I woke up in the hospital, and a man in a sharp suit was sitting by my bed. I asked politely, “Excuse me, sir, am I here to interview for a nanny position at your home?” His face went pale. “What did you say?” I got a bit nervous. “I’m sorry, I’ve lost my memory. I only remember that I was supposed to go work as a live-in nanny for a family…” He grabbed my hand, trembling, but I instinctively pulled away. “Sir, please control yourself.” After returning to the villa, everyone looked at me strangely. I worked diligently, waking up at five every morning to make breakfast for Mr. Vincent and Miss Willow. The way she looked at me changed from smug to uneasy. Mr. Vincent’s son cried and hugged me. I awkwardly pushed him away. “Ethan, nannies can’t have physical contact with their employers like this.” He cried even harder. Mr. Vincent often stared at me. I thought he was dissatisfied with my work, so I worked even harder. One night, I brought a late-night snack to the study and heard him on the phone. “Doctor, when will she recover her memory? I can’t take this anymore…” His voice was choked with tears. “She used to love me so much, but now she treats me like a stranger…” I froze outside the door.

I got up at five as usual. Before the car accident, I remembered I was working as a nanny for a wealthy family, cooking and taking care of this father and son every day. Since I’d been discharged from the hospital, I still needed to do my job properly. I tiptoed downstairs. The kitchen lights were still off. I opened the fridge and saw it packed with ingredients. I took out eggs, tomatoes, and bacon, planning to make simple sandwiches. While I was frying eggs, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around. Mr. Vincent was standing in the kitchen doorway, his eyes red, like he hadn’t slept all night. “Mr. Vincent, you’re up so early?” I asked politely. He stared at me and let out a cold laugh. “Nice act,” he said. I was confused. “What?” He walked over. “You think getting into a car accident and pretending to have amnesia is a way to start over?” I had no idea what he was talking about. “Mr. Vincent, I really do have amnesia…” “Cut the crap.” He interrupted me, his tone especially cold. “You were demanding a divorce before, and now today you’re saying you’re the nanny?” His attitude scared me, and I took a step back. He continued, “You want sympathy, right? You want me to feel guilty, want Ethan to feel sorry for you?” “I didn’t…” “Whether you did or not, I know.” He looked at me coldly. “Sophia, you’ve used a lot of tactics, but this one is too crude.” I opened my mouth, not knowing what to say. The sandwiches were done. I cut them into three portions and arranged them on the dining table. Mr. Vincent sat in the main seat, not even glancing at the breakfast I’d made. “Your breakfasts used to be elaborate,” he said. “And now it’s just this?” I nervously wrung my hands. “I… I only know how to make these…” “Keep acting.” He took a bite of the sandwich and put it down. “Even the taste has changed.” I didn’t know how to explain. Just then, crying came from upstairs. Ethan had woken up. I rushed upstairs and pushed open the children’s room door. Ethan was sitting on the bed. When he saw me, tears immediately fell. “Mommy…” he cried. I crouched down. “Ethan, what’s wrong?” He froze for a moment, then cried even harder. “You don’t recognize me anymore?” I didn’t know what to say, so I could only gently pat his back. Mr. Vincent came upstairs too, standing in the doorway with a cold expression. “Stop acting,” he said. “Ethan, ignore her. She’s putting on a show.” Ethan looked up at his father, then at me, and cried even louder. I stood up and said awkwardly, “Then… I’ll go downstairs first.” “Stop.” Mr. Vincent called out to me. “Where are you sleeping?” “The nanny’s room.” He sneered. “Really getting into character.” I kept my head down, not daring to look at him. “Whatever.” He said. “But don’t think this will make me soften.” During breakfast, the atmosphere was especially oppressive. Ethan kept staring at me, tears dripping down. Mr. Vincent didn’t even glance at me. After I saw they’d finished eating, I carefully spoke up. “Mr. Vincent, I’d like to ask, what’s my salary?” He looked up at me, his eyes like he was looking at a stranger. “Salary?” He repeated the word and laughed. “Sophia, you really are expanding my understanding.” I was completely confused by what he said. “Forget it, act however you want to act.” He stood up. “But don’t expect me to play along.” Then he left. Ethan also ran upstairs, leaving me sitting alone in the dining room. I looked at the table full of breakfast, suddenly feeling especially lost. Is this father and son pair sick or something?

Over the next few days, Mr. Vincent’s attitude toward me got colder and colder. I didn’t care. I was just a nanny—do my job well and that’s it, whatever he does is his business. I’d save some money and then quit. At noon, I started making lunch. Ethan was playing with toys in the living room. When he saw me, he turned his head away and ignored me. Willow was sitting on the sofa and smiled at me. “Sophia, need any help?” I shook my head. “No, thank you, Miss Willow.” She smiled and didn’t say anything. Lunch was ready. I brought it to the table. Shrimp pizza and a plate of vegetables. Ethan glanced at it and pouted. Willow served him food. “Ethan, eat more.” “Auntie Willow’s cooking tastes better,” he said quietly. I stood to the side, a bit awkward. Mr. Vincent came home and saw the food on the table, frowning. “Just this?” I nodded. “Yes… yes.” He sneered and sat down to eat. Ethan took two bites of pizza and suddenly clutched his stomach. “Ethan?” Willow quickly asked. His face turned especially red, and a rash broke out on his neck. Mr. Vincent’s expression changed instantly. He picked him up and rushed out. “To the hospital!” I panicked too and ran out after them. In the car, Mr. Vincent drove extremely fast, his face ashen. I sat in the back seat, watching Ethan in pain, my heart clenching. At the hospital, the doctor gave Ethan a shot and confirmed it was a shrimp allergy. Mr. Vincent turned to look at me, his eyes especially cold. “You gave him shrimp?” I froze. “I… I didn’t know Ethan was allergic…” “You didn’t know?” He sneered. “You’re his mother. How could you not know?” His tone scared me. “But… I really don’t remember…” “Still acting.” He cut me off. “Sophia, you think I don’t know what you’re thinking?” “You just want to use this to get revenge on me, right? Want to make me feel guilty?” I shook my head. “I didn’t…” “Enough.” He turned and went into the hospital room, leaving me standing alone in the corridor. Willow came over and sighed softly. “Sophia, I know you’re hurting inside,” she said. “But doing this… is it really good?” I didn’t understand what she meant. She continued, “Using this method to try to win Vincent back will only make him more disgusted.” I was stunned. “I’m not trying to win him back…” “You don’t need to explain to me.” She smiled and said softly, “Sophia, I advise you to give up. Vincent has already given up on you. No matter how much you act, it’s useless.” Then she went into the hospital room. I stood in the corridor, my mind blank. I had no idea what she was talking about. When I got home, I searched my own name online. The first news article that came up was: “Lancaster Group Heiress Marries Poor Boy, Seven Years Later Marriage Reportedly on the Rocks.” I clicked on it. The article said that Sophia Lancaster was the only daughter of the Lancaster Group. Seven years ago, against her family’s wishes, she married Vincent Hayes, who was just an ordinary employee at the time. After marriage, she quit her position as vice president to be a full-time housewife. Vincent relied on his father-in-law’s connections, and his business grew bigger and bigger. Three years ago, Sophia’s parents died, and she inherited a large fortune. Recently there were rumors that their marriage was in crisis. I read these news articles, completely dumbfounded. My first reaction was that this Sophia was way too naive—so rich and she married a gold digger!

Vincent hired a new chef, a middle-aged woman who was especially polite to me. “Mrs. Hayes, what would you like to eat?” she asked. I was taken aback. “I… I’m not Mrs. Hayes.” “She likes to pretend to be the nanny now,” Willow said with a smile. “Just call her Miss Sophia.” The chef looked confused but nodded. Ethan had been avoiding me these past few days. Once I tried to hand him a toy, and he threw it on the floor. “I don’t want you to touch it!” he shouted. Mr. Vincent watched from the side, sneered, and said nothing. Today no one was home, so I thought I’d clean the study. I pushed open the door. The bookshelves inside were full of books and photos. I took a cloth and started dusting. Halfway through, I saw a photo. It was a picture of Willow and Vincent together, both standing by the ocean, smiling happily. I frowned and kept looking. There were at least seven or eight photos like this on the bookshelf. In contrast, there was only one photo of Vincent and Sophia, tucked away in a corner. I thought to myself, these two definitely have something going on. How did the lady of the house tolerate this? I was already silently rejecting the idea that I was Sophia. I wasn’t that much of a lovesick fool. While organizing the desk, I saw a notebook in the drawer. Curious, I took it out and opened it. The first page had just one line: “Why hasn’t he come home yet…” Flipping through, it was all this kind of rambling. “It’s 3 AM, I’ve been waiting in the living room all night.” “Willow came again today. She said she and Vincent are just friends, but why is she living in my house?” “Ethan said he likes Auntie Willow better. My heart is broken.” Looking at these words, I thought—tormenting yourself like this for a man, why bother? Might as well be a nanny—at least there’s a salary. I kept flipping. “We fought again today. He said I was being unreasonable.” “I just wanted an explanation. Does that count as being unreasonable?” “Ethan defended Willow today and said I’m a bad mommy.” “I’m so tired…” The handwriting got messier and messier. Some places had tear stains. I flipped to the last page. There was only one sentence: “I want a divorce.” Now that’s more like it! This kind of person deserves a divorce! I casually put the diary away. This crybaby lovesick fool definitely isn’t me. At dinner that night, Ethan kept staring at me. His eyes were red, like he’d been crying. “Mommy…” he suddenly called out quietly. I looked up at him. “Do… do you really not remember me?” he asked, his voice trembling. I didn’t know how to answer. Mr. Vincent put down his fork and looked at me, a hint of expectation in his eyes. I opened my mouth and finally nodded. Ethan cried. Willow quickly comforted him. “Ethan, sweetie, don’t cry…” I also said, “Ethan, don’t you like Auntie Willow the most? Having her here is enough…” Ethan froze, then ran upstairs crying. Mr. Vincent stood up and looked at me coldly. “Have you acted enough?” he said. “Even lying to your own son?” Then he went upstairs too. Only Willow and I were left at the dining table. She sighed. “Sophia, why do this?” I didn’t say anything. She stood up, walked over to me, and said softly, “You know what? Vincent actually cares about you a lot.” “It’s just that what you’ve done these years has really disappointed him.” She patted my shoulder and went upstairs. I was a bit helpless. “What’s there to act about? He cares about me, but I don’t care about him.”

These past few days, Mr. Vincent’s attitude toward me had softened a little. He no longer made sarcastic remarks, but he didn’t really acknowledge me either. Just like I really was a nanny. This morning, Willow suddenly came to find me. “Sophia, let’s talk,” she said. We sat in the living room. She looked a bit nervous. “Actually… Vincent and I were college sweethearts,” she began. I was taken aback. She continued, “We dated for three years, then we were forced to break up because our families opposed it.” I didn’t say anything, just listened to her continue. “Five years ago I got divorced and had nowhere to go, so I found Vincent.” Her voice was soft. “He took me in and let me live here.” I thought to myself: Here comes the homewrecker’s confession. “You… you’re not angry?” she asked cautiously. I shook my head. “Why would I be angry?” She froze. I said, “Miss Willow, your past with Mr. Vincent is your business. I don’t remember anything, so there’s nothing to be angry about.” Her expression changed. “But… you weren’t like this before.” “Before?” “You used to be really mean to me,” she said. “Every time I came, you’d find all kinds of excuses to kick me out.” “You even talked bad about me in front of Ethan, telling him not to play with me.” Her voice sounded a bit aggrieved. “Later he found out I wasn’t that kind of person, and he ended up hating you even more.” I sighed inwardly. The lady of the house really ruined herself… Talking bad about someone in front of a child, and in the end even her son sided with the other woman. “That was her being petty,” I said. “I wouldn’t do that.” Willow looked at me with a complex expression. Just then, Mr. Vincent came in. He heard our conversation and stood in the doorway, looking displeased. “What are you saying?” he asked Willow. Willow lowered her head, looking like I’d bullied her. I said, “Miss Willow was just explaining why she moved in before, but I said, I’m just a nanny—I don’t care about these things.” Mr. Vincent turned to look at me, his eyes complex. “Do you know what you did before to drive her away?” I shook my head. “You flew to her hometown, knelt in front of her parents, and begged them to make her stay away from me.” I was stunned. He continued, “You came back and cried all night, saying you’d never been so humiliated.” “But the next day, she came back. Because I asked her to come back.” He looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I felt helpless. This definitely wasn’t me! Way too pathetic… Kneeling and begging people? Degrading yourself like this for a man? But I didn’t say it out loud, just nodded. “Oh.” Mr. Vincent froze. “Just… oh?” he asked. “Yeah.” I said. “That was in the past. I don’t remember it. Like I said, if you’re paying me as a nanny, I’ll work as a nanny. If you’re not paying me, I’ll leave.” Actually, if it weren’t for just getting out of the hospital, I would’ve left already. He stared at me for a long time, his eyes getting more and more complex. “You really…” He hesitated. Willow was also looking at me, her expression a bit panicked. The atmosphere was especially awkward. Mr. Vincent suddenly said, “Come with me.” He took me to the study. Closing the door, he turned to look at me. “Sophia, what exactly are you thinking?” he asked. His question left me confused. “I… I’m not thinking anything.” “You heard me say you knelt and begged people, and you had no reaction at all?” He took a deep breath. “Before, when you heard these things, you’d cry, make a scene, throw things.” “But now you don’t even furrow your brow.” I didn’t know what to say. Nobody told me being a nanny also meant playing therapist. He kept staring at me, then suddenly said, “If you really have amnesia…” He didn’t finish. But I saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes. He turned around. “Get out.” I left the study, breathing a sigh of relief.

These past few days, Mr. Vincent’s attitude toward me had become even stranger. He no longer made sarcastic remarks, but instead often stared at me. As if observing whether I really had amnesia. Today was the weekend. He said he was taking Ethan to the amusement park. “You come too,” he suddenly said to me. I was surprised. “I… should I go? You won’t deduct it from my pay?” “No.” Ethan pouted on the side. “I don’t want her to come!” Mr. Vincent frowned. “Ethan.” “She doesn’t want to be with me anyway!” Ethan’s eyes turned red. “She doesn’t care about me at all!” I stood there, a bit awkward. She really got that right. Willow quickly said, “Then I’ll go with Ethan. Let Sophia rest at home.” Mr. Vincent glanced at me and said nothing. The three of them left. I sat in the living room watching TV, feeling pretty relaxed. At 3 PM, Ethan video called me. I answered and saw him sitting on a carousel. “Look, I’m on the carousel!” He smiled happily. I nodded. “Is it fun?” “Yeah! Auntie Willow played so many rides with me!” Willow waved and smiled in the background. Ethan suddenly said quietly, “I wish Auntie Willow was my mommy.” This kid… really spoiled rotten. Good thing I don’t remember her. I just smiled. “Then you have to listen to Auntie Willow, okay?” Ethan froze, like he didn’t expect me to say that. He looked at Mr. Vincent beside him. Mr. Vincent’s face looked terrible. “You… you’re not even angry?” Ethan asked. “Why would I be angry?” I said. “You can play with whoever you like.” Ethan’s tears suddenly fell. Mr. Vincent took the phone and hung up the video call. I went back to watching TV. They came home in the evening. Ethan was holding a balloon, looking upset, his eyes still red. Willow was also very quiet. Only Mr. Vincent kept staring at me. At dinner, he suddenly said, “Willow took really good care of Ethan today.” He paused. “Unlike some people.” I was drinking soup when I heard this and my hand paused. Willow quickly said, “Vincent, don’t say that…” “I’m stating facts.” He looked at me. “Some people don’t even care about their child anymore.” I put down my spoon and said calmly, “Miss Willow is indeed very good.” Mr. Vincent’s spoon dropped on the table. He stared at me, eyes full of disbelief. “That’s your answer?” he asked. I nodded. “What else?” He suddenly stood up, the chair scraping with a harsh sound. “You can stop caring just because you don’t remember?” His voice got louder and louder. “Ethan is your son! How can you be so cold?” Ethan suddenly jumped down from his chair and ran up to me. “You…” His voice was trembling. “You really don’t care about me anymore, do you?” I didn’t speak, afraid of upsetting him. Tears fell from his eyes. “I said I wish Auntie Willow was my mommy, and you didn’t even get angry…” “Do you wish I wasn’t your son?” I panicked. “That’s not what I meant…” “Then what did you mean?” He cried harder. “You’re obviously my mommy, why are you pretending not to know me?” “Why don’t you feel sad when I say things like that?” He was crying so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. When I didn’t respond, he ran upstairs by himself. Mr. Vincent stood there, looking terrible. “You really…” Mr. Vincent looked at me, his voice trembling slightly. “You really don’t care anymore?” Willow also stood there awkwardly. They all looked at me. I had to say, “I’m just a nanny. Should I care?” He suddenly turned and chased after Ethan upstairs. Crying came from upstairs. It was Ethan crying, with Mr. Vincent trying to comfort him. “Ethan, stop crying… Mommy is just sick…” “But Daddy… the way she looks at me… like I’m a bad kid…” “No, Mommy loves you very much…” “Then why isn’t she angry? Does she really not want me anymore…” The child’s crying gradually quieted, probably from exhaustion. I stood downstairs, unable to describe what I was feeling. A bit uncomfortable, but only a bit. In the middle of the night, I got up to use the bathroom. Passing by the master bedroom, I heard sounds inside. “Doctor, she might really have amnesia…” It was Mr. Vincent on the phone. “She has no reaction to Ethan at all… completely unlike how much she used to care…” “Traumatic amnesia? There’s such a thing?” His voice sounded a bit panicked. “Can she still recover?” “You’re saying… she might never remember?” “No… that’s impossible…” His voice changed. “She can’t not remember me… can’t stop loving me…” I stood outside the door, listening to his voice. Suddenly felt a bit pathetic. He cared so much about whether I remembered him. But he never seemed to ask whether I wanted to remember.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “379574”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

