The world ended, but the nightmare came with a twist: I could hear the thoughts of the undead. “Yo, back off! Nobody touches her. She’s the one our boy is obsessed with.” “For real. Remember when we were human? Grayson was the one who kept us safe. He’s got that lightning ability now.” “Listen up, guys. This is our Girl. We’re going to protect her, get her back to the Captain, and let him take over.” Then, a chorus of gravelly, psychic voices chimed in: “Are you high, Jax? No sane person sees a pack of ghouls and thinks, ‘Yeah, I’ll follow them.’ She’s gonna run the second she sees us.” I rolled my window down just a fraction of an inch, my voice trembling. “I—I’ll do it.” 1 I’ve officially lost my mind. When the sky fell and the world went to hell, I didn’t get super-strength or the ability to fly. I got the “privilege” of hearing the internal monologues of the things trying to eat me. I’d been holed up in my cramped studio apartment for thirty days. The silence was deafening, and my pantry was a graveyard of empty granola bar wrappers. Starvation eventually overrode my survival instinct. I crawled into my beat-up little hatchback, desperate for a grocery run, only to be swarmed by a mob of the undead within three blocks. I thought it was over. I watched them climb onto my hood, their gray, decaying palms slamming against the windshield. I was curled in the driver’s seat, shaking so hard my teeth rattled, when the voices started bleeding into my skull. “Wait, wait! Stop hitting the glass! Look at her… doesn’t she look exactly like that girl Grayson Pierce used to keep a photo of?” “Grayson? You mean Captain Pierce? The guy with the lightning hands? Man, he saved all our asses before we turned. You guys didn’t forget that, did you?” “Nobody forgot. He practically ran the city’s defense. And everyone knew the only thing he cared about was finding his ‘Holy Grail’—this girl.” “Talk about a lucky break. We’ve been looking for her for weeks. Brothers, we’re taking the Boss’s Girl home.” I thought I was hallucinating from the sheer terror. I was being hunted by a pack of zombies, and I was dreaming they were my secret service? But then, more voices joined the fray. “Jax, you’re delusional. Look at her face—she’s paler than we are. She’s terrified.” “And even if we want to protect her, our bodies are literally hardwired to bite. How are we supposed to escort her without, you know, devouring her?” “Stop hitting the window! If you break it and someone bites Grayson’s girl, we’re all dead. Again.” “I’m sorry! My hand isn’t listening to my brain! It just wants to smash… I want to bite that neck so bad…” “Bad hand! If you can’t control it, I’ll bite it off for you!” Right before my eyes, three zombies lunged at another one, tearing his arms clean off with a sickening crunch. I nearly fainted. “Oh, great. Now we’ve really scared her. Should we just leave?” “If we leave, she’s literal finger food for the first mindless roamer she passes. We have to stay.” “Stay and do what? Give her a heart attack? We’re monsters, man. No one trusts a monster.” “Think! How do we get her to follow us to the Captain?” “Jax, give it up. Who in their right mind follows a zombie?” The group—about a dozen of them, still wearing tattered, blood-stained high school letterman jackets—started to shuffle away. I didn’t think. I just acted. I slammed my hand onto the horn. The sound echoed through the desolate street. They all froze, turning their rotting heads back toward me. I cracked the window a tiny bit more. “I’ll do it,” I shouted, my heart thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird. “Can you… can you take me to Grayson?” 2 The world went silent. Outside that sliver of a window, the group of letterman-jacket-wearing corpses stopped dead. A dozen heads snapped back toward me simultaneously. Their clouded, milky eyes bored into mine. It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. My foot hovered over the gas pedal, screaming at me to floor it and get as far away as possible. But I forced myself to hold their gaze. This was it. Life or death. I was betting everything on the chance of having a zombie security detail. After a heartbeat of dead air, the mental chatter exploded: “Holy crap! Did she just… did she hear us?” I nodded vigorously, my hair matted with sweat. “Yes. I can hear you.” “Thank the gods! Brothers, get back here! We can actually talk to her!” “I haven’t talked to a living person in weeks. I’m gonna cry. I mean, I can’t actually cry, but I’m feeling it. A month ago, I was the Prom King!” “Girls used to flirt with me. Now they just scream. I can’t even look at myself in the rearview mirror.” “Don’t look at me either. Seriously, don’t describe what I look like. I don’t want to know.” “She’s Grayson’s ‘One,’ alright. Only his girl would have a crazy ability like this. It makes total sense.” “Wait, she’s turning green. I think we’re grossing her out. Everyone, pipe down! Give her some space. Keep it together.” The one called Jax—the leader—was in rough shape. Half the skin on his left cheek was gone, exposing a jagged white jawbone. But his movements were strangely human. He waved his one remaining good arm with a frantic energy. He tried to stretch his torn lips into a friendly smile, but it only made him look more like a sleep-demon. “Jax, stop smiling. It’s horrific.” “You’re gonna make her pass out.” Jax twitched, standing a few feet back, looking genuinely distressed. “Sorry, Boss’s Girl. I’m trying my best. Is it really that bad?” It was a nightmare, but I forced a rigid smile back. “I can handle it.” “Oh my god, she smiled back.” “That’s the first time a human has smiled at me since the world ended.” “Her smile is so pure… I suddenly don’t feel like ripping her head off quite as much.” Jax’s voice cut through the sentimentality: “Focus! Everyone stay back. Remember, we’re still zombies. We can snap at any second. Keep your distance!” The dozen zombies shuffled back instantly, forming a perimeter about fifteen feet away. Jax turned back to the car. “Boss’s Girl, drive slow and follow us. Before the change, Grayson holed up in his estate on the hill. High walls, electrified fences, plenty of food. He should still be there. Just whatever you do… do not get out of the car.” “Okay,” I whispered. Jax barked a mental order: “Listen up! If anyone gets within ten feet of that car, I’ll personally tear your skull open. Got it?” “Got it, Jax.” “For the Captain. Let’s move.” They began to move in a clumsy, coordinated dance, fighting their predatory instincts and keeping each other in check. They formed a loose escort around my little car, clearing the path ahead. I started the engine and put it in gear, moving at a crawl. Tears blurred my vision as I watched the back of those tattered jackets. They were the world’s most dangerous predators, yet here they were—grotesque, decaying, and fiercely loyal—paving a way through hell for me. It was absurd. It was terrifying. And it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. As we drove, I listened to their chatter, realizing with a jolt that the “Captain” they were talking about—Grayson Pierce—wasn’t just some local hero. He was my brother’s oldest rival. Since when was I Grayson Pierce’s “Holy Grail”? 3 Jax filled me in as we navigated the wreckage of the suburbs. “Your brother is with the Captain now. When the virus hit, Grayson went straight to your place to find you, but you were gone. He only found your brother, Brooks.” I responded in my head, realizing I didn’t need to speak out loud anymore. “The day the news broke about the outbreak in the city, my best friend was away for an exam. She asked me to go to her place to feed her cat. By the time I got there, the elevators were full of… them. I got trapped in her apartment and just stayed hidden.” Jax’s mental voice spiked in excitement. “Wait! Boss’s Girl, you can talk back to us without rolling the window down?” I realized it too. I had just thought the words, and they’d heard me. It was like I’d been added to a telepathic group chat of the damned. I concentrated, focusing my mind: “Can you all hear me now?” A chorus of voices flooded my brain: “Loud and clear!” “This is awesome! Wireless communication. This makes the apocalypse way easier.” “Can you hear me, Boss’s Girl? I’m Tyler.” “I’m Big Mike.” “I’m Sarah.” Names and voices swirled in my head. I felt a surge of warmth. “I hear you all. My name is Riley. You can just call me Riley.” Jax cut in: “Nope. You’re the Boss’s Girl. That’s the rule.” “Yeah,” Tyler added. “We’re on a mission to help the Captain win his girl back.” “Grayson is a beast now,” Big Mike chimed in. “Tall, brooding, and he can literally jump-start a car with his bare hands. The whole city’s power grid is fried, but he keeps an electric stove running at the house. His instant ramen game is legendary.” My stomach let out a pathetic growl. “Don’t talk about food. I’m starving.” Jax asked, “Why did you leave the apartment if you were safe?” I rubbed my empty belly. “Hunger. My friend was a bit of a prepper—lots of ramen and dried snacks—but the power went out weeks ago. I’ve been eating dry noodles for a month. I ran out yesterday. It was leave or die.” The zombies let out a collective, psychic moan. “Don’t talk about ramen. Now I want ramen.” “If I could just have one bowl of spicy beef noodles…” I interrupted their daydreaming. “How is my brother? Is Brooks okay?” “Brooks?” Jax chuckled. “He’s fine. Better than fine. He’s a ‘Hydromancer’ now. He can pull water out of thin air. He and Grayson are a total power couple—not like that, you know—but as a team. They’re unstoppable.” The others jumped in: “Exactly. In a world with no power and no water, you’ve got one guy who makes the water and another who boils it. They’re the kings of the apocalypse. You’re never going to go hungry again.” “Imagine it… hot pot. Sliced beef, mushrooms, spicy broth…” I groaned. “Stop! Please. If I don’t die of a zombie bite, I’m going to die of longing for a hot meal.” The thought of my brother—the perpetual slacker—and his high school nemesis, Grayson, working together to cook noodles with their superpowers was a vivid, hilarious image. For the first time in weeks, I felt a spark of real hope. 4 In the “group chat,” I asked Jax nervously, “How much further?” “Almost there. Take a right at the next intersection. Grayson’s place is in that gated community up the hill. It’s a fortress. High walls, electrified wire… wait…” His mental voice trailed off, thick with hesitation. I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white. “What is it?” The chatter among the group turned grim. “Something’s wrong.” “It’s too quiet.” “I smell blood. A lot of it. And… others. Many others.” Jax’s voice was sharp with warning: “Stay sharp, Boss’s Girl. Stay close to us.” The dozen protectors tightened their circle around my car, their movements losing their clumsy edge and becoming predatory once more. As I turned the corner into the wooded drive leading to the estate, the scene was devastating. The manicured lawns were torn up, and several luxury SUVs were flipped over, their windows shattered and frames stained with dark, dried blood. And then, I saw them. Zombies. Dozens of them, shambling aimlessly near the gates. I slammed on the brakes, my heart freezing in my chest. Clearly, a massive battle had just taken place here. Jax spoke up: “Stay in the car, Riley. Don’t move. Brothers, guard the car. I’m going in to see if the Captain is still alive.” I reached for my wrist and pulled off a jade bracelet. I cracked the window just enough to slide it out. “Wait! Take this. It’s a token. My brother gave it to me for my birthday. He’ll recognize it.” Jax reached out with a trembling, gray hand. “Put it on my wrist, Boss’s Girl. You smell… too good. Please, hurry. I don’t know how much longer I can keep my mouth shut.” I snapped the bracelet onto his wrist and rolled the window up in a heartbeat. Jax looked at the jade. “Wait a minute. I know this bracelet. I was with Grayson when he bought this at the mall. It cost him a fortune. He spent hours picking the perfect one.” I blinked, stunned. “What? Brooks gave it to me. He said it was from him.” Jax’s mental voice grew heated. “That little thief. Brooks totally stole the credit.” Thinking of my brother—always the charming rogue, always bickering with Grayson—it made perfect sense. I felt a weird mix of annoyance and a flutter of something else in my chest. Jax shook his head. “I’m going. Stay safe. Pray the Captain is still in there.” I sat in the car, clutching my friend’s cat—who had been hiding under the seat—and waited. Minutes felt like hours. Finally, Jax’s voice flickered back into my mind. “Wait! Don’t shock me! Look at my wrist! Just look at the bracelet! Grayson, I found her! Can you hear me, you idiot?” My heart leaped into my throat. Jax had found him, but Grayson couldn’t hear the thoughts. He just saw a zombie charging at him. Jax was in trouble. 5 “Hold it! Stop!” Inside the villa, Grayson Pierce grabbed Brooks’s arm, forcing the electrified baton down. Brooks, his eyes wide with adrenaline, struggled against him. “What are you doing? That’s Jax—or what’s left of him! Don’t be a martyr, Gray. He’s gone. He’s just a hungry corpse now.” Grayson’s bloodshot eyes were fixed on the zombie’s wrist. “Look at the bracelet, Brooks. Isn’t that the one you ‘bought’ for Riley?” Brooks froze, his face going pale. “That’s hers. Oh god… what did that monster do to my sister? I’ll kill him!” Grayson shoved Brooks back against the wall. “Think for a second! He’s not attacking. He’s pointing at the bracelet. He’s trying to tell us something.” “You’re dreaming,” Brooks hissed. “They’re mindless. He probably killed her and took it as a trophy.” Grayson grabbed Brooks by the collar, his voice a low growl. “Look at him! Has he tried to bite you? He’s fighting it. He’s still in there, Brooks. I know it.” Grayson turned to the zombie that used to be his best friend. His heart was breaking. Twenty-four hours ago, they had been brothers-in-arms. Now, they were hunter and prey. He stepped forward, wary. “Jax? If you can hear me… what are you trying to say?” Jax looked like he was about to burst into tears. “Finally! Yes! Follow me, man! Just follow me! Your Holy Grail is right outside!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402444”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

At my best friend’s wedding, the bride’s bouquet arced through the air, fumbled by a groomsman, and landed squarely in my chest. The entire room’s gaze shifted, as if choreographed, straight to Margot. Eight years we’d been together. The crowd wasn’t going to let an opportunity like this slide. “Put a ring on it! Put a ring on it!” “He’s got the flowers, Margot! You’re up!” Pushed forward by a sea of laughing bridesmaids, Margot finally stumbled to a halt in front of me. I looked at her, the white roses fragrant between us, quietly waiting for her to say, Let’s get married. Instead, her face remained perfectly composed. She reached out, calmly slid the bouquet from my grip, turned, and casually handed it to the groomsman standing beside her. “He touched it first,” she said, looking back at me. Her voice was the same gentle, persuasive velvet she always used. “Be good. We’ll get the next one.” The spotlight swung away, chasing the bouquet. I stood there, looking at the young man’s face lighting up with exaggerated, thrilled surprise. I managed a stiff, self-deprecating smile. Margot didn’t know. There wouldn’t be a next one. My wedding was next week. … 1 Carter’s face darkened the second the music swelled again. I grabbed his wrist just as he was about to march over there. He whipped around, his eyes blazing with protective fury. “That little prick did it on purpose! I cleared it with every single groomsman and bridesmaid. That bouquet was supposed to end up in your hands…” “Carter.” I cut him off, my voice barely above a whisper. “The wedding isn’t over yet.” The room’s attention had already drifted away from Margot and me. It was now firmly planted on the young man holding the flowers: Chase, her executive assistant. He cradled the roses against his chest, shooting Margot a wide, sparkling look of devotion. Margot had already slipped gracefully back to the fringes of the crowd. The MC, a seasoned pro, tossed out a few quick jokes, and the party roared back to life. Carter finally wrenched his gaze away, swearing under his breath as he returned to his bride. For the rest of the reception, I sat at the head table reserved for the wedding party. I drank my champagne, absorbing the suffocating, sympathetic glances darting my way from every corner of the room. Margot sat at a different table, laughing effortlessly with her tech-startup friends. Chase sat right beside her. The physical space between them had long ago crossed the boundary of what was appropriate for an executive assistant. He wasn’t even supposed to be a groomsman. A bridesmaid had been added at the last minute, and Margot had insisted Chase step in to balance the numbers. She brought him everywhere these days. Networking, she called it. Gaining exposure. She even brought him to my best friend’s wedding. When it was time for toasts, Carter brought his new wife over to my table. He pulled me into a crushing hug, his jaw ticking as he leaned into my ear. “That kid has been maneuvering his way into Margot’s life for six months,” Carter hissed, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “I had a buddy run a background check. He’s calculated, Hardy. And Margot, she’s…” “Carter,” I said, patting his back, intercepting the rest of his sentence. “You’re the happiest man in the world today. Let’s not ruin it with this.” He let out a heavy sigh, pulling back, and said no more. Hours later, as the venue emptied out, Margot finally sauntered over. “Ready to head out?” She naturally reached for my coat, her other hand coming up, out of sheer muscle memory, to loop through my arm. I shifted my weight, turning my shoulder just enough to let her hand fall to empty air. “You’ve been drinking. I’ll call an Uber Black.” She didn’t seem to notice the rejection, just nodded lightly. “Good idea.” The sleek SUV glided through the Manhattan night. The tinted window offered a blurry reflection of my face. I looked sharp in the custom tuxedo, but there was no hiding the hollow exhaustion bruising the skin beneath my eyes. “Look,” she said suddenly, breaking the quiet. “Chase really did get a hand on the bouquet first. He’s young. He probably just wanted a bit of the good luck.” She smoothed a wrinkle from her dress. “I was just returning it to its rightful owner. Don’t read too much into it.” I didn’t answer. I just watched the neon city lights bleed backwards into the dark. She waited for a beat, finally tearing her eyes away from the glowing screen of her phone to look at me. “Are you mad?” She leaned closer, her perfume—Santal 33—clouding the air between us. “Didn’t I say we’d definitely get the next one?” 2 Her fingers combed through the hair at the nape of my neck, massaging gently. It was the way you’d soothe a temperamental house cat. “Our wedding is going to blow Carter’s out of the water. You can have as many bouquets as you want, okay?” A bitter, acidic ache bloomed in my chest. It was always like this. She would use that impossibly tender tone to issue an empty, hollow promise about “next time.” And then, in her mind, the storm was weathered. The crisis was averted. “Margot,” I said, looking at her reflection in the glass. “Hmm?” “Carter and I made a pact when we were kids,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Whoever got married first, the other had to tie the knot no more than a week later.” “We promised we’d be each other’s best men. That we’d be the first to witness each other’s happiness.” The backseat went dead silent. The fingers massaging my neck went still. “You’re still holding onto a childhood joke?” She let out a soft, incredulous laugh. Her hand started moving again, though the rhythm was absentminded, patronizing. “You know how fast plans change now. The venue, the schedule, the PR rollout—those take at least a year to prep.” “We’ll sit down and plan it out properly. I’ll give you the most perfect wedding. What’s the rush?” She didn’t explain why she couldn’t publicly commit to marrying me when the crowd chanted. She just leaped straight to the logistics of how to throw a perfect event. I suddenly remembered a month ago, when Carter practically dragged me to his tailor to try on the groomsman suit he’d designed himself. When I stepped out of the dressing room, Carter’s eyes had lit up, then inexplicably glassed over with tears. “Hardy, you look like a goddamn movie star,” he had choked out. “I made this one specifically for you. But when it’s