Rumor had it that Manhattan’s most elusive billionaire heir had the stamina of an absolute god. My sister and I decided to take turns being his girlfriend, cultivating our magic by absorbing his excess vitality through physical intimacy. One day, this gorgeous heir asked my sister: “What are snakes most afraid of? Arsenic or sulfur?” I thought our cover was blown. I immediately packed our bags, faked our deaths that very night, and dragged my sister running back to the deep woods where we belong. In the middle of the night, from my fresh grave, I smelled the heavenly scent of fried chicken. I popped my head out of the dirt for a bite. Behind me, two cold chuckles rang out. I turned to see two identical, impossibly handsome men staring down at me, their gazes icy. One said, “Bro, which one is this? I honestly can’t tell them apart.” The other smirked and said, “That one is mine. Just last night, she told me that when she died, I better leave an entire Popeyes family meal combo on her grave.” 01 My name is Tessa. Half a year ago, my sister Sienna and I realized our magical cultivation was too weak to maintain our human forms for long periods. So, we hunted down a high-quality human male—Weston Sinclair, the golden boy of New York high society—to dual-cultivate with and boost our magic. Mon-Wed-Fri: I cultivated with him. Tue-Thu-Sat: Sienna did. Sundays were Weston’s days off. We would feed him raw oyster shooters, maca root, and premium protein smoothies to help him recharge. To avoid blowing our cover, we used a shared fake name around him: Tessie. I have to admit. Weston was truly built different. Unlike traditional men who needed a cooldown period, he was ready to go all day, every day. Him! I’d use him in the morning! My sister would use him in the afternoon! I’d use him again before dinner, and my sister would take the night shift! One man doing the work of four. And, he was incredibly generous. If Sienna or I lingered our gaze on a designer bag for even a second, or casually mentioned liking something… By the next morning, it would be delivered to our penthouse. In just six months, our bank account balance had hit eight figures. We had so many luxury goods we didn’t know what to do with them. Cartier bracelets, solid gold bangles… they were practically spilling out of our closets. Sometimes, when Weston wasn’t around, I’d turn back into my snake form. I’d slither right through them. Playing ring toss. Wearing ten diamond bracelets at once, looking absolutely fabulous. I made Sienna take pictures and post them on my Instagram Close Friends story. The other wild snakes were dying of jealousy: [Tessa! Who’s your sugar daddy?! You’re living the absolute dream!] Of course, Weston was blocked from seeing those stories. 02 Today was Saturday. I had bought us VIP tickets for an exclusive hot pot place downtown. I was just waiting for Sienna to get home so we could head out. Finally, she walked through the door. I grabbed my Prada bag, eager to leave. But she looked pale. Terrified, even. I asked, “What’s wrong, sis? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sienna practically ripped open the fridge, grabbed a chilled coconut water, and chugged the entire thing. Once she caught her breath, she said: “Tessa, guess what Weston asked me today?” I thought about it. “Did he ask if we wanted a yacht? A few days ago I told him I wanted a private yacht off the coast of Monaco to watch the night skyline. He nodded and said he’d arrange it.” Sienna shook her head frantically. “No! I wish it was that…” She took a deep breath, still looking traumatized. “He asked me, what are snakes most afraid of? Arsenic or sulfur? “Oh my god, Tessa, you have no idea. At the time, I was so excited. I was unboxing this new leather whip I bought online, fantasizing about how I was going to use it on him. “And then he drops that question! It killed the mood instantly. “Then, he looks at me all confused and asks, ‘Mommy, why aren’t you whipping me?’” I fell completely silent. “He called you Mommy? “And told you to whip him?” Sienna gave me a weird look. “No, Tessa, your priorities are totally messed up right now. “Shouldn’t the focal point be that our identities are compromised?! Shouldn’t we be packing our bags to flee the state?!” I looked at her, dead serious. “No, Sienna, listen to me! “Last week, I playfully swatted him with an iPhone charger cable, and he…” He instantly pinned me to the mattress and tied my wrists. He leaned in and growled, “Baby, do you need to be taught another lesson?” That night, he tormented me so thoroughly I almost went to the afterlife to meet our Great-great-great-grandmother, the Serpent Goddess. Now it was Sienna’s turn to be utterly bewildered. “Huh?! Weston is that aggressive with you? “I always have to initiate! He’s incredibly submissive and obedient with me. “Oh my god. Does he have a split personality disorder?” I slapped my thigh in a panic. “Don’t overthink it right now, sis! Let’s just get to the hot pot place! The 9-to-5 crowd is about to get off work, and there’s going to be a massive line!” Sienna: ? 03 Once we were safely seated at the hot pot restaurant. Sienna and I started gossiping about Weston again. The more we talked, the weirder it got. Her Weston was like a golden retriever. My Weston was like a dominant alpha wolf. What the hell was going on? I decided to make a post on Reddit to ask for advice: [What are the features of a Switch?] Helpful netizens quickly replied: [OP, do you mean the Nintendo Switch OLED or the Lite? The screens and battery life are totally different.] [Are you deciding between an Xbox and a Switch? I have both, I highly recommend the Switch.] Sienna replied from my phone: “No, guys, the switch I’m talking about isn’t that kind of switch. I’m talking about that kind of switch.” The internet was confused: [I don’t get it. Isn’t a Switch just a gaming console?] Forget it. They weren’t getting it. I deleted the post. I was boiling my crab sticks when I suddenly got an iMessage from Weston: [Just finished my board meeting. What are you doing?] I reluctantly put down my half-eaten crab stick. I took a picture of the bubbling, spicy hot pot and sent it to him. The juicy beef meatballs and tofu pouches were perfectly cooked, bobbing in the chili oil. The table was covered in plates of sliced ribeye, quail eggs, shrimp paste, and veggies waiting to be tossed in. Next to my dipping sauce, I even had a massive bowl of vanilla shaved ice. Weston replied: [A meal for four? Eating so little today? Are you upset?] I bit my chopsticks, my cheeks puffing out in anger. [What are you talking about! I am not a little piglet!] I was a Hognose snake. Not a little piglet. Weston: [Apple Pay Transfer: $52,000] [Got it, little piglet. Eat up, I have to get back to work.] Looking at the glowing golden transfer notification. I couldn’t help but smile, sending back a cute, obedient sticker. Sienna was curious. “Tessa, what are you grinning at?” I showed her my phone. “Weston just sent us funding! Sis, is this enough food? If not, we can order another round.” Sienna froze, her boba straw slipping from her lips. “Wait. You have Weston’s number?” I nodded. “Yeah. We added each other yesterday.” Sienna looked shocked. “Then why did he force me to add his Snapchat today? He complained that we’ve been dating for six months and I never gave him my socials. “Look. See for yourself.” Sienna handed me her phone. I stared at the profile picture and froze. “This is so weird, sis. Your Weston… his profile picture and username are completely different from my Weston. “Mine uses a black-and-white photo of him in a tailored suit. Yours uses an anime boy.” But what truly blew my mind… Her Weston texted so much. [Mommy, Mommy, what are you doing?] [I miss you. Want cuddles. Want kisses.] [Why aren’t you replying? Are you with another guy?] [What? You found another puppy?] [Is he more obedient than me? Does he love you more? I don’t believe it.] […] Whereas my Weston only ever sent: [?] [Answer the phone.] [Transfer.] [Hm.] [Busy.] [I miss you too.] Sienna and I stared at each other in absolute horror. There was no way one man could exhibit such drastically different personalities, even if we acted slightly differently around him. Half an hour later. After anxiously finishing the last slice of ribeye in the pot. I made a solemn announcement: “Sis. We need to formulate a plan. We’re going to fake our deaths and run.” 04 Sienna agreed with both hands and feet. We had so much money now. Building an ultra-luxurious mansion back in the deep woods of our ancestral mountain would be a piece of cake. But the problem was… How could we pull off a flawless fake death? If we just disappeared… Weston would definitely track us down. And he was incredibly petty. Once, I secretly took a sip of his protein shake. He insisted on “drinking” it back from my mouth. I told him I already swallowed it all! He still aggressively forced his way in. So I was genuinely terrified. What if he got so furious he set our ancestral forest on fire? Finally, we came up with the perfect plan. Tomorrow was the day Weston made his annual pilgrimage to the mountain temple to pray. He had already promised to take me with him. When the time came… Sienna would disguise herself as a psychic and block our path. She would point at me and prophesize that I was going to drop dead. Once we got home. I would start playing dead. Playing dead was literally what our species—the Hognose snake—did best! Weston would absolutely believe it. Once he buried me… I would dig my way out of the dirt and run! Hehe. Flawless! 05 We stayed up all night buying a psychic costume and rehearsing the script to fool Weston. Everything was ready; we just needed to execute! But I never in my wildest dreams imagined… The place Weston was going to pray… Was Whisperwood Peak. Our literal ancestral home. There was indeed a temple on that mountain. It enshrined the Serpent Goddess. My Great-great-great-great-grandmother. But… My Great-great-great-great-grandmother never actually granted human wishes. She explicitly told us she only built that temple because she wanted humans to think she was a badass. That was it. Because I felt incredibly guilty, I was unusually quiet the entire car ride up. Weston, who was busy reviewing corporate files on his iPad, glanced over at me. “You’re acting strange today.” I stiffened my back. “How am I strange?” Weston tapped his screen. “Normally, you can’t go sixty seconds without talking. Today, you haven’t spoken a single word in exactly 21 minutes and 31 seconds. “What’s on your mind?” Terrified he would see the guilt written all over my face. I quickly buried my face straight into his lap. “I was just thinking about you.” Weston sucked in a sharp breath. When he spoke, his tone was slightly strained. It sounded like a mix of gritted teeth and… something else. “Could you maybe not think about me while holding that specific position?” Belatedly realizing what my face was pressed against, I jerked my head up. I scrambled to the opposite corner of the backseat. Oh my god. So embarrassing. I exhaled onto the car window and drew circles on the fogged glass. I hate you, Weston. Drawing circles, drawing circles. I curse you to step in dog poop today. Ugh. 06 The weather on the mountain was terrible. A misty, freezing drizzle. Weston wanted me to wait for him at the base of the mountain. Panicking, I blurted out: “No! I have to go too!” Weston raised an eyebrow, looking at me with amusement. “Since when are you this athletic?” I marched ahead with wide strides, trying to cover up my anxiety. “I just want to hurry up and ask the Goddess to bless you, is that a crime?!” The man behind me fell silent for a moment. Then he let out a low chuckle. “Alright.” Weston caught up and took my hand. For the rest of the climb, every time we hit a steep step… He would stop and carefully help me up. I lost count of how many stone steps we climbed. I was exhausted, my hands on my hips, panting heavily. Great-great-great-grandmother, please don’t blame me for never visiting. You built this damn temple way, way, way too high up! Just as I lost the energy to even complain in my head. I finally… Saw Sienna. She was wearing a mystical-looking robe, tiny round sunglasses, and two fake mustache strips glued above her lip. Exactly as we rehearsed. She leaped out from the bushes, blocking our path. “Halt, young travelers!” Weston instantly pulled me behind him, his brow furrowing. Just as he was about to interrogate her. Sienna beat him to the punch. Pointing directly at me, she yelled: “I have consulted the cosmos! Tomorrow, she will… she will…” She froze mid-sentence. She forgot her lines. She turned around and started frantically digging through her wide, flowing sleeves. Clearly searching for her cheat sheet. Watching her fumble like an idiot, I was terrified Weston would see right through the act. My heart was in my throat, so I started violently fake-coughing. “Cough! Cough! Cough!” Thankfully, it worked. Weston’s attention snapped back to me, turning around to check on me. “Forget it!” Sienna, apparently pushed to her breaking point, decided to just wing it. She yelled at the top of her lungs, “Whatever! She’s gonna kick the bucket tomorrow!” Hearing Sienna say that. My vision went dark. I found out later… The piece of paper she had stuffed in her sleeve wasn’t her script. It was our receipt from the hot pot restaurant yesterday. She left the house in such a rush, she grabbed the wrong piece of paper. 07 Hearing her words, Weston’s entire body went rigid. He whipped his head around to yell at the “psychic,” but she was already gone. She had oiled her soles and bolted, leaving nothing but a tiny speck of a silhouette retreating into the mist. Weston entirely lost his mood to pray at the temple. Without a word, he scooped me up into his arms and carried me all the way back down the mountain. On the drive back, he murmured softly to me: “Be good. Don’t listen to that lunatic’s nonsense.” I nodded obediently, but looking up, I saw how violently tense his jawline was. Seeing him desperately trying to keep it together, a massive wave of guilt crashed over me. Was I… Was I wrong for tricking him like this? Spit, spit, spit! He literally asked if snakes were more afraid of arsenic or sulfur! Why was I feeling bad for him?! My sister’s and my lives were on the line here! … Fearing I was depressed, Weston took me to the VIP lounge of a luxury mall. He bought me a mountain of designer bags and jewelry before finally taking me home. Back at the penthouse. After my shower, I lay in bed, letting my imagination run wild. I was about to live the fabulous life of a rich, single snake! I was going to drive a Ferrari! Live in a mansion! Hire the hottest male models in the world to serve me grapes! Just thinking about it. I couldn’t stop grinning. I rolled back and forth across the king-sized bed, trying to muffle my giggles. Right at that moment, Weston walked in from his study. He leaned against the doorframe, watching me. “Has anyone ever told you…” he paused. “When you do that, you look exactly like an idiot.” My laughter abruptly stopped. I instantly buried myself under the duvet, leaving only my eyes peeking out to glare at him. “Hmph!” He sighed fondly, pulled back the covers, and ruffled my hair. “Not an idiot. Not an idiot.” “My baby isn’t an idiot at all.” Alright. It was about time. Time to put on the performance of a lifetime. I clutched my stomach, instantly shifting gears, wailing with a weak, trembling voice: “It hurts!” I hyperventilated, acting like I was on the brink of my last breath. Weston was completely terrified. He panicked, leaning over and scooping me into his arms, his voice cracking: “Don’t be scared, baby. We’re going to the hospital right now!” I seized the opportunity to grab his collar, shaking my head weakly. “No… it’s too late… Weston.” I forced my breathing to sound ragged and shallow. “I think… I’m actually going to die… Before I go… can you… promise me two things?” The fake death spell was about to kick in. Once it did, all my vital signs would temporarily vanish. Not even the most advanced medical equipment would detect a pulse. Weston’s eyes instantly turned red. His arms tightened around me like a vice. “Stop talking nonsense!” I ignored him and kept going. “Weston… for the sake of everything we’ve shared… just do these two things for me.” “First… bury me on Whisperwood Peak… the feng shui is good there.” “Second…” I paused, acting as if I was using the absolute last ounce of my strength. “Can you… on my grave… leave an entire Popeyes family meal combo?” Before I even finished the sentence. The arms holding me went completely stiff. Weston froze like a statue. 08 As for what happened next. My consciousness was already fading. I vaguely remember Weston sprinting through the penthouse and down to the private garage, carrying me. Sitting in the driver’s seat of the Maybach was a man wearing a black mask. His eyes and brow bone… looked 90% identical to Weston’s. His gaze landed on me for a split second. “Bro, why is your face so pale? Did she actually scare you?” What? Weston had a brother?! I was dying of curiosity. But I couldn’t hold on anymore. The fake death debuff was fully online. So sleepy. Time to die for a bit. Goodnight. … I don’t know how much time passed. My consciousness slowly returned. Freezing rain was hitting my snout. Achoo. So cold! I wiggled my body and realized I was already back in my little snake form. Weston’s burial skills were absolute garbage! He didn’t even cover my nose! And the dirt was so thin. One shake and it all fell off! I twisted twice. And successfully slithered out of my grave. Sniff sniff. Smells so good. So good. It’s the smell of fried chicken! Following the scent, I slithered over. I used my snout to push open the paper bag and jammed my whole head inside. Oh my god. It was still warm. Fresh out of the fryer. I took a bite. So crispy and tender. Delicious! Amazing! I put my entire heart and soul into eating. Completely forgetting a massive flaw in the plan. The original plan was… Sienna was supposed to be waiting here to dig me out. Because after using the fake death spell… For the next 72 hours, I wouldn’t be able to turn back into a human. I was incredibly vulnerable. But she was nowhere to be found. Just as I was lost in the ecstasy of fried chicken. Feeling like I was floating on cloud nine. Two cold chuckles echoed from behind me. “Heh.” My body locked up. My tail curled into a tight little spiral. Trembling, I slowly poked my head out of the paper bag. Only to see two identical, impossibly handsome men glaring down at me with icy stares. The one on the left, wearing a black hoodie and a silver chain, crossed his arms and tapped his shoulder. “Bro, which one is this? I honestly can’t tell them apart.” The one on the right, wearing a tailored suit, stood with one hand in his pocket, his face thunderous. “That one is mine. Just last night, she literally told me that when she died, I better leave a Popeyes family meal combo on her grave.” The one on the left laughed. “Haha, I told you. This greedy little snake is definitely not my baby.” The one on the right looked annoyed. “Who are you calling greedy?” “My bad, bro.” I was so terrified I coiled myself into a three-tiered donut. Save me. Why were there two Westons?!