Four hours after my death, a grotesque scene unfolded outside the cold morgue drawer where I lay. My husband, Victor, and my sister, Julia, were fighting for their lives—not over my inheritance, but in sheer terror. They’d found my suicide note, taped to the drawer: “The one who murdered me drank a poison I call ‘Crimson Truth’ three hours ago. In twenty-four hours, it will eat through their gut.” Detectives watched calmly as Victor, sweating and desperate, grabbed the medical examiner. “Extract her memories—now! The antidote’s in her brain!” Julia screamed, pulling at him. “Are you insane? The police are here! They’ll see everything!” Victor slapped her. “Without the antidote, we’re dead! This is our only chance!” They thought they were racing the clock. They didn’t know this was only the opening act of the “game” I’d designed for them. As the machine powered on, a hologram filled the room. The first image was from my own eyes: me holding two glasses of red wine, toasting an empty room. My voice echoed, “My darlings, the show has just begun.” Who, do you think, will be the first to lose control? … The air conditioning in the morgue was blasting, but beads of sweat still rolled down Victor’s forehead like marbles. He clutched his stomach, his face as pale as a freshly painted wall, and made a dry, retching sound, like he had a fishbone caught in his throat. “Detective Grant, I’m formally requesting an immediate memory extraction! Now!” Victor’s voice trembled with the primal fear of death. Detective Grant stood with his arms crossed, his gaze as sharp as a hawk’s. It swept over Victor’s contorted face and then to Julia, who had collapsed in a heap on the floor. “Mr. Blackwood, memory extraction requires the signed consent of the next of kin. And the police must be present to record the entire procedure.” Grant paused, a hint of dark amusement in his tone. “If anything… incriminating… should appear in those memories, say, evidence of a murder, it will be admissible in court.” Victor’s head snapped up, his eyes a web of red veins. He knew exactly what that meant. But he also knew that without the antidote, in less than twenty-four hours, his insides would rot away, just as my note described. “I’ll sign! I’ll sign it!” Victor snatched the consent form, the tip of his pen tearing the paper. His signature was a frantic, illegible scrawl. Julia scrambled up from the floor and grabbed his sleeve, her nails digging into his flesh. “Victor! Don’t! Those are her memories! What if… what if…” What if what, Julia? What if they showed the two of you collaborating to swap my heart medication with fakes? Or what if there was a close-up of you, my dear sister, pouring the poison into my glass with your own two hands? Victor threw her off with such force that she slammed against a morgue drawer with a sickening thud. “Get off me! If you want to die, don’t drag me down with you!” he screamed, his voice raw with hysteria. “As long as I get the antidote, we can deal with the rest later! What good is ‘later’ if we’re dead?!” Julia clutched her bruised shoulder, tears streaming down her face, but the dominant emotion in her eyes was terror. She was afraid of dying, too. She knew better than anyone that my title as a “master perfumer” wasn’t just for show. The poisons I concocted, only I could undo. Their lawyer, Mr. Ferguson, adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow before leaning in to whisper in Victor’s ear. “Mr. Blackwood, as long as there’s no direct footage of the act itself, we have room to build a defense. Survival is the priority right now.” Ferguson was a smart man, and a survivor. He knew that if Victor died, all the shady asset transfers he’d helped orchestrate would come to light. This was his best bet. Grant gave a sharp nod. Technicians moved forward, attaching the complex web of electrodes to my cold scalp. “Instrument activated. Commencing memory extraction.” 2 The giant holographic screen flickered twice, then blazed to life. The scene was from my perspective, twenty-four hours before my death. I was in my private laboratory. Reagent bottles in a rainbow of colors lined the countertops. I was wearing a white lab coat, a dropper in my hand. Victor and Julia held their breath, their eyes glued to the screen, terrified of missing a single detail. In the memory, I was mixing a strange, crimson liquid. The red was so vibrant it looked like freshly drawn venous blood. As I carefully added droplets of a reagent, I murmured to myself, my tone so cheerful it was chilling. “A double dose for Victor’s glass. That leech has had a growing appetite lately.” “And a triple dose for Julia’s. She is my dear sister, after all. She deserves a more… thorough experience.” As I spoke, the red liquid bubbled in the beaker, releasing thin wisps of white smoke. In the morgue, Julia let out a strangled cry and threw up on the floor, a bitter mix of stomach acid and bile. Victor’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees, his hands clawing at his own throat as if the red liquid were already searing his esophagus. “The antidote… where’s the antidote…” he whimpered, his eyes losing focus. On the screen, my memory-self held up the freshly mixed “poison,” looked directly into the camera—directly at them—and smiled a terrible, knowing smile. “Patience. The game has just begun.” I turned and poured the red liquid into a wine decanter, which held Victor’s favorite bottle of Romanée-Conti. Victor’s pupils dilated to pinpricks. He remembered. Last night, to celebrate my “unexpected” death, he and Julia had finished that entire bottle. They hadn’t left a single drop. Fear, like a giant, invisible hand, clamped down on his heart. He thought he was drinking the wine of victory. In reality, it was his ticket to hell. And I was waiting for him at the gates, smiling. At that moment, Victor’s sanity shattered. He lay on the floor like a dying animal, gasping for air, his eyes filled with a desperate will to live. “Detective! Help me! Get me to a hospital! Pump my stomach! Now!” Detective Grant watched him with a cold, clinical detachment, as if observing a clown’s pathetic performance. “Mr. Blackwood, the M.E. has already checked your vitals. They’re perfectly stable. You’re showing no signs of poisoning.” Victor’s head snapped up, his eyes bulging. “Impossible! The note was clear! And the memory… that red stuff! I drank all of it!” It was strawberry juice, I added silently in my mind. With a little food coloring and a dash of capsaicin to give it a kick. Unfortunately for them, the dead can’t speak, and the living are easily blinded by fear. “It could have a delayed onset! Michelle was a psycho, she loved playing these kinds of twisted games!” Julia shrieked, her voice a piercing nail on a chalkboard. “Take us to a hospital! We need blood tests!” “It’s no use,” Mr. Ferguson interjected suddenly, his face ashen. “You know Ms. Reed’s level of expertise. Any poison she created would be undetectable by conventional tests.” That statement was the final straw. Victor’s eyes fluttered shut in despair, then snapped open again, fixing on the screen. “Keep watching! There has to be an antidote! She would have left herself a way out!” The memory continued to play. The timeline jumped to three hours before the incident. The scene was our living room. Victor was on the sofa, whispering with Mr. Ferguson. Ferguson held a document, his expression nervous. “Mr. Blackwood, Ms. Reed still hasn’t signed these stock transfer papers. If she were to… suddenly… could there be complications?” Victor let out a cold laugh, swirling the “spiked” wine in his glass. “Don’t worry. After tonight, she won’t be in any condition to sign anything.” In the morgue, Detective Grant’s expression sharpened instantly. He turned his head and locked his gaze on Mr. Ferguson. 3 Mr. Ferguson froze, a river of cold sweat running down his temple. He instinctively reached for a glass of water on the table, but his hand trembled so badly that he knocked it over. It shattered on the floor, the sound echoing in the silent morgue. The sudden noise drew everyone’s attention. And in that precise instant, on the screen, my memory-self turned her head. I wasn’t looking at Victor or Ferguson. My gaze was fixed on the massive floor-to-ceiling mirror in the living room. Through the mirror’s reflection, my eyes seemed to pierce through the screen, landing directly on the Mr. Ferguson of the present. “Don’t bother, Detective,” my voice from the memory said, cool, confident, and laced with mockery. “Pay attention to the lawyer’s hand.” Grant whipped his head around, his eyes like daggers, pinning Ferguson’s right hand, which he hadn’t managed to retract in time. His hand was creeping toward his pocket, where a miniature signal jammer was hidden. One press, and the memory extractor’s power would be cut, corrupting the data. It was their last-ditch effort to save themselves. Too bad I saw it coming. “Take your hand out of your pocket! Now!” Grant barked. Two officers were on Ferguson in a second, twisting his arms behind his back and pulling the black device from his pocket. Victor stared at the scene, utterly dumbfounded. He looked from the jammer to my image on the screen as if he were seeing a ghost. “How… How did she know?” My memory-self couldn’t hear him, of course. But I had seen Ferguson’s furtive movements in the mirror. I let out a soft laugh, then pulled a folded lab report from a drawer and waved it in the air. “Victor, did you really think I wouldn’t notice you’d swapped my heart medication?” The lab report was clearly visible. Under “Chemical Analysis,” one simple ingredient was listed: Vitamin C. In the morgue, Victor leaped to his feet as if he’d been electrocuted. “That’s slander! It’s fake! She was paranoid! That was expensive imported medicine I bought for her!” he roared, trying to drown his guilt with sheer volume. But Grant just stared at him coldly, the red light of his body camera blinking, faithfully recording every word. “We’ll see if it’s slander once we analyze the residual medication in the deceased’s system,” Grant said. His words were a bucket of ice water, extinguishing Victor’s last spark of hope. Victor slumped into a chair, his eyes vacant. He knew the suspicion of murder was now impossible to shake. But he couldn’t stop. The thought of his intestines rotting was far more terrifying than a prison sentence. “The antidote… I need the antidote…” he chanted like a broken record, his eyes fixed on the screen as if it were his only salvation. The memory moved forward. My on-screen self casually tossed the lab report into the trash and walked toward the safe in the study. I entered the combination, opened the door, and took out a small, elegant vial. It contained a blue liquid that shimmered under the light with an eerie glow. “This is the antidote,” I said to the empty room. I then placed the vial inside a portable lockbox and secured it. “The most dangerous place is the safest place,” I said, patting the box, a cryptic smile playing on my lips. “I mailed it… to Detective Grant at the precinct.” As those words echoed, the air in the morgue seemed to solidify. Every single person, in perfect unison, turned to stare at Detective Grant. 4 Even Grant was taken aback, his brow furrowing. “Detective! Quickly! Check the mailroom!” Victor scrambled toward Grant like a drowning man lunging for a life raft, only to be blocked by an officer. “Stay put!” Grant waved a hand, dispatching one of his men. A few minutes later, the officer returned, holding a black package. “Sir, there’s a package. Same-day city courier. It just arrived.” Victor’s eyes lit up with a greedy, nauseating glint. “It’s the antidote! It has to be! Give it to me!” Julia staggered to her feet, trying to lunge for it as well. Grant pressed his hand firmly on the package, his cold eyes sweeping over them. “This is evidence. It has to be processed before it can be opened.” “No processing! It can’t be exposed to light!” Victor shrieked, his voice cracking under the strain. “Michelle said in the memory, the antidote is photolabile! It has to be consumed immediately!” I had indeed said that. In the memory, after locking the box, I had turned to the camera and added, “This stuff is very delicate. Three seconds of light and it’s useless. And… only Victor’s fingerprint can open it.” This was the first trap I’d set for him. Grant looked at the complex mechanical lock on the package, then at Victor’s trembling hands. “If your fingerprint is the only one that works, then you open it.” Grant placed the package on a table and took a step back, his hand never leaving the butt of his gun. “But I’m warning you, if this contains anything dangerous, you’ll face the consequences.” Victor was far beyond caring about consequences. His mind was consumed by the image of that blue liquid. His life. He reached out a trembling hand and pressed his thumb to the fingerprint scanner. Beep. A green light flashed. The box sprang open. Victor and Julia practically dove headfirst into it. But a second later, their expressions froze. There was no blue liquid. There was only an empty glass vial and a small, folded piece of paper. “It’s empty? How can it be empty?!” Julia screamed, grabbing the vial and shaking it violently, as if she could conjure the liquid from thin air. Victor picked up the note, his hands shaking like a leaf in a storm. There was only one line, written in my elegant script, yet it radiated an icy chill: “The antidote is volatile, so I only left the raw materials. They are hidden inside the weapons you used to kill me.” The blood drained from Victor’s face. The weapons? The golf club he had used to smash the vial of my real heart medication? Julia’s makeup bag, where she had concealed the vial of poison? He hadn’t had time to dispose of them. The police had arrived too quickly, forcing him to hide everything back in plain sight. Now, this note had backed them into a corner. To live, they would have to personally hand over the instruments of their crime. This was the second trap. A trap of their own making. “Where? Where are the weapons?” Grant’s voice was sharp, his eyes catching the flicker of panic on Victor’s face. Victor gritted his teeth, the veins on his forehead bulging. He was making his final calculation. Hand over the weapons and admit to murder. Refuse, and wait to die. The twenty-four-hour countdown was a sword hanging over his head, each passing second a reminder of his impending, agonizing end. “At… at home,” Victor finally croaked, his voice raspy. “Take me there… to get the… items.” He didn’t dare call them weapons. Grant let out a cold laugh and waved his hand. “Take them away! To the crime scene!” Police sirens ripped through the night as the convoy, filled with desperate and guilty souls, sped toward the place that was once called “home.” The place where my life had ended. And where the truth was about to be born.