your turn, I’m making you an even better suit. The best one of my career.” Margot had been there. She was sitting on the velvet sofa, head down, answering an email. At Carter’s words, she glanced up for half a second, offered a tight smile, and said, “Looks good.” Then her eyes dropped right back to the screen, her thumbs flying across the glass. In that moment, nestled beneath the overwhelming joy I felt for my best friend… was a profound, suffocating grief for my own eight-year dead-end. The SUV pulled up to our Upper West Side brownstone. Margot unbuckled her seatbelt. Thinking the little spat had been neatly resolved, she leaned across the center console, naturally expecting a kiss goodnight. I raised a hand, pressing my palm gently but firmly against her shoulder. She froze. “I’m tired, Margot.” She looked at me, her eyes narrowing slightly in the dim light. Silence stretched between us. Finally, she just patted my arm. “Being a groomsman takes it out of you. Go up and get some sleep.” “Chase said he can’t find a cab. His neighborhood isn’t safe at night, so I’m going to have the driver drop him off.” “Okay,” I said. My voice was entirely devoid of an emotional pulse. She hesitated. She was waiting for me to play my part. To tell her to be safe. Or to whine, with a hint of jealousy, “Why do you have to go back out this late?” Instead, I opened the door. I stepped onto the curb. The driver slowly pulled away from the curb. The front door clicked shut behind me. I collapsed onto the living room sofa, letting the darkness swallow me. A long time passed before I finally forced myself up and walked toward the bedroom. As I passed the room at the end of the hall, my footsteps halted. Four years ago, when we bought this place, we had designated it the nursery. Now, there was no child. It was just a graveyard for overflow storage and forgotten things. I pushed the door open. I walked over to a dust-covered crib in the corner and pulled out a thick, heavy stack of paper from the bottom drawer. It was all there. Her handwritten love letters from college. Movie stubs. Wristbands from music festivals. Polaroids from our road trips. At the very bottom lay a photo from my college graduation. I was giving her a piggyback ride beneath the blooming dogwood trees in Central Park. She had her arms wrapped tight around my neck. 3 Her long hair was caught in the same breeze that scattered the white petals. On the back, written in her frantic, sprawling script: “You have to carry me forever. Promise me.” The pale light from the streetlamp outside washed over the faded ink, cold and sharp. It felt like a silent, mocking sneer. From the street below, the faint hum of an engine pulling into the driveway broke the silence. I froze, crouching over the crib, just listening. The scrape of a key in the deadbolt. The hushed, careful footsteps on the hardwood. A moment later, the nursery door was nudged open. She stood in the doorway. “You’re still up?” I didn’t turn around. I kept my eyes on the crib. “Yeah.” “Why are you digging all this old stuff out?” she asked, her tone light, breezy. “Feeling nostalgic?” I ignored her question. Instead, I asked quietly, “Did he get home okay?” She paused, a momentary hesitation before explaining, “Yes, he’s home. He lives way out in Queens; it’s a nightmare getting a car out there.” “Oh.” I lowered my head, carefully aligning the edges of the Polaroid, and placed it back in the box. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed,” she said. This time, she stepped into the room and offered her hand, wanting to pull me up. I didn’t take it. I braced my hands on my own knees and pushed myself up, my joints popping. My legs had fallen asleep, and I swayed slightly as I stood. “Margot.” “Hmm?” She stopped at the door. “Let’s break up.” She went perfectly still for two seconds. Then, she let out a breathy, exasperated laugh. She reached up and tugged at her collar. “Are you seriously still hung up on the bouquet thing? Don’t be so petty.” It was the exact tone a mother uses with a toddler throwing a tantrum in a grocery store. “Alright, fine. I’ll order you an even bigger arrangement tomorrow. Are we good? Go take a shower. I have a board meeting at eight A.M.” She turned toward the hallway bathroom. “In a week,” I said to her retreating back. My voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the air. “I’m getting married.” Her hand, which had just grasped the brass doorknob, went rigid. A few seconds ticked by. She slowly turned around. The patronizing warmth had completely vanished from her face. “Hardy, stop this.” She pressed two fingers to her temple. “Marriage is a massive legal and financial commitment. You don’t just ‘do it’ because you’re throwing a fit.” “Is this what Carter was whispering to you about? Just because he rushed into a shotgun wedding, he thinks everyone else needs to be as impulsive?” “Hardy, snap out of it. Don’t let him get in your head. We’ve been together too long for this…” “Margot,” I interrupted. “The invitations go out tomorrow.” A tiny, almost imperceptible muscle twitched in her jaw. “Hardy, do you really think this is working? This doesn’t make me jealous. It just makes you look incredibly immature. Unreasonable, even!” “I am in the middle of closing Series B funding. My career is skyrocketing right now. Pulling a stunt like this only distracts me and ruins the rollout of my entire quarter.” “Are you really that desperate for a wife?” Her words felt like stones thrown at my chest. Years ago, this icy, corporate wrath would have sent me into a panic. I would have backpedaled, apologized, desperate to smooth things over. Now? There was nothing but a sprawling, quiet wasteland inside me. Her attention was a luxury commodity. It was reserved for high-stakes investors. It was reserved for her “indispensable” assistant—the late-night texts asking for advice, the surprise birthday coffees, the accidental extra day added to their “business trip” in Aspen. For the man who had been here for eight years? The budget had run dry. I met her furious gaze and simply nodded. “Yes. My friends are married. I want to be married too.” 4 With that, I walked past her and went into the bedroom. On my nightstand sat a glossy bridal magazine from six months ago. The headline screamed: THE GROOM’S GUIDE: 90 DAYS TO THE PERFECT WEDDING. I had bought it in a surge of giddy excitement, flipped through three pages, and then left it there after she told me, “We’re not in a rush.” I hadn’t opened it since. In the dark, I stared at the shadowy ceiling. My phone buzzed against the mattress. The screen lit up. A text from Carter: [You awake? My chest is tight just thinking about it. Seeing that kid’s smug face pissed me off. What the hell is going on with Margot?] What the hell is going on. Nothing was going on. It was just the simple, brutal truth of the universe: not all seeds you plant in the dirt decide to bloom. Another text bubbled up: [We promised. One week apart. Remember?] [Who knew your girl was made of stone? The flowers were literally in your hands. Eight years, Hardy. Not eight months!] [You know what? Screw it. I give you a pass. You’re allowed to break the pact.] My thumb hovered over the keyboard for a second. I tapped back: [Man, when have I ever broken a promise to you?] Margot moved out the next day, retreating to a corporate apartment downtown she kept for “late nights at the office.” I assumed my sudden, absurd declaration of a wedding had suffocated her, and she needed space to clear her head. Fine. The breathing room was exactly what I needed. I quietly managed the logistics. I contacted a broker and listed the Upper West Side brownstone on the private market. On the afternoon I handed the keys to the realtor, I was doing a final sweep of the living room. Tucked inside a stack of old magazines, I found a manila folder—critical specs for the prototype her company was launching. After a brief internal debate, I ordered a car to bring it down to her. When I stepped off the elevator at her floor, I could hear the muffled sounds of laughter bleeding through her heavy oak door. It sounded like a party. I raised my knuckles to knock. Just then, a familiar, boyish voice floated out, laced with a calculated, theatrical distress: “Margot, I feel awful. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do when she handed me the flowers. Now the whole Slack channel is going crazy. A bunch of the execs are DMing me, asking if we’re…” “You have to post something in the #general channel to clear it up! I’m too embarrassed to even look at anyone in the office tomorrow.” My raised hand froze in mid-air. Before Margot could answer, one of her closest friends, Chloe, cut in with a sharp, teasing cackle: “Oh, please, Chase. Do you actually want her to clear it up, or are you just trying to get her to say something else entirely?” A chorus of knowing, wine-drunk laughter erupted. Chase protested with an exaggerated “Stop it!” but there wasn’t a shred of actual annoyance in his voice. “Alright, leave him alone,” Margot’s voice finally drifted through the wood. It carried that lazy, indulgent warmth she saved for people she favored. “Don’t sweat the gossip, Chase. People have short memories. Give it a week, they’ll forget.” Give it a week, they’ll forget… The phrase forcibly kicked open a locked door in my memory. Two years ago, I had dropped by her office to bring her lunch. Distracted by her phone, she had naturally looped her arm through mine in the lobby. A VP had walked out of the elevator and spotted us. That exact afternoon, Margot had posted a stiff, formal message in the company Slack channel. “Just clarifying some lobby rumors so we can all stay focused on Q3 goals. The gentleman earlier is a family friend dropping off a package. Back to work, everyone.” Back then, I had forced myself to understand. She was a young female founder; she didn’t want the optics of her private life undermining her authority. To avoid causing her trouble, I stopped going to her office. My fingertips went ice cold. It suddenly clicked. The thing she was trying to hide wasn’t an “office romance.” It was me. She was embarrassed to be seen with me. 5 A man who brought absolutely zero strategic value to her empire. Another friend’s voice broke through the chatter, sounding hesitant. “But wait, Margot… what did you end up doing about Hardy? I literally got a wedding invitation in the mail from him this morning. It’s insane!” A beat of silence. Then, Margot let out a short, hollow laugh. There was no warmth in it. “Let him throw his tantrum.” “I’ve spoiled him over the years. I let him get away with a lot of petty stuff. But this time, he needs to learn a lesson. He needs to realize that throwing a nuclear fit isn’t going to get him his way.” “Damn,” someone whistled. “So the bride is officially going on strike?” Margot didn’t answer. Her silence was a confident confirmation. Until another friend chimed in, probing the quiet with cautious curiosity. “Marge… are you really going to push him this far? You guys have been together forever. We’ve been waiting to drink at your wedding for half a decade…” The friend’s voice shifted, slipping into a half-joking, conspiratorial purr. “Since you’re playing hardball… does this mean you’re keeping your options open? Say… for a certain executive assistant?” “Ladies—” Chase dragged out the word, laughing breathlessly. “Please, do not joke about that. Margot… she knows what she wants.” The way he said it—so soft, so intentionally loaded with implication. Margot didn’t correct him. Another wave of low, conspiratorial giggling washed over the room. “If you ask me, Margot’s a saint,” the first friend sneered. “Any other woman would have run out of patience years ago. What does Hardy even bring to the table besides whining? Not like Chase here. Smart, proactive… actually steps up when it counts.” “Stop it, you guys!” Chase said, though he was clearly beaming. The motion-sensor light in the hallway abruptly timed out, plunging me into darkness. I slowly lowered the manila folder to the floor. Using the toe of my shoe, I nudged it perfectly under the crack of her door. Then, I turned around and walked away. (Margot’s POV) I tapped my phone screen again, staring at the frozen text thread. My last message to Hardy, sent five days ago, still sat there: Let me know when you’re done acting like a child. Something felt off. I knew Hardy. I had spent eight years learning his architecture. Even when we fought, his silence always possessed a certain gravity, a subtle gravitational pull designed to make me look his way. But it had been five full days since I moved to the corporate apartment, and he hadn’t so much as posted an Instagram story. “Marge,” my friend Sarah said, shoving her phone into my line of sight. Her voice was tinged with genuine awe. “Holy shit. Hardy’s tux… wow.” I blinked, pulling myself out of my head. It was Carter’s Instagram grid. A carousel of nine photos. Right in the center was a shot of Hardy. He was standing by a floor-to-ceiling window in a luxury tailor’s suite. The afternoon light poured over him, casting a soft, golden halo around his broad shoulders. He was looking down, adjusting the cuffs of a midnight-blue tuxedo, a faint, devastatingly handsome smile playing on his lips. He looked incredible. It was a specific, relaxed kind of magnetism I hadn’t seen radiating from him in years. The comment section beneath the photo was a warzone of fire emojis and congratulations from our mutual friends. “Hardy looks lethal!” “Margot is a lucky, lucky woman.” “Finally! The royal wedding is happening!” Carter had blocked me from viewing his stories years ago, so I couldn’t see it on my own feed. But seeing it here, through a proxy, a strange, electric jolt of anger spiked in my chest. Was he actually serious? 6 And making this much of a public spectacle out of it? “Tch. He’s really committing to the bit,” I scoffed, though my throat felt a little tight. “Let him exhaust himself. I’m not showing up. Let’s see how he plays the groom to an empty aisle.” Sarah offered a strained, nervous smile. “Marge, is it really worth calling his bluff like this?” “You can’t reward this kind of manipulation,” I said, cutting her off, my tone sharpening. “Especially when he has people like Carter whispering in his ear. Once he humbles himself and this blows over…” I paused, my eyes narrowing. “I’ll make sure he understands exactly who he needs to cut out of his life.” Carter had always been a liability. He was a bad influence, constantly feeding Hardy archaic ideas about romance and masculinity. October 28th. The day after Carter posted the tuxedo photos. I woke up earlier than usual. Earlier this year, Hardy’s parents had flown in for dinner. Over wine, his mother had casually mentioned that the Farmer’s Almanac claimed the end of October was the most auspicious date for a union. If we missed it, we’d have to wait until next year. At the time, I just smiled, poured her more Pinot Noir, and deflected. “No rush, right? We have all the time in the world.” I remember thinking it was absurd to plan a multi-million-dollar milestone around an old wives’ tale. I never expected Hardy to actually listen to her. To actually book the goddamn date. My phone started lighting up. Texts and calls pouring in from the girls. “Marge, are you seriously not going? We’ve got the cars waiting. Give the word and we’ll roll up to the hotel.” “Do we need to plan the bridal suite ambush? Should we make the groomsmen sweat before the first look? It’s not too late!” I let out a harsh breath, typing back into the group chat: “Relax. Let him sweat.” I pictured Hardy right now, standing in that midnight-blue tux, staring at his watch, his heart pounding in his throat as he waited for me to arrive. A twisted, satisfying thrill of power swelled in my chest. He needed to feel this panic. He needed to be terrified of losing me, so he’d never try to back me into a corner again. Then, Sarah dropped a screenshot into the chat. It was Carter’s latest story. It was a video of a sprawling, impossibly luxurious hotel bridal suite. Gold-leaf champagne flutes. Silk ribbons. Rose petals scattered over a king-sized bed. The morning light filtering through the sheer curtains made the room look like something out of a cinematic dream sequence. The caption read: [To my brother. You deserve the world.] The group chat exploded. “Holy shit, he actually booked the Plaza.” “This vibe… Marge, if you don’t go, I’m going to physically drag you there!” “Margot! If you have a pulse, get moving! Stop playing chicken!” “Send the address! We’re coming to you right now!” The blue light of the screen reflected in my eyes. I stared at the rose petals on that bed, and suddenly, my chest felt incredibly tight. Every single detail in that room was begging for a bride. I pictured pushing open those heavy mahogany doors. I pictured the roar of our friends. I pictured Hardy turning around, the relief and absolute awe washing over his face when he realized I hadn’t abandoned him. I turned my head and looked at the walk-in closet. Hanging right in the center, wrapped in a protective garment bag, was a custom Vera Wang gown. The veil. The Jimmy Choos. A week ago, I had ordered my assistant to pull every string in Manhattan to get it rushed. I told myself it was just a contingency plan. But looking at the girls panicking in the chat, the tight, iron grip I had on my pride finally slipped. I picked up the phone, infusing my voice with a heavy, put-upon sigh. “Alright, fine. Everyone calm down.” I made it sound like they had simply worn me down. “Give me an hour to get into the dress.” I walked toward the closet, my pulse hammering in my ears, my footsteps faster than I wanted to admit. By the time the makeup artist I called had pinned my veil into place, my phone rang. It was Sarah, who had gone to our brownstone to do the traditional pre-wedding champagne toast. “Marge, why the hell did you guys sell the brownstone? Where are we supposed to meet Hardy?”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402443”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