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My childhood friend’s family carries a rare werewolf lineage. For them, the first person they “mark” during their transition into adulthood becomes their fated mate for life. When his first “fever” hit, his friends called me to help soothe the transition. But standing outside his door, I heard him growl with irritation: “I really don’t want to give her the satisfaction. Our kind is too loyal—once we mark someone, they’re our only partner forever. “I’m waiting for someone like Serena. Not a girl like Chloe who follows me around like a lost puppy. Tonight, even if she begs to help me, I’ll hold back.” He waited and waited, but I never walked through that door. What he didn’t know was that his older brother’s head of security was already blowing up my phone: “Miss Chloe, Mr. Sterling has considered you his only mate for years. Please, he’s dying. Can you just come and be with him?” He didn’t know that five years ago, when I “died” in that skiing accident in Aspen, it wasn’t him who saved me. It was his brother, Silas. To pull me back from the brink of death, Silas shared half of his own life-force with me through a forbidden blood-bond. Late that night, I wrapped my arms around Silas’s neck and whispered, “Mr. Sterling, stop holding back. Tell me… how many years have you been secretly in love with me?” 01 The Sterling family are shifters. After they turn twenty, every full moon brings a “fever”—a rut that demands a mate. The first person they mark during this time becomes their one and only for the rest of their lives. I always thought the person my childhood friend, Archer, would mark was me. But the night his lineage finally awakened, I stood outside the private lounge at the club and heard his voice dripping with disdain. “I really don’t want Chloe to have it that easy. “I want to go after the campus queen, but she’s not the type of girl you can just mess with. “Chloe’s different. She’s like a stray dog that shows up whenever I whistle. “Once she gets here, even if she begs to help me through the fever, I’m going to resist. I don’t want one night to turn into a life sentence with her dragging me down.” I stood in the hallway, my mind going completely blank. I never imagined that Archer—the boy I grew up with, the boy I gave everything to—actually saw me that way. Inside, his friends laughed. They were the type to kick someone when they were down. “So she’s just a toy to you?” “Maybe I should call her and tell her not to come. Wouldn’t want her taking advantage of the situation to climb into your bed and claim the ‘Luna’ title. Honestly, cheap goods aren’t worth the trouble.” Archer groaned in pain but stopped them. “Whatever. If you call her now and tell her not to come, she’ll get suspicious. “Even if she is just a toy, she’s the toy I grew up with. I don’t want her to feel too bad. “When she gets here, I’ll see if I can hold out. I don’t want to spell it out for her, but this is a good chance to make her realize where she stands.” In that moment, I wanted to burst in and scream at him. You don’t want me to feel bad? You just called me a dog in front of your friends and let them trash me. You think I’m still obsessed enough to let you treat me like trash? But I held it in. There was no point wasting words on someone who didn’t value me. I turned and walked away, fleeing the scene before the tears could fall. I pulled out my phone and called his older brother’s lead bodyguard. “You called me earlier about Mr. Sterling needing help tonight. Is the offer still open? “Send me the address. I’m coming now.” 02 Half an hour ago, that bodyguard had told me a truth Archer had spent five years hiding. “Miss Chloe, do you remember five years ago when Archer took you skiing and you fell into that ravine? “The eldest brother, Silas, led the rescue. We searched for three days and nights before finding you buried in the snow. You were a frozen statue. You weren’t breathing. “Silas told Archer that a shifter can share half their lifespan with their partner, but it can only be done through a blood-rite on a full moon. “A blood-rite is the deepest form of marking. “Once it’s done, he is bound to you forever. “Archer refused. He didn’t want to lose half his life, even though he cried over your body. “In the end, it was Silas who saved you. “It was a miracle the full moon fell on that night. Silas performed the rite, gave you his life, and marked you as his fated mate. He saved you, but it meant he could never love anyone else. “Archer begged him never to tell you. “For five years, Silas has endured the full moon fevers alone. He never bothered you. He strictly forbade us from speaking of the sacrifice. “But tonight… he can’t make it. He was severely injured in a rescue operation, and with the full moon hitting, his body is failing. “Please. Can you help him?” My mind was spinning. I had actually died five years ago? Archer, who claimed to love me, wouldn’t sacrifice a single day for me. But Silas—the “Ice King,” the man I was always terrified of—had literally brought me back from the dead. I had initially told the guard: “I’m sorry, Archer needs me tonight.” I was prepared to be ungrateful just to go to Archer. And yet, Archer thought of me as a dog. I was pathetic. I deserved to be looked down on. But I wasn’t going to be pathetic anymore. I wiped my eyes, gripped my phone, and told the guard: “Is it too late to repay the debt? “If Silas needs me tonight… I’m his. Completely.” The guard sounded like he was crying. “It’s not too late. Not at all. “I’m sending the location now. “If he wasn’t at death’s door, I’d never dare defy his orders. His discipline is legendary, but I can’t let him die.” I understood. Silas probably just wanted to save a life back then. He didn’t want me clinging to him. And I just wanted to pay him back. It wasn’t a rebound. It was an awakening. 03 I didn’t expect to see Serena, the campus belle, outside the VIP hospital wing when I arrived. She was frantic, trying to push past the guards. “Let me in! “Isn’t it the full moon? How do you know Silas doesn’t need me? “Silas! Silas, please! Let me help you!” I almost laughed. Archer said Serena wasn’t “easy,” yet here she was, offering herself to his brother. The guard who had been blocking her saw me and immediately opened the door, his eyes misty. “Miss Chloe. You’re finally here. “Please, go in. He really needs you tonight.” Jealousy twisted Serena’s face into something hideous. “Why does she get to go in? “Silas got hurt saving her! “She’s a jinx! How can you let her near him?” I froze. He got hurt saving me? Again? Inside the room, it was chaos. I saw Silas. He was shirtless, sprawled across the bed, his skin a deep, feverish red. His short hair was soaked with sweat. His fingers were dug into the sheets, his muscles corded with the effort of restraint. His back was wrapped in heavy white bandages, but they were already soaked through with brilliant crimson blood. The doctor was pacing, yelling: “My God, Silas! Stop fighting it! Find a woman to help you. The bandages are soaked again. How much blood do you think you have? “It’s the full moon. The shifter blood is too aggressive; your clotting factor is non-existent. The best medicine in the world won’t work if your heart is racing like this. “You have to ease the fever, or you’re going to bleed out tonight! “Where is that girl? When is she getting here?” The bodyguards by the bed saw me. They bowed ninety degrees in a gesture of profound respect. “Doctor, she’s here.” Silas, who had been enduring a literal hell on that bed, suddenly opened his eyes. A pair of glowing, dark red eyes—terrifying and beautiful—locked onto mine. He fought back the primal hunger, his voice cold and furious: “Who brought her here? Get her out!” The lead guard stayed bowed. “Sir, only Miss Chloe can help you tonight. I’ll take whatever punishment you give. “But you’re dying because of her. You’ve saved her twice and kept it a secret. You might not feel wronged, but we can’t watch this anymore.” I stared at the man on the bed. Archer and I were childhood friends, but I had always avoided Silas. He was the “Living Reaper.” Even the most arrogant rich kids in the city turned into obedient mice in his presence. He had an aura of absolute power. I used to take the long way around just to avoid crossing his path. Now, this man—the one who made the world tremble—was clutching the bedsheets, his toes curling in agony. Every inch of him was radiating waves of heat. His ragged breathing filled the room. The contrast was staggering. He was a fallen god, vulnerable and breathtaking. “Wait,” I whispered. “You said he was hurt because of me again?” The guard started to speak, but Silas barked: “Shut up! Not another word!” He tried to soften his voice for me, though it remained distant. “Chloe… go home. I don’t need you here.” The guard, apparently ready to die for the truth, said: “Sir, stop the act. A hard mouth won’t win you a wife. “You’re acting tough, but your heart is a mess. Whenever she’s in danger, you throw your life away. You ran into a literal fire for her. Do you think we’on’t see that?” 04 The other guards joined in, seemingly tired of the secrets. “Exactly. Last month, during the full moon, who was staring at the photo of Chloe on their lock screen until they were delirious? You were calling her name in your sleep. She’s all you think about. “And the month before that? You parked outside her dorm and sat there all night. You almost went in a dozen times before stopping yourself. A saint would have cracked by now. “If we don’t speak up, Chloe will never know. Do you really plan on suffering alone forever?” “I can handle it,” Silas said, his eyes dropping. The doctor snapped: “Handle my foot! You won’t see tomorrow’s sun at this rate. “Young lady, don’t just stand there. Figure out a way to calm him down!” The guards bowed again. But… “What do I do? I don’t know how.” The doctor, cutting away the bloody bandages, yelled: “Kiss him!” My face flushed deep red. Standing at the head of the bed, I didn’t know how to kiss this man who was actively pushing me away in front of everyone. The guard yelled: “Miss Chloe, do you know how he got those burns? “Two days ago, the university auditorium caught fire. You were trapped inside, unconscious from the smoke. You were seconds from suffocating. “Silas went in. Because of the bond, he can feel when you’re in pain. “He ignored everyone and charged into the fire. While he was carrying you out, a beam collapsed. It hit him right across the back. He was on fire. “But he didn’t drop you. He pushed through the pain and got you out. And then Archer showed up. “Archer saw Silas carry you out, snatched you from his arms, and acted like the hero. If Archer cared so much, why didn’t he go in himself?” My heart stopped. Silas did that? I remembered waking up in the hospital with Archer by my side. I thought Archer had saved me. I had been given too much information today to stay shy. I didn’t care anymore. I had to save him. I leaned over Silas. I pressed my lips to his in a firm kiss. “Don’t,” Silas growled. It was a warning, a rejection, but his hands gripped the sheets so hard his knuckles turned white. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he was being tortured. “Chloe, do you even know what you’re doing? You usually run when you see me. Don’t do this out of some sense of debt. And don’t listen to them. It won’t work. I feel nothing.” The doctor suddenly shouted: “It’s working! The bleeding is slowing down! “Miss Chloe, don’t stop! Keep going! “His body is a lot more honest than his mouth. Kiss him like you mean it!” The doctor’s words were like a slap to Silas’s “tough guy” act. Silas looked mortified. He actually buried his face in the pillow. He was… blushing? The tips of his ears were bright red. 05 The guards were nearly crying with relief. “I knew Chloe was the only cure.” “Miss Chloe, ignore anything that comes out of his mouth. He’s a professional at faking it. He’s dying for you to touch him! “Look at his ears! He’s just shy and doesn’t want to pressure you because he thinks you only love Archer.” Silas looked up, glaring at the guards. “Quiet!” But for the sake of his life, they ignored his fury. I took the chance to grab Silas’s handsome face and turn it toward me. I cradled the back of his head and sealed his lips with mine. I didn’t care how “tough” he was. I couldn’t be indifferent to a man who had died for me twice. I couldn’t let him suffer. The moment our lips met, I felt Silas shudder with a wave of raw emotion. But he still held onto the last shred of his logic. “Chloe… are you deaf? “I don’t want you to ‘repay’ me like this. “Who do you think I am? Do I look like I need your charity?” My eyes welled up. “Silas… I’m doing this because I want to. No one is forcing me.” I grabbed his hand and pressed it against my heart. His pupils contracted. He looked like he had touched something he wasn’t allowed to touch. A man of honor, he tried to pull his hand away. I held on tight. “Silas, feel my heart. “There is no hesitation here. Don’t feel guilty.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard, his restraint crumbling. “Don’t lie to me. I know Archer is the only one in your heart. “Before, when the guard called you… I heard. “You said… Archer needed you more tonight.” I wanted to explain, but Silas’s phone on the nightstand started ringing. It was Archer. Silas looked at the screen and swiped to answer. “Archer? What is it?” Archer’s pained, strained voice came through the speaker: “Silas… the fever hit me. It’s my first one. It hurts so much. “And Chloe… that idiot girl isn’t here yet. “I thought I could handle it, but I overestimated myself.” Silas looked at me. “Chloe is…” I immediately kissed Silas again, cutting off his words. Silas lost control at my repeated boldness. His pupils dilated. His large, powerful hand instinctively cupped the back of my head, pulling me closer. He wanted more. But his logic kicked in one last time. He pushed me back slightly, but before he could tell Archer I was there, Archer started complaining again. “I know she’s probably just stuck in traffic. “She’s probably dying to get here and ‘save’ me. “She’s probably over the moon right now. “But honestly, girls who are too easy are boring. “I really don’t want her to take advantage of me and mark her as my mate. Why does our kind have to be so damn loyal?” Silas’s blood-red eyes flashed with a mix of shock and cold anger. “You don’t want to be loyal? “Then why did you lead her on since you were kids?” Archer, talking to his brother, didn’t hold back. “I was young. I hadn’t seen enough of the world. “I didn’t know how much better the view was outside.” “Archer!” Silas’s voice was dangerously heavy. “If you don’t cherish her, don’t blame me for taking her!” 06 Silas’s words dropped like lead: “Don’t regret it later!” Archer was stunned for a second, then laughed. “I won’t regret it. “I’d be happy if she stopped clinging to me. “But don’t get your hopes up, Silas. “I might be able to let her go, but she can’t. “Chloe only has eyes for me. There’s no room for anyone else. “She’ll probably try to marry me even if I treat her like garbage. “What are you going to do, Silas? Force her to love you? “Forced love is meaningless. Even if you take her body, you’ll never have her heart. Why bother?” I was so tired of Archer’s unearned confidence. Afraid Silas would push me away again, I wrapped both arms around his neck and bit his earlobe gently. Silas was already drowning in the fever; he couldn’t handle that kind of stimulation. He cut Archer off coldly: “We’ll see about that.” Archer was still smug. “Silas, I’m telling you, Chloe is probably racing here at a hundred miles an hour. She’s probably flying. “Poor me, I’m sitting here in pain having to find the willpower to reject her when she tries to jump me. You wouldn’t understand.” Silas let out a cold, sharp laugh. “You think too much of yourself.” He listened to the phone while looking at me—the girl currently “jumping” him. His gaze had completely changed. Restraint, logic, hesitation—they were all tossed out the window. His large hand gripped the back of my head. He pulled me onto the hospital bed, rolling me into his arms. The bodyguards and the doctor were incredibly sharp. They all filed out instantly. When it was just Silas and me, the silence was thick with tension. I felt like I was pressed against a burning furnace. My heart was doing backflips. Silas’s voice was raw and ragged: “Last chance. Get out now. “Otherwise… “Once I decide to take something, I never let go. Even in death.” My heart pounded. I was actually a little scared. But I thought of the horrific burns on his back. I shook my head. The air in my lungs was suddenly stolen. Silas took charge, pinning me down and kissing me with a depth that left me breathless. He treated me like the most precious thing in the world. A soft sound escaped my throat, and Archer heard it through the phone. “Silas? What was that? Is there a woman there? “Who is it?” 07 Silas said, “You don’t need to know tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to your future sister-in-law.” Archer laughed. “Alright. I won’t ruin your fun. “I’ll see what she looks like tomorrow.” Before the call ended, I heard Archer ask his friends irritably: “Where is Chloe? Call her again.” His friend teased him: “I thought you didn’t want her here? “What, you can’t handle the heat now?” Archer snapped back, “No way. I’m just worried she got into an accident. “Call her. Find out where she is.” The friend said, “She’s not picking up. Did something actually happen?” Archer growled, “Keep calling. Don’t stop until she answers.” Archer didn’t know that the constant ringing of my phone was acting like a soundtrack to our passion. The more the phone rang, the tighter Silas held me, as if he was afraid I would vanish. When I was nearly dizzy from lack of oxygen, Silas whispered in a low, rough voice: “Do you want to answer? “Maybe Archer changed his mind.” He was holding me, his body burning hot. I shook my head, my face flushed. “Silas… don’t ruin the mood.” I reached for his phone, hit the end call button, and tossed it aside. I pulled his head back down. “Silas, stop holding back. “Tonight… whatever you want. I’m yours.” Silas’s breath hitched like a flame catching. “Chloe… don’t tease me like this.” His kisses moved to my collarbone, his breathing completely shattered. I blinked. “You don’t like it?” “I love it. It just doesn’t feel real. “I know you’re only doing this to pay me back. “I’m greedy, Chloe. I want so much more than that.” The loneliness in his voice was heart-wrenching. I didn’t know how to answer that yet. “Silas… why did you give up half your life for me five years ago? “Archer wouldn’t do it. Why would you? “You put yourself in this cage, suffering every full moon because of me.” Silas didn’t answer with words. He just kissed me more intensely. Finally, I heard him murmur: “It’s not just the full moon. “I want you… every day. “But you always ran away when you saw me.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “How much did I scare you? “But after tonight, even if you run, even if you’re scared… I’m not letting go. “Chloe, you provoked me. You’re never getting away.” He held me so tight I felt like I was being fused into his body. A wild thought crossed my mind. Has Silas been secretly in love with me this whole time? Strangely, I wasn’t scared anymore. I felt a tiny spark of joy. The man who terrified the world… was a soft mess for me? I felt a little proud of myself. I wrapped my arms around his waist, careful of the wounds on his back. I tilted my head back to give him better access. “Silas… I’m not going to run. “If you don’t believe my words, watch my actions. “I’m going to kick Archer out of my heart. There’s only going to be room for you.”

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During the divorce, Mom fought for custody of my older sister. Dad fought for my younger brother. I was the middle child. Nobody fought for me. They all thought I was a lost cause, but as it turned out, I was the one with the real drive. After graduation, my sister barely got into community college, and my brother dropped out entirely. I ended up as the state valedictorian with a perfect SAT score. Suddenly, Dad and Mom were practically throwing punches trying to claim me. I brushed their hands off my arms and pulled two legal documents out of my backpack. “A kid who’s been thrown away once doesn’t exactly have a high sense of security,” I said coldly. “How about this—” “Whichever one of you is willing to sign this irrevocable will, leaving every single dime you have to me, gets to be the proud parent of the valedictorian.” 01 My dad was a cop, and my mom was a trauma surgeon. To outsiders, they were two successful professionals with glamorous, respectable careers. But to me, they were just eternally busy. It got worse after the divorce. Every time I asked Mom for lunch money or cash for school fees, she was always rushing out the door. “I’m on my way to save a life,” she’d snap. “Call your father.” But when I called Dad, he sounded just as exhausted. “I’m in the middle of a manhunt,” he’d say. “Go find your mother.” They played this game of hot potato, each convincing themselves the other had already taken care of me. In reality, I was always hungry. When things were really tight, I’d buy two dollar-menu breakfast burritos in the morning. That had to last me the entire day. When my stomach cramped from the hunger, I’d put my head down on my desk and tell myself to just hang on a little longer. At lunch, when my classmates went to the cafeteria or out for fast food, I always told them I wasn’t hungry. Truth was, I just didn’t have a cent to my name. Of course, sometimes I got lucky. My parents would suddenly remember they had a second daughter at the exact same time, and both would Venmo me money. But that kind of “luck” followed no logic or schedule. The hunger was my only constant companion. Once, after going three days without a single real meal, the world started turning black around the edges. I called Dad. I called Mom. They both ignored the calls, sending back texts about being “busy.” At that moment, I understood everything completely. In this world, cash is more reliable than love. Love can vanish. It can be ignored. It can be forgotten. But money holds its value. From that day on, I wanted money. Lots and lots of money. Enough to buy all the food in the world. Because if I had that, I would never have to be hungry again. 02 There was one day left before the deadline to pay the dues for senior graduation events and AP exam fees. I still couldn’t get ahold of my parents for the money. Their automatic reply was always that they were too busy. But then, my sister and brother updated their Instagram stories. Chloe, my older sister, posted a photo. She was twirling in a brand-new dress, beaming at the camera. Mom was standing right next to her, a gentle hand on Chloe’s shoulder. They looked identical—both beautiful, elegant, and perfectly composed. The caption read: 【Thanks for the early graduation gift, Mom! Love you mean it~】 Then, Dylan, my younger brother, updated his story. He was on a basketball court, mid-shot, with Dad right beside him correcting his form. Both of them were wearing matching, brand-new varsity-style Jordan tracksuits. The caption read: 【Dad said I needed to blow off some steam before finals. No pressure.】 I stared at those photos for a long, long time. They weren’t busy. They were just busy for me, their discarded daughter. A familiar bitterness spread through my chest, thick as bile. I should have known by now. I was the leftover piece of the puzzle. The one that didn’t fit. It was just like the day they settled the divorce. In the mediator’s office, when the question of custody came up. Mom didn’t hesitate. “I want Chloe,” she said. She looked at my sister, her eyes brimming with maternal pride. “She’s responsible, she listens, and her personality is just like mine. She’s going to go far.” Dad was just as quick to speak up. “I’m definitely taking Dylan.” He slapped my brother on the shoulder, his face lighting up with anticipation. “This kid is a natural athlete. He’s going to follow in my footsteps, maybe even go pro, or at least join the force.” The mediator glanced down at the case file, frowning. “There’s a third child. Jordan.” My parents both froze. “Oh. Right. Jordan.” Then, the hot potato game began again. “I’ve already got one,” Mom said, her voice turning sharp. “I can’t afford two on my schedule.” “She carries your family name, Miller,” Dad retorted. “She should be with you.” “Jordan is a girl. She needs her mother.” “My shifts are chaotic at the hospital. I can’t be leaving the OR to deal with a teenager…” I sat in the corner, watching them fight over who didn’t have to take me. Finally, I broke the stalemate. “I can live by myself,” I said. “Just send me child support.” And that was that. I started my life alone, in a small studio apartment, never quite eating enough. I watched the school group chat notifications blow up. Screenshot after screenshot of paid fees. I was the only one left. The homeroom teacher private messaged me, reminding me that if the dues weren’t paid by tomorrow, I wouldn’t walk at graduation or get my AP scores. I read the message, biting my lip hard, trying to ignore the dull ache in my stomach. I had only eaten a single dollar burrito today because my bank account balance was currently negative. But I couldn’t worry about hunger right now. This wasn’t just about food. This was about my future. If I couldn’t even take my AP exams or graduate properly, I was trapped. I’d be stuck in this cycle of poverty forever. I had to get that money. Since they wouldn’t answer my calls or texts, I had to go find them. Mom’s apartment was the closest to the school. I decided to start there. 03 Standing before that familiar yet foreign door, I took a deep breath. My fingers trembled as I pressed the doorbell. The door swung open almost immediately. Chloe stood there. When she saw it was me, an expression of utter annoyance washed over her face. She turned her back on me and yelled toward the kitchen. “Mom! Jordan’s here.” Her tone was thick with disgust. She stood blocking the doorway, making no move to let me in. From the kitchen came the clatter of pots and pans. Mom was busy. “Oh. Well, let her in, then.” Only then did Chloe reluctantly step aside, leaving just enough gap for me to squeeze through. I walked into the living room. Chloe had already stretched back out on the L-shaped sectional, taking up nearly the entire couch. I could only sit awkwardly on a hard wooden accent stool in the corner. I felt like an unwelcome panhandler. A few minutes later, Mom emerged from the kitchen carrying a small bowl. A delicate, fragrant steam rose from it. It was some kind of high-end herbal soup. My ravenous stomach immediately began to growl. “Chloe, honey, I made you some ginseng and chicken soup.” “I let it simmer for three hours. It’s perfect for restorative energy.” “You’ve been studying so hard, you need to drink this while it’s hot.” Chloe took the bowl, smelling the aroma. “Mom, you just finished a twelve-hour shift. You shouldn’t be cooking for me. You should have this.” “Don’t be silly. Mom doesn’t need it. You’re my precious baby girl. Anything I do for you is worth it.” The two of them began a playful back-and-forth about who should drink the soup. In the end, they shared it, smiling affectionately at each other. One spoonful for Mom, one for Chloe. It was a perfectly heartwarming scene of maternal love. And I sat there like an invisible ghost, three feet away, watching this touching family drama. I glanced at my phone. The deadline was looming. “Mom,” I started, my voice cracking slightly. “The deadline for graduation dues and AP fees is tomorrow. Can you transfer me the money?” The moment the words left my mouth, the loving smile vanished from Mom’s face. The warmth was instantly replaced by irritation and icy disgust. “Look at you. Every time you come here, it’s always for money. You’re like a collection agent.” “Besides money, is there anything else in that brain of yours?” Chloe chimed in from the couch. “Seriously, Jordan. Do you have to be so materialistic?” “Mom works so hard, and all you know how to do is hold out your hand.” My fists clenched slowly, my fingernails digging into my palms. “I’m asking for school fees, not pocket money for a shopping spree,” I said, keeping my voice level. “This is mandatory.” “And besides, it’s your legal obligation to support me.” “Obligation?” Mom let out a cold, sharp laugh. “I’ve raised you this long. What value have you ever provided to me?” “All you know how to do is spend money. You’re utterly useless.” “A couple hundred bucks for school fees isn’t money to you? Do you think my cash grows on trees?” Hearing those words felt like a physical blow to my heart. I slowly stood up. My eyes fell on the exquisite white ceramic soup bowl on the table. There was still half a bowl of that ginseng soup left. I had walked past a high-end health food store a few days ago and saw the price tag on quality ginseng. Hundreds of dollars. That single bowl of soup probably cost more than my entire school dues. She was willing to spend hundreds to give Chloe an energy boost. But she wouldn’t spend a dime to make sure I could graduate. And she dared to talk to me about cash not “growing on trees”? What a sick joke. All the humiliation and grief I’d packed away for years exploded in that single second. I reached out and grabbed the soup bowl. “Jordan, what do you think you’re doing?” I didn’t answer. I slammed the bowl down onto the hardwood floor. The sound of ceramic shattering exploded in the quiet apartment. The broth splashed everywhere. “Have you lost your mind?” Mom’s eyes widened, staring at me in disbelief. Slap! A resounding blow landed across my left cheek. A burning stinging sensation immediately radiated across my face. But I didn’t step back. Instead, I looked her straight in the eye. “Give me the school money.” “You ungrateful little bitch!” Mom was shaking with rage. “Over some stupid school fees, you dare to act like an animal in my house?” I repeated, “I need the school money.” She was utterly enraged by my attitude. Her hand trembling, she grabbed her phone. Ding. The notification for a Venmo transfer sounded on my phone. She threw the phone onto the sectional. “Take the money and get out. Don’t waste Chloe’s study time.” I checked the Venmo transfer amount. It was exactly half. A hundred and some change. “Why is it only half?” Mom smirked coldly. “I’m divorced, Jordan, not widowed. The mediation agreement was very clear. Your expenses are split fifty-fifty between me and your father.” “You want the other half? Go find him.” With that, she pointed to the door. “Get out.” The broken shards of the ceramic bowl glistened coldly on the floor under the lights. They looked exactly how I felt inside. Cold. Broken. Chloe sat on the sectional, watching the whole thing with total indifference. There was even the faint hint of a mocking smile on her lips. Fine. At least I had half the money. It was a hundred bucks more than I had five minutes ago. For the rest, I’d have to go find Dad. 04 Leaving Mom’s apartment, my left cheek was still throbbing. But I couldn’t worry about that. I still needed the other half of the fees. Dad’s house was on the other side of the city. It took me two hours by bus to get there. When I arrived, the front door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open gently. The living room was quiet. Only the dim flickering light from the television illuminated the space. Dad was crashed on the sectional, watching an old Bruce Lee movie. He was in sweats, his hair a mess, looking completely burnt out. Strangely, the volume was muted. He didn’t notice me until I walked directly in front of the TV, blocking his view. “Oh. Jordan. You’re here.” “Why is the sound off?” I asked. Dad pointed toward my brother’s room. “Dylan is working on his college essays. I didn’t want to distract him.” I nodded and sat on the far end of the sectional. On the screen, Bruce Lee was kicking and punching his way through a crowd, but without the sound effects, it just looked ridiculous. Dad turned his head to look at me, and his eyes immediately locked onto my left cheek. “What happened to your face?” “Who hit you?” His expression shifted instantly from exhaustion to raw fury. “I went to Mom for graduation dues and AP fees, and she…” Before I could finish the sentence, Dad was on his feet, grabbing his phone and dialing a number. “Hello? Sarah? Are you out of your mind?” The second the call connected, Dad started roaring: “You actually hit Jordan? She’s a kid! How could you lay a hand on her?” On the other end of the line, Mom’s shrill voice came through the speaker. I couldn’t make out the words, but I could tell she was screaming back. “What do you mean I haven’t fulfilled my duty as a father?” Dad’s voice got even louder. “What kind of mother are you? You won’t even pay your own daughter’s school fees?” “And you have the nerve to talk about me? Look at how you’ve spoiled Chloe. She’s totally useless.” “At least Dylan is responsible, unlike your child…” Their shouting match escalated rapidly. The atmosphere in the living room became thick with tension. Dylan, my younger brother, came running out of his room. “Dad! What are you screaming about? Keep it down!” “Nothing, buddy. Go back to your essays.” Dad quickly covered the phone’s microphone, his tone instantly becoming gentle. But Dylan had already heard enough. “Dad, is that woman calling to bitch at you again?” His voice was filled with venom. When he said “that woman,” he spat the words out. On the other end of the line, Chloe’s sharp voice pierced through: “Dylan Miller, who are you calling ‘that woman’? That’s your mother. Where are your manners?” Dylan snatched the phone out of Dad’s hand and put it on speaker. “Chloe Miller, who do you think you are? You’re a fifth-year senior at a community college. You have no right to lecture me.” “And besides, my Dad divorced your Mom. She isn’t my mother anymore!” Chloe’s voice jumped an octave. “You little punk! Your grades are trash. The only reason you’re even going to college is on an athletic scholarship. You dare talk down to me?” Dylan shot back, sneering. “Oh, big words from someone who is twenty and still taking general ed classes.” “I skipped a grade. I’m seventeen and I’m already getting recruited by D1 schools.” They were screaming at each other, faces red, utterly determined to destroy the other. And I, the leftover daughter, the entire reason this fight started, sat there like an outsider, watching the war raging around me. What a pathetic family. After the divorce, each parent took their favorite child and treated the other’s like a disease. Chloe and Dylan had always hated each other, competing for attention since they were little. After the divorce, it became open warfare. This fight wasn’t about me. Not really. They were arguing to prove their own parenting was superior. To prove their chosen child was more successful. Finally, Chloe and Dylan, as if by agreement, both declared they were going to crush the other in life. “I’m going to make so much more money than you, just to make my Mom proud!” “Hilarious. I’m going to be a pro athlete and make you look like a complete failure just to honor my Dad!” The air between them crackled with the intense need to win. After hanging up, Dylan immediately turned to Dad to show his loyalty. “Dad, I’m going back to study.” “I promise I’m going to get into a better university than Chloe and her stupid community college, just to make you proud!” Hearing this, Dad’s face immediately relaxed into a satisfied smile. “That’s my boy. I believe in you.” “You’re talented, you work hard. You’re going to a great school.” Getting his validation, Dylan held his head high and marched back into his room. The living room fell silent again. Dad finally remembered I was sitting there. He turned to look at me, his expression flat. There was none of the gentle warmth he showed Dylan, and none of the fury he directed at Chloe. Just a flat, dismissive indifference. “Right. You need money for school fees.” I watched him pick up his phone and tap the screen a few times. “I just Venmoed you the other half.” I checked the amount. It was the exact other fifty percent. Not a penny more, not a penny less. “It’s getting late. Be careful on your way home.” With that, he sat back down on the sectional. And went back to watching his silent Bruce Lee movie. “Okay. I’m leaving.” I said softly, then turned toward the door. There was no sound behind me. No offer for a ride, no concern, not even a simple “bye.” I closed the door gently and stood in the dim, dingy hallway. The motion-sensor light clicked on, blinding me with its harsh white glare. I squinted. I touched my left cheek. It still throbbed. But it didn’t matter. I finally had the money. 