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I had no interest in being a trophy husband. The first thing my wife did after her memory returned was go back to her powerful, wealthy family. The second was to find the man from her past—the one she’d always been meant for. She once told me I’d hit the lottery by marrying her, that I should cherish the incredible luck I’d stumbled into. She even suggested that a truly “supportive” husband shouldn’t pry into his wife’s private life. Too bad for her, I’m not that kind of man. The tenth time she brought him back to the villa we shared, I placed a signed divorce agreement on the table in front of her. … “Let’s get a divorce.” I spoke to Isabelle as she sank into the sofa, just home from a business dinner. She looked up, her eyes glassy with wine. “What did you say?” She was drunk, and the words hadn’t registered. I was about to repeat myself when our housekeeper walked in, her arms full of clothes. “Ma’am, these are the clothes from last season you asked me to clear out. What should I do with them?” Isabelle didn’t even glance at them. “Just throw them out.” I looked at the pile. Most of the dresses had been worn only two or three times. The old Isabelle, the one I had married, wore the same simple t-shirt for three years because she couldn’t bear to buy a new one. Now, she tossed away clothes that cost thousands of dollars without a second thought. She seemed exhausted. After drinking a glass of water, she went upstairs to bed. I looked down at the divorce papers in my hand, a storm of emotions churning inside me. I’d spent the afternoon at a lawyer’s office. He’d drafted the agreement according to my wishes, explaining the mandatory thirty-day cooling-off period before the divorce could be finalized. Isabelle Sinclair was the sole heiress to the Sinclair Group, a woman of almost unimaginable wealth. But I had no interest in her fortune. I’d never wanted a cent of her money, so there would be no messy disputes over assets. I was a chef. That’s all I’d ever wanted to be. Five years ago, on my way home from a shift, I found her injured on the side of the road. I took her to the hospital. When she woke up, she had amnesia, no memory of who she was. With nowhere else for her to go, I took her home. Living together, we fell in love. We were married within a year. Then, a clumsy fall, a knock to the head, and just like that, her memories came flooding back. She remembered everything. She was Isabelle Sinclair, born into a world of privilege and power. I went with her back to her family’s estate. Her parents were overjoyed to have her back, but their joy soured the moment they saw me. They did not approve. They couldn’t accept our marriage. I wasn’t good enough for her. I was just a line cook. No distinguished family, no respectable career. But Isabelle insisted. She told them she wouldn’t be with anyone else, that if they forced me to leave, she would leave with me. Her parents, seeing no other choice, reluctantly relented. But their acceptance was a façade. In their eyes, I was still beneath them. They never looked at me without a hint of disdain. I loved cooking. It was my passion. But Isabelle’s parents declared that their son-in-law could not be a “cook.” My job was a disgrace to their family name. I had to quit. Even then, they never warmed to me. The next morning, I was up early, preparing breakfast as usual. When I brought the food out, a man was sitting at our dining table. He was handsome, with an air of effortless class. Tristan Everidge. Like Isabelle, an heir to a fortune. He glanced at me, a provocative smile playing on his lips. He picked up a dumpling, popped it into his mouth, and turned to Isabelle. “Izzy, your chef’s skills are impressive. Much better than the one we have at home.” I said nothing, just placed the platter of pancakes on the table. Isabelle looked at him. “Why don’t you wait for me in the living room?” Tristan shrugged and stood up, strolling casually out of the room. She turned to me. “He didn’t know you were the one who cooked. That’s why he said that.” “I know,” I said. It was a lie. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was in love with Isabelle and wanted nothing more than for me to disappear. Isabelle sighed. “He’s here to take me to meet a client. It’s nothing, Arthur. Don’t overthink it.” “I won’t.” As she spoke, my eyes fell on the watch on her wrist, and my body went rigid. It was identical to the one Tristan was wearing. A matching set from a luxury brand. I knew he had given it to her for her birthday last month. The simple silver bracelet I had saved up to buy for her was still sitting in her jewelry box, untouched. I looked at her. “I need to talk to you. We need to…” 2 Before I could get the word “divorce” out, she cut me off. “I’m incredibly busy. Whatever it is, it can wait until I get home tonight.” She stood up and walked toward Tristan. They left together, their laughter echoing down the hall. When she was with me, she was usually quiet. I was always the one trying to bridge the ever-widening gap between our worlds, struggling to find topics we could share. Once, I came home from the market and mentioned how much the price of vegetables had gone up. She told me not to bother her with such mundane things. It didn’t matter. She could buy whatever she wanted; the price was irrelevant. I stood there for a long time after she said that, the silence heavy between us. It was then I truly understood the problem. To her, the only things that had meaning were nine-figure business deals. At noon, I packed a lunch and brought it to her office, just as I always did. Her assistant told me she was still in a meeting, so I let myself into her office to wait. Nearly an hour passed before she emerged. “What are you doing here?” she asked, sitting down at her desk. I placed the insulated lunch box in front of her. “It’s lunchtime. I brought you food.” She pushed it aside without opening it, her eyes already fixed on her computer screen. “Don’t bring me lunch anymore. My assistant can order something for me.” I froze. She used to say that eating my food every day was the happiest part of her life. When she first took over the company, she begged me to bring her lunch, complaining that takeout was unhealthy. Now, the look in her eyes was one of barely concealed annoyance. I didn’t even know when she had started to change. I gave a bitter, silent laugh. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered anymore. We were getting a divorce soon anyway. “Alright,” I said. As I turned to leave, she stopped me. “And you shouldn’t be cooking at home anymore either. Just let the household staff handle it.” I looked at her, then nodded. “Okay.” I walked out of her office. As I passed the main bullpen, I paused. “Mr. Everidge is so good to our CEO. He even drove her to work this morning.” “They look so perfect together, like a match made in heaven.” Someone noticed me standing there and coughed loudly, silencing the others. The air went still. They looked at me with cautious, worried expressions, as if afraid I might explode. “Mr. Reed, we were just talking nonsense. Please don’t take it to heart.” I wasn’t angry. I just managed a tight smile. They weren’t wrong. Isabelle and Tristan belonged to the same world. After leaving the Sinclair Group building, I drove to a rundown residential block in an older part of the city. The apartment my parents had left me. Less than five hundred square feet. I hadn’t been back in years. The air was thick with the smell of dust. Looking at the familiar, cheap furniture, memories washed over me. Before her memory returned, this was our home. We were so poor then. Some nights, we shared a single bowl of instant noodles. But Isabelle never complained. She would smile and tell me it was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted, encouraging me, believing in me. At night, we lay on a small, cramped bed. We couldn’t even turn over without falling off, so we held each other tightly all night long. In those moments, holding her, I felt like the happiest man alive. Then her memory returned, and our world was turned upside down. In the beginning, she would take me to galas and high-society events. But I never fit in. I was awkward and tense while she moved through the crowds with an easy grace. I hated the fake smiles and empty conversations. When she suggested a job for me at the Sinclair Group, a desk job in a suit and tie, I refused. I offered to stay home, to manage the house and take care of her. She agreed. And just like that, I became a stay-at-home husband. She built her empire, and I managed our home. For a while, it worked. I told myself that as long as I could be with the woman I loved, giving up my own dreams was a small price to pay. Then, one day, I overheard her talking to her parents. They called me a freeloader, a man living off their daughter’s money. She didn’t defend me. All my hard work, everything I did to create a perfect home for her, meant nothing. She had grown tired of me… 3 For the next couple of weeks, things were quiet. One evening, Isabelle came home to find me packing boxes. “What are you busy with?” My hands stilled. “Just clearing out some old things we don’t need.” She glanced at the boxes, then her attention drifted back to her phone. If she had looked closer, she would have seen it wasn’t just junk I was clearing out. It was our past. I carried the box downstairs to the trash bins. It was filled with things we had brought from the old apartment. I crouched down and picked up a small, pink stuffed animal. It was the first gift I ever gave her. She loved it so much she couldn’t sleep without it. I picked up a necklace. It cost me six hundred dollars, all my savings at the time. It was her first birthday gift from me. She had been as happy as a child, wearing it every single day. After she returned to her family, she took it off and never wore it again, replacing it with far more expensive jewels. There were so many things like that, each one holding a memory. Now, they were all meaningless. After throwing the box away, I went back upstairs. Isabelle was working in her study. I took a shower and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and turned to look at the woman sleeping beside me. I once loved her so much I would have given my life for her. I swore I would never leave her. I never imagined we would end up here. But she didn’t love me anymore. She was in love with another man. It was time for me to get out of her life. I let out a long breath. Twelve more days until the cooling-off period was over. Twelve more days until we could be officially divorced. I felt nothing but a calm emptiness… Isabelle was busy, rarely home, which made it easier for me to pack the rest of my things. She never asked what I was doing. A few days later, my phone rang while I was taking a nap. It was an offer. The interview I’d had a few days ago at a prestigious hotel had been a success. They wanted me to start as a chef. I asked if they could wait a week. The divorce cooling-off period would be over then. They agreed. I was ecstatic. I truly loved being a chef. The joy of creating something beautiful and delicious for people, of bringing them happiness through food—it gave me a sense of purpose. A week later, I called Isabelle. “Can you be home for dinner tonight?” She was gone before dawn and back late every night. We lived under the same roof but were like strangers. “Is something wrong?” she asked, her tone impatient. “No. I just thought… we haven’t had a meal together in a long time.” She was silent for a moment. “Alright. I’ll be home early tonight.” I smiled. “Okay.” After hanging up, I went to the kitchen and began to prepare the meal. I had just finished the last dish when she walked in. She frowned at me. “Didn’t I tell you not to cook anymore?” I gave her a small, sad smile. “This is the last meal I’ll ever cook for you.” She looked at me, a flicker of confusion in her eyes, but her expression quickly smoothed over. She thought I meant I was finally giving up my place in the kitchen for good. In a way, she was right. She sat down and picked up her chopsticks. Just as she was about to eat, her phone vibrated. She answered. I couldn’t hear the other side, but I saw her brow furrow. “Tristan? Okay. I’ll be right there.” She put her phone away and looked at me. “Something urgent came up. You go ahead and eat.” My hand tightened around my own chopsticks. “Can’t it wait until after we’ve eaten?” “No,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “Tristan is waiting for me. I can eat when I get back.” I watched her hurry out the door. A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I had spent over three hours preparing this meal. She hadn’t taken a single bite. I wouldn’t be waiting for her to come back. This was the last time. I had planned to talk to her about the divorce over dinner, to end things amicably. But she couldn’t even give me that. I ate alone, in silence. Then I went upstairs, took off my wedding ring, and placed it on the bed next to the divorce agreement. I picked up my suitcase and walked out the door.

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The day I was born, my mother died in childbirth. When my fiancé, Collin, found out, he was worried I’d be haunted by it. He suggested we be child-free, just the two of us. Five years into our marriage, I finally started to let go of that fear. I decided I was ready. I wanted a child of our own. I booked an appointment with Collin—he’s a top obstetrician—planning to surprise him with the good news. But when I got to the hospital, the nurse stopped me. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but Mrs. Thorne has a prenatal appointment this afternoon. Dr. Thorne has cleared his entire schedule for her.” Confused, I pushed open his office door to ask him what was going on. The door swung open, and I saw him. Collin was holding a heavily pregnant young woman in his arms, his head pressed against her belly, listening intently to the baby’s movements. He saw me, and pure panic flashed across his face. “Aria, don’t be angry,” he stammered. “I know you never wanted children, but my parents… they’ve been pressuring me so much.” He swore to me, “Don’t worry, this baby will be ours. As soon as she’s born, we can finally be a happy family of three.” Later, on the day that girl gave birth, Collin delivered her baby himself. What he didn’t know was that on the other side of that same hospital wall, I had an appointment of my own. For an abortion. … After confirming my pregnancy at Collin’s hospital, I asked the nurse to help me book an appointment with him. “I’m afraid he’s fully booked,” she advised. “Dr. Thorne’s wife is pregnant too, and he’s reserved the entire afternoon for her prenatal check-up.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “You have no idea how in love they are. Even if you got an appointment, he wouldn’t have time for anyone else.” I clutched the ultrasound photo and couldn’t help but smile to myself. So, Collin, an OB/GYN, had figured it out already? Was this his surprise for our fifth wedding anniversary? But when I pushed open his office door, I saw him with his head pressed against another woman’s belly, listening to the baby kick. On his desk sat a cake. The words “Happy 5th Anniversary” were piped in icing, a sharp, painful sting to my eyes. The ultrasound picture slipped from my fingers. Collin stepped on it as he rushed to embrace me. “Aria, what are you doing here?” The panic on his face was fleeting, replaced by a practiced calm. “Did you come to pick me up for our anniversary?” “I just have this one last patient, then we can go home.” Even now, he was trying to pretend everything was normal. But after five years of sharing a bed, I knew him too well. Every flicker of guilt in his voice was amplified in my ears. “The nurse said Dr. Thorne’s wife was here for a check-up, so I came to see. Do you have a second wife I don’t know about?” I tore the facade of our perfect life to shreds. Collin sighed, a long, heavy sound. He was silent for a long time. “It’s not like that,” he finally said. “It was only one time. Nine months ago.” I have a sharp memory for dates. Nine months ago, there was a major malpractice lawsuit at Collin’s hospital. As a lawyer, I pulled every string I had to defend them, working tirelessly for a month. There was only one night we didn’t see each other. “So, you’re telling me that while I was defending your hospital, comforting grieving families until I was vomiting blood from stress, the reason I couldn’t reach you… was because you were cheating on me?” Ninety-seven calls. I had called him for a solid hour in my moment of absolute desperation. In the end, it was the family of the deceased patient who took pity on me and drove me to the hospital. He had rushed to my room in the middle of the night, full of apologies. Seeing how guilty he looked, I had comforted him, telling myself he was just exhausted from the lawsuit, that he had slept through my calls. It never once crossed my mind that he had just crawled out of another woman’s bed. “It wasn’t cheating!” Collin’s grip on me tightened. “That night, I went to my parents for help with the hospital. You know how they are about us not having children. They’d been trying to set me up with my ex. They drugged me.” “I managed to get away. I was coming home to you.” Which home was that? I wondered. How did he end up with his intern? I bit my lip and said nothing. He took my silence as acceptance and let out a breath of relief. “Aria, she’s over nine months along. It’s too late to terminate the pregnancy.” “Then why didn’t you do it sooner? You’re an obstetrician. She’s your intern. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice she was pregnant.” He cut me off. “Don’t be difficult. You didn’t want a child, and I respected that. But my parents were relentless. Do you really want me to be the last of my family line?” I stared at him, stunned. Five years ago, he had sworn to me that we would never have children. How could a person change so completely? His calm eyes reflected my own furious face, as if I were the one in the wrong. “You can hit me, do whatever you want. But this child… I really want this child.” “After the baby is born, I’ll send Chloe away. It was an accident, but at least we’ll have a child. Then, we can be a happy family of three.” The dam of my emotions finally broke. “My child?” I asked, my voice shaking with rage. “Should I thank you for cheating on me? Thank you for giving me a child I never wanted?” “Collin, you have to choose. It’s me or the baby!” His silence was my answer. I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms, willing the tears not to fall. “Fine. We’re getting a divorce.” 2 I turned to leave, but a hand grabbed my arm. It was Chloe. She fell to her knees at my feet. “Aria, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I hid the pregnancy from Collin. But the baby is innocent. I’ll leave as soon as it’s born. Please, don’t blame him.” A flicker of pity crossed Collin’s face. He pulled her up, holding her close. They stood there together, pleading with me. “Aria, you’re the kindest person I know. You were the one who sponsored Chloe through college. How can you not have room in your heart for her child?” His accusatory gaze was a physical blow, a stark contrast to the adoring way he had looked at me when we first met. How had everything changed so much? At our university’s opening ceremony, Collin had seen me give a speech and had fallen for me instantly. I had tried to brush him off, using the distance between the medical school and the main campus as an excuse. But he had traveled ten kilometers every day, rain or shine, to bring me a single rose. When I went abroad to study, he followed. But what truly brought us together was the anniversary of my mother’s death. My previous engagement had been called off because I refused to have children. Everyone told me a life without children was incomplete, that no man would want a barren woman. Only Collin had taken my hand and said, “To have a woman like Aria is the greatest gift in the world. Whether she has children is her choice, and I will respect it.” “If I am lucky enough to marry her, I will never force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.” That was the moment I fell in love with him. From then on, our love was a symphony. He was proud to be with me, announcing our relationship to the world. His parents, some of the wealthiest people in the city, had demanded he secretly produce an heir before marrying me. He had refused, even cutting ties with them when they tried to set him up with other women. He proposed the day after we graduated, and we were married in a whirlwind. He said he wanted to eliminate any possibility of betrayal. But here he was, betraying me. Even when I had finally overcome my deepest fears, ready to give him the one thing he thought he could never have, I was too late. He wasn’t the same man anymore. The pain in my chest was so intense I couldn’t breathe. My head swam, and the world dissolved into a cacophony of Collin’s frantic voice. “Aria, what’s wrong? Don’t scare me!” I was rushed to a room, diagnosed with hyperventilation. Collin sat by my side, holding my hand, his guilty tears falling onto my skin. When I had stabilized, he stood up. “I’ll go get a doctor.” “You are a doctor,” I said, grabbing his arm, terrified he would find out about the pregnancy. “Besides, I’m fine now. Don’t go.” He nodded. He started to say something, to fuss over me, but I held up my phone, the divorce agreement I’d drafted displayed on the screen. “Aria, what is this?” We had drafted it the year we got married. He had promised that if he ever did anything to betray my trust, all our assets would go to me, and we would divorce immediately, no questions asked. I frowned. “I’ve revised it. We’ll split everything fifty-fifty. I don’t want more than my share.” “No, I don’t want it. You promised you would never leave me…” He pulled me into a desperate hug. “And you promised you would never betray me,” I said, my voice cold. “It’s been nine months. If I hadn’t found out, were you just going to wait until the baby was born to tell me?” “Did you ever once ask me if this was what I wanted?” “It was my parents,” he explained, his voice frantic. “If I didn’t give them a grandchild, they threatened to ruin your law firm and my hospital, to force us out of the city.” “I was just trying to protect you.” A bitter laugh escaped me, followed by a torrent of tears. “Collin, when did you become such a coward?” I remembered the man who had defied his family for me. He was nothing like the man standing before me now. He flinched at my words, then held me tighter. “After the baby is born, my parents will raise it. Nothing will change between us.” “I love you. I’ll agree to anything, just not a divorce.” “Then I want you to get rid of the baby.” 3 “Anything but that.” I looked at him in silence. I knew that, aside from those two things, he would give me the world. His devotion to me had never wavered. Even after leaving his family, he had built a life for us. The luxury items I casually mentioned would appear on my bedside table the next day. He made me lunch every day for five years without fail. Once, I idly wished for a star, and he bought the naming rights to a newly discovered planet. It was like we were back in the honeymoon phase, where any wish of mine was his command. Except this time, I felt no excitement, no joy. “Fire Chloe.” “Of course,” he agreed without hesitation. “As soon as she has the baby, I’ll never have contact with her again.” He even pulled out his phone, ready to delete her number. But the long call history was a fresh stab to my heart. “I want to see your phone.” He paled, but handed it over. They had been texting almost every day for the past nine months. As I scrolled up, his anxiety grew, and my heart sank. They had been in contact for three years, ever since I had first sponsored her. She was on the list of candidates I was considering. Her grades weren’t exceptional. I wouldn’t have even noticed her if Collin hadn’t specifically pointed her out. “I know this student,” he had said. “Her grades aren’t the best, but she works incredibly hard.” “If you’d rather not, we can pass.” I had shaken my head. If she was his former classmate, I was happy to give her a chance. I had almost forgotten about it until Collin hired her at the hospital, another exception to the rules. After that, he started working late more and more often. So many nights, he would get a call and rush out. A doctor’s life is demanding. I understood. I trusted him. But trust had bred betrayal. I should have seen it sooner. “Aria, stop.” Collin took the phone from me. Just then, a special ringtone I had set for Chloe went off. Her name flashed on the screen. He answered, right in front of me. “I told you, if you need something, call my parents or the housekeeper. Aria is sick. I can’t be with you all the time.” He didn’t even realize how strained his own voice was. He told me not to look, but his eyes were pleading with me. I closed my eyes. “Go. See her.” “Of course he’s going to see his son.” The door burst open, and Collin’s parents stormed in. They didn’t look at me with anything resembling kindness. Usually, Collin would have stepped between us, but he was still flustered from the call. “How can you be so cruel?” his mother spat. “You won’t have a child of your own, and you won’t let Collin have one either? Chloe called, and you’re still clinging to him, refusing to let him go?” “Collin, let’s go see Chloe and little Jackson.”