For seven years, Cameron never bought me a single flower. So, when a sprawling arrangement of a thousand imported red roses and a box containing a set of outrageously expensive, sheer black lingerie arrived on my thirtieth birthday, I was stunned. I snapped a picture, my heart fluttering with a naive, long-forgotten joy, and posted it to my Instagram. Minutes later, a notification popped up. A comment from Mia, his untouchable first love—the golden girl he claimed he’d outgrown. “Some people really just love picking up the trash I throw away.” That was how I found out Cameron had bought her a luxury condo. Right downstairs from the penthouse we shared. Right beneath my feet. The misguided delivery wasn’t an epiphany of his love for me. It was meant for her. I took the roses downstairs myself, pushing open the unlocked door, only to find them mid-laugh over a candlelit dinner. Cameron didn’t even flinch. He just looked at me with that chilling, exasperated glare and started yelling. “Can your mind not immediately jump to the gutter for once? Mia and I are discussing a corporate merger. We’re working.” He scoffed, adjusting his cuffs. “Besides, if there was actually something going on between us, do you really think you’d be the one I’m marrying?” The old me would have cried. I would have demanded answers, begged for reassurance, held onto his arm until my knuckles turned white. But this time, a profound, icy silence settled over my chest. I tossed the bouquet onto the floor, pulled the diamond engagement ring off my finger, and let it drop into the center of the scattered red petals. “I wish you both nothing but the best,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. 1 The diamond ring rolled across the hardwood, stopping directly at Cameron’s polished dress shoe. He let out a sharp, mocking laugh and stepped right onto it. The crunch of his sole against the platinum band echoed in the quiet room—a physical manifestation of how he’d crushed my dignity and my love for the better part of a decade. “If you actually want to marry me, Claire, you need to fix this paranoid, hysterical personality of yours,” he sneered, not breaking eye contact. “Stop getting in the way. We have actual business to handle. Go back upstairs and think about how you’re acting.” Hearing those familiar, weaponized reprimands, my inner world was terrifyingly calm. The storm had passed. I was just standing in the wreckage. I walked out of Mia’s apartment, pulled out my phone, and opened Cameron’s extended family group chat. I typed out a single, definitive text detailing his infidelity, attached a photo I’d just snapped of the romantic setup, and announced that the wedding was off. Cameron—a man who had never replied to my texts in under four hours—responded instantly. He fired off a photo of a laptop screen displaying a spreadsheet. “Handling a crisis with a subordinate. Completely professional,” he wrote. Then, with the practiced ease of a seasoned manipulator, he flipped the narrative. “Claire, throwing a tantrum just because I wouldn’t buy you that twenty-thousand-dollar wedding gown is pathetic. I didn’t say a word when you maxed out my Amex buying drinks for your guy friends at that bar last week.” The silent group chat erupted. My mother was the first to draw blood. She flooded the chat with venom, calling me an ungrateful, worthless leech who didn’t deserve a man of Cameron’s stature. She demanded I apologize immediately. She threatened that if I ruined this “perfect arrangement,” she would take her own life just to make me pay. Seeing the exact reaction I expected, I let out a soft, trembling sigh and permanently left the chat. After my parents’ bitter divorce, my mother had morphed into a ticking time bomb of rage. I grew up suffocating in a house of walking on eggshells. That was why, at twenty-three, Cameron’s polished, mild-mannered facade had felt like salvation. But over the last seven years, the curtain had been pulled back. His endless patience and gentle smiles were exclusively reserved for Mia. His polite, charming banter was for strangers and clients. For me, there was only a bottomless well of cold-shoulder treatment and sharp, biting criticisms. His favorite pastime was provoking me into an emotional reaction in public. He would push and push until I broke down crying, demanding answers. Then, he’d step back, put his hands in his pockets, and play the role of the exhausted, forgiving saint, making everyone around us believe I was simply unhinged. But this time, his math was wrong. Only a woman who still cares has the energy to scream. A dead heart doesn’t ripple, no matter how hard you throw a stone into it. When Cameron finally walked through the front door of our apartment, clutching a half-dead bouquet of the roses from downstairs, I was lying on the velvet sofa, scrolling aimlessly on my phone. “Why isn’t dinner ready?” he demanded, tossing his keys onto the console. “Are you still pouting? Drop it, Claire. You’ve always wanted me to buy you flowers, right? Well, here. Stop sulking.” He tossed the damp, bruised roses onto the coffee table in front of me. Years ago, I used to look at girls on the street carrying wrapped bouquets with pure, unabashed envy. I had asked Cameron for flowers so many times, only to be met with eye rolls. “If I knew you were this superficial, I never would have dated you,” he used to say. “It’s not about the money. But Claire, you sit at home doing laundry and cooking all day. Do you really think a housewife who contributes nothing deserves grand romantic gestures?” He called me lazy. He called me a gold digger. He conveniently forgot that it was his relentless coaxing, his promises of marriage and a family, that had convinced me to quit my high-pressure marketing job in the first place. To him, I was just a glorified maid. He hoarded his pennies when it came to buying me a single stem, but was generous enough to buy Mia a piece of prime real estate and a literal sea of imported blooms. Just minutes before he walked in, I’d seen Mia’s latest Instagram story. They had run a bubble bath downstairs, tossing the rose petals into the water, laughing and splashing champagne. After absolutely destroying the arrangement, Cameron had scavenged the few surviving stems to bring upstairs to me as a peace offering. I looked at the bruised petals. I didn’t even want to touch them. I used the toe of my slipper to push the flowers off the table, watching them hit the floor. I looked up at him, my voice completely hollow. “I don’t like dirty, second-hand garbage.” I paused, holding his gaze. “And I definitely don’t like dirty, second-hand men.” 2 Cameron’s face darkened, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Claire? Don’t forget whose apartment you’re living in. Don’t forget who pays for the roof over your head…” I wanted to scream. I wanted to remind him that for seven years, we split every grocery bill down the middle. Even after I quit my job, I survived off my own dwindled savings. But before the words could leave my throat, the oven timer chimed. A sharp, cheerful ding. I didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. I turned my back to him, slipped on my oven mitts, and pulled out the cake. Cameron watched my rigid posture for a moment. His brow furrowed, and his aggressive stance softened slightly. “Is today… your birthday?” My thirtieth birthday. And our seven-year anniversary. I had been on my feet all day, baking this cake from scratch, meticulously piping the frosting, just wanting to celebrate a quiet milestone with the man I thought I’d spend my life with. A flash of genuine guilt crossed his face. He walked over to the drawer, dug out a box of candles, and began placing them into the vanilla buttercream. “Work has been brutal lately. I’ll make it up to you,” he said, his voice dropping into that smooth, persuasive cadence he used to close deals. “Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll take you to Cartier. We’ll pick out a new ring. A bigger diamond.” He pulled out a barstool and sat across from me, the charming executive once again. “Claire, you have to stop competing with Mia. Yes, we had a fling when we were kids. But it’s been years. I moved on a long time ago.” Did he really? My mind flashed back to our first year together. I had brought him lunch at his frat house, standing just outside the cracked bedroom door, listening to his brothers ask him why he was settling down with me. “Because she’s not Mia,” he had said, his voice terrifyingly casual. “If it’s not Mia, it doesn’t matter who it is.” Back then, I was young and arrogant enough to believe my devotion could rewrite his heart. I thought love was a sheer force of will. Looking back, it was a slow-motion car crash. I had to unbuckle my seatbelt and jump before the whole thing went up in flames. “Don’t bother with the ring,” I said quietly. “Focus on your work. I’ll handle myself.” Cameron froze for a split second. But after years of my capitulation, he simply interpreted my exhaustion as submission. He thought I was swallowing my pride again. A satisfied smile played on his lips as he struck a match and lit the candles. “Make a wish,” he whispered. Every year prior, my wish had been the same: Let Cameron and I be happy. Let us last forever. This time, I closed my eyes and stared into the dark. I want to be happy. And I want to get as far away from Cameron Davis as humanly possible. I opened my eyes, drawing in a breath to blow out the flames. But the stool across from me was empty. The cake I had spent six hours perfecting was shoved halfway off the counter, smushed into the marble. He had left in such a rush he had knocked it over and hadn’t even bothered to close the front door. I numbly grabbed a roll of paper towels, wiping the sticky frosting off the floor. When I finished, I checked my phone. Mia had just posted a new update. “I’m such a klutz! Stubbed my toe on the dresser. Thank god my knight in shining armor is always just a sprint away to rescue me.” In the comments, Cameron—the man who had ignored my calls when I was rear-ended on the freeway last year—had written: “Whatever you need. Just say the word.” I hit the little heart icon, liking the post. A second later, a text from Cameron lit up my screen. 3 “Mia hurt her ankle. I’m driving her to the ER. Go downstairs and clean up her apartment while we’re gone.” A second text immediately followed: “And make some bone broth. Bring it to the hospital when it’s done. Remember, no cilantro.” A quiet, devastating realization washed over me. Cameron didn’t have any food allergies. But for years, anytime I accidentally garnished his dinner with cilantro, he would lose his mind. He would hurl the plate into the sink, screaming that I was an incompetent idiot who couldn’t get a single detail right. It wasn’t that he hated cilantro. Mia did. I debated ignoring the text entirely, but a strange, morbid curiosity pulled me toward the door. I walked down the carpeted stairs to the floor below. The door was ajar. Inside, Cameron was kneeling on the floor, cradling Mia’s foot, murmuring softly to her. The second he heard my footsteps, his tender expression evaporated into a hard scowl. “What took you so long?” he snapped. “If you delay her getting to a doctor—” Mia tugged gently at his blazer sleeve, batting her eyelashes. “Cam, don’t be mad at Claire. It’s okay. I know she’s always hated me.” “Enough, Claire,” Cameron commanded, standing up. “Clean up this mess. I will not marry a woman who spends her days drowning in petty jealousy and can’t even manage basic instructions.” With that, he scooped Mia into his arms and carried her toward the elevators. I watched his broad shoulders disappear down the hall. “I won’t marry a shameless, cheating coward, either,” I whispered to the empty air. Once they were gone, I truly looked at the apartment. The bathroom floor was soaked, towels thrown haphazardly. In the small, gold-rimmed wastebasket, two used condoms sat openly near the top. Bile rose in my throat. It all made sense. The late nights at the “office.” The sudden dedication to early morning gym sessions. He had been coming down here to sleep with her, showering, and then walking upstairs to eat the dinners I kept warm for him. I wandered into the bedroom. It looked like a luxury department store display. Rows of La Mer skincare, limited-edition Chanel bags, rows of designer heels. Just three days ago, I had timidly asked Cameron if he might buy me a specific Dior lipstick for my birthday. He had looked at me with pure disgust. “You’re turning thirty. Aren’t you embarrassed to even celebrate it? You’re not a kid anymore. Stop trying to act young. It’s pathetic. Just stay home and do the dishes. No amount of expensive makeup is going to make you twenty again.” He was right. I wouldn’t be twenty forever. But Cameron would always make sure there was a twenty-something girl in his orbit. His beloved golden girl, Mia, just happened to be his favorite. I took a deep, shaky breath. I pulled out my phone and meticulously photographed every inch of the apartment. The bedroom, the closet, the trash can. Then, I walked back upstairs to our penthouse and pulled my suitcase from the top shelf of the closet. Over our seven years together, Cameron hadn’t completely starved me of gifts. He bought me a set of French copper pots. A high-end robot vacuum. A custom-forged chef’s knife. I left every single piece behind. Halfway through packing, a bitter laugh escaped my lips. Downstairs, Mia’s apartment was overflowing with treasures. But up here, in the home I had bled and sweat to maintain for years, everything that truly belonged to me fit into a single, carry-on suitcase. Once the zipper was closed, I sat on the edge of the bed and dialed Stella, my best friend who had moved to London three years ago. It rang to voicemail three times. On the fourth try, she picked up. I choked back a sob. “Stella… I was wrong.” Silence on the other end. “I shouldn’t have made him my entire world. I shouldn’t have given up my career. I shrank myself to fit into his life, and now there’s nothing left of me.” My chest heaved. “I regret it. I want to come to you.” Stella let out a shaky breath. She told me I was an absolute idiot, told me I deserved the wake-up call, called me a fool—and then hung up on me. I sat in the hollow quiet of the bedroom, a tidal wave of grief crashing over me. I remembered all the late nights she spent begging me to leave him. I remembered the absolute heartbreak in her eyes the day she moved to London, furious that I was throwing my life away for a man who didn’t respect me. As the first tear slipped down my cheek, my phone buzzed. It was an email forward from Stella. An electronic ticket confirmation. First-class to London Heathrow. Three days from now. 12:00 PM. The dam broke. The tears I had been swallowing for seven years finally poured out—for myself, and for the ghost of the woman I had allowed myself to become. 4 Cameron didn’t come home that night. After I ignored his demands to cook for Mia, he simply blocked my number. I didn’t care. I needed to get the last pieces of my life in order. The next morning, I took a train back to my hometown to pack up the few childhood mementos I had left in my mother’s house. I don’t know what Cameron told her, but the second the cab dropped me off, I saw her pacing the front porch. When she realized I was alone, her face twisted into a mask of pure contempt. She didn’t know that Cameron considered himself far too good to ever set foot in our working-class neighborhood. He was deeply ashamed of where I came from. “So, you haven’t fixed things yet?” she demanded, not even offering a hello. “There is nothing to fix. It’s over.” The words were barely out of my mouth before her hand cracked across my cheek. The slap echoed over the hum of the street traffic. The left side of my face instantly went numb, then burned hot. But that wasn’t enough for her. Just like when I was a kid, she lost all control. Right there on the front lawn, in full view of the neighbors, she grabbed the heavy wooden broom resting against the porch railing and swung it at my legs. She hit me with everything she had. “Cameron told me everything!” she screamed, taking another swing. “Do you know how lucky you are? A girl with your background finding a man with his money? You are a pathetic, ungrateful little bitch! Jealous, throwing fits, out drinking with men!” I stood perfectly still, letting the wood hit my shins. “I don’t care what you have to do!” she shrieked. “Get on your hands and knees! Get pregnant! I don’t care! You will marry Cameron Davis, or you will never set foot in this house again!” A sharp gust of wind ripped through the trees, and the sky finally broke. Rain poured down in heavy, freezing sheets. My mother dropped the broom. She stormed inside, slamming the door. Moments later, the door swung open again, and she started hurling my belongings onto the wet grass. Books, clothes, old photographs. “Get the hell out of here! If you’re going to die, die as his wife!” A heavy brass debate trophy—something I’d been so fiercely proud of in high school—flew through the air and struck my forehead. The skin split. Warm blood mixed with the freezing rain, running into my eyes and down my jaw. I didn’t say a word. I knelt in the mud, sorting through the ruined artifacts of my childhood, picking up the few photographs that survived the puddles. A black Bentley glided down the street, its tires hissing against the wet asphalt, and rolled to a stop right beside me. Cameron stepped out. He held a massive black umbrella over his head with one hand, and with the other, he grabbed my upper arm, his grip bruising as he forcefully hauled me up and dragged me toward the leather interior of the car. “Have we learned our lesson, Claire?” he asked softly, slamming the passenger door shut once I was inside. He slid into the driver’s seat. “No one else in this world is ever going to love you. Just be good. Come home with me. You’ll apologize to Mia, and you’ll go back to being the future Mrs. Davis.” He tossed his suit jacket over my shivering shoulders. The heavy, suffocating scent of Mia’s Chanel No. 5 hit me like a physical blow. I turned my head away, staring out the rain-streaked window. My chest felt hollow. For years, I had viewed Cameron as my sanctuary. I had poured my deepest insecurities into his hands, trusting him with the trauma of my childhood. But he hadn’t protected me. He had weaponized my pain, using my fear of abandonment as a leash to keep me compliant. He was never my safe harbor. He was the storm I had been convinced was sheltering me. Only by cutting him out—by cutting out this toxic family—could I ever breathe. As I sat there bleeding onto his pristine leather seats, his phone rang through the car’s Bluetooth. “Cam! Where are you?” Mia’s voice whined through the speakers. “Everyone’s waiting for you at the corporate retreat! The whole executive team is making fun of me, saying you left the future boss’s wife to hold court while the boss skips out. I can’t handle them alone!” Cameron shot a nervous glance at my bloody face and soaked clothes. He instinctively reached for the console to end the call, wanting to hide me away, but then hesitated. A cruel idea clearly formed in his head. “Actually, Claire,” he said smoothly, putting the car in gear. “You’re coming to the company retreat.” For seven years, I was forbidden from stepping foot into his corporate world. When I brought him hot meals at the office, I was made to stand in the lobby, handing Tupperware to his assistant so his colleagues wouldn’t see the “housewife.” This invitation wasn’t an olive branch. It was an execution. I pulled a tissue from the glovebox, pressing it to the bleeding cut on my forehead. “Okay,” I said quietly. 5 I walked into the opulent hotel banquet hall looking like a feral animal. My clothes were plastered to my skin with mud and rainwater, my hair matted to my face, dried blood flaking on my temple. The moment we stepped inside, Cameron sped up, putting ten feet of distance between us, terrified the executives might realize we arrived together. Mia, dressed in a stunning silk slip dress, spotted me. Her lip jutted out in a manufactured pout. I watched Cameron lean in close to her, his hand resting on the small of her back. I couldn’t hear him clearly, but the shape of his words carried over the jazz music. “I’m not feeling sorry for her. I brought her here to humiliate her. I want everyone to see that without me, she’s practically a stray dog.” The room was filled with murmurs, sideways glances, and muffled laughter. But sitting under the weight of their judgment, my heart didn’t even skip a beat. Maybe you can only get your heart broken so many times before the nerves just die. I calmly flagged down a waiter, asked for a dry towel, and wrapped it around my shoulders. I sat on a velvet sofa in the corner, watching the room like a spectator at a zoo. My phone buzzed. It was Stella. She was rattling off a list of marketing agencies in London that had seen my old portfolio and were eager to set up Zoom interviews. Before I could respond, a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder. I turned around. Cameron was staring at me, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who are you talking to? What interviews? Where do you think you’re going?” I didn’t miss a beat. “Telemarketers.” The tension drained from his face, replaced by a smug, pitying smirk. “Of course. Your parents don’t even want you. Where else could you possibly go?” He checked his Rolex. “The rain stopped. You’ve put on enough of a show. Go home. And make sure you dry-clean my jacket.” I didn’t say a word. I just shrugged his blazer off my shoulders and let it drop onto the cushion. I stood up and walked toward the terrace exit. Mia tilted her head, watching me go, then grabbed Cameron’s arm, insisting they “escort” me out to the valet. As I stepped off the paved walkway near the gardens, Mia suddenly lunged forward. Her heel hooked around my ankle. I pitched forward, throwing my hands out, and fell hard into the manicured, massive rose bushes lining the driveway. “Claire!” Cameron shouted, instinctively reaching for me. But Mia let out a dramatic, high-pitched gasp, stumbling backward. Cameron froze, instantly pivoting to catch her by the waist, shielding her from the non-existent danger. I crashed into the thick, thorny branches. Sharp, inch-long thorns tore through my clothes, slicing into my arms, my palms, my ribs. I hit the muddy soil beneath the bushes, completely covered in filth and bleeding from a dozen new cuts. I pushed myself up onto my knees, gasping through the stinging pain. I looked up. Cameron was bent over, delicately using a linen handkerchief to wipe a single drop of mud off Mia’s designer heel. He finally looked at me. A flash of genuine panic, maybe even shame, crossed his face as he saw the blood soaking through my torn shirt. “Claire, are you okay? Let me… let me drive you to the ER.” “Cam,” Mia whimpered, her eyes welling with crocodile tears. “You promised you’d stay with me tonight. It’s the anniversary of the first time we held hands. Are you really going to abandon me?” Cameron’s gaze darted frantically between my bleeding hands and Mia’s pout. He hesitated. “I’ll take a cab to the hospital,” I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “It’s your company retreat. You shouldn’t leave early.” A visible wave of relief washed over his features. He let out a breath. “Okay. Just… be careful. I’ll pick up some of those raspberry macarons you like on my way home tomorrow.” Raspberry macarons. Mia’s favorite. But I didn’t correct him. There was no point in arguing with a ghost. I had always been the sacrificial lamb, the collateral damage in his life. Rather than waiting around for a love that would never come, it was time to quietly close the door. 6 The ER doctor used metal tweezers to painstakingly extract the broken thorns from my skin. With every prick, every pull, it felt like I was physically extracting the seven years of toxic love out of my bloodstream. The next morning, as I packed the final items into my carry-on, Cameron did something he hadn’t done in years. He initiated a FaceTime audio call. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?” he demanded. “Didn’t you block me?” A beat of silence. Then, his voice softened into a practiced, soothing rhythm. “I’m half an hour away. I got the macarons. And croissants. Oh, and I bought you a new ring. Platinum, just like you wanted. I know I was a little harsh these last two days. It won’t happen again.” I looked up at the clock on the wall. “We don’t have an ‘again’,” I said plainly. But he had already hung up. Three hours until my noon flight. I walked over to his sleek, silver laptop sitting on the desk. I tried three different passwords. On the fourth try—Mia’s birthday—the screen unlocked. I sat back in the chair and waited. Thirty minutes passed. An hour passed. I opened Instagram. Mia had just posted a new photo. She was sitting in the passenger seat of Cameron’s Bentley, their hands intertwined over the center console. On her finger, sparkling under the dashboard lights, was the brand-new platinum engagement ring. I let out a soft laugh. I turned back to his laptop. I opened his email client, selected the “Company Wide” distribution list, and attached the photo of Mia’s apartment, the used condoms, the receipts for her condo, and a meticulously detailed timeline of our seven-year relationship. I hit send. Then, I picked up a brass paperweight from his desk and drove it straight through the center of his laptop screen. I grabbed my suitcase, walked out of the apartment, and took a cab to the airport. Right as I handed the TSA agent my boarding pass, my phone began to vibrate violently. A tidal wave of missed calls, frantic texts, and voicemails from Cameron flooded my screen.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402442”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was at the TSA checkpoint, the smell of recycled air and stale coffee heavy in my lungs, when the officer asked the standard question: “Any prohibited items in your luggage?” I was about to shake my head, my mind already halfway to the O.R. in Nashville, but my assistant, Tiffany, beat me to it. She raised her hand with a look of wide-eyed, terrifying innocence. “Do surgical knives count? Because she has dozens of them in that suitcase!” The world stopped. The rhythmic shuffling of the line went dead silent. The officer’s hand flew to his radio, and within seconds, a perimeter of blue uniforms and tactical gear closed in around us like a steel trap. Sweat pricked at my hairline. “I’m a surgeon!” I shouted, my voice tight with panic. “I’m heading to a neighboring state for an emergency pediatric procedure. Those are medical instruments. I have the permits, the hospital credentials, everything is in the bag!” “Open the case,” the officer said, his face a mask of granite. The lid flipped back, revealing rows of scalpels, hemostats, and surgical saws nestled among my scrubs. I pointed at them, my hands trembling. “Check the paperwork. Where’s the file, Tiffany? Give them the patient’s chart.” Tiffany Banks stood there, her head bowed, her voice a pathetic whisper. “I… I have it.” “And what’s this?” the officer asked, pointing to a dark silhouette on the X-ray monitor. Before I could even look, Tiffany let out a high-pitched, theatrical gasp. “Dr. Beckett! I told you that you couldn’t bring gasoline on a plane! Why didn’t you listen? Were you actually planning to blow us all up?” The air in the terminal curdled. The officer’s suspicion instantly sharpened into cold, hard aggression. “Step away from the bags. Both of you, coming with us. Now.” My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. The patient was already under anesthesia. The surgical team was scrubbed in. And I—the lead surgeon—was being treated like a domestic terrorist because my assistant couldn’t keep her mouth shut. I looked at the clock above the gate. Eighteen minutes until the doors closed. 1 “Officer, please, this is a catastrophic misunderstanding!” My voice cracked, my knuckles white as I gripped the handle of my luggage. “I’m Dr. Joanna Beckett, Chief of Surgery at Metro General. There is a seven-year-old boy with a thoracic hemorrhage waiting for me. I am the only one qualified to repair the vessel!” “I don’t have gasoline! She’s lying, or she’s confused, or—” The security team didn’t care. Two officers grabbed my arms, the pressure of their grip bruising. “Regardless of whether it’s a joke or a threat, any mention of explosives or incendiary devices triggers a full federal sweep,” the lead supervisor said, his eyes cold as he snatched my boarding pass. “Take them to the holding room.” They marched me down a sterile, white corridor, my heels clicking a frantic rhythm against the linoleum. I looked back to see Tiffany sauntering along behind us, looking more bored than bothered. Rage, hot and blinding, surged through me. “Tiffany! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” I screamed. “That child is bleeding out! Every minute we waste is a minute he doesn’t have!” Tiffany rolled her eyes, inspecting her fresh French manicure. “God, Dr. Beckett, don’t be so dramatic. I was just trying to lighten the mood. It’s not my fault these TSA people have zero sense of humor.” She looked at the supervisor and sighed. “Seriously, are you guys really that gullible? You actually believed the gasoline thing? You really need to get out more.” The supervisor’s face turned a dangerous shade of purple. “Humor?” he spat. “Ma’am, making a false claim about explosives in an airport is a federal offense. It’s a felony.” Tiffany let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Oh, please. My uncle is Robert Banks, the head of the State Health Department. You’re not charging me with anything. Now, let us go, or I’ll have your badges for ‘excessive force’ or whatever.” Her arrogance was the final nail in the coffin. The heavy steel door of the interrogation room slammed shut, locking us in. I looked at the digital clock on the wall. Ten minutes until takeoff. If I didn’t get through those doors, it was over. 2 I didn’t think; I just acted. I dropped to my knees, my voice echoing off the cold walls. “Please. The liquid in the bag is just medical-grade alcohol. Take it. Fine me. Throw me in jail tomorrow. I don’t care! Just let me get on that flight. I am a doctor. There is a life on the line eight hundred miles away. Please!” One of the younger officers looked at me, his expression wavering. He reached for his radio. “Dispatch, verify the suspect’s identity. If this is a medical emergency, we might need—” Tiffany, sitting in a metal chair with her legs crossed, cut him off with a cruel laugh. “Oh, honey, don’t believe a word she says. She’s not going to save a kid. She’s a flight risk.” The officer froze, his eyes narrowing. “A flight risk? Explain.” Tiffany smirked, her eyes gleaming with a malice I hadn’t fully realized she possessed until this moment. “Our ‘esteemed’ Dr. Beckett here lost a patient on the table yesterday. The family is out for blood. The hospital board issued a suspension notice this morning and revoked her license pending a malpractice suit. She’s trying to skip town before the process servers hit her.” She put a hand over her mouth in a mock gesture of shock. “Oh, Jo… I really didn’t want to out you. We were colleagues, after all. But I can’t let you use these nice officers to help you run away from your crimes.” The supervisor’s face went dark. “Is this true?” It was a lie. A monstrous, career-ending lie. I stared at Tiffany, my body shaking with a fury so intense it felt like a physical weight. “Tiffany, I’ve done everything for you. I put your name on papers you didn’t write. I covered for your mistakes. I blocked your HR complaints. Why are you doing this?” The smile vanished from Tiffany’s face. She leaned in, her voice a venomous hiss that only I could hear. “Done everything for me? You’ve treated me like a servant, Joanna.” “Last week, that billionaire’s son in the VIP wing asked for my number, and you confiscated my phone right in front of the head nurse. Then you had the nerve to call me out in the morning briefing about my ‘inappropriate attire’? You humiliated me. You made me look like a joke in front of the interns.” The resentment in her eyes was a living thing. “You think you’re so special because you’re the ‘Chief’? Well, guess what? You’re not going anywhere today. I’m going to make sure of it.” It was so petty. So incredibly, horrifyingly small. Because I had stopped her from hitting on a patient’s family member in a sterile ward—because I had insisted on basic professional standards—she was willing to let a seven-year-old boy die. I started to scream a rebuttal, but the supervisor shut us both down. “Enough! Medical malpractice and fleeing the jurisdiction? This just became a police matter. Seize the bags. Detain them both until the local precinct and the Health Department send representatives.” Two female officers stepped forward, forcing my arms behind my back. The clock ticked. Six minutes. The gate was closing. I felt a sob break out of my chest. If that gate closed, even if I proved my innocence ten minutes later, there were no more flights. That child wouldn’t survive the night. “I’m not lying! I didn’t kill anyone!” I struggled against their grip. “I have proof! Let me show you my phone! Please, just look at my phone!” The supervisor groaned, losing patience. “Knock it off! You can talk to the detectives at the precinct.” “It’s a life!” I was hysterical now, tears and mascara blurring my vision. “Please! Just one look! If I’m lying, you can shoot me yourself!” 3 Maybe it was the sheer, raw desperation in my eyes. The younger officer who had tried to help earlier put a hand on the supervisor’s arm. “Sir, let her show us. Just in case… what if she’s telling the truth?” The supervisor hesitated, then let out a sharp breath. “Watch her. Don’t let her delete anything.” My hands were shaking so hard I could barely type my passcode. The second the screen flickered to life, it was flooded with a barrage of red notifications. Missed calls. Dozens of them. All from Dr. Kaufman, the Chief of Surgery in Nashville. I opened the messages and thrust the phone toward the officers. “Look! Look at this! This is Dr. Kaufman. This is the boy’s chart. This is a live feed from the O.R. monitor!” I scrolled frantically, my voice breaking. The supervisor took the phone, his brow furrowed. He tapped on the latest voice memo. A frantic, aged voice filled the small room. “Joanna! For God’s sake, where are you? The kid’s heart rate is dropping to forty! We can’t get a blood pressure reading! There’s too much fluid compressing the heart. We have to crack his chest, but nobody here has the hands for this! The vessels are too fragile—one slip and he’ll spray the ceiling. The whole team is standing here, Joanna. We’re waiting for you! Please, I’m begging you, hurry!” In the background, you could hear the shrill, rhythmic beep of a flatlining monitor and a nurse screaming, “Epi is in! Still no response!” The audio ended. The room fell into a deafening silence. But this time, the silence was different. It wasn’t suspicion; it was horror. The supervisor looked at the clock. Four minutes. I stared into his eyes, my own leaking tears. “That wasn’t a recording from yesterday. That was sent twenty minutes ago. Please… let me go.” The supervisor’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. The wall of authority he had built around himself was crumbling. But then, Tiffany’s sharp, shrill voice sliced through the air. “Oh, please!” She was laughing, a melodic, tinkling sound that made my skin crawl. “She’s really committed to the bit, isn’t she? Where’d you hire the actors, Jo? ‘Dr. Kaufman’? That old man’s voice was a little too cliché, don’t you think? And the background noise? Nice touch. Must have cost a fortune on Fiverr.” She walked up to the supervisor, pointing at my phone with total disdain. “Officers, come on. Scams are so high-tech these days. You can buy AI voice generators for a hundred bucks online. She probably had this all queued up the second she realized she was caught.” She looked at me, her eyes dancing with triumph. “If it were really that urgent, the hospital would have sent a private jet or a LifeFlight, wouldn’t they? Why take a commercial flight? It doesn’t make sense. She’s playing you.” Tiffany turned back to the supervisor. “Joanna Miller—sorry, Dr. Miller—is so desperate to dodge a malpractice suit that she’d fake a dying child. It’s pathetic. It’s a total lack of medical ethics. She’s a disgrace to the profession.” The supervisor’s hand, which had been reaching for my boarding pass, wavered. The doubt crept back into his eyes. He was tired. He was confused. He made a call. “Keep them here. Resume the interrogation. And someone get me a direct line to Metro General’s board. I want the truth.” 4 I stared at Tiffany, at that perfectly made-up face. She was a “legacy hire”—the niece of Robert Banks, forced onto my surgical team by the hospital administration. I had tolerated her laziness. I had tolerated her checking her Instagram during rounds. I had even covered for her when she handed me the wrong forceps or screwed up a patient’s history. But I hadn’t realized that a human being could be this hollow. “The hospital tried to send a LifeFlight, Tiffany,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “But you told the Director I preferred the commercial flight because of the ‘equipment weight limits.’ You set this up. You steered me toward this gate.” “Tiffany… that is a child’s life. You went to med school. Where is your soul?” Tiffany let out a bored sigh and pulled out a compact to touch up her powder. “Don’t try the ‘moral high ground’ crap with me, Jo. My uncle said I’m just here to pad my resume until I can transition into hospital administration. I’m going to be a VP in two years.” “Why would I kill myself working eighty-hour weeks like you? And look at you now. You missed your flight. It’s over. I think I’ll head home and make my dinner date after all.” “A dinner date? This was all for a date?” My teeth were chattering. Tiffany nodded, checking her eyeliner in the mirror. “Well, yeah. A girl’s gotta have a life. Some random kid I don’t know versus my Friday night? I know which one is more important.” She actually winked at me. “Honestly, Jo, you should thank me. That surgery only had a twenty percent success rate. When the kid died on your table, you would’ve had to write so many reports. I saved you the paperwork.” I was about to lung at her when the door burst open. A man in a suit—a detective from the Metro PD—walked in. He looked at me, his expression unreadable. “Dr. Beckett? We just finished the identity verification. You’re a federally Tier-1 Board Certified Surgeon. Your medical kit was pre-cleared by the FAA.” Hope flared in my chest. “Can I go? Is there still time?” The detective looked at the clock. His eyes were filled with pity. “Dr. Beckett… the tower just confirmed. Flight 1422 to Nashville… it pushed back three minutes ago. It’s in the air.” My legs gave out. I collapsed into the plastic chair, the world spinning. Tiffany picked up her bag, dusting off an invisible speck of lint. “Well, there it is. Guess we can all go home now. Come on, Jo, I’ll buy you a drink. You look like you need it.” I didn’t answer. At that moment, my phone began to vibrate. It was a FaceTime request from the ICU in Nashville. My hand shook as I hit ‘Accept.’ The screen showed Dr. Kaufman. He was covered in blood. His surgical cap was crooked, his eyes red and raw with grief. “Joanna… Joanna, where are you?” I tried to speak. I tried to apologize. I wanted to tell him about the TSA, about the gasoline, about the lie. But the words were stuck in my throat. The camera panned over to the table. I saw the small, limp form under the blue drapes. I saw the flat line on the monitor. Kaufman’s voice broke into a sob-filled roar. “You said you’d be here! You promised! Because you weren’t here, he’s gone, Joanna! He’s gone!” The room went cold. Tiffany leaned over my shoulder, looking at the screen. “Ugh, so noisy. It’s just one kid. People die on tables every day, get over it.” Dr. Kaufman’s head snapped up. He stared at Tiffany through the screen, his face contorting with a rage so cold it felt like death itself. “Who is that? Who just said that?” Tiffany scoffed. “Who cares? I’m Tiffany Banks. And I’m telling you to stop being so dramatic.” Kaufman let out a hollow, terrifying laugh. “Banks? You’re Robert Banks’ niece? You think you’re safe because of your uncle?” “That boy… that boy was the only grandson of General Arthur Harrison.” “Every person who had a hand in stopping Dr. Beckett today… God help you. Because the General won’t.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402441”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The mission was over. Nathaniel’s memory had been scrubbed clean. Every laugh we’d shared, every secret whispered in the dead of night, every “I love you”—erased. In their place was a scripted attraction to the story’s “true” heroine, the bubbly and sweet Maisie. As for me? I was forced into the role of the Bitter Ex, the socialite villainess destined to claw at their happiness until I met my pathetic end. Nathaniel looked at me now with nothing but cold, sharp-edged loathing. Until tonight. The class reunion. I was playing my part to perfection. I’d snatched Maisie’s seat at the head of the table, flirted shamelessly with the wrong men, and “accidentally” tipped a glass of Merlot so that it bloomed like a bloodstain across her white dress. I was being a nightmare. Nathaniel finally snapped. He pulled Maisie behind him, his fingers clamping down on my wrist like a vice. “Madeline, I’m warning you. Don’t you dare—” My skin stung under his grip. I let out a sharp, involuntary hiss of pain. The effect was instantaneous. His hand flew open as if he’d been burned. Before I could even recoil, he’d pulled me into his arms, his voice dropping into a low, frantic murmur. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. I messed up.” The movement was fluid, instinctive. It was muscle memory—a reflex honed by a thousand nights of him holding me after an argument. 