05 After paying the dues and AP fees. I was utterly flat broke. But luckily, the school had a program for seniors, providing free breakfast and lunch for the final two weeks of the semester. So, the problem of basic survival was solved. I poured every ounce of energy I had into studying. On the rare occasion the teachers let us use our phones to look up information, I’d catch a glimpse of Chloe’s or Dylan’s Instagram stories. Screenshots of Mom and Dad pampering them, showing off all the “care packages” they were sending to help them get through finals. I glanced at them and immediately closed the app. Right now, I only had one goal. Get the best scores possible. … The four days of AP exams finally ended. The moment I walked out of the final testing room, I felt a crushing weight lift off my shoulders. Every single concept, every formula, every historical date—it was all information I had locked in my head. But my relief didn’t last long. I didn’t have any money, so I immediately went to the local shopping district to look for a part-time job. I got a job as a barista at a coffee shop, working twelve-hour shifts. It was exhausting, but it was cash, and they paid daily. I was satisfied. I worked like that for weeks. Results day was finally here. I was wiping down tables at the coffee shop when my phone rang. It was Dad. “Jordan, the scores come out tomorrow. Chloe and Dylan both think they did pretty well.” “We’re having a big celebratory dinner at a nice restaurant. You should come.” I held the phone, surprised. They were actually inviting me? But then I realized why. If both Chloe and Dylan went and I didn’t, what would the relatives think of them? “Okay. I’ll be there.” The celebration was at a high-end steakhouse. I wore the only nice outfit I owned to the dinner. The private banquet room was full of guests—friends and family. Chloe was wearing an expensive white designer dress, smiling brightly as she greeted everyone. Dylan was in brand-name athletic streetwear, chatting confidently with his friends. And I walked in like an unwelcome party crasher. I found a seat in the far corner, quiet and observant. Chloe and Dylan were already arguing about who did better. “I definitely got higher scores. I took an extra year of classes, my foundation is solid.” “Pfft. I get an athletic point boost, and I’m definitely ten points ahead of you easily.” The relatives laughed at their competitive banter, filling the room with warm energy. “You both probably did amazing!” “Your parents are so lucky to have two brilliant children like you!” Mom and Dad were sitting at different tables, but both had expressions of eager anticipation on their faces. Finally, the time came to check the results. “Let’s go by age. Chloe first!” someone suggested. Chloe confidently walked to the front of the room, inputting her student ID under the watchful eyes of the entire party. A few seconds later, her face completely drained of color. The confidence was instantly replaced by shock, then despair. “What is it?” Mom asked nervously. Chloe’s voice was trembling. “Two… two hundred and twenty.” The room fell dead silent. A 220. Not even high enough to get into most state universities, let alone her goal. It was barely community college level. Dylan immediately burst out laughing. “Hahaha! You took an extra year of classes and got that score?” “I thought you were supposed to be the smart one!” Mom’s face went white, then red, then purple. She looked like she wanted to disappear into the floorboards. She had spent the last hour bragging to the relatives about how smart Chloe was, and now she had been slapped in the face with the truth. Dad was visibly enjoying her humiliation from across the room. “Sarah Miller, look at your precious daughter.” “What’s the point of studying if you don’t have any real brains? She’s just a mindless grind.” “An extra year of classes, and all she got was a ticket to a trade school!” Mom hissed through her teeth. “Save the commentary. Let’s see your son’s scores!” Dylan confidently walked to the front of the room. He entered his student ID, and his expression shifted from confidence to pure, unadulterated joy. “Five hundred and sixty-eight! Almost a hundred points over the state university entrance line!” Dad was ecstatic, slapping Dylan on the shoulder. “That’s my boy! That’s responsible parenting right there!” Mom’s face was terrifying now. She looked ready to storm out. Just then, my aunt’s voice cut through the silence. “Jordan is here too, isn’t she? Let her check her scores.” Every eye in the room suddenly swung toward me. I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs, my palms sweating as I walked slowly to the front of the room and input my student ID. A few seconds later, the results appeared on the screen. Reading & Writing: 800 Math: 800 AP Lit: 5 AP Calc BC: 5 AP Gov: 5 AP Bio: 5 Total SAT: 1600 State Rank: 1 The entire room went dead silent, followed by a burst of confused laughter. “Haha, a 1600? A perfect score? What kind of glitch is this?” “She must have entered the wrong student ID.” “She probably just didn’t get any results and it defaulted to zero or something.” Chloe, seeing that my score was ostensibly lower than hers, smirked with cruel delight. “A perfect zero. Literally the stupidest person in history.” Dylan was practically rolling on the floor with laughter. “Sister, at least you got a two hundred. She got a perfect zero! Hahaha!” The relatives whispered among themselves, their eyes filled with mockery and disdain. Dad and Mom both looked furious, clearly feeling that I had completely humiliated them in front of the family. I stood at the front of the room, enduring their laughter and insults. I knew exactly what this result meant. But I didn’t say a word. I just quietly walked back to my seat in the corner. 06 Dad was immediately surrounded by relatives, everyone begging him to share his secrets of responsible parenting. He made a show of being humble, waving his hands dismissively, but his voice was thick with pride. He kept shooting triumphant glances toward Mom. His entire vibe was screaming, See? I told you I was the successful parent. Watching her ex-husband basking in the glory only made Mom’s fury burn hotter. With no other outlet for her rage, she turned on Chloe, who was shrinking into her chair. She started tearing into her, her voice loud and harsh. “An extra year of classes, and you got a 220? How can I hold my head up in front of these people?” “It’s not even just about Dylan Miller beating you. You can’t even get into a halfway decent university!” Chloe ducked her head, her eyes welling with tears. Hearing Mom lay into Chloe only made Dad even smugger. He cleared his throat, deliberately raising his voice. “Actually, there is no real trick to parenting. The key is to be present and to lead by example.” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Take Dylan. I’ve been cultivating his athletic talent since he was a kid.” “True intelligence is having both physical prowess and mental acuity.” His words were deliberate stabs at Mom’s open wound. Just as the tension was about to reach a breaking point, the double doors to the banquet hall slammed open. Two groups of people entered at the exact same time. The first group was wearing formal business suits, carrying elegant portfolios. I immediately recognized them as university recruitment officers. Dad’s eyes lit up. He practically leaped to his feet, smoothing his suit jacket with an arrogant smirk. “They must be here for Dylan!” Dad’s voice trembled with excitement as he rushed toward the group. “Welcome, officers! You’re here to recruit my son, Dylan Miller, right?” His tone was dripping with arrogance, already imagining the jealous stares of the relatives. However, the lead recruiter looked confused. He glanced down at his notes, his brow furrowed. “Excuse me. We are here to find a student named Miller.” “But…” He paused, his eyes scanning the crowd. “We are looking for Jordan Miller.” The banquet hall fell dead silent. Every head in the room snapped around to look at me in the corner. The relatives who had just been laughing at my “perfect zero” now sat with their mouths hanging open, looking utterly sick. Dad’s triumphant smile froze on his face. He looked ready to choke on his own humiliation. The recruitment officer continued. “Jordan Miller is this year’s state valedictorian.” “A perfect 1600 SAT score and straight fives on all her AP exams. Number one in the entire state.” “We are here to officially invite her to select Stanford!” Hearing that I was the valedictorian, Chloe’s face turned gray. The shred of superiority she had felt thinking I was a failure disintegrated completely. Dylan stared at me, dumbstruck, not knowing what to do. Mom could barely believe her own ears. “The… the state valedictorian?” While everyone was still processing this bombshell, the other group of people, wearing uniforms, spoke up. “Which one of you is Dylan Miller?” Dylan instinctively took a step back, his voice trembling. “I… I am.” Dad, thinking he understood what was happening, wiped his brow and managed a smile as he stepped forward. “And you must be here to invite my son to UC Berkeley, right?” I barely contained a snort of laughter. A 568, and he thinks he’s getting recruited by Berkeley? Does Dad own Berkeley now? Sure enough, the officers pulled out a legal document. “We have received a verified report that Dylan Miller used performance-enhancing drugs during his athletic recruitment evaluations.” “After a thorough investigation, the report has been confirmed.” “His athletic scholarship offer has been rescinded, and his test results have been invalidated. He is required to cooperate with a further investigation into drug use.” Dylan’s face went utterly pale. His legs buckled, and he barely kept his balance. “No… that’s impossible… I didn’t do that.” But the officers already had the evidence. “This is your urine analysis report. The results are positive for prohibited substances.” Mom, hearing this, immediately felt her humiliation from earlier evaporate. She looked at Dad, her eyes gleaming with vengeful delight. “Ha! Mark Miller, you still think you’re a great parent?” “So what if your precious son scored high? He’s a doper. A cheater. Like father, like son!” Dad’s face went purple with rage. The arrogance from moments before vanished completely. He turned on Dylan, snarling as he slapped my brother hard across the face, then backhanded him. “You ungrateful little cheat! You have humiliated me!” “How could you do something so pathetic and disgraceful!” The banquet hall exploded into total chaos. The relatives were whispering furiously, their eyes darting back and forth. “My God, Jordan is the state valedictorian!” “A perfect 1600! That is insane!” “Dylan Miller cheated. How utterly humiliating!” “The three Miller children… they certainly are surprising.”

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I was Caleb Sterling’s executive assistant. I was also his fiancée. He never allowed our relationship to be public at the office, yet he was perfectly comfortable bringing me home to meet his high-society parents. Until the night I saw his eyes go red. He had his sister-in-law pinned against a corner in the hallway, his voice trembling with a raw, desperate rasp: “Elena, are you actually jealous? “Because if you don’t look back at me now, I’m really going to marry her.” Suddenly, I understood why, six months ago, when I took a terrifying fall from a ten-foot ledge, Caleb Sterling didn’t shed a single tear. It wasn’t that he couldn’t cry. It was just that he didn’t waste tears on people who didn’t matter. I slid the ring off my finger and handed it back. “The wedding,” I said, my voice steady. “It’s off.” 01 In the entire firm, no one knew about us except for Caleb’s personal associate, Ryan. As the clock ticked toward five, Ryan sent me a Slack message: [Maya, Mr. Sterling wants you to meet him at the family estate for dinner tonight.] I typed back: [Got it.] I waited for an hour in the parking garage, but Caleb never showed up. A biting wind swept through the concrete levels. I shivered, finally pulling out my phone to call him. “Are you on your way?” I asked when the call connected. A woman answered. Her voice was soft, melodic, and hauntingly familiar. “Hi there. Caleb is driving right now. “I’ll have him call you back in a bit.” I froze. Before I could say another word, there was a mechanical click. She hung up. I took an Uber to the Sterling estate. When Caleb’s parents saw me, their faces lit up with genuine smiles. The Sterlings were old money. Caleb’s father was a titan of industry; his mother was a retired Ivy League professor. They were the definition of a “legacy” family. When Caleb first suggested bringing me home, I had been a nervous wreck. I’d spent hours imagining a scene where his mother handed me a million-dollar check to stay away from her son. But it wasn’t like the movies. His mother, Martha, was incredibly kind. She never looked down on my middle-class upbringing or my public school education. Martha took my hand. “Where’s Caleb? Didn’t he pick you up?” Before I could answer, the front door opened. Caleb walked in. And right beside him was a woman with a gentle smile and a voice like velvet. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” I watched Martha’s eyes flicker between the two of them. Her brow furrowed for a split second before she smoothed her expression and smiled. “Oh. You’re here.” The woman slipped off her wool coat. Caleb instinctively reached out, took it from her, and hung it on the rack. The movement was fluid. Practiced. Intuitive. It looked like a dance they had performed a thousand times. Even after being with Caleb for three years, we had never achieved that level of effortless synchronicity. When Caleb took the coat, the woman hesitated for a second. Caleb shrugged slightly, looking down at her. “Something wrong?” She shook her head, smiling. “Nothing.” Martha pulled me closer, her expression clouded with hesitation as she introduced us. “Maya, this is Caleb’s brother’s… widow. Her name is Elena Rose.” As the words left her mouth, Caleb’s expression darkened. He looked profoundly dissatisfied with that description. “As you know,” Martha added softly, “Caleb’s older brother passed away a few years ago.” Later, while we were washing up for dinner, it was just Caleb and me in the restroom. “Why didn’t you pick me up tonight?” I asked. Caleb kept his head down, slowly washing his long, elegant fingers. His voice was a low drone. “Too many people at the office. “Did you really want to be seen getting into my car?” He gave me a dry, sideways glance. I felt like we both deserved Oscars. It’s a feat for a couple to be together for three years without a single colleague suspecting a thing. Was he just that good of an actor? Or was I? At the table, Martha placed a platter of grilled lobster in front of Elena. “Eat up, Elena. I know you like this.” Elena froze, her fork hovering in mid-air, looking awkward. Without a word, Caleb reached over and moved the platter to the other side of the table. “She’s allergic to shellfish,” he said flatly. “Keep it away from her.” Martha looked apologetic. “Oh, Elena, you’re allergic? I had no idea.” The rest of the dinner was eaten in a heavy, stifling silence. 02 I woke up in the middle of the night to find the spot beside me empty. I walked downstairs to get a glass of water, but as I reached the landing, I saw two silhouettes entwined in the shadows. In the moonlight filtering through the French windows, Caleb’s tall frame was unmistakable. He was pressing a woman against the wall, towering over her, his head bowed. I pinched my arm, hard, hoping I was dreaming. But the pain was real. Through the shadows and the glow of the garden lights, I saw his face. His eyes were wet. His eyelids were heavy and red. The woman pinned against the wall was Elena. She looked like she’d been crying; tears were still glistening on her cheeks. Caleb reached out, using his thumb to gently brush them away. His voice was a broken, trembling rasp. “Elena, are you back for good this time? “Why won’t you just look at me? “If you don’t look back at me now… I’m really going to marry her.” Elena didn’t give him an answer. Her shoulders shook with a sob. “Caleb… I’m cold.” Caleb immediately stripped off his sweater and draped it over her shoulders. He noticed she wasn’t wearing shoes. He grabbed a pair of plush slippers from the mudroom cabinet and knelt on the floor to put them on her feet. Those slippers… I was the one who bought them and brought them to the house. It wasn’t until a chill swept through me that I realized I was barefoot, too. This was the first time I had ever seen Caleb cry. In three years, even on the anniversary of his brother’s death when he was in a dark mood and drinking heavily, he hadn’t shed a single tear. When a mole in the company nearly bankrupted us and he had to handle the fallout, he remained stoic, calm, and utterly cold. Last year, when I fell ten feet during a skiing trip, the panic in his eyes lasted for a fraction of a second before he locked it down. He stayed at the hospital for exactly one afternoon before rushing off. He had looked rattled when he left—it was the first time I’d seen “fear” on his face. He was always the man who stayed calm in a crisis. But a single phone call had made him lose his mind. He’d even knocked over my water pitcher on his way out. And now, here he was, weeping as he begged Elena to come back to him. I wiped a stray tear from my eye and felt the ring on my finger. I slid it off and tucked it into my pocket. When I got back to the bedroom, Caleb still wasn’t back. I had exchanged contact info with Elena at dinner. I pulled up her Instagram. She didn’t post much. It didn’t take long to scroll through. Unlike me, who loved sharing every little detail of my life. Actually, I only posted to get Caleb’s attention. I remembered clearly—the day I was injured in the hospital was my birthday. I scrolled back to Elena’s posts from that same date last year. Her location tag was Mexico City. The caption was: [Almost got caught in that flash-mob looting. Scared to death.] The photo showed the corner of a man’s tailored suit jacket. Caleb’s suits are all bespoke. His initials are embroidered inside. I recognized the fabric instantly. So, that was why he’d lost his composure. He hadn’t been scared for me. He’d been terrified because Elena was caught in a riot abroad. He’d left my hospital bed to fly to Mexico. Touching the ring in my pocket, my heart sank into a cold, dark place. Even his proposal to me… it was just a move in the game he was playing with Elena. 03 I drifted in and out of a restless sleep that night. The next morning at the office, the girls at the front desk swarmed me. “Maya, did you see?” I followed their gaze toward the window. A sudden snowstorm had hit the city. People were scurrying inside, shivering. Caleb’s black SUV pulled up. He got out, walked around to the passenger side, and placed his hand over the doorframe so the woman getting out wouldn’t bump her head. The woman was Elena. When we left the Sterling estate that morning, I hadn’t asked Caleb for a ride. He’d just said, “There are too many people at the office. We agreed to keep this private.” “Wow,” one of my coworkers whispered. “Is she the new boss-lady? “Maya, come on. You’re his EA. Give us the tea. Is Mr. Sterling finally getting married?” I forced a smile and nodded. “Probably.” Speaking of marriage, the coworker looked at my hand. “Wait, Maya, didn’t your boyfriend just propose? “You posted the ring on Instagram. Why aren’t you wearing it today?” I looked at my bare fingers. “I’m not going through with it.” My coworkers gasped. In the distance, Caleb’s cold, distant features only seemed to find color when he was looking at Elena. He handed his keys to the valet and opened a black umbrella, tilting it entirely over Elena. Snow began to pile up on his own shoulder. Caleb caught sight of our little group. His cold gaze swept over us—a completely different look than the one he gave Elena. He tightened his expression, taking in everyone’s reactions. He looked at me, his eyes a flat, emotionless gray. “Ms. Weaver,” he said coldly. “Don’t you have work to do?” He glanced at his watch. “You’re ten minutes late. That’s a docking on your attendance. “Meeting in an hour.” With a sudden flurry of movement, everyone scrambled back to their desks. A coworker hissed under her breath, “I guess the richer the man, the more devoted he is to the one he actually loves.” I smiled sadly as I organized my files. Devoted? Loving his sister-in-law in secret for seven years? I guess that counts as devotion. I had to prepare for the meeting. I organized the slides, planned the schedule, and coordinated with the various departments. Once everything was set, I realized the water cooler in the breakroom was empty. I pulled the empty jug off. As I was about to hoist the new one into place, Caleb walked by. He rolled up his sleeves, revealing his pale forearms and the slight bulge of veins. “I’ll do it,” he said. I didn’t acknowledge him. I gritted my teeth and slammed the heavy water jug onto the base myself. He watched me, then gave a slight, curt nod before walking away. Every year, Sterling Group undergoes a “reshuffle.” Senior management stays stable, but the competition for the other roles is cutthroat, requiring layers of evaluations. After Caleb left, I was informed that I would have to give an impromptu presentation for the meeting—competing against a “new hire” for my own position. I was stunned. Before I could even process the news, the meeting began. Caleb had set the topic himself. I took a deep breath and stood at the head of the conference table. My hands were shaking. After I finished my presentation, Caleb began firing off sharp, aggressive questions, cornering me until I didn’t know how to answer. Then it was Elena’s turn. Her answers were mature, fluid, and polished. Caleb sat with his hands steepled, his long legs crossed. He narrowed his eyes. “Ms. Weaver,” he said, “You’ve been here three years. And yet, you can’t even outshine a newcomer.” The words were a calculated strike. He was showing me zero mercy in front of everyone. The room went silent. In that moment, I realized we were from two different worlds. He sat there, and with a casual sentence, he could negate everything I had ever done. Just like our relationship. At night, he was the captain of the game. In bed, out of bed. In love, or at work. His words were cruel, designed to sting the deepest parts of me. I remembered two years ago, when I failed my first promotion review. I had been a mess of tears and laughter, hoping for comfort. He had just looked at me and said: “Maya, this is the law of the jungle. “If you aren’t good enough, you get replaced.” I’d stopped crying then and asked him, “But I’m your girlfriend. Can’t you just… help me out?” He’d just smirked and said nothing. That was my first lesson in this relationship. Caleb was ruthless in business. He had warmth, but not much. He was never one to be swayed by emotion, and he wasn’t going to give me a “back door” just because we were sleeping together. I had taken his lesson to heart then. I’d worked harder. I’d eventually earned my raises and my title. 04 This time, after failing the evaluation, I didn’t cry. When the meeting ended, Ryan approached me with his standard professional smile. “Maya, this is Elena Rose. “Elena, this is Maya Weaver. “Maya, the competition is going to be tough this time. Elena just got back from NYC. Her portfolio is incredible.” Elena reached out her hand, looking at me with absolute confidence. “I’m looking forward to the competition. “Good luck.” Because Elena was the “new hire,” the team organized a happy hour to break the ice. Everyone was a few drinks in when I stepped away to the restroom to call Caleb. The line was busy. I tried a few times, then gave up. Elena had a few drinks, too. Her face was flushed. She was sobbing quietly into her phone. “Why aren’t you here yet? “Do you not want me anymore?” A few minutes later, a black Mercedes G-Wagon pulled up at the curb. Caleb got out and walked straight toward a stumbling Elena. When she saw him, she looked dazed for a second before running into his arms. Caleb pulled her into a tight embrace. “Stop crying,” he whispered. Amidst the hushed gossip of my colleagues, Caleb looked up. Our eyes met. He helped Elena into the car, then held the door open, looking at me. “Ms. Weaver, do you need a ride?” I smiled and shook my head. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.” 05 I saw the lights on in my apartment as I walked up. I sat on the bench downstairs for a long time. I pulled the ring out of my pocket and sighed. It never really belonged to me. I tucked the ring carefully back into its velvet box. Caleb was already there, changed into his loungewear. His hair was still damp from the shower. After I finished my nightly routine, I crawled into bed. He suddenly reached out and pulled me toward him by the waist. I felt the heat of his breath, that familiar scent of cedar and rain. His thumb brushed my lip. I suddenly shoved him away and flipped on the bedside lamp. He blinked at me. “What is it? “Rough day?” I suddenly remembered that in his most passionate moments, he always whispered a name that sounded like “El.” I thought it was just a pet name. Now I knew it was Elena. And he never kissed me on the mouth. Not really. Tonight was the first time he’d ever tried to initiate a real kiss. And I had pushed him away. “Caleb,” I whispered. “I’m not Elena.” His brow furrowed. He acted like he hadn’t heard me. 06 Breaking up with Caleb was easy. But leaving his mother, Martha, was hard. No matter what, Martha had been truly good to me. The next morning, I sat at the breakfast table waiting for him. “Caleb, we’re done.” I ate my toast slowly, not even looking up. The ring box was sitting on the other side of the table. I finished my breakfast and wiped my mouth. I pointed at the red velvet box. “I took the ring off. “I expect mine back, too.” Caleb let out a dry chuckle. “Maya, we’ve been together for three years. “You think you can just walk away?” In three years, Caleb had never initiated a breakup. I was the one who had tried to leave three times before. The third time, I was the one who went crawling back. Caleb had just smirked then, not taking my “breakup” seriously. He sat across from me now, slowly peeling an orange. “Maya, some games lose their charm if you play them too often. “Think carefully.” During our third fight, Caleb had told me, “Three strikes and you’re out.” That was his rule for everything. In business, if something failed three times, he lost his patience and cut it loose. In the parking garage, Caleb was leaning against his car. When he saw me, he looked up. “I’m driving you today.” I declined politely. “I’m not going to the office today. “Ryan assigned me to some field work.” Caleb didn’t push it. In the artificial light, his skin looked pale, his jawline sharp and perfect. Elena had DM’d me earlier, making a bet. She said even if she made a massive mistake at work, Caleb wouldn’t fire her. But even if I did everything perfectly, Caleb would let me go. She asked if I believed her. Of course I did. It wasn’t that I lacked a backbone. It’s just that the person who is truly loved is always the one with all the power. Caleb had waited for her for so long. Wasn’t it all just so he could keep her by his side? For three years, I had always clocked in ten minutes early. I never missed a day; I never left early. This was the first time I was late. Ryan hadn’t assigned me field work. I just didn’t want to see Caleb. When I finally walked into the office, my coworkers huddled around me. “Maya, where were you? “Mr. Sterling came looking for you. I was terrified—I lied and said you were in the restroom. “He came back an hour later. “He actually didn’t get mad. He just told you to go to his office.” I used the desk phone to call Caleb’s extension. He just said: “Come up. I need to talk to you.” I thought about it, then replied: “Mr. Sterling, I’m quite busy. “If it’s important, just tell me now.” I hung up and buried myself in my files. Suddenly, a shadow fell over my desk. That familiar, crisp scent surrounded me. “Maya,” he said, his voice low. I was so focused on the documents that I jumped. I had to clutch my chest for a moment to catch my breath. 07 I pointed to the stack of files on my desk. “Can’t you see? I’m busy.” Caleb was stunned for a heartbeat. “Fine. I’ll come find you after work.” My coworkers were terrified by my tone. They whispered to me: “Maya, did you get a headhunter? “Is a rival firm poaching you? I can’t believe you just talked to him like that.” I laughed. “No. Not possible.” “Are you quitting?” they asked. I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’m putting in my notice.” Standard procedure required a month’s notice. I’d already drafted the resignation letter. My phone buzzed. A message from Caleb. I had his contact saved as ‘A’. I’d secretly seen how he had me saved in his phone. It was just my full name: Maya Weaver. Seeing that had hurt. We were supposed to be the most intimate people in each other’s lives, yet our relationship felt like it was stuck in a deep freeze. Caleb liked every single one of Elena’s posts. He almost never liked mine. I hesitated before opening the text. [Wait for me at the front entrance.] I read it and immediately put it out of my mind. It wasn’t until the sun had fully set and my phone rang again that I answered. “Aren’t you down yet?” his cold voice asked. I finally noticed the time. “I’m working late. “Go ahead. Don’t wait for me.” I slowly began packing my desk. Since I was leaving, I needed to take my things home bit by bit. My eyes fell on a small succulent on my desk. It was funny, really. I’d begged Caleb for months before he finally bought it for me. I picked it up and dropped it into the trash can. 08 “Maya Weaver.” His voice was soft, but it carried a chill that seemed to seep into my bones. I looked up at him. “Still here, Mr. Sterling?” The office was empty. It was just the two of us in the vast, open floor. He frowned slightly. “Why are you calling me that?” I kept my head down, stuffing small items into my bag. “Because you’re my boss.” Suddenly, a warm palm pressed against my waist. His voice was a low growl. “Am I not your fiancé?” I froze. I let out a dry, cold laugh. “What? “I thought we made that clear this morning. “We’re over.” I felt his hand on my waist stiffen. He tightened his grip, his eyes boring into me. “Maya, did I ever agree to that? “We’re engaged.” I took a step back. “Then let me say it again, officially. I’m breaking up with you. “The engagement is off. “When you have a spare moment, return my ring. “Yours is back at your house.” Caleb looked dazed. “I didn’t consent to this. “We’re going home.” He didn’t give me a choice. He gripped my waist and steered me toward the elevator. I glared at him. “Are you insane? “What if a colleague sees us?” He only tightened his grip. His eyes were fixed on the glowing floor numbers. “I’m with my fiancée. Why would anyone have an opinion on that?” I spent the whole ride to the car trying to hide my face. Luckily, we didn’t run into anyone. Good. I needed to go back and pack my bags anyway.