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A friend of mine got called away on an off-world mission, so she asked me to look after her bonded Beastkin for a while. Which brings me to my own partner. He’s ridiculously handsome, with a chiseled chest and a perfectly sculpted ass that’s an absolute dream to touch. He’s also got a pair of fluffy ears and a big, bushy tail. Normally, he wears a permanent scowl and keeps his distance. If I touch him for more than a few seconds, he gets annoyed. But that night, he was kneeling before me, his eyes a hazy, heartbreaking mix of longing and despair. “Baby, don’t look at him.” “I can be good, too.” 1 Sebastian is my bonded mate, my first and only since I came of age. His true form is a white wolf. He’s a man of few words, his presence as cool and sharp as a winter morning, but damn, is he beautiful. Because of the Civic Mandate, he usually keeps his fluffy ears and bushy tail hidden, maintaining a human form. I opened my eyes a little after seven. Sebastian was already standing in front of the full-length mirror, knotting his tie. He fastened the top button of his dress shirt, a fortress of fabric that covered him from throat to waist. The crisp material strained against the hard planes of his chest before disappearing into his slacks, tracing the lean line of his waist and the firm curve of his ass. It also did a fine job of hiding the passionate mess of kiss marks and scratches from the night before. I couldn’t help but savor the memory. A great rack really is a man’s best dowry. He noticed I was awake. His ice-blue eyes flickered toward me for a moment. He pulled the blanket up a little higher over me before looking away again. “Go back to sleep. I’m heading to work.” I patted my cheek, my silent request for a goodbye kiss. Sebastian hesitated. He didn’t move. Instead, he slipped on his suit jacket and hurried out the door, mumbling something vague. “Tonight, maybe.” I sighed, a little disappointed, and rolled over to face the wall. And so, I missed the sight of his ears, the tips blushing a faint, tell-tale pink. 2 Our relationship has always been lukewarm at best. Except for when we’re performing our… official duties, which are usually white-hot, we barely speak to each other. When every human comes of age, the Civic Registry automatically pairs them with a Beastkin based on a compatibility rating. The Mandate was designed to benefit both humans and protect the Beastkin. Without regular soothing from a human partner, an adult Beastkin’s psionic energy will slowly fade. Eventually, they just… wither away. Most bonded pairs have a compatibility rating between sixty and eighty percent. Anything over ninety is considered a rare blessing. According to the Registry, Sebastian and I are a ninety-five percent match. So, naturally, we registered our bond. They say that the higher the compatibility, the more deeply a pair influences one another. They can even develop a telepathic link. I had been filled with so much hope for our life together. Now, it just feels like I was the only one hoping. Sebastian doesn’t seem to like me. He greets me with a cold shoulder every day, and our nights are just a matter of routine. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days, he asks me to dissolve the bond. After Sebastian left, I went to the dining room for the breakfast he’d made. A perfectly seared steak sat on the plate, surrounded by a handful of vibrant berries. Next to it was a steaming mug of protein milk and a soft-boiled egg, a wobbly smiley face drawn on top with sauce. He made me something different every single morning. His own breakfast was always the same: a vial of nutrient solution. Beastkin are the opposite of humans. Their sense of smell is incredibly sharp, but their sense of taste is weak. They don’t require much from food, and the solution is just to maintain basic bodily functions. Just then, my wrist-comm chimed with an incoming video call. I answered, and a holographic image of my friend, Nora, shimmered into existence. “Aria! I need a huge favor…” she pleaded, her hands pressed together. “What’s up?” I asked. “I got an off-world assignment on X26. It’s a remote planet, the system out there is a mess, and I’m worried about taking Liam with me. Can he please stay with you?” Liam is Nora’s bonded Beastkin. His true form is a young ram, barely an adult. He was sitting beside Nora, and as he listened, his soft curls seemed to wilt. He looked utterly dejected. I knew Nora would never willingly part with him unless she feared for his safety, so of course, I said yes. That afternoon, Nora brought Liam over in her sky-speeder. The two of them had a long, tearful goodbye at my front door. “I’ll be back before you know it, sweetie,” Nora said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “And I’ll bring you a diamond from X26.” Liam blushed and nodded, quietly reminding her to be safe. They were so wrapped up in each other it was sweet enough to make my teeth ache. Finally, with her departure window closing, Nora rushed off. Liam stood in the doorway, dragging his suitcase behind him, his round, watery eyes fixed on her disappearing speeder. He’s on the smaller side and still looks like a kid. “Don’t worry,” I said, trying to comfort him. “She’s on a medical relief mission. She’ll be fine. Just make yourself at home for a few days. I’ll show you around.” I helped him get settled in the guest room, making sure he had fresh towels and toiletries. Just as we finished, the sound of the front door opening echoed through the house. “I’m home.” 3 Sebastian was shrugging off his coat and loosening his tie with one hand as he stepped inside. His eyes softened the moment they landed on me. “Aria…” His voice trailed off. It was as if he’d just caught an unfamiliar scent in his own territory. His eyes narrowed, the pupils contracting into sharp slits. With a soft pop, his silver-white ears sprang into view, twitching rapidly. Liam, who had followed me out, jumped in fright. A short, woolly tail manifested in a panic, and he ducked behind me. With both of them partially shifted, my house suddenly felt like a zoo. I know they’re Beastkin, not actual animals, but there’s no denying the primal instinct between a wolf and a lamb. Sebastian’s ice-blue eyes were locked on Liam. His canines, now slightly elongated, peeked out from behind his lips as he let out a threatening snarl. A low, guttural growl rumbled in his chest, and he took a restless step forward. But then he saw me, standing protectively in front of Liam, and he froze. He was trapped in the entryway, pacing back and forth, his gaze shifting to me, filled with a wounded, confused look. Between the two of them, Liam was clearly the vulnerable one. I couldn’t spare a thought for Sebastian’s hurt feelings. I quickly ushered Liam back to his room and, with fumbling hands, administered the sedative injection Nora had left for emergencies. I hadn’t anticipated such a volatile reaction between them. Seeing Liam’s breathing slowly return to normal, I finally let out a sigh of relief. Thank God he was okay. I would never have forgiven myself if something had happened to him on my watch. It was over an hour before Liam was completely back to his usual self. I felt a nagging sensation, like I’d forgotten something important, but I couldn’t quite place it. What was it? I scratched my head, trying to remember as I walked back to my own bedroom. The master bedroom was dark. I flicked on the light switch, blinking against the sudden brightness. When my eyes adjusted, I remembered exactly what I had forgotten. 4 Sebastian was kneeling on the floor, legs parted, still dressed in his black suit. The stark white of his skin was a shocking contrast against the dark wood. Veins stood out on his forearms as he braced his hands on his thighs, the fabric of his slacks pulled taut, revealing the faint lines of his shirt garters. He was fully clothed, yet the sight was unbelievably seductive. Heat rushed to my cheeks. Sebastian looked up, his ice-blue eyes meeting mine from below. The light caught a wet sheen on them, like a thin layer of morning mist. He begged, his voice raspy. “Baby, please… touch me.” “I can be good, too.” As he spoke, I felt something soft and furry brush against my leg. I looked down. It was his big, bushy tail, tentatively nudging closer. The very tip of it gave a hopeful little flick. When I didn’t pull away, it seemed to take that as encouragement, curling possessively around my ankle. Sebastian had always been so stoic, so reserved. He’d never done anything this bold before. If I could resist this, I wouldn’t be human. I released a wave of my psionic energy, and his breath immediately hitched. A dark fire ignited in his eyes, turning them into a deep, swirling ocean, as brilliant and captivating as the rarest sapphire. He moved toward me as if in a trance, murmuring my name. “Aria… you’re mine.” The air crackled with a thick, unspoken promise. I ran my fingers down the length of his tail, feeling the soft fur, then let my hand drift toward his thigh. The muscles there went rigid under his trousers. He tilted his head back, exposing the vulnerable line of his throat, and let out a ragged breath. Then, he reached out, his hand enveloping mine. Slowly, deliberately, he guided my fingers to the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one. A small, triumphant thought sparked within me. So, he does feel something for me after all. But as my touch grazed his mind, I felt the familiar emptiness of his psionic sea—parched and desperate. A chill of realization washed over me. This wasn’t about love. This was instinct. Our high compatibility rating made his natural urges for me impossible to overcome. The presence of another Beastkin, Liam, had just triggered his primal, possessive nature. He needed me. That was all. And so, I didn’t bother explaining about Liam. And he never asked. And so, we engaged in the most intimate act two beings can share, our bodies close, our hearts miles apart. 5 When I woke up the next morning, Sebastian was already gone. A warm breakfast was waiting on the dining table. He’d even made a plate for Liam. The fried egg on my plate was decorated with a cute, happy cat face. Liam’s was decorated with an angry little scowl. The poor lamb looked terrified the entire meal, his hand trembling so much he could barely hold his fork. After we ate, I figured a lambkin probably needed to get out and stretch his legs. Unsure of where to take him, I settled on the nearby shopping complex. Liam, being newly adult, was fascinated by everything. I used Nora’s credit chip to buy him a small mountain of things, trailing behind him like a pack mule loaded with shopping bags. We hadn’t even left the complex when the sharp crack of plasma fire split the air. The calm dissolved into chaos. Screams erupted as people scrambled for the exits. Fortunately, the Federal Security Division arrived in minutes, quickly restoring order inside and setting up a security perimeter outside. No one was allowed to leave until the threat was neutralized. Liam had never seen anything like it. His face was pale with terror, and his already unstable psionic energy began to fluctuate wildly. I hadn’t thought to bring Nora’s sedative with us. I cursed myself for being so careless. Liam’s psionic distress was starting to affect the people around us, making them agitated and anxious, and he was clearly in pain. I gritted my teeth. “Liam, I can perform a temporary psionic soothing,” I said. “I’ll explain everything to Nora when you get back, okay?” He nodded desperately. Slowly, I extended my psionic energy, using the standard, clinical soothing technique they teach at the medical centers. I’d only ever done this for Sebastian, and always in a much more… intimate way. I had no idea if this formal method would even work. To my relief, the color started to return to Liam’s face. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. When I looked up, I noticed the crowd had parted around us, creating a silent, empty space. I turned my head. And saw Sebastian. He was standing behind me in his black tactical uniform. I had no idea how long he’d been there, just watching me. His face was a mask, as cold and unreadable as ever. His ice-blue eyes were voids, betraying nothing. But if you looked closely, you could see the fine tremor running through his body, a stark contrast to his rigid posture. I opened my mouth to explain, but with so many people around, it wasn’t the right time. A flicker of raw despair, of utter brokenness, crossed his face. Then, in the next second, Sebastian’s gaze shifted from me to Liam, who was now resting his head on my shoulder. And then, to my horror, he raised his gun.