1 He didn’t stop there. He pulled my reddened wrist to his lips, blowing soft, warm breaths over the skin, his touch so tender it was as if he were handling a piece of priceless, fragile porcelain. The entire room went silent. You could hear the ice melting in the cocktail shakers. No one—not the old classmates, not the wide-eyed Maisie—could process what they were seeing. In my head, the System let out a sound like a hard drive crashing. [Wait—what the hell? I turned the villain into a cold-blooded shark, not a golden retriever!] [How many times did he apologize to you in the old timeline? The muscle memory is overriding the rewrite!] It took a few seconds for Nathaniel to actually look at me—to see the “villainess” he was supposed to hate. The recognition hit him like a physical blow. He shoved my hand away, his face turning a humiliated shade of crimson. He cleared his throat, trying to summon the frost back into his eyes. “Madeline, I’m warning you. If you lay another finger on Maisie, you’ll regret it.” He was still stronger than he realized. The force of him shoving me away sent a fresh jolt of pain through my arm. I couldn’t help it; I gasped again. Nathaniel’s breath hitched. He jerked his gaze away, his jaw tight enough to crack. “Stop it. The damsel-in-distress act doesn’t work on me anymore.” But I saw his hands. Down by his sides, they were clenched into white-knuckled fists, trembling with the effort of not reaching for me again. Watching him stand there, acting as Maisie’s shield, felt like a slow-acting poison in my chest. “Got it,” I whispered. I spent the rest of the night quiet. Submissive. I sat in the corner and drank, one glass after another, watching the bottom of the bottle as if it held the answers to why my heart was still breaking. Nathaniel never took his eyes off me. He was waiting for me to pounce on Maisie again, but all he saw was a girl drowning herself in expensive gin, looking smaller than she ever had. It was making him restless. Agitated. By the end of the night, even he realized he’d spent ten times more energy tracking my movements than he had looking at the girl he was supposed to love. When the party broke up, the sidewalk was a blur of goodbyes. Only four of us remained: me, Nathaniel, Maisie, and Sebastian. Nathaniel, the only one sober, pulled his Bentley to the curb. He leaned over and pushed the passenger door open, his eyes bright as he looked at Maisie. “Get in. I’ll take you home.” The System started screaming in my brain. [This is it! Villainess move! Obstruct the leads! Break up their moment! Do something!] The adrenaline hit me, clearing the alcohol fog just enough. I didn’t think. I just dove into the passenger seat before Maisie could even reach for the handle. Nathaniel’s face darkened instantly. “Get out, Madeline.” I remembered the System’s orders. I hugged the seatbelt to my chest, shaking my head stubbornly. But the gin won the battle. My head lolled back against the leather, and I blacked out right there in the car. He looked like he wanted to scream. Maisie, ever the martyr, helped a drunken Sebastian into the back seat and smiled weakly. “It’s okay, Nate. She’s had too much to drink. It’s not safe for her to find her own way. Just drop her off. I’ll give you the directions.” Nathaniel gritted his teeth and nodded. But the moment he shifted into drive, the car’s AI voice chimed through the speakers: [Route to ‘Home’ calculated. Estimated arrival: 30 minutes.] The destination on the screen wasn’t his house. It was mine. 2 I was a “Transmigrator.” My target had always been Nathaniel Beaumont. We were childhood sweethearts—or we were supposed to be. He was the golden boy, the class president, the quiet genius with the steady hands and the heavy burden of his family’s legacy. To win him over, I followed him through every school, every grade. I was the girl behind him at the bus stop, the girl bringing him snacks while he studied, the girl cheering the loudest at his games. Eventually, I saw the cracks in his armor. His ears would turn red when I complimented him. He’d spend longer explaining a math problem just to keep me near. But the “Affection Meter” wouldn’t budge. Once, during a quiet study break, I looked at his perfect profile and lost my mind. I leaned in and kissed him. His breath hitched, his skin flushed, and then he pushed me away. His voice was a strained, desperate rasp: “Madeline, don’t. We can’t.” After that, he avoided me. He talked to other girls, tried to keep his distance. But I caught him watching me when he thought I wasn’t looking—those dark, intense eyes following me like a hawk. On our eighteenth birthday, the mission was failing. The Affection Meter was bottoming out. In a fit of drunken desperation, I lured him to a bedroom and pinned him to the mattress. I climbed on top of him, fumbling with his shirt, my voice trembling but fierce. “If you like this, you better start talking. If you don’t, then just shut up and let me do this.” The boy who was always so composed looked up at me, his voice a gravelly ghost of itself. “Are you serious?” “Dead serious.” Suddenly, the System—which had been silent for months—exploded in my head. [What are you doing?! Why have you tied up the Dark Obsessive Villain? Why are you on top of him?!!!] [The Male Lead’s favorability is in the negatives, but the Villain’s favorability is breaking the scale!] [You idiot! What are you doing to the plot?!] My hands froze. Nathaniel wasn’t the “Golden Boy” Male Lead. He was the “Dark, Sickly Obsessive” Villain. I panicked. I gave him a weak, terrifyingly awkward smile. “Uh… just a prank? Total joke. My bad.” I tried to scramble off him, but a hand shot out and gripped my wrist. Nathaniel’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared at me. “Too late.” “Tonight, either I run out of strength, or you…” 3 The System gave up after that. It rewrote the entire narrative on the fly, making Nathaniel my official target. And once the mission was “won,” I became a brat. I cried when he worked too late. I sent him a hundred texts an hour. I threw tantrums when I was bored. And he? He adored it. He spoiled me, catered to my every whim, and humored my every mood. I’d turned a world-ending villain into a devoted lapdog. I thought we were set for life. Until the System came back. It sighed, sounding genuinely regretful. [Host, the readers aren’t happy. They want the ‘Original Flavor’ Nathaniel. They want the tragedy. They want him to be the villain who loses the girl, goes dark, and burns the world down.] I went cold. “So?” [So, we have to wipe his memory. Send him back to the start.] “What about me?” [Normally, you’d be sent back to your world. Mission over.] The thought of leaving him—of watching him love another woman from a different universe—made me feel like I was suffocating. “I won’t go.” [If you stay without the wipe, the script will force him to fall for Maisie anyway. You’ll just have to watch him stop loving you.] I couldn’t endure that. [But,] the System whispered, [if you agree to the wipe, I can keep you here as the Villainess. You’ll play the foil. Once the plot is finished, I can restore his memories and you can have him back for good.] I took the deal. I watched from the sidelines as Maisie became “The One.” I watched her become his light, his obsession. The way he used to look at me—that dark, possessive intensity—was now directed entirely at her. And because I was the “Villainess,” I had to hurt her. I had to belittle her. Nathaniel grew to loathe me. He became the shield between Maisie and my “cruelty,” spitting venomous words at me every chance he got. Just like tonight. 4 I was sleeping deeply when the System started screaming again. I jolted awake, disoriented. I saw Nathaniel’s silhouette in the driver’s seat and, out of pure habit, I rubbed my eyes and murmured, “Are we home yet, baby?” I reached out to grab his hand. The silence in the car was deafening. Maisie’s eyes were wide, her voice trembling with suspicion. “Wait… are you two… together?” “What?” “No!” Nathaniel and I spoke at the exact same time. He wrenched his hand away from mine, his eyes flashing with genuine rage. He let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Madeline, is this your new game? Re-programming my car and calling me… that?” “Is this fun for you?” “Let me make this clear. I will never marry you. Not in this lifetime, not in any other.” My heart did a slow, agonizing roll in my chest. I was the Villainess. I was supposed to be jealous of Maisie. I was supposed to try and steal her life. Our families had an old “arranged marriage” agreement from when we were kids—a relic of a time when my family had money. My father had recently brought it up, and Nathaniel’s father, a man of his word, had agreed. Even knowing Nathaniel’s memory was gone, even knowing this was all part of the “script,” seeing the sheer disgust in his eyes made me flinch. “I… I didn’t mean to,” I whispered. He didn’t want an explanation. He slammed the car into park at the side of a deserted road. “Get out. Don’t make me say it twice.” We were miles from my house. The streetlights were flickering, and the neighborhood looked unfamiliar and cold. This was the “Villain” Nathaniel. The man the script described as ‘cold, calculating, and ruthless, a man who reserves his warmth for only one woman.’ I wasn’t that woman anymore. I was just a ghost in his machine. “Get out,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a dangerous level. “Before I physically remove you.” Maisie tried to play the peacemaker from the back seat, though her voice lacked conviction. “Nate, maybe she didn’t mean it. It was probably just an accident. Like when she ‘accidentally’ took my seat, and ‘accidentally’ spilled wine on me, and ‘accidentally’ jumped into your car…” With every word she spoke, Nathaniel’s expression grew icier. “Out,” he snapped. I didn’t argue. I knew that look. I opened the door and stepped onto the damp pavement. I watched the taillights of the Bentley disappear into the dark, moving like an arrow shot from a bow. 5 After dropping Sebastian off, Nathaniel drove Maisie home. He should have been happy. He was alone with the girl he was supposed to desire. But a strange, buzzing irritation was crawling under his skin. When they pulled up to her place, Maisie tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, blushing. “Thank you for tonight, Nate. For everything.” He gave a curt nod. She reached out, intending to give his shoulder a friendly pat, but his body reacted before his brain did. He flinched back, dodging her touch entirely. Maisie froze. Nathaniel froze. “Sorry,” he muttered, his brow furrowed. “I’m just… I don’t like being touched. You should go inside.” Maisie nodded, her smile tightening. “I understand.” But as soon as she turned her back, her face fell into a mask of cold resentment. Once she was gone, Nathaniel leaned against his car and lit a cigarette. The smoke swirled in the night air. He knew himself. He’d always hated being touched. It was a core part of his personality. Even with Maisie, he felt a strange, instinctive need to keep a perimeter. But tonight… when he’d grabbed Madeline’s wrist… when he’d pulled her into his lap… There had been no disgust. Only a terrifying, electric sense of rightness. His body hadn’t just tolerated her; it had craved the contact. And now that he’d dumped her on the side of the road, his chest felt tight. Like he’d forgotten something vital. He finished his cigarette, crushed it under his heel, and got back in the car. That’s when he saw it. Sitting in the passenger seat was a phone. It had a sparkly pink case with a cartoon cat on it. It was hers. He told himself it was a good reason to go back. A logical reason. He didn’t want her trash in his car. It wasn’t because he was worried. As he pulled a U-turn and floored it back toward where he’d left her, he didn’t realize he was smiling. 6 I’d been sitting on the curb for twenty minutes. My legs were numb. I knew Nathaniel hated me. I knew he’d be happy if I just vanished into thin air. He wasn’t coming back. I started to walk, hoping to find a place where I could catch an Uber. I reached into my pocket. Empty. The realization hit me like a physical weight. My phone was in the Bentley. I was alone, in the dark, with no way to call for help. The shadows in the trees seemed to shift and whisper. I was terrified. System, I sobbed internally. Help me. [Host, I can’t interfere directly with the physical world without a penalty. Just keep walking. If it gets truly dangerous, I’ll see what I can do.] I picked up a sturdy-looking branch from the side of the road and kept moving, my heart hammering against my ribs. Then, a pair of blinding high-beams cut through the darkness. The roar of an engine echoed off the trees. The Bentley screeched to a halt beside me. The window rolled down, revealing Nathaniel’s sharp, aristocratic profile. He didn’t look at me at first. “Don’t get the wrong idea,” he said, his voice mocking and cool. “I’m not here for you. I just—” He stopped. He finally looked at me, and saw the tears streaming down my face. I was a mess, shivering and clutching a stick like a lunatic. He didn’t finish his sentence. He threw the door open, his six-foot-one frame moving with frantic grace. He knelt in front of me, looking completely lost. “Don’t cry,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’m here, okay? I came back.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402440”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Six years. That’s how long Nicky and I had been a “we.” He’d tossed a ring at me like it was an afterthought, a piece of scrap metal he’d found in his pocket. “Take it,” he’d said. “And get your hair cut this weekend. My mom likes girls with short hair. It looks cleaner.” So, on Saturday, I wore that plain gold band with a heart full of hope. I sat in a sleek, overpriced salon and waited until the “Closed” sign flipped over and the stylists began sweeping the floor. He never showed. I pulled out my phone, my thumb hovering over his name, but then I saw it. His cycling partner, Jade, had posted a photo on her Instagram story. A selfie of the two of them, windblown and grinning, captioned: Someone decided to skip his “big family dinner” to help me conquer this winter trail. Bad boy! I’m making him sleep in the tent tonight as punishment~ In the past, I would have spiraled. I would have called him ninety-nine times, screaming, crying, demanding to know why I wasn’t enough. But this time? I was just tired. Bone-deep, soul-weary tired. It was mid-December in New York, and a freezing rain was slashing against the pavement. I huddled in the doorway of the darkened salon, shivering. Today was supposed to be the day I finally met his parents. Last night, Nicky told me his mother preferred the “professional, short-haired look.” So, before the sun was even up, I’d taken an Uber to this specific stylist he’d recommended. I’d watched three years of growth—hair I loved, hair that made me feel like myself—fall to the floor in dark, heavy clumps. Nicky said he had to pick up a gift first. He said he’d fetch me before lunch. And so, I waited. And waited. … Six hours. I had spent six hours in that chair and then on that curb. I called him eight times. He didn’t pick up once. My phone battery hit one percent. That’s when I saw the photo. Nicky and Jade, flashing peace signs at the camera, looking like the lead characters in a movie I wasn’t cast in. Skipped the dinner. I felt a sharp, hysterical laugh bubble up in my chest. He skipped it. Just like that. Did it ever occur to him to tell the person actually involved? I had hacked off my hair to please him, to win over parents I’d never met, to fit into a mold he’d designed. And he had discarded me on the most important day of our relationship without a second thought. The phone buzzed. A final gasp of life. It was Nicky. “Where are you?” he asked, his voice casual, as if he hadn’t just ghosted me. “You forgot about the dinner, didn’t you? It’s fine. Jade and I ended up heading upstate to the Finger Lakes for a ride. We’ll do the parents another time.” It wasn’t a question. it was a notification. A status update. Of course. Jade was already there. Why would he choose me when he had her? Nicky and I had met in college. Six years of “long-distance” within the same city, six years of breaking up and making up, of me chasing him while he ran toward his career. I thought we were finally at the finish line. I was wrong. A few months ago, Nicky got obsessed with cycling. He joined this elite, trendy “Century Club.” It was full of young, fit, “adventurous” types. And then there was Jade. Jade was a yoga instructor. Since she’d entered the picture, Nicky had started looking through me as if I were made of glass. He’d spend hours in their group chats, laughing at inside jokes I didn’t understand. He wouldn’t reply to my texts. If I complained, he’d snap, “You’re so suffocating. It’s just a hobby.” He remembered Jade’s cycle. He’d remind her not to overexert herself on those days. He’d bring her electrolyte drinks and heating pads. He didn’t remember mine. When I doubled over in pain, he’d just sigh. “Women are so dramatic. Take an aspirin and stop moping.” And now, he had sacrificed my six-year milestone for Jade’s “winter wish.” I looked out at the torrential rain and listened to the upbeat indie music playing in the background of his call. Suddenly, Nicky felt incredibly small. Uninteresting. “Nicky,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I think you forgot that I’ve been sitting at the salon waiting for you all day.” “Oh, come on. I’ve waited for you plenty of times, Regina. Don’t start. I’m too tired for a fight.” “You aren’t listening. I’m not fighting.” “Good,” he huffed. “It was an accident. We’ll do the dinner next time. I promise.” Next time. I almost laughed. I’d spent my life in the “Next Time” waiting room. I wanted to go to the Vineyard. Next time. I wanted to try that new French place. Next time, it’s too expensive. I wanted to go to the movies. Next time, when work slows down. I was always waiting. He was always stalling. The salon was in a remote part of Brooklyn, far from the subway. The rain was coming down in sheets now. I had no umbrella. “Nicky, let’s break up.” I said it as simply as if I were ordering a coffee. On the other end, Nicky wasn’t even listening. He was arguing with Jade about some Marvel movie trivia. It was just another void of communication. Right as I was about to hang up, I heard him scoff. He’d heard me, but he didn’t care. “Here we go again,” he mocked. “How many times have you ‘broken up’ with me, Regina? We both know you’ll be calling me tomorrow morning crying your eyes out.” His tone was a needle, sharp and cold, stitching a map of scars across my heart. But for the first time, it didn’t hurt. It just felt… finished. I wanted to tell him I was serious. Before I could, Jade’s voice rang out, playful and cloying: “Hey, Regina! Sorry for stealing him! I just really had to get to the lake today, and Nate was such a sweetheart to drive me…” Click. My phone died. The clock inside the salon ticked. I had waited eight hours. Nicky wouldn’t think my phone was dead. He’d think I was playing games. He’d think I was “throwing a tantrum.” The storm raged. I curled into a ball in the corner of the doorway, my body shaking, my feet numb and swollen. Three hours later, the rain finally slowed to a drizzle. I tried to stand. My legs buckled. Every step was a jolt of ice through my veins. I’d dressed up for the parents. A thin, elegant wool coat and a silk blouse. It was meant for a heated restaurant, not a midnight walk in a freezing gale. My vision blurred. My teeth began to chatter so hard it was the only sound in the world. The last thing I remember was the asphalt rushing up to meet me in the middle of a deserted street. I woke up in a hospital bed. A cab driver had found me and brought me in. Seeing me wake up, the driver—an older man with kind eyes—offered me a cup of warm water. “Have a fight with the boyfriend? Even so, a man shouldn’t leave a lady on the road like that. It’s dangerous.” He saw it. A stranger saw what Nicky couldn’t. It took me six years to see it myself. I gripped the cup, my fingers still tingling. “It won’t happen again. Thank you, sir.” He nodded and handed me my phone, which he’d plugged in for me. He held up two fingers. “That fellow you have saved as ‘Babe’ called. It only rang for two seconds before he hung up.” Two seconds. That was the extent of Nicky’s patience for me. I looked at the screen and smiled. “That’s okay. He’s dead to me now.” The driver looked like he wanted to say something, but he just patted my hand. I checked my notifications. A single text from Nicky sat at the top of the list: Stop the drama. It’s just a dinner. We’ve been together forever, Regina. Just wait a little longer, I’ll take you to meet them eventually. I didn’t reply. I blocked him. On everything. After the IV was finished and the bill was paid, the driver insisted on taking me home. Before I got out, I tucked two hundred dollars under the floor mat of his back seat. “Sorry for the trouble, sir. Thank you.” “Be happy, kid,” he called out as I shut the door. “I will be,” I whispered. “I really will.” I walked into the apartment we shared and pulled a battered suitcase out of the closet. It hit me then—in this big, expensive apartment, there was almost nothing of mine. Nicky came from a struggling family in a small town. His dream was to make it big in DC or New York. When we graduated, he begged me to turn down a teaching position in my hometown to move to the city with him while he climbed the corporate ladder. I’d given in. I’d used my savings to support us while he took unpaid internships and entry-level grinds. Nicky hadn’t failed himself. He hadn’t wasted my money or my time. He was a rising star now. He had only failed me. They say you should never travel across the world for a man who won’t cross the street for you. I was the cautionary tale. Twenty minutes. That’s all it took to pack my life. Half a suitcase. As I reached for the door, it swung open. Nicky was there, holding a pale, wincing Jade. “Oh, good, you’re home,” he barked, his face tight with irritation. “Hurry up and make some ginger tea for Jade. Her cramps are killing her, and we’re both exhausted.” I didn’t even look at her. I gripped my suitcase and tried to walk past him. Nicky’s hand shot out, grabbing the suitcase handle. He yanked it so hard it hit the floor with a crack, the plastic shell splintering. “I said she’s in pain. Go make the tea.” “Are you deaf?” he shouted. “What is this? Another pathetic attempt to get attention? Pack a bag and walk out? Grow up, Regina.” I looked at my broken suitcase. I looked at the man I had loved for six years. Slap. The sound echoed in the hallway. “Give me a thousand dollars,” I said. Nicky’s head was whipped to the side, his expression one of pure shock. I held out my palm. “You want tea? You want my labor? It costs a thousand dollars. My time is very expensive now.” I wasn’t joking. Nicky didn’t know the truth about me. I was the daughter of a real estate mogul. I had run away to New York for love, cutting ties with my family to prove I could make it on my own. It was a cliché, and the lesson had been brutal. Nicky sneered, pulling out his phone. “Fine. If you’re that desperate for cash, I’ll Venmo you. Stop being a bitch about it.” I pulled out my phone and held up a QR code. “Actually, scan this. I’ve already blocked you.” Nicky’s eyes flickered with a brief moment of doubt, but he scanned the code. Payment Successful. I didn’t say another word. I went into the kitchen, sliced the ginger, and stirred the brown sugar into the boiling water. Nicky watched me from the doorway, probably expecting me to poison it. I wasn’t that petty. I even added extra sugar. “Regina,” Nicky said, his voice suddenly shifting. “Let’s just get married. We’ll have the families meet this weekend. For real.” I kept stirring. I didn’t even blink. “Is this a dare?” I wasn’t being sarcastic. A few months ago, Nicky had taken me on a hike. On a desolate, windy ridge, he’d dropped to one knee with a bunch of wildflowers and yelled, “Regina, let’s get married!” My heart had soared. I was ready to say yes. And then Jade had burst out laughing from behind a rock. Nicky had started laughing, too. Jade had doubled over, clutching her stomach. “Oh my god, Regina! You should see your face! We lost a bet at the bar last night—it was a Truth or Dare thing!