me for seven years, so you’re my investor. Now I’ve graduated, which means it’s time for your return. All you have to do is marry me. Then I’m yours, and my future is yours. And naturally, you’d be responsible for everything on that list.” He said it the way someone states a mathematical fact. Like it was simply obvious. I stared at him and felt like I was looking at a stranger. This was the student I had sponsored for seven years? The one with the glowing grades and the grateful emails? “Marry you?” I repeated the words slowly, because hearing them out loud made them somehow even more unreal. He nodded, then reached into his pocket and produced a small jewelry box. He opened it. Inside was a plain silver ring. “Leah, marry me. I bought this with my first paycheck from my internship. I know it’s not much right now, but I promise — someday I’ll replace it with the most expensive ring in the world.” I looked at the ring and felt nothing but a deep, uncomfortable revulsion. I took a slow breath and worked to keep my voice even. “Aaron, I think there’s been a serious misunderstanding. I supported you because I believed in giving back — not because I was making an investment. I don’t want anything from you. And I am absolutely not going to marry you.” I slid the ridiculous list back across the table toward him. “Your life is yours to build. That’s something you do with your own effort, not by expecting someone else to fund it.” The expression on Aaron’s face changed. The smile dropped. In its place was something stubborn and genuinely confused. “Leah, how can you say that?” He shoved back from the table and stood up, grabbing my wrist with a grip that was startling in its force. A few heads in the restaurant turned toward us. I pulled against his hand. “Aaron. Let go of me.” He didn’t. He held tighter, and he looked at me like he had every right to. “Leah, you’ve been investing in me for seven years. I’m the interest you’ve earned. It’s time to collect.” His voice was low, but each word landed with the weight of a fist. A wave of nausea moved through me. Seven years of genuine care — and in his mind, it had always been a transaction with a price tag. My patience was gone. I wrenched my arm free, grabbed the “repayment list” off the table, and threw it directly at his face. Pages scattered across the floor. “Let me be very clear. I am not your investor. You are not my return on investment. Take your disgusting logic, and stay the hell away from me.” I picked up my bag and walked out. He said nothing as I left. Outside, the cold air hit my face. I barely felt it. There was nothing in my chest but a slow, burning fury. I felt like a complete fool.

I got home and dropped onto the couch, my thoughts a total mess. Aaron’s face — so calm, so entitled — kept replaying in my head. And that line: I’m the interest you’ve earned. I was furious. But underneath the anger was something worse: the hollow, aching feeling of being betrayed. I picked up my phone to block him on everything. Before I could, his messages started coming in. One after another, rapid-fire. “Why are you upset? What did I say wrong?” “If we get married, I give you everything I am — you handle our finances. Isn’t that fair?” “Is it because you think I’m poor? That you look down on my family?” “You’re a successful woman. Why can’t you accept a man who loves you and wants to give you everything?” “You supported me for seven years. Doesn’t that mean you had feelings for me all along? Now I’m here — why are you turning me away?” My hands were shaking by the time I finished reading. I couldn’t process it. He had a college degree. He had spent four years in higher education. And somehow he’d arrived at this worldview — this grotesque, shameless entitlement — and thought it made perfect sense. I didn’t respond. I blocked his SnapChat, his number, everything. I thought that would be the end of it. I was wrong. I had no idea what he was capable of. The next morning, I pulled up outside my office building and spotted a familiar figure near the entrance. Aaron was standing at the front door in the same white shirt, holding a cheap bouquet of roses, drawing stares from people heading in for the day. When he saw my car, he rushed toward it. I locked the doors and looked at him through the window. He knocked on the glass, his expression a carefully arranged mix of hurt and devotion. “Leah, why did you block me? Are you seriously that upset?” “I’m not giving up. I know you have feelings for me. I know it.” I had absolutely nothing to say to him. I drove down into the parking garage. By the time I reached my office, I could tell from the looks people were giving me that he’d been out there a while. A minute after I sat down, the front desk called. “Ms. Leah?” The receptionist sounded uncomfortable. “There’s a man downstairs — an Aaron? He says he’s your fiancé and he’s insisting on coming up.” “My fiancé.” I almost laughed out loud. “Tell him you’ve never seen me before. And if he keeps this up, call security and then the police.” I kept my voice flat and hung up. I sat at my desk and stared at my screen and got absolutely nothing done. At lunch I stayed in, had my assistant bring me something. I figured Aaron would get bored when no one engaged with him and eventually leave. He didn’t leave. That afternoon, my assistant knocked on my door, looking genuinely concerned. “Ms. Leah — you might want to come downstairs. The man from this morning… he’s gotten into some kind of confrontation in the lobby.” I got up and took the elevator down. Aaron was in the middle of the lobby, arguing with the head of building security. The roses he’d been carrying were now thoroughly crushed, but he was still clutching them. “Who gave you the right to keep me out? I’m here to pick up my fiancée after work! You’re interfering with our plans — do you have any idea what you’re doing?” There were people everywhere — our employees, people from other companies in the building. Everyone was watching. When Aaron saw me step out of the elevator, his face lit up and he broke away from the security guard. “Leah! You came down! They wouldn’t let me up to find you!” The way he said my name — familiar, affectionate, like we were already something — made my skin crawl. I stopped walking and looked at him without any warmth at all. “Aaron. What do you think you’re doing?” He held up the ruined flowers with an expression of wounded sincerity. “I’m here to walk you out. We agreed — I’m picking you up every day from now on, remember?” The murmuring around us got louder. I caught pieces of it — fiancé, cougar, toyboy. My face burned. I turned to the security team leader. “I don’t know this person. He has been disrupting normal business operations on this property. Please remove him immediately. If he resists, call the police.” The security team moved in to escort Aaron out. Aaron hadn’t expected me to be this direct. He started struggling, his voice rising. “Leah! You heartless woman! You led me on! You called me all the way out here and now you’re throwing me away like I’m nothing?” “You think I’m still that naive kid from seven years ago? I’m telling you — it’s not going to be that easy!” The things coming out of his mouth got uglier. I’d seen enough. I nodded at the security team leader. It took a few of them, but they got Aaron moving toward the exit. In the last moment before they pulled him through the doors, he turned back and looked at me. His eyes were full of poison. He said each word like he was carving it into stone. “Leah. You are going to regret this. If I don’t get to be happy — neither do you.” That threat lodged in my chest like a splinter. I knew right then that this was nowhere near over.

Aaron’s threat turned out to be a promise. That same night, unknown numbers started calling my phone. Texts full of insults and threats began flooding in. Aaron’s work, obviously. But I hadn’t yet understood how far he was willing to go. The next morning, a post appeared on a popular online forum. The title read: A Cry for Justice: Seven Years of Sacrifice, and a Poor Scholar Discarded Like Trash by a Wealthy Woman Who Used Him for Sport. The account that posted it claimed to be a “fellow villager” of Aaron’s. The writing was feverish and self-righteous — a modern retelling of the fable about the farmer and the snake. In this version, I was the villain: a bored, wealthy executive who had preyed on a young man’s emotions. Aaron was the tragic hero — lured in by my money and false affection, strung along for seven years with promises, then tossed aside the moment I grew tired of him. The post claimed that under the guise of charity, I had spent seven years “emotionally grooming” him. That I had fed him ideas about us being together after he graduated. That when he finally showed up, full of hope, I had coldly rejected him because I’d already found my next target. Photos were attached. A few from my Instagram — carefully selected to make me look flashy and superficial. And screenshots of our messages, cropped to suggest something they weren’t. For example: his message, “Leah, I’ve been missing you,” and my politely neutral reply, “Study hard. Take care of yourself.” Presented as evidence of a secret romantic relationship. Most damaging of all — he had included my company’s name and my job title. The post went viral within hours. It hit every nerve: resentment of wealth, class conflict, emotional exploitation, a struggling young man crushed by someone with power over him. Every outrage button got pushed at once. The comment section became an open season on me. “This Leah person is disgusting. She treated a real person’s feelings like a toy.” “Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you get to ruin someone’s life.” “Seven years. Seven years of that poor guy’s life. I can’t.” “Find out who she is. Let her feel what it’s like.” They did find out who I was. My phone number, my home address, everything — exposed and spread around within the day. My phone became unusable. Calls poured in constantly — harassment, threats, worse. The company was hit too. The PR line rang nonstop. The official Instagram account was buried in demands to fire me. The speed at which it escalated was something I had not been prepared for. The next morning, the CEO called me into his office. He set a printed media report on the desk in front of me. His face was tight. “Leah, this situation has done serious damage to the company’s reputation. The board has decided it’s best if you take a temporary leave of absence. Go home, take some time.” I looked at him. “Mr. Brown, this is defamation. Every word of it is a lie. I—” He raised a hand to stop me. “I’m not going to get into what’s true and what isn’t. What I know is that our stock price has already started reacting. Leah, handle your personal situation. Don’t let it become our problem any further.” Polite words. But the message was unmistakable. The company didn’t care about the truth. They cared about managing the story. And I was the piece being sacrificed to do that. I walked out of the CEO’s office with my suspension notice in hand. Down every hallway, people moved out of my path or found reasons to look the other way. Even the colleagues I’d always been friendly with acted like they didn’t know me. I went back to my office and packed up my things. Cyberbullying. Suspended from work. Abandoned by people I’d considered colleagues. Aaron had gotten exactly what he wanted. He’d used the most despicable tools available to him and dragged me down into chaos — and it had worked. I sat alone in my emptied office and stared out the window. Rage. Humiliation. Helplessness. Everything at once. It was the first time in my life I clearly understood: when someone has no floor to how low they’ll go, reason and restraint are weapons you can’t use. They don’t register as anything except weakness. My patience had run out. My goodwill had run out. And defending myself through the proper channels — the police, the lawyers — I knew what that would get me. A cyberbullying case is nearly impossible to move quickly. A cease-and-desist letter is just paper. Aaron was like a leech that had already latched on. You couldn’t fight him head-on without making things worse. So I stopped thinking about defense. I started thinking about something else. A plan began to take shape. I picked up my secondary phone and found Aaron’s contact. For the first time since my suspension, I reached out to him.

He picked up. His voice was warm with barely contained gloating. “Leah. What made you call? Finally come to your senses?” I didn’t take the bait. I let my voice go soft, tired, fragile. “Aaron. I got suspended.” Silence on the other end. Then a laugh he didn’t quite manage to suppress. “Is that so? What a shame. I did warn you not to push me.” “You win,” I said. “I can’t fight you. I give up.” Aaron was clearly enjoying every second of this. He took his time. “You’re surrendering now? A little late for that, isn’t it? Do you think your suspension makes up for what you put me through?” I let him have it. “I know. I know I was wrong. Aaron — can we meet? I want to apologize in person.” “Apologize?” He gave a short, cold laugh. “If apologies were enough, what would we need consequences for?” “I really mean it this time,” I said. I let a hint of tears into my voice. “Things online have gotten so big. My parents heard about everything. They were furious with me. They said I had no right to treat you the way I did.” I paused. “They want to meet you.” That was the bait. I felt the shift in him the moment the silence changed. “Your parents want to meet me?” “Yes.” I kept it vague, softened. “They think that… given everything that’s happened, maybe it makes sense to just — to go about this the way you wanted. They said they’d like to visit your family first. To pay their respects to your parents, make things official. Give everyone back home something to celebrate.” Everything I had said was precisely calibrated to land where I knew it would — his vanity and his family’s greed. Bringing home a wealthy city girl. Making it official in front of the whole village. That was Aaron’s dream of triumph, and I had just handed it to him. I could hear his breathing change on the other end of the line. “Really? Leah, you’re not messing with me?” “Why would I mess with you?” I let a tremor into my voice. “I’ve lost my job. My reputation is in pieces. If I don’t have you, what do I have left?” That did it. Every last shred of suspicion dissolved. “Okay! Yes! When are you coming? I’ll call my parents right now — they’ll want to get ready. We’ll give you the best welcome we possibly can!” “Next weekend,” I said. “I need a little time to put together some gifts.” “Perfect! I’ll be waiting! Leah — once you marry me, I promise I will spend my whole life making it up to you!” I ended the call. The fragile, defeated version of me I had been performing vanished the instant I lowered the phone. What was left was something quiet and very cold. Aaron. You wanted to see me ruined. Then I’m going to let you have your moment at the very top — before I pull the floor out from under you. I spent the next few days getting everything into position. First, I contacted a crisis communications firm with a strong on-the-ground execution team. I laid out the plan. They assessed it and confirmed it was workable. Then I met with my personal attorney and went through every legal angle, making sure every step I was about to take was clean. He drafted a formal legal notice and prepared a complete defamation lawsuit against Aaron — everything documented and ready to file. I also had my assistant put together the “gifts.” I bought dozens of the latest tablets to give out to the villagers as welcome presents. When everything was ready, I drove out to Aaron’s hometown on Saturday as planned, in the red sports car that had been specifically called out in his original post. It was a rural village a couple of hours out. By the time I reached the entrance to the village, the welcome party was already waiting. Aaron was in a brand-new suit, hair slicked back like a groom. His parents stood beside him — farmers who looked, in that moment, nearly incandescent with excitement and pride. The whole village had turned out to watch. When I stepped out of the car, Aaron moved immediately toward me, reaching for my hand. I stepped aside smoothly and handed him my keys instead. “Aaron — I brought some things for everyone in the village. They’re in the trunk. Can you have someone help hand them out?” He looked in the trunk, and his eyes went wide at the rows of tablets. “Leah, you didn’t have to do all this!” The gifts moved through the crowd quickly. The villagers lit up. Aaron’s parents held my hands and called me their dear daughter-in-law. Out in the courtyard, dozens of round tables had been set up. Aaron’s family’s modest two-story house had been strung with decorations for the occasion. Aaron and his father walked me around, introducing me to everyone with barely restrained pride. “This is my son’s future wife — she runs her own company in the city!” “Our Aaron is set for life now!” I smiled graciously through all of it and let them have their performance. The food came out. The drinks flowed. The mood rose to a full celebration. Then Aaron’s father climbed up onto a small raised platform that had been set up in the middle of the courtyard, took the microphone, and beamed out at the crowd. I knew exactly what was coming.