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Rumor has it that the heir to the Evans empire is the most untouchable guy in the wealthy elite circle of our generation. Arrogant, cold-faced, and entirely driven by his own moods, he is the golden boy everyone revolves around. I secretly, carefully harbored a crush on him, only to overhear his soft scoff around a corner: “Lily? Too timid. Not interested.” I silently deleted his contact info and decisively walked away, only to cross paths with him again in college. Late at night, in all sorts of places, his voice would go hoarse. “Baby, don’t tremble. Look at me.” 01 “Holy crap, we actually have a guy this hot in our major?” My roommate, Emma, suddenly screamed while scrolling through campus TikTok. “What? Let me see!” Zoe, my other roommate, asked curiously. Emma held up her phone. “The college Instagram page is blowing up! We have a gorgeous freshman, six-foot-two, insanely built, and word is he’s in our department! All the girls are secretly taking photos of him and posting them!” Zoe’s eyes lit up. “What’s his name? Who is he?” “Hold on!” Emma frantically scrolled through the comments. “Cole! Cole Evans! The notoriously untouchable heir to Evans Enterprises! I can’t believe he’s going to our school, let alone our department. I thought all these trust-fund kids had terrible grades!” Hearing the name Cole Evans, my hand froze as I was making my bed. I hadn’t expected to hear that name again, yet my heart couldn’t help but race. I cursed myself silently. Pathetic. 02 I knew Cole. Or rather, I was just a lowly girl who had a massive crush on him. During the summer before my junior year of high school, I went to Los Angeles with my mom for a vacation, and we ended up staying at the Evans estate. Standing in front of their mega-mansion, I was stunned. It turned out my mom’s best friend was the wife of the CEO of Evans Enterprises. Eleanor, Cole’s mom, welcomed us warmly. She handed me a massive gift card to welcome me, then linked arms with my mom, diving into endless gossip. That was the day I met Cole. Standing at the door of the guest room Eleanor had prepared for me, I hesitated, too scared to go in. Because the decor inside was just too outrageously luxurious! Suddenly, the door to the room next to mine opened. A tall teenage boy appeared in the doorway. His slightly messy hair fell over a strong brow bone, and his eyelids drooped lazily. He looked a bit groggy, like he had just woken up. Gorgeous. That was my first thought. This was an incredibly gorgeous guy. He just looked a bit fierce. Like someone you shouldn’t mess with. I stood frozen in place, staring at him blankly. The boy’s long, knuckle-defined hand gripped the door handle, and his light brown eyes landed on me. He leaned casually against the doorframe, his voice lazy. “Whose kid are you?” 03 Realizing he was talking to me, I gripped the hem of my shirt, stuttering a little. “M-my mom is Eleanor’s best friend. W-we’re visiting LA…” Before I could finish, he raised an eyebrow, looking a bit playfully cynical. “Visiting LA?” I nodded obediently. The corners of his lips curled into a faint smile, and he called out my name evenly. “Lily Miller.” I froze. He actually knew my name! I couldn’t help but ask, my voice tiny, “How did you know my name?” He replied nonchalantly, “Guessed.” Now I really didn’t know what to do. I was super socially anxious, but also a massive sucker for a pretty face. Whenever I saw someone attractive, I practically forgot how to walk, let alone someone who looked like an absolute heartthrob. I couldn’t help but tilt my head up to steal glances at him. He was so tall. So tall that I had to crane my neck, and it actually kind of hurt. Maybe he noticed my nervousness. His eyes curved slightly, he bent down a little, and his voice carried a hint of a bad-boy drawl. “Are you scared of me?” I stubbornly denied it. “N-no, I’m not.” But in reality, I was pinching the palms of my hands so hard they were turning red. His aura was just too overwhelming. He didn’t look approachable at all. But Cole saw right through me and didn’t call me out. A light chuckle escaped his throat. “Mhm.” He reached out a hand toward me. “I’m Cole Evans. Nice to meet you, Lily.” The heir to the Evans empire? This was him? I carefully reached out and shook his hand. Cole lifted my hand up a bit. My eyes widened, panic setting in, and I wanted to step back. Offensive! He’s being inappropriate! Cole’s tone was loose as he leaned in closer. “Lily, when you talk to me, you don’t need to be so nervous.” Those beautiful eyes looked straight at me, carrying a hint of mischief. “I don’t bite.” My reflection was caught in his light brown pupils, and a burning heat crawled from my neck all the way to the tips of my ears. “G-got it. You… you really don’t need to stand so close.” So forward. 04 I was handed over to Cole’s care. Being new to LA, I wasn’t familiar with anything. This was where my mom went to college, so her and Eleanor’s social calendar was packed from morning to night. So, the task of babysitting me fell onto Cole’s shoulders. At first, he was very annoyed. He looked at me sitting obediently on the sofa waiting for him, totally lost on what to do with me. Meeting my bright, expectant eyes, Cole frowned. “I’m going to a boxing match. You’re so skittish, how am I supposed to take you?” I didn’t say anything. I just glanced up at him once, then quietly lowered my head. Maybe I looked too pathetic. Cole crossed his arms and stared at me. Suddenly, he scratched the back of his head and let out a very quiet, “Fuck it.” He walked over, grabbed my mint-green backpack with one hand, and started stuffing it with things he thought I’d need. Tissues, wet wipes, a water bottle, an umbrella, a portable charger… Once it was packed, he slung it over his own shoulder. His light brown eyes held a hint of resignation. “Let’s get one thing straight. This is a legitimate boxing match, so somebody better not get scared and cry.” I nodded very gently. “I won’t. I won’t get scared and cry.” But my eyes unconsciously curved into a smile. Yes! Awesome! I get to go to a boxing match! Cole glanced at me, the corners of his mouth turning up, and he scoffed lightly. “Whatever.” He had this whole rebel vibe going on, and the mint-green backpack really clashed with his aesthetic. I had just raised both hands, wanting to take the bag back, when Cole reached out his long arm, lightly grabbed the back of my neck, and guided me forward. “The bag’s heavy. With your tiny frame, you can’t handle it.” He didn’t look at me, but the warmth of his fingers touching the skin of my neck made my cheeks flush. I gently squeezed my palms. The Evans heir didn’t seem as terrifying as the rumors made him out to be. 05 I became Cole’s little shadow. He took me to watch street races, play basketball, go to boxing matches, and even surf. I wasn’t as scared of him as I was when we first met. He had a wild personality and a ton of friends. Everyone who saw him called him ‘Evans.’ He was the absolute golden boy, worshipped by everyone. Cole did whatever he felt like doing. If someone crossed his bottom line, he fought fiercely and ruthlessly. But contradicting my stereotype of trust-fund kids, aside from his ridiculously good looks, Cole was surprisingly brilliant. He was ranked number one in his elite prep school, and his physics knowledge was already at a college level. I heard he was preparing for an international physics Olympiad. And the guy rumored to be the hardest to get along with actually had a really solid moral compass. He never showed disgust toward the elderly homeless people with dirty clothes and rough hands who collected plastic bottles around the courts. But sixteen and seventeen-year-olds are rarely good at hiding their emotions. Someone pinched their nose. “God, it smells. Can’t that trash collector go somewhere else? What’s wrong with the security at this indoor court? Letting someone like that in…” Before the guy could finish, he got kicked hard. He flared up, ready to explode, but when he saw it was Cole who kicked him, he immediately deflated. Rubbing where he got kicked, he asked cautiously, “What’s up, man?” Cole radiated a cold aura. He tilted his chin up, his voice flat. “Drink up. Chug all the water in your bottles until they’re empty.” The guys didn’t know why, but they didn’t dare argue. One by one, they tilted their heads back and chugged. Someone who had bought three or four sports drinks couldn’t finish them and pitifully begged the guy next to him, “Want some? Help me out, man! Aren’t we bros? Please, just take a sip!” In no time, all the plastic bottles on the basketball court were empty. Then, I watched as Cole, right in front of everyone, crouched down and carefully placed the empty bottles into the old man’s bag, one by one. His voice was polite and patient as he told the man, “From now on, if you need bottles, just go straight to the security booth. I’ll tell them to leave our empties there. The sun is too brutal right now; wait until it cools down to come out.” His usually arrogant face softened, and his beautiful hands gently supported the old man’s dry, rough ones. The summer sun was intense, and because of the basketball game, the front of Cole’s hair was a little damp with sweat. But in that moment, in my eyes, Cole was glowing. And my heart was beating so incredibly fast. 06 I fell for Cole Evans. Facing someone with such a good heart, who also perfectly hit every single one of my physical preferences, it was impossible not to. But I didn’t dare show a hint of it. Cole had a face that drew too much attention, backed by a billionaire family legacy. The number of girls who liked him was uncountable. And me? I was just the most ordinary girl in the crowd. Worse, my personality was the unlikable, boring, cowardly type. If it weren’t for our parents knowing each other, I knew I’d never have the chance to stand next to him. He was like a dazzling star in the sky, way too far out of my reach. I knew exactly how vast the gap was between us. I knew all of that. But a teenage girl’s crush is a surging, uncontrollable thing. It was like the tide, wrapping around my insecurities, crashing against the shore again and again, leaving behind nothing but the high-water marks. I carefully kept my crush a secret, cherishing that dream-like summer. But I forgot that a secret crush can actually become a burden to the other person. Cole took me everywhere. Seeing his handsome face every day made me really happy. But the people Cole hung out with were a wild, untamed crowd of ultra-rich kids. For someone with severe social anxiety like me, I stuck out like a sore thumb among them. Soon enough, I became famous in the LA teen elite circles. The rumors about me grew wilder and wilder. “Did you hear? Evans has a girl with him! Some quiet, submissive little thing who follows him around like a puppy. Wherever he goes, she goes.” “For real? He actually brought a girl? Must be some relative staying over, right? Like he’s just playing tour guide?” “With his temper, do you really think he’d just ‘babysit’ someone if he didn’t want to? I bet he’s actually interested in her! Why else would he drag her everywhere?” “Yeah, at that boxing match last week, I saw it clearly. The girl was only watching the fight, but Evans’ eyes were practically glued to her the whole time.” “No way. So many girls chase him. He’s so arrogant, how could he be interested in a girl who’s scared of her own shadow? I’ve seen her—she barely talks, totally passive, zero presence.” … 07 The rumors spiraled out of control, eventually reaching the ears of Cole’s inner circle. Those guys loved drama. Around a hallway corner, they laughed and asked him, “Evans, everyone in our circle is saying you’re into that little coward. We didn’t believe it at first, but now you even wait outside the bathroom for her. Are you serious about this? Do you actually like Lily?” I had just come out of the restroom and accidentally overheard. The hallway wall hid them from my view, so I couldn’t see Cole’s expression. I knew eavesdropping was wrong, but my feet glued themselves to the floor, my heart leaping into my throat. But the next second, I heard Cole’s light scoff. Casual and entirely dismissive. “Lily? She’s way too timid. Not interested.” Someone pressed on, “But man, you’ve been so good to her lately, we thought…” “Just babysitting.” Cole’s voice was laced with a chilling indifference. “Stop spreading rumors. It’s bad for her reputation.” Standing behind the corner, my heart plummeted from its heights and smashed into the ground. I already knew the answer, but I still couldn’t help but hope. By the time I fully processed it, my eyes were already wet. I raised my hand and wiped the tears away. So pathetic. It’s just a tiny bit of heartbreak. The sky isn’t falling. It’s no big deal! It’s just that the boy I like doesn’t like me back. It’s no big deal! I can just like myself, right? But the tears kept coming, faster and faster. I walked toward the exit, sobbing uncontrollably. It hurt so much! Was I already becoming a bother to him? Of course. No one likes being the subject of annoying rumors. So, the very next day, I packed my bags, told my mom I wanted to go back to Portland for a summer camp, and flew home. When faced with hardship, my greatest talent was running away. I firmly believed you couldn’t be ‘just friends’ with someone you were in love with. So I cut the knot swiftly, deleting and blocking Cole’s number. I didn’t even say goodbye. I just vanished. 08 “Holy crap, he’s so gorgeous! I can’t believe a guy this hot is a Chemistry major!” My roommate’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I forced myself to ignore my racing heart and kept smoothing my bedsheets. Emma called out to me, “Lily, come look! Aren’t you curious? A massive trust-fund billionaire kid, actually testing into our school! With those grades? You’re not even a little curious?” I didn’t stop making my bed. “Of course he could get into our school. He probably bombed his finals and had to settle for us.” Emma’s eyes widened, practically vibrating with gossip. “Oh my god, Lily, do you guys know each other?! Cole’s only been on campus half a day and he’s already a legend. His picture is everywhere. And you actually know him?!” She shoved her phone in my face. In the photo, Cole was leaning against a wall, listening to someone talk. His expression was flat, like he really didn’t want to engage, his eyes filled with a casual arrogance. He looked so cool, so effortlessly lazy. This was a side of Cole I had never seen before, and I was hit all over again by how ridiculously handsome he was. Emma shook my arm. “Lily~ What’s the deal between you and Cole?~” Hearing his name over and over finally broke my resolve. My mouth puckered into a pout, my voice sounding like it was about to crack. “What deal? It’s just… I had a crush on him, and I got rejected. That’s the deal…” All three of my roommates froze, guilt washing over their faces. They looked like they wanted to slap themselves. “No wonder you didn’t care. S-sorry. We’re so sorry.” “It’s fine. It was back in sophomore year of high school. We weren’t even that close. He’s probably completely forgotten about me.” I turned back to my bed, looking completely unbothered on the outside. But I pinched the same wrinkle in my blanket for a long time, unable to smooth it out. A whole year. It had been a whole year, and I still hadn’t forgotten Cole Evans. My heart still raced, just from hearing his name. I couldn’t understand why he was at my university. With his grades, getting into the Ivy League should have been effortless. Yet he took his top-tier scores and enrolled in our Chemistry department, even though he loved Physics. If I couldn’t figure it out, I wasn’t going to try. Classes had just started, and Cole was already famous by noon. As expected, he shined wherever he went. But none of that had anything to do with me. I was so ordinary; I’d just disappear into the sea of students. The Chemistry department was massive. As long as I didn’t seek him out, Cole and I would never cross paths. Besides, he didn’t even know I went to this school. Or maybe even if he did, he just didn’t care. But late that night, as I lay in bed, my phone buzzed with an unknown number. I was extremely socially anxious. Naturally, I never answered unknown numbers. I hurriedly hit decline. But the caller was relentless. The phone kept ringing and ringing. Not wanting to wake my roommates, I finally bit the bullet and answered. Hiding under the covers, I kept my voice low, whispering into the receiver. “Hello?” To my shock, the person on the other end let out a cold scoff. “Hah. Hello? What’s so ‘hello’ about this?” It was that familiar, raspy bad-boy voice, except he sounded like he was grinding his teeth. “Lily Miller. Deleting and blocking me? You better give me an explanation I actually like.” The phone slipped from my hand onto the mattress. My heart stopped for a second. It was Cole.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “404103”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The first trip we took after officially declaring our feelings for each other ended in a mess of shattered glass and twisted metal. When I finally blinked my eyes open, the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital room momentarily blinded me. And then, there was Spencer. He was sitting by my bedside, his handsome face etched with a textbook display of agonizing worry. Seeing him like that, a sudden, mischievous spark ignited in my chest. I decided to play a little game. Feigning a perfectly blank, confused stare, I tilted my head and whispered, “Who are you?” Spencer froze. The breath hitched in his throat. Underneath the blanket, I was secretly smiling. I remembered the frantic, desperate way he had confessed his love to me just days ago. Now that I had conveniently “lost my memory,” how would he play it? Would he immediately claim the title of boyfriend? Or would he skip the formalities and call himself my future husband? I was biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. But then, the air in the room seemed to turn to ice. “I’m your fiancé,” Spencer said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “But, to be completely honest with you… there are no real feelings between us.” My heart stopped. Before I could even process the words, he pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward me. Staring back at me was a photo of a girl. She looked timid, frail, drowning in an oversized sweater. I recognized her vaguely—she was a charity case his family’s philanthropic foundation had put through college. “This is the woman I actually love,” Spencer continued, his tone conversational, as if he were discussing the weather. “You know how it is with our families. This marriage is just a boardroom merger. We’ve always agreed to live our own separate lives.” Separate lives? If that was the case, there was absolutely no reason for this wedding to happen. Without a second of hesitation in my heart, I knew the engagement was over. But as time went on, I would learn a bitter truth about Spencer Harrington: he was a man who wanted to play a game he couldn’t afford to lose, and no matter how hard I tried to throw him away, he just wouldn’t let go. [1] After pulling the doctor aside to confirm that retrograde amnesia was indeed a plausible side effect of my concussion, Spencer walked back to my bed. “I brought you on this trip specifically to confess this to you,” he said, his eyes darting away from mine, unable to hold my gaze. “But don’t worry. I am still going to marry you.” A fiery, suffocating rage clawed at my throat. “If your heart belongs to someone else, why the hell would you marry me?” I reached blindly for my phone on the nightstand. “Tell me which one of these contacts is my father. I’m calling him right now. The wedding is off.” “Don’t!” Spencer lunged forward, his fingers clamping down hard around my wrist. Our eyes locked. For a fraction of a second, I saw raw, unfiltered panic flash in his irises. A tiny, pathetic ember of hope flared in my chest. Was it a joke? Was he just trying to get back at me for my amnesia prank? But before that pathetic joy could even begin to warm me, Spencer shattered it. “Can you stop being so damn impulsive?” he snapped. “Do you have any idea how many millions in capital our families will bleed if we call off this merger now?” He leaned closer, his jaw tight. “You are the golden child of the Prescott family. Nobody will ever point a finger at you. But what about my love? What about Paige? She’s just a girl from a trailer park who relies on my foundation. If the press digs into our relationship, they’ll tear her apart. What is she supposed to do?” A wave of absolute bitterness flooded my mouth. I wanted to scream at him: And what about me? What am I supposed to do? Am I just the sacrificial lamb for your trust fund? Suddenly, Spencer seemed to remember that I was the one who had just been pulled from a car wreck. His gaze dropped to my wrist, which was now turning a violent shade of red under his grip. A flicker of remorse crossed his face. He let go. “I know you’re a perfectionist. I know you hate the idea of sharing,” he said, his voice softening into something patronizing. “Just relax. I’m going to send her abroad soon. We’ll never see each other again.” He left the room shortly after. I didn’t say a single word. I couldn’t. For over a decade, we had been the perfect high-society cliché—childhood sweethearts destined for the altar. I had honestly believed the feelings were mutual. It turned out I was just a fool living in an echo chamber of my own devotion. Spencer Harrington’s heart had been given away a long time ago. “What the hell is going on with you?” Around midnight, hushed voices drifted through the crack in my hospital door. “You literally just confessed your dying love to Caroline Prescott,” one of his fraternity brothers was whispering fiercely. “And now you’re telling us Paige is your girlfriend?” “I’ve been engaged to Caroline since we were kids. She looks at me like I hung the moon. I figured it was just time I said the words…” Spencer’s voice drifted through the gap, sounding utterly detached. “But then yesterday, Paige texted me. She said she wanted to die.” Spencer’s tone suddenly shifted, filling with an anxious, vibrating energy. “I didn’t realize how much she depended on me.” “Paige is so fragile. She’s constantly terrified of losing me. I need to give her a love that is entirely, exclusively hers.” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The moment my bare toes touched the freezing linoleum floor, a physical ache shot through my heart. “So what about Caroline?” the friend asked. “I’m not going to string them both along,” Spencer reasoned, sounding disgustingly righteous. “I just want to spend this last stretch of time with Paige. I need to teach her how to stand on her own two feet. Then I’ll set up a trust for her, give her enough money to be comfortable, and send her far away. I’ll never see her again.” “And Caroline?” “Caroline and I are a done deal. Our marriage is set in stone. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her.” My heart flatlined. It was completely, utterly dead. I tilted my head back, staring at the sterile ceiling tiles, refusing to let a single tear fall for a man who wasn’t worth the salt. Spencer, if you knew I was a perfectionist, if you knew I wouldn’t accept a tarnished love… why did you ever think you could test my limits? I picked up my phone and opened the text thread with my dad. [Cancel the engagement with the Harringtons.] [2] I sat frozen on the edge of the bed until dawn broke. When my phone finally buzzed, my father’s anxious voice filled my ear. “Sweetheart? Aren’t you and Spencer on vacation? I thought you two were practically walking down the aisle. Why the sudden cancellation?” I stayed silent for a long moment. I had spent the entire night tearing my heart apart and stitching it back together. The conclusion was simple: over ten years of unrequited longing had amounted to absolutely nothing. I refused to force a lock that didn’t fit my key. I forced a casual, breezy tone. “I hate the voice he uses on his car’s GPS. We’re just not compatible, Dad.” My father, Richard Prescott, loved me more than anything in this world. Hearing my flippant excuse, he just let out a low, knowing chuckle. “Honestly, it’s fine. I’ve been looking to expand our European portfolio anyway. If you’re done with this wedding nonsense, I’ll have the staff open up the estate in Lake Geneva tomorrow.” I didn’t mention Paige’s name. The girl had clawed her way out of crushing poverty; maybe she wasn’t inherently malicious. A second after I hung up, my phone vibrated. A new friend request on social media. It was Paige. The moment I accepted, without a single word of greeting, she bombarded me with photos. The first image was of Spencer and Paige crammed into a tiny, claustrophobic studio apartment. The rickety table was covered in food—all of it bland, steamed, and entirely devoid of spice. But Spencer loved heat. He loved rich, complex, scorching flavors. [He cooked every single dish,] Paige’s message pinged right after. [I can’t handle spicy food, so he compromises for me. Even though he’s eating bland food, as long as he looks up and sees me smiling, he’s happy.] My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t like spicy food either. But whenever my eyes watered from the heat of a dish at a Michelin-starred restaurant, Spencer would just prop his chin on his hand and laugh at me. “If you can’t even handle a little chili, how are you going to survive being the Harrington matriarch?” he used to tease. I had always thought it was just playful banter. Now I realized the truth: he had been conditioning me to accept a life where I would never be prioritized. My fingers trembled as I tapped on the second photo. It was a pair of matching vintage Cartier watches. The kind where if you wound one, the other would sync, even across the world. [This was the gift you begged him for when you turned eighteen. It’s a shame. I told him I thought they were pretty, so he gave them to me instead.] A memory hit me like a physical blow. When I had asked Spencer for those watches, he had tapped my nose affectionately and laughed. “In such a rush to mark your territory? I thought you were going to cancel the engagement the second you became an adult.” I had been so sure he was going to buy them for me that I had pretended to be annoyed and never brought it up again. But at my eighteenth birthday gala, he had gifted me a custom diamond necklace featuring stones sourced from four different continents. “Those watches are so cliché,” he had told me back then. “This necklace actually means something.” I had been so swept up in the romance of him traveling the world for my diamonds. I only just realized he had meticulously redirected my interest so I wouldn’t find out he had already given the watches to Paige. As I scrolled through the photos, the last remaining warmth in my blood turned to ice. [Miss Prescott, is it really that fun guarding a man who doesn’t even love you?] When I didn’t reply fast enough, her impatience bled through the screen. I let out a dry, hollow laugh. My fingers moved steadily over the keyboard. [I’m so sorry, but I suffered a head injury in a car crash and have retrograde amnesia. I have no idea who you are, and my memories of Spencer are pretty blurry.] [All I know is that when I woke up, he insisted we were getting married, and promised me he was shipping you off to another country very soon.] Paige went dead silent for several agonizing minutes. Finally, a single message popped up. [You are out of your league. You can’t beat me.] I frowned at the screen. Beat her? Who the hell was trying to compete? A split second later, the hospital room door slammed open. Spencer stormed in, his eyes blazing with fury. “Didn’t I tell you I was going to marry you? Why the hell are you still torturing Paige?!” Before I could even open my mouth, Spencer lunged at me and violently ripped the IV needle out of the back of my hand. “Paige tried to kill herself! She’s in hypovolemic shock right now. I know your blood type matches hers. You are coming with me right now to give her a transfusion!” I recoiled, clutching my bleeding hand. “What does her suicide attempt have to do with me?” Spencer stared at me, his expression a twisted mess of anger and disgust. “Caroline, you knew exactly how fragile her mental state is. Yet you purposely texted her, bragging that I was going to send her away.” “I already promised you I wouldn’t see her after the wedding. Why did you have to push her over the edge right now?” “This is your fault. You are going to take responsibility for it.” I swallowed the heavy, suffocating lump of betrayal in my throat. I looked him dead in the eye and enunciated every word. “The doctor explicitly said I need bed rest after the concussion—” A cruel, mocking smirk twisted Spencer’s lips. His chest was heaving. “Cut the crap. At the end of the day, you just want her dead, don’t you? Why couldn’t you just give her a few more months?” His voice dropped into a terrifyingly low register. “Does a human life mean absolutely nothing to you?” I sat completely frozen. Over a decade of history. A childhood spent side by side. And it wasn’t enough to buy me even a singular ounce of his trust. Ignoring my desperate screams, Spencer dragged me out of the bed, hauled me up to the hospital roof, and shoved me into his family’s private helicopter. My concussion was still raging. The violent vibrations of the chopper blades made the world spin until I thought my skull would crack open. The moment we landed at his private medical facility, he yanked me out and practically dragged me down the sterile hallways. He pinned me down into the phlebotomy chair. It was only when the freezing wipe of the alcohol swab hit my arm that I finally found my voice. “Spencer, are you out of your goddamn mind?” The attending doctor noticed my pale, trembling state. After drawing only a fraction of a bag, he immediately stopped the line. “Mr. Harrington, this young woman’s current physical trauma makes her an unsuitable donor for a full extraction.” The doctor pointed to two full bags of blood already sitting on the counter. “Besides, we already have enough for Paige’s immediate needs, and the blood bank courier is ten minutes away.” Spencer’s eyes finally dragged themselves to my ghostly white face. A flicker of hesitation crossed his features, and his brow furrowed. [3] Suddenly, a pathetic, trembling whimper echoed from the observation room next door. It was Paige. Spencer’s demeanor shifted instantly. All hesitation vanished. “Keep drawing,” he ordered coldly. “Paige is the one actively dying.” “Caroline, you made this mess. You pay the price.” As he watched my lips slowly turn a bruised shade of purple, Spencer seemed to waver. He reached out and gently rested his hand over mine. “Just hold on a little longer. It’s almost over,” he murmured, his tone dripping with a sudden, sickening gentleness. “I just needed you to learn a lesson. You shouldn’t have bullied her.” Revolted, I violently ripped my hand out from under his. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to look at him for a second longer. Spencer let out a heavy sigh. He pulled out his phone and made a call. “That hyper-exclusive restorative stem-cell infusion they were auctioning off tonight? Call the concierge doctor. Tell him I’m buying it. Whatever the price.” I slowly faded into unconsciousness. When I woke up, the private suite was empty. The only thing in the room was a steaming cup of an artisanal herbal restorative tea resting on my bedside table. My body felt like lead, but I forced myself up. I didn’t even glance at the cup. I shoved my feet into my shoes and staggered toward the door, desperate to leave. As I passed the room next to mine, a weak, raspy voice called out. It was Paige. I paused for a fraction of a second, but I didn’t turn around. I had no interest in her games. But as I took my next step, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the air behind me. “Ah! It’s burning!” I instinctively whipped around. Paige was sitting up in bed, having just deliberately upended a scalding cup of boiling herbal broth entirely over her own forearm. “Caroline!” Spencer’s roar echoed from the end of the hallway. He sprinted into the room, grabbing my shoulder and violently shoving me inside with him. “When the hell are you going to stop?!” Spencer’s eyes were practically alight with fury. “You can’t even leave a dying patient alone?” I watched as he frantically grabbed sterile gauze, his hands trembling as he delicately tended to her burns. Suddenly, I just felt bone-deep exhaustion. I looked right past him, fixing my gaze on Paige’s eyes. My voice was eerily calm. “I am not marrying Spencer. You can drop the act.” Spencer’s hands froze. After a few agonizing seconds, he slowly stood up. A patronizing, mocking smile touched the corners of his mouth. “The doctor said your amnesia was temporary.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a worn, leather-bound notebook. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it onto the bed in front of me. “When you finally remember how desperately you used to love me, you’ll regret saying something so incredibly stupid.” My heart violently spasmed. It was my diary. The one I had shyly pressed into his hands the night he confessed to me. Its pages were filled with a decade’s worth of agonizing, embarrassing, heartfelt declarations of love that I had been too terrified to say out loud. And now, he was using my own vulnerable, teenage heart as a weapon to humiliate me. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, but the tears spilled over anyway, hot and unstoppable. Spencer kept going. “If you ever go back to being the kind, graceful Caroline Prescott I knew, I will respect you, love you, and protect you just like I used to.” “But look at you now. You’re so consumed by jealousy you don’t even care if someone dies.” “Selfish. Vicious… When did you turn into such a monster?” I was choking on my own sobs, completely unable to form a word in my defense. “She has always been exactly who she is.” A deep, commanding voice suddenly cut through the heavy air from the doorway. “She has always been a proud princess. And princesses never bow their heads. You are the one who failed her.” [4] The man who walked into the room was dressed in the tailored black suit of the Prescott family security detail, but he moved with an unmistakable, overwhelming aura of aristocratic authority. He stepped between us, shielding me completely from Spencer’s view, and pulled me into a protective embrace. “I apologize for the delay, Ms. Prescott.” I quickly wiped my face, swallowed my tears, and looked over the bodyguard’s broad shoulder at Spencer. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice finally steady. “How desperately did I love you? I guess I just can’t remember.” Without another word, I turned on my heel. In my peripheral vision, I caught a rare flash of genuine panic on Spencer’s face. He took a step forward, as if to chase after me. “Spencer… my arm… it hurts so much…” Paige’s fragile, trembling voice echoed from the bed. Spencer stopped. He didn’t follow me. As I crossed the threshold out of the ward, I grabbed the leather diary off the edge of the bed and dropped it straight into the biohazard trash bin. After that day, I severed all contact with Spencer Harrington. I was busy packing my life into boxes; he was busy giving Paige his “exclusive” love. A few days later, the high-end bridal atelier on Fifth Avenue sent me a text. The bespoke wedding dress I had spent months personally designing was finally finished. It hit me then—our grand society wedding was supposed to be exactly one week away. Even though I knew I would never walk down the aisle in it, I had poured my soul into that design. I just wanted to see it one last time. Inside the hushed, velvet-lined boutique, the gown shimmered under the spotlights, an absolute masterpiece of silk and hand-sewn pearls. My fingers were trembling as I gently grazed the tulle. “I thought you said you weren’t marrying him? Clearly, you’re still obsessing.” I turned around. It was Paige. Again. “I came to say goodbye to my art,” I said coolly. “I have zero interest in keeping a man whose loyalty comes with an asterisk.” “It’s just a shame this dress is going to waste.” I let out a sharp, dismissive laugh. “If you want it so badly, it’s yours. Take it.” To my surprise, Paige didn’t look insulted. Her eyes lit up with a terrifying, greedy hunger. She actually stepped forward, reaching out to touch the fabric. I sighed, shaking my head. In a way, her delusion was pathetic. At the end of the day, Spencer was the architect of this entire disaster. But I vastly underestimated the depths of Paige’s malice. The moment she leaned over the bodice, her breathing hitched. She began gasping violently, her knees buckling as she collapsed onto the plush carpet. Panicking, I dropped to my knees beside her. “What’s wrong with you?” “Paige!” Before I could even touch her, I was violently shoved backward. Spencer had arrived. Paige’s lips were turning blue, but as she looked up at me, I caught a fleeting, unmistakable gleam of absolute triumph in her eyes. “Ms. Prescott… she said…” Paige gasped, clutching her chest. “She said since you were shipping me away… I should at least get to see the wedding dress…” “I was so jealous… I just wanted to touch it… but suddenly… my asthma…” Spencer’s hands flew over the dress. He noticed a faint dusting of fine powder on the silk neckline. He brought his fingers to his nose, and then his eyes snapped to mine, sharp and lethal. “Hazelnut dust. Paige has a severe tree nut allergy. You did this on purpose!” He screamed for his driver to get the car ready to rush her to the ER. I shook my head, utterly bewildered. “I literally already told you I am not marrying you! Why on earth would I go out of my way to hurt her?” Spencer, his face darkened with absolute rage, ignored my words completely. He raised his hand and slapped me hard across the cheek. “Liar! You’re literally standing here hovering over your wedding dress, and you’re still lying to my face!” “I gave you my word that I would send her away! Why couldn’t you just let her live?!” He grabbed me by the arm, dragging me toward the back of the boutique, and shoved me into the windowless, soundproof VIP fitting room. Then, he hit the light switch. “Spencer, you bastard, you know I’m claustrophobic!” I screamed, slamming my fists against the heavy oak door. The room was pitch black, sealed tighter than a vault. Spencer didn’t say a word. Through the suffocating darkness, the tiny red light of the smoke detector blinked rhythmically. My heart began to pound against my ribs like a trapped bird. When I was ten years old, I had been kidnapped and locked in a shipping container. The trauma had left me with paralyzing claustrophobia. Back then, my parents had been too busy dealing with the fallout and the police. It was Spencer who had snuck into my bedroom every single night, holding my hand until the night terrors passed. “Don’t be afraid,” he used to whisper in the dark. “I’m right here. You never have to be scared again.” But now, separated by a heavy wooden door, his voice was ice-cold. “Sit in the dark and think about what you did today. Maybe it will teach you to stop torturing Paige.” My lungs seized. The panic attack hit me like a freight train. I collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, gasping for air that wasn’t there. “I never touched her! I swear I didn’t! I’ll leave! I’ll never look at you again! Please, just let me out!” My begged screams were cut off by the muffled voice of Spencer’s driver in the hallway. “Sir, she’s fading fast. She keeps crying, saying she just wants to see you one last time before she dies.” The footsteps rapidly faded away. I was left entirely alone, shivering violently in the pitch black. I don’t know how many hours passed. My nails were bloody from scratching at the door. Finally, light flooded the room. It wasn’t Spencer. It was the bodyguard from the hospital. And standing right behind him was my father. Seeing me curled up on the floor, covered in sweat and shivering, a flash of pure, agonizing heartbreak crossed the bodyguard’s stoic face. My father was shaking with a wrath I had never seen before. “My daughter has been treated like absolute garbage, and I am only finding out about this now?!” Right before I blacked out from the exhaustion, I heard my father issue a quiet, terrifying order to his right-hand man. “That zoning intel from the governor’s office? Don’t warn the Harringtons. Let them sink their entire fortune into bidding on that plot of land.” My father knelt down, his warm hand gently brushing the matted hair from my forehead. “Oh, my sweet girl. I thought you were just throwing a tantrum about the wedding. I haven’t even officially broken the news to the Harrington board yet. But since Spencer is so desperately in love with that little viper…” His voice dropped into a lethal whisper. “This wedding is going to be my grand gift to the happy couple. I hope they’re ready to choke on it.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “404102”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was just a mid-level HR rep, but I managed to hire a ghost. A phantom employee who didn’t exist. This employee never clocked in, never worked a shift, and yet, every single month, I used his name to siphon two thousand, eight hundred dollars in base pay and attendance bonuses straight out of the accounting department. I got away with it because I was the one who generated the timesheets. I ran the payroll. Even the photocopy of his driver’s license and Social Security card were top-tier forgeries I’d paid a guy on the dark web to mock up. On the rare occasions the owner did a spot-check, I’d casually mention the guy was out sick or running a delivery route. The only reason I had the nerve to pull this off was because the meat processing plant where I worked was an absolute circus. The owner was a pathological cheapskate, the turnover rate was catastrophic, and the guys on the killing floor barely knew each other’s first names, let alone the faces of the night crew. For three years, I lived off this phantom. I hoarded every single stolen cent, burying it in a savings account. It was blood money, sure, but it was going toward a literal bleeding heart—my daughter’s. She was born with a severe congenital heart defect, and her life was measured in the price tags of experimental surgeries. My plan was simple. Next month, the minute her final surgical fee was fully funded, I was going to process a quiet resignation for my ghost employee, wipe the digital footprint, and wash my hands of the whole grift. But last night, the plan shattered. John Miller—my fictional, non-existent employee—had a fatal workplace accident. … 1 At 3:00 AM, the frantic buzzing of my phone vibrating against the nightstand jolted me awake. I squinted at the caller ID. Gary Walsh. The plant owner. My stomach plummeted. Gary didn’t even reply to my emails during business hours. Why the hell was he calling me in the dead of night? I slipped out from under the covers, tiptoed past my sleeping daughter’s bed, and stepped out onto the freezing balcony before hitting accept. The second the call connected, Gary’s voice slammed into my ear—a manic, terrified roar. “Harper! What kind of blind, incompetent morons are you hiring?!” “That new guy, John Miller! He bypassed the safety guard on the industrial meat grinder during the night shift! He got pulled in!” “By the time they cut the power, he was… Jesus Christ, Harper, he’s ground to a fucking pulp!” A high-pitched ringing erupted in my ears, like a flashbang had gone off inside my skull. My knees gave out. I collapsed onto the freezing ceramic tiles of the balcony, the phone trembling against my cheek. It’s over. That was the only coherent thought my brain could form. John Miller was a figment of my imagination. A name on a spreadsheet. How could he possibly be working the night shift? And how, in God’s name, could he be in the grinder? “Harper?! Are you there? Say something!” Gary was practically foaming at the mouth through the speaker. “Get your ass down to the plant, right now! We have to bury this before the sun comes up!” My entire body shook violently. I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, desperately stifling a scream. If John Miller didn’t exist… then who the hell was dead in that machine?! But I couldn’t say that. I would take that secret to my grave. The second I admitted John was a phantom, my embezzlement would be exposed. I wouldn’t just be looking at federal wire fraud charges and a prison cell—the funding for my daughter’s heart surgery would vanish. She would die. For her, I had to keep playing the part. “Mr. Walsh,” I choked out, my voice raw. “I’m on my way.” 2 The 4:00 AM wind cut across my face like shattered glass. When I pulled into the factory parking lot, a makeshift ring of yellow caution tape had already been hastily strung up around the loading dock doors. A few guys from the graveyard shift were huddled by the dumpsters, smoking furiously and whispering. I didn’t dare look toward the processing floor. I made a beeline for the metal stairs leading up to Gary’s second-floor office. I pushed the door open to a suffocating cloud of cigar smoke. Gary was pacing like a caged animal. When he saw me, he hurled his half-smoked cigar onto the linoleum at my feet. “Did you walk here? Took you long enough!” Sitting on the faux-leather sofa was my arch-nemesis: Monica, the Operations Manager. Monica had made it her life’s mission to micromanage me out of a job, and right now, her eyes were locked onto me with predatory calculation. “Well, Harper, considering you’re the one who hired the guy, HR is definitely going to take the heat for this disaster,” Monica drawled, her voice dripping with venom. I ignored her, forcing myself to look Gary in his bloodshot eyes. “Gary, what’s the status? Have the police been called?” “Are you out of your mind?!” Gary slammed his fists onto his desk. “OSHA is scheduled for a surprise inspection next week! We have a fatality on the floor, Harper! If the feds get wind of this, they’ll shut down production, hit me with criminal negligence, and bankrupt me by Friday!” I swallowed hard, the dryness in my throat making it hurt. “So… what are you saying?” “We settle. Off the books.” He spat the words out through gritted teeth. He marched around the desk, stopping inches from my face. “You hired him. You have his file. Pull his emergency contact, right now! Call his family. Get them down here before the morning shift arrives. I don’t care what it costs—they sign a non-disclosure, they take the payout, and we get that body bag to a crematorium today!” Hearing the words emergency contact made the blood freeze in my veins. Because on John Miller’s intake form, the emergency contact number I’d listed… was my own burner phone. “What are you standing there for? Move!” Gary barked. Monica stood up, a sickly sweet smile playing on her lips. “Yeah, Harper, chop-chop. I mean, you personally handled his onboarding. Funny, he’s been here three years and I don’t think I’ve ever put a face to the name. You must know him pretty well, right?” Her words were a scalpel, finding my exact weak point. She was already suspicious. John Miller never swiped a badge; I manually entered his hours every pay period. I took a shaky breath, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Right. I’ll pull the file.” I turned and walked out. The second the heavy office door clicked shut behind me, I slumped against the wall, my legs turning to jelly. What do I do? If I pretend the emergency number is disconnected, Gary will panic and call the cops to trace the next of kin. Once the police run John Miller’s fingerprints or run his fake SSN, they’ll realize the dead man isn’t John Miller. Then they’ll look at the payroll, and I’m done. But if I answer the burner phone… who the hell plays the grieving widow? In that fraction of a second, a thought so deranged, so reckless, sparked in the darkest corner of my mind. Gary was desperate to bury this. I don’t care what it costs, he’d said. For an unreported, gruesome workplace death? The hush money would have to be staggering. At least half a million dollars to keep a family from going to the press. If the guy in the machine is a John Doe… And John Miller is my fictional creation… Why couldn’t I hire someone to play the widow and walk away with the half-million-dollar payout? The identity of the dead man would be erased forever. Gary gets his dirty secret buried. And I… I get the money to save Mia’s life. In cash. Immediately. My heart began to hammer against my ribs, a violent, deafening rhythm. It was a suicide mission. If I win, my daughter lives, and I walk away clean. If I lose, I lose everything. 3 I slipped into a bathroom stall, pulled out my actual phone, and scrolled down to my cousin’s number. Roxy was a grifter. She’d spent her twenties running minor scams and bouncing between shady dive bars. More importantly, she was currently drowning in debt to a local bookie and was infinitely more desperate than I was. The phone rang for an eternity before she picked up. “Who died at three in the morning?” she rasped, her voice thick with sleep and cigarettes. I kept my voice to a breathless whisper, outlining the entire insane plot in under sixty seconds. “Rox, listen to me. You come down here, play the devastated blue-collar wife, and demand five hundred grand in cash to keep your mouth shut. When it’s done, you walk away with a hundred and fifty grand.” Dead silence on the line. Just the sound of her heavy breathing. “Harper, you’ve lost your mind,” she finally whispered, her voice trembling. “That’s a dead body. If we get caught, that’s federal wire fraud, extortion, maybe accessory to murder. We’ll rot in prison.” “Do you have the money for your bookie, Rox? Because last I checked, they were threatening to break your kneecaps,” I hissed, the adrenaline making me ruthless. “The factory owner is more terrified of the cops than we are. He’s not going to dig. You cry, you sign, you take the bag, and you vanish. Who’s gonna stop you?” Silence. Thick, suffocating silence. Then, a sharp exhale. “I’m in. Text me the dead guy’s stats. I’m on my way.” I hung up. The back of my blouse was drenched in cold sweat. I splashed freezing water on my face, slapped my cheeks until the color returned, and marched back upstairs. “Mr. Walsh, I got her,” I said, stepping back into his office. “His wife lives out in the county. I just got off the phone with her. She’s hysterical, but she’s driving down now. Should be here by seven.” Gary collapsed into his leather chair, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Good. Good. Intercept her at the gate. Bring her straight to the ground-floor conference room. Keep her the hell away from the production floor.” Monica shot me a venomous look from the sofa. “Wow. Look at you, employee of the month. So efficient.” I didn’t flinch. “A man is dead, Monica. Forgive me for acting fast. If you think you can handle a grieving widow better, be my guest.” She scoffed and looked away. 4 The next few hours were sheer psychological torture. At exactly 7:00 AM, a woman appeared at the security gate. Roxy had outdone herself. She wore a faded, oversized flannel shirt, muddy work boots, and her hair was a tangled, unwashed mess. Her eyes were swollen red, and before she even cleared the metal detectors, her wails were echoing across the asphalt. “John! Oh, God, Johnny, why?! What am I supposed to do now?!” Watching Roxy deliver an Oscar-worthy performance of rural grief, a fraction of the knot in my chest loosened. Gary, visibly sweating, ordered security to rush her into the windowless conference room. It was just the four of us: Me, Gary, Monica, and Roxy, who was currently slumped over the mahogany table, sobbing hysterically. “Ma’am, please, I need you to breathe,” Gary said, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. “This was a tragic failure of safety protocols. And the company… we want to make this right.” Roxy’s head snapped up. She glared at him, a feral, cornered animal. “Make it right?! You ground my husband into meat! I’m calling the police! I’m calling the news! I want this whole damn place leveled!” Gary went chalk-white. “No, no, no! Please, Mrs. Miller, listen to me. Lawyers take years. The courts will bleed you dry. We can settle this today.” He held up his hands, placating her. “Two hundred thousand. Cash transfer. Today.” “Two hundred?! Are you insulting me?!” Roxy screamed, slamming her fists on the table. “That was a human life! Five hundred thousand! Not a penny less, or I’m walking out that door and straight to the precinct!” Watching them bargain over a phantom life was nauseating. Eventually, Gary cracked. Five hundred thousand. He was bleeding from the eyes, but to save his business from criminal charges, he agreed. “Fine. Five hundred grand. But you sign an ironclad NDA, a release of liability, and you authorize us to transport the remains directly to the crematorium. You take the ashes and you never look back.” Roxy did a brilliant job of hesitating, biting her lip before finally giving a curt, devastated nod. “Fine. Show me the money.” It was going perfectly. Too perfectly. Just as Gary was reaching for his phone to call his shadow-accountant, Monica stood up. She’d been sitting quietly in the corner, her arms crossed. She walked over to Roxy, staring down at her for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then, she smiled. “Mrs. Miller. I’m the Operations Manager. For a payout of this magnitude, company policy dictates I need to verify your identity. I’m going to need to see your ID and a copy of your marriage certificate.” My heart stopped beating. The air left my lungs. I’d had my forgery guy print a fake marriage certificate overnight. Physically, it looked flawless. But if Monica tried to run the names through any public database… we were dead. Roxy stiffened, but she didn’t break character. She went full offensive. “Are you accusing me of lying, you cold-hearted bitch?! My husband is dead in your factory, and you’re trying to find a way out of paying?!” She reached into her battered purse, pulled out the forged certificate I’d handed her in the parking lot, and slammed it onto the table. Monica picked it up. She read the names. And then, she said the words that dragged me down to hell. “John Miller. Born 1985. Registered in Knox County.” Monica looked up slowly, her eyes locking onto mine with the lethal precision of a sniper. “You know, Harper, I was just so curious about this invisible employee of yours. So last night, while Gary was panicking, I called my brother. He’s a dispatcher for the state police. I had him run John Miller’s Social Security number from his HR file.” Monica leaned over the table, her voice a deadly whisper. “There is no John Miller attached to that Social. The number belongs to a deceased woman in Ohio. Your guy… he doesn’t exist. It’s a fake identity.” The room went completely, terrifyingly silent. Gary froze. Roxy froze. Monica stared at me, her lips curling into a triumphant, vicious sneer. “What kind of game are you playing, Harper? Because if John Miller is a fake… who the hell is dead in that machine?!” The silence in the room was deafening. Monica held the fake marriage certificate like a loaded gun pointed directly at my head. Gary’s face went from pale to a dangerous, mottled purple. He whipped his head toward me. “Harper! What the fuck is she talking about?!” My brain was red-lining. Cold sweat poured down my spine. If I broke now, I was going to prison. And Mia was going to die in a hospital bed. A mother backed into a corner is a dangerous thing. I dug my fingernails into my palms, forcing the pain to ground me. I whipped my head toward Roxy, my eyes wide with manufactured shock. “Roxy! John gave us a fake ID?!” I pitched my voice an octave higher, sounding even more betrayed than Monica. “When I hired him, he gave me his actual Social Security card! It cleared the e-Verify system! How could it be fake?!” Roxy didn’t miss a beat. She’d survived the streets; she knew how to improv. She let out a gut-wrenching wail and collapsed back into her chair. “Oh, God! I told him! I told him this would catch up to us!” She pointed a trembling, accusatory finger at Monica. “You heartless corporate vulture! He’s dead, and you’re digging through his past?!” Roxy looked at Gary, tears streaming down her face. “My husband… he had a gambling problem. He owed fifty grand to the cartel down in Texas. They shot out our windows. He bought a fake identity off a guy in a motel parking lot just so he could work a night shift and send us money without them finding him! We’ve been living in terror, and now you’re using his desperation to screw his widow out of a settlement?!” It was a masterclass in deflection. Monica was stunned, her mouth opening and closing. “That’s—that’s insane! A fake ID wouldn’t pass the background—” “Enough!” Gary’s roar rattled the glass walls of the conference room. He looked at Monica, his eyes bulging with a terrifying, primal rage. “Monica, are you completely out of your goddamn mind?!” He stormed over to her, spit flying from his lips. “Do I look like I give a shit what his real name was?!” “I don’t care if he was a cartel runner, a fugitive, or the Pope! He is dead in my factory!” Gary screamed. “You want to call the cops? You want them digging into his past? You want the feds shutting my doors and putting me in handcuffs because you wanted to play detective?!” Monica shrank back, her face draining of color. She had completely misread the room. She thought exposing the fake ID would make her the hero. She didn’t realize that Gary’s only objective was making the corpse vanish. “Sign the damn papers. Pay her the money.” Gary snatched the marriage certificate out of Monica’s hand, didn’t even glance at it, and shoved it back at Roxy. “Take the money. The medical transport is out back. They’ll take the remains straight to the incinerator. You walk out of here, and this never happened.” 5 The rest of the morning moved with sickening speed. The wire transfer cleared. Five hundred thousand dollars, routed through a shell LLC directly into the untraceable account Roxy had set up. She signed the NDA. She inked her thumbprint. I watched the plant’s private refrigerated truck pull out of the loading bay, carrying the unmarked bags of human remains toward a private crematorium Gary had on payroll. He sent two of his most loyal security guards to tail the truck, ensuring Roxy didn’t suddenly veer off to a police station. By noon, the guards texted Gary a photo of an urn. It was done. A catastrophic, business-ending nightmare, erased with half a million dollars. That afternoon, I claimed I was feeling ill and slipped off the property. Two miles down the road, at a decaying roadside motel, I found Roxy. She had already scrubbed off the dirt and changed into her normal clothes. On the laminate table sat a brand-new prepaid debit card. “PIN is your zip code,” Roxy said, taking a long drag from her cigarette. She looked pale. “Three hundred and fifty thousand is on there. I moved my cut, paid my guy. We’re square.” I grabbed the card, clutching it so tightly my knuckles turned white. We did it. Mia’s surgery was funded. The post-op care, the meds—all of it. The mountain that had been crushing my chest for three years was suddenly gone. “Harper, listen to me,” Roxy said quietly, exhaling a cloud of smoke. Her eyes were dark, serious. “This money is cursed.” I froze. She crushed her cigarette into the glass ashtray and stood up. “Whatever poor bastard died in that machine… it doesn’t add up. The owner didn’t even flinch when the ID was fake. He didn’t investigate. He just wanted the body burned. Fast.” She grabbed her duffel bag. “He wasn’t paying me off for a workplace accident. He was paying me to help him get rid of a body.” “I’m leaving the state. I’m never coming back here. You need to quit that job today. That place is a graveyard.” Roxy walked out, leaving me alone in the dim motel room. Her words wrapped around my throat like a cold wire. She was right. If John Miller was a ghost… who was the man working the grinder at 2:00 AM? Why would a stranger be in the factory, operating heavy machinery under a fake name? And Gary’s reaction. Gary, who would dock a man’s pay for taking a ten-minute bathroom break, dropped half a million dollars without batting an eye. He wasn’t buying silence from a grieving family. He was buying an alibi. A horrifying realization bloomed in the dark corners of my mind. This wasn’t an accident. It was murder. And I, desperately trying to cover up my petty embezzlement to save my daughter, had just provided the perfect cover story for a killer.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “404101”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Just as I tipped off my childhood best friend, telling him to bring Manhattan’s reigning IT girl to catch me red-handed after I had supposedly slipped a roofie into her billionaire fiancé’s drink, a few lines of glowing text materialized in the air right before my eyes. [The villainous side-chick and her bestie are actual morons. Do they really think the heir to the Winslow empire got drugged? The glass was swapped ages ago!] [Seriously. The main couple gets into one little fight, and these two try to swoop in. Trash really does attract trash.] [Whatever, they’re just pawns in the main couple’s twisted foreplay. As soon as the female lead kicks the door down and realizes the male lead is perfectly fine—and was just testing this little pick-me girl—they’ll finally get their happily ever after.] [Yep! And the side-chick and her buddy are going to get tossed off a yacht into international waters!] A violent shudder ripped through me. I violently dodged Cole Winslow’s searingly hot mouth. “Mr. Winslow! Let’s get you to a hospital!” Cole’s eyes narrowed into dark, dangerous slits. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp, thick with a dangerous kind of frustration. “What?” Honestly. … 1 I knew my current setup—one shoulder of my blouse strategically slipping down, my eyes pooled with practiced, misty tears—made my sudden shift to playing the responsible citizen entirely unconvincing. But my voice trembled anyway. “You’re not acting right. I think someone spiked your drink. I’m taking you to the ER right now.” I tried to scramble off the sofa, but Cole’s hand snapped out, his fingers wrapping around my wrist like a vice. With one effortless tug, I was yanked right back, trapped flush against his chest. His breathing was undeniably heavy, but the curve of his lips was pure, mocking amusement. “And how would you know I was drugged? Maybe I’m just running a fever.” Because I’m the one who drugged you, you lunatic. Also, his body was entirely too hard against mine. It was incredibly distracting. Desperate, I tried to squirm into a safer position. Cole’s arm banded around my waist, his voice dropping an octave into a lethal warning. “Don’t move if you want to live.” I froze. Completely and utterly still. Which gave me ample time to read the floating, holographic text scrolling in my peripheral vision. [The combined IQ of the side-chick and her boy toy is hovering somewhere around room temperature.] [Agreed. Who buys a knock-off aphrodisiac from the dark web that looks like a damn Alka-Seltzer tablet?] [I was howling when she handed him the glass and it was literally fizzing and bubbling.] [When you’re too stunned to speak, you just have to laugh.] My stomach plummeted as the memory hit me. When I had handed Cole the glass, I hadn’t dared to look him in the eye. The water had been aggressively carbonated, bubbles violently shooting to the surface. Cole had raised an elegant brow. “I asked for still water.” I had been sweating bullets, lying through my teeth. “It’s… purified sparkling.” He had just let out a low chuckle, taking the glass from me, the pad of his index finger deliberately tracing the sensitive center of my palm as he did. Then, room service had called. I had stepped away to answer the phone. That had to be when he swapped the glasses. … Cole had known from the absolute beginning. And yet, he had sat there, playing along with my pathetic little charade. Cole had the kind of aristocratic, ruinously handsome face that belonged on the cover of Forbes, but right now, the corners of his eyes were flushed a deep, sinful red. His lips were darker than usual, and his chest rose and fell in a jagged rhythm, like a man fighting to breathe. Beneath the crisp white of his dress shirt, his muscles were tense, a thin sheen of sweat making his pale skin gleam under the dim penthouse lighting. Wait a minute. There had only been two glasses on that table. Because I was so nervous, I had chugged my glass for liquid courage. I took a rapid inventory of my body. I felt fine. No sudden surges of heat, no loss of control. I whipped my head toward the coffee table. Cole’s glass was empty. When I had turned back from the phone call, I remembered seeing the bubbles still rising in his glass. He had taken a long sip, his dark eyes fixed on me over the rim. There had been a challenge in his gaze. And something else. Something… feral. The floating text suddenly exploded with realization. [Wait, is the male lead just acting? Give him an Oscar.] [No, look at him. I think he actually drank the spiked one.] [The tension is literally going to blow up my screen.] [Relax, everyone. Don’t forget the female lead is on her way. She’s the ultimate antidote.] [The male lead is so unhinged. I love it.] [He’s about to play Blair Kensington like a fiddle.] Blair Kensington. Manhattan’s untouchable heiress. So, Cole and Blair were the destined protagonists of this universe. And my childhood best friend, Miles, and I were nothing but the pathetic clowns paving their road to true love. And I had just texted Miles. “Come catch us.” “Copy that.” I frantically reached for my phone, desperate to abort the mission. But before my fingers could brush the screen, Cole’s hand threaded into my hair, and he kissed me. The wet, desperate sound of his mouth crashing against mine drowned out the frantic hammering of my own heart. It felt like my eardrums were going to shatter. He was losing his mind. His lips trailed down my neck, his teeth sinking gently into my exposed shoulder. “Don’t be scared, Harper,” he murmured against my skin. “I’ll be gentle.” But I was terrified. Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. Getting eaten by sharks in the middle of the Atlantic sounded excruciatingly painful. Feeling the wetness on my cheeks, Cole froze. He pulled back, his dark eyes instantly clearing of the haze. “What’s wrong?” I fumbled with the buttons of my blouse, my hands shaking uncontrollably. “I don’t want to…” Cole went deathly still. For a long, agonizing moment, the silence stretched between us. Then, he collapsed back against the sofa cushions, throwing one arm over his eyes, his long legs sprawling out. His voice was a gravelly, tight command. “Call Dr. Wilder.” I dialed the private chauffeur on one line and Cole’s concierge doctor on the other. During the suffocatingly tense car ride to Dr. Wilder’s private Upper East Side clinic, I pressed myself flush against the opposite door, completely terrified to even glance in Cole’s direction. Under the cover of my purse, my thumbs flew across my phone screen, blasting messages to Miles. “Abhort! Don’t come here. Go to the hospital.” “We’ve been set up! We’re going to die!” Nothing. Total radio silence. Oh god. Had Miles already been dragged off to a pier somewhere? Once I successfully handed Cole over to the discreet staff at the private clinic, I immediately dialed a number I had frantically Googled. Tears were streaming down my face. “Yes, I understand. But I want the mahogany urns with the gold inlay. Yes, for two.” “It needs to look expensive. They care about that sort of thing.” “If I buy the premium funeral package, is there a discount?” “Can we do a dual plot? There’s a very high chance it’s going to be a package deal.” Just as I was about to aggressively negotiate the price of my own burial, I looked up. Standing at the end of the hospital corridor was Miles. He looked like a ghost. Our eyes locked. In that single, loaded glance, we both knew. He had seen the floating text too. We sprinted toward each other, huddling in the corner like two terrified fugitives. I hissed at him, “Did you not see my texts?!” Miles let out a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair. “Blair dropped my phone in a pitcher of margaritas.” “Why?!” “She said someone slipped something in her drink! She asked me to choose between my phone or her.” “And what did you say?!” “She… she kissed me.” As he said it, a pathetic, unmistakable flush of red crept up Miles’s stupidly handsome face. “Why are you blushing?!” I whisper-yelled, slapping his arm. “Do you not realize the gravity of the situation?!” I wanted to rip my hair out. “I was literally just negotiating a two-for-one deal on our cemetery plots, Miles!” Miles looked at me, a complicated expression crossing his features. “I’ve been standing here for five minutes listening to you. It was very obvious you were only booking the premium plot for yourself, and I was going to be the discounted add-on.” I choked on my own spit. The floating text above us was having a field day. [God laughs when these two try to form a thought.] [A mahogany urn? Girl, the sharks aren’t going to leave enough of you to fill a shot glass. You need a cenotaph.] [Dumb and Dumber really think they can outsmart the leads.] [Wait though, why are the main leads acting so weird? Why was Blair drugged too?] [The male second lead’s doing, obviously.] Miles scrambled to defend himself. “The second Blair lunged at me, I shoved her away! I’m not dying for a kiss. That kind of risk requires a massive hazard pay!” “I rejected Cole, too.” The moment the words left my mouth, a heavy, suffocating silence fell between us. Because the undeniable truth was this: I was hopelessly in love with Cole, and Miles was completely obsessed with Blair. But Cole and Blair were the golden couple. New York royalty. So, naturally, Miles and I became each other’s toxic enablers. When they were happily together, we watched from the shadows, wallowing in our unrequited misery. When they broke up, we sharpened our claws and waited for our moment to strike. A fresh wave of terror washed over me. I grabbed Miles by the lapels of his jacket, forcing an emergency post-mortem. “Okay, think. We haven’t done anything too unforgivable to them, right?” Miles stared at me. “…” Cole and Blair. The heir to a global hedge fund and the daughter of a real estate empire. But back in high school, the two titans had apparently done something to piss off their respective dynasties. They were exiled from their elite Swiss boarding schools and dropped right into our mundane, upper-middle-class prep school in upstate New York. The moment they arrived, they effortlessly claimed the number one and number two spots in the class rankings, knocking Miles and me down to third and fourth. And it wasn’t even close. The academic gap between us was a gaping canyon. This was a massive problem. It directly threatened our full-ride scholarships. So, when we discovered that the two untouchable prodigies were actually a toxic, on-again-off-again couple, Miles and I had retreated to the bleachers and let out cartoonishly evil villain laughs. We had laughed so hard we ended up slapping each other across the face. Miles had clutched his cheek, suddenly snapping out of it. I had hugged my arms around myself, shivering. “What the hell just possessed us?” Miles rubbed his jaw, looking disturbed. “I don’t know, but your face looked genuinely terrifying just then.” But we quickly brushed off the weird momentary possession. We executed a flawless infiltration plan. We befriended Cole and Blair. The goal? To secretly study their academic methods while simultaneously dragging them down into a life of degenerate behavior so their grades would tank. Our strategy was brilliant. Miles took Cole out to the sketchiest dive bars, picking fights with local frat boys. And while Cole was busy throwing punches in the alley, Miles would crouch behind a dumpster, frantically whipping out an AP Calculus textbook and studying under the streetlamp. Meanwhile, I took Blair to an exclusive underground club. She adapted instantly, ordering bottle service and an entourage of VIP hosts. While she was busy playing dice games with them, I pulled out my SAT vocabulary flashcards. I looked at the gorgeous, shirtless host next to me. “Quizz me.” The guy looked wildly uncomfortable. “Look, babe, I don’t really do the whole ‘strict teacher’ domination thing. I’ll start laughing.” I clapped my hands over my ears, mortified, as if he had just cursed at me in church. “I meant quiz me on my AP Vocab words, you degenerate!” “Oh. Right…” And so, it went. Every night, Miles and I would meet up to analyze our sabotage, terrified of leaving any loopholes. Then the mid-term rankings came out. Cole was still number one. Blair was still number two. The sky fell. Miles and I turned on each other like rabid dogs. “I thought you said you were getting Cole addicted to nicotine and street brawls!” I shrieked. Miles looked like he was going to cry out of sheer frustration. “Does Cole look like someone I can influence?! He taught me how to properly smoke a cigar! Do you know how much stress I was under? Every time I tried to sneak a math worksheet in the bathroom stall, my heart was beating out of my chest! He almost caught me three times!” “Well, what about you?!” Miles fired back. “What happened to dragging Blair into a life of hedonism?!” I choked. “I tried! I really did! But she dragged me to an underground MMA fight! There were abs everywhere! It was completely distracting, and I had to memorize French conjugations in the dark! And you know that bottle boy who quizzed me on my flashcards? He got a perfect score on his SATs because of me! He just got accepted into Columbia!” It was useless. The harder we tried, the more miserable we became. Miles and I had slumped down onto his hand-me-down couch, thoroughly defeated. Miles let out a soul-crushing sigh. “Forget it. I’m just going to pick up a third shift at the diner.” Since the scholarship money was clearly a lost cause. “Same. I’m going to see if the gas station needs a graveyard shift.” Miles and I had both grown up in the foster system. We only had each other. We were smart, but without our stipends and scholarships, we couldn’t afford our lives. Before our beloved foster mother passed away, she had left us the tiny, rundown house we shared. After that, we completely abandoned our sabotage plot. We just wanted to quietly leech off their study habits. But somehow, Cole and Blair turned us into a crucial element of their twisted foreplay. Whenever they had a screaming match, if Cole was the one to cave first, he would come to me. He’d wire me ten grand and order me to text Blair to beg for his forgiveness on his behalf. The chat logs looked exactly like this: Me: [Incoming Wire Transfer: $10,000.00] Me: I’m giving you ten grand. Please get back together with Cole. Blair: ? Blair: Do I look like a charity case? Who the hell is he trying to insult? Blair: [Incoming Wire Transfer: $20,000.00] Blair: Tell him to take his pennies and go to hell. Stop texting me. Men only slow down my reading comprehension. But when I tried to return the money to Cole, he’d get disgusted by my incompetence and block my number. So, I’d try to send it back to Blair. She’d refuse the transfer, and the money would automatically bounce back into my account. Miles experienced the exact same phenomenon on his end. And it wasn’t just a one-time thing. It happened constantly. It was as if Cole and Blair possessed a genetic mutation that made them completely blind to the value of currency. So, Miles and I thrived. We rode the wave of their toxic wealth-blindness, skimming the middleman fees to pay our way through high school, hire private tutors, and eventually close the academic gap between us and the two untouchable heirs. Now, standing in the hospital corridor, frantically scrolling through our old chat logs to make sure we hadn’t crossed any lines, the floating text above us was having an absolute meltdown. [I HATE THE RICH!] [Give that money to me! I’ll show them what a loyal dog looks like!] [What about my feelings? I am a kind, innocent bystander on the internet, and I am personally victimized by this wealth gap.] Miles and I ignored them, still frantically swiping through our histories. Thankfully, the vast majority of our interactions had just been us silently pining from afar. Miles: Harper, I think I’m still in love with her. I feel sick… Miles: But she still leaves me on read. Me: I am begging you to stop texting me. Me: I heard my phone buzz and thought it was Cole. Me: But no, it’s just your pathetic ass again. Reading those old texts, Miles and I let out a synchronized breath of relief. This current drugging fiasco was our one and only time crossing the line from passive observers to active villains. And we had aborted the mission before any real damage was done. Miles and I locked eyes. We came to a silent, unanimous agreement. Stay the hell away from the main characters, and embrace a long, boring, safe life. The next morning, I walked into the Winslow empire’s skyscraper with my resignation letter printed on heavy cardstock, and a sleek black debit card sitting in my pocket. The card held my entire life savings. Cole was a terrifying boss, but his compensation packages were bordering on absurd. If people didn’t know I was his executive assistant, they would absolutely assume I was his sugar baby. My resignation letter was a masterpiece of corporate flattery, praising Cole’s leadership in thirty different, non-repetitive ways. I was just standing up from my desk when the VP of Sales practically tackled me. “Harper, you have to save us. Mr. Winslow is on a warpath.” The VP looked like he was about to burst into tears. “The atmospheric pressure in that boardroom is lethal. He’s slaughtering everyone.” I sighed, clutching my letter. “Me going in there isn’t going to fix it.” “Are you kidding? Every time you walk in, it’s like someone slipped a Xanax in his coffee. The whole room breathes easier.” That was a blatant lie. But I still grabbed a fresh cup of black coffee and lightly tapped on the glass door of his corner office. Cole’s icy voice cut through the glass. “Enter.” The second I stepped inside, the twelve senior executives looked at me like I was a descending angel. I put on my best, sweetest voice. “Your coffee, Mr. Winslow.” Cole glanced up from his tablet, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “Did you put sugar in it?” I blinked, thrown off. “You… you always drink it black.” I guess when a billionaire is in a bad mood, he just wants to watch the world burn. But then, the corners of Cole’s lips twitched upward into a faint smile. “Right. Whatever you say.” He gave a sharp flick of his wrist. Like a herd of terrified gazelles, the executives scrambled out the door, the click of the lock echoing loudly in the silence. I bit the inside of my cheek, mentally preparing my exit speech. Cole cleared his throat softly. “Harper.” “Yes?” “We’re in the office. Let’s keep things professional.” Huh? What was I doing? Cole smirked, his long, elegant finger rising to tap against his own lower lip. What the hell was this? Workplace sexual harassment? When I just stood there, paralyzed, Cole tapped his lip again. He held the power to ruin my life with a single phone call, and I was terrified of him. But I was a changed woman. I was embracing a new, moral life. I squared my shoulders, adopting a tone of rigid righteousness. “Mr. Winslow! I don’t know how things operate in your tax bracket, but where I come from, administrative assistants do not make out with their bosses!” Silence hung in the air for five agonizing seconds. Then, a low, dark laugh rumbled in Cole’s chest. “So last night was just a slip-up?” It was the definition of a catastrophic mistake! But since he seemed to be in a strangely good mood, now was the perfect time to drop the bomb. I slid the heavy envelope across his mahogany desk. Cole’s smile vanished instantly. He pinched the corner of the envelope between two fingers, staring at the words Resignation for a long, calculating moment. He let out a sharp, dismissive scoff. “What is this?” I kept my customer-service smile plastered on. “I am so incredibly grateful for the mentorship you’ve provided over the last three years, Mr. Winslow. But my career trajectory has shifted, and I’m looking to spread my wings in a new—” Cole cut me off with a bored hum. “You want a raise.” My heart stung. After all this time, did he really just view me as a shallow gold digger? I offered a sad, self-deprecating smile. “Mr. Winslow, it isn’t about the money.” Cole didn’t even look up. He just uncapped his Montblanc pen and started signing a stack of contracts. “One million base salary.” I stood my ground. “You can’t just throw money at me and expect me to compromise my boundaries.” “Ten million.” “I will literally do whatever you want.” The floating text above Cole’s head descended into sheer chaos. [The side-chick has no spine. Honestly, I would have folded at the one million.] [Give me 500k and I’ll bark like a dog!] [Don’t ruin the market rate! I’ll do it for thirty bucks and a MetroCard…] [What is the male lead doing?! Keeping her around is basically planting a time bomb in his relationship!] When I showed up at Miles’s apartment that evening, my stomach was in knots. I had stopped by Whole Foods on the way and bought the outrageously overpriced organic fruit, trying to soften the blow. We had promised each other. We were going to quit our jobs, cut ties with the billionaires, and start fresh. And not only had I failed to quit, I had secured an astronomical raise. But the second I pushed open his front door, I stopped dead. Miles was wearing a floral apron, turning around with a blinding, domestic smile. “You’re here!” It was sickeningly picturesque. And then I looked at his dining table. It was a literal Michelin-star feast. Beef Wellington. Lobster risotto. Ha. “You didn’t quit, did you?” I asked flatly. Miles’s spine went rigid. He pressed his lips together, looking like he was about to drop to his knees and beg for mercy. But then his eyes darted to the $40 bag of organic pomegranates in my hand. He straightened up instantly, his confidence returning. “You didn’t either.” He stated it like a fact. I sighed. “You got me.” I threw my hands up in defeat. “I couldn’t help it! Cole just kept throwing zeroes at me.” But my curiosity won out. “What did you even tell Blair to get her to counter-offer?” Miles shifted uncomfortably. “I told her I was getting old, and my family wanted me to move back upstate to settle down and go on blind dates.” “And she immediately bumped your salary.” I groaned, massaging my temples. “Of course she did. They are literally the exact same person. Even their retention strategies are identical.” Miles bit his lip. He looked at me, his voice pitching up in pathetic hope. “Harper… do you think… I mean, is it completely impossible that Blair actually has feelings for me?” Before I could even open my mouth to crush his dreams, the floating text went feral. [Bro has a nice face, but he is delusional.] [Miles, listen to me. You deserve the best, but Blair Kensington is NOT the best. She is a menace.] [You are literally just a prop in their relationship.] [If the main couple wasn’t currently beefing over a corporate merger, neither of them would even look at you two.] [Honestly, kind of respect the blind confidence.] [Am I the only one who thinks Cole and Blair are actually super toxic together? If Harper and Miles had played their cards right growing up, they could have totally stolen them. It proves the main couple’s bond isn’t bulletproof.] Honestly, the commenters were right. Miles and I totally had windows of opportunity over the years. But we were branded as the villains of the story. Which meant we suffered from a terminal case of wanting the best for each other, but also being violently jealous if the other succeeded. Once, Cole and Blair got into a massive cold war. They couldn’t even be in the same room without rolling their eyes. On the surface, Miles and I played the concerned peacekeepers. But behind closed doors, we were popping champagne. We promised to be each other’s wingmen. So, Miles took Cole out to a high-end whiskey bar to talk trash about Blair. Cole slung an arm over Miles’s shoulder, his words slurring slightly. “I’m telling you, man. That woman has ice in her veins. She’s ruthless.” Miles nodded emphatically. “Exactly. Honestly, whoever ends up marrying her is going to be cursed for eight lifetimes.” (Meanwhile, internally, Miles was screaming that he would gladly take the curse for eight hundred lifetimes if it meant he got to marry her). They drank until 3 AM. Miles, who had the alcohol tolerance of a Victorian child, was completely hammered. But he remembered his mission: hype me up to Cole. So, he flawlessly executed an “accidental” pivot. “Yeah, Blair is terrifying. But man, you don’t even know. Harper? When she was three, she threw a lit M-80 firecracker into a porta-potty and covered our foster mom in absolute sewage. Hahaha!” And with that, the floodgates opened. Miles proceeded to list every single humiliating, unhinged thing I had done since I was a toddler. How at four, I thought I was a fairy and jumped off a second-story balcony with a bedsheet, giving our foster mom a mild heart attack. How at five, I saw our bald kindergarten teacher and tried to water his head with a watering can to make his hair grow. By the end of the night, Cole and Miles were practically crying from laughing so hard. My cool, mysterious image was obliterated. After that night, Cole developed a strange affliction where he couldn’t even look at me without cracking a smile. Meanwhile, Miles and Blair started getting dangerously close. One day, Miles pulled me aside, his eyes shining. “Harper, what kind of guys is Blair actually into?” I gave him a sweet, supportive smile. “Lean, shredded guys. Total gym rats.” At the time, Miles was built like a string bean. The next day, he practically moved into Equinox. After a few months, he actually started to bulk up. Playing the role of the supportive best friend, I casually suggested, “You should really start taking protein powder. It’ll speed things up.” Miles agreed enthusiastically. So, while cackling like an evil witch in my kitchen, I meticulously replaced his expensive whey protein with cheap, sugary hot chocolate powder. Miles spent months wondering why his gains had completely plateaued, his self-esteem slowly crumbling. He was too insecure to confess his feelings to Blair. He didn’t find out the truth until the night we watched Cole and Blair walk the red carpet at the Met Gala, arm-in-arm. We had missed our window again, and in my misery, I confessed my crimes. Thinking about it now still made my blood boil. Miles violently shook me by the shoulders. “If you hadn’t sabotaged my macros, I would be dating Blair right now!” I grabbed him by the throat, shaking him right back. “If you hadn’t told him about the firecracker, Cole wouldn’t burst into laughter every time I tried to flirt with him!” The floating text was practically sobbing at our stupidity. [Thank God Blair got away from Cole to realize the world is full of idiots.] [Fools! Absolute museum-grade imbeciles!] [They were so terrified of their bestie finding love they nuked their own chances.] Eventually, we called a truce, collapsing into the dining chairs, gasping for air. “Whatever. Murder is illegal,” I wheezed. “And I really don’t want to lose my five million dollar salary,” Miles groaned. I threw my hands up. “But we have to do something! We need an alibi.” I was not going to end up in a weighted sleeping bag at the bottom of the Hudson. Miles tapped his chin, his eyes narrowing in thought. “A billionaire CEO and his executive assistant… there’s bound to be rumors of an affair.” “Exactly! And I have zero intention of sleeping with Cole Winslow.” Because love is beautiful, but I prefer breathing. “Harper,” Miles said suddenly, his voice dead serious. “Let’s get together.” It only took one look. I knew exactly what he was playing at. If Miles and I publicly dated, it was the ultimate show of loyalty to Cole and Blair. Look at us. We belong to each other. We are absolutely no threat to your relationship. It was genius. So, suppressing my intense physical revulsion, I batted my eyelashes and cooed, “Oh, Miles~” Miles’s face contorted in disgust for a fraction of a second before he smoothly pulled me into his arms, his voice dripping with fake affection. “My sweet Harper~” The floating text became an endless sea of ellipses… [Are they legally allowed to do this?] [They are starving. Truly starving. They will consume any plotline.] [Wait, why is the tension kind of crazy right now?] [I’m… I’m kind of shipping them.] [The Villainous Power Couple? I’m seated.]

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The year I turned eight, the woods surrounding our valley developed an appetite for human flesh. That afternoon, I was the only one in the yard when the two voices drifted over the fence. “The Hollow is going to eat its way through this town tonight.” “Yeah. It’s a damn shame. These folks have no idea the hell that’s coming for them.” 1 Our community was one of several off-the-grid settlements nestled deep in the Appalachian mountains. That year, the neighboring settlement over the ridge had gone dead quiet. Nobody had come down to the county hardware store or the farmers’ market for weeks. My dad, Thomas, couldn’t shake the bad feeling in his gut. He gathered a few of our strongest guys and hiked up the logging trails to check on them. What they found was a ghost town. All three hundred and seventeen residents, gone. Devoured. The scene was something out of a slaughterhouse nightmare. I don’t know what specific horror my dad saw out there, but when he came back, his face was carved from stone. He was our town’s unofficial mayor, the man everyone looked to, and he immediately ordered every able-bodied person to the perimeter to start building a reinforced timber wall. I was left alone in the yard to entertain myself. It was a gorgeous string of days. The wind was pushing cotton-ball clouds across the sky, leaving feathery trails in the blue. Bored out of my mind, I was squatting by the foundation of the house, poking a stick into an anthill. Faintly, almost obscured by the rustle of the trees, two bizarre voices drifted to my ears. “The Hollow is going to eat its way through this town tonight.” “What’s the point of building walls? No fence is gonna keep that thing out. Man, disaster is right on their doorstep.” The moment the words hung in the air, the entire yard seemed to fall into a vacuum of silence. A spider crawled noiselessly across the brickwork. The wind pushed a cloud directly over the sun, casting the deep forest into a sudden, menacing shadow. The distant peaks seemed to solidify into a bruised, impenetrable black. An involuntary shiver violently racked my small body. The Hollow?! I dropped my stick instantly, pressing my back against the wall, straining my ears to eavesdrop. A second voice, slightly higher and more nasal than the first, chimed in. “I don’t know, I’d say they have a fighting chance of not getting eaten.” “Oh? And how do you figure that?” “Word is, The Hollow is practically human, and it’s got its habits. Whenever it hits a new town, it always sniffs around to see if the meat is fresh. If they hang a slab of raw meat at the foot of their beds, and pretend to be dead asleep—absolutely dead silent—The Hollow will think the room is full of rotting meat. It’ll pass right by.” The sun broke free from the clouds, the wind rustled the tops of the pines, and the voices vanished completely. But I understood. I understood perfectly. The people in the neighboring settlement hadn’t just disappeared. They had been eaten by The Hollow! Every ounce of childhood playfulness evaporated from my bones. I sprinted toward the perimeter where the men were hauling timber, screaming for my dad. But when I stood there, breathless, and repeated everything I’d heard, the men just wiped the sweat from their brows and laughed. “Look at the little storyteller we got here,” one of them chuckled. “That’s a good one, kid. ‘The Hollow’.” “I’ll give her credit, she tells it like it’s the gospel truth.” 2 The sting of their condescending amusement hit me hard. My face flushed a violent, desperate red. “I’m not making it up! I heard them! Clear as day!” I whipped my head toward my dad, terrified he would brush me off too. “Dad, I swear I heard it. The people over the ridge—they were eaten. That’s why there were no bodies left.” “Maeve, who did you hear this from?” My dad’s gaze cut through the laughter like a hunting knife. His eyes locked onto mine, so intense that I instantly wilted. The conversation I’d overheard had been so mesmerizing, so terrifying, that I hadn’t even thought to peek over the fence to see who was speaking. I swallowed hard, my confidence crumbling. “I… I didn’t see them. But I swear on my life I heard them, Dad. You have to believe me.” “I believe you.” I blinked, stunned. Before I could even process his words, Bobby, a hotheaded mechanic from down the road, scoffed loud enough for everyone to hear. “Thomas, you’ve gotta be kidding me, right?” My dad turned to face him. He was silhouetted against the glaring sun, but I could see his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white. The veins in his neck pulled taut against his skin. “I believe Maeve,” my dad said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “Not just because she’s my daughter. But because The Hollow is real.” The lingering chuckles died instantly. “Years ago, when I was working construction down in the valley for old man Vance, he told me stories about things in these mountains. Things with a hunger. I thought it was just campfire bullshit.” The silence in the clearing was so absolute you could hear the pine needles dropping. “Until I went up that ridge yesterday. Until I saw the bone fragments left behind. There were bite marks. Human teeth marks. But the jaw span… Jesus, folks, it wasn’t an animal that did that.” He looked around the circle of pale faces. “Three hundred people, gone in a single night. Not one survivor. If it’s not The Hollow, what the hell else could it be?” “That’s why I ordered this wall built the second I got back. I just wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to incite a panic until I knew what we were dealing with.” For the younger guys who had barely ever left the county, this was too massive, too horrifying to swallow. But the older folks—the ones who had lived in these mountains their whole lives, who knew the deep, dark folklore—finally spoke up. “Thomas is right,” an old timer wheezed, leaning heavily on his shovel. “It’s true. The Hollow… God help us, I remember now. The old stories say it lives deep in the bedrock, only wakes up when it’s starved.” Another elder nodded grimly. “My granddad’s whole bloodline was wiped out by it. Skinned them, drank the marrow. They say from a distance, it looks like an old hunched man, but it’s five times the size of any normal person. Don’t let the shape fool you. It’s an abomination that comes down the mountain to eat people alive.” Once the town elders validated it, the reality set in. Tools dropped to the dirt. The men building the wall backed away from the timber, their nerve entirely broken. Bobby’s hands were shaking so hard he dropped his hammer. His voice cracked. “So… what the hell do we do?” “We do exactly what Maeve said,” my dad ordered, his authority absolute. “Tonight, every family hangs a slab of raw meat at the foot of their bed. And no matter what you hear, no matter what you see, nobody makes a goddamn sound.” My dad was a man of his word. He slaughtered the only cow we owned and butchered it, distributing the raw cuts to every family in town. Long before the sun dipped below the tree line, people were scrambling back to their cabins, locking themselves inside, paralyzed by fear. My dad took my hand and walked me home. After deadbolting the heavy front door and pulling down the steel shutters, my mom pulled me into her lap. Her heart was hammering against my back like a trapped bird. “Is this really going to work, Thomas?” she whispered into the dark. “We have to try,” he said softly. “Whatever or whoever gave Maeve that advice at a time like this… it’s either an angel or a devil.” “But how do you know it wasn’t The Hollow itself trying to trick us?” My mom’s question hit like a physical blow. The realization washed over me late, but when it did, every hair on my arms stood on end. It felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water down my spine. Absolute, suffocating dread. Thank God, my dad replied steadily, “Because The Hollow doesn’t walk in the daylight. And before today, nobody except me and a few of the old-timers even remembered what it was.” I let out a shaky breath, but then my mind spun again. I’d almost rather it be some sick prank by the neighbor kids. At least then, there wouldn’t be a monster. I closed my eyes and prayed silently to a God I hoped was listening that the meat trick would work. In the corner of the bedroom, the raw beef dripped blood onto a towel. Drip. Drip. Drip. Time bled away. Night fell. 3 The town felt like it had been suffocated under a heavy, black quilt. Not a single porch light. Not a single candle. The silence was deafening. I knew, with absolute certainty, that behind every locked door, people were lying rigid in their beds, faking sleep. The three of us lay in the dark, our eyes glued to the foot of the bed. Everything we had, our very lives, rested on that dripping piece of meat. The moon crested the pines. The wind picked up. My eyes were burning from staring without blinking. I closed them for just a fraction of a second. When I opened them, a shadow had materialized outside our bedroom window. It was jarring. Violent in its suddenness. The Hollow really did look like an old man. But twisted. It was hunched over at a grotesque angle, yet its back scraped the roofline of our two-story house. Its jaw hung slack, drooping unnaturally all the way to its sunken chest. I could hear it taking wet, labored snorts as it dragged its massive feet toward our front door. CRACK. The front door splintered open. I caught a flash of two eyes glowing like hot coals in a furnace, and I yanked the quilt over my head, squeezing my eyes shut. A smell hit me—a gag-inducing wave of rotting meat, copper blood, and stagnant swamp water. I bit down on my own lip so hard I tasted iron, just to keep the whimper trapped in my throat. “Tsk. Why does it smell like dead rot in here?” a voice hissed. It sounded like grinding stones. “Spoiled. It’s all spoiled meat.” The heavy, dragging footsteps slowly retreated. Just as I thought the nightmare was over and went to take a breath, my mom’s hand clamped down brutally over my mouth. I peeked out from the blanket. In the pale moonlight spilling through the ruined doorway, the top half of The Hollow’s face was hanging upside down from the top of the doorframe. It was peering into the room. Those glowing red eyes swept over our bed, manic and starving, terrified of missing a single morsel. My heart pounded so violently I thought my ribs would crack. Finally, The Hollow muttered in disappointment, “Nothing but dead rot.” The massive shadow stood upright. The floorboards groaned, the earth outside thudded heavily a few times, and then, it was gone. It wasn’t until the morning sun broke over the ridge that anyone dared to move. People gathered in the street, their faces pale but alight with the euphoric, hysterical relief of having survived. “Holy mother of God, it’s real. The Hollow is real.” “Thomas, we’re safe now, right?! Do we still need to finish the wall?” “Damn right we finish the wall,” my dad said firmly. “We prepare for the worst.” Slowly, the crowd dispersed, exhaustion taking over. I felt the adrenaline crash, leaving me hollowed out. I dragged myself toward the porch, desperate to sleep. But right as my eyes started to droop, those two voices drifted back into the yard. “Why the hell are they celebrating? Do they think The Hollow packed up and left?” “The Hollow gets smarter every day it’s in a new hunting ground. Raw meat ain’t gonna fool it twice. What are they gonna do tonight? I heard it muttering to itself—it said if it doesn’t get a meal, it’s not leaving. But once it gets a taste, it’s gonna eat the whole damn town!” 4 “Tsk, let me think… I remember The Hollow has a sweet tooth. Actually, wait. It hates…” The voice paused, and I couldn’t help myself. I stretched my neck, leaning as close to the side yard as I dared, straining to hear. “It hates sugar! All they gotta do is keep a piece of hard candy tucked under their tongues. But they can’t swallow it, and they sure as hell can’t spit it out. If they just let it sit there, The Hollow will be repulsed and leave on its own.” “Are you for real? Don’t be messing around now. This ain’t a game.” “Why would I lie? Shh, shut up, I think someone’s listening!” For a long time, the yard was dead silent. My dad’s question from yesterday echoed in my mind. Who exactly was I listening to? Curiosity overpowered my lingering exhaustion. I crept toward