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My son and I were in a car crash on our way to confront my husband. When we woke up, we couldn’t remember a thing. And my husband, a psychologist, left us to travel the world with his old flame and her daughter, both of whom he claimed were suffering from severe depression. Eventually, our memories started to return. He noticed that the amnesia had changed us. We were quieter, more compliant. Independent. At first, he seemed pleased with himself, confident that he had perfectly balanced his family and his obligations to his old flame. That lasted until New Year’s Eve. He spent the holiday with them, and when he finally came home, he overheard a conversation between my son and me through the front door. My son asked, “Mommy, is that man really my dad? It feels weird every time I have to call him that.” I nodded. “I know what you mean. He’s not my type at all. I have no idea why I ever married him.” My son’s eyes lit up. “Mommy, you like Mr. Reed, don’t you? Every time he sees you after school, his ears turn so red they look like they’re about to bleed. And he’s always making up excuses to drive us home… I think you’ve got a shot!” I blushed and was about to shush him when he leaned in close. He whispered in a voice he thought was quiet but was perfectly audible from the hallway, “Mommy… what if we just… got a new dad?” 1. For dinner, I’d ordered two servings of ghost pepper wings. My son and I were sweating profusely, our mouths on fire, when a familiar yet distant voice cut through the air from behind us. “You didn’t wait for me?” We both flinched. Turning around, we saw a handsome man standing in the doorway, a chill radiating from him that had nothing to do with the winter air. His features were a clear echo of our son’s. It was Alistair Finch. My husband. My son’s father. He stepped closer, his brow furrowing in disgust at the sight of our grease-stained mouths and the fiery wings on the table. “We’ve been married for six years. Don’t you know I have a stomach condition? I can’t eat anything spicy.” My son, Noah, still gnawing on a wing, mumbled, “We didn’t get them for you. These are for us.” Alistair froze. I forced a dry laugh, trying to smooth things over. “Well, I saw on your social feed that you were at the amusement park with Serena and her daughter. I just assumed you’d be eating with them…” “Nina,” he cut me off, his voice laced with its usual impatience. “I’ve explained this. Serena and her daughter were abandoned by her husband. They have severe depression. I’m their doctor. It’s my professional duty.” “And you?” he continued, his tone turning colder. “As a wife and a mother, not only did you cause a scene at my clinic, but you’ve taught Noah to be nothing but a jealous, petty child.” He paused, his voice dropping to an icy whisper. “Wasn’t the car crash enough to make you two learn your lesson?” The memories flooded back. I remembered the moment I found out his round-the-clock “patient care” was actually for his high school sweetheart. I’d taken Noah and stormed his clinic to confront him. He had pulled us into a corner, his face a mask of weary resignation. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I’m a doctor, Nina. I can’t just abandon my patients. It’s irresponsible.” “Don’t you dare make a scene in front of them with our son.” His calm, clinical tone made Noah and me feel like a pair of hysterical lunatics. So, I’d hired people to hold up banners outside his clinic: “SERENA AND DAUGHTER SEDUCE MARRIED MAN.” Noah had taken a megaphone to kindergarten and chased her daughter, Poppy, around the playground, shouting, “Her mom’s a homewrecker! Don’t play with her!” After that, Serena and Poppy had a public breakdown, threatening to jump from a building. To force us to back down, Alistair got me fired from my job and made sure Noah was ostracized at school. I finally shattered, threatening divorce. He relented, promising to keep his distance from them. And we believed him. We even booked a trip for our five-year anniversary, counting down the days to his rare vacation. We went to pick him up from the clinic, hearts full of excitement, only to receive a single, cold phone call. “A last-minute work trip. We’ll have to postpone the vacation.” We left, heartbroken. But as we rounded the corner, we overheard his colleagues chatting and laughing. “Dr. Finch is really dedicated to that Ms. Serena, isn’t he? Taking a six-month leave of absence just to oversee their recovery therapy!” “I know! I heard they’re on their way to the airport right now. He’s personally escorting them.” A roaring filled my ears, and a raw, physical pain tore through my chest. Before the tears could fall, I saw Noah’s small, pale face looking up at me, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. His voice trembled. “Mommy… does Daddy… does he really not want us anymore?” That single question made my sanity crumble. I grabbed his hand and we ran, a desperate need for an answer propelling us forward. We had to know. Did he still want this family, or not? We never caught up to him. The car crash came first. When we woke up, the world was a blank slate. We only remembered each other. And he, in turn, simply let us be forgotten. The memories receded. Noah and I exchanged an awkward glance. The facts were back, but the feelings weren’t. We couldn’t even comprehend the hysterical people we used to be. We stammered out apologies and promised we would never bother them again. Alistair’s expression only darkened. After a long silence, he slipped back into his familiar role of the one in control. “I’m taking them to the national park for a therapy session tomorrow. I need you to pack a lunch for three.” “And Noah, I need you to prepare a second set of your class notes for Poppy.” He turned to leave, adding over his shoulder, “You’d be wise to keep your promise this time. No more… embarrassing behavior.” The door clicked shut. Noah and I looked at each other and shrugged in unison. Then, I pulled out my phone and ordered a deluxe catered lunch to be delivered to the park for three. Noah messaged his teacher and politely requested a digital copy of the class materials. As for tomorrow? We already had plans to go hiking with Mr. Reed. We didn’t have time to worry about them. 2. Early the next morning, Serena’s soft voice drifted from the living room. “Alistair, is it just going to be us? Maybe… maybe we should ask Nina and Noah to come? I’m worried they’ll get the wrong idea. It’s not about me, of course, but Poppy is so fragile…” Poppy’s small voice chimed in. “It’s okay, Mommy. I’m fine. Noah… he didn’t mean it.” Alistair’s tone was gentle. “It’s okay, Poppy. Don’t worry about it. If we bring them, there’s no telling what kind of scene they’ll make. It wouldn’t be good for your recovery.” I sighed, rolled over, and drifted back to sleep. The next time I opened my eyes, I was being dragged from my bed by a rough hand. Alistair was practically hauling me into the living room. “Look at what your perfect son has done!” he seethed, his voice a low growl. “Just look at what he did to Poppy!” Serena was cradling a trembling Poppy, who was covered in food stains, her eyes red from crying. My son was sitting amidst a mess of spilled food, his small hands clutching three lunch containers to his chest. His face was blotchy and red, and huge tears splashed onto the floor. “I didn’t push her!” he cried out. “She’s a thief! She stole the lunch Mommy made for me! I was just trying to get it back!” Alistair didn’t even glance at him. He was meticulously wiping Poppy’s face with a wet cloth, murmuring comforting words to Serena. Only after he was finished did he turn to me, a look of weary, I-told-you-so exhaustion in his eyes. “Nina, just because I asked you to make a couple of extra lunches, you had to stoop to this? Teaching your son to pull these kinds of disgusting stunts?” “You made a promise just last night. Did you forget already?” I took a deep breath, trying to remain patient. “I didn’t do anything, and I believe Noah is telling the truth. I put your lunches on the dining table. Maybe Poppy just grabbed the wrong ones by mistake…” “Enough,” Alistair snapped, his eyes dismissing me as if I were a terrible actress in a cheap play. “Stop the performance. I haven’t forgotten what you two are capable of. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You need to take a long, hard look at yourself and figure out how to be a proper mother.” The words died in my throat. I remembered our agreement. We would each take a step back. As long as he kept his distance from Serena, we would be fine. After that, he did start coming home on time, reporting his every move. But if Poppy so much as scraped her knee at kindergarten, he would be the first one there, forcing Noah to apologize without even hearing his side of the story. When Noah tried to defend himself, Alistair would just stare at me coldly. “Nina, is your promise really that worthless? Stop this. Don’t exhaust all of my patience, all of my affection for you. If it comes to that, there will be nothing left for us to say.” The worst time, he had thrown the words at me like stones: “A son with a heart this black is no son of mine.” Noah was too young to bear such a thing. He had chased him out of the house, barefoot, his feet bleeding on the pavement, clinging to his father’s coat and confessing to crimes he never committed. “Daddy! I’m sorry! It was all my fault! I’ll never do it again! I’ll tell Poppy I’m sorry!” “Please don’t leave me and Mommy!” From that day on, my son never tried to defend himself again. I let out a soft sigh. What was the point of explaining? In his eyes, we were already convicted felons with a long history of offenses. I pulled Noah into my arms, my voice low and steady. “Noah, give them the lunchboxes.” His small body went rigid. Then, he scrubbed his face hard with the back of his hand, gave up the fight, and silently pushed the containers he’d been guarding so fiercely across the floor. Alistair didn’t look at us again. He bent down, scooped Poppy into his arms, and placed a steadying hand on Serena’s back, shielding them both as he turned and walked out the door. SLAM! The sound of the door was sharp and final, leaving the apartment in a dead, suffocating silence. It was just me and my son, surrounded by the mess on the floor. I quietly picked up a cloth and began to clean. Noah knelt down beside me, helping to pick up the scattered items. After a while, I asked softly, “Noah, if one day… Mommy and Daddy aren’t together anymore…” “Who would you want to live with?” I had asked him this once before, during the worst of our fights. He had sobbed his heart out then. “I don’t want you to split up! I want our family to be together forever!” But this time, he didn’t hesitate. He looked up at me, his eyes clear and certain. “I’ll stay with Mommy.” “No matter what happens, I’m with you, Mommy.” I looked at him, and a real smile spread across my face, the warmth of it melting away the last bit of ice in my heart. I ruffled his hair. “Okay.” Then there was nothing left to be afraid of. 3. Just as I wiped up the last of the mess, the doorbell rang. “Ms. Finch? Noah? Are you home?” Noah’s eyes lit up. “It’s Mr. Reed!” He scampered to the door and threw it open. Outside, a handsome young man with a kind face knelt down just in time to catch the small boy who launched himself into his arms. Seeing his red, swollen eyes, Mark Reed’s voice softened instantly. “What happened, Noah? Have you been crying?” The little guy buried his face in Mark’s shoulder and let out a muffled, heartbroken sob. “The lunch Mommy made… they took it…” “It’s okay,” Mark said, gently patting his back. “Mr. Reed made new ones. All of your and Mommy’s favorites.” He had a magic touch with kids. In a few sentences, Noah’s tears had turned to a watery smile. Mark finally looked up at me, a slightly apologetic smile on his face. “I’m sorry to intrude, Ms. Finch. You didn’t answer your phone, and I got a little worried.” “Please, don’t say that,” I said quickly. “You saved our lives, Mr. Reed. Call me Nina.” Six months ago, after the crash, it was Mark who had pulled us from the mangled car, running every red light to get us to the hospital. When he learned we had partial amnesia and our reflexes were slow, he took it upon himself to cook for us every day and handle Noah’s school drop-offs and pick-ups. Once our memories returned, he had gracefully retreated to a polite distance. But not long after hearing the full story of what led to the accident, he had somehow become Noah’s new kindergarten teacher. The tips of Mark’s ears turned pink. “Nina,” he said softly. “I’ve planned out the hiking route. We should get going.” He was as good as his word; everything was perfectly organized. He took all the heavy bags from me without a second thought. When Noah got tired, he knelt down effortlessly. “Hop on, Noah.” I felt a pang of guilt. “Don’t spoil him, Mark. You’re already carrying so much.” He just smiled, his hand hovering protectively near my back. “It’s nothing. I work out. I can handle it.” For some reason, looking at his clean-cut profile, my heart started to beat a little faster. The feeling hadn’t subsided even when we reached a rest area and he took Noah to buy some water. Just then, a small, familiar voice called out from a distance behind me. “Daddy! Let’s race!” It was followed by Serena’s cheerful tone. “Poppy, slow down! You’ll fall.” And finally, Alistair’s laughing reply. “Princess Poppy, Daddy’s gonna catch you!” I turned my head and my eyes locked with the three of them standing not far away.

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My roommate, Tiffany Moore, thrust a spare phone into my hand, complaining with an impatient sigh. She said her thirty-five-year-old online boyfriend was driving her crazy. He nagged her daily about memorizing vocabulary, writing reading notes, and even interfered with her weekend bar hops downtown. In her eyes, it was just a casual online fling, something to pass the time between sorority parties and dates, but he was possessive, acting more like a strict father than a romantic interest. I was initially indifferent, ready to bury my nose back in my microeconomics textbook, when suddenly a barrage of comments exploded before my eyes. Some said Tiffany was foolish, unaware her online boyfriend was a venture capitalist titan worth billions. Others explained it wasn’t possessiveness, but him grooming her to be his future wife. Still others predicted that when the “titan” returned to the States and found his chat partner had changed, he would surely deal with me, the stand-in sidekick, before returning to Tiffany for a dramatic reconciliation and a “chase-wife-to-the-moon” arc, our version of the over-the-top “chase-wife-to-crematory” trope. Reading this, I picked up the phone and smiled at Tiffany. I told her I’d gladly endure this “suffering” for her from now on. So what if I was a stand-in? Who cared about a “chase-wife” plot? My mind was already racing, eager to connect with that titan and ask if he knew any shortcuts to getting into a top-tier business school, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, anything better than the small state university I was struggling to afford. 1 Right in front of Tiffany, I changed the registered phone number and handed her the spare phone back. She took it, glanced at me, and sneered, “That cheap old man might toss you a few bucks, but his demands are insane, like a college dean breathing down your neck. Enjoy.” She was right; a rich kid from the business school would casually buy her a designer purse worth thousands, so she probably looked down on a mere three thousand dollars a month. Tiffany grabbed her leather jacket and left for her date with a football player, and the dorm room grew quiet. I opened the chat box with no profile picture. The last messages were from last night. [This week’s Wall Street Journal headlines. Read them and send me a summary.] [Why aren’t you replying?] [You better get your attitude straight and take this seriously. I don’t have time for your games.] My eyelids twitched. I scrolled through six months of their chat history. They had met on a business forum. Tiffany, pretending to be a studious, cash-strapped pre-business student, had asked a question about startup funding, and this man, whose username was “J.Y.,” had answered with surprising depth. They’d exchanged contact info soon after. Their conversation held no flirtation or romantic undertones; it wasn’t a “cyber romance” at all. It mainly revolved around: What book did you read today? How many words did you memorize? Have you kept up with the latest economic data? It was clear he genuinely wanted to help Tiffany. Tiffany, with her decent English and knack for faking interest, took it seriously at first. But as time went on, she started faking illnesses, whining about “stress,” or just sending a perfunctory AI-generated response. J.Y. would initially patiently correct her, but later, sensing her laziness, his tone grew colder. Yet, he still sent three thousand dollars in living expenses every month, right on time, via Zelle, no questions asked. In Tiffany’s eyes, three thousand dollars was barely enough to cover her weekly coffee runs and sorority dues. But for me, a genuinely struggling student who worked four part-time jobs a month, barista, library assistant, tutor, and grocery store cashier, to barely cover rent and textbooks, it was a godsend. I’d grown up in a small town in Ohio, my mom a single waitress, my dad long gone. College was a miracle, and grad school felt like an impossible dream, until now. The comments started scrolling again: [J.Y. is Julian Yan, the legendary Chinese-American VC who shook the Silicon Valley scene! Any insider tip he drops is enough for an ordinary person to live comfortably for generations. And Tiffany just handed him over like that?] [Serena Carter, this cannon fodder, really thinks she got a bargain, huh? Julian hates deception. When he finds out he’s talking to someone else, he’ll definitely make her pay!] I ignored the malicious comments, my gaze fixed on the message asking for a reading summary. I was a finance student at Ohio State University’s regional campus, good grades, but no connections, no money for prep courses, no way to stand out to top business schools. I’d known since childhood that studying was the only way out of the cycle of poverty. After five grueling hours, I finished reading last week’s business reports, cross-referenced a lot of historical data, and wrote a summary, tight, logical, and full of insights I’d gleaned from my late-night study sessions. After checking the grammar, I sent the document. [Sorry, I had tonsil surgery these past two days, so my reply is late.] Fifteen minutes later, he replied: [You wrote the report yourself?] My heart clenched: [Yes.] …A long silence followed. I stared at the screen, my palms sweating. Had I messed up? Was it too good, too obvious that I wasn’t Tiffany? Then, a Zelle notification popped up on the screen. $50,000. [The entry point is quite novel. Much better than the previous empty rhetoric. This is a reward.] [Rest well since you’re sick. Goodnight.] Tiffany’s “cheap old man” just gave me fifty thousand dollars?! I stared at the zeroes, my fingers trembling uncontrollably. That was more money than my mom made in a year. The comments immediately turned sour: [OMG, the female sidekick has such good luck, getting fifty grand for a lousy summary?] [Julian valued Tiffany’s potential. Serena is just getting lucky, mooching off the female lead!] [Take it, take it. The more you take now, the worse you’ll die later. Gold diggers never have a good ending.] I gritted my teeth and sent the money back. This wasn’t about cash, it was about opportunity. I couldn’t blow it by looking greedy. J.Y. sent a question mark: [Not enough?] [No, no, it’s not that. It’s just that more than money, I want an opportunity.] [I want to apply to business school. I don’t have a good mentor or access to industry data.] […Can I greedy and ask to borrow a high-level terminal account from you?] After sending the message, it was like a stone dropped into the ocean. Half an hour passed, no activity. I stared at the screen, a layer of cold sweat forming on my palms. The comments went into full-on mockery mode: [Crashed and burned, huh? Acting all high and mighty, now you can’t even get fifty grand!] [What level of titan is Julian? He can’t see through this kind of trick?] [Exactly, an ordinary small-town student wanting to go to Wharton. Does she think Julian is running a charity?] Just as I thought I had overplayed my hand and ruined this path, my phone rang. It was an unknown number with a California area code. [Send me your detailed information.] His voice was deep, calm, and authoritative, no hint of anger. I immediately sent the materials I had already prepared: my transcript (4.0 GPA), my scores on the GMAT practice tests, and the results of a local business case competition I’d won last year. I omitted personal details, my mom’s job, my cramped apartment, the four part-time jobs, only focusing on what mattered: my potential. The next day, I received a call from an unknown number. “Hello, this is Mr. Lin, Mr. Yan’s executive assistant.” The voice on the other end was strictly business, no warmth. “The boss asked me to meet you to assess your situation. Are you free this afternoon? I’m in Columbus for a meeting.” I suppressed my excitement and calmly replied, “Yes, you name the place.” 2 That afternoon, I dug out my only clean blazer, thrifted, but well-maintained, and a plain white blouse, and arrived at Mr. Lin’s hotel conference room right on time. He was a sharp-dressed man in his forties, with a clipboard and a no-nonsense expression. He scrutinized me, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes, probably not expecting the “stand-in” to look so… ordinary. The comments appeared on cue, mocking me: [The small-town bumpkin really overestimates herself, showing up to meet Mr. Lin dressed like a intern.] [He’s Julian’s right-hand man, he’ll definitely see through this woman’s fake identity at a glance.] My palms were slightly sweaty; I thought I was about to be exposed. To my surprise, he simply flipped through the documents I’d sent and didn’t delve into my identity at all. “The boss believes you have some foundation, but you’re still quite far from the requirements of a top-tier university, Wharton, Stanford, MIT. Your GMAT scores are good, but not great, and your industry experience is nonexistent.” I nodded, leaning forward slightly. “It’s precisely because there’s a gap that I need guidance. As long as I’m given the resources, I can definitely make up for it. I’m a fast learner, I always have been.” “The boss’s resources are not given out casually.” Mr. Lin closed the file, his tone firm. “He can provide you with access to his industry terminal, a personal tutor team (all Ivy League graduates), and even a stipend so you can quit your part-time jobs and focus on studying.” “The prerequisite is that you must absolutely follow instructions and complete all assessment targets. No slacking, no excuses. The boss doesn’t tolerate laziness.” “I’m willing!” I replied without a second thought. Quit my part-time jobs? Focus solely on studying? It sounded like a dream. He nodded. “Then from today onwards, your schedule and study plan will be fully managed by us. A car will pick you up tomorrow morning, you’re moving out of the dorm.” 3 Three days later, I moved out of the cramped dorm and into a penthouse suite in a luxury hotel in downtown Columbus. It had floor-to-ceiling windows, a wall of bookshelves filled with business and finance books, a top-of-the-line laptop, and three private tutors, two for GMAT prep, one for business case analysis, on standby. No frills, no distractions, just everything I needed to succeed. Every morning at 6 AM, I woke up to listen to CNBC and Bloomberg reports (in English, of course). At 8 AM, I began intensive GMAT training, quantitative reasoning, verbal, analytical writing. Afternoons were spent on high-intensity case studies, dissecting real-world deals from Silicon Valley and Wall Street. In the evenings, I had to report my daily learning progress to Julian without fail, sending him my notes and practice scores. His replies were always concise. Sometimes just “Read,” other times a lengthy criticism cutting straight to the point: [Your analysis of the Tesla-Maxwell merger is shallow, you missed the regulatory risks in the EU. Go back and research the EU’s antitrust laws and rewrite it by tomorrow morning.] He truly was like a strict dean, using high-pressure methods to reshape my thinking. The cold words on the screen, far from making me feel wronged, sparked a surge of excitement. Was this the world of the powerful? No gentle coddling, only results. And I was determined to deliver. One morning, Julian sent me a message. [Great progress recently. You have half a day off today. Go do something that isn’t studying.] I was praised! My lips couldn’t help but curl upwards. I hadn’t had a day off in weeks, I decided to go back to campus to pick up some of my things from the dorm and say goodbye to my few friends. As I pushed open the dorm room door, I bumped into Tiffany. She was dressed in a designer dress, clutching a Louis Vuitton handbag, her hair done professionally. She was with a group of sorority sisters, all laughing and gossiping. She scrutinized my plain jeans and white T-shirt and scoffed. “Oh, the super student deigns to return? What, did that old man dump you already? I told you he was cheap, three grand a month can’t even buy a single shoe from my new collection.” “No, he’s been helping me with my studies recently.” I told the truth, not wanting to brag or argue. “Helping with studies? Hahahaha…” She laughed loudly, drawing the attention of her friends. “Serena, are you out of your mind? Some random online guy who can’t even afford a decent gift, and you expect him to teach you anything? Teach you how to survive on ramen noodles and part-time jobs?” She poked the GMAT prep book in my hand with her newly manicured nails. “Andrew Vanderbilt is going to be the vice president of his family’s real estate company next month. He promised to get me a cushy job in marketing, no degree required. I advise you to be more realistic, Serena. A woman doing well is not as good as marrying well. What’s the point of holding onto these useless books every day? You’ll still end up working for people like me, slaving away for a paycheck.” I avoided her hand and said calmly, “To each their own. Three thousand is fine, and working is fine too.” I hoped to “suffer” this kind of hardship my whole life, hardship that led to progress, not stagnation. As expected, with the appearance of the “female lead,” the comments became active again: [If Tiffany knew she gave up a billionaire, she’d probably be kicking herself!] [Is this really the female lead? Why does she look so smug, more like a gold-digger than the sidekick? I’m low-key excited to see her face when Julian returns!] [Shut up, traitor above! The male lead has always belonged to the female lead, okay? Be sensible!] [Just wait and see, the male lead will take back all the resources, and Serena will be back to working four jobs. Serves her right!] I ignored the comments and walked away with my books. My brain couldn’t be taken back, could it? The knowledge I’d gained, the skills I’d learned, those were mine forever. Over the next two months, my progress was visible to the naked eye. My GMAT scores jumped 100 points, my case analyses grew sharper, and I even started contributing ideas to the industry reports Julian sent me. His attitude towards me also subtly changed. He no longer just issued instructions unilaterally. Occasionally, in the early hours (he was often in Asia for business), he would send a few casual photos, sunrise over Shanghai, a street food stall in Tokyo, a view of the Hong Kong skyline, with a short caption: [Tasted this dumpling today. You’d like it.] 4 But late one night, after reviewing my case notes on a tech startup, he suddenly sent a message. [Serena, your writing style has changed recently. It’s more rational and calm than before.] My heart leaped. He noticed. The comments began to celebrate wildly: [Julian is suspicious! The big reveal is coming soon!] [Serena, your storm is coming. Get ready to be kicked out and humiliated…] I steadied my breath, my fingertips flying across the keyboard: [You can take that as a compliment, you know. People always have to learn to grow. Right now, I just want to improve, for myself, and to live up to the trust you’ve given me.] After the message was sent, a long time passed before Julian sent a voice message. It was the first time I’d heard his voice, deep, magnetic, with a hint of discernible pleasure, like he was smiling as he spoke. “Very good. Keep that ambition and drive. It’s rare.” “I’ll be back in the States mid-next month to host a private business dinner in New York. You’ll attend as my companion. It’s time for your assessment, show me what you’ve learned.” Listening to the voice message, my fingers tightened. This day had finally arrived. The moment of truth, the chance to prove I wasn’t just a stand-in, but someone worthy of his investment. [Big scene alert! The love triangle is here, finally!] [Tiffany will definitely be there, she’s dating Andrew Vanderbilt, whose family is part of the New York elite. The real and fake online girlfriends are about to meet. This is going to be epic!] [According to the plot, Julian will expose Serena that night, throw her out of the banquet, and then go beg Tiffany to take him back. Classic!] Seeing those glaring words, I secretly clenched my fist. I had been studying and writing notes day and night, not to be a stepping stone for Tiffany. I was going to ace this assessment, no matter what. 5 Mr. Lin sent someone with an evening gown a day in advance, sleek, black, and elegant, not too flashy, and a fifty-page guest list. The names read like a who’s who of Wall Street and Silicon Valley: CEOs, venture capitalists, hedge fund managers, even a few celebrities. “The core assets and recent major investment intentions of tonight’s distinguished guests are all here.” Mr. Lin’s voice was serious over the phone. “The boss doesn’t need a pretty face to fill space. You need to memorize the information of the top ten core figures, their net worth, their company’s latest moves, their weaknesses. Remember, all of it. You’ll be expected to contribute to conversations, not just stand there and look pretty.” I didn’t dare to slack off, spending the entire night memorizing the list backward and forward. Not only that, but I also used the terminal account Julian had given me to dig up the recent financial reports of the ten titans’ companies, looking for insights and talking points. Whatever the outcome of the “reveal,” I had to be worthy of the resources he had invested in me. I owed him that much. In the evening, the car dropped me off in front of a sprawling mansion in the Hamptons. The air was filled with the scent of champagne and cigars, and guests conversed in hushed tones, seeming casual, but every word was a power play, every smile a strategic move. A single offhand comment could involve billions of dollars in financial flow. I picked up a glass of sparkling water (I didn’t drink alcohol, not wanting to cloud my judgment) and stayed in a quiet corner, silently matching the faces in the room with the information I had memorized the night before. I recognized a few faces from business magazines, Warren Buffett’s protégé, the CEO of Apple, the founder of a major hedge fund. My heart raced, but I forced myself to stay calm. Suddenly, a familiar female voice broke the silence. “Serena? What are you doing here?” I turned my head, unsurprised to see Tiffany. She was clinging to a tall, slick-haired young man, Andrew Vanderbilt, no doubt, staring at me in astonishment. She was wearing a bright pink gown, her neck covered in diamonds, clearly trying to stand out. “This is a top-tier business dinner. How did a poor student like you get in?” She sneered, leaning in like she was sharing a secret. “Don’t tell me you hooked up with a waiter and snuck in through the back door? That’s pathetic, even for you.” The comments floated across my vision right on time: [Tiffany’s words are rude, but she’s right. Serena only got in by deceiving Julian. She doesn’t belong here.] [Waiting for Julian to walk in and publicly expose her, this is going to be so satisfying!] [Popcorn’s ready, let the show begin!] I glanced at Tiffany, not bothering to reply, and focused my gaze on Andrew beside her. “Mr. Vanderbilt, your family’s real estate company was just cited for code violations in Chicago last quarter, and your main lender is threatening to recall the loan, correct?” Andrew had been observing me with a frivolous, dismissive look. Hearing my words, his face changed dramatically, from cocky to pale. I smiled slightly. “You’re not trying to fix this crisis, instead, you’re here, showing off your date and wasting time. Your grandfather must be proud.” “You… who are you? How do you know all this?!” His voice was already trembling slightly. These matters had been kept quiet, if they spread in this setting, it would ruin his family’s reputation and possibly cost them the loan. “If I were you, I’d immediately go talk to Mr. Carter from JPMorgan.” I nodded towards a gray-haired man across the room. “He has a sum of idle funds right now that he’s looking to invest in real estate. A few kind words from you might be enough to save your family’s company, instead of asking meaningless questions.” Andrew looked in the direction I pointed, his face a mixture of green and white. Finally, he glared fiercely at Tiffany. “Didn’t you say she was a bookworm who only knew how to study? How does she know more about the industry than I do!” He flung Tiffany’s hand away and hurried towards Mr. Carter, his pride forgotten. “Andrew! Where are you going?!” Tiffany stomped her foot in anger, glaring at me, gnashing her teeth. “What on earth are you doing? Do you think reading a few financial articles makes you a big shot in this circle? You’re still just a poor, small-town nobody!” I ignored her exasperation. A commotion at the front of the hall caught my attention. The large doors were pushed open from outside, and the banquet hall immediately fell silent. All eyes turned to the entrance. A tall man walked in, his facial features sharp and distinct, high cheekbones, a strong jaw, dark eyes that seemed to see everything. He was dressed in a tailored black suit, no tie, exuding an air of quiet power. He merely nodded in response to everyone’s greetings, and the entire atmosphere changed with his presence. Whispers broke out: “That’s Julian Yan.” “He’s even more handsome in person.” “I heard he just closed a $2 billion deal in Asia.” Julian Yan had arrived.

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When I finally learned that my long-lost daughter had been found, I immediately dropped everything and rushed back home. Stepping out of the car, a girl quickly approached me, intimately taking my hand. Her voice carried a hint of deliberate envy: “You must be my older sister, right? Look at your skin, so well-maintained. You must have never known hardship, unlike me, who tasted every bitterness in the countryside.” I hadn’t even fully processed this sudden address when she abruptly yanked my hand towards herself, dramatically falling to the ground. “Sister! How could you push me?” she cried, clutching her arm, tears instantly welling up. “If you really don’t want me here, I’ll leave right now. I won’t be an eyesore…” She choked back a sob, adding, “Please, don’t tell Mom and Dad. I don’t want them to be torn, and I certainly don’t want my presence to disrupt this family’s peace.” With that, she curled up on the ground, trembling like a leaf in the wind, drawing curious stares from passersby. I stood there, utterly bewildered—What older sister? I’m her mother! … “Sister, please don’t be angry…” “I… I know I was wrong… I shouldn’t be a bother here…” In front of me, Mishay was still on the ground, a picture of pure injustice. Passersby rushed to help her up, their gazes at me burning with anger. “You’re Elara Culver, aren’t you? The fake heiress adopted by the Culver family?” “How dare you push Mishay? You’re just an imposter, what right do you have to bully the real daughter?” “Fakes are always fakes; all they know is how to stir up trouble!” The crowd murmured, their eyes filled with disdain. “Please don’t talk about my sister like that…” Mishay suppressed her sobs, staggering forward and clinging tightly to my wrist. “It’s alright, Sister. You can hit me, you can scold me. I’m used to it, growing up in the orphanage…” “Only…” She paused, large tears streaming down her face. “Sister, could you please let me see Mom? I grew up in an orphanage and never even knew what Mom looked like…” Hearing this, the crowd instantly erupted. “Mishay is so pitiful! The true daughter of the Culver family, abandoned in an orphanage to suffer!” “Elara Culver, you’ve usurped her place for so many years, and now you won’t even let her see her mother? Are you even human?!” I looked at the crowd, my brows furrowed. When did I ever forbid her from seeing her mother? It’s her who didn’t recognize that I am her mother. These past few years, due to the sensitive nature of my work, I’d never appeared in public, so almost no one had seen me. Coupled with my meticulous skincare routine, I still looked quite young. But I never imagined I’d be mistaken for my adoptive daughter, Elara Culver. “Sister, I beg you…” Mishay suddenly dropped to her knees before me, gazing up with tear-filled eyes. “After I see Mom, I’ll leave immediately and never appear before you again… Please, Sister, I just need to see Mom once…” I looked down at her, a swirl of emotions in my heart. Last week, I was on a secret mission. It wasn’t until I left the lab today that I learned my daughter had been found, and I rushed back home. All the way, I’d been imagining our reunion, thinking about what to say. But I never in a million years expected that the first time my biological daughter saw me, it would be to frame me. “Get up first.” I bent down to help her. “Mishay, actually, I’m not—” My words were cut short. Suddenly. “What are you doing?!” A furious voice boomed from behind me. 2 “Mishay, you don’t have to be afraid of her.” Caleb Thorne walked up, helped her to her feet, and glared coldly at me. “You’re Elara Culver?” “Let me tell you, Mishay is my girlfriend. It’s not your place, you imposter, to bully her!” The moment he spoke, the surroundings erupted. “Girlfriend? Young Master Thorne is with Mishay?” “But Young Master Thorne has an engagement with Elara Culver! Is he publicly breaking it off? That’s a huge slap in the face!” “So what if he does? Mishay is the real heiress. What is Elara Culver anyway?” “Tsk, tsk, Elara Culver is completely humiliated now. If it were me, I’d crawl into a hole and disappear.” Listening to the chatter, my brows furrowed deeper. Caleb Thorne was the only son of the Thorne family, and I had personally chosen him as a suitable match for Elara. I had planned for the two children to meet after I finished my current projects. I never expected him to appear here so suddenly, or that he would be embracing Mishay and claiming she was his girlfriend. “Elara Culver, since you’re here today, I’ll make things clear.” Caleb stared at me, holding Mishay tightly in his arms. “I fell for Mishay at first sight. She’s the one I want to marry.” “As for you, my parents forced you on me. I wouldn’t be caught dead with someone who throws herself at people like you.” A burst of laughter erupted from the crowd. I clenched my fists, a cold sneer escaping my lips. This engagement, his parents had begged us to accept it. The Thorne family’s finances were on the verge of collapse a few years back, and it was my old friendship that saved them. If anyone was “throwing themselves at people,” it was his Thorne family, shamelessly clinging on. “Caleb, darling, don’t say that.” Mishay tugged at his sleeve, then looked up at me. “Sister, please don’t be angry. Caleb just can’t stand to see me wronged.” As she spoke, a flicker of triumph and pride flashed in her eyes. I stared at her face, my heart clenching painfully. Mishay had wandered off and been lost for over a decade, and I had searched for her all those years. I had yearned for her return, and now she was finally home. But I never imagined… she would become this kind of person. “Elara Culver, I know you must like me and want to marry me.” Caleb arrogantly tilted his head. “But I don’t like you. You should give up.” “Who said I like you?” I finally couldn’t help but chuckle, looking up at him. “Caleb Thorne, I’m already married. How could I possibly want to marry you?” The air quieted for a moment. Caleb was stunned, then burst out laughing as if he’d heard the funniest joke in the world. “Married?” “Elara Culver, what are you trying to pull? How could you be married?” “You’re not trying some ridiculous reverse psychology because you like me so much, are you? I told you, I’m not interested.” Listening to his words, I found it increasingly ridiculous. I had initially agreed to let him be with Elara because I’d seen him at a banquet once and thought he was presentable, worthy of my daughter. I never imagined that, in private, he would be such an arrogant, self-important fool. “Sister, I’m so sorry…” “But Caleb and I truly love each other. You’ve already taken everything from me these past years.” “Just let me have Caleb!” Mishay sobbed, tears streaming down her face, burying herself in Caleb’s arms, trembling. Caleb hugged her tighter, his eyes burning as if he wanted to flay me alive. I stared at her, truly at a loss for words. I had searched for her for seventeen years, fearing she would suffer, be bullied, or not live well. Yet now, she was publicly putting on an act, slandering her own mother, and stealing her sister’s fiancé. What was even more ridiculous was that the man she was stealing was someone of Caleb Thorne’s caliber. “Sister, I beg you!” Seeing that I still hadn’t spoken, Mishay cried out anxiously, “You can’t take Caleb away!” “You clearly… clearly already secretly with another man…” 3 Mishay’s words hung unfinished as she clapped a hand over her mouth, feigning regret for speaking out of turn. “Another man? What other man?” Caleb’s face darkened. “Mishay, what do you know? Speak clearly.” “I…” Mishay looked at him with feigned difficulty, then suddenly turned and bowed deeply to me. “I’m sorry, Sister… I didn’t mean to say it… I just didn’t want Caleb to be deceived…” With that, she pulled out a photo from her phone and held it up. It was a picture of me and a man embracing. My face was clear. The man, however, was only a blurred profile, unidentifiable. “Holy cow! Elara Culver has a boyfriend too? So what is this? Cheating on Young Master Thorne?” “Who’s that guy? Looks a little familiar.” “Doesn’t matter who. He doesn’t look young, does he? Tsk, tsk, I can’t believe Elara Culver would ditch Young Master Thorne for an older man. Her taste is… unique!” Listening to the whispers of the crowd, Caleb’s face grew uglier. The next second, he suddenly lunged forward, grabbing my hand, his eyes blazing with fury. “Elara Culver, how dare you cheat on me!” I was utterly dumbfounded by his absurd accusation. Firstly, I wasn’t Elara. Even if I were, and Elara did have a boyfriend, what business was it of his? The engagement hadn’t been formalized, and they hadn’t even met. He could be openly affectionate with Mishay and announce their relationship, but Elara had to remain chaste for him? What kind of logic was that? “Actually…” Mishay, seeing the situation, hesitantly uttered two more words. She shot me a provocative glance, then suddenly sighed. “Sister… actually, you’re not just involved with this one older man, are you?” “My people also caught you frequently entering those kinds of places, and the men around you were also…” At this, her voice stopped, and she looked at me, as if advising me. “Sister, a woman still needs to respect herself. You mingling with so many men is really…” Hearing this, everyone’s gaze swiveled to me. “I can’t believe it, this Elara Culver is actually that kind of person.” “She must have been used up by now, what a cheap whore.” “This imposter knows no shame? She should just get out of the Culver family!” The curses grew uglier, and the looks they gave me became incredibly lewd. I stood my ground, my eyes fixed on Mishay. I couldn’t believe it—my own biological daughter was spreading malicious rumors about me! “Sister, what’s past is past. I’ll definitely help you keep it a secret.” “And I certainly won’t let Mom and Dad know about this, don’t worry.” As she spoke, she suddenly reached out again, feigning intimacy, to take my hand. A chill seeped into my bones. I took two steps back, instinctively shaking her hand off gently. “Ah—!” Mishay suddenly shrieked and fell backward, hitting the ground hard, even rolling twice before stopping. “Mishay?! What happened? Who dared to push you?!” Hasty footsteps approached from a distance. The next second, a familiar figure burst through the crowd and helped Mishay up from the ground. I followed the sound and saw an incredibly familiar face. It was the man from the photo Mishay had just used to slander me. My husband of twenty years, her father. Arthur Culver.