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My boyfriend Leon Finch was broke and cheating on me. I’d had enough. “You can’t even afford a house,” I snapped. “We’re done, you loser!” Leon blinked, then looked down. His voice was calm. “Okay.” I was still surprised by how easily he agreed when the comments suddenly appeared: [Niya is so stupid. Eve Anderson barely had to lift a finger and she’s already rushing to break up with Leon. Does she have any idea he’s actually the heir to a billion-dollar fortune?] [She dumps Leon, and the next day his biological parents find him and bring him home to inherit the family empire. She’s going to regret this so much.] [When Niya finds out she’s pregnant and tries to use the baby to force Leon into marrying her, she doesn’t even get to see his face before she gets hit by a car and dies. LOL.] I am Niya. And it turns out Leon wasn’t cheating. He’d been set up. Someone was deliberately trying to tear us apart. Leon looked at me, exhausted and at his wit’s end. “What do you want from me?” “What do I want?” I shot back, my voice cracking with rage. “I should be the one asking you that!” “I’ve stood by you through everything, and this is what you do behind my back. Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t wronged me?!” Leon stared at me with that infuriating expression, like I was throwing a tantrum over nothing. “I’m sorry, what exactly did I do behind your back?” “What did you do?” I laughed bitterly, grabbed his jacket off the chair, and dug into the pocket. I pulled out a red lace thong and threw it at his feet. “You better tell me who this belongs to, or we are not done here!” Leon looked down at it for a moment, then said with a completely straight face, “It’s not mine. I don’t have that kind of thing.” “…Are you serious right now?!” [Leon actually thought Niya was accusing him of wearing women’s underwear. It didn’t even occur to him that she thought he was cheating. His brain works in a completely different way.] [Leon is totally devoted to her. He genuinely didn’t think about cheating at all.] [That’s not the point though, is it? The point is Niya just blurted everything out. Can they even break up smoothly now?] Leon thought for a few seconds, and then it finally clicked. His expression shifted to something urgent. “I have no idea where that came from.” “I haven’t been near any other woman today. There’s no way I could have…” And then he slowed down. His eyes moved to me, and something changed in them. Suspicion. Cold distance. “I know things have been hard on you. If you want to break up, I won’t beg you to stay. But there’s no need to… do something like this.” It took me a second to understand what he was implying. I stared at him. “Do something like what?” Was he seriously suggesting I planted that underwear in his pocket and then pretended to find it? Leon closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were completely empty. “You’re young and pretty. You deserve better options. Let’s break up.” My eyes went wide. “What did you just say?” Leon looked away. His voice was steady. “Let’s break up.” My hand flew up before I could think. The slap landed hard across his face. I regretted it the second it happened. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Leon had already turned and walked away, his face completely unreadable. I was still burning with anger. “Fine! If you want to break up, then we’re done!” Leon’s steps faltered for just a moment. Then he walked faster, reached the front door, and slammed it shut behind him. I stared at the closed door. My nose stung. The tears came before I could stop them. [I thought Eve’s plan had failed, but somehow it all worked out in the end. What a twist!] [I mean, I kind of feel like what Eve did was wrong. Niya and Leon were happy together. She didn’t have to destroy that just to take his place.] [Are you forgetting that Eve was Leon’s actual fiancée? If Leon hadn’t been switched at birth, they would have been together all along.] [And Niya spent her last life making everyone miserable once she got pregnant with Leon’s baby. She went out of her way to provoke and humiliate Eve at every turn. Eve came back and got revenge. Seems fair to me.] Fine. It’s done. So what? I’m not going to fall apart over this.

That’s what I told myself. But it still hurt like hell. I went back to the bedroom and buried my face in the pillow and sobbed until I couldn’t breathe. I don’t know how long I cried. Then I heard the front door open. I stopped crying instantly and scrambled off the bed. I was halfway to the door before I made myself stop. Him coming back didn’t mean he was coming back to make up. He could just as easily be here to grab his things. The thought made it worse. I took a slow breath and tried to hold myself together. I turned to go back to the room. The bedroom door swung open from the other side. Leon stood in the doorway, looking unhappy and a little lost in that way that only made him more attractive. I forgot, for a second, to be heartbroken. Leon blinked. Then he held out a pizza box and two cups of coffee. “Eat something first. Then we can talk.” [I actually thought Leon was about to walk out for good. Turns out he just went downstairs, smoked a few cigarettes, and talked himself down.] [Leon has always been the responsible type. Niya doesn’t want to break up, and even if he’s upset with her right now, he’s not going to force the issue.] [It doesn’t matter. They’ll break up eventually.] I did my best to ignore the flood of spiteful comments and wiped my nose. “Okay.” I followed Leon into the living room. I sat down at the table and stared at nothing. He unpacked the food carefully, setting everything out. I looked up. “You’re not eating?” “Already ate,” Leon said flatly. I didn’t call him on the lie. I just put my head down and ate. Leon always reached for cigarettes when he was stressed. His hand found the pack, then stopped. He pushed it away. “You can smoke if you want,” I said. I hated the smell, which was why he never smoked in front of me. I used to take that for granted. I didn’t dare take it for granted anymore. “Don’t want to,” Leon said coldly. Fine. I didn’t push it. After a while, Leon spoke again, his voice slower, like he was thinking out loud. “I’ve been looking at the numbers. What I have right now is barely enough for a down payment on a small place.” “It wouldn’t be anything fancy. Old building, small square footage. But if you don’t mind, we could start there and trade up later.” I stopped chewing. Leon gave me a small, crooked smile. “Didn’t you always say the biggest dream of your life was to have a real home? Now you’re turning your nose up at square footage?” My throat tightened. Every wall I’d built up while he was gone came crashing down at once, and I burst into tears. Leon panicked immediately. “Okay, forget the small place, we’ll wait until we can afford something bigger—” That only made it worse. I cried harder. He looked more helpless by the second. I gave up trying to hold it together and threw my arms around him, crying against his chest. Leon held me tight and kept talking in a low, steady voice, over and over, patient in a way that broke me even more. “Hey. Don’t cry. We’re going to have that big house someday. I promise.” [She’s not completely unsympathetic, I guess. The reason she’s so fixated on having a home probably has everything to do with her childhood.] [Her sad backstory doesn’t justify the way she treated Leon and Eve. Let’s not make excuses for her.] [Exactly. She might seem pitiful right now, but the second a richer guy shows up, she’ll drop Leon without a second thought.]

When I was three, my parents separated. They both moved on quickly and started new families. For a while, I lived with my grandmother, and life was steady enough. But after she passed, I spent years being shuffled between relatives, sleeping in spare rooms and corners of houses that weren’t mine, constantly aware of how much I owed people just for being tolerated. That was my life, until I graduated college and met Leon. For the first time, things felt stable. I’d told him more than once that all I wanted, more than anything in the world, was a place that was truly mine. Buying a home in this city on two regular salaries wasn’t just difficult. It was almost impossible. I knew that. Leon knew that. I’ll admit that lately I’d let the housing thing consume me. But I never once thought about breaking up with Leon over it. I genuinely believed he had cheated on me. That’s why I said what I said. I was furious, and I reacted. And for the record — I don’t hold any bitterness toward the relatives who took me in. They weren’t my parents. They didn’t have to help me. That they did was already more than I had any right to expect. I cried for a long time before Leon finally calmed me down. He kissed my forehead gently and made a quiet promise. “Trust me. We’re going to have that house one day.” I pressed my face against his chest. “Yeah.” Leon pulled back just far enough to look at me, and then, without any warning, he kissed me. Things escalated quickly. We ended up in bed, and just before things went too far, his phone went off. We both froze. Leon grabbed it and checked the screen. A small frown crossed his face. “Who is it?” I asked. “My boss,” Leon said, sounding pained. “Probably another dinner thing.” I wasn’t happy about it either, but I gave him a nudge. “He doesn’t do this for just anyone. Go.” Leon’s situation with his adoptive parents had always been complicated. He’d been pushed out into the workforce before he even finished high school, expected to bring in money for the family. They’d taken from him for years. It wasn’t until he and I got together that he finally managed to put some distance between himself and their constant demands. Leon was sharp and a fast learner, but without the right credentials or connections, he’d been stuck. His current boss had built something from nothing, and he was willing to invest in Leon. The catch was late-night dinners and networking that bled into personal time. Leon rarely turned those down. I understood, and I supported it. He bit my shoulder lightly in frustration. “I’m coming back to deal with you later.” I kicked him in the shin. Leon laughed under his breath, pulled his clothes on fast, and was already on the phone with his boss as he walked out the door. After he left, it hit me. If Leon really is the heir to a billion-dollar empire, there’s no reason for him to keep playing nice with a small-time boss. But then again — I should probably act the same way I always have. If I suddenly start behaving differently, it’ll raise questions. Then another thought hit me. The comments mentioned I’d try to use a pregnancy to force Leon’s hand. Which meant I was probably already pregnant. I got dressed, walked to the pharmacy near our building, and bought three different brands of pregnancy tests. I used two of them. Both came back with two clear lines. So it was real. But would Leon’s parents accept me? If they didn’t, would he choose me anyway? And if he did, would he actually be in a position to fight them on it? I had no way of knowing. One step at a time. I was about to go to bed when the comments exploded. [Wait — Leon’s father is there too?! Is tonight actually the night Leon gets brought back into the family?] [It seems like it! Niya literally just broke up with him earlier and now — wait, didn’t they make up already? Was she supposed to stay broken up with him?] [Doesn’t matter. Leon’s already seen her true colors. In his heart, he’s probably already done with her.] Something cold settled in my chest.

I tried to reach Leon every way I could. Nothing went through. The comments went dark too. I paced the apartment in circles, wound tight with anxiety, and finally gave up and sat on the floor with my arms wrapped around myself, crying quietly. What was the worst case here? The worst case was exactly what the comments said. He’d decide I was shallow and materialistic, and cut me off completely. It wasn’t like he was going to have me killed. So why did it feel so terrifying? But then — what about the baby? Have it in secret and let the child spend their whole life as someone Leon never acknowledges? Or use the pregnancy to pressure him into paying me off? Some kind of deal where I disappear in exchange for enough money to last a lifetime? I didn’t think I could do either of those things. Which only left one option. Take care of it myself. Even though I’d already prepared myself for the worst, I couldn’t bring myself to act immediately. There was still some small part of me holding on to hope. So I waited. I told myself I was giving Leon time to finish whatever was happening with his family before reaching out. He never reached out. What I got instead was the news that Leon had hurt someone during a blackout and was facing serious time. His boss called me. He said Leon was looking at around ten years. He told me he felt terrible, and that he was giving me fifty thousand dollars as compensation. He said he hoped I’d wait for Leon. But the way he said it, the pauses, the careful phrasing — he was clearly telling me to take the money and go. I wasn’t planning to play along. Then the comments appeared: [If Niya’s smart, she takes the money and disappears. Otherwise Eve is not going to let this go.] [What can Eve actually do though? She can’t exactly have Niya killed.] [You seriously think the car accident in the original story was an accident? Ha.] Eve had money and power. What was I supposed to do? I took the fifty thousand and I left. I was on my way back to my hometown when something nagged at me. Something felt off. Eve had been through this all before. She knew about the baby. There was no reason she’d chase me out and leave the pregnancy untouched. It didn’t take long to figure out. Under normal circumstances, a woman like me — selfish, materialistic, no real attachment — would never keep the baby after Leon was arrested. Nobody would have to pressure me. I’d go straight to the clinic on my own. So if I didn’t do it voluntarily, what came next was probably a very carefully arranged accident. One that looked like bad luck. Fatal for two. I didn’t have a choice. If I wanted to survive, I had to do exactly what Eve expected. I had to be the woman they thought I was, and I had to end the pregnancy myself. I made the appointment. The morning of the procedure, I was sitting outside the operating room waiting to be called in when I felt it. A pressure. Like something dangerous pointed directly at me. I looked up. Leon was walking toward me. His face was dark. His eyes were red. How was he here? I scrambled to my feet, backing away without thinking. He kept coming, closing the distance, his voice shaking with controlled fury. “Niya. You couldn’t wait to take the money and run. And now you’re here to get rid of my child. Do you have even a shred of conscience left?” My back hit the wall. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I wanted to explain. I didn’t know where to start. [Eve is a genius. She engineered the whole thing — got Niya to take the money, run, and then show up here — so even if Leon still had feelings for her, there’s no coming back from this. Truly brutal.] [Exactly. Making Leon see her “true self” is so much better than anything physical. No laws broken, and Niya doesn’t become some tragic memory he can never get over.] — I thought Leon would be too angry to stop the procedure. He didn’t stop it. He reversed it. He said he wanted the baby born. Just not me. “Have the baby. I’ll give you ten million dollars. After that, we’re strangers.” I forced my face into something that looked like a smile and blinked the tears back. “Sure.” Ten million dollars. At my salary, I’d be working sixty years straight without spending a cent to save that much. Only a fool would say no. Leon looked angrier, his chest rising and falling hard. But he didn’t blow up.

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I’d worked for the Hainard family for ten years as their all-around house manager, pulling in fifty thousand a month. The first thing Laurie Hainard’s fiancée did after walking through the door — Laurie being the heir to the Hainard Group — was put me in my place. “A housekeeper making fifty grand? What did you do, put a spell on these people?” “Starting today, your salary drops to three thousand. You handle cleaning only. Everything else is none of your business.” The Hainard family said nothing. They just let her go at me. I didn’t argue. I smiled and signed the pay cut agreement. A few days later, the Hainard household completely fell apart. Laurie’s mother, Mrs. Hainard, had a depressive episode without my bedtime aromatherapy sessions and trashed the living room. Laurie’s father, Mr. Hainard, skipped the specialized meal plan I’d been managing for his gout and ended up in the emergency room. Laurie’s international video conference fell apart without me doing live interpretation, and he tanked a deal worth tens of millions. His fiancée came at me, furious. “Why did you stop doing your job?!” I held up the agreement. “A three-thousand-dollar cleaner clocks out when the floors are done.”

A stack of financial statements hit the table with a dull thud. “Brina, I went through the Hainard family’s old accounts. You’re a housekeeper pulling fifty thousand a month. Do you think that makes any sense from a market standpoint?” I looked up. Laurie’s fiancée, Anita Jones, stood with her arms crossed, eyes fixed on me. Rumor had it she had a master’s from Cambridge and was a high-level finance executive. I hadn’t expected her first move in the Hainard household to be going after me. “Miss Anita, my salary was set ten years ago by Laurie’s grandfather himself. That fifty thousand covers everything I do as a full-service house manager.” I kept my voice even. “Full-service house manager.” Anita let out a sharp laugh. “You mean a fancy maid. Pouring water, sweeping floors, cooking meals. You could hire someone off the street for three thousand and get the same thing. So what exactly justifies fifty?” I didn’t respond to her. I turned to Laurie instead. “Laurie, is this what you want too?” Laurie locked his phone screen and looked away. “Brina, Anita and I are getting married next month. She’ll be the lady of this house, and it makes sense for her to take over managing things. The business hasn’t been doing great lately and the household expenses are high. I hope you can be understanding.” Mrs. Hainard blew a bit of powder off her nails, unhurried. “That’s right, Brina. You’ve been with us for ten years. We’ve always thought of you as family. Let’s not make this about money. You’re a woman on your own out there — fifty thousand really is too much.” Mr. Hainard set down his coffee cup. “Brina, young people need to be grateful. The Hainard family gave you a roof over your head. You can’t just think about the paycheck. Three thousand isn’t bad — there are plenty of college graduates out there who don’t even make that.” I looked at the people I’d spent ten years serving. Something cold settled in my chest. Henry Hainard had only been gone six months. And they were already this eager to push me out. “Fine.” I nodded. Anita blinked. She hadn’t expected me to agree so easily. She’d had a whole speech ready. Every sharp word stuck in her throat. “Bring me the pay cut agreement. I’ll sign it.” Anita pulled out a document. “Read it carefully. Starting today, your salary is three thousand. You handle cleaning only. Anything else is not your concern.” I picked up the pen and signed without hesitation. Laurie’s brow furrowed slightly. “Brina, Anita has a background in finance. She’s applying forward-thinking principles to optimize how this household runs.” “Don’t be resistant about it.” I almost laughed. “Laurie, so ‘forward-thinking’ means paying someone three thousand to do the work worth fifty?” “That’s a distortion!” Laurie’s voice rose. “Anita calls it cost optimization. You were making fifty thousand because no one in this house knew enough to keep tabs on you. You exploited that.” I didn’t reply. I turned to look at Mr. Hainard instead. Gout had drained the color from his face. “Brina, don’t get worked up.” Mr. Hainard spoke first. “Laurie has an international video conference tonight. There’s a financing deal worth tens of millions on the line.” “Get the interpretation done first. We can sort out the rest later.” I pointed to the antique clock on the wall. “Mr. Hainard, it’s six o’clock.” “The going rate for live interpretation is three thousand an hour. If you need it on short notice, that requires a separate contract.”

Anita gave a cold laugh. “It’s just interpretation. You think the world stops without you?” “I got Laurie the latest AI interpretation earpiece.” “The underlying logic runs circles around someone like you, and it doesn’t come with attitude.” I nodded, untied my apron, folded it neatly, and set it on the table. “Then I wish you great success with your AI.” I turned and walked toward the door. Mrs. Hainard was holding a cup of soup that had gone completely cold. “Brina, you’re really just going to leave like that?” “You’ve given ten years to this family. We’ve never treated you badly. Just bend a little, and I’ll have Anita bump your pay up to four thousand.” I stopped and turned around. “Ma’am, four thousand won’t cover my bedtime aromatherapy.” Mrs. Hainard’s expression went stiff. “Ungrateful girl.” Anita called after me loudly. “Let her go! We’ve been spoiling her!” “Tomorrow I’ll go hire three cleaners. Together they won’t even cost five thousand, and they’ll be more thorough than she ever was!” I pushed open the front door and walked slowly back to the small studio I rented on the street behind the Hainard estate. It was the first time in ten years I’d gotten off work at six in the evening. No medicinal broths to simmer. No business documents to translate. No endless complaints from Mrs. Hainard. I boiled myself a simple bowl of pasta, curled up on the couch, and turned on the TV. My phone buzzed constantly. It was the Hainard family’s group chat on WhatsApp. Anita was in there issuing orders. “@everyone Starting today, the household runs on a KPI check-in system.” “Mr. Hainard’s medication schedule and Mrs. Hainard’s sleep cycle will both be tracked in spreadsheets.” “We are building a high-performance health optimization loop!” I stared at the wall of corporate-speak and muted the chat. After dinner, I took a hot shower and lay down in bed. As I closed my eyes, I thought back to ten years ago. My grandmother was lying in the ICU. Laurie’s grandfather, Henry Hainard, pressed a bank card into my hand. “Take this, girl. Get her the help she needs. If you ever make something of yourself, look after the Hainard family for ten years in return.” Tomorrow would be the last day of that ten-year promise. I rolled over and fell into a deep sleep. The next morning at seven, I was standing in the Hainard kitchen right on time. The cheap cook Anita had hired was scrambling around, barely keeping up with the prep work. Mr. Hainard took one bite of what was on his plate and immediately spat it out. “What is this slop?” Anita shuffled downstairs in her slippers. “Mr. Hainard, this is the clean-eating meal plan I ordered for you. It’s designed for optimal health.” Mr. Hainard’s face went dark. “I have gout! You’re serving me seafood salad?” Anita froze, then whipped around to glare at me as I wiped down the counter. “Brina! Did you do this on purpose?!” “Mr. Hainard has gout — why didn’t you tell anyone when you handed things off? What are you playing at?” I kept wiping the table without looking up. “Miss Anita, the agreement is pretty clear. I’m here as a cleaner now.” “Three thousand covers wiping tables and sweeping floors.” “A client’s medical history, dietary restrictions, and health management — that falls under a private nutritionist or a senior house manager.” “You wanted a flat management structure. That means each role does its own job.” Anita sputtered, her face red with frustration. “Don’t give me that! How do you think this worked before? Mr. Hainard ate seafood before and nothing happened!” I straightened up. “Before, I was making fifty thousand. Mr. Hainard’s gout was managed through a custom meal plan I developed myself.” “Now that my pay has been cut, that meal plan is my personal work product. It’s not part of a three-thousand-dollar cleaning contract.” Anita’s jaw tightened. “When you were making fifty thousand, everything in this house belonged to the Hainard family!” “Taking that plan with you is theft of company assets!” I looked at her coolly. “Miss Anita, if you’d like to treat this as a business dispute, you’re welcome to file a lawsuit.” “Would you like me to get you the number for the Hainard Group’s legal department?”

Laurie came downstairs with dark circles under his eyes. He looked worn out. His tie was crooked. “That’s enough.” He pressed his fingers to his temple. “Laurie, how did the international call go last night?” Anita hurried over to him. “Did the AI earpiece knock it out of the park?” Laurie’s expression said everything. “That piece of junk translated ‘core technology’ as ‘apple core.’” “The guys on the other end thought we were joking. They cut the call.” Anita’s smile froze. “How is that possible? I paid two thousand for the latest model.” She scrambled for an excuse. “It must still be in the deep learning phase. You have to feed it more data.” “And the other party probably had a heavy accent. That would throw off the algorithm.” Laurie waved her off, irritated. “Fine. The deal’s dead. Move on.” “As long as we still have the exclusive license to Brillano’s core algorithm, one lost project isn’t going to sink us.” Mrs. Hainard walked in, hair a mess. Her eyes were sunken, red all the way through. Without my aromatherapy session, she clearly hadn’t slept a wink. “Brina, go light my calming diffuser.” She said it out of pure habit. I picked up the mop and started on the floor. “Ma’am, managing the diffuser is part of house management services.” “I’m a cleaner now. Cleaners handle floors.” Mrs. Hainard’s temper snapped. “How dare you talk back to me! I’m paying you!” Anita quickly stepped in and grabbed her arm. “Mrs. Hainard, don’t beg her. Those aromatherapy tricks of hers are all smoke and mirrors.” “I brought you high-dose melatonin from abroad. It’s far more scientific than anything she’s been doing.” Mrs. Hainard hesitated. “Does it actually work? My head is pounding.” “Absolutely. It goes straight to the central nervous system and rebuilds your sleep cycle.” Anita pressed a bottle of pills into Mrs. Hainard’s hand. By noon, I’d finished mopping the entire ground floor. I rinsed out the mop and checked the time. “Twelve o’clock. I’m on my lunch break.” I untied my apron and headed for the door. Laurie stepped in front of me. “Brina, stop making a scene.” He kept his voice low. “There’s an important dinner in a few days. Anita’s parents are coming to talk about the wedding and a potential investment.” “This is tied to the Hainard Group’s entire strategy for next year.” “I need you to handle the cooking. Same standards as always. You know what to do.” I looked at him standing there like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Laurie, that’s a separate rate.” “You’ve got your head stuck in your wallet!” Laurie snapped. “You ate at this table for ten years. Now I’m asking you to cook one dinner and you’re going to be difficult about it?” I ignored him, stepped around him, and pushed open the door. Anita gave a short, cold laugh and pulled out a stack of invoices. “Laurie, don’t bother asking her.” “I went through the household accounts today and found something interesting.” She dropped the stack on the table. “Brina, you’re not going anywhere until we sort this out.”

The invoices scattered across the table. Anita tapped one with the toe of her shoe. “Brina, your monthly budget for groceries was twenty thousand.” “But I checked the market prices for the premium sea cucumber and wild abalone you used to buy.” Her eyes were sharp with accusation. “Twenty thousand wouldn’t even cover a fraction of those ingredients.” “Were you buying fakes and pocketing the difference?” The room went silent. Mrs. Hainard pressed a hand to her chest, her face going pale. “No wonder my skin hasn’t been right lately. You’ve been feeding us imitations this whole time?” Mr. Hainard’s brow furrowed. “Brina, I want the truth. Where did those ingredients actually come from?” I looked at that stack of invoices and almost laughed. Twenty thousand? The premium ingredients the Hainard family went through daily — one hundred thousand wouldn’t have covered it. For ten years, every shortfall had come out of my own pocket. Because Henry Hainard had once saved my grandmother’s life. I had promised him I would keep the Hainard family comfortable and well-provided for, at the highest standard, for ten years. Every meal, every detail. “Did you contact the supplier?” I asked calmly. “Why would I need to? This doesn’t add up on a basic level.” Anita looked pleased with herself. “I already blacklisted that supplier.” “From now on, all household purchases go through my discount links. Better value, better reach.” I nodded. “Good luck with that.” Anita thought she had me cornered. “Since you’re basically admitting it — out of respect for your ten years here, we won’t call the police. But you’re paying back every cent.” “And you’re fired. Pack your things and get out today.” Laurie frowned. “Anita, maybe we give her another chance?” Anita turned on him immediately. “Laurie, are you taking her side? She stole from this family!” Mrs. Hainard chimed in from the side. “Exactly. We raised her for ten years and she turned around and stole from us. If we let her stay, who knows what else she’ll pull.” I had been planning to mention the Brillano licensing issue before I left, as a last courtesy to Henry’s memory. There was no reason to now. “Fine. I’ll go.” I turned and walked to the housekeeper’s room. Anita followed right behind me like an overseer. “Hurry it up. Don’t drag this out.” “Everything in here belongs to the Hainard family. You’re not taking a single thing.” I stepped inside and pulled my suitcase out from under the bed. I didn’t have much. A few changes of clothes. Some books on herbal medicine. And my grandmother’s belongings, which she had left me. Anita wrinkled her nose. “These old books are moldy. Throw them out. I don’t want them contaminating my space.” She kicked my suitcase over. Everything spilled across the floor, and among it all, a pale white jade pendant rolled out. It was flawless. Anyone could see it was real. Anita’s eyes lit up. She snatched it off the floor. “Nice piece. The replica work is impressive.” “Where would a housekeeper get something like this? Did you steal it from Mrs. Hainard?” “Put it down.” My voice dropped completely flat. “Miss Anita, that is not something you should be touching.” Anita scoffed. “A thieving servant with attitude? Really?” Her fingers loosened. The pendant slipped from her hand. It hit the floor with a clean, sharp crack. I stared at the pieces on the ground. There was a ringing in my ears. That pendant was what my grandmother had placed around my neck with her own hands before she passed. It was the only thing I had left of her in this world. For ten years, no matter how late I’d worked myself, no matter how many times Mrs. Hainard had screamed at me, I had kept that pendant safe. Not a single scratch. “Oops.” Anita didn’t look sorry at all. “Not my fault.” “You shouldn’t have left it where it could fall. It was probably a cheap knockoff anyway. Not a big deal.” Laurie heard the noise and came in. “What happened?” “She dropped some rock and now she’s glaring at me.” Anita tucked herself against Laurie’s arm. “Laurie, the way she was looking at me — it was scary. Like she wanted to hurt me.” Laurie’s expression tightened. “Brina, it’s just a piece of jade. I’ll pay you for it.” “Apologize to Anita. You’re frightening her.” I crouched down and gathered the broken pieces into my pocket. “She broke my property and you want me to apologize?” My voice was flat. “What else? You’re the help. Know your place.” Laurie said it like it was obvious. I slowly stood up. “Don’t bother paying me back.” My voice was quiet. Laurie went still anyway. “Because you can’t afford it.” I picked up my suitcase and walked out of the room I’d lived in for ten years without looking back. Henry Hainard, we’re even now. I’ve repaid what your family did for my grandmother. I walked straight out the front door of the Hainard estate. And dialed a number I hadn’t called in ten years. It picked up after one ring. “Uncle Rick.” An excited, older voice came through on the other end. “Miss Brina? You’re finally calling?”

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At the victory banquet, Ethan knelt on one knee and slipped a diamond ring onto Cassandra’s finger. The whole room erupted. Looking straight into the camera, he said this was something he had owed her all along. I was still in the car on my way to the party, the light from my phone screen cutting through the dark. I had planned to surprise him tonight. Five years. He had promised to make our marriage public. When the banquet hall doors swung open, the first thing Ethan did when he saw me wasn’t guilt. It was a frown. “What are you doing here?” I slammed the marriage certificate down on the table. “I’m taking my husband home.” Cassandra pressed herself against his chest. “Ethan, who is she?” He pulled her closer without even glancing at me. “A delusional woman. The documents are fake.” My father shoved through the crowd and tore the certificate apart right in front of everyone. The pieces drifted down around my feet. Ethan wrapped his arm around Cassandra and walked away. That was the first time I truly understood how the people who are supposed to love you most can make the world decide you’re crazy.

Serena’s POV On our fifth wedding anniversary, I watched my own husband drop to one knee in front of another woman and slip a diamond ring onto her finger. Ethan and I had been secretly married for five years. For five years, he had kept me hidden like something shameful that couldn’t be brought into the light. His excuses never changed. Year after year, the same lines. “Serena, the company is in a critical funding stage right now. I have to keep up the image of a wealthy, unattached man. I can’t afford any missteps.” “Be patient. The moment this round closes, I’ll tell the whole world about you.” “Serena, I know I’m asking too much of you. I owe you the most magnificent wedding, and I promise I’ll make it up to you a hundred times over.” I believed him for five years. I endured it for five years. Then came tonight. The victory gala celebrating the company’s latest funding round. I had ordered his favorite lisianthus flowers days in advance. I had pressed my couture gown myself. I had even tucked both of our marriage certificates into the hidden pocket of my clutch, my heart full, ready to walk in and bring my husband home to celebrate. Then my phone lit up on the car seat. A social media post from Cassandra hit me like a slap. The banquet hall was blazing with light in the photo. Ethan, wearing the custom suit he had made just for tonight, was down on one knee in front of Cassandra, cradling a brilliant diamond ring with both hands, his eyes full of something I used to believe was only for me. Cassandra had her hand pressed over her mouth, tears shining on her cheeks, surrounded by the applause and cheers of the city’s elite. The caption was only one line. “He said this is something he has owed me all along.” I stared at that ring on my screen until my fingertips went white and I forgot how to breathe. For five years, he told me he owed me a wedding. Tonight, he took everything he had promised me and slid it onto another woman’s finger. I don’t know how I made it to the venue. When I pushed open the heavy doors, Ethan had just risen to his feet after putting the ring on Cassandra. She leaned into him, her eyes soft and red-rimmed, the diamond scattering sharp light across the room under the spotlights. Someone recognized me. The laughter in the hall went strangely quiet. The warmth on Ethan’s face froze the instant he saw me. His brow pulled tight with something close to disgust. “What are you doing here? Who told you to come?” I ignored every pair of eyes watching for a scene. I walked to the main table, reached into my clutch, and pulled out the certificate. I brought it down hard on the table. “I’m here for my husband. I’m taking him home.” My voice wasn’t loud. But it landed. Every eye in the room swung toward me. Cassandra’s face went pale. She shrank against Ethan like a startled deer, clutching his sleeve with both hands. “Ethan, who is she?” Ethan didn’t push Cassandra away. He pulled her closer. I watched that hand settle over another woman’s shoulder, and something in my chest tore open. But I kept my spine straight. “Serena Walsh. Ethan’s legal wife. He committed bigamy in front of this entire room tonight. I can call the police right now.” The room exploded. Camera flashes started firing from every direction. Ethan’s face went ashen. He crossed the stage in a few strides and reached for the documents on the table. I pressed my hand down over them. “Touch it, and I will make sure every journalist in this room photographs every word and every official seal on that certificate.” The look in Ethan’s eyes turned dark and cold. His jaw worked. “Serena, have you lost your mind?” “You went to the registry yourself. You signed it with your own hand. You were smiling when they took the photo for it.”

Serena’s POV I stared at this man I had loved for five years. “Ethan, you’re standing in front of your mistress and asking me if I’ve lost my mind?” “Ethan…” Cassandra suddenly pressed a hand to her chest, gasping. “Maybe I shouldn’t be here right now…” “She looks at me like she hates me…” “Cassandra!” Ethan’s expression shifted in an instant. He turned and gathered Cassandra into his arms before she could fall. When he looked back at the room, his voice was winter. “I apologize for the scene, everyone. Ms. Walsh has been struggling with her mental health for some time. She has a severe delusional disorder. The documents she’s holding are forged.” The sound went out of the room for me. Delusional disorder. Forged. One sentence. Casual as brushing dust off a sleeve. Five years of marriage, five years of my life, reduced to the punchline of a crazy woman’s delusion. Then my father pushed through the crowd. His palm connected with my face so hard I stumbled sideways. The taste of blood flooded my mouth. “You disgrace!” he roared. “Haven’t you done enough damage to this family?” My mother stood just behind him, eyes red. She didn’t look at me once. “Serena, get down on your knees and apologize to Mr. Hartley and Ms. Cassandra right now. How dare you bring something like this and drag their names through the mud.” I stared at my own mother, and the tears I’d been holding finally came. “Mom… the day I came home from the registry five years ago, you made me soup yourself. You said happy marriage…” My mother looked away. She couldn’t meet my eyes. My father seized the opening. He snatched the certificate off the table. In front of the entire room, he tore it in half. Then into pieces. Then into nothing. The sound of tearing paper was so small. It destroyed me. He threw the scraps at my feet like trash, then turned to Ethan with a fawning smile. “Mr. Hartley, please don’t give this another thought. I’ll take this foolish girl home and deal with her myself. She won’t bother you or Ms. Cassandra again.” Ethan looked down at me. He said nothing. Cassandra gave a soft cough against his chest. He immediately bent toward her, rubbing her back with quiet urgency. My father’s security team moved in and seized my arms. I struggled. My knee caught the sharp edge of the table and the pain nearly took me down. Only then did Ethan finally look at me. “Take her.” The man I had loved without reservation for five years sentenced me with two words. The front door of my parents’ house closed behind me with a heavy thud. Outside, the party continued, celebrating that couple long into the night. The cane came down across my back. First the numbness, then the split of skin, then the burning. My father’s voice was low and vicious. “Do you have any idea what the Cassandra family’s backing means? This company cannot survive without their investment. You ran in there tonight and made a scene. Were you trying to take down this entire family with you?” My mother dabbed at her eyes beside him. “Why can’t you just cooperate? You’re talented, you’re capable, a little hardship won’t break you. But Cassandra has a heart condition. She cannot handle any kind of stress.” I dug my fingernails into my palm until the blood came. The cane fell again. I bit down and didn’t cry out. Didn’t beg. Because I already knew. No one here would feel sorry for me. Late that night, the door finally opened. Ethan walked in, suit jacket draped over his arm, bringing with him the scent of champagne and Cassandra’s perfume. He crouched in front of me and tossed a small tube onto the floor between us. Expensive scar treatment cream. “Put that on. Don’t let it scar. It’ll look bad.” I looked up at him. “The marriage is fake?” His fingers stilled for a fraction of a second. His tone was matter-of-fact. “Every major media outlet was there tonight. Cassandra’s family too. I had no choice. The bigger picture had to come first.” “And the proposal? Was that the bigger picture too?” Ethan was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice carried something that almost sounded like tenderness. “Cassandra has a weak heart. She was so happy tonight. I couldn’t humiliate her in front of everyone.” I laughed. I laughed until my whole body shook, and the movement pulled at the torn skin on my back, and the cold sweat came pouring down my forehead. Ethan frowned at the sight of me. He softened his voice slightly, the way someone might when handing a coin to a stranger. “Serena, stop making this harder than it needs to be. You took a beating tonight, you’ve suffered for it, Cassandra’s temper has been vented. We can put this behind us.” Put it behind us? Before I could process those words, Ethan had already pulled a document from a folder and laid it across my knees. I looked down. My family’s shares. The company’s marital assets accumulated over five years. The projects I had built with my own hands. Every single thing I was owed, listed under the heading: Unconditional Waiver. Ethan held out a pen. “Sign it.” I didn’t take it. “You want me to hand over my place as your wife to your mistress, and now you want me to walk away with nothing?” Ethan’s jaw tightened. He looked at me as though I were the unreasonable one. “Serena, you’re strong. You’re capable. You don’t need me to get by. But Cassandra isn’t like you. She’s fragile. Without me, she won’t survive.” I stared at that pen. Five years ago, on the day we registered, he had held a pen just like this one and signed his name like it meant something. His eyes were wet then. He told me: Wherever I am, that’s your home. Now, with that same hand, he was offering me a tube of scar cream and a document that said I had never existed. And I finally saw it clearly. What Ethan had given me was never a home. It was a cage. One he could unlock at any moment to sweep me out like something that no longer served a purpose. Ethan lost patience and forced the pen into my bleeding hand. “Sign tonight and I’ll have someone take you upstairs to rest.” I gripped the pen and looked up at him. “And if I don’t?” Ethan stood. The last thin layer of patience drained out of his expression. He looked down at me like a verdict. “Then you stay on your knees in this room until you do.” The door closed without mercy. The tube of cream rolled into the dust beside the table leg. The document sat open across my knees, the first page already stained dark from the blood still falling from my palm.

Serena’s POV The next morning, I had barely reached the bedroom doorway, the one Ethan and I had shared, when I saw the housekeeper throwing books and a laptop into the hallway like garbage. The books’ spines cracked against the tile floor. The laptop casing split open with a sharp crack. The welts on my back hadn’t even started to scab. When I bent down to pick them up, the movement pulled the dried blood from my shirt against the wounds and my vision blurred. The housekeeper looked down at me with cold detachment. “Ms. Walsh, Mr. Hartley has given instructions. This master bedroom needs to be cleared out by this morning.” I snapped my head up. “This is my bedroom.” The door was half open. From inside came the scrape of a wall scraper at work. I shoved past her and walked in. The sharp smell of pink paint hit me immediately. The soft grey walls I had spent weeks choosing had already been half stripped away. Ethan was standing by the window, directing one of the workers toward the south-facing wall. “Keep the pink lighter over here. Cassandra likes it bright. Too dark and it’ll feel oppressive to her.” I stared at those wide, garish swaths of pink spreading across the wall. The books slipped from my hands. I had lived in this room for five years. The desk by the window was where I had pulled all-nighters for the company’s projects, more nights than I could count. My silk robe was still hanging in the closet. And now, without a single word to me, Ethan had handed over every inch of this space to be repainted in Cassandra’s favorite color. I walked up to him, trembling. “You’re giving my room to Cassandra?” He turned, his face showing nothing close to guilt. “Cass just got out of the hospital. The doctor said she needs a bright, sunny environment to recover. This room faces south. Best light in the house.” “Then where am I supposed to sleep?” My voice cracked. “There are guest rooms. It’s not like you’d be sleeping on the floor.” I stared at this cold, hollow man. “Ethan, my father caned my back last night and it’s still bleeding.” His gaze moved briefly to the stain seeping through my shoulder before shifting away without interest. “You went there last night and made a scene. You brought that on yourself.” I stepped forward and yanked the dust sheet off the nearest piece of furniture. “Everyone out. Now.” Ethan’s expression hardened in an instant. He grabbed my wrist. “Serena. Stop embarrassing me.” “You called me delusional in front of every camera in the city last night. Today you’re rushing to paint over my life so your mistress can move in.” My fingers were going numb from his grip, but I held his stare. “What exactly would it take, Ethan, for you to be embarrassed?” “Let go of me.” He didn’t. He tightened his grip and turned toward the door. “Get her out of here.” Two broad-shouldered security men came through the door and seized me by both arms, hauling me toward the hallway. My heels dragged two long marks across the floor. I kept my eyes on the half-painted wall. I watched that sickening pink creep over every trace of the five years I had lived here. Ethan stood where he was and never turned around. At ten in the morning, I pushed through the pain and went to the office. I swiped my access card at the lobby turnstile. Three times. Three red lights. A receptionist hurried over, her smile the particular kind that carries contempt underneath it. “I’m sorry, Ms. Walsh. All of your access credentials have been revoked by upper management.” I kept the card pressed tight in my hand. “On whose authority?”

Serena’s POV The receptionist glanced down at her screen and raised her voice just enough to make sure the lobby could hear. “HR just sent a company-wide notice. Ms. Walsh is under investigation for allegedly leaking confidential company information. All duties are suspended effective immediately.” She paused, letting her expression do the work her words couldn’t. “There’s also a note in the system. Due to Ms. Walsh’s unstable mental state, she is prohibited from entering any core work areas.” I looked through the glass doors toward what used to be my office. Cassandra was sitting at my desk. Ethan stood slightly over her, one large hand covering her small one, guiding her through signing her name on the bottom of an extremely important document. Cassandra seemed to struggle with some of the terms. She wrote a character wrong, then tilted her head up at him with a delicate, helpless expression. Ethan showed not one flicker of impatience. He murmured something soft to her, gently took an eraser to her mistake, and turned the page with the same steady patience. I was done waiting. I couldn’t get through the main turnstile, so I went around to the visitor entrance, pushed past the security guard, and walked straight into the office floor. The door hit the wall. Everyone froze. Cassandra let out a sharp cry and dropped her pen, stumbling behind Ethan. He moved in front of her instantly, his eyes flat and dangerous. “What are you doing here now, you crazy woman?” I pointed at the leather chair where Cassandra was sitting. My hand was shaking. “That is my seat.” “Not anymore,” Ethan said. “It’s Cassandra’s.” “I spent three months on that project. My files are still on that computer.” My voice was coming apart. “You suspend me, you revoke my access, you put a leak investigation on my name. Where is your proof?” Ethan’s eyes were flat and without temperature. “The legal team will handle the investigation.” “The legal team. You mean the investigation that will turn up evidence that you handed my work to a third party? That she is sitting in my chair right now, signing documents I wrote on nights I didn’t sleep?” Cassandra’s eyes went red. Tears spilled over. “Please don’t do this… I only wanted to help Ethan because he was working so hard… I didn’t know this was your seat… please don’t blame him for this…” Seeing her cry, Ethan moved to her immediately, head dipping toward hers. “You don’t need to explain anything to someone like her, Cass.” I looked at the documents on the desk. “Ethan, she can’t even read half the terms in that acquisition contract. You let her sign it? Are you out of your mind?” A ripple of sharp silence moved through the room. Ethan’s face closed completely. “Cassandra has a real instinct for business. She never had the opportunities she deserved. That’s all.” The last flicker of warmth left in my chest went out like a candle in the wind. Three years ago, when I had handed Ethan my first funding proposal, the one that stunned the room, he had said the same thing to me. Serena, you just needed someone to open the door for you. One day everything I’ve built will be ours. Urgent footsteps in the hallway. My father came through the door with a cluster of security behind him, face rigid, pointing at me. “You reckless girl. Wasn’t last night humiliating enough?”

Serena’s POV I looked at my own father. “You already knew they suspended me. You came here to help him throw me out.” He didn’t answer. He turned to the security team and barked, “Get her out. Now. She’s disrupting Mr. Hartley’s workplace.” They came at me from every side. Hands grabbed both arms. I fought back. In the struggle, my clutch hit the floor. Everything inside scattered. Lip gloss. A packet of tissues. And a small, navy blue velvet box, worn soft with age. The lid popped open on impact. A ring rolled out and came to rest directly at the toe of Ethan’s custom leather shoe. The ring he had proposed with, five years ago, when he had nothing. Not a single diamond in it. He had promised me then, eyes full, that the moment the funding came through, he would replace it with the largest pink diamond in the city. I had believed him. I had kept that simple, unadorned band against my skin for five years. I hadn’t even taken it off to shower. Until yesterday, when he put a pink diamond on Cassandra’s finger in front of the whole world, and I quietly tucked it away in its box so no one would see what a fool I had been. Ethan looked down at it. Something moved in his eyes, just barely, just for a second. Then Cassandra’s fingers curled around his sleeve. “Ethan… my chest feels so tight… I feel dizzy…” Whatever had been in his eyes disappeared. He turned without hesitation and gathered her up, carrying her toward the back room. From the moment the ring had rolled out until now, he had not looked at it again. He had not said one word to me, still pinned under the hands of his security team. “Take her out.” The head of security didn’t need to be told twice. I was dragged out of the building. At the bottom of the steps, a hard shove sent me rolling down onto the rough concrete. My knees hit and split open. Blood soaked through my stockings immediately. My clutch was thrown down beside me like refuse. The old velvet box landed near my hand. I stretched out my scraped fingers toward it. Above me, the massive LED screen on the outer wall of the building flickered on. A breaking news chyron pulsed from the business channel, filling the street. On screen, Ethan stood in the lights of a press conference. Cassandra sat beside him in a tailored designer suit, poised and composed. The anchor’s voice rang out clean and clear. “Breaking news. Hartley Group today officially announces that Ms. Cassandra Hayes will assume the role of Executive President of the group. Mr. Hartley praised the groundbreaking project proposal that has stunned the industry as the product of Ms. Hayes’s visionary and forward-thinking genius.” The screen cut to the cover of the project proposal. Three months. My three months. I was kneeling on cold concrete, blood from my knees mixing with grit from the ground. The box was right there. I looked up at the screen. The man I had loved for five years was leading the applause for her, his hands moving together with something that looked like pride. My hand stopped in the air. For a long time, I didn’t move. Then, slowly, I picked up the ring. I put it back in the box. Closed the lid. And buried those five years of blindness along with it. Ethan had reached far enough into my life to take even that from me. The right to check into a hotel. At the first one, the front desk attendant scanned my ID and looked up at me with a changed expression. “Ms. Walsh, there’s a flag on your ID. It shows as reported lost.” At the second, I tried a different credit card. Declined. At the third, the attendant slid the card back across the counter. “This account has been frozen. Would you like to try another method of payment?”

Serena’s POV I stood under the lobby lights. My clutch held only the velvet box and a phone nearly out of battery. I turned my ID over in my fingers and pressed my thumb over my own photo. This card used to tell the world who I was. Now it only told me that Ethan had decided I wasn’t allowed to be anyone. After dark, I sat on a bench outside. The fabric of my pants rubbed against the cuts on my knees. The welts from the night before pulsed with heat across my back. I had nowhere to go. I scrolled to the bottom of my contacts and stopped on my best friend’s name. I didn’t call. She had built that flower shop from nothing, dollar by dollar. White roses in the window year-round. If Ethan could freeze my ID and my bank accounts, he could reach a flower shop. A black Bentley pulled up in front of me. The window came down. Ethan sat in the back. His expression was colder than the night air. “Get in.” I didn’t move. His security man climbed out of the front seat and took hold of my arm. I struggled. My knee hit the car door. Ethan’s brow creased. “Don’t hurt her.” I looked at him. “You couldn’t say that last night?” He turned away. The car door closed. The city lights disappeared behind tinted glass. Half an hour later, the car stopped in front of a luxury apartment building. The elevator went straight to the top floor. The door opened into warm light. Slippers set neatly side by side. A bowl of hot soup just delivered, still steaming on the dining table. Ethan dropped his jacket on the couch and handed me a mug of hot water. “Drink something.” I looked at the mug. I didn’t take it. “What is this place?” “You’ll live here from now on.” “Locked up?” Something passed briefly across his face and was smoothed over. “Don’t make it sound worse than it is. Serena, as long as you stay out of Cassandra’s way, this is your home.” I let out a short laugh. “My home just got repainted pink.” His hand tightened around his mug. “I’ll make it right. The apartment. Money. A position at the company. Whatever you need.” “What about being your wife? Publicly?” Ethan said nothing. I watched him. “Acknowledging me openly. Is that really so much harder than giving me real estate?” He set the mug down and kept his voice quiet. “What we have is real. I can give you everything except that one thing. The public recognition.” Those words settled into the apartment and turned every light into a lock. I grabbed his hand and bit down, hard. Ethan yanked back with a sharp sound. I lost my footing. My lower back hit the coffee table. My temple caught the glass edge. A line of warmth moved down along my brow. Ethan’s expression shifted. He reached toward me. I shoved his hand away and ran for the door. “Serena.” I didn’t look back. Before the elevator doors closed, I caught one last glimpse of him standing in the living room light, the back of his hand dark with the marks I had left. Half an hour later, I pushed through the door of an internet café. I found a seat at the back, powered up a computer, plugged in my phone, and began compressing the files I had saved into a single archive. I opened my email. The screen went black. Not a power outage. The computers around me were still running. Someone nearby was yelling into a headset about a game. Only mine went dark. My phone buzzed once on the desk. Unknown number. One line of text. Don’t waste your energy. I stared at those words. The back of my neck went tight, one vertebra at a time. Footsteps at the café entrance. Two police officers walked up to where I was sitting. “Serena Walsh?” I looked up. “Yes.” They showed their badges. “You are suspected of misappropriating funds from Hartley Group. Please come with us.” My hands were still resting on the keyboard. The draft email waited behind a dark screen. Not one word had been sent.

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Before my mother passed, she left me three matches — each one capable of taking me back in time. I used the first match to return to the night Miller was drugged. I knocked over his spiked drink before he could touch it. He never slept with his secretary, Scarlett. I saved our marriage. But then, not long after, we were in a car accident. Miller threw himself over me, shielding my body with his. His injuries were too severe. He didn’t make it. Without a second thought, I struck the second match. We went back to before the crash, and this time, we walked away without a scratch. I thought I would never need the third match. Then Miller set a sonogram down in front of me, and I went completely still. His voice was ice. “Scarlett is four months pregnant. The baby is mine.” A ringing filled my ears. Everything felt distant, like a dream. Miller kept talking. “The fact that I survived that accident means God gave me a second chance — a chance to go after what I really want.” “You can keep the title of Mrs. Miller. Just stay out of Scarlett’s way.”

I couldn’t figure out how Miller still remembered the accident. But surely he didn’t think he was the one who had traveled through time? The hospital air conditioning sent a chill crawling across my skin. “When did it start?” I asked. Something in his expression softened. “That doesn’t matter anymore. Scarlett isn’t like you. She grew up with nothing — no stability, no security.” “The baby is her anchor. And my proof.” “Besides, we’ve been together too long. What I feel for you now is more like family. The love is gone.” I had found out about him and Scarlett on our tenth wedding anniversary. By then, the baby was already five years old. He had cut open his own wrist and written me a letter in blood. He confessed that someone had drugged him, that he had slept with his secretary Scarlett, and that he intended to take responsibility for her. He transferred everything — every asset — into my name. In a moment of desperation, I had used a match to go back to our fifth year of marriage. I forced down the trembling in my chest. “So you remember everything. You really did fall in love with Scarlett?” Miller answered without any particular emotion. “Yes. I know it sounds unbelievable, but every time I come close to death, I end up back in the past.” “You’ve always been strong. You don’t need security the way she does.” “After the SATs, you were the one who wanted to run away with me. But Scarlett — she’s different from you.” I pressed my hand to my chest. A sudden, sharp pain shot through my ribs and bent me forward. After the SATs, we had made a promise to run away together. But that night, I waited and waited — and it was my parents who showed up, not him. I confronted him. I demanded to know why. Miller looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, his voice gentle. “Samantha, your dad was right. We’re both too young.” “Give me a little more time. I’ll do this properly. I’ll come for you in the open, the right way.” I was furious. I gave him the cold shoulder, and even when we ended up at the same university, I treated him like a stranger. But in our second year, he teamed up with some friends on a gaming project, and it actually made money. He took every dollar he’d earned and came to ask my father for permission to marry me. My father still said no. He called Miller an orphan with a broken character. Miller just smiled, said nothing, and went back to work. I gritted my teeth, defied my father, and married him anyway — quietly, without anyone’s blessing. Now Miller looked at me with cold, flat eyes. “You can always file for divorce. Of course, your mother’s medical bills would become your problem to handle alone.” He answered a call and walked out. I stood there with my hand over my heart. When someone falls out of love, can they really become this cruel? My mother had taken Miller in after she learned he had no parents. She’d treated him like a son. She lived with us in the house and looked after us both. Once, someone called him a bastard with no mother. My mom grabbed a spatula and chased them down the street. And yet, no matter how many times I went back, she still got cancer. Every time. I stood up and went after him. I was the one who gave him the ability to go back. I was the one who saved his life. What gave him the right to betray me again? The smell of rain and wet earth hit me before I even reached the door. Scarlett was outside wearing Miller’s dress shoes, her arms looped around his neck. “The baby and I have been waiting forever!” “You’re so late! You have to buy me something to make it up to me!” Miller smiled at the corner of his mouth. “There’s a Sotheby’s auction coming up. I saw some jewelry pieces that would suit you perfectly. I’ll have someone bid on them for you.” My feet stopped moving. I watched Miller kiss Scarlett, and when she pulled back, he leaned in and kissed her again. It hit me then — we hadn’t been that close in years. We hadn’t actually kissed since our honeymoon. Not once. The most affection I ever got was a peck on the cheek. I pulled out the last match. Even the cold rain couldn’t cut through the fog in my mind. What moment could I even go back to now? Miller’s affair was already set in motion — but my mother’s cancer was under control. She wouldn’t have to suffer through the pain she went through the first time I went back. Did I even need to go back again?

A nurse nearby sighed, her voice full of admiration. “Apparently, to make Scarlett feel secure, they sleep together every single night — just trying to have a baby as soon as possible.” “And last time, Scarlett said she thought he was unclean, so Miller dragged in several doctors to run tests on him. He even booked cosmetic treatments.” “That’s not even the half of it. Apparently Scarlett fell in love with the house where Miller’s wife lives, so he’s been telling people the company needs financing and he has to sell the place — he’s moving his wife to some apartment near the hospital.” A wave of cold went through me. A year ago, Miller told me the company needed capital to expand. He borrowed from the bank, but it still wasn’t enough. I couldn’t stand watching him get pressured and drunk at business dinners just to close deals. So I suggested selling our house myself. We rented a smaller place near the hospital to make it easier to visit my mother. That house had been our first home as a married couple. Letting it go wasn’t easy. Miller held me and promised that once the money came back, he would get us an estate — something even better. I didn’t want him to struggle. I used the inheritance my father had left me to cover our living expenses. And I went back to work. The nurses’ voices drifted in from down the hall as they walked. “Apparently he even set up a flower shop across from the hospital just for her.” I looked through the rain at the little shop, still open, its lights on. I laughed, but it came out wrong. The tears fell before I could stop them. Every morning, I stopped by that shop on my way in. Bought a fresh bouquet. The staff told me the owner was an old friend of Miller’s, and that was why they always gave me a discount. When Miller found out, his eyes flickered. He gave a vague, noncommittal answer that I took as a yes. I pushed open the door. The girl at the counter clearly recognized me. “You were just here this morning. Another bouquet already?” I looked around the shop. The lighting, the layout of the sink, the placement of the display cooler — all of it was impossibly familiar. Early in our relationship, Miller asked me what I would do if money didn’t matter. I said I wanted to open a flower shop. I’d pulled out a thick stack of design sketches I’d been working on since middle school. It was the dream I’d held onto for years. My father called it a waste of time. Miller sat with me and helped me refine every drawing. But after we married, my time was swallowed whole — attending events with other executives’ wives, managing the household staff, playing the role of the perfect hostess. On top of all that, I had my own job. There was nothing left for dreams. The anger sat in my throat, hard and immovable. The counter girl spoke suddenly. “Did you do something to our manager?” “Honestly, I’d apologize if I were you. A sick person breathing in flowers grown with those special nutrients every single day — that can’t be good for you.” I dug my nails into my palm. “What do you mean?” What nutrients? What was she talking about? The girl glanced up at the security camera, then pulled me into the corner. “Those flowers just cause allergies. It’s nothing serious.” “But the manager told us — you tried to drug her husband and get pregnant by him, and luckily he was smart enough to trick you into signing a fake marriage certificate.” “She said someone helped her get rid of your baby too.” “I don’t know, though. You seem like a decent person to me. You even bring us homemade pastries.” The sonogram. It rushed back to me. I grabbed the girl’s hand. “Last May — was your manager in Switzerland?” She nodded. “Yeah, her husband takes her abroad every month because she loves to travel.” “I heard that after college, he found her working at a club and brought her home. Took care of her ever since.” Black spots flickered at the edges of my vision. I steadied myself against the wall. Last April, I was in a car accident. I had gone through round after round of hormone injections. IVF. It finally worked. And then the baby was gone. I called Miller a hundred times. He was in Switzerland. He said the deal was difficult, that the other party wouldn’t budge. When I finally saw him again, I was crying so hard I could barely speak. I asked him why he wasn’t there when I needed him most. I fell apart after that. He was the one who stayed, who walked me back from the edge, who refused to leave my side for even an hour — as though he were atoning for something. Now I understood what he was atoning for. He had already been with Scarlett. The whole time. And I never suspected a thing. I took out my phone and sent the photo of our marriage certificate — the one pinned to the top of my Instagram — to a friend. The reply came back fast. Fake. Who still counterfeits documents in this day and age? That was it, then. Settled. Every time I’d gone back — it had all been for nothing. I had done it to myself. I’d hoped for something that was never real. The last small piece of hope I’d been holding onto finally went out. I knew now exactly which moment I needed to return to.

I sat beside my mother until the sky went dark and the first light of morning came through the window. In the bed beside me, my mother opened her eyes — the pain had been too much to sleep through. My own eyes burned. It was only after pulling myself out of that love that I could see clearly. They had all been suffering because of me. “Mom, if I go back again — will you have to go through all of this again?” It was as if she already understood. She didn’t ask why. She just said softly: “When you go back next time, I’ll finally tell you where the matches came from.” I went back to the house that had been sold. I needed to ask Miller why. I loved him fully, and I was going to leave with the full truth. The old housekeeper was still there, working as she always had. My throat felt tight, like something lodged deep. A quiet pain that kept coming. Everyone had known. Everyone except me. I had been the last to find out — the punchline of a joke I wasn’t in on. I set the photograph of our marriage certificate on the table in front of him. “Why?” Why hold on to me, knowing it was false? Why not just tell me the truth? Why arrange for our baby to be taken from me? Why let Scarlett send chemically treated flowers to my mother, month after month, and say nothing? Every question was there, jammed in my throat. Miller’s eyes narrowed slightly. He hadn’t expected me to find out. His knuckles curled. “You were always good at being a wife.” “What I wanted for Scarlett was different. I wanted her to be free. To never have to worry about anything — just love me.” “When we stopped talking in college, she was the one who came to comfort me. She helped me think of ways to win you back.” “The flowers, the jewelry, the things I said to you — all of it came from her.” “By the time we were ready to get married, I found out she had feelings for me all along. She was just too insecure to say anything. And then her family sold her to that club.” “The night of our wedding, when I said I was busy — I was going to bring her home. She was more careful with herself than you. She never chased after anyone.” “The divorce papers — I had you sign them the day we finalized the sale of the house.” Nausea rose in my chest. I remembered the night he had come to find me during our long silence. He was crying, really crying — but he hadn’t made any grand promises. He spent every dollar he had on a diamond ring for me. And the way he looked at me then — there had been real love in his eyes. I was sure of it. I pressed my brows together hard. The insults dissolved into something quieter. “That’s disgusting.” Miller sighed. He reached out and took my hand. “Samantha, I always thought you were the capable one. I won’t shortchange you on what’s yours.” But what I got was pain. Deception. Betrayal. The face I had known for fifteen years slowly became something monstrous in my eyes. I took back my phone and stood to leave. There was nothing left to ask. A hollow exhaustion settled over me. Miller looked startled. He stood quickly, and I felt my wrist caught in his grip. His expression shifted — irritable, unsettled. “Why are you playing the wounded victim?” “You think I don’t know what you’ve done?” A stack of photographs hit me in the face. They scattered across the floor. I looked down at them. They were AI-generated images. Obviously fake. Me, with different men. But Miller’s voice came down hard. “You went behind my back during our fight. You were sleeping around.” “If it weren’t for Scarlett, I’d still have no idea. I loved you enough to marry you without questioning your past — and this is what I get.” I almost laughed out loud. I had loved this man for that long. I had been that blind. I had burned two matches for him. I had made my mother suffer through it twice. I closed my eyes. “Miller, are you actually that stupid? Have your IT people run a forensic check on those images. You’ll see they’re fake in five minutes.” “You just couldn’t wait to throw dirt on me. You need to make your cheating look like a reaction. Like you were forced into it. Like you were the devoted one.” My phone rang. A nurse, her voice urgent and scared. “Samantha! Scarlett came into your mother’s room — your mother has gone into shock!”

I yanked my wrist free and ran. Miller caught up and shoved me toward his car. “You think you can wait for a cab? Can your mother?” I didn’t argue. My heart was pounding so hard I could barely breathe. I pushed through the door. Scarlett was kneeling on the floor in front of me, her face a performance of distress. “Samantha! I only said a couple of words to your mom, and she started screaming at me — calling me names, trying to hit my stomach!” I stepped past her and went straight to my mother’s side. “That’s impossible. Pancreatic cancer patients don’t have the strength to fight or scream.” Scarlett crumpled to the ground, both hands clutching her abdomen, her face pale. Before I could say another word, pain exploded across my cheek. Miller’s voice was merciless. “You go sleep around and lose your own baby, and now you want to take mine too?” I had only walked past her. I hadn’t touched her. Was everything Scarlett’s fault now mine? The heart monitor began screaming. Fear froze me where I stood. I watched Miller scoop Scarlett up off the floor and call every available doctor out of the room. I stepped in front of him. “My mother hasn’t been stabilized yet. Don’t you dare forget — she took care of you every single day. She got up in the middle of the night to make you soup when you were hungry.” Miller glanced at the hospital bed. Something moved across his face briefly. Then Scarlett let out a pained cry in his arms. “The baby — it’ll be okay, right?” He caught a doctor’s eye and gave a quick, loaded look. “Samantha, your mother’s cooking was never that good. And I never asked for her help.” “A woman who raised a daughter like you — maybe the illness is karma.” Those two sentences landed like a blow to the head. I stood there, stunned and dizzy. While the doctor began resuscitation, a nurse pulled him away. The last trace of hope I’d held for Miller — the thought that maybe, at least, he cared about my mother — dissolved completely. The line on the monitor went flat and stayed there. I couldn’t tell anymore if it was numbness or grief. My spine wouldn’t hold me upright. My knees hit the floor. With shaking hands, I pulled the matchbox from my pocket. The flame kept going out. My tears put it out again and again. When it finally caught, a hand seized my hair and yanked. “Scarlett’s baby almost didn’t make it. Mr. Miller sent us to teach you a lesson.” I stopped fighting. I just looked at the match still burning on the floor. The cold seeped into my skin. From the next room came Scarlett’s voice, soft and playful. “The doctor said the baby is stable. We’re cleared, baby. Come here — I’ve been waiting.” “Don’t you think it’s kind of a thrill? Samantha and her mother right next door, listening to us?” The blood rushed to my head all at once. I kicked the man in front of me as hard as I could. I grabbed everything within reach and threw it at them. Why? Why, even now, did they have to do this to us? The noise brought Miller in from next door. His shirt was half-open, red marks visible on his chest. Scarlett pressed a hand to her lips, eyes wide with mock horror. “Samantha — don’t tell me you had someone in here with you? Did you actually get your mother so worked up she — ” I picked up the fruit knife from the table. I smiled. I pushed off the floor with everything I had and closed the distance to Scarlett in a single motion. Miller’s instinct took over — he threw himself in front of her. The knife went into his chest. Scarlett’s scream tore through the room. The match flame died. “Miller. I’m the one who can go back in time.” “This time — let’s go back to before the SATs.” Miller stared at me, the color gone from his face, his eyes full of something he couldn’t name.

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At a college reunion, my wife Brittany ran into her first love, Leonardo. What I never expected was that after the party, all three of us got kidnapped. When I opened my eyes again, we were locked inside an abandoned warehouse, with several countdown bombs strapped to my body. They tried dozens of times and still couldn’t disarm them. With nothing left to hope for, I sat bound to a chair, ready to face death alongside my wife. But instead, she and Leonardo were clinging to each other in tears. “Leonardo,” she sobbed, “if we’d both been a little braver back then, we’d already be married by now. I never got you out of my heart. I’m still a virgin because of you.” “Brittany, stop crying. If this is our last day, I want to make up for everything we lost.” With those words, Leonardo pulled my wife into a deep kiss. Then the two of them walked to the corner of the warehouse and started having sex. My heart felt like it was being torn apart. I sat there, waiting for death with nothing but grief and despair. Half an hour later, they stood before me with their clothes in disarray. The countdown on the bombs reached zero, but nothing exploded. Then the door swung open, and a group of friends walked in. “Brittany, you finally let go of all that baggage.” “If we hadn’t staged the whole kidnapping, would you two have ever opened up to each other?”