the low wooden fence that separated our yard from the animal pens, determined to peek over and see who was talking. Suddenly, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I jumped out of my skin, whipping around. My dad was standing right behind me. He shook his head sharply and pressed a finger to his lips. He had heard them too. Together, moving with agonizing slowness, we backed away until we were on the other side of the yard. Only then did he drop to a crouch and whisper, “Don’t spook them. Maeve, the voices you heard yesterday… did they sound like that?” I nodded frantically, my pulse racing. “Dad, they said The Hollow didn’t leave! They said we have to sleep with candy in our mouths tonight!” My dad frowned deeply, his eyes locked on the low, squat structure hugging the fence line—our duck coop. Inside, our eight white ducks were waddling around, casually preening their feathers, occasionally letting out a soft quack. “That’s damn strange,” my dad murmured to himself. “There wasn’t a single human being over there.” “I know,” I whispered back. “I never saw anyone either. Just the voices.” My dad fell silent, staring at the coop. My mom’s terrifying theory from the night before crept back into my mind. I tugged his flannel sleeve. “Dad… do we still trust them?” He reached down and ruffled my hair, his face lined with an impossible weight. “Better safe than sorry, kiddo. Go inside. Get that big jar of butterscotch from the pantry and start handing them out.” Sometimes, a little sweetness is the only thing that can push back the dark. 5 But when my dad called an emergency town meeting to announce the new plan, the crowd pushed back. Hard. “What? Hard candy? Since when does a piece of butterscotch stop a monster? That’s crazy talk.” “Thomas, what if that thing gets right up in my face? If I panic and swallow it by accident, I’m dead meat!” “This is starting to sound like a whole lot of voodoo bullshit,” Bobby chimed in, crossing his arms. My dad swept his gaze over the sea of panicked, exhausted faces. When he spoke, his voice boomed over the clearing. “Three hundred people over the ridge were chewed down to the marrow in one night. And you think candy is the unbelievable part?” The crowd immediately shut their mouths. “If you want to live to see tomorrow, you do as you’re told. Anyone who doesn’t want to end up in its teeth, line up and get your candy from Maeve.” As they reluctantly shuffled forward, my dad added, “And the wall construction continues. The more barriers we have, the better we sleep.” Ultimately, the terror of The Hollow easily overrode their skepticism. Night descended, wrapping the valley in a chokehold. I lay in bed, pressed tightly against my mom’s side, a piece of butterscotch wedged firmly beneath my tongue. But my mind was racing. My heart wouldn’t settle. Something was wrong. Why did I feel like something was terribly wrong? Those two voices… it felt like they had spoken up knowing I was listening. My dad said The Hollow didn’t walk in the daylight. But what if… What if those voices belonged to Lures? The old stories said monsters sometimes sent Mimics ahead of them—twisted spirits that sounded like neighbors, feeding bad advice to humans to lead them right into the monster’s jaws. Before I could spiral any deeper into the panic, The Hollow arrived. And this time, it came early. It sounded frantic. I could hear its massive, dragging footsteps pacing back and forth on the gravel road outside. I could hear the sickening pop and crack of its joints as its elongated neck whipped back and forth. “Makes no sense,” it hissed, its voice like rusted metal scraping together. “The cabins aren’t broken. There’s life here. Hot blood. So why the hell do I only smell cow blood and sugar? Where are they?!” It was lingering longer at every single door. More than once, I felt the oppressive weight of those glowing red eyes peering through the cracks in our boarded-up windows, staring unblinkingly into the dark room. I clenched my jaw, using every ounce of willpower to keep my tongue clamped down over the candy, terrified my own saliva would cause it to slip down my throat. The Hollow stopped outside our cabin. It stayed there for an agonizingly long time. I heard the wet, sickening sound of its cheek pressing flush against the glass of our window. “The meat in here is tainted. How am I supposed to eat this? Son of a bitch, I’m starving! This whole town is repulsive.” It dragged its claws down the siding of the house. “Fine. Fine. Let them rot. I get sharper the hungrier I get. A few more days of scaring them like this, their meat will seize up. Fear makes the muscles tight. Makes it taste better. I’ll rip them all out of the floorboards eventually. Let’s see where they hide then!” It stood outside our window for what felt like an hour, breathing heavily, before finally stomping away in a furious, defeated rage. The silence rushed back in. When dawn finally broke, the townspeople gathered in our yard, their faces drawn but filled with the desperate, giddy luck of the surviving. 6 But after two nights of cheating death, the adrenaline was wearing off, replaced by a creeping, toxic paranoia. The whispers started. And honestly, they mirrored my own dark thoughts. “It ain’t right,” Bobby muttered to a group of men resting by the wall. “The more I think about it, the more it stinks.” “What do you mean?” someone asked. “I mean, how convenient is it? Raw meat and candy, and we magically survive? Little Maeve says she’s hearing two voices giving out the master plan. Ain’t it a bit too perfectly timed? How do these voices know exactly what the beast is thinking?” A woman gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “Lord Almighty… do you think they’re Lures?” “Exactly!” Bobby pointed a dirty finger in the air. “The settlement over the ridge got wiped out, right? What if two of ’em got turned into Mimics? They’re out here playing us. Didn’t you hear the monster last night? It said it wanted to scare us to make the meat taste better!” My dad stood a few feet away, his jaw clenched, staring at the ground. I knew the weight he was carrying. As the leader of this town, a single wrong call meant everyone’s blood was on his hands. “Thomas, honey,” my mom whispered, stepping up beside him. “The folks have a point. We can’t ignore the possibility. What if we’re taking orders from the monster’s own bait?” “I know,” my dad sighed, running a trembling hand over his face. “But until we have another option, following those voices is the only thing keeping us breathing.” The perimeter wall wasn’t even half finished. We were boxed in by deep woods and jagged mountains. There was nowhere to run. “We take it one night at a time,” my dad said grimly. “And God willing… I need to find out exactly who the hell is doing the talking.” He shot me a loaded glance. That afternoon, the bizarre, ghostly voices returned. I was waiting for it. I tracked the sound instantly. It was coming from directly behind the hay bales piled up in the corner of the duck coop!

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I am clinically obsessed with order. Even after my life was upended—thrust into the center of my wealthy biological family’s drama as the long-lost daughter—I maintained an iron grip on my perfectionism. I wake at 5:00 AM. I am in bed by 10:00 PM. Every variable is optimized; every outcome is calculated. That is, until the men orbiting my adopted sister, Mia, decided to declare war on me. “Who the hell does she think she is? She’s not fit to breathe the same air as Mia.” The autocratic CEO who mentored us stonewalled my projects, humiliating me in front of the executive board. The arrogant, trust-fund jock who grew up next door blocked my driveway, pointing a finger in my face and calling me a parasite. The dangerously perceptive underclassman stripped my power in the student government, his eyes tracking me with mounting, twisted provocation. I loathe anything that exists outside of my control. So, I revised my schedule. One a week. By the end of the month, they would all be mine. 1. In the soap opera of high society, I am the quintessential tragic trope: the biological heiress left out in the cold, finally brought home. If I followed the script, I was supposed to be consumed by jealousy toward Mia—the girl they raised in my place. I was supposed to throw tantrums, self-destruct, and eventually be committed to a psychiatric ward by the three men who worshipped her. But I simply didn’t have the time for manufactured drama. Because, frankly, my OCD is a relentless dictator. I am up at 5:00 AM for cardio and a meticulous skincare regimen. By 8:00 AM, I am crushing academic decathlons. My evenings are dedicated to studying corporate management, and precisely at 10:00 PM, the lights go out. I operate with the flawless precision of a Swiss timepiece. Until I noticed a glitch in the machinery. In the boardroom, Hart Cole—acting CEO of our family’s partner firm—shot down a proposal I had spent a month polishing, right in front of the shareholders. “If you’re going to rely on nepotism to secure a seat at this table,” Hart had said, his voice a glacial drawl, “the least you could do is cultivate some self-awareness.” Later, while touching up my lipstick in the executive washroom, I caught the echo of a phone call drifting from the corridor. “Don’t cry, Mia. Who the hell does she think she is? She’s not fit to breathe the same air as you.” It was Brooks Montgomery, the neighbor’s golden-boy athlete, his voice laced with frat-boy arrogance. “Relax. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to make it my personal mission to make her life a living hell. Let’s see how long she lasts.” Then came Jude Gallagher, the sophomore prodigy. “Madam President,” Jude said at the student council meeting, his lips curving into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Since you’ve been so overwhelmed lately, I’ll be acting as proxy for your duties. No objections, right?” Before I could even part my lips, he cut me off. “Seeing none, meeting adjourned.” I despise being undermined. I despise being provoked even more. I genuinely couldn’t comprehend it. Why would anyone harbor a distaste for someone as rigorously perfect as I was? Were they mentally deficient? So, I sat down and revised my schedule. One a week. By the end of the month, they would all be mine. True to his word, Brooks Montgomery started crashing our family dinners every single night. “Mia, aren’t these the venison chops you love?” The moment my fork hovered over the platter, Brooks smoothly slid it across the table. “What, are you going to steal this from her too?” I retracted my hand, my face an impassive mask, and signaled the housekeeper to bring me a salad. I was in a fat-loss cycle anyway; I had zero emotional attachment to heavy, butter-drenched proteins. Mia watched me eat my greens, a triumphant little smirk playing on her lips. “Brooks, stop it. Mom’s going to yell at me if you keep doing that.” “Don’t be stupid, just blame it on me.” “Then you have to promise to come over every day.” “Don’t worry,” Brooks grinned, leaning back. “I’ve got the championships next week. I’ll swing by every night before practice.” It was agonizing. Not because of the juvenile garbage spilling out of their mouths. It was agonizing because there was a single, stubborn tuft of hair sticking up at the crown of Brooks’s head, and every time his silver fork scraped against the porcelain plate, the discordant sound sent a physical tremor through my jaw. I set my fork down, fighting a scowl, and excused myself upstairs before my compulsions triggered a full-blown panic attack. Behind me, the dining room erupted in laughter. “See? I told you she’d crack.” 2. Even on my rest days, my time is structured. I practiced the piano in my room for an hour before heading down to the university’s outdoor basketball courts. It was 10:00 AM. The sunlight was sharp and clean. I wore crisp white athletic shorts and sat in the most conspicuous spot on the bleachers, my knees pressed neatly together, my long legs crossed at the ankles. I kept my eyes pinned to my tablet. Whistles pierced the air from the court below. “Oh, man, isn’t that the Montgomerys’ new headache? The long-lost daughter?” “Look at her trying to play the tragic scholar. Who studies at a basketball court?” I didn’t lift my head until a towering shadow eclipsed the sun across my screen. “Hey.” I raised my eyes. Brooks stood there in his jersey, the fabric clinging to his chest. His hair was damp with sweat, a few dark strands plastered to his brow bone. “What’s the princess doing out here? Desperate for an audience?” I offered him a polite, perfectly symmetrical smile. “I’m here to play basketball.” He blinked, genuinely thrown. “You?” “Best two out of three. Loser buys dinner.” He looked at me as if I’d just suggested we fly to the moon. He let his gaze drag over me, assessing whether this was some kind of elaborate prank. “Let’s not overcomplicate things,” he scoffed. “You take three shots. If you make even one, I’ll call it your win.” Round one: I lost. I went for a standard jumper. He didn’t even try to hide his contempt; he launched himself into the air and swatted the ball into the stratosphere. His teammates howled from the sidelines. “Damn, Brooks! Whatever happened to going easy on the pretty ones? Usually you’d at least try not to take their head off!” “Shut up!” he barked at them. Round two: I stopped playing nice. Crossover, change of direction, step-back beyond the arc. I released the three-pointer. But his sheer wingspan was too much. With a lazy leap, his fingertips tipped the ball off its trajectory. Final round. I closed the distance between us. As I drove hard for the layup, he threw his arm up to block me. Instead of avoiding him, I leaned my weight directly into his chest. For a split second, our bodies collided, the distance collapsing so completely I could hear the sharp hitch of his breath. The tips of his ears flushed a violent crimson. He scrambled backward as if I had physically burned him, his sneakers squeaking wildly, nearly landing flat on his back. I stood under the hoop, watching his flustered, breathless retreat. “Ball went in, Brooks. I hope you brought your wallet.” He chose the restaurant out of pure spite—a grimy, neon-lit taco truck parked near a chain-link fence. I sat perched on a sticky plastic lawn chair, staring at the translucent layer of generational grease coating the folding table. My temples throbbed in a steady, painful rhythm. Brooks dropped into the chair opposite me, sprawling his legs out. “What’s the matter, Princess? Not up to your refined palate?” I took a slow, deep breath, unzipped my designer bag, and extracted a pack of antibacterial wipes. With clinical precision, I scrubbed the surface of the table in front of me. Once. Twice. Three times. Brooks sat there, his mouth slightly open, watching my fluid, practiced movements. He couldn’t find his voice for a solid minute. “…Are you insane?” “Clinically,” I replied, meeting his gaze without missing a beat. “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The severe kind.” He choked on his own spit. “Then how the hell did you play ball without having a meltdown?” “Athletics permit friction and dirt. Consumption requires absolute sterility,” I explained. I reached across the table with a clean tissue and naturally, without asking, dabbed a drop of sweat trailing down his temple. “Would you like me to ask the vendor if they have a fan?” His breathing stopped. That crimson flush crawled right back up his neck, setting his ears on fire. “I—I don’t need you to take care of me…” Before he could finish the thought, he shoved a taco into his mouth, chewing aggressively. I rested my chin on my hand, simply watching him. He didn’t eat with any kind of elegance, but there was a raw, kinetic vitality to him. Every now and then, he would glance up, catch my eye, and immediately snap his gaze away like a frightened animal. “Why do you keep staring at me?” he finally snapped. “You have a nice face.” “Hack—cough—” He inhaled a piece of cilantro straight into his windpipe. His entire face went the color of a stop sign. “Are—are you—” “Am I what?” He glared at me, his jaw working as he tried to find the words. Finally, he ground out, “Are you hitting on me?” I tilted my head, offering a smile of weaponized innocence. “Am I?” 3. The next day, he cornered me by the campus gates. “Yesterday didn’t count. That place was a dump.” I raised an eyebrow. “And?” “And so I’m taking you out again today,” he muttered, aggressively looking at a tree over my shoulder. “Somewhere decent. So you don’t spend the whole time disinfecting the furniture and only drinking bottled water.” I suppressed a smile and nodded. “Alright.” He took me to an intimate, reservations-only Omakase bar. The aesthetic was minimalist, the surfaces gleamed, and the ceramics were pristine. I was profoundly satisfied. Throughout the dinner, I could feel his eyes darting toward me. I picked up a slice of sashimi with my chopsticks, touched it to the soy sauce, and placed it in my mouth. Chew, swallow, set the chopsticks perfectly parallel on the rest, dab the corner of my mouth with a napkin. The sequence was fluid, rhythmic, and utterly flawless. “…Do you always eat like you’re performing surgery, even at home?” “No,” I said. “At home, I am much more rigid.” “Doesn’t it exhaust you?” “It is my baseline.” I looked at him. “Just like you run drills on the court until your muscles give out. It’s how I survive my environment.” He went quiet. The ambient hum of the restaurant filled the space between us. “Were you always like this?” he asked softly. “Or did they… make you this way when you came back?” “Are they hard on you?” My hands stilled. The question caught me off guard. In the narrative I was thrust into, Brooks Montgomery was a meathead—a guy whose entire emotional spectrum revolved around protecting Mia and terrorizing the interloper. But right now, the look in his eyes wasn’t hostility. It was empathy. “I’ve always been this way.” “So, in your old home…” He stopped himself, biting his lip, realizing he had crossed into a minefield. “My old home?” I pressed. “Which one?” He froze. The girl whose body I now occupied had been bounced through the foster system like a defective toy. No matter how perfectly she behaved, she was always sent back. When her blood family finally tracked her down, she realized they hadn’t spent years agonizing over her absence. They had simply replaced her with another blonde girl who fit the family portraits. She never had a home. In a way, she and I were cut from the same cloth. Except, in my past life, I had built a corporate empire. I had outgrown the need for parental validation a long time ago. “I didn’t mean it like that,” Brooks said quickly, rushing to fill the silence. “I know.” “I just meant…” He ran a hand through his hair, looking entirely out of his depth. “It must have been really hard. Being on your own for so long.” I studied him. The arrogant athlete couldn’t quite meet my eyes, and the faint blush was back on his cheeks. “Brooks Montgomery. Are you pitying me?” “I—no! Hell no!” He shot up from his stool, his face burning hot. “I was just talking! I’m going to pay the check!” Watching him practically sprint to the register, I lowered my head and took a slow sip of my green tea. Day three: Brooks didn’t seek me out, but my phone buzzed with a text asking if I wanted to come watch his team run scrimmage. I replied: Schedule is full. Day four: Game day. I went, but I made sure he didn’t know I was there. The gymnasium was deafening, packed to the rafters with girls holding up their phones to film him. I found a shadowy spot in the top corner of the bleachers and pulled a baseball cap low over my eyes. Brooks played like a man possessed. He was brutal on the court—driving the paint, pulling up for jumpers, crashing the boards. He was bleeding adrenaline. At halftime, he walked to the bench. A teammate tossed him a Gatorade; he let it bounce off his chest, his eyes frantically scanning the crowd. I knew who he was looking for. I stayed completely still, swallowed by the shadows. In the second half, his aggression tipped into recklessness. Final possession. Game tied. Three seconds left on the clock. He caught the inbound pass just outside the arc. Two defenders immediately collapsed on him, throwing their bodies in the air to contest the shot. Brooks elevated. The moment the ball left his fingertips, a defender crashed into him, sending him sprawling hard onto the hardwood. The ball hung in the air, a perfect, agonizing parabola— Swish. The buzzer screamed. Game over. The gym exploded. His teammates swarmed him, burying him in a dogpile. Mia was practically vibrating, rushing the court to hand him a towel, chattering excitedly at him. But he stepped right past her. His eyes swept the bleachers one last time. And this time, he found me. Through the chaos, through the screaming crowd, his gaze locked onto mine with pinpoint accuracy. I raised my hand and gave him a single, lazy thumbs-up. He blinked, stunned. And then, he smiled. It wasn’t his usual arrogant smirk. It was a wide, genuine, completely boyish grin. …Well, I thought. That’s interesting. 4. I waited for him by the service doors behind the athletic center. He burst through the double doors, still in his sweaty game jersey, the adrenaline still rolling off him in waves. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, stopping a few feet away, trying to inject some annoyance into his voice. “I thought you said your schedule was full.” “Did I say that?” “You…” He paused, mentally replaying the text thread, realizing I had never actually used those words. “Then why did you come?” “I was planning on bringing you water.” His ears betrayed him again. “Where is it?” “Forgot it.” He stared at me for a long, heavy moment. Then, with sudden, jerky movement, he closed the gap, backing me into the brick wall of the alley. He planted a hand by my head and leaned down, his eyes dark and demanding. “What exactly is your game here?” He was too close. I could smell the sharp tang of his sweat mixed with the clean scent of his laundry detergent. I placed a hand on his chest and pushed gently, creating an inch of space. “Is it really that complicated? I’m hitting on you.” “Huh?” The directness short-circuited his brain. He floundered for a few seconds before grinding out through his teeth, “Do you just think you can do whatever you want?” “Yes.” I nodded calmly. “So. Are you going to let me chase you or not?” “Do whatever you want.” He spun around and stalked off down the alley. He made it about ten paces before he stopped, turned his head slightly, and muttered, “…What time did you say you wake up?” “Five.” “Fuck.” He swore under his breath and kept walking. I leaned against the brickwork, watching the broad line of his shoulders, and let a small smile touch my lips. On the fifth day, at precisely 5:10 AM, there was a shadow by my front gate. Brooks was leaning against the wrought iron, dressed in a sleek black track suit, holding two paper bags from a high-end bakery. He looked like someone had just told him his dog died. I opened the gate, allowing a flicker of surprise onto my face. “You…” “You said five, right?” He shoved one of the bags into my chest. “Works out perfectly. I run at five every morning anyway.” I looked down at the hot coffee in my hands, then up at his exhausted, scowling face. “Brooks Montgomery. Are you developing feelings for me?” “Bullshit!” he exploded, all defensive bravado. “I just—it’s not safe for a girl to run by herself in the dark!” We ran in silence for forty minutes. Afterward, we sat on a park bench by the river, drinking our coffees. He kept his face turned stubbornly toward the water, but the tips of his ears remained a vibrant, flushed pink the entire time. When he finished his coffee, he stood up to leave. “Brooks,” I called out. He looked back. “Thank you. I really liked it.” His face ignited. “L-liked what?” “The coffee.” He practically sprinted away. On the sixth day, he showed up again. The seventh day was Sunday. I didn’t step foot outside. At 7:00 AM, my phone rang. “Where the hell are you? I’ve been standing out here for two hours!” “It’s a rest day.” I lay flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, my voice slow and lethargic. “Sundays are my designated rest days.” A loaded silence hung on the line. “So what are you doing today?” “Absolutely nothing. I will be horizontal.” Another beat of silence. Then, his voice dropped an octave. “You’re horizontal… by yourself?” I laughed softly. “Who else would be here?” “…Right.” He exhaled, and the sound was unmistakably a sigh of relief. “So, then…” He cleared his throat. “Are you free to go to the movies tomorrow?” “Tomorrow is Monday. I have an academic decathlon at 8:00 AM.” “I’ll wait until you’re done.” “After that, I have corporate management training at the family office.” “…What about tomorrow night?” “I am asleep by exactly 10:00 PM.” I could hear the audible grinding of his teeth through the speaker. “Do you have a single slot in that psychotic schedule of yours for dating?” My smile widened, reaching my eyes. “I do,” I murmured. “Every morning between 5:00 and 8:00 AM, I am available to have breakfast with you.” Brooks weighed this for a long time. “…Fine.” I traced the edge of my phone case, profoundly satisfied. “See you tomorrow morning, boyfriend.”

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