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Five years ago, Luke and I entered this strange world as broke outsiders, marrying the wealthy Astor sisters. A devastating car crash three years later left Luke paralyzed and me blind. Unable to accept his condition, Luke ended his own life. While grieving, I overheard my wife Anne and her sister Eleanor. Anne asked if Eleanor had Luke’s spine broken to protect someone named Simon. Eleanor replied coldly, then revealed Anne had blinded me with pills, making me believe the crash was the cause. Anne responded, “As long as Simon is safe, nothing else matters. We married these nobodies to use them as shields.” The truth hit me like ice. Every loving gesture had been a lie. We were just pawns, sacrificed to protect Simon. My best friend’s death will not be in vain. Now that I see the truth, I will make them pay. 1 I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed a number I had committed to memory. “I need you to draft divorce papers. I am leaving Anne.” Once the lawyer confirmed, I ended the call. I was just about to turn and navigate my way down the hall when Anne’s voice drifted out from the ajar door again. “The truth is, Luke’s spine could have been saved. Simon was careless during the surgery and severed the nerve. This malpractice could cost him his medical license and his upcoming board review. We have to bury this at all costs.” Eleanor hummed in agreement. “Consider it done.” “Those pills you are feeding Arthur. You know the side effects can cause severe cognitive decline, right? Do not give him more than one a day, Anne.” I heard the rustle of clothing as Anne shook her head. “No. He is too sharp. If I don’t keep him docile, he might piece together our connection to Simon. If he exposes everything, it would ruin Simon.” My fingers curled into tight fists, fingernails digging sharply into my palms. Luke had a chance to recover. He didn’t have to die. I didn’t have to lose my sight. A sudden ringtone shattered the quiet. It was Eleanor’s phone. I heard her gasp, her voice spiking in pitch. “What do you mean Luke jumped?” The room went dead silent. A second later, the door swung open violently. I didn’t have time to hide. Anne froze the second she saw me standing in the corridor. Panic laced her voice. “What are you doing out here? Did you hear something?” I prepared to shake my head, but her hands were already gripping my arms, her fingers digging in tight. She let out a shaky breath. “Thank God you are safe. Please, Arthur, promise me you won’t do anything stupid. Promise me you won’t leave me like Luke left Eleanor. I wouldn’t survive it.” Her hands were trembling against my skin. She felt genuinely terrified. But I could no longer tell where the brilliant actress ended and my wife began. Five years ago, Luke and I arrived in this world with nothing but the clothes on our backs. The Astor sisters claimed it was love at first sight. They defied their incredibly powerful family, causing a massive scandal just to put rings on our fingers. I remember trying to talk Anne out of it. I told her we were just two broke guys who didn’t deserve them, and I didn’t want to ruin her relationship with her family. She had thrown her arms around me, holding on for dear life. She told me nothing else mattered as long as we stayed by their side. So we braved the endless mockery of the elite circle, became the Astor husbands, and helped build their empire to the towering heights it sat at today. Just this morning, when Luke was told his lumbar vertebrae were pulverized beyond repair, he cried. He told me the Astor relatives were already looking at him like garbage. He said he refused to drag Eleanor down. He said we would be brothers again in the next life. Then he pushed himself off the windowsill. I lunged to grab him, but I grasped nothing but empty air. The sickest joke of all was that it took his death for me to see the truth. These women never had a single ounce of love for us. Anne guided me back to my hospital bed. She pressed a handful of pills and a glass of warm water into my palm, her fingers gently brushing over my sightless eyes. “You need to take better care of yourself, Arthur. You can’t see. What if you trip and hurt yourself? Swallow these so you can heal faster.” I traced the chalky surface of the pills with my thumb. A bitter smile touched my lips. A one-a-day prescription, and she was handing me over a dozen at once. Did she want to turn me into a brain-dead vegetable that badly? “It is too many. I don’t want them.” The temperature in the room plummeted. Anne’s voice turned remarkably cold. “This is not the time to throw a tantrum. Take the pills, Arthur, or I will force them down your throat.” She signaled the doctor. Heavy hands pinned my shoulders to the mattress. Anne pried my jaw open, shoved the bitter handful into my mouth, and poured water right over them. I choked, coughing violently, feeling like I was drowning. I thrashed wildly on the bed, but Anne just stood there, watching in absolute silence. Only when I finally swallowed did she help me up from the floor where I had fallen. She carefully wiped the spilled water from my face, her voice returning to a sickeningly sweet whisper. “The doctor was too rough. I will have him disciplined later. But you have to take your medicine. It is for your own good.” My blood ran cold. My heart felt like a block of lead. The moment her footsteps faded down the hall, I stumbled into the bathroom, shoved two fingers down my throat, and threw up everything. Without the heavy dose of toxins clouding my system, my vision actually cleared a fraction. I could make out blurry shapes and moving shadows. I needed air. I needed to calm down. I made my way up to the hospital roof, only to find Anne and Simon already there. 2 Simon was in his white lab coat. His eyes were red and puffy. He looked like a kicked puppy. “I made a catastrophic mistake during Luke’s surgery. He ended up paralyzed and killed himself because of me. The medical board is going to strip my license. I will never be a surgeon again.” “What do I do, Anne? I am so scared.” Anne gazed at him, her eyes practically overflowing with a deep, hidden adoration. She reached out and gently stroked his hair. “It is okay. Eleanor and I will handle the board. We will buy off whoever we need to. And if we can’t keep it quiet, we will pay witnesses to say Arthur caused the surgical complication by interfering. We will send him to prison for a few years. Your reputation will remain spotless.” Simon laughed through his tears, wiping his face. “Won’t your husband hate you for that?” Anne shook her head with absolute sincerity. “I don’t care if he hates me. Your safety is the only thing that matters. You are the only person I care about protecting.” Simon wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him. He lifted a hand to trace her bottom lip. “Am I really just a little brother to you? Watching you pretend with that blind charity case breaks my heart. You must be so disgusted playing the dutiful wife.” “Let me make it up to you…” Anne flushed. She hesitated, looking around. “Our family has too many enemies. If I show you any affection in public, they will put a target on your back.” Her words were swallowed by his mouth. Anne abandoned her restraint, clinging to his shoulders as they kissed passionately. In the middle of locking lips with my wife, Simon opened his eyes, locked his gaze right where I was standing in the shadows, and gave me a look of pure, unadulterated mockery. A chill crawled up my spine. But I didn’t step out. I didn’t scream. I pressed the stop button on my phone’s video recorder, slipped it into my pocket, and quietly walked back to my room, pretending I was still perfectly blind. Three days later, we held Luke’s funeral. It was supposed to be a quiet, private service, but the Astor family turned it into a massive spectacle. When Anne guided me into the hall, I could feel the hostile stares. The whispers buzzed around me like angry wasps. “Is that the Astor heiress’s husband? Why is he wearing dark glasses?” “I heard he went blind. He was already a gold-digging loser from the slums. Now he is completely useless.” “Poor Anne. Shackled to a crippled parasite. If I were him, I would have the decency to jump off a bridge rather than embarrass her.” “The dead guy was his best friend. Two leeches sucking the Astor wealth dry. Good riddance to one of them. Too bad they both didn’t jump.” The venomous insults echoed off the marble walls. My hands trembled slightly. Noticing my reaction, Anne gripped my fingers tighter. She turned sharply toward the crowd, her voice cracking like a whip. “Enough! Arthur is my husband. Say one more word about him in my presence, and I swear I will ruin you and your entire family by nightfall!” The great hall fell deathly silent. During the service, I stood at the front, holding my brother’s urn, numbly accepting the hollow condolences of people who hated us. Then Simon walked in, carrying a massive bouquet of white lilies. “My deepest condolences, Arthur,” he said, his voice dripping with fake pity. “It is a tragedy, really. But honestly, with a shattered spine, he would have been a bedridden vegetable for the rest of his life. He would have drained his wife’s youth. Dying was probably the kindest thing he could do.” “To think, he actually took my advice and jumped out that window…” My breath caught. Simon had goaded Luke into jumping. I expected to hear at least a shred of guilt in his voice. Instead, he leaned in close so only I could hear. “You are half a cripple yourself now. When are you going to do the world a favor and follow him? You two parasites have infected this family for way too long.” My knuckles turned white around the urn. I wanted to tear him apart, but I refused to cause a scene in front of Luke’s ashes. Suddenly, Simon threw himself to his knees. He raised his hand and began slapping his own face violently. He wailed, his voice echoing through the silent hall. “I am so sorry! It is all my fault! My surgical skills weren’t good enough! I couldn’t fix his spine! I don’t deserve to be a doctor!” Anne shoved her way through the crowd just in time to see Simon kneeling on the floor, his cheeks bruised and swollen. He was pulling at his hair, weeping hysterically, curling into a ball of misery. He grabbed a heavy marble paperweight from the registry desk and raised it above his hands. “Arthur is right!” Simon sobbed. “I am a failure! I killed Luke! I will crush my own hands so I can never hold a scalpel again! It is the only way to pay for my sins!” Anne let out a terrified shriek. She lunged forward, snatching the heavy marble from his grasp, and pulled him fiercely into her chest. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with absolute disgust. “How can you be so vicious, Arthur? Luke’s spine was destroyed in the crash. You were the one driving! If you had kept your eyes on the road, none of this would have happened!” “A surgeon’s hands are his life! How could you try to force him to destroy his career? You stay here and think about what you have done!” She barked an order, and the entire Astor entourage filed out of the room, following her and Simon. The grand memorial hall emptied out in seconds. I hugged the cold urn to my chest. It didn’t matter. Luke hated these snobs anyway. We didn’t need their fake tears. I turned to leave the hall. Before I could take a step, a heavy hand grabbed the urn and ripped it out of my arms. 3 I lunged forward to grab it back, but a blunt object smashed into the back of my skull. The world spun wildly. As I collapsed to the marble floor, my blurry vision focused on the men standing over me. They were notorious rivals of the Astor family. Vicious men who operated in the city’s underbelly. The leader popped the lid off the urn. With a cruel sneer, he dumped Luke’s ashes directly onto the floor. They stomped their heavy boots right into the gray dust, grinding it into the tiles, before spitting a mouthful of saliva onto the pile. “Anne and Eleanor stole a massive shipping contract from us,” the leader snarled. “They told us if we had a problem, we could come find them. Well, ruining their favorite little pets seems like a great place to start!” “This dead one is boring. But the live one looks like he can take a beating.” “What do you think, boys? Break his arms? Shatter his kneecaps? He has a pretty face. Let’s carve it up so every time Anne looks at him, she remembers who runs this city.” Laughter bounced off the walls. They dragged me into a dark corner like a piece of dead meat. My hand slipped into my pocket, my fingers blindly navigating my phone’s screen to dial emergency services. Before the call connected, a steel-toed boot crashed into my ribs. Over a dozen men swarmed me. There was no holding back. They intended to beat me to death. Bones cracked. Knives flashed, leaving long, burning cuts across my chest and arms. It felt like they were trying to drain every drop of blood from my body. By the time the distant wail of police sirens echoed through the hall, I couldn’t even twitch a finger. Then came the frantic sound of high heels. Anne had finally returned. When she saw me lying in a pool of my own blood, she screamed. She tore away the paramedics, dragging me into her own car, speeding toward the hospital like a madwoman. Her face was twisted in absolute agony. She kept shaking my shoulders, refusing to let me close my eyes. “I am so sorry, Arthur. I was just angry. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I didn’t know they would come for you.” “You have to stay awake. You have to live. If you die because of me, I will never forgive myself as long as I live!” Hot tears spilled onto her cheeks and dripped down onto my cold skin. But later, as I lay drifting in and out of consciousness in the trauma ward, I heard Anne whispering furiously to her head of security. “Arthur was the bait. I needed to draw out the rats who wanted to hurt Simon. Now that they have shown their faces, wipe them out. Make sure the city is safe for him.” “I do feel slightly guilty about this. I will make sure Arthur is taken care of. Being a part of the Astor family and enjoying our wealth is more than enough compensation.” “The most important thing is keeping Simon’s name completely out of the police reports. No media leaks.” A single tear slipped from the corner of my eye, soaking into the pristine white pillowcase. For the first time in five years, I violently regretted saying “I do”. When I finally opened my eyes, Anne rushed over, wrapping her arms tightly around my neck. I stared at the ceiling and spoke with absolute clarity. “I want a divorce.” Anne froze. She pulled back, looking confused. “What did you say?” “I said, I want a divorce, Anne. I don’t love you anymore.” Her grip on my hands tightened painfully. She opened her mouth to argue, but a sudden commotion outside the room interrupted her. Simon stumbled through the doorway, looking disheveled, a horde of aggressive reporters practically breathing down his neck. He had a shallow scrape on his cheek. Cornered, he immediately hid behind Anne’s back. He was crying, his voice trembling perfectly. “Anne, I am so sorry. Someone leaked the video of us on the roof to the press.” “They are calling me a homewrecker. They are saying I seduced you. They are demanding I get on my knees and apologize to Arthur.” “It is my fault. I shouldn’t have fallen for you. I have ruined everything. I should just jump out this window and give everyone what they want!” Without warning, he dropped to his knees, slammed his forehead against the tiles three times, then sprang up and threw one leg over the hospital window ledge. Anne’s eyes went wide with terror. She grabbed his waist and hauled him backward. “Are you insane?!” She cradled him against her chest. “Who dares call you a homewrecker? You did nothing wrong. I forbid you from blaming yourself.” The reporters were shoving their cameras right into their faces. Anne gritted her teeth. Without a second thought for my stitched wounds, she grabbed the collar of my hospital gown and yanked me violently out of the bed. She kicked the back of my knees. I crashed to the hard floor, landing directly on my shattered joints. My newly stitched wounds ripped open. A mouthful of blood spilled from my lips, splattering the floor. She completely ignored the blood. She pointed down at me and screamed, “Apologize to Simon, Arthur!” I stared at her, genuinely shocked. “I didn’t do anything. Why would I apologize?” “Because you pushed him to the edge! You made things difficult for him twice in one day. You drove him to suicide!” “Now the media is tearing him apart, and my family is a laughingstock! Are you happy now?” “No wonder you brought up divorce. You knew I would punish you for this, so you tried to play the victim to get the upper hand!” When I clamped my mouth shut and refused to speak, Anne lost her mind. She raised her hand and slapped me across the face in front of fifty flashing cameras. “You are so vicious, Arthur! You are determined to destroy an innocent man!” “If you won’t tell them the truth, I will!” She turned to face the blinding flashes of the press. She pointed directly at me. “The real cheater is Arthur Pendleton!” “He had an affair and tried to extort half the Astor fortune! I divorced him months ago, but he blackmailed me into keeping it quiet! Simon is entirely innocent! He was just comforting me during a difficult time, and someone took it out of context to ruin his career!” The room erupted. The reporters surged forward like bloodthirsty hounds. People passing in the hall started spitting on me. Someone shoved me hard. I crashed into a medical cart, sending shattered glass flying. A jagged shard sliced deep into my neck. Blood pumped freely down my collar. A doctor rushed forward to apply pressure, but Anne blocked him with her body. “Leave him! Let him bleed on the floor until he repents for his lies!” I lay there, watching my own blood pool around me. Right before the darkness took me, someone stomped their heel deliberately into the side of my head. Anne grabbed Simon’s hand and rushed him out of the room, demanding a full-body scan for his minor scrape. After hours of tests confirmed Simon was perfectly fine, her anger finally cooled. She pulled out her phone and called the hospital director. “Go check on Arthur. Stitch up whatever is bleeding. Remind him he is still my husband, and I will not be signing any divorce papers.” “Oh, and use the good anesthesia. He doesn’t like pain.” The director’s voice shook on the other end of the line. “Miss Astor… I was just about to call you. Arthur is gone. He left an signed divorce agreement and a USB drive for you.”

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Tonight at exactly eight seventeen, I checked my phone and found nine missed calls. They were all from my father-in-law, Robert. In our five years of marriage, he had never tried to reach me with such frantic urgency. I tapped the screen to play his latest voicemail. His voice trembled with an unmistakable edge of panic. “Oliver, I kept your dinner warm in the oven. Please don’t eat anything from those random takeout places. You have a sensitive stomach. The food out there is filthy, it will make you sick.” That wasn’t the voice of a concerned parent. It was the sound of barely concealed terror. I lowered my phone and absentmindedly scratched my forearm. Then, I completely froze. My skin was entirely smooth. There were no raised welts, no burning redness, no agonizing itch. For the first time in five years, my arms were completely clear. My mind raced back through the events of the day. The only thing I had done differently was skip Robert’s home-cooked dinner. 1 I had been stuck at the pharmacy doing inventory until almost seven thirty. The diner next door was closed, so I grabbed a pre-packaged turkey sandwich from a convenience store to hold me over. My phone had vibrated relentlessly in my pocket the entire time. I saw Robert’s name flash on the screen, but my hands were full of heavy boxes. I figured I would just call him back later. By the time I finished, it completely slipped my mind. When I finally checked my notifications, I saw the nine missed calls. I unlocked the front door just before nine o’clock. Robert rushed out of the kitchen the second he heard the latch click. He hadn’t even taken off his apron, and his knuckles were dusted with flour. “Why are you so late?” he demanded. “We had to do a full stock count at the pharmacy today,” I replied, slipping off my shoes. “Took longer than expected.” “Did you eat?” “Yeah, I grabbed a sandwich on the way.” Robert’s expression faltered. It was barely a fraction of a second, but I caught it. It wasn’t the relieved look of a father hearing his son-in-law had been fed. It was a sharp, poorly hidden flash of anxiety. “Store-bought food is garbage,” he muttered, turning sharply back toward the kitchen. “I will heat up some chicken broth for you. It has been simmering all afternoon.” “Robert, I am honestly full.” “A bowl of broth won’t ruin your appetite,” he insisted. He was already carrying the steaming bowl out to the dining table. I didn’t want to argue, so I sat down and forced myself to drink half of it. It had a very faint, almost imperceptible savory tang, but immediately after swallowing, the tip of my tongue began to tingle and go numb. It had always been like this. For five years, I just assumed my immune system was a wreck. Later that night, as I stood under the bathroom shower, I glanced down at my forearms. Still perfectly smooth. But deep down, I already knew they wouldn’t look like that tomorrow. The next morning, I woke up and looked at my skin. Three angry red hives had blossomed in the crook of my left elbow. A raised, intensely itchy patch of inflamed skin covered my right forearm. It looked exactly the same as every single morning for the past five years. I sat on the edge of the mattress, staring blankly at the red marks. Yesterday, I didn’t eat his food, and my skin was clear. Last night, I drank his broth, and the hives returned. Maria sat up beside me, pulling on her blouse for work. “Flaring up again?” she asked, glancing over. “Yeah.” “Isn’t it time you booked another appointment with the specialist? Did you finish that last round of steroids?” “I still have half a pack.” She applied her lipstick in the vanity mirror and shot me a sympathetic look. “Try not to scratch it, Oliver. You will just make it bleed.” Then she grabbed her purse and walked out the door. I remained frozen on the edge of the bed. My mind was circling a terrifying, completely insane theory. From the kitchen, Robert’s voice echoed down the hall. “Oliver! The oatmeal is ready, come eat while it is hot!” I slowly stood up and walked out of the bedroom. A faint smile touched my lips. “Coming,” I called back. I sat down at the table and pulled the bowl toward me. I stared at the tiny, almost invisible flecks of seasoning floating in the creamy oats. I had never noticed them before. Today, they looked glaringly obvious. I took a small bite. The tip of my tongue went numb again. 2 I had suffered from a severe shellfish allergy my entire life. When I was a kid, I accidentally ate a piece of fried shrimp and my throat swelled shut. I nearly died in the back of an ambulance. From that day on, my parents banned all seafood from the house, and I learned to read every food label like my life depended on it. I managed it perfectly for over twenty years. I rarely had a reaction. Everything changed the moment I married Maria. The hives started during our first month of marriage. By the second month, they refused to fade. By the third month, both of my arms were covered in a permanent, burning rash. I went to the top allergists in the city. They diagnosed me with chronic idiopathic anaphylaxis. They couldn’t pinpoint the trigger. “Do you have any known severe allergens?” the doctor had asked. “Shellfish. But I absolutely never touch it.” “Then we will have to keep running panels. For now, we manage the symptoms.” He prescribed heavy antihistamines and topical steroid creams. The consultation was two hundred dollars. The medication was another hundred and fifty. Three hundred and fifty dollars for the very first month. I went back a month later, desperate for relief. I saw a different specialist. Another four hundred dollars for consultations and stronger topical treatments. By the third month, the inflammation subsided slightly, only to roar back with a vengeance in the fourth. I started using my employee discount at the pharmacy to buy the medications at cost, but I was still burning through hundreds of dollars every few weeks. Over five years, the empty pill bottles and crushed ointment tubes in my nightstand could have filled a dumpster. Maria noticed the massive pile while cleaning one afternoon. She looked genuinely stunned. “You take all of this?” “Yeah.” “Can’t you find a cheaper generic brand?” I didn’t answer her. I was already buying the absolute cheapest options available. And that was just the daily medication. Factor in the specialist visits, the endless blood panels, the holistic doctors, the allergy testing kits. I kept a meticulous spreadsheet of my medical expenses over the last five years. Just managing the hives had cost me over twelve thousand dollars. But that wasn’t even the worst part. During our third year of marriage, we decided to start trying for a baby. After twelve months with zero success, we went to a fertility clinic. Maria was perfectly healthy. My results, however, were devastating. The chronic, severe allergic inflammation in my body had wrecked my endocrine system, severely impacting my fertility. The doctor tried to break it to me gently. “We need to get this chronic allergic response completely under control before your body can recover enough to conceive.” But I couldn’t control it. For five unbroken years, my body had been locked in a constant state of panic. Desperate, I agreed to an aggressive series of hormone therapies and specialized treatments to boost my chances. Each cycle cost around eight thousand dollars. I went through three grueling cycles. None of them worked. Twenty-four thousand dollars, completely burned to ashes. During that dark period, Robert started sighing a lot around the dinner table. “Oliver, I am not trying to pressure you two,” he would say, placing a choice cut of roast beef directly onto Maria’s plate. “It is just a shame. Maria is my only daughter, and she would make such a wonderful mother.” I stared at my bowl. He never served me the good cuts. Over the last five years, I had grown completely used to him treating Maria like royalty while barely acknowledging me. “We are still trying, Robert. The doctors said there is still a chance.” “Right. Just don’t push yourself too hard. Health comes first,” he replied, flashing a gentle, comforting smile. That following Saturday, Ken came over to visit. Ken was the son of David, Robert’s oldest friend. He was a few years younger than me, working a comfortable job at a corporate bank. His skin was flawless. Not a single red mark, not a single blemish. Robert’s face lit up the second he opened the door. “Ken! Come in, come in, sit down.” He practically dragged Ken to the best spot on the sofa. “Look at you, getting more handsome every year. And you look so healthy.” Ken chuckled modestly. Robert shot a sideways glance at me. “Not like our Oliver. The poor guy is always breaking out. His face and arms are always a mess.” Ken glanced at me, his expression unreadable, and stayed quiet. “I will go make some coffee,” I said, standing up from my chair. Once I was alone in the kitchen, I rolled up my sleeves. A violent, red rash crawled from my wrists all the way past my elbows. I quietly rolled my sleeves back down. When I carried the coffee tray into the living room, Ken was sitting directly in the center of the sofa, occupying the exact spot I normally sat in every evening. I set his mug down in front of him and took a seat on a small wooden stool in the corner. Late that night, after Maria had fallen asleep, I stood alone in the bathroom under the harsh fluorescent lights, trying to squeeze the last drops out of my hydrocortisone tube. The tube was completely flattened. The tiny ribbon of cream wasn’t enough to cover both arms. I scraped the plastic nozzle clean and smeared the meager amount onto my right elbow. I looked up into the mirror. The rash had crept up my neck. Angry red patches covered my cheeks and jawline. I turned off the light and stepped back into the dark bedroom. Maria shifted under the blankets but didn’t wake up. 3 The following Monday, I made a decision. I cornered my coworker, Marcus, in the breakroom. “Hey, can I take your evening shifts for the whole week?” “Why the sudden change?” Marcus asked, looking surprised. “Just dealing with some stuff at home.” The evening shift ran from two in the afternoon to ten at night. It meant I would have to eat dinner at the pharmacy. When I called Robert to tell him, I kept my voice perfectly casual. “The schedule got flipped this week. I am on nights, so I won’t be home for dinner.” “What? What are you going to eat?” “We have a microwave in the back room. I will just grab something from the deli.” “You can’t eat that processed garbage. It will make you sick. Let me cook something and—” “Robert, it’s fine. It is just for one week.” Dead silence hung on the line for two agonizing seconds. “Fine,” he finally said. “Just don’t eat anything strange.” I promised I wouldn’t. That week, I ate basic cafeteria food for lunch and survived on microwaved pasta and convenience store sandwiches for dinner. On Monday, the hives remained. On Tuesday, the angry red color began to fade. On Wednesday, the burning itch completely vanished. On Thursday, the thick, raised welts on my left arm flattened out. On Friday, my right arm had nothing but faint, pale pink shadows where the rash used to be. By Sunday, both of my arms were completely spotless. Even my face had cleared up. Marcus caught me hauling boxes in the stockroom with my sleeves rolled up. He stopped in his tracks. “Whoa, your skin looks great,” he said. “Yeah, it has been getting a lot better recently.” “I thought you said that chronic allergy thing was incurable? You looked like a walking tomato just last month.” I offered a thin smile and went back to work without explaining. During that entire week, Robert called me religiously every single day. Monday: “What exactly did you eat for dinner?” Wednesday: “I made a huge pot of beef stew. Do you want Maria to drop some off at the pharmacy?” Thursday: “Maria mentioned your skin is looking a lot better.” Friday: “Your night shifts end this weekend, right? Come straight home on Sunday, I am cooking a massive feast.” On Saturday morning, Robert personally walked through the glass doors of the pharmacy. He was holding a heavy insulated thermos. “Robert? What are you doing all the way out here?” “You haven’t had a decent home-cooked meal in a week. I couldn’t stop worrying about you.” He set the thermos down on the checkout counter and unscrewed the lid. Rich, savory steam drifted into the air. It was chicken broth. But underneath the smell of the chicken, there was another scent. It was incredibly faint. I had never been able to isolate it before. But after a week of eating clean, bland food, my senses were razor-sharp. “Drink it while it is hot,” he urged, staring at me intently. I picked up the plastic bowl and took a tiny sip. The immediate, familiar numbness hit the tip of my tongue. “Delicious,” I said, offering him a bright, appreciative smile. The moment Robert left the store, I locked the front doors and marched straight into the sterile stockroom. I pulled a medical-grade specimen bag from the supply cabinet, poured the remaining chicken broth directly into the plastic pouch, and sealed it tight. I slapped a blank label on the front, wrote down the date and time, and shoved it into the medical refrigerator used for storing vaccines. 4 Our pharmacy didn’t have the equipment to run advanced allergy panels, but after six years in the medical supply industry, I knew exactly who could. There was an independent testing laboratory just a few blocks away that handled commercial food safety and allergen trace testing. I had delivered medical supplies to their technicians plenty of times. First thing Monday morning, I walked into their lobby carrying the sealed sample. The receptionist smiled when she saw me. “Hey Oliver, dropping off a sample for a client?” “Actually, this one is personal,” I said, sliding the bag across the counter. “I need a qualitative allergen screening. Specifically, I need you to test for the presence of shellfish proteins.” “No problem. If you pay the rush fee, we can have the results emailed to you by tomorrow afternoon.” “Put a rush on it.” I swiped my own credit card for the eighty-eight-dollar invoice. I spent the rest of my shift in a total daze. Marcus kept asking if I was feeling okay. “I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep well,” I lied. That night, I went back to eating at home. Robert had gone all out. He had prepared a massive spread: slow-cooked pot roast, garlic butter asparagus, creamy potato soup, and baked salmon. “You worked so hard this week, Oliver. Eat up,” Robert said, pushing a plate toward me. “Thanks, Robert.” I ate. I made sure to take a few bites of every single dish on the table. The next morning, I looked in the mirror. The hives were back. They covered my neck, the crooks of my elbows, and both forearms. It was a violent, total relapse. It was as if my week of clear skin had never happened. Maria frowned over her coffee. “It flared up again? You were doing so well last week.” “Probably just stress from the night shifts,” I replied blankly. At exactly two in the afternoon, my phone rang. It was the testing lab. “Oliver, we just finalized the report on your sample.” “Tell me.” “Positive for crustacean protein. The concentration is relatively low, but it is definitively positive.” The phone trembled in my grip. I wasn’t scared. The trembling came from a sudden, overwhelming wave of clarity. Five years. It wasn’t a weak immune system. It wasn’t idiopathic inflammation. It wasn’t an unsolvable medical mystery. Someone had been meticulously lacing my food with shellfish every single day. And my severe, potentially lethal allergy to shellfish was something everyone in my household knew about. I stood in the cold, sterile pharmacy stockroom and took three long, deep breaths. Then I opened the supply cabinet and pulled out six more medical-grade specimen bags. For the rest of the week, I ate dinner at home. And every single night, I managed to slip a sample into a bag. Tuesday: Potato soup. Positive. Wednesday: Steamed vegetables. Positive. Thursday: Casserole. Positive. Friday: Oatmeal. Positive. Saturday: BBQ ribs. Positive. Sunday: Beef stew. Positive. Seven separate laboratory reports. All seven came back completely positive. After my shift ended, I locked the pharmacy doors and spread the seven printed reports across the checkout counter. I was entirely alone. The only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights. I read through them, one by one. Every single page ended with the exact same bolded conclusion. Crustacean Protein: DETECTED. Seven days. Seven completely different dishes. Zero omissions. This wasn’t a dirty cutting board. This wasn’t accidental cross-contamination at a factory. This was in every single dish, every single day, for every single meal. It was intentional. It was mathematically precise. And it had been happening for five years. I stacked the seven papers together, slid them into a manila folder, and zipped it securely inside my backpack. I splashed cold water on my face in the employee restroom, dried off, and pulled out my phone. I opened my messages and texted Robert. “Dad, I have been craving your famous BBQ ribs. Could you make them tomorrow?” A minute later, my screen lit up. “Of course! I will go to the butcher tomorrow morning!!!” Three exclamation points. 5 Now I needed to find the weapon. I didn’t want theories. I didn’t want circumstantial deductions. I needed the physical proof. On Wednesday afternoon, Robert left the house to meet his friends for a walk in the park. Maria was still at her office. The house was completely empty. I walked into the kitchen and began systematically dismantling the space. First, I checked the visible spice racks. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Italian herbs, black pepper, Cajun seasoning. Nothing out of the ordinary. I moved to the upper cabinets. Flour, sugar, cornstarch, baking soda. Nothing. I paused, calculating his movements while cooking. I crouched down and pulled open the heavy wooden doors beneath the stovetop. It was full of heavy cast-iron skillets and soup pots. I reached all the way to the very back. Hidden in the darkest corner, behind a massive Dutch oven, my fingers brushed against cold plastic. I pulled it out into the light. It was a generic brown plastic bottle. There was no label. A thin layer of grease and dust coated the cap, but the body of the bottle was wiped clean. It was handled frequently. I unscrewed the cap. A fine, pale pink powder filled the bottle. I brought it close to my nose and inhaled slightly. The sharp, unmistakable stench of dried brine and fishiness hit the back of my throat. It was pure dehydrated shrimp powder. I pulled out my phone and took several high-resolution photos. The bottle in my hand, the texture of the powder, and the exact spot where it had been hidden behind the pots. Then, I screwed the cap back on and placed it precisely where I found it. I walked into the living room and sat heavily on the sofa. I reached over and picked up Robert’s iPad. He never used a passcode. He only used it to watch baseball highlights and browse the internet. I opened the Amazon app. He was still logged in. I tapped the search bar in his order history and typed in “Shrimp Powder.” When the results populated the screen, I stopped breathing for a long time. Sixty individual orders. Every single order was from a storefront called “Ocean Bounty Spices.” One order per month. I scrolled down to the very first purchase. Date: March 17th. Maria and I got married on February 28th. He placed the first order exactly seventeen days after my wedding. The most recent order was placed on February 8th of this year. Just last month. Five years. Sixty orders. One 8-ounce bag every single month. Price: $15.80. I took screenshots of every single order. All sixty of them. Once I was done, I cleared the search history, closed the app, and placed the iPad exactly where he had left it. I sat alone in the quiet living room and did the math in my head. Sixty bags of shrimp powder at $15.80 each. Total cost: $948. Not even a thousand dollars. I pulled out my phone and opened my terrifyingly detailed medical spreadsheet. The copays, the steroids, the emergency clinic visits, the blood panels, the fertility treatments. Total cost: $162,780. Less than a thousand dollars worth of crushed shrimp. One hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars in agonizing medical debt. My grip tightened until the metal edges of my phone dug painfully into my palms. I took a deep breath, forcing my heart rate to slow down. It still wasn’t enough. I knew the what, the how, and the how much. Now I needed the why. I reached for the iPad one more time and opened his WhatsApp application. I scrolled through his recent chats. The third conversation on the list caught my eye. Contact name: David (Ken’s Dad). I tapped it.

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