Brittany went rigid. The flush in her cheeks slowly drained to white. “A… a prank?” Someone noticed how lost she looked and walked over with a grin, giving her cheek a playful pinch. “Yeah!” “At the party, you kept staring at Leonardo with this heavy look on your face. As your best friend, of course I knew what was weighing on you.” “But that kind of thing doesn’t just go away on its own. If you never dealt with it, you’d never really be happy.” “Now seeing you and Leonardo holding hands, I’m genuinely so happy for you!” “Exactly, Brittany. How else were we supposed to help you get past this?” “Wait — what’s that smell??” Before the words even landed, the whole group erupted in a wave of knowing gasps and laughter. “You two didn’t waste any time, did you? Already went all the way.” “Nice work.” “Wedding! Wedding! Wedding!…” Cheers and blessings filled the abandoned warehouse. And I, Brittany’s lawful husband, sat there watching it all with a face drained of color. My nails had dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood. It hurt. The drops fell onto the rope binding my wrists. But somehow, my chest hurt worse than my hands. She was my wife. And yet, not even thirty minutes ago, she had slept with another man in that very corner, all to make up for what she said she’d missed. Their breathless whispers, their confessions, their tragic love story — somehow all of it made me feel like I was the one who had no right to be there. I slowly closed my eyes. A single tear slid from the corner of one eye, and quietly, I made my decision. Across the room, Brittany was still in Leonardo’s arms, letting him kiss her. He didn’t know I was her husband. Neither did any of our classmates. Because Brittany never wanted to make our relationship public — probably because she cared too much about what Leonardo would think. Maybe the grief was written too plainly on my face, because someone finally noticed me tied up in the corner. “Wait — isn’t that Brooks?” “What were you guys thinking, dragging Brooks into this prank too?” The moment those words landed, everyone finally turned to look at me. “I didn’t mean to pull Brooks into it. But he kept following Brittany around, and I was afraid of missing the timing, so I just grabbed him too.” “Brooks, I’m so sorry!” “Let me untie you right now. Please don’t be mad, and please don’t come after me for this.” “We did do something good here, didn’t we? We helped two people who were meant to be find their way back to each other.”

Brittany’s eyes stayed fixed on me — guilt, shame, and unease all tangled together in her expression. Once I was free, I stumbled to my feet. The pain inside me was overwhelming, but Brittany kept shooting me desperate, pleading looks. She was begging me not to say a word about our marriage, to save everyone the awkwardness. I managed a small smile and held the tears back. “Meant to be?” “Ha. Sure, you did them a favor. But what about me?” “Do you have any idea who she is to me?” “She’s the girl you’ve always had a crush on!” Afraid of what I might say next, afraid someone would find out we were married, Brittany practically shouted over me to cut me off. The room went quiet. Everyone stared at me with strange, searching looks. “Wait, what’s going on here?” “Oh, I think I get it, you poor guy.” “Classic love triangle situation.” “Brooks has been pining after Brittany, but Brittany only ever loved Leonardo.” “And you people dragged Brooks into all of this. He had to sit here listening to Brittany and Leonardo go at it — how is that not messed up?” A beat of silence, and then the whole room burst out laughing. “I am so guilty. Brooks, I’m really sorry, man.” “I owe you drinks. A lot of drinks.” They were too busy laughing to notice what was underneath my expression. If watching and hearing Brittany and Leonardo together had destroyed whatever hope I had left, then her refusing to acknowledge me as her husband right now was what finally made me give up on her entirely. After a long moment, I parted my lips — dry and bitter — and forced out a few words. “Relax, everyone. I’m actually seeing someone. The reason I followed Brittany here was the same as you — I was worried something would happen to her.” “Seeing the two of them finally together makes me genuinely happy for her.” The moment I said it, Brittany — who had been wound tight the whole time — finally let out a slow, quiet breath. She looked at me with eyes full of relieved gratitude, not knowing I had already let her go for good. I was just an extra in this story now. Nobody had any reason to keep their eyes on me. I turned and walked out, my heart hollow, and behind me I could already hear people calling for a toast. “Brittany, you saved yourself for Leonardo — Leonardo, you better never let her down.” “Wedding! Wedding! Wedding!!!” Leonardo swept Brittany up into his arms. She didn’t respond the way you’d expect. Because I hadn’t left yet. I suppose she did care, just a little, about how I felt. I didn’t want even that small amount of her consideration anymore. And now I finally understood why, in three years of marriage, she had never once let me close to her. She was saving herself for the man she truly loved. I was never that man. This was always going to end in tragedy. Outside, a heavy rain had started to fall. I had no umbrella, and no cab would stop. It felt like the sky had timed this on purpose — washing away everything that had led to this moment. Strangers hurried past me, tossing glances and quiet commentary over their shoulders. “Another guy done in by loving too hard.” “And he’s got nothing to show for it.” “How do you know it went wrong?” “Look at his face. It’s obvious.” “What’s the big deal? It’s just a breakup. No need to look like the world ended.” They weren’t wrong. I had no business falling apart like this. I pulled out my phone and called a ride. When I got home, Brittany was already there. She didn’t say sorry. She just stood there looking at me, her neck and collarbone covered in marks that weren’t mine.

“About what happened in the warehouse — that was just fate being cruel.” “It already happened. Best to just forget it.” She paused, then took a step toward me. “You got rained on?” Something shifted in Brittany’s face — the guilt finally surfacing. She rushed to the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around me. “Brooks, don’t do this to yourself.” “He’s in my past, I know that. But that doesn’t mean I can just switch it off.” “I know I hurt you and I hate myself for it. I’m only asking for one thing — just play along with me for a few days. Let me close this chapter with him, and then I’ll end it. I promise. Can you do that for me?” She looked up at me, tears balancing on the edge of her eyes. I looked past her at the wedding photo on the wall. I thought about the day we took that photo. She wasn’t smiling. There was only regret on her face. I knew now that in that moment, she was probably wondering why the man standing beside her wasn’t Leonardo. I pressed my nails into my palm one more time — and then I let go. “Fine.” Brittany’s tears turned into a smile. She looked like a kid who’d just been handed a piece of candy. Her phone buzzed. My agreement had given her all the permission she needed. She stepped out to the balcony and spent the next hour talking to Leonardo in a low, sweet voice. The things she said were not meant for my ears. I moved to the balcony of the adjacent room and smoked an entire pack, one cigarette after another. The smoke stung my eyes. By the time the last cigarette was done, Brittany’s phone was almost dead. It didn’t matter anymore. It was time to make this a clean ending. I picked up my phone and made a call. “Mom. I’m ready to sign the divorce papers and come home. Set up the arrangement you talked about — I’ll go through with it.” My mother was stunned. She hadn’t expected me to call her, let alone agree. We talked briefly before I hung up. Then I texted a friend and asked him to draw up the divorce paperwork. After that, I showered, got out, and didn’t give a second thought to what Brittany was doing. I put my head down and slept. Then she came bursting in, looking frantic. “Brooks, get up!” “Leonardo is on his way over right now. You can’t be here. Go.” She was shoving me with one hand and tearing down the wedding photo from the wall with the other — along with anything else that was mine. She lost her grip on the frame and it shattered on the floor. She didn’t even look at it. Before I could say a word, I was being pushed out the front door. She pressed her hands together, giving me her most desperate look. “You’re the best. Please just work with me on this.” “I saved your life once. The scar is still on my wrist.” “You said you owed me. I’m calling that in right now.” I remembered what I’d said. I had no reason to refuse. And because of what she’d done for me — taking a knife meant for me across her wrist — I had spent years giving her everything she asked for. I didn’t say anything. I just left. She didn’t come after me. Because the moment I stepped into the elevator, Leonardo stepped out of the one beside it. In the split second before the doors closed, I saw them fold into each other. I didn’t remember until I reached the street that I had no change of clothes and no phone. I stood under the dark sky with no idea where to go. I sat alone in the little covered pavilion in the courtyard, cold all the way through, and didn’t move until morning. The next day, I was woken up by one of the building’s staff. “Mr. Brooks? Why are you sleeping out here?” “That look on your face — you had a fight with your wife, didn’t you?” I smiled, but it didn’t reach anything. I didn’t answer the question. What I hadn’t expected was that I — heir to an entire company — would ever end up sleeping on a bench outside my own building. As I stood up, I spotted Leonardo leaving the complex, looking deeply satisfied with himself. This time, I felt absolutely nothing.

My friend Dixon showed up right then. “Brooks — here.” I took the papers from him. He gave me a strange look. “Never seen someone this calm about a divorce before.” Dixon wasn’t the type to pry. He left without another word. Back upstairs, I knocked for a long time before Brittany opened the door. She was covered in marks again, barely able to keep her eyes open — clearly she hadn’t slept. She didn’t bother explaining herself. She dropped onto the couch and was out before I could say anything. Clothes were scattered all over the floor. A pair of underwear that wasn’t my size lay among them. I set the divorce papers on the table and cleaned the apartment. Once, twice, and then again. I’d already decided I was done with her — and yet something kept twisting in my chest, something that hurt more than it had any right to. By the time I finished, Brittany had woken up. I put the papers in front of her. She blinked at them, not quite understanding. “Brooks? What… what is this?” Her face went slightly pale. She didn’t reach for them. “You said you didn’t mind. You said to treat it like I’d been with someone before we ever got together, right?” She grabbed my wrist, panic in her eyes. She was the one who didn’t love me. And yet she was also the one who couldn’t let go. I felt nothing — no anger, nothing. If anything, I just felt tired of her. But I was going to play this through to the end. So I pulled my hand away without any heat behind it. “Don’t panic. This isn’t a real divorce. It’s just a legal formality.” “What do you mean?” I kept my voice steady. “I don’t want people calling you names. If we’re officially separated on paper, what you do on your own time isn’t anyone else’s business.” “Once you’ve had your closure, we’ll remarry.” The way I said it — calm and gentle — finally got to her. She walked into my arms, eyes red. “Brooks, you’re the only person in this world who really loves me.” “I hate myself. Why can’t I just let go of the past?” She still had his smell on her. I couldn’t help it — I stepped back. Brittany flinched. I caught myself and reached over, tapping her nose lightly. “It’s nothing. I stood outside in the cold all night and I think I’m coming down with something. I don’t want to get you sick.” “Come on. Sign it.” She didn’t question my explanation. She signed with a smile. The moment the pen lifted from the page, something in me finally unclenched. I was done. Whatever came after, it would be without her. I folded the papers away. Brittany, already moving on, reminded me one more time. “Brooks, remember — when this is over, we go file together to make it official again.” I smiled. I said nothing. Before she could ask again, her phone rang and took her somewhere else entirely. She lit up the way someone does at twenty, talking to their very first love — nervous and glowing and completely absorbed. We were already divorced. Whatever she did now had nothing to do with me. I went to my room and started packing. She talked on her phone; I sorted through my things. Anything I couldn’t take, I left. The expensive gifts she’d given me, I set aside to return. Brittany never once looked my way. If she’d bothered to glance in for even a moment, she would have seen I was leaving for good. She didn’t. She got dressed and walked out, and she didn’t come back. The next day, my friend Dixon called. “Brooks, you need to come. Brittany and Leonardo are having a wedding today.” “They want to make it official that fast.” “I’m going to have to skip it. I’m leaving the city tonight.” “What? Where are you going?”

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The day my mother was diagnosed, I called my husband seventeen times from the hospital corridor. He was the Deputy Director of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the provincial hospital. He finally picked up on the eighteenth call. “Ethan, Mom’s scan came back with a pulmonary nodule. Can you arrange a specialist consultation?” He answered with barely concealed impatience: “Three centimeters isn’t necessarily malignant. Have her get a regular outpatient appointment and wait in line.” My mother was sitting on the metal bench outside the CT room, trying to comfort me. “Don’t put Ethan in a difficult spot. I’ll wait in line, that’s fine.” She was sixty-two years old. Her hands shook as she clutched the envelope of CT films, yet her eyes were soft with reassurance. I didn’t cry. Not until that evening, when I got home and found an express delivery package on the dining table. It was a multi-department consultation request form from the provincial hospital. Patient name: Sandra Hayes. His college sweetheart’s mother. His own signature on it, with three departments co-signed. Consultation time: tomorrow morning at eight.

When I dragged my suitcase back into the outpatient lobby, my mother was still sitting on the metal bench outside the CT room. She saw the suitcase in my hand. She didn’t ask why I had it. Her first instinct was to stand up and take it from me. Her legs had gone numb from sitting so long. She stumbled. “Is the hospital too far? Don’t keep running back and forth. I’m fine waiting here alone.” “It’s not far.” “Is Ethan busy?” “Yeah, he’s in surgery.” I lied. I didn’t even have the courage to tell her the truth. My mother let out a quiet breath of relief. She bent down and dug through her worn canvas tote bag, pulling out a glass jar. The jar was wrapped in three layers of plastic bags. She worked through each knot one by one. “Don’t blame him. Doctors have lives to save. Here, take this back to him.” She pressed the glass jar into my hands. The bottom was warm from her body heat. It was a homemade pear syrup she’d cooked herself. A crooked handwritten note was taped to the side: For Ethan when his throat hurts — one spoonful. “You mentioned he’s always in surgery and his throat gets sore. I simmered those pears for three days. I didn’t dare check it as luggage. Carried it in my arms the whole way so it wouldn’t break.” My mother rubbed the calluses on her hands and smiled, a little carefully. “Take it back to him. Tell him not to mind that it’s homemade.” Looking at that jar, I felt something collapse quietly inside me. I tucked it into my bag. “Mom, wait here. I’m going back to get your bank card and your old medical records.” When I pushed open the front door, the living room lights were on. Ethan was sitting on the couch with a tablet. Sophie was beside him, her shoulder nearly brushing the sleeve of his white coat. “Don’t worry, Aunt Hayes. A 1.2-centimeter nodule has a very high chance of being benign.” His voice was warm and unhurried. “I’ll personally walk you into the consultation room first thing tomorrow morning. All three department heads will be there. You’ll be fine.” Across from them, on the other sofa, sat Sophie’s mother. A cashmere throw was draped over her shoulders. I had bought that blanket last month for two thousand dollars. I’d been saving it for when my mother came to the city for her appointment — something soft to put behind her back in those hard waiting room chairs. Now it was wrapped around a stranger. The sound of my suitcase wheels rolling across the floor cut through the warmth in the room. Sophie stood up. “Oh, Lily’s back. Ethan mentioned your mom is sick too — is it serious?”

Her voice was full of concern. Her eyes were fixed on my suitcase. Ethan frowned. “Why are you back now? I told you to take your mom to the outpatient clinic. What are you doing here?” “I came back for her bank card.” I let go of the handle and walked to the coffee table. I took the glass jar out of my bag and set it down beside a bowl of cherries. “My mom made this for you.” I looked at Ethan. “She said you’re always in surgery and it wears on your throat. She simmered it for three days and carried it the whole way herself.” Ethan glanced at the jar. Rough glass, handwritten note. It looked out of place next to everything else in the room. “Homemade things have unknown ingredients. Don’t leave it in the house.” “Mrs. Hayes just had her results done. Her immune system is compromised. She can’t be around random substances.” He picked up the jar and walked into the kitchen. I stood still and listened. The sound of a lid being unscrewed. I walked to the kitchen doorway. Ethan was pouring the pear syrup down the drain. “Stop acting like the sky is falling every time something happens with your mother.” “The hospital isn’t a private club. Everything has a process. Waiting in line is just how it works.” His back was to me. I watched the last amber trace disappear down the drain. “Ethan. My mom’s nodule is three centimeters.” He turned off the tap and turned around. “I’m a doctor. I know more about this than you do. A 1.2-centimeter nodule in the wrong position carries just as much risk. Are you really going to make a scene over this right now?” Sophie’s voice floated in from the living room. “Ethan was just worried about Aunt Hayes eating something she shouldn’t. Lily, don’t take it the wrong way. If your mom really can’t get an appointment, I’ll give her my priority slot tomorrow.” Ethan walked out immediately. “That won’t be necessary. Your mom’s consultation is a multi-department session. It can’t be delayed.” He turned to look at me. “Get the bank card and go back to the hospital. Stop creating problems here.” I said nothing. I went to the bedroom and pulled open the drawer. I took out my mother’s bank card and old medical records. On my way through the kitchen, I dropped the empty glass jar into the trash. It shattered with a clean, sharp sound. My phone buzzed. A message from my mother: Did you give Ethan the pear syrup? I stared at the screen and put the phone in my pocket. I grabbed my suitcase and walked out the door. As it swung shut behind me, I could hear Ethan’s voice inside: “Mrs. Hayes, eat while it’s hot.” At four in the morning, cold air cut straight through the outpatient lobby. I turned off my phone screen. My mother was slumped in a plastic chair. When she heard what I said, a smile spread across her face. “Good, good. Next time I’ll buy a few more pounds of pears and make him a bigger batch.” I took the hard-boiled egg from her hands. The shell had gone soft from being held so long. I looked up at the display board. The general respiratory clinic still had over seventy numbers ahead of ours. My mother’s three centimeters was just a number here. By eight in the morning the lobby was filling up. I helped my mother walk to the imaging department on the first floor to get additional films printed. We had just turned the corner of the corridor when we walked straight into a group of people coming the other way. At the front was Ethan, white coat on, Deputy Director badge on his chest. The Head of Imaging, the Deputy Head of Anesthesiology, and the Head Nurse of Cardiothoracic were with him. In the middle of the group were Sophie and her mother.

Mrs. Hayes was in a wheelchair. Sophie was pushing her. Ethan was giving instructions to the Head of Imaging. “Dr. Reynolds, the edges on that 1.2-centimeter nodule are slightly blurred. I’d like you to personally oversee the contrast CT.” My mother went still. She rubbed her eyes and took a step forward. “Ethan?” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it landed awkwardly at the entrance to the VIP corridor. Ethan stopped walking. He turned his head. My mother was wearing her faded cotton-linen shirt. There were still yellow mud stains on the hem of her pants. She held her canvas tote of CT films tightly in both hands. “It really is you, Ethan.” She gave a slightly nervous smile and moved toward him. “Have you eaten breakfast? I still have a warm egg right here—” The department heads all stopped. The hospital administrator, Dr. Collins, looked at my mother, then at Ethan. “Dr. Smith, is this a family member of yours?” One beat of silence. “No.” He turned to Dr. Collins. “A general patient’s family member who has mistaken me for someone else. Could you ask security to maintain order? We can’t have the consultation disrupted.” My mother’s outstretched hand froze in the air. The egg rolled out of her grip. She lost her hold on the canvas tote. It hit the floor with a crash. Dozens of CT films scattered across the tiles. Security stepped forward immediately. “Ma’am, this is the specialist corridor. Please step back behind the yellow line.” My mother snapped back to herself and crouched down in a hurry, nodding repeatedly. “I’m so sorry, so sorry, I’m getting old, I must have mistaken him for someone else. He just looks so much like — I’m so sorry.” She kept apologizing to the security guard as she picked up the films. Sophie was standing beside Ethan. She tugged lightly at his sleeve. Ethan didn’t look at the floor again. He walked into the consultation room and took everyone with him. I stood at the corner of the corridor and watched my mother bent over, picking up her films one by one. Patients waiting in line were staring at her. She gathered the films back into the canvas tote and wiped her face with her sleeve. I didn’t rush out. Because that would have only made it worse for her. She was working so hard to cover for Ethan. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to know that her own son-in-law had humiliated her in public. I walked over and crouched down to pick up the last film. My mother saw me and quickly turned away to wipe her face. “Lily, how did you get here? Did our number come up?” I looked at her red-rimmed eyes and the rough, swollen knuckles of her hands. “Mom. Let’s go.” I took her hand. “Go where? We’re not waiting anymore?” “We’re done waiting.” I tucked the films back into the canvas tote, took her hand, and turned toward the hospital exit. “We’re not treating this here.” I didn’t give her time to hesitate. I half-led, half-pulled her through the revolving doors of the provincial hospital. The cold air hit her and she shuddered. Her feet stopped on the front steps. “Lily, don’t be childish.” She grabbed my hand, her voice uneasy. “Ethan was working. All those department heads were standing right there. If I went over looking like this, I’d just embarrass him in front of everyone.” She was still making excuses for him. “He wasn’t wrong. I am just a regular patient’s family member. Let’s go back and wait in line. We can’t miss the appointment.” I looked at her face — apologetic, small, desperate to smooth everything over. It hurt to look at. “Mom, he didn’t owe you dignity. He just refused to give it to you.” I walked her across the street to a noodle shop and set a bowl of hot soup in front of her. “Eat. When you’re done I’m taking you somewhere else.” My mother didn’t pick up her fork. She looked around to make sure no one was watching, then slipped her hand inside her jacket. She worked at something for a long moment, unclasped a safety pin, and pulled out a small cloth bundle wrapped in three layers of plastic.

She slid a bank card across the table toward me. “Eighty-three thousand, six hundred dollars.” “This is what I saved. Selling grain, raising chickens, folding boxes for the factory in town. The PIN is your birthday.” She looked at me. “If it comes to surgery, we don’t ask Ethan for anything. I have money. I’m not taking anything from him.” Eighty-three thousand, six hundred. One week ago, the local clinic had recommended an urgent contrast CT and tumor markers panel for my mother. It came up eight thousand short. I called Ethan and asked if we could transfer eight thousand from our joint account. You know what he said? “Don’t rush into every test. The standard process is enough. Hospital resources aren’t for wasting.” Eight thousand dollars and he acted like it was too much to ask. But last night, when I’d gone home to get some documents, I’d checked the joint account transaction history on my way out. The very next day after he said it was wasteful, three hundred thousand dollars had been transferred out. Recipient: Hospital Finance. Note: Special care unit deposit and pre-surgery assessment — Mrs. Hayes. I pushed the card back to my mother. “Mom, keep it. Your treatment is my responsibility.” After I settled her into a budget hotel to rest, I went back to the apartment. Ethan had just gotten off his shift. He shrugged off his jacket and headed to the study without even glancing at me. “Did your mom get her appointment sorted? I looked at a few three-centimeter films today. Almost all benign. Stop scaring yourself.” I followed him into the study and slapped the printed transaction records on his desk. “My mom. Three centimeters. Eight thousand short for an urgent test. You told me to use the regular process.” “Sophie’s mom. 1.2 centimeters. You wired three hundred thousand for a private suite.” “Ethan. What am I to you? What is my mother to you?” He looked at the printout. Something shifted in his expression for just a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair. “Mrs. Hayes has severe anxiety. A 1.2-centimeter finding is a huge psychological burden for her. Sophie couldn’t handle it alone. I was just helping stabilize the situation.” He met my eyes. “The three hundred thousand is just a deposit. It’ll be refunded when she’s discharged. Are you really going to fight with me over a deposit?” “And my mother? She sat in a hospital corridor all night. She couldn’t even get an urgent test done. You don’t think she was scared?” Ethan picked up his glass and took a slow sip. “Your mother grew up hard. She’s used to it. She’s tougher than you think.” “That wasn’t the right setting to make exceptions. If you’re going to hold your mother’s minor condition over my head like some kind of leverage, then I really don’t know what to say to you.” I looked at the man I had been married to for five years. The neat shirt. The thin-framed glasses. The fluent medical vocabulary wrapped around what passed for principles. Rotten to the core underneath all of it. “Minor condition.” I nodded once. No shouting. No asking why anymore. I turned and walked out of the study and closed the door behind me. There was no point reasoning with someone like that. That was my mistake. I didn’t go home that night. I sat on the hotel bed until morning, photographing all of my mother’s imaging files with my phone and sending them through the online consultation portal at a hospital in New York. The consultation fee plus express surcharge came to twelve hundred dollars. I put it on my credit card. Three days later, the specialist called. “Is this the family of Susan Jones?” A pause. “I’ve reviewed the scans.” Another pause. “The nodule is three centimeters, with pronounced spiculated margins and pleural traction. The probability is strongly in favor of malignancy, with early signs of peripheral infiltration.” I went rigid on the edge of the bed. “We recommend surgery as soon as possible. No delays. When can you get here?” “Tomorrow. First thing tomorrow morning.” I hung up and went straight home for my mother’s ID. I stepped out of the elevator and found the front door wide open. Moving men were hauling things inside.

The guest room had been mostly cleared out. The hallway floor was covered in scattered belongings. The pillowcase my mother had sewn for me. The old bedding she’d used when she stayed. The nebulizer I’d bought. And the worn canvas tote full of her CT films. One of the movers stepped right on it. A black boot print pressed into the fabric. Ethan was in the living room directing everything. “Move that therapy bed in there. Put it by the window.” He saw me and spoke as if nothing had happened. “Good timing. Mrs. Hayes needs a quiet environment to recover after her tests. Sophie can’t manage on her own, so I’m letting them use the guest room for a few days.” I looked at the canvas tote on the floor. Inside were my mother’s handwritten symptom notes. And a hospital receipt from when I was a child, running a fever. She’d carried me through the dark to the town clinic that night. She’d kept that receipt all these years. “Those are my mother’s things.” Ethan glanced at them. “Stop carting all this old paperwork around. It’s easy to lose. The guest room’s been sanitized. Be considerate when Mrs. Hayes moves in.” Sophie’s voice came from the other end of the apartment. “Ethan, I really can’t thank you enough. Giving up your only free room and letting my mom stay here — she would have been so frightened otherwise.” His tone softened. “Don’t mention it. Just let her focus on getting better.” My phone rang. A nurse from the hospital admissions department. “Is this the family of Dr. Ethan Smith? The cardiothoracic bed you’d been waiting for — Dr. Smith signed the transfer today. It’s been reassigned to another patient. You’ll need to re-queue.” I didn’t respond. I ended the call. I crouched down and picked up the canvas tote. I brushed off the boot print and folded the scattered papers back inside one by one. Then I went to the study and pulled open the drawer. The divorce agreement. I’d printed it out a long time ago. I laid it on his desk. I pulled the ring off my left hand and set it on top of the papers. I took the house key off my keychain and tucked it into the canvas tote. I picked up my bag and walked out the door. No argument. No goodbye. Downstairs, I sent my mother a message. Mom, pack your things. I’m taking you to New York. Early train tomorrow morning. She replied almost immediately: Is Ethan coming too? I don’t want to take him away from work. I stood outside in the cold wind. It slipped under my collar. I looked up once at the window of the apartment I’d lived in for five years. Warm light. Voices. Laughter. I typed back: No. He won’t be part of this anymore. On the train, my mother hugged the old canvas tote to her chest. She sat curled against the window and didn’t touch her water. “Does Ethan know?” “Mom, stop worrying about him.” I pressed the cup into her hands. “I’ve got everything arranged with the specialist in New York. We go straight to admissions when we arrive.” She didn’t respond. She just looked down and ran her thumb over the black boot print on the canvas. Four hours later. New York Cancer Center. Admission paperwork. Blood work. Pre-surgical assessment. No hassle. No queue. No night spent shivering in a corridor. When I paid, I swiped my credit card. The balance hit zero. Somehow I felt steadier than I had in weeks. At eight o’clock that evening, my mother fell asleep in her hospital bed. I was sitting on the bench in the corridor when my phone started going off. Ethan. I picked up. “Where the hell have you been?!” He didn’t even take a breath before he started. “Mrs. Hayes is about to be discharged and move in. Why haven’t you made the bed in the guest room? There’s nothing fresh in the refrigerator. What have you been doing all day?!”

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