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402439”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I’ve always been a spoiled prick. It was my brand. I married an ice queen who didn’t love me, and together, we produced a mini-iceberg of a daughter. By the time my daughter was five, I was still the undisputed tyrant of the household, treating them like high-end service staff. Honestly? I lived for it. I loved the way they looked at me with simmering resentment while still attending to my every whim. It felt like winning a game they hadn’t agreed to play. Then, the Feed appeared. Translucent lines of text began scrolling across my vision like a high-speed Twitch chat. [Finally, the villain’s countdown starts. The Male Lead just transferred to the Female Lead’s company. He even took Little Bit to KFC today. The story is finally getting on track.] [He spends all day abusing our Queen and the kid. Thank god they eventually kick him to the curb to make the Hero happy. Watching this spoiled brat end up homeless and paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident is going to be peak cinema.] [I’m literally just waiting for the scene where the happy family of three visits him in the hospital just to mock his useless, broken body. Pure catharsis.] I jerked my legs back so hard I nearly gave myself whiplash. My wife, Catherine, who was currently kneeling to dry my face, and our daughter, Madeline, who was massaging my calves, were both splashed with water. The two of them—the Big Iceberg and the Little Iceberg—simultaneously knitted their brows. Their expressions were identical masks of irritation. I started stammering. “That’s… that’s enough. I’ll do it myself.” Madeline, only five, tilted her head. Her tiny mind clearly couldn’t process why her father, the man of a thousand demands, was suddenly calling an audible. “Daddy? Is the water too cold?” My heart hammering against my ribs. “No. I’m done. I don’t need the massage. Just… stand up. Both of you.” I swallowed hard, looking at Catherine. She was still on one knee, a designer towel draped over her arm, looking like a Greek statue carved from spite. … “You too. Get up.” Compared to Madeline, Catherine was a fortress of composure. Used to my mercurial moods, she calmly stood and reached for a fresh towel. [The more humiliated they are now, the better the payback will feel later.] [Making a billionaire CEO wash his feet and an heiress rub his legs? This guy has a death wish.] I stared at the scrolling text in silence. So, I was the villain. A “Male Supporting Character” designed to be hated. Catherine and Madeline were the stars of some cosmic drama, and I was just the obstacle. According to the Feed, I was basically a placeholder. Catherine had only had Madeline with me because she was afraid of childbirth and wanted to “practice” with a secondary character before the real Hero arrived. Eventually, this guy—the Male Lead—would appear, rescue them from my tyranny, and they’d finally see what a “good man” actually looked like. Then they’d become a perfect family of three, and I’d be a memory in a wheelchair. I clenched my fists. Fine, Catherine was one thing. We were a corporate merger, an arrangement of convenience with zero emotional foundation. But Madeline… I looked at the little girl standing obediently by the chair. She had her mother’s sharp features and that same cool, detached gaze, but she was my daughter. I had raised her. I wasn’t about to just hand her over to some “Hero” so he could play house with my life. I cleared my throat, trying to sound casual. “Hey, kiddo. If… if Mommy and I ever got a divorce, who would you want to live with?” Madeline blinked. Then, mimicking her mother’s stoic posture, she spoke with a chillingly adult coldness. “Daddy, don’t make pointless hypotheses.” I felt the air leave my lungs. I looked up and met Catherine’s amber eyes. They were like a still lake—beautiful, but there was no life beneath the surface. She stepped forward, knelt again, and took my foot in her hand to finish drying it. “Don’t say things like that in front of the child,” she said softly. Madeline nodded, turned like a little soldier, and walked toward the door. “I’m going to sleep.” The Feed exploded with mockery. [What is he thinking? The daughter is a carbon copy of the mother. She hates him just as much.] [Catherine at least knows how to mask it for the sake of the prenup. The kid looks like she’s holding back vomit every time he touches her.] [LOL, as if he’d ever actually divorce her. And even if he did, why would Madeline choose him? To be his footstool for the rest of her life?] [His only purpose is to be a piece of trash, get thrown out, and then die in a wreck so we get a happy ending.] My heart skipped a beat. I snatched the towel out of Catherine’s hands. “I said I’ve got it!” Catherine’s brow furrowed slightly, but she didn’t argue. Later, lying in bed, I tried to process the information. I pulled up my silk pajama bottoms, staring at my legs. They were long, well-toned, and currently very much attached to my body. I refused to accept a future where I lost them. I decided then and there: I had to stop the “oppression.” If the Feed was right, I couldn’t stop the “Hero” and Catherine from meeting. Fate was a railroad track. But if I could prove to my daughter that I was a loving father, maybe—just maybe—she’d choose me when the inevitable split happened. I looked up just as Catherine stepped out of the ensuite. She was wrapped in a plush robe, droplets of water tracing the line of her throat. When she saw me lying there with my pajama legs rolled up, staring intensely at my own shins, she paused. Her eyes darkened. I was too busy planning my “World’s Best Dad” campaign to notice the shift in the room. Then, Catherine walked to the closet and pulled out a set of lingerie I’d bought for her months ago. She held a black lace slip in one hand and a sheer purple set in the other. Her ears were slightly flushed, but her face remained a mask of marble as she waited for my “command.” The Feed went wild. [Why is the screen going black?! I pay for the premium tier, let me see!] [Villain, I’ll stop cursing you if you just turn the camera toward your wife.] [Miles, share the wealth. Let us see the CEO in her prime.] Amidst the horny comments, a few “Original Story” purists chimed in. [I hate this. Even knowing how Madeline was conceived, I still feel like Catherine is being coerced. Does the villain not see how much she hates him every time he makes her wear that stuff?] [It’s disgusting. She said no the first time, and he keeps forcing the “dress-up” hobby on her. He’s a creep.] [Whatever. Just remember those legs she’s standing on won’t be there much longer. That makes it easier to watch.] I took a sharp breath. Looking at Catherine—who was bracing herself to put on clothes she clearly loathed just to satisfy my “whims”—I grabbed the duvet and yanked it over my legs. “I… I’m not in the mood tonight. Let’s just sleep.” The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush a man. The Feed was stunned. [Wait, did he just pass?] [Look at Catherine’s face. She looks… pissed? What did he do now?] [Probably some new psychological torture. Look how hard she’s gripping that lace. She’s at her breaking point.] I noticed it too. Catherine’s expression was harrowing. The moment I said “not in the mood,” her face darkened by several shades. Usually, it took an hour of coaxing and demanding to get her into those outfits. Now, seeing the Feed’s vitriol, I was terrified of even breathing too loud. “Understood,” Catherine said. Her voice was as cold and clinical as a surgeon’s. She tossed the lingerie back into the closet, climbed into bed, and turned away from me. I gripped the blanket, feeling my legs beneath the fabric. I love you, legs. See you tomorrow. The next morning, the sun was streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of our penthouse. I walked into the dining area to find the Big and Little Icebergs already seated. The moment I sat down, Catherine stood up to get me a croissant. Madeline, struggling with the weight of a heavy glass milk carafe, hopped off her chair to pour my drink. The Feed started up again. [He really is a piece of work. They have three nannies and a chef, but he makes the wife and kid wait on him. Unbelievable.] [He says it’s to “teach Madeline the value of service” so she’ll be a good wife someday. As if an heiress needs to serve anyone.] [He just likes the power trip. He’s a control freak.] My pulse spiked. I reached out and caught Madeline’s small arm before she could pour. She looked up at me, confused. “I put in a spoon and a half of sugar, just like you like.” I took the carafe from her and poured it myself. “It’s fine. I can do it. Go back to your breakfast.” Madeline stared at me as if I’d grown a second head, but she slowly climbed back into her seat. Catherine emerged from the kitchen, looking troubled. “We’re out of the imported balsamic glaze. I’ve already sent the driver to pick some up…” I picked up a plain piece of toast. “It’s fine. I don’t need it today.” The room went silent. Even the housekeeper paused in the hallway. Catherine looked at her empty hands, her brow deepening into a heavy frown. “Daddy,” Madeline whispered, her eyes wide. “You didn’t throw the plate at Mommy.” I choked on my toast. Was I really that much of a monster? The Feed answered for me. [Wait, did he actually take the toast? Usually, if the glaze is missing, he has a full-blown tantrum. Last time, he threw the whole tray across the room.] [Look at poor Madeline. She’s terrified. She thinks her dad has been possessed by a demon.] I took a bite of the dry toast, too guilty to keep reading. A small piece of greens fell from my sandwich and landed on my thigh. Without thinking, I frowned at the stain on my silk loungewear. Suddenly, a hand reached out with a napkin. Catherine’s hand. She began to wipe my thigh, and for a second, my heart stopped. I had a flash of the “future”—my legs becoming invisible, growing wings, and waving goodbye to me. I swatted her hand away and stood up abruptly. “I can do it myself!” I snapped, then immediately softened my voice. “I mean… it’s just a small thing. I’ve got it.” I looked at my daughter. “Maddy, from now on, you don’t need to pour my milk or rub my legs. Daddy is a big boy. I can take care of myself.” Madeline’s brow remained tightly knitted. “Daddy… are you sick?” I felt a sting in my chest. This kid. I try to be nice and she thinks I’m dying. For the rest of the meal, I stayed quiet. I didn’t bark orders. I didn’t complain about the temperature of the coffee. Madeline kept glancing at me, her tiny face scrunched in suspicion. Catherine’s eyes tracked my movements like a hawk watching a confusing new prey. After they left for the day, I collapsed onto the sofa. I looked up at the massive, oversized wedding portrait hanging in the center of the living room. The truth was, I had been obsessed with Catherine long before the merger. But she was a glacier, and every guy I knew had crashed and burned against her. I had my pride; I didn’t know how to “pursue” someone like her. So, when the families tied us together, I was secretly ecstatic. Until our wedding night. I’d been outside her study, ready to be the perfect husband, when I heard her talking to a friend. “Miles is a spoiled brat,” the friend had said. “You really drew the short straw.” And Catherine’s voice, so flat and indifferent: “It’s just a transaction. We each get what we need. That’s what marriage is.” That little flame of hope in my chest had died right then. If she wanted a “spoiled brat,” I decided I would give her the most demanding, arrogant version of myself she could imagine. If she wasn’t going to love me, she was at least going to notice me. I’d designed every inch of this house. Every rug, every appliance. Catherine never cared. The only time she’d voiced an opinion was when I insisted on hanging that giant wedding photo. “It’s tacky,” she’d said. “It doesn’t fit the aesthetic.” I’d hung it anyway, out of pure spite. Now, six years later, I finally saw it for what it was: a monument to a one-sided fantasy. “Elena,” I called out to the housekeeper. “Get someone to take this down and throw it away.” The boy who hung that photo was gone. The man remaining realized that in Catherine’s eyes, he was no different from the furniture. I could handle a loveless marriage. What I couldn’t handle was the Feed, which was currently live-streaming the “Hero’s” day like a CCTV camera. [The Hero just got Catherine a coffee. She actually smiled at him! I’m screaming!] [He made a typo on a report, he’s such a clumsy dork. Catherine is definitely going to find him adorable.] I closed my eyes, trying to sleep. When I woke up, the sky was bruised purple, and thunder was rolling across the city. My phone buzzed. It was Catherine. “Did you fall asleep on the sofa?” Her voice was steady. “Yeah,” I mumbled. “I have to work late. If it gets too late, I’ll stay at the hotel near the office. Have Madeline sleep in your room tonight.” Before I could answer, the Feed blurred past. [She is working late, but the Hero is there too! A rainy night, an empty office… it’s so romantic.] [I love a power couple. The Ice Queen CEO and her hardworking, soulful employee. Unlike her man-child husband.] [Exactly. He’s scared of a little thunder? He needs his five-year-old to hold his hand? What a loser.] I took a deep breath. “No need. Stay at the office. I’m fine.” As I spoke, I noticed Madeline standing by the door, her backpack still on. She’d been listening. She didn’t say a word, just turned and walked into her room. Catherine spoke again on the phone. “The wall behind you…” I turned. The wedding photo was gone, leaving a blank, pale rectangle. “Where is it?” she asked. “I had it tossed,” I said. “Go back to work. Bye.” I hung up before she could respond. I stared at the empty wall. It looked better this way. Cleaner. After dinner, the storm worsened. I was rubbing my eyes when I felt a presence. Madeline was standing there, clutching a storybook. “Fine,” she said, her face a mask of duty. “Let’s go. I’ll put you to sleep.” I wasn’t actually that afraid of thunder; I just hated the heavy, oppressive atmosphere of storms. Usually, I used the weather as an excuse to be particularly “demanding” with Catherine in bed. [Ugh, he’s so annoying. A five-year-old has to tuck him in? This is ridiculous.] [He’s so oblivious. The kid looks like she’s going to a funeral. He can’t harass his wife, so he’s harassing his daughter. When does the Hero get here?] I looked at Madeline. She looked like a miniature version of Catherine—emotionless and bored. “It’s okay, Maddy. I can sleep by myself. Go to bed.” I waved her off. For a split second, her lip trembled. “But Mommy said I had to stay with you.” I was about to argue when the sound of a car horn honked in the courtyard. I froze. The Feed froze too. [Wait, why is Catherine home? What about the Hero?!] Madeline dropped her book and ran to the door like it was a life raft. She grabbed her mother’s hand the moment Catherine stepped inside. “Daddy won’t let me stay with him,” she tattled, her voice tight. Catherine nodded, her face unreadable. The Feed was a chaotic mess of question marks. “Why are you back?” I asked, confused. Catherine didn’t answer. She was staring at the empty space where the wedding photo used to be. Her eyes seemed to turn a shade darker. “You said it was tacky,” I said, feeling defensive. “So I got rid of it.” She stared at me until I felt a chill. Then she turned to Madeline. “Go to bed.” Madeline blinked, looking at me. “Do you still want the leg massage, Daddy?” “No, no. Go on.” Madeline pouted—a rare flash of emotion—and then stomped off to her room. Catherine reached up and loosened her scarf. She looked… stressed. “Are you in a bad mood?” she asked. “No, I’m great. Best mood of my life.” Silence. She took a deep breath. Outside, the rain lashed against the glass. The Feed flickered. [She left the Hero for this? The plot is broken.] [Don’t worry, the ‘red thread’ of fate is stronger than steel. They’ll find each other again.] Just as that text scrolled by, Catherine’s phone rang on the nightstand. She was in the bathroom, and the sound of the shower was already running. “Phone!” I called out. The Feed perked up. [Here it is! The Hero is calling!] [Is the villain going to answer it? He’s such a creep about privacy.] [Let him! It’ll just make her hate him more. In the original book, he answered her phone once and screamed at the guy. Catherine ended up throwing him out. It was glorious.] Then, Catherine’s voice came from the bathroom. “Answer it for me. See what they want.” I stared at the phone as if it were a live grenade. “No. Just come out and do it yourself.” The water stopped instantly. Catherine stepped out, her hair a mess of shampoo suds. She looked at me, her gaze heavy and strange, then picked up the phone. A man’s voice—clear, bright, and soulful—rang out through the quiet room. “Ms. Montgomery? I sent over the two proposals, but I haven’t heard back…” Catherine didn’t look at the phone. She looked at me. She seemed to be waiting for something. I felt incredibly awkward. Why was the guy’s voice so loud? The Feed was losing it. [Is he going to lose it? Usually, if a man calls her after hours, he breaks things. One time he even scratched her face.] [His tantrums just make the Hero look better. Keep it up, Miles! Every scream is a nail in your coffin!] The word “coffin” triggered a physical reaction. I started coughing violently. I stood up, heading for the door. “I’m… cough… going to shower.” A hand caught my arm. Catherine took a deep breath, as if she were suppressing a volcanic eruption. She hung up the phone without a word. “It’s after hours,” she said to the dead screen. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” Then she turned to me. “A man calls me at night, and you have nothing to say? You aren’t angry?” The room was dead quiet. She stared at me for a long time, then slowly let go of my arm. That night, she tossed and turned until the early hours of the morning. The Feed wouldn’t stop. [She’s clearly regretting her choice. She’s wondering why she isn’t with the Hero right now instead of this loser.] [He’s pathetic. His wife is literally dreaming of another man right next to him.] I clenched my fists under the covers. Fine. Whatever. As soon as I could convince Madeline to come with me, I was filing for divorce. I’d leave Catherine to her “Hero” and her “Destiny.” I just wanted my legs and my daughter.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402438”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

All this because I refused to hand over a 1.5-million-dollar “subsidy” to my company’s cleaning lady. Now, she had me in a courtroom, dragging my name through the mud. On the stand, she was a masterpiece of performative grief, tears tracking through the deep-set wrinkles of her face. “If you hadn’t used your family’s connections forty years ago to steal my spot at the university, do you think I’d be standing here today?” she sobbed, her voice cracking. “Do you think I’d be scrubbing your floors for peanuts?” She looked at me, her eyes red and accusing. “You watched me every day. You saw me breaking my back for twelve dollars an hour while you sat in your corner office. Does your conscience even spark, or is it as cold as your money?” I sat in the defendant’s chair, my expression a mask of practiced neutrality. Unmoved, she trembled as she pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket—a critical care notice. “Now you’re a success. You’re worth millions. I’m only asking for a fraction of that to save my son’s life. Am I really the monster here?” The gallery erupted. The air in the room grew hot with the collective fury of people who wanted to see a “titan of industry” fall. “She’s heartless! She’s literally letting that woman’s son die!” “She built that empire on a stolen life. She’s a fraud!” “Don’t let her walk! Your Honor, she deserves to rot in a cell!” I looked at the ceiling, fighting the urge to laugh. She claimed I stole her college admission forty years ago. The problem was, forty years ago, I hadn’t even been born. 1 “You stole my future! You took my degree, used it to build your company, and left me with nothing!” Martha Higgins stood at the plaintiff’s table, her faded blue uniform hanging off her thin frame. She was screaming now, a raw, primal sound. “I want an apology, and I want what I’m owed! Everything you have should have been mine!” Martha was shaking with a frantic, desperate energy. Her hair was a messy nest of gray, her skin parched and weathered. She looked like a woman who had been beaten down by every decade she’d lived. Then there was me. My hair was just as white as hers, but that’s where the similarities ended. I was draped in a tailored charcoal suit that cost more than her annual salary. My handbag, resting on the table, was a fifty-thousand-dollar piece of hand-stitched leather. The contrast was staggering. To the jury and the gallery, I was the villain of a Dickens novel brought to life in modern-day Chicago. I leaned forward, exhaling a slow, tired breath. “Martha, I’ve told you this a dozen times. I didn’t steal your identity. I didn’t steal your degree. We aren’t even from the same generation. It’s physically impossible.” A year ago, I had donated bone marrow to a stranger—a young girl with a rare form of leukemia. It was supposed to be a simple, noble act. Instead, I suffered an incredibly rare, stress-induced reaction. My hair turned white overnight. I’m only forty years old. But with this hair and the weight of the company on my shoulders, people look at me and see a woman in her sixties. Martha used to be my office cleaner. We shared the same name—Meredith. We even grew up in the same corner of rural Ohio. At first, I thought it was a poetic coincidence. I liked her. I gave her bonuses. I treated her with the respect my grandmother taught me to show everyone. When I found out her son had been diagnosed with leukemia, I didn’t hesitate. I cut her a check for fifteen thousand dollars out of my personal account and organized a company-wide fundraiser. But fifteen thousand wasn’t enough. She demanded a million and a half. I thought she had suffered a mental break and ignored the demand. Two weeks later, I was served with a lawsuit. “Liar!” Martha hissed, her body vibrating. “If you didn’t steal my spot at Hudson University, how did a girl from a trailer park like you end up running a biotech firm? How did you get the credentials?” She choked back a sob. “I’m not asking for much. Just the money for the treatment. Because I didn’t have that degree, I couldn’t get a real job. We lived in a basement apartment full of black mold and lead paint—that’s why my boy is sick! It’s because of you!” I felt a pang of genuine pity. “I can authorize another donation for your son’s medical expenses, Martha. But I will not admit to a crime I didn’t commit.” Martha’s face hardened. She looked like she was stepping off a cliff. “I knew you’d lie. But I have proof.” She pulled a stack of yellowed papers from a folder. They were old high school exams and homework assignments. “These are your records from high school,” she announced to the room. “Look at the grades. F’s. D’s. You couldn’t even solve basic algebra. Someone this stupid doesn’t get into an Ivy-equivalent like Hudson University. Unless, of course, they aren’t using their own name.” I nodded slowly. “I did graduate from Hudson. I’ve never denied that.” Martha turned to the judge, her eyes wild with triumph. “You heard her! She admitted it! Your Honor, please, give me justice!” 2 The gallery was a beehive of whispers. Someone passed around copies of the failing grades—single digits circled in red ink, blank spaces where simple answers should have been. “She’s a fraud,” a woman in the front row hissed. “How does a kid like that get into Hudson? My son had a 4.0 and got waitlisted.” “It was the eighties,” a man replied. “Identity theft was easy back then. No digital records. She just slipped right into Martha’s life.” I watched them, my expression unreadable. I didn’t blame them for being angry. If the story were true, I’d want to claw my eyes out too. Martha took a deep breath, sensing the tide was with her. She pulled out a final document: a termination notice. “A month ago, she realized I was the woman she’d robbed,” Martha told the court, her voice thick with hurt. “She was terrified I’d remember. So she framed me. She said I was stealing office supplies and fired me on the spot.” She looked at the jury. “I’m sixty years old. Even if you gave me my degree back today, it wouldn’t matter. My life is over. But I want the world to know who she is. I want to save my son.” I sat there, perfectly still, watching her performance. It was masterful. She had the “quiet dignity of the wronged” down to an art form. The crowd was nearing a breaking point. A few people stood up, shouting insults. One man looked like he was ready to hop the railing and settle this with his fists. I didn’t flinch. I actually smiled—a small, tired tilt of the lips. The judge slammed his gavel. “Order! Sit down or I will have the bailiffs clear this room!” The judge turned to Martha. “Ms. Higgins, do you have any other evidence? Or a witness?” Martha glared at me, her voice rasping. “I have a witness. A classmate from forty years ago. He can prove I was the one who was supposed to go to college.” A man named Frank stepped forward. He was in his sixties, wearing a cheap suit and a nervous expression. “Your Honor,” Frank began, casting a look of pure disgust my way. “I was in the same graduating class as the real Martha Higgins. Forty years ago, the school posted the honors list on the bulletin board. Martha was at the top. She got into Hudson. It was a huge deal in our town. It was in the local paper.” Martha began to cry again, the sound echoing in the silent room. “I lived on a farm out in the sticks,” Martha choked out. “We didn’t get the paper. No one called me. I waited for that letter every day. I waited until the semester started, and when it never came, I thought I’d failed. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I spent forty years thinking I was a failure.” She paused, wiping her eyes. “It wasn’t until I was fired and went back to my hometown to see my sister that I heard the truth. People remembered me. They remembered the girl who got into Hudson. But if I got in… where did my life go?” The room was electric. All eyes were on me—the thief, the life-snatcher. “Where else could it go?” Frank added, sighing. “Communication was slow back then. I heard from a friend who went to Hudson that there was a ‘Martha Higgins’ in his year. We just assumed it was our Martha. We didn’t know someone had intercepted her mail and stolen her soul.” The fury in the room was a physical weight. I could feel the heat of their judgment. I stood up slowly, adjusting my sleeves. I looked at Frank, my voice calm and conversational. “Frank, you say Martha Higgins got into Hudson forty years ago. But do you have a single shred of evidence that I am the person who took that spot?” 3 Frank blinked, a flicker of hesitation crossing his face before he doubled down. “If I had the paper trail, I wouldn’t be standing here—I’d be at the police station. I’m here because it’s obvious. You have her name, you have her degree, and you have the money she should have made.” My question only served to stoke the fire. The insults coming from the gallery were getting personal, dragging my parents and my “corrupt” lineage into it. The bailiffs had to step between me and a particularly angry woman in a cardigan. Even the bailiffs looked at me with loathing. I remained unmoved, my smile sharpening into something colder. “So, to be clear, Frank… you have no proof. Just a feeling.” Frank sputtered, unable to find a comeback. Martha panicked. “Is all this evidence not enough? The failing grades? The names? The timing? Your Honor, I want her stripped of everything! She stole my life!” She broke rank, lunging across the floor to grab the lapels of my suit. “You stole it! You took my letter! You think you can just sit there and pretend you’re better than me? I’ll die before I let you get away with this!” Her hands were shaking, her face inches from mine. I didn’t move. I didn’t even blink. I just looked at her with an unsettling level of detachment. “You think a few old notebooks and a story from a man who hasn’t seen you in four decades is enough to convict me? This is a court of law, Martha. Not a campfire for ghost stories.” Martha’s face turned a violent shade of purple. “You monster! You’re still lying!” She pulled back her sleeves, revealing her forearms. They were a roadmap of bruises and needle marks. “You think I’m here for a payday? I’m doing this for my son! He’s twenty-seven. He’s supposed to be starting his life, and I’m watching him fade away. I’ve sold everything. I’ve sold my own blood to pay for his meds. Look at me!” The room was devastated. The “mother’s love” card was the ultimate play. “Just give her the money,” someone yelled. “Have a heart, you bitch!” I gently pried her hands off my jacket. My voice was steady, projecting to the back of the room. “I will say this one last time: I did not do this. And I will not admit to a lie to satisfy a mob.” 4 The tension snapped. Someone in the back threw a smartphone. It clipped the side of my head, drawing a sharp sting of pain. I felt a trickle of warmth run down my temple, but I didn’t reach up to touch it. “Apologize!” they screamed. “Pay her!” I stood my ground, my voice cutting through the noise like a blade. “I’m a busy woman. I don’t have time for this circus. Unless you can provide a legal link between her missed opportunity and my career, we are done here.” I looked at the judge. “Your Honor, I’d like to move for an immediate dismissal. Furthermore, I will be filing countersuits for defamation against both Martha Higgins and Frank.” The audacity of my statement was like pouring gasoline on a forest fire. “You’re a thief and a killer!” “If that boy dies, it’s on your hands!” I sat back down, pulled out my phone, and began checking my emails as if I were waiting for a flight at O’Hare. My indifference was the ultimate insult. Martha was screaming, “If my son dies, I will haunt you until the day you join me in hell!” The judge hammered his gavel until the room fell into a simmering silence. “Ms. Higgins, the court acknowledges the emotional weight of your testimony. However, the defendant is correct. Without a direct link… I cannot rule in your favor.” Martha wiped her face, her eyes glinting with a last, desperate hope. She pulled a final document from her bag—an official record from the Bureau of Vital Statistics. “I have proof that she changed her name forty years ago, on the very week the Hudson semester started!” she cried. “Her birth name wasn’t Meredith. It was Claire. She changed it to Meredith Higgins to match my admission letter. Deny that!” The room gasped. This was the “smoking gun.” “To change a whole identity… even the last name,” someone whispered. “She really did it.” I looked up from my phone and met Martha’s gaze. “I’m not denying it,” I said clearly. “I did change my name.” The gallery went wild. People were high-fiving. Martha was weeping with relief. “Finally!” she sobbed. “Justice! Your Honor, she confessed! Make her sign over the company! Make her pay for my son!” I waited for the noise to die down. Then, I reached into my briefcase and pulled out a small, laminated card. “You’re right, Martha. I did change my name. But there’s one small detail you’ve overlooked.” I handed the card to the bailiff to pass to the judge. “That is my birth certificate. I was born forty years ago. On the exact day you claim I was at Hudson University stealing your life, I was actually in a delivery room in Columbus, Ohio, weighing seven pounds and six ounces.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402437”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My boyfriend told me his company was doing a week-long “dark period” retreat—no phones, no outside contact, just intensive leadership training. He was supposed to be back tomorrow. I decided to head over to his place a night early, wanting to surprise him with dinner and a bottle of the good bourbon he liked. But when I reached the door, I heard noise coming from inside. He’d lived alone for the three years we’d been in this city. He made a point of telling me how much he valued his “bachelor sanctuary” until we finally moved in together. A girl’s voice drifted through the wood, playful and teasing. “Stop it, let me see your phone.” My hand froze an inch from the keypad. Then came his voice, thick with a laugh I knew too well. “Not a chance. I didn’t even get your good side in those photos.” My body went cold, a sharp, localized frost spreading from my chest to my fingertips. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. Inside, the laughter stopped. A few seconds later, he picked up. “Hey, babe? Everything okay?” His voice was smooth, practiced. “I’m at your front door,” I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. “Open up.” The silence that followed was absolute. 1 I hung up. I reached into my bag and pulled out my spare key. He’d given it to me two years ago, pressing it into my palm with a look of practiced sincerity. “Keep it,” he’d said. “Come over whenever. It’s going to be your house eventually anyway.” I had never once used it without calling first. I believed in boundaries. I believed in him. I slid the key into the lock. It turned with a sickeningly familiar click. The door swung open. The entryway light was on. His Nikes were kicked off by the shoe rack, sitting right next to a pair of strappy white heels I’d never seen before. I didn’t move past the foyer. I just stood there, rooted to the hardwood. From the living room came the frantic sounds of movement—the rustle of fabric, the friction of skin against cushions, hushed, panicked whispers. I took two steps forward. A lilac sundress was draped over the arm of the sofa. It was tiny, made of a flimsy material that looked like it would dissolve in the rain. A single white no-show sock lay on the rug. On the coffee table sat two half-empty wine glasses and a bottle of Cabernet. Then I saw them. He was scrambling up from the couch, fumbling with his jeans. His button-down was half-open, the buttons misaligned, his hair a bird’s nest of guilt. The woman was shrinking behind him, trying to use his frame as a shield. I could see a faint, angry red mark on the curve of her shoulder. I stopped in the middle of the room. A stray thought flickered through my mind: I’m glad I called first. If I hadn’t, what would I have walked in on? Would it have been more visceral? More disgusting than this? “Nydia.” His voice was tight, strained. “How… why are you here?” “I thought you were at a retreat,” I said, cutting through his stammer. He blinked, finally getting his fly zipped, but his shirt was still a mess. He looked down at himself, then back at me, his expression a pathetic cocktail of a caught thief and a man trying to pretend the house wasn’t on fire. “I, uh… I got out early,” he said. “Right,” I nodded slowly. “Got out early to continue the training here?” He went quiet. The woman stepped out from behind him. She kept her head down, snatching her dress off the sofa and pulling it over her head in one jagged motion. She looked young—maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. Her hair was a trendy honey-blonde, her face flushed with a wine-soaked glow. Her hands shook so violently she had to tug at her zipper three times before it caught. I watched her. She risked a glance at me, then looked away just as fast. “And who is she?” I asked. His mouth opened, a few hollow syllables dying in his throat. He stood there, hands hovering uselessly before he finally balled them into fists at his sides. The silence in the room was suffocating. The woman finished dressing and stepped into those white heels. The clack-clack of the plastic tips against the floor sounded like gunshots. She looked at him, then at me, then bolted for the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Thud. I stared at the closed door, then turned my gaze back to him. “Talk,” I said. “Nydia, I…” He took a step toward me, then stopped. “I messed up.” “I asked you who she is.” “Just a friend. Someone from work.” “A friend?” He looked at the floor. I let out a short, sharp laugh. I didn’t know if I was laughing at him or at the sheer stupidity of my own life. Eight years. I had known him for eight years. We’d gone from high school proms to college midterms to our first real jobs. I thought I knew every mole on his back, every fear in his head. I had never seen this version of him. “It won’t happen again,” he said suddenly. He looked up, his eyes swimming with a desperate, manipulative kind of pleading. “I swear, Nydia. Never again.” I said nothing. He suddenly turned and began rummaging through the living room. He checked the drawers under the TV, the side tables, shoved his hand under the sofa cushions. I watched him, bewildered. After a minute, he pulled out a small, velvet red box. He walked over and held it out to me. “I got this for you,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, intimate register. “I was going to give it to you in a few days. For our anniversary.” I looked down. It was a jeweler’s box. I opened it. Inside was a silver necklace with a small, diamond-chip star pendant. It was beautiful. It was also a bribe. I held the box for a few seconds, feeling the weight of it. Then I walked over to the kitchen trash can and dropped the box, necklace and all, right on top of the discarded takeout containers. “Nydia!” he barked. “I don’t want your guilt-offerings,” I said. I turned to face him. The light hit his face, and for the first time, he looked like a stranger. A poorly rendered imitation of the man I loved. “Eight years,” I said. “This is how you treat eight years?” He ducked his head, silent. “Eight years, Jason. Since we were seventeen. I moved to this city for you. I stayed up late making you dinner when you worked overtime. I took care of your mom when she was in the hospital so you wouldn’t have to miss meetings. I thought we were waiting for the right time. Waiting to save enough for the house, waiting for the promotion, waiting for life to be ‘ready.’ What were you waiting for?” 2 He still wouldn’t speak. “Were you waiting for her?” “No!” He looked up, his voice frantic. “It’s not what you think, Nydia. It was a mistake. I was drunk, I wasn’t thinking—” “Drunk?” “Yeah, we just had some wine, and things got out of hand…” The bedroom door opened. The woman walked out. She had changed into a white button-down and jeans, her hair pulled back into a messy knot. She looked more composed now. But she couldn’t hide the mark on her neck. A hickey. Fresh, purplish-red, sitting right above her collarbone. She walked over to his side and stood there. She didn’t look down this time. She stared straight at me, her lips set in a stubborn, defiant line. “I love him,” she said. I looked at her, unimpressed. “I love him more than you do,” she added, her voice small but clear. “We’re actually happy together.” “Shut up!” Jason snapped, spinning toward her. “Don’t say another word!” She flinched, then reached out and grabbed his arm, looking up at him with wide, watery eyes. “That’s not what you said ten minutes ago. You said you were going to leave her. You said you’d marry me.” He wrenched his arm away, stepping back as if she were radioactive. She stood there, her arm still hanging in mid-air, her face freezing into a mask of shock. I looked from her to him. He avoided my eyes, staring at the floorboards, picking at a loose thread on his jeans. She stood there biting her lip, her eyes welling up. “Do you even know who he is?” I asked her. “Do you know he has a girlfriend of eight years? That we have a joint savings account for a down payment?” “I know,” she said, lifting her chin. I blinked. “He told me. He said you’d been together forever.” She paused, glancing at him. He remained silent. “But he said the spark died years ago. He said you’re suffocating. That you track his every move, that he has to check in every hour, that he can’t breathe around you. He said being with me is the only time he feels like himself.” I stood perfectly still. So, asking if he wanted me to pick up Thai food on the way home was “suffocating.” Waiting up for him to make sure he got home safe from a late shift was “tracking his every move.” Caring about his life was a “burden.” I thought I was being a partner. He thought I was a jailer. “He said you’re too much work,” she continued, a hint of triumph creeping into her tone. “Always nagging him to eat better, to sleep more, asking why he didn’t text back. He said he couldn’t take it anymore.” I looked at Jason. He was a statue of cowardice. “Is that right?” I asked him. His lips moved, but no sound came out. “Jason,” I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. He finally looked at me. Just for a second. And in that second, I saw it. The resentment. The truth. Everything she said was true. He had turned my love into a list of grievances to tell a twenty-two-year-old in the dark. I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me, starting from my heels and rising to my throat. My legs felt heavy, but I refused to sit. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me collapse. I took a deep breath. “Fine. We’re done.” 3 He snapped his head up. “Nydia—” “Don’t say my name.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped the screen. “I recorded everything.” He froze. The girl froze. “Everything you both just said,” I said, looking at her. “The part where you admitted you knew about me. The part where he admitted he cheated. It’s all on tape.” Her face went pale. “You recorded us? When?” I didn’t answer. I just slid the phone back into my pocket and turned toward the door. “Wait!” she screamed behind me. “You have to delete that! You can’t take that! What are you going to do with it? Are you going to post it? You’ll ruin my life!” I didn’t stop. I kept walking. “Jason!” she shrieked. “Make her delete it! Don’t let her leave with that! Do something!” I heard a scuffle behind me. Footsteps thudded on the hardwood. Before I could reach the handle, she lunged forward and grabbed my arm. Her skin was cold, her nails digging into my bicep. “Give me the phone!” she yelled. I shoved her off, stepping back. She lunged again, reaching for my pocket. I held the phone high above my head. She was shorter than me; she jumped, her nails raking across the back of my hand. A sharp, stinging heat flared up where she broke the skin. “Jason! Help me!” I shoved her harder this time. She stumbled back, her heels catching on the edge of the rug, and she landed hard on her backside. She let out a pathetic little yelp, sitting there on the floor, looking up at me with big, tearful eyes. Jason rushed over, kneeling beside her. “Are you okay?” He checked her shoulders, her head, his touch frantic. “Did you hit anything?” She leaned into him, sobbing, shaking her head. I stood there, watching the tableau. He looked up at me, his face darkening. “Nydia. What the hell? Why did you push her?” I said nothing. He helped her up. She clung to him, weeping softly, whispering that she was fine, it was her fault—the classic “damsel” routine that made him hold her even tighter. “Delete the recording,” he said, his voice hardening. “I messed up, I get it. But you don’t get to get physical with her.” I wanted to laugh, but the air in my lungs felt like lead. “Delete it?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. He hesitated, then added, “I’ll give you money. Just delete it and walk away.” “How much?” He blinked, clearly not expecting me to negotiate. He thought for a moment. “Two thousand dollars.” I looked at the woman. She was leaning against him, her tears dried up, watching me with a mix of anxiety and predatory hope. “Not a chance,” I said. “I’m keeping it.” His face twisted. “Nydia, don’t be a bitch about this.” “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. I’m trying to be civil.” “Civil?” I repeated. I turned back to the door. “Jason!” the girl cried. “You can’t let her go! If my parents hear that… they’ll kill me! You said you’d protect me!” He stood there, his face cycling through a dozen different shades of panic. My hand was on the doorknob. “Wait,” he called out. I didn’t turn around. “Nydia, please.” His voice went soft, pleading. “Just delete it. This is on me, not her. She’s young, she didn’t know any better. I’m the one who couldn’t keep it in my pants. Blame me, just don’t ruin her.” I turned back. They were standing there, hand in hand. “She didn’t know any better?” I asked. “She seemed pretty ‘aware’ a minute ago when she was telling me how much better she is for you.” He went silent. The girl looked at her shoes. “She’s a child, but you’re a man, right?” I looked at him. “And you still did it.” He wouldn’t look at me. “Jason,” she whispered, tugging at his sleeve. “Make her do it. Please. How much time is left?” He looked at me, his eyes suddenly cold, like a stranger’s. “Nydia,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Delete the recording. If you don’t, I’ll have to take the phone from you.” I didn’t move. He took a step forward. I reached into my pocket and gripped the phone. “Try it,” I said. “It won’t matter.” He stopped. “I set a scheduled upload,” I lied. “In two hours, if I don’t enter a deactivation code, the audio file gets sent to every one of our mutual friends, your boss, and your mother.” His face went white. The girl looked like she was about to faint. He pointed a shaking finger at me. “You’re insane.” I said nothing. The room was silent for a long, heavy beat. “A hundred thousand,” he said suddenly. I stared at him. “A hundred thousand dollars,” he repeated. “You delete the recording, right now, and I’ll transfer it.” I remained silent. “I don’t have it all in cash, but I can get it,” he said, his voice rising in pitch. “I have eighty thousand in our ‘house fund’ account. I’ll borrow the rest from my brother tonight. A hundred thousand, and we call it even. You walk away, and this never happened. Deal?” The girl pulled at his sleeve, looking like she wanted to protest the amount, but she kept her mouth shut. “A hundred thousand. Transfer it now.” He hesitated, then pulled out his phone, his fingers flying across the screen. I pulled out mine and opened my banking app. His hands were shaking so badly he had to scan his face three times for the ID check. He tapped the screen, then looked up at me. “Sent,” he said. “Check it.” I looked down. A notification popped up. Transfer Pending: $100,000.00. “Now,” I said. “Write it down.” “Write what?” “A statement. Stating that this hundred thousand is a voluntary settlement for the dissolution of our relationship. Acknowledge the eight years. Acknowledge the infidelity. Sign it.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402436”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My mother is a titan of industry, a permanent fixture on the Forbes list, and a ghost in my actual life. My father was the “supportive” one, the man who stayed behind to raise me while she conquered the world. He always told me she looked down on us—that to her, we were just “small-town trash.” He claimed she only sent eight hundred dollars a month for our living expenses, calling us “stray dogs that could never be fed enough.” I hated her with every fiber of my being for that. Until the day she made a surprise appearance at my university, looked at the sad tray of cafeteria food in front of me, and frowned. “I wire twenty thousand dollars to your account every single month,” she said, her voice cold and confused. “Is this really what you’re choosing to eat?” … 1 My phone screen buzzed on the library table. A notification from the bank. [Arthur Miller has transferred $800.00 to your account ending in XXXX.] Eight hundred. The number felt like a needle pricking a raw nerve. I put the phone down, a dull, hollow ache blooming in my stomach. To save money, I’d only eaten one meal yesterday. Now, I had to make this eight hundred last for thirty days in one of the most expensive cities in the country. My roommate, Sophie, leaned over and caught a glimpse of the screen. She immediately bristled on my behalf. “Rose, is your mom actually made of stone? What is eight hundred dollars supposed to do in Chicago? I spent forty bucks on a Uber and a latte yesterday! This isn’t an allowance; it’s an insult.” She reached for a small bottle of imported serum on her desk—a tiny glass vial that cost more than my entire month’s budget. I forced a smile that felt more like a grimace. She didn’t get it. She couldn’t. To my mother, the Great Diana Montgomery, we probably were just beggars. My father’s face flashed in my mind—that look of weary resignation he always wore. Since I was a child, he’d whispered the same poison into my ear. “Rose, your mother is a creature of the city. She despises where we come from. She looks down on me, she looks down on you, and she certainly doesn’t care about your sick uncle or your grandparents.” “I go to her,” he’d say, his voice cracking. “I beg her to give you a better life, and do you know what she calls us? She says the Miller family is a pack of ungrateful leeches. She says we’re just parasites trying to bleed her dry.” Those words had taken root in me, growing into a thicket of resentment. My phone buzzed again. It was him. “Rose…” His voice sounded exhausted. “It’s… it’s eight hundred again this month.” “I asked her. I swear, I practically got on my knees, but she said not a penny more.” He paused, a heavy sigh rattling through the line. “It’s my fault. I’m a failure of a father for letting you live like this.” Anger and pity surged through me. It wasn’t his fault. He was the one who had endured her cruelty for years just to stay by my side. The thought of a grown man having to beg his ex-wife for his daughter’s grocery money broke my heart. “Dad, stop,” I interrupted, my voice thick. “I’ll find a part-time job on campus. I can take care of myself.” “Good girl,” he whispered, sounding like he was on the verge of tears. “Just… don’t go hungry, okay?” I hung up. The dorm room felt suffocatingly quiet. I pulled a bag of two-day-old bagels from my drawer, tore off a piece, and forced myself to chew. It was dry, hard, and tasted like cardboard. My phone lit up again. The class group chat was exploding. [Birthday drinks for the class president tonight! Karaoke then late-night sushi. See you all at the usual spot!] [I heard that new Omakase place is $150 per person minimum. Let’s go big!] [Split the bill, obviously! But for Ben, it’s worth it!] The “it-girl” of our major tagged everyone. [@Rose Miller, you’re coming, right? Don’t be a hermit! It’s Ben’s 21st, no excuses!] I turned the phone face down, trying to shut out their world. $150. To them, it was a Tuesday night. To me, it was two weeks of survival. I picked up the phone, my fingers hovering over the glass. I typed and deleted, typed and deleted. Finally: [Sorry guys, I’ve got a shift at work tonight. Have a drink for me! Happy Birthday, Ben!] A lie. But I had no choice. I was too poor to have friends. I curled up on my bed, retreating into the dark. The joy of being a normal college student was a luxury I couldn’t afford. That night, I dreamed of the woman I only saw in business magazines. She was standing over my father, who was collapsed on the floor. “Arthur,” she sneered in my dream, “you and that hillbilly daughter of yours are nothing but dogs begging for scraps.” 2 A few days later, a glossy poster appeared on the campus bulletin boards. GUEST LECTURE: DIANA MONTGOMERY. Her name was printed in bold, authoritative serif right in the center. My heart did a violent somersault. I turned to bolt, but Sophie grabbed my arm, squealing with excitement. “Rose, look! It’s Diana Montgomery! An actual billionaire on our campus!” “Oh my god, can you imagine being her? I heard she cleared three billion in acquisitions last year alone.” “My mom literally has her autobiography on her nightstand like it’s the Bible!” I was dragged, kicking and screaming internally, into the packed auditorium. Diana stood on the stage. She was wearing a suit that probably cost more than my father’s house, speaking with a precision and clarity that commanded the room. She looked nothing like the screeching, bitter woman my father described. She looked… powerful. And terrifyingly calm. My chest tightened. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. When the lecture ended, the university deans swarmed her like moths to a flame. I kept my head down, trying to melt into the crowd of students heading for the exit. “Rose Miller.” The hall went silent. A hundred heads turned in unison. I froze, the blood draining from my face. She didn’t acknowledge the deans. She walked straight through the parting crowd until she was standing directly in front of me. “With me. Now.” She led me out of the hall. I could hear the whispers rising behind us like a tide. “Wait, is she Montgomery’s daughter?” “No way. Look at her clothes. She looks like she shops at a thrift bin.” “If that’s her daughter, why does she look so… tragic?” The words cut deeper than any knife. I clenched my fists, saying nothing. She led me to the student union cafeteria. It was the lunch rush. I felt her eyes on me as I reflexively went for the cheapest option—a side of steamed broccoli and a scoop of white rice. Four dollars and fifty cents. She looked at my tray, her brow furrowing into a sharp V. “I wire twenty thousand dollars to your account every single month,” she said. “Is this really what you’re choosing to eat?” Twenty thousand? The number exploded in my brain. “What… what are you talking about? Twenty thousand?” My voice was trembling so hard I could barely get the words out. I only ever saw eight hundred. She blinked, looking genuinely confused. “On the 15th of every month, a transfer goes out. Twenty thousand dollars.” She pulled out her phone and turned the screen toward me. There it was. A long, unbroken list of transfers. $20,000.00. Every single month. The recipient’s name: Arthur Miller. My world tilted on its axis. My hands went cold; my mind went blank. Where was the money? “Your father… he didn’t give it to you?” she asked, her eyes searching mine. I forced myself to stay upright. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and plastered on a stiff, fake smile. “Oh. Right. Dad mentioned it. I… I just put it all into a long-term savings account. I forgot.” The moment the lie left my lips, I saw the tension leave her shoulders. “Rose,” she said, her voice softening just a fraction. “I know I haven’t been around. I’ve been… busy. I thought the money would at least make things easier for you.” “It does,” I lied again. “By the way,” she added casually, “why don’t I ever see you driving the Porsche I bought for your eighteenth? Your father said you hated it, so I didn’t push, but it seems a waste.” A car? Another thing I had never heard of. I gripped the fabric of my pockets, trying to stay grounded. “The city… parking is a nightmare. I didn’t want the hassle.” I made some more excuses and practically ran back to my dorm. I slammed the door and slid down against it, my body shaking uncontrollably. I pulled out my phone and found the contact I had never dared to call. Mom. She picked up on the second ring. “Rose?” I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. “Mom… I… I need some money. An emergency.” There wasn’t a second of hesitation. “Of course. How much?” “Fifty… fifty thousand,” I said, a number that felt astronomical. “I’ll send it now.” “Mom, wait. Send it to a new account. I’ll text you the details.” “Done.” Ten seconds after I sent the info, my phone buzzed. $50,000.00. Instant. The memo read: Don’t ever hesitate to ask. Take care of yourself. I stared at the screen until the words blurred. This was the woman I had hated for eighteen years? I wiped my eyes and opened a different chat. I took a deep breath and typed to my father: [Dad, I have a huge emergency. Can you please, please ask Mom for some extra money?] His reply came back almost instantly. [You know how she is, Rose. She’ll just use it as an excuse to insult us. You have to learn to handle your own problems. Asking her only makes her despise us more. I’m sorry, honey. My hands are tied.] I stared at those words. My blood turned to ice. For eighteen years, I had been a pawn in his sick, twisted game. I took the money my mother had just sent and used it to hire the most expensive private investigator in the city. My goal was simple: I wanted every single bank statement associated with my father, Arthur Miller. 3 At 2:00 AM, I opened the encrypted file the PI sent over. Every month on the 15th, $20,000 arrived from my mother’s corporate account. And every month on the 16th, exactly $19,200 was transferred out. The recipient? Robert Miller. My “sick, bedridden” uncle. Eight hundred. My entire life—my meals, my clothes, my dignity—had been calculated down to the last cent. My father and his brother were tossing me the scraps of my own life like I was a dog under the table. No wonder my cousin Tyler was driving a brand-new car and wearing designer clothes. No wonder my grandparents looked at me with such pitying contempt every time I went home. They thought I was a charity case, a failure who couldn’t even get her “rich bitch” mother to love her. And my father? He was the hero. The martyr who “endured” his wicked ex-wife to provide for the family. I stared at the ledger until my eyes burned. I dragged the file into the trash and emptied it. The next day was the 16th. My father called right on schedule. “Rose, did the money hit? Make it last, okay? Don’t go wasting it on frivolous things.” “I got it, Dad,” I said, my voice perfectly level. “Thank you for begging her for me. I know how much it hurts your pride.” I could practically hear his smug satisfaction through the phone. “As long as you’re okay, it’s worth any humiliation.” I hung up and opened Instagram. I went straight to my cousin Tyler’s profile. His latest post was him sitting in a white Porsche Cayenne, grinning like a shark. The caption: Shoutout to my Uncle Artie for closing another “big deal”! Family first! The comments were a cesspool of Miller relatives. Aunt Sarah: Artie is the backbone of this family! So proud! Uncle Robert: We’d be nothing without your sacrifice, brother! A volcano of cold, hard rage erupted in my chest. I dialed my father back immediately. “Dad,” I said, making my voice tremble. “There’s an exchange program in London. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance, but I need a thirty-thousand-dollar deposit by tomorrow.” “Thirty thousand?!” he barked. “Rose, have you lost your mind? Where am I supposed to get that kind of money? That woman would kill me! She won’t give us a dime!” I squeezed my eyes shut, leaning into the performance. “But Dad… I heard some students say that for things like this, moms usually want to help. Actually, when she was here, she gave me her private number. She said I could call her if it was urgent.” I paused for effect. “Maybe I should just call her myself? Maybe if I explain it, she’ll say yes?” Silence. Absolute, dead silence on the other end. I could hear his breathing turn shallow and panicked. “No! Rose! Don’t you dare!” he hissed, his voice cracking. “Don’t humiliate yourself! You don’t know her like I do. She’ll tear you apart!” “Don’t worry about the money! I’ll figure it out! I’ll sell the house if I have to! I’ll go crawl to her on my hands and knees! Just… stay away from her. Do not call her!” I listened to his frantic rambling until he hung up. Thirty minutes later, a text arrived: [Rose, I found the money. I’m transferring it now. Just please, for the love of god, stay away from your mother. If she finds out we’re asking for more, we’re both finished.] I looked at the word “finished” and smiled. No, Dad. You’re done.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “402435”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel