1 Ten years later, I never expected to see my ex-wife Victoria again in a hospital. I was hit by an SUV while delivering food. Now a famous surgeon, she looked radiant. But seeing me, she immediately asked why I never found her after my discharge, saying she’d waited all these years. Before she finished, a man in a white coat approached and hugged her—Oliver Belmont, the surgeon who killed my sister on the operating table. I told Victoria she had the wrong person. As I tried to leave, she grabbed my gown, tearing it open and revealing the severe burn scars on my back. Watching her cry at the sight, I felt a deep irony. Years ago, to protect Oliver, she forged my medical records and had me locked in a psychiatric ward. I quietly pulled my gown back up, adjusting the fabric without looking back at her. “Dr. Victoria, if you are incapable of treating me, please transfer me to another hospital.” Victoria completely ignored my request. She lost her composure, stepping directly into my path to block my exit. “Andrew, what happened to your back?” She paused, her voice dropping to a trembling whisper. “How… how have you been all these years?” Just as she asked the question, Oliver finally noticed who I was. “Well, look who it is. Long time no see, Andrew.” He stepped up right beside me, reclaiming Victoria’s hand. He glanced down at the crushed delivery bag on the floor and let out a mocking laugh. “I was wondering why my lunch delivery was taking so long. Turns out you were the driver.” “Makes sense. This is exactly the kind of pathetic work you are suited for now. I know making a few bucks is hard for a guy like you, so don’t worry, I won’t report you to the app for a refund.” Victoria frowned, tugging hard on Oliver’s sleeve. “Stop it. Don’t say things like that here.” She turned back to me, opening her mouth a few times before she finally managed to speak. “Andrew, Oliver is still young. Please don’t take his words to heart.” “As for what happened back then, you have to understand. I had my reasons. I was forced into a corner.” Watching this man and woman perform their little routine, the memories of the past ten years stabbed into my brain like rusted needles. Ten years ago, Oliver was fresh out of med school and had absolutely no surgical qualifications. To fast-track his resume, Victoria broke protocol and allowed him to be the lead surgeon on my little sister’s operation. My sister, Sophie, had just been accepted into an elite prep school. She died on the operating table over a routine gallstone removal. When my mother heard the news, her heart gave out. She died of a massive cardiac arrest. My father broke down completely and jumped from the hospital roof, dying right in front of my eyes. Overnight, my entire family was wiped out. I had no idea about Victoria and Oliver’s secret affair. Frantic and grieving, I tried to go to the police. Instead, I was served with a forged psychiatric diagnosis and dragged away in a straitjacket. In that nightmare facility, I was force-fed heavy antipsychotics every single day. The slightest act of defiance earned me electroshock therapy and hours strapped down in isolation. I endured a decade of absolute hell, biting my own tongue until it bled just to keep my sanity intact. I only escaped because a massive fire broke out in the wing. I clawed my way out through the flames. I survived, but the third-degree burns permanently destroyed my body. And my brilliant mind was gone. I was no longer the fifteen-year-old engineering prodigy who had been accepted into a top-tier university. The memories made my eyes burn. But Oliver just scoffed, entirely unbothered. “Oh, come on, Victoria. Why are you wasting your pity on him?” “He never gave a damn about you. He didn’t care that going to the cops would ruin your entire medical career.” “Besides, what happened to his parents wasn’t our fault. Those two old fossils were just mentally weak.” The fragile thread holding my temper snapped. Before he could spit out another word, I spun around and smashed my fist directly into his face. “Shut your mouth!” “You are a murderer! You don’t have the right to even breathe their names!” The second the words left my mouth, Oliver shoved me violently backwards. The push was brutal. I was already severely injured from the car crash, and the back of my head slammed directly into the sharp corner of a medical cart. A blinding spike of agony ripped through my skull. My legs gave out entirely. “That is enough!” Victoria shoved Oliver back just as he raised his foot to kick me. She looked down at me, her chest heaving in silence. “What happened ten years ago was my fault. It had nothing to do with Oliver.” “You need to calm down. I will find another attending doctor for you.” “Don’t worry about the medical bills. I will compensate you.” With that, she grabbed Oliver by the arm and fled the hospital room like she was escaping a crime scene. 2 I laid on the freezing linoleum floor for what felt like hours. The doctor Victoria promised never arrived. I tried to force myself up several times, but my muscles completely refused to obey. Blood pooled beneath my head, expanding across the white tiles as my vision grew dark and blurry. Just as I was about to slip into unconsciousness, the door was thrown open. Several panicked nurses rushed in and hoisted me onto a stretcher. “Dr. Victoria is unbelievable,” one of the nurses complained bitterly. “We had an incoming trauma, and she forced us to drop everything to check Dr. Belmont for a headache!” “What could possibly be wrong with him? Meanwhile, this poor guy is bleeding out on the floor. Does she not understand triage?” The resident doctor wrapping a tight gauze bandage around my head immediately cut her off. “Shut up! You know exactly who his family is. If you want to keep your job, keep your mouth shut.” The nurse rolled her eyes in disgust but didn’t say another word. I laid on the hospital bed, closing my eyes as a wave of bitter grief washed over me. Victoria hadn’t noticed. Aside from my burned back, I also had ten severely deformed fingers. In the asylum, the orderlies had systematically broken my knuckles with a heavy flashlight, let them heal improperly, and then broken them again. When I was first committed, Oliver and Victoria played the ultimate victims on the evening news. They cried for the cameras, claiming that I had ignored explicit medical instructions and fed my sister prohibited solid food before her surgery, directly causing the fatal complication. Overnight, the public branded me a “murderer” and a “violent lunatic.” Everyone pitied Oliver and praised Victoria for doing the right thing by locking away her deranged husband. But behind the cameras, Oliver had leaned close to my ear, whispering with a sickening smile. “Give it up, Andrew. My family is loaded. Victoria needs me to get everything she wants in this world.” He even pulled out his phone, shoving a picture of Victoria sleeping peacefully naked against his chest right in my face. “You have no idea. She was so needy last night, she nearly broke me.” I lost my mind. I screamed and lunged at him, tearing at his clothes. And of course, the camera crews he had stationed perfectly caught my “psychotic breakdown” on film, solidifying his entire lie. That very night, because I refused to swallow my medication, an orderly shattered my index finger. That was how I survived a decade in hell. It wasn’t that I didn’t hate them. But I knew I couldn’t fight them. They had money, status, and power. Right now, my only goal was basic survival. I didn’t know when I passed out, but the next morning, I opened my eyes to see Victoria sitting in the chair beside my bed. There were heavy, dark bags under her eyes, and the whites of her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like she had stayed awake all night. “Andrew, I stayed here and watched over you.” She reached out, wanting to touch my arm, but her hand hovered awkwardly in the air before retreating to her lap. “I know you hate me. But you still have to find a way to live.” “You obviously can’t go back to engineering. But I can arrange a job for you here at the hospital.” She paused, avoiding my eyes. “A janitor position in the maternity ward. Fifteen dollars an hour, with full medical benefits. It is infinitely better than delivering food, and at least you won’t get hit by cars.” I stared at her for a long time. Then, I genuinely laughed out loud. “You and I both know exactly what happened ten years ago. Do you really want me to spell out your filthy, treacherous little secrets right here?” “Get out.” Her face darkened instantly, the mask of pity dropping entirely. “Andrew, do not push your luck!” I ignored her, closing my eyes and turning my head to the window. I could feel her standing over my bed for a long, heavy moment. Finally, she let out an exasperated sigh and walked out. For the next two weeks of my recovery, she covered all my medical expenses but never showed her face again. I was grateful for the peace and quiet. I foolishly believed the nightmare was over. Until the day of my discharge. I walked out of the hospital sliding doors and pulled up my delivery app to check my shifts. A bright red banner popped up. My account had been permanently banned. Panic setting in, I immediately called my dispatch manager. He answered the phone screaming. “Andrew, do you have no shame? You belong in an asylum, and you dare pretend to be normal to get a job here?” “Corporate sent down an explicit directive to terminate you. Do yourself a favor and lock yourself back up in the loony bin!” He hung up before I could reply. When I tried calling back, the automated voice told me I was blocked. My stomach plummeted. I knew exactly whose doing this was. Victoria. 3 Without the delivery job, I spent the entire week dragging myself across Boston, begging for work. But everywhere I went, people treated me like a walking plague. Some managers were incredibly hostile, literally chasing me out of their stores with broomsticks, screaming that a psycho had no business infecting normal society. Out of options, I decided to head back to the tiny, damp basement apartment I had been renting. But when I reached the front steps, I found all my meager belongings packed into trash bags and thrown onto the curb. My landlord was storming out of my unit holding the last few items of my clothing. When he saw me, he threw my shirts onto the wet pavement, spat violently at my feet, and slammed the heavy metal door shut with a deafening bang. I stepped forward to demand an explanation, but Mrs. Higgins, the sweet older lady who lived next door, grabbed my arm. Her eyes were red and watery. “Andrew, please. Have some mercy on us. Important people made it very clear that if you stay here, our entire block is going to suffer.” I froze in absolute silence. When the neighbors finally dispersed, I gathered my trash bags. Standing on the sidewalk, I realized that in this massive, sprawling city, I had absolutely nowhere left to go. Then, the rain started. It was a torrential downpour. I huddled under the narrow awning of a closed convenience store, staring blankly at the wet, neon-lit streets of a city that felt entirely alien to me. Maybe ending it all right here was the best outcome I could hope for. Just as the dark thought settled into my mind, a wave of muddy water splashed against my boots. I looked up. A sleek, black Porsche Cayenne had pulled up right in front of me. The door swung open, and Victoria stepped out, holding an expensive black umbrella. Seeing me shivering like a drowned rat, she frowned in distaste. But her voice carried a distinct note of arrogant triumph. “Why are you doing this to yourself, Andrew?” “I told you. If you just come back to the hospital with me, even as a janitor, you wouldn’t have to live like a stray dog.” I stood up straight, meeting her gaze. I didn’t offer her a single ounce of the desperate begging she was so clearly craving. My voice was dead. “And I told you to go to hell.” Victoria’s expression turned rigid. Before she could snap back, Oliver stepped out from the passenger side, wrapping his arms possessively around her waist from behind. “Victoria, why are you wasting your breath on trash like this? Let him starve. He will come crawling back to you begging on his knees when he is desperate enough.” Victoria didn’t correct him. She simply reached into her designer purse, pulled out a sleek business card, and tossed it onto the wet pavement at my feet. “Call me when you finally understand reality.” Without another word, she let Oliver lead her back into the luxury SUV. I watched the taillights fade into the rain. I left the card to dissolve in the puddle, picked up my soaked bags, and walked away. I knew exactly how Victoria operated. The moment you refused to bow to her, she would systematically destroy every avenue of survival until you had no choice but to surrender to her control. In that regard, she and Oliver truly were a match made in hell. I had nowhere to sleep. I walked aimlessly through the blinding storm. I didn’t know how far I walked. I walked until the black night slowly faded into a cold, gray dawn. When I finally stopped and looked around, I realized I had wandered all the way to the city’s outskirts. I was standing at the iron gates of the municipal cemetery. Looking at the distant hills where my parents and my sister were buried, a bitter smile cracked my frozen lips. This city wasn’t my home anymore. Everyone I ever loved was buried under this dirt. I used the last ten dollars in my pocket to buy a cheap bouquet of white chrysanthemums from a vendor. But when I approached my family’s plots, I froze. Incense was already burning. A middle-aged man was kneeling on the wet grass in front of their headstones, burning paper money and bowing his head. When he heard my footsteps, he jumped, his eyes wide with shock. Then, he cautiously spoke. “Mr. Andrew?” The moment he said my name, tears flooded his eyes. He literally crawled across the muddy grass toward me, violently shoving a bank card and a small black flash drive into my frozen hands. “Andrew, I was the surgical assistant during your sister’s operation. She died because Dr. Belmont administered a lethal dose of a contraindicated drug.” “He gave me a massive amount of hush money. My kid needed a heart transplant… I was desperate, so I took it. The rest of the blood money is on this card. And the flash drive… it has the unedited security footage of the OR and their text logs.” I gripped the flash drive, my hands shaking so violently I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t tell if it was the permanent nerve damage from my shattered knuckles, or the overwhelming adrenaline of finally, finally securing the truth. I stood in the silent graveyard for a long time. So this was it. After ten excruciating years, I was finally going to clear my name. I was finally going to get justice for the family I lost. 4 Clutching the flash drive to my chest, I sprinted out of the cemetery, heading straight for the nearest police precinct. But I hadn’t even made it three blocks down the deserted road when a blinding, agonizing strike hit the back of my skull. The world went entirely black. When I slowly regained consciousness, the smell of rust and mold filled my lungs. I was tied to a chair inside a massive, abandoned warehouse. A hulking man in a black jacket stood beside me, casually tapping a solid iron pipe against the concrete floor. His face was pure malice. Victoria stood a few feet away, looking down at me with profound disappointment. “Andrew, did you really have to push things this far?” “I am more terrified of seeing you get hurt than anyone else in the world. Why can’t you just be obedient?” I ignored her completely, thrashing wildly against the thick ropes binding me to the chair, desperate to feel my pockets to see if the flash drive was still there. Oliver finally stepped out of the shadows. He crouched down directly in front of me, pulling a small black object from his expensive slacks. He sneered. “Looking for this?” My entire body went rigid. It was the flash drive. The only piece of hope I had left in this miserable world. The blood in my veins turned to ice. I roared like a caged animal, violently jerking my body forward, trying to bite, to headbutt, to do anything to get it back. The force of my struggle snapped the rotted wood of the chair. I crashed heavily onto the concrete floor, still bound by the ropes. Oliver let out a dark, booming laugh. He casually tossed the small plastic drive onto the floor right in front of my face. “You want it so bad?” He lifted his heavy leather boot and brought it down with crushing force, grinding his heel until the plastic and the microchip completely shattered into useless fragments. “Too bad. There wasn’t anything on it anyway.” He turned to look up at Victoria, utterly victorious. “See, Victoria? I told you. He is a treacherous rat. You try to show him mercy, and not only does he spit in your face, he tries to drag you down to prison with him.” “It’s a good thing I paid some actors to stage that little confession at the graveyard. I can’t believe that after a decade in the loony bin, he is still this incredibly stupid.” My heart plummeted straight into the abyss. The very last shred of light in my soul was instantly extinguished. It was a setup. The confession, the evidence, the hope. It was all a psychotic illusion engineered by monsters. From the very beginning, they never intended to let me survive. I looked up at Victoria. Her eyes were red. She stared at me, playing the part of a wounded victim flawlessly. “Andrew, I didn’t want it to come to this. But why did you force my hand?” “Why couldn’t you just show a little empathy for my situation? Why do you have to be so horribly selfish?” Looking at the woman I used to love unconditionally, the woman I would have died for, I felt like I was looking at an alien creature. Empathy? Selfish? Because I wanted justice for my slaughtered parents and my dead little sister? Because I wanted the people who tortured me in a psychiatric ward for ten years to pay for their crimes? She didn’t give me a chance to answer. Having delivered her twisted moral lecture, she turned on her heel and headed for the heavy steel doors. “Oliver, do what you have to do.” “Just scare him. Don’t actually kill him.” With that, she disappeared into the light outside, the heavy doors slamming shut behind her. Oliver turned back to me, his face twisting into a sadistic, ugly grin. “Genius engineer? Prodigy?” He spat. “In my hands, you are nothing but a dying dog.” He flicked his wrist. The thug in the black jacket stepped forward and buried the toe of his steel-capped boot deep into my stomach. I screamed in agony, my body curling involuntarily into a tight ball. But that was just the beginning. The next second, the heavy iron pipe came crashing down on my ribs. I blacked out from the pain, only to be jolted awake by buckets of freezing water. Every time the pipe fell, I could hear and feel another bone splintering inside my body. My consciousness was fading fast. Right when I accepted that I was going to bleed to death on this filthy concrete floor, the piercing wail of heavy police sirens ripped through the air. Before Oliver could even react, the heavy steel doors of the warehouse were violently kicked off their hinges. A furious, booming voice echoed through the cavernous space. “Stop right there! You dare lay a finger on the bloodline of the Sinclair family?!”

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My little brother has a gift. He can hear people’s thoughts. When our parents died, our aunt and uncle both stepped up to take us in. Aunt Manon showed up looking ragged and exhausted, wearing faded clothes. Uncle James, on the other hand, was dripping in designer labels from head to toe. But Noah chose Manon. He clung to her because the voices in his head told him she was actually secretly loaded, hiding a massive fortune. As for James? His thoughts revealed his clothes were all rentals. He was just fronting, trying to look wealthy so we wouldn’t feel insecure. When James gently took my hand, Noah shot me a smug, pitying look. He whispered that if I ever wanted to wear nice clothes, I could fish his hand-me-downs out of the trash. He honestly thought he was the main character. He thought his mind-reading made him invincible, the chosen one. What he didn’t know was that I had a secret of my own. I could see the comments. A floating, glowing stream of text that told me exactly what the future held. The comments said Manon was a sinking ship. She was cursed with a toxic fate, destined to drag down anyone foolish enough to tie themselves to her. The comments also said that while James cared too much about his pride, he had a heart of gold. His luck was about to turn, and his family would slowly build a beautiful, comfortable life. Someone in the floating text mentioned that Noah relied too heavily on the voices in his head. And the biggest twist of all? His ability came with an expiration date. The moment he turned eighteen, the voices would go permanently silent. Looking at his arrogant smirk, I could already see the absolute tragedy waiting for him at the finish line. 1 The moment Manon and James stepped into the sterile hospital hallway, my brother Noah practically shoved me toward James. His expensive cologne was overpowering. Noah put on his best puppy-dog eyes and let his lip quiver. “Ollie, you go with Uncle James,” Noah said softly. “I’m younger. I can handle roughing it. You’ve always had it easier, so you should be the one to go live the good life with him.” I watched James’s face twitch with an unnatural, guilty expression. Manon, meanwhile, looked down at Noah with pure adoration and patted his shoulder. “Our little Noah is growing up,” she cooed. “Already learning how to sacrifice for his family.” James looked at Noah, his large hands awkwardly fidgeting with the hem of his rented tailored jacket. “Noah, are you absolutely sure you don’t want to come with me? Don’t you remember? I used to carry you on my shoulders when you were a baby.” Noah forced a pained, conflicted look onto his face. “Uncle James, I know you really care about me. But Ollie was always mom and dad’s favorite. He’s spoiled. He can’t survive eating scraps and sleeping on a hard mattress. As his little brother, I’m used to giving him the best of everything. Please don’t make this harder than it is. Let Ollie go with you.” With that, he gently nudged me closer to James, playing the part of the heartbroken martyr perfectly. If I hadn’t known the truth, I might have actually bought his performance. But right on cue, the glowing text began scrolling across my vision. [Bro can literally hear thoughts. He knows the uncle’s Rolex is a fake and the suit is rented! James just didn’t want the kids to feel poor.] [Manon is the real hidden millionaire here. She’s loaded.] So that was it. Noah could hear the truth. It made perfect sense now. A kid who threw a tantrum if his pillow wasn’t fluffed properly was never going to willingly choose a life of poverty with our supposedly broke aunt. Besides, I hadn’t even recognized the brand of James’s suit. Noah spotted it instantly. I knew exactly why both of them wanted Noah instead of me. Our parents had never hidden their blatant favoritism. Even though I brought home straight A’s and kept my head down, they only ever paraded Noah in front of the relatives. They painted me as the difficult child, the liar, the jealous older brother who needed constant discipline. I couldn’t exactly go door-to-door defending myself to the extended family. Over time, everyone just assumed I was a lost cause. Even now, standing over the tragic reality of our parents’ sudden passing, Manon and James had rushed here to claim Noah. I was just the consolation prize. James finally took my hand. “You’re too good for your own sake, Noah,” James sighed, his voice thick with emotion. “Are you really sure? I promise I’d give you everything I have.” He meant it. James had two daughters at home. He had always wanted a quiet, obedient son, and Noah’s carefully crafted persona fit the bill perfectly. Manon stepped in smoothly. “James, stop pressuring the poor boy. He clearly made his choice. Don’t make him uncomfortable. Besides, you need to think about Oliver’s feelings.” Only then did the two adults seem to remember I had been standing there the whole time, fading into the background like peeling wallpaper. James looked at me, a deep flush creeping up his neck. “Ollie, I didn’t mean to make you feel unwanted. It’s just that you’re older. You understand how these things work, right?” I offered a careless, easy smile. Before I could say it was fine, Noah cut in. “Don’t worry, Uncle James. Ollie has a really good memory. Just make sure you treat him well. I’ll come visit you guys when I have some free time.” A good memory. That was his coded way of calling me vindictive. Even on his way to securing a golden ticket, he couldn’t resist throwing mud at my name. James hesitated for a split second, clearly picking up on the toxic undertone. But the ink was already dry on the decision. As Noah followed Manon down the hall, he brushed his shoulder against mine. He paused, leaning in close so only I could hear. “You’re clueless, Ollie,” he whispered, a nasty grin stretching across his face. “James is totally faking it. Get ready to starve in the slums. Guys like you don’t have what it takes to live at the top.” I watched him strut away like a general who had just conquered a city. A small, genuine smile touched my lips. Because the comments were flooding my vision again. [This kid is so stupid. Manon has cash, yeah, but her fate is cursed! She’s a walking black hole. She’ll drag him down with her!] [Uncle James cares too much about his image, but he’s a genuinely good guy. His karma is insane, he’s going to strike it rich soon.] [The brother relies way too much on his mind-reading. It’s making him lazy.] [Wait till he finds out the gift vanishes on his eighteenth birthday. Poof, gone.] [Yikes. I can already smell the absolute disaster waiting for him.] I shoved my hands into my pockets. I guess we’d see if Noah could actually handle all that heavy, glittering wealth. 2 James guided me out to the parking lot and unlocked a sleek, midnight-black luxury sedan. The soft click of the doors echoing in the quiet lot. He still felt guilty for making it so obvious he wanted Noah. He glanced at me in the passenger seat, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Ollie. Please don’t hold this against me. I have my reasons, things are a bit complicated right now. But since you’re coming with me, I swear on my life I won’t let you suffer.” I didn’t know what his complicated reasons were yet. But the glowing text had confirmed his good heart. He wouldn’t mistreat me. Still, I wasn’t naive enough to blindly trust magical floating words. I was seventeen. I needed a legal guardian and a roof over my head. My plan was simple: keep my head down, study hard, and build my own escape hatch. Once I was on my own feet, I would never rely on anyone’s charity again. I decided to test the comments. I looked out the window and kept my voice perfectly flat. “Uncle James, you can return the car now.” His hands locked onto the leather steering wheel. His knuckles turned bone-white. It made sense. Truly wealthy people rarely drove themselves to pick up grieving relatives in a hospital lot. Plus, James’s worn-out posture didn’t match the crisp tailoring of his suit. He let out a long, heavy exhale. He didn’t get defensive or angry. Instead, a tired, self-deprecating chuckle escaped his chest. “You saw right through me, huh? You’re a sharp kid, Ollie. I just didn’t want you two to feel ashamed of me. Especially since your Aunt Manon…” He stopped himself, chewing on his lower lip. I knew how that sentence ended. He knew Manon was loaded, but since Noah picked the supposedly poor aunt, James didn’t want me feeling like I got the short end of the stick. He held his tongue to protect my pride. The comments were right. He was too good for this world. But if he was so selfless, why had he fought so hard to take Noah instead of me? Our parents had barely spoken to James or Manon over the years. They both lived out of state. I had no clue what their bank accounts looked like. Noah only knew because of the voices in his head. I pushed the questions away. I had spent my whole life accepting whatever hand I was dealt. If my parents gave Noah the world and gave me the scraps, I ate the scraps. I never begged. I never fought for their scraps of affection. Blood didn’t mean loyalty. Relatives could still lie. You could only ever count on yourself. James listened to me. He drove the luxury car back to the rental agency, swapped his designer suit for comfortable, faded jeans and a plain gray sweater, and walked out looking like a completely normal, tired dad. I sat in the passenger seat of his beat-up, rattling sedan. The heater smelled faintly of old coffee. He climbed in, flashing me a warm, goofy smile. “What are you craving, Ollie? Sarah and the girls probably ate already. How about we hit up that fancy burger joint downtown? The one with the crazy milkshakes?” A sudden, sharp tightness gripped my chest. Growing up, money was supposedly tight. Mom and Dad preached the gospel of saving every penny. We were never allowed to eat out. But if Noah whined about wanting a gourmet sundae, they would drop everything and drive him to the nicest diner in town. They never waited for me to get home from school. I only found out because Noah would intentionally bring his leftovers home. He would sit at the kitchen island, scraping the melting, sugary mess into his mouth with painful slowness, making sure I watched him swallow every bite. He would wait hours until it turned to liquid, just to see the hunger and jealousy in my eyes. In my mind, things like diners and milkshakes belonged to a world I wasn’t allowed to enter. James must have asked around to figure out what kids my age liked, just to make me smile. I shook my head and pointed to a dimly lit diner across the street. “Let’s just get some hot soup. I really like soup.” The things I couldn’t have back then, I didn’t want anymore. One day, I would buy everything I ever wanted with my own money. James blinked, surprised, but he nodded. A few minutes later, we were sitting across from each other in a cracked vinyl booth, waiting for our food. “You know, Ollie,” James said softly, swirling his water glass. “You really aren’t anything like what your parents said you were.” His honesty caught me off guard. It also made me realize why he had gone broke renting luxury gear just to win Noah over. If you have to take in a kid that isn’t yours, feed them, and share your home for years, of course you’d want the “easy” kid. He wasn’t malicious. He was just tired. I offered a small, quiet smile. “Time tells the truth about people.” James’s face lit up, the tension finally melting from his shoulders. “Listen to you, sounding like a philosopher. I bet you’re top of your class.” He was right. I was always at the top. Noah was always at the bottom. Once, when we were little, Noah failed a massive math test. He came home, threw himself into our mother’s arms, and sobbed until she bought him a new video game to make him feel better. That exact same day, I brought home a perfect score. I burst through the front door, waving the paper, eager to finally make them proud. But Noah saw it and started screaming hysterically. “Ollie is doing it on purpose! He just wants you to hate me! Make him stop!” That night, Noah got a bucket of fried chicken in his room. I was shoved into the basement without dinner, told to reflect on my toxic, competitive attitude. I learned the rules of the house that night. My excellence was a threat. The only way to survive was to be aggressively mediocre. From then on, I turned in blank test papers. I did the math in my head, wrote the perfect answers on scrap paper to prove to myself I knew it, and handed in nothing. I celebrated my genius in total silence. Looking at James now, seeing the genuine pride shining in his eyes over a simple conversation, my throat locked up. I stared down at my bowl, letting the steam hide the tears that fell silently into the broth. 3 When we finally pulled up to James’s house, his wife Sarah opened the door with a bright, welcoming smile. The moment her eyes landed on me instead of Noah, the smile froze into a tight, brittle mask. She grabbed James by the sleeve and aggressively yanked him into the master bedroom. I stood frozen in the narrow hallway. My chest tightened. I didn’t know if I should take my shoes off or turn around and walk back out into the cold. Thankfully, my two older cousins, Lily and Grace, bounced into the hall. They warmly dragged me inside, fighting over who got to show me my new room and forcing a plate of sliced apples into my hands. As we walked past the master bedroom, the door was cracked just enough for me to hear James’s “complicated reasons.” Sarah’s voice was a harsh, angry hiss. “You were supposed to bring Noah! You brought the delinquent? The liar? How am I supposed to fix a kid like that? I don’t have the energy!” “He’s seventeen, James! His personality is baked in. He’s ruined. We spent all that money renting that stupid car and that suit just to impress Noah, and you bring back the problem child?” James’s deep voice rumbled in defense. “He’s here now, Sarah. Let it go. He’s not what his parents made him out to be. He’s incredibly well-spoken and polite.” Sarah’s anger deflated into a long, exhausted sigh. When they finally opened the door, they found me standing awkwardly near the kitchen. Sarah’s face flushed deep red. She forced a painfully stiff smile. “Ollie. Welcome to the family.” The glowing text flared to life in the corner of my vision. [You can’t really blame Aunt Sarah. Nobody wants a teenager with a terrible reputation. They barely have enough money to survive as it is. She’s just burnt out.] [She’s a good person at heart. She’ll treat him like her own flesh and blood eventually. Noah really messed up. He threw away a family that would have actually loved him.] Reading that, the knot in my stomach loosened. Sarah wasn’t evil. She was just terrified of drowning under the weight of an awful kid. I could fix that. I met her nervous gaze and stood up straight. “Aunt Sarah. I don’t eat much. I will study hard, and I’ll take over the chores. You won’t have to worry about me causing trouble.” Just please don’t hate me. I swallowed the last sentence. As long as I proved my worth, they wouldn’t throw me out. James shot his wife a lethal glare, clearly realizing I had heard every word of their argument. Sarah looked completely lost for words, guilt pooling in her eyes. I didn’t want to drag out the awkwardness, so I picked up my duffel bag. “I’ll go unpack. Just leave whatever needs cleaning for me tomorrow.” I saw Sarah’s eyes instantly well up with tears as she stood paralyzed in the doorway. I ducked into my new room and quietly shut the door, finally exhaling a breath I felt like I’d been holding for years. I looked around. The walls were painted a soft, dusty pink. Faded pop star posters hung near the ceiling. But the bedsheets were a crisp, masculine navy blue. A brand-new desk sat in the corner, and a freshly assembled wardrobe held packs of new socks and underwear. It hit me immediately. This used to be one of my cousins’ rooms. Lily and Grace had shoved a bunk bed into the remaining bedroom just to make space. But this wasn’t done for me. Money was painfully tight, but James and Sarah had emptied their pockets to buy new furniture and sacrifice their daughters’ comfort, all to give Noah the perfect welcome. I was sleeping in the bed they built for him. I was getting his leftovers. Again. Why did he always get the best of everything without even trying? I collapsed onto the mattress. The exhaustion finally caught up with me, and hot, silent tears soaked into the brand-new pillowcase. My cracked phone buzzed aggressively against my leg. It was a barrage of videos from Noah.

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1 The men at the Institute took his money and cut out a piece of my brain. My frontal lobe. Now, I’m a puppet, devoid of emotion, existing only to obey. It all started when my sister’s assistant, Ryan, showed up with a forged paternity test, claiming I was an imposter. He wept, telling my family I’d used my position as the family heir to lord over him, that I’d broken his leg in a fit of rage. To make it up to him, they sent me to the Institute. When I got out, I just nodded and agreed to whatever they said. Ryan, disgusted, told me to jump in the pool and wash myself clean. I did. My parents pulled me from the bottom of the pool, their faces masks of horror. My sister, Sophia, accused me of putting on a show. She demanded I break my own leg as an apology. I turned and walked straight into oncoming traffic. She yanked me back, her hand trembling uncontrollably. Later, Ryan framed me again, claiming I’d drugged him and thrown him to a woman with an STD. Sophia slapped me, spitting that if he got sick, I was dead. I picked up a knife and aimed it at my heart. My parents froze in the doorway. Sophia grabbed my hand, her grip like a vice. She called me an idiot, asking why I did everything anyone told me to. I’m not an idiot. … The tip of the blade broke the skin, a sharp, wet sound piercing the silence. It was only millimeters from my heart, but I felt nothing. My hand moved to push it deeper. Sophia, her hands slick with my blood, wrenched the knife away. “Nolan! Are you insane?!” But my eyes didn’t even blink. Her shock was absolute. I wasn’t insane. They had performed a lobotomy on me. I had no emotions. I didn’t know what pain was. My mother’s eyes welled with tears. “Nolan, what are you doing?” My father, heartbroken, slapped me across the face, trying to knock some sense into me. “You animal! Your sister was kind enough to bring you home! Who are you trying to guilt-trip with this pathetic act?!” Only then did I stop. Without an order from my family, I didn’t dare continue. I just curled up on the floor. My docile state only seemed to infuriate Sophia more. “Nolan! Stop playing the fool who can’t understand a word! The Ashtons took you back, what more could you possibly want?!” I answered like a machine. “I want for nothing. My sister said I nearly got Ryan infected. I was carrying out my sister’s punishment.” Seven years of “re-education” had taught me that resistance was pointless. Obedience was survival. The slightest frown would earn me unspeakable torture at the Institute. A moment later, the world went black as I passed out from blood loss. At the hospital, the doctor who was supposed to be treating me was called away by Ryan, who was suddenly complaining that his old leg injury was acting up. A nurse just poured alcohol directly onto my open wound. The sting woke me, and the first thing I heard was Ryan’s voice, dripping with false sincerity. “Nolan, man, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come back and… taken your place. Don’t do this self-pity routine, please. It just makes the family hate me more.” “I haven’t seen you in seven years,” he continued, “but I’ve felt guilty every single day.” A lie. I remembered him clearly. He was the one who told the Institute to perform the surgery. Strange. Why wouldn’t he admit he’d visited me? Blood was still seeping from the gash in my chest. Just as my sister was about to call for a doctor for me, Ryan turned away, his face pale. My mother gasped. “Ryan’s faint at the sight of blood! Someone treat Nolan’s wound, quickly!” Before a doctor could even approach, I had already torn off my shirt, balled it up, and shoved it hard against the wound. At the Institute, when they beat me until I was a bruised mess, I often used my clothes as bandages. The infections nearly killed me a few times. Ryan sucked in a sharp breath. “Nolan, I’m sorry. It’s my fault the doctor left.” Sophia pushed down the flicker of pity she felt for me, her brow furrowed in a deep scowl. “Do you really need the victim to apologize to you?” she snapped. “Seven years of re-education, and the Institute didn’t teach you the price of your mistakes?” Of course they did. I dropped to my knees in front of Ryan, dragging my injured leg as I slammed my forehead against the floor. “Ryan, it’s all my fault! If you’re still not satisfied, I promise the next time I stab myself, I’ll finish the job!” Ryan sighed dramatically. “You lied to this family for seven years. Are you going to keep treating us like fools?” To make him believe me, I started stabbing myself again, each cut deep enough to show bone. For seven years, this was the only way I could earn a bowl of spoiled leftovers at the Institute. Covered in fresh blood, I offered a placating smile. “Do you believe me now, Ryan?” Sophia’s voice was sharp as glass. “You’re disgusting!” “The party is about to start. Stop embarrassing the Ashton family!” As they left, Ryan leaned in close, his eyes glinting. “Nolan,” he whispered, “if you want us to believe you, get on your knees and wash my feet. In front of everyone at the party tonight. Then we’ll know you’re not acting.” I nodded forcefully. After a quick, messy bandaging job, I made my way to the Ashton’s grand ballroom. My mother flinched at the sight of me, wrapped head to toe in gauze. “Nolan, you should be in the hospital! What are you doing here?” Ignoring the confused stares of the guests, I walked directly to Ryan and knelt at his feet. Ignoring the fire in my own wounds, I began to remove his leather shoes to wash his feet. Ryan “accidentally” ground his heel into an open cut on my foot. When my hand trembled, spilling the basin of water, his face twisted from a smirk to a mask of feigned terror. “Nolan! You… you burned me with hot water!” The scalding water had drenched my clothes and skin, but I ignored the searing pain and kept my head bowed to the floor. “I’m sorry, brother.” The guests around us turned pale at the sight of my bloody, mangled wounds. Sophia, however, rushed to his side, cradling the foot that had been splashed. “Ryan, are you okay?” He winced. “Sophia, he’s just trying to drive me away! I… I should just leave the Ashton family for good…” He stood to leave, ignoring Sophia’s protests as she hurried after him. But a friend of the family, a neuroscientist, grabbed her arm, his expression grave. “Sophia, wait. Look at Nolan. Something’s not right with him…” She shot an irritated glance back at me. The skin scalded by the water was already peeling away as I scrubbed at the floor. Blood soaked through the bandages on my torso, but I seemed completely unaware, focused only on cleaning the spill. They didn’t know that at the Institute, a single drop of blood left on the floor meant a thousand times more punishment. “It’s like he doesn’t feel pain anymore,” the doctor said, his voice low. “He’s just a machine executing commands. A normal person wouldn’t mutilate themselves just to follow an order. Sophia, there’s something seriously wrong with his brain!” “That’s impossible,” she murmured, but she hesitated. My father, embarrassed by the scene, scowled. “I doubt it. Making a scene at an event like this… If he’s so committed to the act, why doesn’t he just kill himself?” Without a second thought, I agreed. I grabbed a steak knife from a nearby table and plunged it toward my heart. The doctor moved like lightning, catching my wrist. “Stop!” I obediently froze. Crash. Sophia’s wine glass shattered on the marble floor. My father stood paralyzed. My mother’s eyes filled with tears again. “That boy… could something have really happened to him at the Institute? Even if he’s not our blood, we raised him for so many years…” Strange. I thought they hated me. Why did they seem so afraid of losing me? My mother stared at my wounds, at a loss. My father’s gaze was a mixture of irritation and scrutiny. After a moment, seeing I wasn’t dead, Sophia’s anger returned. She ordered the butler, “Get him out of here. I don’t want Ryan to see him and get upset!” They tied me up in the garden. No one dared to bring me food. For three days, I drank from the sprinkler hose to survive. I slept curled in a pile of dead leaves. Ryan would cruise by in the Maybach, whistling at me like a dog. I’d smile back instinctively, and he’d sneer with open contempt. “Pathetic.” Was I? I didn’t think so. Compared to the seven years of endless darkness and oppression, sleeping here was paradise. One day, Ryan had the driver stop the car. He held out his wrist to me. “Look at you, Nolan. A pathetic stray. What’s the difference between you and a dog?” I gave my customary, agreeable smile. He patted my head. “Good dog. Now, be a good boy and bite me.” I bared my teeth and bit down. The next second, a sharp slap sent my head ringing. Sophia had arrived. “Have you completely lost your mind? When did you learn to bite people like an animal?” I didn’t argue. I just smiled, like a dog. Ryan scrambled behind his sister, feigning terror. “Sophia, look at him! He’s smiling at me! It’s terrifying!” Sophia’s face was a mask of ice. She ordered the bodyguards to take me to a psychiatric hospital. “I think you’ve really lost your mind. Go in there and get it treated!” I memorized her words. That night, I swallowed an entire bottle of powerful sedatives. By the time the night nurse noticed something was wrong, my bed was soaked in the black blood I had vomited. The first thing I saw when I regained consciousness was my mother, sobbing uncontrollably as she gently stroked my hair. “How did my Nolan become like this? He wasn’t… he wasn’t like this before…” She was right. The boy I used to be—bright, dazzling, proud—was dead. He died the day he was thrown into the Institute. A flicker of pity crossed my father’s face, but his words were still sharp. “He’s not our biological son, after all. Bad genes. He’s probably resentful now that he knows the truth, trying to use us, to harm us…” I wanted to say, No, I would never hurt you. But the oxygen tube in my throat silenced me. Ryan’s choked voice reached my ears. “Mom, Dad… if Nolan wakes up and really holds a grudge against me… I don’t think it will be just my leg he breaks this time.” Sophia let out a soft sigh, then made a promise to soothe him. “I’ll pay the hospital ten times their usual fee to… delay Nolan’s medication.” “It would be better… if he just died here.” I suddenly understood what my family wanted. The moment I regained a sliver of strength, I used all of it to rip the tube from my throat. My heart rate and blood pressure monitors screamed. The blaring alarm drained the color from Sophia’s face. She yelled instinctively. “Doctor! Help my brother! Please!” Ryan’s smile vanished, his eyes flashing with jealousy. The doctor who saved me clutched his chest, catching his breath. “A few more seconds and he would have been gone! What kind of family are you, leaving him unattended like this?!” My parents and Sophia stared, speechless, before stammering apologies. Lying on the edge of death, I was utterly confused. Didn’t they want me to die? Why did they save me when I was so close? Ryan’s voice cracked with rage. “Nolan, are you done with your act? It looks like seven years did nothing to fix you!” “I’m going to have Mom and Dad send you back to the Institute!” I listened quietly, my face a blank slate. But unexpectedly, Sophia hesitated, a frown creasing her brow. “Send him back… What if something happens?” My parents fell silent, thinking. After all, when they’d brought me home, I was twenty pounds lighter, covered in bruises, a ghost of my former self. Ryan turned to me. “Nolan, answer me. Are you willing to go back to the Institute to continue your re-education?” I nodded obediently. “Yes. Thank you, Ryan.” A short while later, as Ryan was handling my discharge papers, he gave me a cruel smile. “You’re going back there to die, Nolan.” I had no complaints. I just followed him. He ordered me to get into the driver’s seat of the car. “Get in, start the car, and step on the gas. Aim for me.” I nodded, confused, and was just about to press the accelerator when the Ashton’s Maybach screeched to a halt, cutting me off. A bodyguard ripped my door open and dragged me out. “Nolan! Have you had enough?!” My sister was trembling with rage. “You tried to run Ryan down!” My mother stared at me, her eyes filled with a profound disappointment, before turning to comfort Ryan through her tears. “Ryan, you’ve suffered so much. From this moment on, the Ashton family will show him no more mercy!” I knew I had made them angry again. And mistakes have consequences. I slammed my head against the car. I heard the crack of my frontal bone as it fractured. Ryan’s eyes widened in fake shock. “The more you play the victim, Nolan, the more you must hate me in your heart!” I said nothing, despite the splitting pain in my head. They didn’t like it when I talked back. Seven years ago, it was for refuting Ryan’s lies that they threw me into the Institute, where they performed the surgery that made me so obedient. I was all better now. I would do anything they said. I hoped that would make them happy. “No-lan Ash-ton!” It was the second time my sister had said my name with such chilling coldness. “Hasn’t this family been good to you? You enjoyed twenty years of luxury that belonged to Ryan! Bringing you home was the biggest mistake of my life! You almost got him killed!” My father shoved my fractured head against the pavement, grinding it into the asphalt. “You ungrateful beast! We should have let you die in the hospital!” I coughed up blood and struggled to my feet. I knew they hadn’t forgiven me. I prepared to slam my head against the car again to atone. If I hit it harder this time, hard enough to shatter my skull, surely they would calm down? My mother screamed, a wild, desperate sound. “Enough! Stop torturing yourself…” My father ordered the bodyguards, “Throw him in the Institute. And you, Nolan, you’d better die quickly. Don’t keep Ryan from living his life!” My family watched as the bodyguards tossed me into the trunk like a bag of trash. They were only concerned with taking Ryan back to the hospital for a full check-up. I was back in the familiar place. A bodyguard flicked a lit cigarette into a nearby trash can. “Stay put!” I curled up obediently in a corner, unmoving even as I watched the cigarette ignite the trash, the flames catching on the curtains. As the fire roared toward me, a wall of infernal heat, I calmly closed my eyes and waited to die. I just wanted to ask: I’ve been so good. Once I’m really dead, can I come home? At the hospital, the family breathed a collective sigh of relief as they reviewed Ryan’s perfectly normal test results. My father’s voice was ice when he heard the bodyguard’s report. “Nolan loves his little life-and-death dramas, doesn’t he? Fine. Let him stay there and rot. If anyone in this family so much as mentions his name again, they can get out!” But the neuroscientist frowned. He pulled a file from his desk drawer—the surgical report for my frontal lobotomy. “Ms. Ashton, Nolan isn’t acting. His behavior is the result of a severe brain injury.” Sophia was dismissive. “We all know he’s got something wrong in his head!” “This is different!” The doctor slammed the report on the table. The words “Successful Excision” made a sudden, sickening premonition rise in my mother’s chest. She fought to keep her voice steady. “A frontal lobotomy… what does that mean?” The doctor’s expression was grim. “It means the part of Nolan’s brain that controls impulse, emotion, and resistance has been surgically removed! He has no feelings, no ability to refuse an order. He will do anything to please, to obey a command, even if that command will lead to his own death!” “The Institute he was in for seven years is a notorious black site for abuse! They arranged the surgery through a private clinic! And this,” he said, pointing to the bottom of the page, “is the signature of the family representative who authorized it. Ryan.” Seeing Ryan’s name on the form, their world exploded. At the same time, the doctor produced another document: the real paternity test. “I found the original in the archives. There’s something you’ve been wrong about for seven years.”

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During the holiday weekend road trip, Mark insisted on stopping at the abandoned rest stop. He said the car was stuffy and he needed some fresh air. He promised he’d be right back. I waited alone in the car for a full twenty minutes. A gnawing unease made it impossible to just sit there, so I finally got out to find him. When I reached the derelict gas station, the scene before me struck me like a bolt of lightning—Mark and Katina were locked in a passionate kiss. Katina was nestled in his arms, her voice a seductive purr. “Isn’t this thrilling? Your wife is waiting in the car, and you’re out here doing this with me.” Mark let out a low chuckle, his tone indulgent. “You little minx. Keep it down, you don’t want to make my wife angry.” I froze around the corner, my mind flashing back to when he was trying to win me over. I’d told him then that I despised cheaters more than anything in the world because my own father had ruined my mother’s life that way. He had looked me in the eye and said with the utmost seriousness, “Audrey, I would never do that to you. If I ever do… I’m yours to command.” Now, he had betrayed me after all. And everything I had ever given him—it was time to take it all back. 1 I answered a phone call, then turned and walked back to the car. “Audrey!” Mark called out from behind me. I didn’t stop. Katina’s voice followed, laced with tears. “Audrey… I’m so sorry… It’s all my fault…” I pulled open the driver’s side door. “Audrey.” Mark caught up, blocking my way. “Give me the keys,” I said, my voice trembling. “My grandmother is dying. I have to go see her one last time.” “I’ll have someone take care of things with your grandma,” he said after a pause. “The best specialists. They can be there tonight.” I stared at him. Katina had followed, her eyes red as she whispered, “Audrey, please don’t blame Mark… It was me… I seduced him…” Her voice broke, and she hunched her shoulders, looking like a frightened rabbit. Mark glanced at her, then back at me. “Look at her,” he said, his eyes filled with a pained tenderness for her. “She’s a wreck. What more do you want from her?” Katina kept her head down, her shoulders shaking as tears splattered on the pavement. I suddenly remembered her first day at the office. She had stood timidly at my door, holding a bubble tea. “For you, Audrey.” I never drank it. Mark said he did, and that she was a sweet kid. Later, I took pity on her, a girl who had clawed her way out of a small town all by herself. It wasn’t easy. I helped her with everything, at work and in her personal life. When I couldn’t help, I asked Mark to. And just like that, they helped each other right into the same bed. “Mark,” I said, turning to face him. “My grandmother raised me. She’s in the ICU right now, and I need to see her one last time.” “You know how much she means to me, Mark.” My voice was shaking uncontrollably. He didn’t say anything. My phone vibrated again. A text from my mom: Grandma is fading. Where are you? I gripped the phone, my knuckles turning white. Mark saw it. He was silent for a moment, then reached out and gently wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. “Don’t cry,” he whispered, his thumb resting on my cheek for a second. “Grandma will be fine. Trust me.” “Just let her apologize,” he said. “She feels terrible. All you have to do is nod. Then I’ll give you the keys.” Katina sniffled beside him, nodding. “Audrey… please accept my apology… I’ll never be able to live with myself if you don’t…” My grandmother was waiting for me. “Fine,” I said. Katina immediately started, “Audrey, I’m so sorry, it’s all my—” “That’s enough,” I cut her off, my eyes fixed on Mark. “The keys.” Mark handed them to me. “Drive safe. I’ll stay with Katina for a couple of days, and then I’ll come find you.” I ignored him, got in the car, and slammed the door. I put the key in the ignition and turned. The engine roared to life. The car didn’t move. I tried again. The wheels were stuck fast. I got out and saw a large, dark puddle spreading on the ground beneath the car. Someone had punctured the gas tank. Mark walked over and glanced under the chassis, frowning. Katina bit her lip, her voice a tiny whisper. “Audrey… I did it. I just wanted a little more time with Mark… I’m sorry…” Mark reached out and tucked a stray piece of my hair behind my ear. “Don’t be angry,” he said. “I’ll have someone come fix it later.” “You wait in the car,” he said, turning to put his arm around Katina. “I’ll see if I can find some tools.” Katina leaned into his embrace and glanced back at me. Tears still stained her cheeks, but the corner of her mouth twitched into a faint smirk. The sight of them walking away together, his arm around her, was like a knife in my eyes. Just then, my phone buzzed. It was a text from my mom: [Honey, Grandma keeps calling your name. Please hurry.] I stared at the words, my hand clenching around the phone. Then, I pulled the diamond ring from my finger. 2 I had to see my grandmother. I searched the entire rest stop. There were no other cars. No other people. No tools. The cell signal was spotty at best. I finally found a place with a decent connection and called for roadside assistance. But the nearest tow truck wouldn’t be able to get here until morning. A section of the highway had collapsed. I hung up just as Mark walked over. “Audrey, let’s just wait until morning,” he said. “Look, you’ve scraped your arm. Come on, don’t make me worry.” I ignored him. A moment later, my phone lit up. It was my grandmother. I answered immediately. “Grandma.” “Audrey…” Her voice was so weak. “When will you be here?” “I’m on my way, Grandma. I’ll be there soon.” “Oh, honey, I miss you. When you were little, you used to love curling up in my lap and having me tell you stories…” “Grandma, save your strength—” “I’m afraid I’m running out of time,” she said with a soft laugh. “When your grandpa passed, I never got to say a final goodbye. Audrey, you have to live a good life.” Tears streamed down my face. “Audrey, that boy, Mark. Is he good to you?” I didn’t answer. “Audrey.” Mark came up behind me. “Let me use your phone,” he said. “Katina’s is dead, and she needs to send a work email.” I clutched the phone tighter and turned my back to him. “I’m on a call. My grandmother—” “I know,” he said, stepping in front of me. “Just for a minute. She’ll give it right back.” “No.” Mark’s brow furrowed. From the phone, I could hear my grandmother’s faint voice: “Audrey? Honey, are you still there?” “Audrey,” his voice dropped, “this client is crucial for Katina. It determines whether she gets a permanent position.” “I said no.” Katina had appeared at some point, standing behind Mark, her eyes red. “Audrey… please… just for a second… it’s really urgent…” Her voice trembled, and fresh tears welled up. “I won’t be long… I’m begging you…” Mark saw her tears, and when he looked back at me, his expression had hardened. “Give it to me.” He held out his hand. I hid the phone behind my back. “Mark, my grandmother is in the ICU—” He didn’t let me finish. He grabbed my wrist and pried my fingers open. He was so much stronger than me. I held on, my nails digging into my own palm. “Mark!” He yanked it free. He turned and handed the phone to Katina. She took it, tears still on her face, and immediately started typing. I stood there, frozen. My grandmother’s last word, “Audrey?”, echoed in my ear. I wanted to snatch it back. Mark blocked me, his face clouded with anger. “It’s one minute. Can’t you wait?” I looked into his eyes. The same eyes that used to look at me with so much love. Now, there was nothing there. Katina finished and handed the phone back. I looked down. The screen showed her social media profile. She had just posted a new picture. It was a photo of her and Mark at the gas station. His arm was around her waist, and her head was resting on his shoulder. The caption read: [Happy holiday weekend! So happy to be out with my man] I stared at the words. Posted from my phone. A picture of her with my husband. During my grandmother’s last phone call. I looked up at Mark. He glanced at the screen and said dismissively, “She’s just messing around. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?” Messing around. I looked back at my phone. The call with my grandmother had been disconnected. I tried to call back. Her phone was off. I stood there, shaking. Mark came over. “What’s wrong?” I didn’t look at him. “The call with my grandmother dropped.” “Her battery probably died—” Mark was silent for a few seconds. “I’ll figure something out first thing in the morning,” he said. “Don’t panic.” Don’t panic. My grandmother could be dying. She could already be— And he was telling me not to panic. I lifted my head and looked straight at him. “Mark.” “Yeah?” I held his gaze. “Let’s get a divorce.” 3 Mark’s expression finally changed. “What did you just say?” “A divorce. We’ll file as soon as we get back.” He stared at me for a few long seconds. “Audrey—I…” “Ahh—!” Katina’s shriek cut him off. She was crouched by a bench, clutching her leg, her face pale. “A snake! There’s a snake!” she cried, her voice trembling. “It bit me…” Mark glanced at me. Then he turned and ran to her. He knelt down, examining the wound on her calf. Katina grabbed his arm, sobbing hysterically. “Mark, am I going to die…?” “No, you’re not.” Mark ripped a strip of fabric from the bottom of his shirt and tied it tightly above the bite. Just then, we heard the sound of an engine in the distance. Help had arrived. A tow truck pulled up, and the driver hopped out. “You the ones who called for a tow?” Mark stood up and pointed at Katina. “She’s been bitten by a snake. We need to get her to a hospital, now.” The driver looked at Katina’s leg, then at me. “There’s only room for two in the cab. You can ride on the flatbed, but it ain’t safe.” Mark didn’t hesitate. He pulled open the passenger door and helped Katina inside. Then he looked back at me. “Audrey, you wait here. I’ll take her to the hospital, then I’ll call a car for you.” “How long will I have to wait?” I asked. “It won’t be long.” It won’t be long. Again. He got in the truck and closed the door without a moment’s hesitation. I watched, paralyzed, as Mark drove away with another woman. And he left me here. I stood alone at the rest stop. No car. No signal. No water. No food. Mark never looked back. He wasn’t coming back for me. I knew it. Not because he didn’t care anymore, but because he was so sure that I would wait for him. Just like every other time he’d told me to wait, and I had. I rummaged through my bag in the trunk and took stock. Wallet, ID, one credit card. It was enough. I started walking along the highway. I didn’t know how far it was to the next town, or how long it would take. The blisters on my feet had already burst, and every step was agony, but I didn’t stop. 4 After about an hour of walking, headlights appeared behind me. A trucker pulled over. “Hey there, what’s a young lady like you doing out here all alone?” “My car broke down. Could you give me a ride? Just to the next town with a train station.” “Hop in.” In town, I bought a ticket for the earliest train. Once on board, I borrowed a power bank and turned on my phone. Dozens of messages flooded in. Not a single one was from Mark. I dialed my lawyer’s number directly. “Mr. Harris, I need you to draw up divorce papers.” “I want him to walk away with nothing.” There was a pause on the other end. “Leave him with nothing? That’s going to be difficult, unless there’s proof of gross misconduct—” “He had an affair. I have proof. Also, that major client his company has, Vertex Corp? I was the one who brought them in. Their contract is up for renewal next month, and I’ve already spoken with them. They won’t be renewing.” “…Understood. I’ll draft the agreement immediately.” After hanging up, I called my assistant. “Sophie, book me a flight out of the country for this afternoon. Anywhere. The sooner, the better.” “Ms. Vance, are you alright?” “I’m fine,” I said. It was two days before Mark finally had his assistant contact me. “Ben, I need you to get in touch with Audrey for me. Her phone’s off. Tell her I’m at the hospital, Katina is still in critical condition, and I can’t leave. Tell her to wait for me at the rest stop, I’ll send someone for her later.” Ben hesitated. “Mr. Arnold, Ms. Vance… she’s already back.” “What?” “Sir, we’ve… we’ve received a divorce agreement from her lawyer. And… a notice of contract termination from Vertex Corp.” Mark’s mind went completely blank. He stood frozen, all the strength draining from his body. He didn’t move for a long time. “Mr. Arnold? Sir, are you still there?”

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1 I became a wisp of smoke, hovering in the interrogation room. Below me, Gideon, the country’s most wanted drug lord, was finally caught. He used to be my boyfriend. Everyone was searching for me, the “dirty cop who went rogue for love.” The department even live-streamed the interrogation. The lead interrogator was my father—the narcotics captain who swore to arrest me himself. He slammed the table, roaring, demanding to know where I was. But Gideon just laughed, tears streaming down his face. “You hate her?” he asked scornfully. “Without the intel she gave her life to pass, how could you have caught me?” “I thought she loved me completely. I never imagined she was undercover!” His eyes were red, almost bleeding. “I couldn’t bear to kill her, but she was so damn tough. I had to break her bones, one by one, to make her crack.” Then Gideon’s tone changed. “Captain Stevens, the text that sold out your daughter… it was sent from your phone. Your precious adopted daughter did it.” The broadcast fell silent. My father laughed sharply. “Nonsense! Lies even now! My traitorous daughter put you up to this!” I watched the disgust on his face and screamed without sound: Dad, he’s telling the truth. In the end, they didn’t leave me a single whole bone. … “Captain Stevens, I feel sorry for Kate. Does her death not even earn a shred of your sympathy?” “You’re still protecting that adopted girl of yours.” Gideon’s laughter was choked with tears. My father shot to his feet, but his deputy grabbed his arm, holding him back. “Captain, we’re live.” My father braced his hands on the interrogation table, his voice low and dangerous. “I’ll ask you one last time. Where is Kate? Tell me, and I’ll get you a lighter sentence.” “I’ve got enough on me to be executed ten times over. What do I need a lighter sentence for?” Gideon sneered. “But I do want to see you suffer for the rest of your life.” “The abandoned mine at Black Ridge.” Gideon wiped the tears from his face, his smile that of a madman. “Go take a look, Captain Stevens. See if you can piece your daughter back together.” My father’s pupils shrank. His hand froze in mid-air. “Lies,” he rasped, his voice unrecognizable. “Kate isn’t dead. This is all a setup. The wicked live long lives.” He repeated it, as if trying to convince himself. “She was always so afraid of pain. There’s no way… she could have survived torture.” That’s right, Dad. I was always so afraid of pain. When I was little, a scraped knee was enough to make me cry until you comforted me for hours. But Dad, when I was strapped to that iron chair, I shattered three of my own molars from biting down so hard, and I never said a single word. It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid. It was that I couldn’t be. Because I am a police officer. You taught me that yourself, Dad: to serve and protect, to lay down my life for my country. The deputy jotted down the coordinates. The live feed was cut. My father strode out of the room. Nina saw him storming out and cautiously offered him a glass of water. “Dad, have a drink. I brought you some soup.” The tension in my father’s face eased slightly. He took the glass and patted her shoulder. “Good girl. Don’t hang around the station. Go home and wait.” Nina’s eyes welled with tears. “Dad, I swear I never used your phone to send any messages! Gideon is just trying to turn you against me!” “Kate didn’t even care about getting revenge for Mom, who was killed by drug dealers. She was determined to run off with that monster.” “Now Gideon is probably just trying to clear her name, making up this horrible story about her being dead and in pieces just to break your heart!” The anger my father had just suppressed erupted again. “Don’t mention that traitor! She deserves to be dead, and if she isn’t, I’ll shoot her myself!” “Everyone, get ready to move out. I’m going to see what kind of sick game she’s playing!” I floated in the air, a sharp, stabbing pain piercing my non-existent heart. It hurt more than when Gideon was shattering my bones. It was always like this. All Nina had to do was shed a few tears, whisper a few poisonous words, and everyone would rush to her side. When I was sixteen, I took a knife for Nina, and it went clean through my shoulder. But Nina just cried and said, “Kate was the one who insisted we take that dark alley.” And my father slapped me so hard my ears rang, calling me a reckless troublemaker. That slap hurt, but not as much as this. Two young officers walking by exchanged a glance. One of them whispered. “Nina is such a good kid. She failed the police academy entrance exam twice, but she’s more devoted to the captain than his own daughter. And look at Kate, a dirty cop, a disgrace to the force. She’s dragged her father’s name through the mud.” The other one nodded. “Don’t even talk about her. People like that deserve to die.” The world of the dead is so cold. 2 The abandoned mine at Black Ridge. The team swept their flashlights across the underground passage. The ground was littered with shattered white fragments, mixed with dried, blackened blood. The medical examiner’s voice was hoarse. “Captain, this could be…” “Can you tell if they’re human or animal bones just by looking?” my father cut him off. The M.E. looked down. “The fragmentation is too severe. I can’t find a single piece larger than two centimeters. We’ll have to take them back to the lab for DNA analysis.” My father looked away. “Send them for testing. I’ll only believe the results.” The team began collecting the remains in silence. My father walked toward a corner, his flashlight beam still searching for any sign that I had staged the scene and escaped. The light fell upon the base of the wall, and he stopped dead. Carved into the stone was a sunflower. The lines were crooked and distorted, etched deep into the rock. The edges were crusted with blackened blood and bits of flesh. When I was nine, my mother was killed in the line of duty. My father, a man of few words, could only point to the side of the road to comfort my sobbing self. “Mom became a sunflower,” he’d said. “She’ll always be watching you grow up.” Every year after that, on the anniversary of her death, we would plant sunflower seeds under the oldest cypress tree in the state forest. It was also where we had buried a time capsule together when I was twelve. The deputy approached him. “Find something, Captain?” “Notify the local precinct. Seal off a two-mile radius around the oldest cypress tree in the forest.” “Kate is trying to lure me there. We’re heading back to the station to sort through the intel first.” My father turned his back to the others, but the fists clenched at his sides were trembling uncontrollably. Dad, just go look under the old cypress tree. There’s a gift there I left for you. … Back at the station, everyone was buzzing about the bone fragments. “They have to be fake. It’s a smokescreen planted by Gideon.” “Exactly. What if there’s a tracker hidden in the bones?” “The Captain said the symbol points to the old tree near his place. It’s definitely a trap.” I thought I had become numb to the pain, but their words still cut deep. I knew every inch of this place, every face. And they were all cursing my name. He sat in his office, staring blankly at our old chat history on his phone. Over a hundred messages from him in the past three years. The first few were angry: “Get your ass back here and face the consequences.” Later, they became more formal: “I’ve signed your arrest warrant. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The gaps between messages grew longer, until finally, there was just an occasional, desperate question: “…Where the hell are you.” He scrolled through them again and again. Finally, he locked the screen, turned the phone face down on the desk, and buried his face in his hands. I drifted over to him, wanting to give him a hug. But my form passed right through him. I couldn’t even do that one small thing for him anymore. Dad, I always wanted to reply. But I couldn’t. I’m sorry, Dad. I let you down. The office door creaked open. Nina came in with a bowl of soup, her eyes red. She pretended to tidy his desk, but “accidentally” knocked over the only framed photo of my father and me. “I’m sorry, Dad… I’m just so scared,” Nina sobbed, covering her face. “Kate isn’t dead. Those bones are just a trick to fool you! Just now, she had someone send me a message, saying she’ll never let me go, that she’ll kill me to get her revenge…” “Enough!” My father shot up from his chair, his shoe grinding the shattered photo into the floor. “Faking her own death, threatening her family… she’s completely lost her mind!” My father’s fists were clenched, his jaw tight. “Don’t you worry, Nina. This time, I’ll tear this city apart if I have to, but I will drag that monster back here myself.” He picked up the internal phone line. “All units, assemble. We’re heading to the state forest. Full-scale search.” Dad, you still believe her so easily. Why couldn’t you ever believe me? 3 “Captain, we’re five hundred meters from the forest entrance. Should we send in a drone for recon first?” “No need.” My father racked the slide of his pistol. The metallic click was sharp in the night air. “If she’s in there, box her in.” “If she runs, I’ll take her down myself.” I floated beside him, a bitter smile on my lips. You’ll never get the chance to shoot, Dad. I’m already dead. One of the younger officers, Chen, followed behind him, hesitant. “Captain… what if there’s no one in there?” “No one?” My father sneered. “I’ll catch her eventually.” The convoy stopped at the edge of the forest. Flashlight beams cut through the trees. “Report, Captain. No signs of any human activity within the forest.” “Thermal imaging is also clear.” After the bomb squad gave the all-clear, a forensics team began to dig. A shovel hit something hard. It was my time capsule. The metal box was pried open. Inside lay a police badge, and beneath it, a piece of paper with my childish handwriting: “I want to be a hero, just like my dad.” The moment my father saw the badge, a look of pure disgust crossed his face. He snatched it, threw it to the ground, and ground it into the mud with his heel. “Keep digging!” He was the one who had pinned that badge on me. Now, he thought I was unworthy of it. On my graduation day, after he’d pinned on my badge, he had hugged me tightly. “You make me so proud,” he’d said. “Always act in a way that honors this badge.” He had been beaming all day, telling everyone he met, “My daughter takes after me.” Dad, I never once disgraced the badge you gave me. My memory was interrupted by a technician’s excited voice. “We’ve found something critical!” It was a metal box, wrapped in three layers of waterproof material. Inside was a fully sealed, electronically locked crypto-case. The technician examined it from every angle. “Captain, this is high-level encryption. We can’t crack it in the field. We have to take it back.” My father gave the box a cursory glance. “Take it back to the station. Tell the tech department they’re all working overtime.” An emergency meeting was called as soon as they returned. Everyone was convinced the box contained a list of Gideon’s accomplices, or a backup of his distribution network—something Kate had left for herself to leverage a deal. The deputy chief slammed his hand on the table. “If this box contains a list of the network, it means Kate didn’t just go rogue—she was actively involved in drug trafficking.” “Stevens, if the evidence is conclusive, we’ll issue a global arrest warrant immediately.” My father sat at the head of the conference table. His shoulders slumped, then he nodded. “Issue the warrant if you have to.” When did my father start to lose faith in me? It began during my first month on the job. I was leading a stakeout, and my phone was on silent for eleven hours straight. When I got home late that night, exhausted, I was met with his fury. “Do you even remember you’re a police officer?” I stood in the doorway, bewildered. I found out later that Nina had mentioned something to him in passing. She’d been walking past a bar and saw me arguing with some guy with bleached-blond hair. Coincidences like that started happening more and more. A designer watch I’d never seen before would appear in my locker. My work computer would be left open to some disgusting online forum. And every time, Nina would use the most innocent tone, the most delicate words, to convince my father that I was the one responsible. In his eyes, I went from being a promising young officer to a corrupt parasite on the system. It’s not that I didn’t try to defend myself. But he never believed me. After Nina framed me one time too many, we had a massive fight. That was the day my life changed forever.

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In one week, I’m boarding a flight for a medical mission in the remote Rockies, and then I’ll never have to see Victoria again. I found out about everything a month ago. Including the secret of the child growing inside her. Just now, she went to the restroom and handed me her phone to hold. The screen lit up with a message from her best friend: Hey, prenatal checkup today. Make sure your husband isn’t with you. I scrolled up through the chat history and found something that hit me like a physical blow. Her friend had asked when she planned on telling her husband she was pregnant with some college kid’s baby. Victoria’s reply: I promised him one life, one love, just the two of us. If I break that promise, we’re over. For good. So she had decided never to tell me. To let the secret die with her. She even wrote that she’d have the child call me Dad. Just then, Victoria returned. She guided my hand to my cane and cooed, “I was only gone for three minutes and I missed you like crazy.” She didn’t notice that my sight had returned weeks ago. She didn’t see me watching her, really seeing her, from behind the dark lenses of my sunglasses. 1 I placed the phone back in her hand and urged her to go on home. “I can handle submitting my resignation myself. You should head back.” Victoria’s brow furrowed, ready to insist on staying with me. But then, a voice called out from across the hall. “Vic! Fancy seeing you here. Did you get my text?” A young man with an easy smile strolled over. “Coming to the hospital, and you didn’t bring Henry along to help?” Victoria froze, a wave of panic washing over her face. She leaned in close to the newcomer and whispered harshly, “Can’t you see him standing right here?” The guy, unfazed, simply waved a hand right in front of my face. Then he gave Victoria a playful nudge. “Relax. Henry here wouldn’t know a thing, no matter what you get up to.” He grinned at me. “A smart man knows when to let his woman be, right, Henry?” I just nodded along. “Go with your friend. You don’t have to stay with me.” With that, I turned and walked away. Victoria reached for my hand, but the young man, Liam, intercepted her, his expression a mask of feigned hurt. “Vic,” he whined, “you’re not going to leave me to go to the appointment for our baby all alone, are you?” Her feet stopped moving. Her hand instinctively found his and squeezed it. Her voice, when she spoke, was syrupy sweet, a tone I’d never heard her use before. “Of course not, silly.” When I submitted my resignation, the hospital director was overjoyed to hear my vision had recovered. But then he asked, again and again, if I was absolutely certain about the medical mission in the Rockies. It was a three-year commitment. I just gave him a firm, steady nod. Leaving the director’s office, I walked past the ultrasound room. Through the crack in the door, I saw it all. Liam, his ear pressed gently against Victoria’s stomach, listening. And Victoria, her hand stroking his hair with a tenderness she once reserved for me. Liam planted a soft peck on her belly, and she let out a little gasp of a laugh. A nurse nearby reminded her to avoid any strenuous activity for the time being. Victoria nodded dutifully, but her friends, gathered around, couldn’t contain their giggles. “Oh, how’s our boy here supposed to contain all his… energy!” one of them teased. Liam ducked his head, a shy smile on his face, and mumbled, “Yeah, I mean, we were all over each other on your and your husband’s bed just a few days ago.” It was the first time I had ever seen Victoria blush like that. The others piled on. “This is more like the Vic we know! Seriously, what’s a blind man like Henry Anderson got to offer you anymore?” “Besides, even if he found out, what could he do? No one wants a blind man. He’d never leave you.” The blush vanished from Victoria’s face, replaced by a dark, thunderous expression. “Don’t you dare let a word of this get back to him. Understand?” she warned, her voice low and sharp. Her friends just waved her off dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. You and Liam could do it right in front of his face every day and he’d never know.” “Relax, Vic. It’s fine.” Just then, a nurse behind me called out. “Dr. Anderson? You left this in the director’s office.” The chatter inside the ultrasound room died instantly. Victoria shot up from her seat, her eyes wide with panic as they darted toward me. “Henry,” she stammered, her voice trembling slightly, “you… you didn’t hear anything just now, did you?” A flicker of guilt crossed her face, but she didn’t seem to notice that her hand was still intertwined with Liam’s. “I just got here. Didn’t hear a thing.” She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Then, she quickly added, “I was just here with my friend. For her and her husband’s prenatal checkup.” As she spoke, Liam hooked his pinky around hers, his eyes meeting mine over her shoulder with a look of pure provocation and contempt. I lowered my head. “I’m heading home. You guys carry on. I won’t disturb you.” I turned and walked away, my pace quickening until it felt like I was running. Once in my car, I stared out at the blur of traffic, a knot tightening in my chest. A bitter sting pricked my eyes, and my vision blurred for a different reason now. Even though I had already made my decision to leave, the pain was a physical, crushing weight. Before the accident, my eyes were fine. I once had a patient, a man who had gone blind. His family treated him like a burden, and the woman he loved left him without a second thought. I remember telling Victoria about it, and she’d said with such conviction, “That kind of woman is just trash.” She swore that even if the world ended, she would love me until her last breath. And now, here we were, at a fork in the road. And I was choosing my path first. Back home, I collapsed onto the floor, the stark white light of the ceiling fixture stabbing at my newly healed eyes. I met Victoria in a university club. She was the campus queen—perfect grades, scholarships piling up. I fell for her the moment I saw her. She was gentle even in her rejections. Every day, I’d stand under her dorm window like a fool, bringing her breakfast I’d made myself, even as she politely turned me down. Until the day one of the guys she’d rejected came at her with a knife. I stepped in front of her. And that was how I lost my sight. My future, shattered. The surgeon I was meant to be became a psychologist. In that chaotic moment, she had pressed her trembling hands to my bleeding eyes, her voice choked with tears. “Henry, I’ll be your girlfriend, just please, don’t scare me like this.” And so we were together. She was relentless in my recovery, massaging my eyes every day, buying the best medical equipment. She promised to be my eyes. The sound of the lock turning snapped me back to the present. Victoria stepped inside. Seeing me sitting there in the dark, she chided gently, “Why are you still up? It’s so bad for your eyes.” I didn’t answer. She must have sensed the shift in my mood. She came closer, leaning in to kiss my eyes as she always did. But my gaze fell on the man’s jacket draped over her shoulders, and a wave of revulsion washed over me. I flinched away, pushing her back. A look of stunned surprise crossed her face. The timing of my recovery had been a cruel twist of fate. A month ago, I woke in the middle of the night to a sharp, stabbing pain in my eyes. I blinked them open, and to my astonishment, I could see. The world rushed back in blurry shapes, then sharpened into focus. I turned my head, ecstatic, ready to wake Victoria and share the miracle. But I saw a third person in our bed. Liam and Victoria, tangled together right beside me. At the height of their passion, I heard her whisper, “Keep it down… you’ll wake him.” I choked back a sob, clamping my hand over my mouth to stifle the sound. I didn’t sleep a wink that night. The next day, I applied for the medical mission in the Rockies. “Henry, don’t scare me like this.” Victoria’s voice was laced with a genuine, painful confusion. I brought myself back to the present, closing my eyes. “I’m just tired. That’s all.” But her mind was already racing, connecting dots I hadn’t intended for her to see. “Henry, this morning at the hospital, I swear I was just there with my friend for her checkup.” Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around me, holding me tight. Her voice trembled. “Henry, I love you, as God is my witness. If I didn’t have you, I don’t know who would ever love me.” That night, she clung to me as she slept, her arm a dead weight across my chest. She never let go, as if she was terrified I’d vanish by morning. The next day, she prepared a huge breakfast, a feast laid out just for me. She watched with hopeful eyes as I sat down to eat. It was the middle of summer, but she was wearing a turtleneck. If I hadn’t seen the dark, angry love bites on her neck the night I regained my sight, I might have asked her if she was feeling sick. She noticed my gaze and looked away. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.” My stomach churned. I forced down a few bites before putting my fork down. Victoria watched me with a worried expression, then suggested we go on a date. This time, she didn’t grab my cane. She led me by the hand straight to the car. As I settled into the passenger seat, my eyes landed on a pair of men’s briefs lying on the floor mat. Victoria’s face went pale. She snatched them up, folded them neatly, and stuffed them into her pocket. She drove us to an orphanage on the outskirts of the city. She seemed to know the place well, pulling me by the hand toward a group of children playing in the yard. She passed out candy, encouraging the kids to come and talk to me, to cheer me up. Their laughter was a balm, and for a while, the knot of tension in my shoulders began to ease. Victoria watched me the entire time, rushing to my side if I stumbled while playing with the kids, her hands hovering, ready to catch me. When she finally saw a genuine smile on my face, she visibly relaxed. Then, when the moment felt right, she approached me, her voice soft and gentle. “Henry, you’ve always wanted a child, haven’t you?” “I have some wonderful news. I’m pregnant!” As if on cue, Liam appeared, walking slowly toward us. Victoria pulled the folded briefs from her pocket and discreetly passed them to him. He gave her a knowing look. Then, she took my hand and placed it on her flat stomach. “This is my friend’s husband,” she explained smoothly. “He’s been a great help to her during her pregnancy. Since it’ll be harder for me to take care of you now, I was thinking… maybe he could move in with us for a while? To help you out?” The joy I’d felt playing with the children evaporated. A chill spread through my veins. My voice was colder than I had ever heard it. “Are you sure it’s my child?” Rage, hot and blinding, surged through me. Help me? Or help them carry on their affair under my own roof? Make me a father to her lover’s child? I wasn’t interested. My question made Victoria flinch. “Henry, what are you saying? That’s not a funny joke.” The rage boiled over. In a single, fluid motion, I spun around and drove my fist into Liam’s jaw. He crumpled to the ground. The next thing I knew, Victoria was screaming at me. “Henry Anderson, you’ve gone too far this time!” It was the first time she’d ever used my full name. The first time she’d ever raised her voice to me in anger. I let out a bitter laugh, playing right into Liam’s hands. “So what if I have?” For a second, her hand rose, ready to slap me. But it hung there, trembling in the air, for what felt like an eternity. Finally, she lowered it, her jaw tight. “I’m taking Liam to get some ice for his face,” she said, her voice strained. “You can find your own way home.” She helped Liam to his feet and wrapped her arm around his, leading him away without a backward glance. After she left, the sky opened up. A cold, driving rain began to fall. It seemed she had forgotten she hadn’t brought my cane. She had forgotten what it was like for a blind man to be abandoned in an unfamiliar place, with no one to guide him. But I wasn’t blind anymore. I walked over to a nearby trash can, pulled the dark glasses from my face, and dropped them inside. With my own eyes, clear and sharp, I looked down the road and walked out of that place for good. In the final days before my flight to the Rockies, Victoria was rarely home. When she was, a message would pop up on her phone, and she would leave in a hurry. Believing I couldn’t see, she made no effort to hide the screen. That’s how I discovered her second account, a private one she used to message only one person: Liam. Three days before I left, Liam posted a picture of an ultrasound on his social media. Friends commented on how much the baby already looked like Victoria. That day, I took everything Victoria had ever bought me on our dates and donated it to the orphanage. Two days to go. Victoria’s private account posted a photo of a heart-shaped breakfast she’d made for Liam. I listed the wedding suit she’d bought me on a second-hand website. The final day. Liam used Victoria’s main account to post a picture of her sleeping peacefully. The comments were flooded with congratulations. My flight was boarding soon. I picked up my suitcase, ready to walk out the door. And then she appeared. She stood in the doorway, phone in hand, her eyes red and swollen. “Henry,” she demanded, her voice shaking with rage, “why is your name on the list for the Rockies medical mission?!” Her words barely registered. Of course. As the Head of Surgery, she would have to approve the list of volunteers. Her agitation was a stark contrast to my own profound calm. “I wanted to go, so I went. What’s the problem?” “The problem? It’s a three-year post, Henry! Three years! Not three hours, not three minutes! If you’re not here, what am I supposed to do all by myself?” she shrieked, all composure gone. I gave a small, careless shrug. “Oh, but you’re not alone. You have Liam. And, of course, your baby.”

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In the heat of our intimacy, Mary felt entirely different from my memories. The overwhelming intensity of it made me lose control, a muffled groan escaping my lips. Right at that moment, Mary let out a sudden, chilling laugh. It made my stomach drop. She tapped her manicured fingernails against the mattress beneath us, her tone dripping with dark amusement. “How does it feel? I just finished taking care of your stepbrother. He said he really loves how I am right now.” “He was in this exact bed yesterday.” She paused, making no effort to hide the absolute contempt in her eyes. “He moaned so beautifully. I figured it would have the same effect on you.” I froze instantly. The blood in my veins turned to ice. My mind went entirely blank, stripping away my ability to form a single rational thought. Seeing my paralyzed state, Mary rolled her eyes, looking bored. she pushed herself off the bed. “William, Bruno has such a gorgeous body. Not a single blemish.” She looked me up and down, her voice sharp enough to draw blood. “You two brothers are worlds apart. Looking at you covered in those hideous burns… it makes me sick to my stomach.” “Just now, I had to keep my eyes squeezed shut. I had to pretend you were him just to force myself to finish.” 1 I opened my mouth, but my vocal cords refused to work. I still remembered every agonizing detail of the fire five years ago. The Sinclair family estate had caught fire in the dead of night. Mary was trapped on the third floor. I charged into the inferno, desperate to find her. When a burning ceiling beam collapsed, I shoved her out of the way, taking the full brunt of the collapse myself. Sixty percent of my body was burned. I lay in the ICU for three months, enduring seventeen grueling skin graft surgeries. They managed to drag me back from the brink of death, but they couldn’t take away the monstrous scars. They crawled over my flesh like ugly, thick centipedes, creeping from my chest down to my waist, wrapping around my arms and thighs. The trauma plunged me into severe depression. Countless times, I stood by the window, ready to jump and end it all. And every single time, it was Mary who pulled me back from the ledge. She would hold me, her eyes red with tears, swearing to the heavens that she would never betray me. “William, I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you.” My voice came out as a broken rasp as I clenched my fists. “Mary… you promised me. You swore you would cherish me forever.” Mary lazily tossed a silk robe in my direction. “William, you wouldn’t even buy secondhand clothes. What gives you the right to demand that I cherish someone whose body is a ruined, charred mess?” My knuckles turned white. “Then why the hell did you propose to me in the first place!” I roared. She slipped into her custom tailored blazer, a flash of irritation crossing her features. “Back then, I honestly thought I could handle it. But every time we get physical, seeing those scars just grosses me out.” “You are just too ugly now, William. I can’t stomach it anymore.” My jaw locked. My chest heaved with ragged breaths. Mary habitually held out a handkerchief for me, but I jerked my head away, refusing it. “But I do love you, William. I will always be grateful to you,” she said, smoothing her lapels. “I just needed to blow off some steam. Give me some time to get used to it.” I smacked her hand away violently. “No. That is twisted. Mary, I sacrificed myself to save your life… and you stabbed me in the back!” Her phone screen lit up on the nightstand. I caught a glimpse of Bruno’s text message. “I put on those wolf ears you like. Are you seriously not coming over?” Mary buttoned her jacket and casually waved the phone in my direction. “If I keep him waiting, he is going to throw a tantrum.” I vaulted off the bed, my eyes burning with rage, and slapped her hard across the face. “You are disgusting. This is sick. We are getting a divorce!” Mary touched her stinging cheek, the temperature in the room plummeting as her expression turned lethal. “I am disgusting? William, I did not call you disgusting when you were nothing but rotting, burnt meat.” “And a divorce? Look at yourself. Who else would ever be desperate enough to marry a freak like you?” The bedroom door slammed shut. Inside my chest, something vital shattered completely. Through the haze of my own devastation, memories bled into my mind. I remembered my mother cheating, bringing some random guy into our home, which pushed my father to suicide. After that, I was trapped, endlessly bullied by my new stepdad and his golden boy, Bruno. It was Mary who pulled me out of that hellhole. She helped me reclaim my dad’s belongings. She stood like a shield between me and the cruel world. She gave me the fierce, unconditional love that my father had meant to give me. A house, cars, custom watches, even cooking my favorite meals. She told me she was nothing like my mother. She swore she would only ever look at me. Right up until I turned twenty-four, when she planned a beautiful beachside proposal. I was wearing a perfectly tailored suit. But on my way to meet her, the Sinclair estate went up in flames. I ran in to save her and got crushed beneath the burning wood. When the fire crews finally dug me out of the ashes, the only things left to keep me company were the burns and the scars. Mary had dropped to her knees in the soot, her tears splashing onto my ruined face. “William, I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you.” The nightmare ended there. I was jolted awake by a phone call. It was Bruno. “Bro, Mary and I are going at it right now. Wanna listen? It is the prize I won.” 2 The obscene, wet sounds echoing through the speaker felt like icepicks in my eardrums. Mary’s breathless, erratic voice drifted through the line. “I made a bet with Bruno. We wanted to see what you would do when you found out about us.” “I bet you would swallow your pride and take it. He bet you would ask for a divorce.” “I won, so he had to wear the outfit I like. But he also won… because now you know.” “Sorry about that. I guess I just did not expect you to actually bring up the D-word.” My grip on the phone tightened until the plastic creaked. I hung up. But the notifications didn’t stop. They kept pinging, one after another. A relentless stream of highly explicit photos flooded my screen. “During those two years when your depression was at its worst, when you wanted to die every day?” Bruno texted. “She was sleeping with me the whole time she was playing nurse with you.” “She said the only way she could forget your grotesque scars was by letting me wreck her.” Word by word, the messages butchered my heart. I yanked open the nightstand drawer with trembling hands. I didn’t care if they were my antidepressants or sleeping pills. I grabbed handfuls of them and shoved them into my mouth. When I finally opened my eyes, the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room blinded me. They had pumped my stomach. The door pushed open. Mary walked in. I stared at her, totally hollowed out. “Mary, I want a divorce.” She pulled out a slim cigarette, lighting it with utter indifference. “Request denied. I admit I took it too far last night, and I am sorry.” “But you love me so much. Surely… you can understand the pressure I am under?” I stared at her through the haze of medication, and suddenly, the ugly truth clicked into place. She wasn’t looking for an escape. She genuinely believed that staying with me was a grand, tragic sacrifice on her part. She felt wronged by my ugliness, so she decided she had the right to punish me for it. Even though I looked like this because I saved her life. Mary walked out. She stopped visiting. She ignored my texts. Instead, Bruno started messaging me. “Hey bro, Mary let me move into your house while you’re stuck in the hospital.” “We broke your bed. She said she’s never had it this good in this house.” “Oh, by the way, do your gross scars flare up around pets? Mary bought me a puppy…” That final text detonated whatever sanity I had left. I took the explicit photos and chat logs and leaked them to the press. I even dragged myself to the offices of Mary’s top clients, desperately trying to force her hand to sign the divorce papers. But the real world gave me a brutal reality check. The Sinclair family was a titan in the corporate world. No media outlet dared to run the story. Her clients, eager to kiss her feet, immediately pulled their funding from the research lab where I worked. They blacklisted me. My lab director cornered me, demanding I apologize to Mary immediately, or I would be fired and blacklisted from the scientific community forever. My colleagues begged me with tears in their eyes. If I didn’t grovel, the lab would shut down, and they would all lose their livelihoods. I became a walking punchline. Mary was the one who cheated, but I was the one forced to swallow glass and apologize. I dragged my broken body back to the Sinclair mansion. The words “I’m sorry” barely left my lips before Mary shot me a look of freezing disdain. “William, did you really think you could throw a tantrum and force a divorce?” “Divorce hurts my feelings. Don’t throw that word around.” Maybe it was to teach me a lesson. Or maybe she resented how deeply she had once cared for me. But she took the very first gift she ever gave me, and she handed it to Bruno. It was an ancient, black obsidian binding stone. Once Bruno fully infiltrated my life, I lost everything. My father’s life, my mother’s love, my bedroom, my clothes, my career prospects. Bruno stole it all. Years ago, right after I was kicked out of my house, delirious with a fever, I had rested my head on Mary’s shoulder and asked her in a broken whisper: “Why can’t I ever keep the things that belong to me?” Mary had climbed three thousand stone steps at a highland monastery, scraping her knees bloody, just to get that obsidian stone for me. She had told me: “I got this to bind my soul to yours. Even if you lose everything else in the world, I will always belong to you.” I had clenched my jaw back then, fighting back tears, stupidly believing she was mine forever. Now, she had violently ripped her heart in two, feeding half of it to Bruno. And that obsidian stone was currently hanging around Bruno’s neck. 3 “It is just a cheap trinket. What is the big deal if I give it to him?” “After all these years… haven’t I given you enough?” She was doing it on purpose. She knew exactly where to insert the knife to make it hurt the most. No amount of medication could numb the agony ripping through my brain. If I just disappeared, everything would be fine. My hands moved on their own, dragging a blade across my wrist. Five years ago, right after the accident, I used to do this. But back then, for every cut I made on my arm, Mary would take a knife and match it on her own skin. “William, if you don’t want to live in this world, then I am leaving it with you.” She had physically dragged me out of that suicidal pit. But this time, as I lay bleeding out onto the bathroom tiles, she never showed up. A housekeeper found me, screaming in terror as she called Mary. Mary didn’t bother coming home until the sun was up. She crouched beside me, letting out an annoyed sigh as she looked at my heavily bandaged arm. “You didn’t die when you were roasted alive, and you haven’t managed to die after all these pathetic attempts. If you were really going to die, you would be dead by now.” “If you keep throwing these childish tantrums, I am going to have you locked in a psych ward.” With one sentence, the fragile peace I had scraped together shattered again. As soon as she left, I picked up a fresh blade, pressing it right against my carotid artery. But as I raised my hand, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I couldn’t find a single trace of the boy I used to be. The old William was a prodigy, headhunted by a world-renowned lab in his early twenties. He was brilliant, ambitious, and unstoppable. Look at me now. I was gaunt. Hollowed out. A dead, rotting tree. The burn scars practically glowed a sickly, angry pink under the bathroom lights. The uneven, raised tissue looked like a hundred little mouths laughing at me. Hideous. I was a monster. I dropped the blade, my jaw trembling, my throat tight. That wasn’t me in the mirror. It couldn’t be. I wanted to get better. I really did. I forced myself to cooperate with my doctors. I swallowed my pills. I even contacted a lawyer to quietly draft divorce papers. For a little while, my mood genuinely stabilized. The suicidal urges faded to a dull hum. Until Bruno’s birthday rolled around. Mary insisted on taking me out to “clear my head.” “Your depression is acting up because you rot in that room all day. You need fresh air.” But when we arrived, I realized Mary had rented out an entire seaside amusement park just for Bruno. Exactly like she had done for me when she proposed. She brought me here purely to rub my face in it. And her birthday gift to Bruno was a very familiar ring. I didn’t even realize she had taken my custom blue diamond engagement ring off my dresser. My stomach cramped so violently I doubled over in physical pain. When Mary proposed to me, it was during the darkest year of my depression. I used to push her away, telling her with dead eyes that I was a freak and she should leave me. She had flown across the globe. She spent a fortune tracking down the purest blue diamond in existence, and she dropped to one knee right in front of me. “No matter what you look like, to me, you are just like this diamond. Flawless.” Now, she had taken that diamond and resized the band to fit Bruno’s finger. Right in front of my eyes, she slid the ring onto his hand. “A diamond this pure belongs on the finger of the most pristine person I know.” The mental dam I had built over the last few weeks violently collapsed. A strange, whispering voice slithered into my ear. “You are so filthy. You don’t deserve to breathe.” “Go find that blade. Put it against your throat. Do it.” My hands started shaking uncontrollably. After putting the ring on Bruno, Mary walked over and grabbed my arm. “Does it hurt? Is it eating you alive?” she whispered dangerously. “Because every time I look at what that fire did to you, every time I see the monster you became, it eats me alive.” So this was her twisted logic. She had to lavish someone else with love, just to watch me suffer the exact same pain she felt. But I couldn’t hear her anymore. All I wanted was to find a knife. Just one quick thrust, and all this noise would stop. Right as the panic attack peaked, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was my lawyer. “Mr. Bennett, the divorce agreement is finalized.” “I wish you the best of luck. Here is to your new life.” 4 Divorce. New life. Those words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I violently yanked my arm out of Mary’s grip. I ignored her shouting my name as I bolted. I ran so fast my shoe flew off, but I didn’t stop. I drove through the night to pick up the printed papers, and I slammed them onto the table right in front of Mary. “We are getting a divorce. You can keep the assets.” Staring at the legal document, Mary finally realized this wasn’t a bluff. Her eyes locked onto mine, dark and searching. “You seriously want a divorce?” I nodded, my posture rigid. Surprisingly, she didn’t tear the papers up. She looked down and let out a soft, mocking chuckle. “Fine. We can divorce. But you will come crawling back.” “Because you have absolutely no one else in this world… but me.” I acted like I didn’t hear her. I packed my bags at lightning speed and walked out of that mansion. I thought the nightmare was finally over. Until a few days later, walking home from a job interview. My phone blew up with a trending notification. #WilliamBennettScars A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears. With trembling fingers, I clicked the hashtag. It was a flood of photos and videos from the immediate aftermath of the fire. Photos of me lying in the sterile hospital bed, my skin charred black, my body covered in raw, bloody skin grafts. It was grotesque. When I arrived at the research lab to clear out my desk, the entrance was swarming with reporters. They used to interview me about my breakthroughs in biochemistry. Now, they shoved microphones into my face, their eyes gleaming with morbid curiosity. “Dr. Bennett, are the rumors about your severe burns true?” “We heard you have sixty percent burn coverage. Are the scars as terrifying as people say?” “Your wife allegedly cheated on you because she was repulsed by your body. Care to comment?” I felt like someone was strangling me. Black spots danced in my vision. Security had to physically drag me inside. My phone vibrated violently. I was the victim of that fire, yet the top comments online were pure venom. “You can’t even tell from his face! He dresses so sharp. Bet he set the fire himself for insurance money and failed.” “A grown man covered in scars like a horror movie monster? No wonder his wife cheated. Gross!” “He always acts so arrogant in his interviews. Doesn’t act like a trauma victim to me.” “Nine out of ten burn victims did it to themselves by being stupid, and then they blame their wives for leaving them. Pathetic!” My mother, who hadn’t spoken to me in years, called me just to verbally sever our ties. “William, you are an absolute embarrassment. Don’t you ever tell anyone you are my son!” The final email was from the lab’s board of directors. “Dr. Bennett, the current media circus surrounding your personal life is damaging the lab’s reputation. Your employment is terminated immediately.” My nails dug into my palms until they bled. The endless stream of hatred dragged me right back into the inferno. I could feel the crushing weight of the burning beams on my chest again. The blistering heat. The absolute agony. I hid in the lab until nightfall, waiting for the vultures to leave. But when I finally hailed a cab, the driver took one look at my face and the name on his app, and stopped the car. “Wait… are you that burnt freak from the news?” “Get the hell out! Don’t infect my car with your ugly ass!” He shoved me out onto the pavement and threw his half-empty glass bottle at me. It struck my forehead, shattering. I collapsed onto the concrete, warm blood trailing down the side of my face. I don’t even remember how I ended up back at Mary’s mansion. She was sitting on the living room sofa, swirling a glass of wine, as if she had been waiting for me. I stared at her, my eyes dead. “You did this?” Mary smiled. “William, look at reality. I told you, I am the only person who can tolerate you.” “If we actually divorce, the rest of the world will eat you alive.” A wave of pure, suffocating despair crashed over me. I opened my mouth, but my vocal cords were paralyzed. From the upstairs bathroom, Bruno’s voice echoed loudly. “I’m all clean! You can do whatever you want to me tonight.” He leaned over the balcony railing, a towel draped loosely around his waist, his chest covered in fresh hickeys. I grabbed the wall, hunching over as my stomach violently rejected everything in it, dry-heaving until my ribs cracked. Mary watched me vomit, her fists clenching momentarily before she forced a cruel laugh. “After the amusement park, I was actually going to call it even. But now… I think you need another reminder of your place.” She stood up, walking upstairs and wrapping her arms possessively around Bruno’s waist. The sprawling, empty mansion amplified the sounds of wet kissing and heavy moans. “You’re being so loud. Do you want your brother to hear us? You’re so bad…” Bruno teased. “Let him hear. It is not his first time.” The grotesque sounds clawed their way into my brain. I clamped my hands over my ears, pressing until it hurt. But the room started to spin. The voices melted together into a demonic choir. “You are so filthy…” “Nobody will ever want you…” Nobody. I couldn’t save myself. Through the blur of my tears, I saw my father. He had been dead for over a decade, but he was standing there, waving at me. “William, come here… Daddy loves you. Daddy will protect you…” I reached out to take his hand. I followed him, walking like a ghost. He led me all the way up to the third-floor balcony, right to the edge. “Come to me, William. There is no more pain here…” I didn’t hesitate. I threw myself forward into his embrace. As gravity pulled me over the railing, I saw Mary burst out onto the second-floor balcony. Her eyes were wide with primal terror. “William! NO!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “441003”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The late-night training room glowed cold. I entered, notebook in hand, just to tell Jackson to rest. The scene stopped me cold. Daisy, the new support, was on his lap, their hands over the keyboard. “Relax. With me here, Sierra won’t take your spot,” Jackson’s voice was honey-sweet. She kissed his cheek. “You’re the best!” My phone dug into my palm, knuckles white. A text from my brother lit the screen: “Dream over, princess? I’m waiting at home.” It stung, throwing me back to that day’s review. Our ninth straight loss. My first outburst, aimed at Daisy, the rookie support. I’d barely listed her mistakes when she teared up. Jackson stood, shielding her. “That harsh? The loss isn’t all on her.” Stunned, I asked what he meant. Handing her a tissue, he stared coldly. “Your tactics are outdated.” “When did you last play? That old championship won’t feed us now.” “Clearly, this losing streak is your fault.” Rage shook me. As my boyfriend—as a pro—he shouldn’t have crushed me publicly. Yet after, he sneaked to my office, apologizing. Alone, he turned sweet again. “She’s a rookie. Needs time. Didn’t mean to upset you.” “Forgive me?” He tried to kiss my cheek. I turned away. “No. Go train.” Now I see: his gentle words were just sick, careful lies. 1 I didn’t close my eyes all night. When I bumped into Jackson in the hallway early the next morning, I treated him like air, not sparing him a single syllable. In just a few hours, a new round of the regular season would begin. Our record was a shameful nine-game losing streak. If we lost again today, our ticket to the playoffs would be completely torn up. Worse still, just yesterday, I had signed a performance guarantee agreement with the team manager. Jackson’s words at the meeting had precisely hit the management’s weak spot. Last year, our team was on top of the world, winning championships left and right. Jackson, with his flawless on-stage performance and handsome face, skyrocketed to become the most commercially valuable star player in the entire esports league. It was no exaggeration to say that half the tickets sold for offline matches were paid for by his fans. So, after his merciless public accusation against me yesterday, the management reacted immediately, dumping all the pressure squarely onto my shoulders. “If we keep losing like this, the sponsors are going to pull their funding!” the manager had roared, slamming his hand on the desk. I didn’t hesitate for a second. I signed the agreement directly. If the team was eliminated, I would pack my bags and leave immediately, no questions asked. Ever since I was forced to retire three years ago due to severe hand injuries, I had poured my blood and soul into this team. Even if I was pushed to the edge of a cliff, I would bet all my pride on one last desperate fight. After finalizing the tactical deployment in the breakroom, I stood by the tunnel entrance, watching the players step onto that dazzling stage one by one. Jackson was the last in line. Before stepping onto the stage, he looked back and gave me an incredibly confident look, as if saying, “Leave everything to me.” But I didn’t return his look with a gentle smile, as I had done countless times before. A flash of surprise crossed his eyes, but the urgent arena announcements didn’t give him time to linger. Halfway through the match, as I stared at the real-time first-person POV on the monitor, my heart sank lower and lower. Not only did Daisy completely ignore the stable macro strategy I had repeatedly emphasized in the pre-match meeting, but she also began to frequently make amateur mistakes. Every single one of her positional errors was frantically destroying the team’s tempo, forcing her teammates into desperate situations. In the final, decisive team fight around the objective pit, she actually walked straight into the face of the enemy’s core damage dealer and died—like a complete noob who didn’t understand the game at all—completely destroying our only sliver of hope for a comeback. She did it on purpose. She was using a professional match to throw the game as revenge for my criticism yesterday. My fingertips trembled uncontrollably. Watching the players trudge back into the breakroom, the entire room descended into a deathly silence. “Oops, sorry Sierra, my hands were a bit cold that game,” Daisy even playfully stuck her tongue out. Before I could explode, Jackson had already spoken up. “It’s fine, you did your best. I think your initiation idea in that last fight was actually pretty good.” I lifted my eyelids coldly, my gaze scraping across his face like a knife. “You can’t see the problems with her mechanics?” “She was blatantly feeding the entire match! Did you all just treat this morning’s tactical briefing as background noise?” I ignored them and turned directly to the substitute player sitting in the corner, trembling with nerves. “You’re starting the next game. Daisy, you are permanently glued to the bench.” Jackson’s brows shot up, his face full of hostility. “On what grounds? I already said Daisy’s playstyle is completely fine. Do you think I can’t carry this team?” “Benching her like this is completely unfair to her.” I found it utterly absurd and couldn’t help but laugh coldly. “She treats a professional match like playing house, and you’re talking to me about unfairness? Do either of you have even the slightest shred of esports integrity left in your brains?” “Shut up. This is the final decision of the coaching staff.” Seeing my uncompromising, iron-clad stance, Daisy immediately panicked, tears falling thick and fast. “I know I was wrong, Sierra! Please give me one more chance! Next game, I swear I’ll follow your shotcalling to the letter!” Jackson’s heart broke for her. He quickly pulled her into his arms to comfort her. “Why are you crying? Didn’t I promise you on stage just now that you’d play the whole series?” He looked up, and those eyes—which had once spoken countless vows to me—were now filled with cold hostility. “You insist on going against me today, is that it?” “Sierra, have you still not faced reality? You’re long past being that legendary prodigy mid-laner. Waving the coaching staff’s authority around like a weapon, do you really think you represent everyone?” I stared at him, feeling that the person in front of me was terrifyingly unfamiliar. We had walked together from eating instant noodles in the dampest, coldest basement to standing under the spotlight. I couldn’t fathom how such cruel words could come out of his mouth. Seeing me stay silent, Jackson redirected his fire toward the team’s head coach, Greg, who had been playing deaf and dumb on the sidelines. “Greg, you’re the official head coach of this team. You tell me, did Daisy’s performance really warrant being benched?” Greg was nothing but a figurehead collecting a paycheck; the real tactical core and training responsibilities of the team had always been on my shoulders. But now, his cloudy eyes darted between me and Jackson a couple of times before he broke into a sycophantic smile. “I think Jackson makes a very good point. Daisy, you keep playing. Adjust your mindset, and don’t let us down!” A bucket of ice water poured straight over my head. As Daisy walked past me toward the tunnel, she deliberately lowered her voice and flashed me an incredibly malicious, provocative smile. “I fed on purpose. Too bad, isn’t it? Jackson is just willing to protect me. Lose two more games, and you can pack your bags and get the hell out!” No one cared about my statue-like, rigid posture. My nails had long since dug deep into the soft flesh of my palms, drawing blood. The phone in my pocket vibrated frantically. My brother had called several times, but I hadn’t answered a single one. 2 There were no miracles in this match. We were swept by our opponents, returning in devastating defeat. As soon as we returned to the training room, Jackson violently slammed his gear bag onto the desk, pointing at my nose and cursing, “What’s the use of you staying up all night writing those trash analysis reports?! We’d be better off just playing however we want!” “With your garbage game understanding, it’s no wonder your hands are ruined and you had to retire!” Those words were like a massive sledgehammer, smashing precisely into my spine. My eyes instantly welled up with tears. Seeing the tears in my eyes, his expression stiffened, a flash of remorse crossing his face. “I… I didn’t mean it like that.” I turned my head away, forcefully wiping the moisture from the corners of my eyes, my voice unimaginably hoarse. “You think I’m a useless piece of trash, don’t you?” Jackson was instantly silenced, biting his lip hard and saying nothing. Back when this team couldn’t even afford a decent computer, it was me who let him sit safely in the base to train. I was the one who wore high heels, running from company to company, talking until my throat bled and drinking until my stomach gave out just to secure our first sponsorship. When the championship honors that once belonged to me were wantonly mocked and trampled by others, I could casually pick them up, dust them off, and keep walking forward. In the past, whenever I came back to the base dead drunk from trying to secure sponsorships, it was Jackson who took care of me without a single word of complaint. He would carefully wipe my face with a warm towel, then hold me tightly with red-rimmed eyes. “Baby, just wait for me a little longer, okay?” “Once I lift that championship trophy, I want to see who in this scene still dares to look down on you!” Now, the display cabinet was so full of championship trophies that the light could barely pass through. But Jackson and I seemed to be separated by an uncrossable abyss; we could never go back to that cramped but warm basement. The humiliating ten-game losing streak completely detonated the internet. Major forums and social media platforms were flooded with angry curses and questions from fans. “What the hell is that new support doing? I could play better with my feet!” “Is the coaching staff’s brain filled with sewer water? Tell Sierra to get out here and apologize!” “Jackson, do you even care about the money we spent on tickets?!” Team management immediately issued a gag order, strictly forbidding all starting players from checking online comments to prevent it from affecting their mindset for the upcoming relegation matches. Having struggled in the esports scene for so many years, I had long since developed an impenetrable heart. Back then, I had walked up to the altar to lift the trophy amidst a sky full of boos and insults. I scrolled through my phone screen expressionlessly, scanning the vicious remarks. However, my finger suddenly stopped. I saw a reply from Jackson’s verified account, which had millions of followers, under a top comment. “Daisy is still a rookie. I hope everyone can give her a little time and tolerance to grow.” “I’ve already won five championships. From my perspective, there are no problems with Daisy’s mechanics. She is just strictly executing the tactics assigned to her by the coaching staff.” The direction of public opinion instantly underwent a terrifying reversal. The spears originally aimed at Daisy all simultaneously changed direction, pointing entirely at me—the behind-the-scenes staff member who formulated the tactics. “Even our five-time champion says so! It looks like the players are really being dragged down by disgusting tactics! The person who let us down is Sierra!” “Did Sierra buy illegal bets and take a bribe? These tactics are literally just feeding the enemy!” “I actually cried sincerely for her when she retired due to her hand injury back then. Looking at it now, she doesn’t deserve to touch this game at all! Kick this cancer out of the team!” The screen scrolled wildly with nothing but personal attacks against me. The language grew increasingly obscene, and some even started spreading rumors that the only way I got into the coaching staff was by spreading my legs for management. And amidst this foul atmosphere, the few posts that lacked aggression were actually shipping Jackson and Daisy. “Dominant Jungler x Wronged Rookie Support. The whole team is targeting the support girl, and only the captain is bearing all the pressure to protect her! Omg, what kind of god-tier plot is this, I’m going crazy shipping them!” “So when is that old witch Sierra going to get lost? I just want to see our Daisy get carried onto the podium by Jackson and lift the championship trophy together!” This malicious comment was actually liked by Jackson’s personal account. This action was like pouring a ladle of water into a boiling vat of oil; the fans instantly went into a frenzy. I looked up at Jackson, who was sitting on the sofa. He was still looking down, casually scrolling through his phone screen. But from beginning to end, he hadn’t typed a single word on his keyboard to defend me. Because of the tsunami of public opinion he had single-handedly caused, management didn’t hesitate to push me out as the scapegoat. That afternoon, the club’s official account published a red-headed document announcement, declaring that due to severe problems with my work attitude, I was immediately suspended for a month of reflection. They even forced me to record a deeply humiliating apology video. The entire fandom popped champagne to celebrate, as if clearing out a “cancer” like me would guarantee them a sweeping victory in the next match. But I knew better than anyone else that, given their current state, they couldn’t possibly win. When I packed my things and walked out of the meeting room, exhausted, Jackson was leaning against the doorframe waiting for me. “If you hadn’t been plotting behind my back to sell me off, I would have stood up and spoken for you today.” I looked up in shock, only to receive a remarkably mocking, cold sneer in return. “Even now, are you still planning to play dumb? This time last year, I had just fought to win that season’s grand championship for you. I had even bought a celebration gift and happily walked up to the meeting room door. And what happened? What did I hear?” 3 “I heard with my own ears that you guys were discussing taking advantage of the fact that my brand is at its most valuable right now to quickly list me and sell me to another club for cash! Because in your heart, you simply don’t believe in my future career longevity!” “I did not!” I desperately wanted to explain, reaching out to grab his arm, only for him to swat my hand away violently in disgust. A sharp slap echoed in the hallway, and four bright red finger marks instantly bloomed on the back of my hand. Because the spot he struck was exactly where I had undergone surgery years ago, a piercing pain instantly surged through me. I couldn’t help but gasp, curling my fingers in agony. “I’ll get the team doctor!” Jackson clearly hadn’t expected to hit me so hard, a flash of panic crossing his face. I endured the pain and stopped him, staring dead into his eyes and shaking my head. “I have never, in any meeting, proposed selling you. Jackson, why refuse to believe me?” Jackson violently shook off my hand, pulling a harsh, tragic smile that was uglier than crying. “That year, my grandmother was diagnosed with a severe illness and was burning through money every day in the ICU. I was desperately taking on those disgusting commercial endorsements like a dog while staying up late to maintain high-intensity training. I fought like hell to win, just because I was terrified of disappointing you.” “Sierra, my greatest wish in this life was to become the foundation of your pride, to be your strongest backing. But as I stood outside that door, I realized that in your heart, I was nothing more than a commodity waiting to be priced and sold.” I opened my mouth, wanting to carve open the truth of that year piece by piece to show him, but he no longer wanted to listen. Watching his resolute back as he turned away, I suddenly heard a distinct shattering sound in my chest. It was as if a glass castle I had painstakingly supported for years had finally, completely collapsed at this moment. I slumped weakly against the cold wall, sliding down to the floor. With a voice only I could hear, I softly called his name. “Jackson, I’m leaving.” His footsteps paused for a mere half-second; he clearly thought I was just playing hard to get. “Let’s break up.” I had once naively believed that even if my hands were ruined and I could never touch that familiar keyboard again, at least I could stand in the shadows of the stage, using my brain to continue shining for this team. We won the championship last year, and I thought that glory could continue forever. But now I realized how ridiculously wrong I was. Perhaps, just as my parents had said when they tried to stop me back then, I simply didn’t have the ability to control the situation. The scheming and infighting of these past few days had left me feeling unprecedentedly exhausted. It was a bone-deep weariness that even made me start to miss the home I had sworn I would rather die than step foot in again. Jackson whipped his head around, staring fixedly at me for a long time, before finally letting out an incredibly stiff, almost teeth-grittingly cold laugh. “Fine! Break up then! You think I care? There are plenty of younger, more sensible women lining up for me in this world!” “Sierra, you will absolutely regret your decision today. Don’t blame me for not warning you.” I looked at him without saying a word, only feeling a violent soreness rising from deep within my eye sockets. Even though I had been officially suspended, a few days later, Coach Greg still swallowed his pride and called me, practically begging on his hands and knees for me to return to the training room. “Those little brats are completely unmanageable! Without you there, we can’t even schedule normal scrims. You need to come back and lay down the law!” I pushed open the door to the training room and scanned the area. Daisy’s seat had been deliberately moved to be as close to Jackson as possible, their gaming chairs practically touching. Sensing my gaze, Daisy didn’t show an ounce of guilt. Instead, she slipped her hand directly into Jackson’s palm and, like a victor, proudly raised their tightly clasped hands to flaunt them at me. On their wrists glinted a pair of matching couples’ bracelets. It was a style Jackson and I had eyed while shopping a few months ago. At the time, because the price was too exorbitant, we couldn’t bear to buy them in order to save the team’s budget. I didn’t expect him to turn around and buy them for Daisy. I had originally been saving up money, planning to give him a surprise for his birthday this year. Looking at it now, I could save that money. “Long time no see, Sierra. How was your reflection at home these past few days?” Daisy’s sickly-sweet voice couldn’t hide its underlying malice. Jackson leaned back in his gaming chair, mocking me from the side. “Don’t waste your breath. Someone as self-righteous as her could never recognize her own mistakes.” I completely tuned out their words, pulled out my chair, and sat down, my voice hard and cold. “Didn’t you say we were playing a scrim? Cut the crap and open the lobby.” The first-string starting lineup and the second-string composed of substitutes began alternating practice games. Jackson forcefully demanded to be paired with Daisy. I didn’t even bat an eyelid and let him do whatever he wanted. However, upon entering the game, Daisy’s disastrous performance repeated itself. Her positioning was fragmented, she wasted her skills, and the slight advantages Jackson fought tooth and nail to secure in the early game were all thrown away by her repeatedly stupid feeding. In the final, crucial team fight, she even used her skills to push a low-health enemy assassin directly onto the face of our fragile marksman. Driven by the professional instinct of a tactical analyst, I hit the pause button and started flaming her without mercy. “If you really lack the talent for esports, then retire early and do something else. With your mechanics—which are so rotten they’re festering—even if you went back to being a borderline cam girl, your viewers would find your gameplay offensive to the eyes. It was Greg who practically risked his life to recommend you to me, and combined with the fact that our former championship support chose to leave due to age and declining form, I made an exception and gave you this tryout opportunity.” “Now open your eyes wide and look at the replay. Does your gameplay do justice to your teammates who stay up late every night reviewing VODs with you?!” Daisy’s eyes turned red, and tears smashed onto the keyboard like broken beads. Jackson immediately took off his headset in heartache and pulled her into his arms. “She’s just having an off day! At worst, we just don’t play this game, okay? Why do you always have to target her alone!” My temples throbbed with anger. In this team, I treated every player with absolute fairness. Even Jackson, who was incredibly talented back then, had been scolded by me so badly after a match loss that he couldn’t lift his head to eat for a whole day. That was when he was at his purest. In the middle of the night, he would sneak over to knock on my door, his eyes red-rimmed as he apologized to me: “Coach, let me load up the practice tool and show you again. I swear I will never make the same mistakes I made today twice.” But now, this Jackson, whose eyes were filled only with a woman, roared at me. “Stop being an armchair general here! Since you think you know best, if you’re so good, you play!” I slowly lowered my eyes, my gaze falling on the hand that bore a hideous scar from surgery. I let out a soft laugh. “Alright.” “I’ll play.” 4 When my hand once again rested on that cold keyboard, for a fleeting moment, I felt as if I had traveled back in time to the golden age three years ago. The blinding spotlight pierced through the darkness of the arena like a sharp sword, shining straight onto my arm holding the trophy high. In that moment, the sky full of golden rain froze us into an eternal legend. Not having touched the game in years, the DPI of the mouse and the tactile feedback of the keys felt a bit unfamiliar. After entering the game, Jackson and Daisy, like rabid dogs, utilized their long-standing synergy to relentlessly target me in the mid-lane, killing me over and over again. They were taking revenge on me. I took a deep breath, my fingertips turning slightly white, my ears filled with Daisy’s unrestrained mockery. “Oh my, did we make Sierra cry? What ‘ancient era’ championship veteran? I think it’s purely because the region’s skill level was so low back then, and she got lucky and picked up a championship. It’s so watered down!” “With gameplay that gets slaughtered like a pig, what right do you have to sit in the coach’s seat and lecture us? What a useless old auntie.” Jackson shot me a contemptuous glance and threw down a casual remark: “Enough, just hit surrender. Don’t waste everyone’s time, it’s pretty boring.” “No need.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The outside noise and the faint ache in my wrist were completely shut out at this moment. The few substitute players sitting next to me seemed to sense the shift in atmosphere as well. They dropped their spectator expressions and sat up straight. Under my precise shotcalling, they no longer fought isolated battles but acted like a seamless killing machine, slowly encroaching on the enemy’s vision, steadily clawing back a massive gold deficit bit by bit. The final team fight that would decide the game broke out. Like a venomous snake lurking in the deep sea, I locked onto the fatal flaw Daisy exposed out of panic. Jackson was pinned down by our frontline, completely unable to peel. My fingers became a blur on the keyboard, successively bursting down the enemy’s two core damage dealers. As the enemy base crystal shattered into brilliant fragments on the screen, I led the second-string team they looked down upon to secure this impossible victory. Jackson’s eyes were nailed to the gray screen, unable to recover for a long time. As for the previously arrogant Daisy, she was now like a duck grabbed by the neck, her face pale, unable to utter half a word. I took off my headset, slowly stood up, and looked down at them condescendingly. “Three years ago, the ace position Jackson is sitting in right now was mine.” “That championship trophy you guys use to show off was also won by my own hands.” I casually tossed my staff ID badge onto the desk, my tone as calm as if I were discussing today’s weather: “The first string’s performance today was a literal pile of dog shit, and it makes me feel incredibly nauseous.” “Today, all training volume for the first string is doubled. No one sleeps until it’s finished!” That night, I directly knocked on the club owner’s office door, voluntarily submitted my resignation letter, and prematurely terminated the performance guarantee agreement that had almost cost me half my life. The pot-bellied owner puffed on a cigar and put on a fake sigh. “Sierra, the board has seen the blood and sweat you’ve poured into the team over these years. But you have to understand our difficulties. In this circle, a star player who can sell sky-high merch and tickets is far more valuable than an excellent behind-the-scenes coach.” Jackson could earn them tens of millions in profit, while I, a washed-up analyst with crippled hands, could not. Reality was just that cold and simple. I forced a smile and said nothing. I still remember back then, Jackson knocked on my door clutching a crumpled train ticket and a heart full of passion, his eyes shining with starlight, solemnly swearing to build a new esports dynasty with me. I promised him everything, and I fought like hell to deliver. But the original promises about dreams he made to me had long been thrown into the sewer like garbage. Jackson had changed, completely changed. In him, I could no longer find the stubborn boy who, in the pouring rain, soaked to the bone, still clung tightly to my legs, begging me with red eyes to give him a chance to try out. Returning to my dorm, I silently stuffed my clothes into my suitcase and booked an early morning flight for the next day. Right then, Daisy sent a message saying she wanted to talk to me alone before I left. I packed my last jacket and pushed the door open to walk out. In the dim light of the fire escape stairwell at the base, she stood with her head down, looking pitiful as she apologized to me. “Sierra, actually, I was just too jealous of how devoted Jackson was to you, so I deliberately messed around in the game to force you to leave quickly. But now that you’re really leaving, I actually feel pretty bad about it in my heart.” I quietly watched her clumsy acting, my tone completely flat. “How you walk your path in the future is your own business. Focus your mind on your mechanics, and don’t treat the fans who support you like idiots.” She kept her head down and didn’t reply. I felt it was somewhat inexplicable, and was just about to turn and leave this damp, cold place. The moment I turned around, a highly malicious and violent shove suddenly came from behind! I didn’t have time to react at all. I lost my center of gravity entirely and fell straight down the steep stairs like a broken ragdoll. My elbows and knees smashed heavily against the hard concrete steps, and a bone-shattering agony instantly swept through my whole body. Just as I was seeing stars, the corner of my eye caught Jackson rushing out from the corridor corner, looking panicked. He sprinted over, but he didn’t even cast a single glance at me lying in a pool of blood. Instead, he bypassed me entirely and anxiously lunged toward Daisy, who was standing at the top of the stairs. “Daisy! You sprained your wrist?! Oh my god, tomorrow is the relegation match that decides our fate! If you get a chronic injury, your entire career will be ruined!” I lay sprawled on the cold concrete floor, staring blankly as Jackson carefully scooped up the completely unharmed Daisy into his arms and sprinted frantically toward the infirmary. I don’t know how long I lay on the floor before I finally gritted my teeth, fought through the piercing pain, and used my trembling arms to prop myself against the wall, pulling myself up from the ground little by little. When I limped and clumsily hopped up to the stair landing like a comical clown, I saw Jackson returning, standing with a dark expression in front of my door. His gaze finally landed on my continuously bleeding lower leg. He looked at me coldly and asked, “Are you regretting it now?” I looked straight into his eyes, which held not a trace of warmth, and answered, enunciating every word. “I haven’t done anything wrong, so I absolutely do not regret it.” I pushed the door open, shutting the boy whose eyes used to be filled only with me out. I turned around, biting my lip hard, pretending that the tears in my eyes had never broken the dam. At the break of dawn, the plane pierced through the thick clouds and landed smoothly. My brother, Arthur, had canceled an extremely important transnational meeting to personally drive his flashy Maybach to pick me up at the airport. When he clearly saw the shocking patch of gauze on my leg, a look of absolute fury appeared on his usually cynical face. “Who did this? I’ll break his legs!” “I accidentally tripped and fell.” He gave me a deep look, sighed heavily, and his large palm reassuringly rubbed the top of my head. “You’ve suffered a lot out there.” “I’ve already had someone investigate that mess on the internet. Don’t worry, your brother will vent this anger for you.” Seeing my surprised look, the corners of Arthur’s mouth curled into a dangerous arc. “I just casually bought out that garbage club of yours entirely. Is our princess satisfied with this little welcome-home gift?” “That ungrateful bastard named Jackson or whatever, I’ll have him listed and sold off like trash tomorrow, what do you think?”

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I have decided to get a divorce. Love—this fragile thing—probably really does vanish in complete silence. That day, while I was having lunch with a business partner at an upscale steakhouse, I unexpectedly ran into my wife. She and her young male assistant were sitting in a booth reserved for couples, heads bent close together as they ate. You have to understand, she used to be a strict vegetarian. She wouldn’t touch meat under any circumstances. Yet right then, her assistant was using a fork to spear a piece of steak, carefully bringing it right to her lips. She opened her mouth slightly, took the bite, and after chewing, a remarkably radiant smile blossomed across her face. I suddenly remembered how, in the past, whenever I urged her to occasionally eat a little meat for her health, she would always reject the idea with an awful attitude. Maybe… she really doesn’t love me anymore. 1 I kept a polite smile on my face, chatting with Mr. Henderson about recent gossip in the city’s business circle, acting as if I hadn’t seen Madeline and Antoine at all. But their behavior really made it hard to look away. Antoine cut the steak into small pieces and, catching any drips with his other hand, offered a piece to Madeline. He said very gently, “Please have some meat, Princess.” Madeline’s eyes crinkled into crescents as she smiled. After taking the bite, she chewed it slowly and deliberately. Antoine picked up a napkin and intimately wiped the corner of her mouth. Madeline didn’t dodge; her smile only deepened. Then, Antoine picked up a spoon, blew on the hot soup, and fed it to her. Madeline, who had always claimed to be a germaphobe, actually opened her mouth and drank the soup. What kind of intimate relationship allows someone to happily drink soup that someone else just blew on? I smiled like some sort of cuckold-voyeur, completely ignoring their existence, and continued my conversation with Mr. Henderson. After all, I am a mature businessman; I couldn’t lose my composure in front of a partner. Furthermore, if a wife gets dirty, you just replace her with a clean one. Getting angry only ruins your own health. When we finished discussing business and were about to leave, I stopped by her table. I smiled and asked, “Miss, what cut of steak is this? My wife loves steak, so I’m asking for her.” Madeline’s face turned dead pale in an instant. The hand holding her knife gave a violent tremor, and the knife clattered onto the porcelain plate, making a harsh, piercing sound. Her eyes darted around in panic; she didn’t dare meet my gaze. Her lips trembled as if she wanted to say something, but not a single word came out. Beside her, Antoine immediately frowned. He reached out to shield Madeline behind him, glaring at me fiercely. His tone dripped with impatience and disdain. “Where did this stray dog come from? Can’t you see she has a boyfriend? You still have the nerve to hit on her? Be smart and get the hell out of here.” Watching him act like a protective guard dog, I couldn’t help but chuckle. I nodded, my tone perfectly flat. “You two make a great couple.” With that, I straightened up, ignoring the sheer terror written in Madeline’s eyes, and turned to walk out of the steakhouse. I hadn’t taken many steps before I heard Madeline’s frantic footsteps behind me. She grabbed my wrist. Her fingertips were freezing. Her voice trembled, thick with unshed tears. “Honey, it’s not what you think. Please, listen to me explain…” I violently threw off her hand with enough force to make her stumble. I turned my face slightly to look at her. There wasn’t a trace of warmth in my eyes; my tone was as distant as if speaking to a complete stranger. “Ma’am, I have a wife. Please have some self-respect.” Madeline’s tears instantly spilled over, her eyes turning bloodshot. She wanted to step forward and say something else. I raised my eyes and shot her an icy glare. The sheer coldness in that look silenced her instantly. Her lips quivered, and she didn’t dare say another word. I walked to my car, opened the door, and said my goodbyes to Mr. Henderson before getting in. The moment the car door closed, I took out my phone, opened my chat with Madeline, and tapped out a few words. Then, without a second of hesitation, I blocked her on iMessage, along with her phone number, Instagram, Twitter—every possible method of contact. Blocked with a single tap. The message I sent remained crystal clear on the screen: “Get ready. We are getting a divorce.” After sending it, I texted my executive assistant, Chloe: “Reject all calls and messages from Madeline. I don’t care what number she uses, ignore them all.” 2 Chloe’s reply came swiftly: “Understood, Mr. Kreiling.” The car drove smoothly, dropping Mr. Henderson off at the airport. Only after watching him go through security did I tell the driver to turn around and head back to the villa in the hills. That was the house Madeline and I bought when we got married. She picked the decor herself—European style, everything exactly the way she liked it. I used to think of this place as home. But now, it just felt a bit sickening. The first thing I did upon arriving was call the property management’s locksmith to change the passcode on the front door. I was the only one who knew the new code. Next, I logged into the community’s security system and deleted all of Madeline’s facial recognition and fingerprint data. She would never be able to enter this neighborhood again, let alone this former home. After doing that, I called a moving company. I watched as the movers went into every room, boxing up everything that belonged to Madeline—clothes, bags, makeup, plush toys. Those things she treated like treasures were now nothing but garbage in my eyes. I stood in the living room, watching the workers carry box after box out the door. The rooms that were once filled with her things gradually became empty. Yet, my heart felt inexplicably light, as if a thousand-pound weight had been lifted off my shoulders. When a person goes bad, they become garbage. If I kept her in my heart, holding onto everything about her, then I would just become a trash can. And I, Julian Kreiling, have never been the type of man to live his life guarding a pile of trash. The best choice is to throw it away immediately and make a clean break. By the time the packing was done, it was late into the night. The villa was dead silent. I brewed a cup of tea and sat in the wicker chair on the balcony. I didn’t feel an ounce of sadness, only the liberating relief of letting go. Early the next morning, I drove to the Kreiling Group headquarters. Today was the annual corporate assembly. The heads of all subsidiaries and top executives had to attend. It concerned the planning for the entire year, so there was no room for error. I wore a custom black suit paired with a navy blue tie, walking with a steady pace toward the grand auditorium in the corporate tower. Just as I reached the entrance, a figure suddenly blocked my path. It was Antoine. He was wearing an ill-fitting casual blazer, his hair slicked back with too much pomade. With an arrogant look on his face, he pointed a finger right at my nose and yelled at the top of his lungs, “What are you doing here? I already told you Madeline has a boyfriend. You failed at hitting on her, and now you have the guts to stalk her here? Do you really think I don’t exist? Are you treating me like a joke?” His voice was loud, drawing sideways glances from quite a few employees nearby. Everyone stopped walking, looking over curiously and whispering among themselves. Looking at Antoine acting like a jumping clown, a faint smile touched the corners of my lips. My tone was casual. “Actually, I work here.” In front of outsiders, I rarely do anything undignified, and I certainly wasn’t willing to waste emotional energy on someone like Antoine. Antoine looked as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world. He sneered, looking me up and down, the contempt in his eyes practically overflowing. “You? Fit to work at Kreiling Group? Do you even know what this place is? This is the most powerful corporation in the city. They don’t just let any random stray dog walk in!” A few veteran employees nearby couldn’t stand it anymore and wanted to step forward to intervene. I gently shook my head, signaling them to step back. I really wanted to see what other absurd things this arrogant, ignorant kid would say. I kept smiling, my tone unhurried. “First, I really do work at Kreiling Group. Second, the Madeline you claim has a boyfriend… is actually my wife.” Antoine froze, clearly not expecting me to say that. He stood stunned for a few seconds, then, as if hearing something hilarious, let out a disdainful sneer, his voice growing even louder. 3 “Oh, so you’re CEO Madeline’s little toyboy husband?” “I heard from CEO Madeline a long time ago. You’re just a kept man who married into her family. You don’t even have your own last name; you took her last name?” Antoine laughed mockingly. “You’re a grown man, yet you can’t even carry on your own family line, so you had to marry into a woman’s family. You really are a piece of work!” This was the first time I had ever heard such a rumor. After all, I’m very well-known in the city’s business circles. Nobody could possibly invent a rumor this absurd and surreal about me. I smiled and shook my head. “Then you heard wrong. My last name is Kreiling. Julian Kreiling. Chairman of the Kreiling Group.” Upon hearing this, Antoine fell silent for a moment. Then he suddenly burst into uproarious laughter, bending over backward, laughing so hard tears almost came to his eyes. “Are you trying to kill me with laughter?” “Stop bragging that your name is Julian Kreiling. Why don’t you just say your name is Superman? Flying around saving the world—how badass would that be! Chairman of the Kreiling Group? I think you’ve gone crazy dreaming about being the Chairman!” Antoine was laughing so hard he was slapping his own thigh. His laughter was incredibly grating. The surrounding employees all frowned, looking at him as if he were a complete idiot. I shook my head, amused, and pointed to the people around us. “You can ask anyone else here.” Antoine’s laughter stopped abruptly. He turned to look at the surrounding employees, a provocative look in his eyes, seemingly thinking everyone would agree with him. But the next second, a cold, authoritative female voice cut through the silence. “I can prove it.” A woman walked over, dressed in an impeccably tailored white business suit. She was tall, with refined features, and carried an aura of absolute competence. It was my Executive Assistant, Chloe. She walked up to stand beside me, looking at Antoine with icy eyes, her tone unwavering. “I am Chloe, Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Kreiling Group. I can prove that he is indeed the Chairman of the Kreiling Group, Julian Kreiling.” Chloe’s words struck Antoine’s ears like a thunderbolt. The smile on his face froze instantly. The contempt and arrogance in his eyes vanished without a trace, replaced by shock and sheer disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something, but found his throat blocked, unable to utter a single syllable. It took him a few seconds to recover, though he remained stubborn, his face full of suspicion. “Do you really think I can’t see through this? You all work for the same company; of course you’d cover for him. You’re ganging up to trick me, right?” I smiled helplessly, looking at him with a hint of mockery in my tone. “So, even when I tell the truth, you just won’t believe it, will you?” “Why should I believe it? I’m not afraid to tell you, even though you’re Madeline’s husband, my relationship with her is way better than yours!” Antoine sneered, stiffening his neck. “She tells me everything. Including the fact that you’re just a kept man—she told me every single detail!” “You’re just a freeloader! You don’t make your own money, but you spend CEO Madeline’s money like water!” “You married into her family and have zero male dignity, so you’re always going out to find female escorts to show off your ego!” To make his words sound more convincing, Antoine started fabricating all sorts of rumors about me. He pointed at me, spit flying from his mouth. “And you don’t care about CEO Madeline at all. Every time you see her, you force her to do that. Do you have any idea how much she suffers being with you?” The things he was making up were both absurd and disgusting. The surrounding employees showed expressions of utter contempt, looking at him with even more disdain. Antoine didn’t notice at all, still lost in his own web of lies, getting more excited as he spoke. “You better get out of here right now. Otherwise, when Madeline gets here, with her status as the CEO of a subsidiary, firing a piece of trash like you at the head office is just a matter of one word from her!” 4 I raised an eyebrow, looking at him with keen interest. “Why would she fire me?” Antoine smiled confidently, a smug look on his face as if victory was already in his grasp. “Because I don’t like you, and she treats me well! She listens to whatever I say! So all I have to do is say the word, and she will definitely fire you!” The moment his words fell, the sound of frantic footsteps came from outside the crowd. Madeline pushed her way through the onlookers and walked over quickly. She still had wet tear tracks on her face, and her hair was slightly disheveled. It was obvious she had rushed over in a panic. When she saw me, she immediately walked quickly to my side, grabbing my hand. Her eyes were full of panic and urgency as she said to me, “Honey, please listen to me explain. It’s not what he said, and it’s not what you saw yesterday. Things are not what you think they are.” “Madeline, why are you explaining things to him?” “He’s just a kept man; why are you begging him?” When Antoine saw Madeline, he immediately frowned, took a step forward, and grabbed her arm, his tone laced with exasperation. “You should just throw trash like this away. Wouldn’t it be better to find a superior man? I’m right here. Look at me—am I not better than him?” Madeline violently yanked her arm out of Antoine’s grasp. She turned, glaring at him with a piercing look, and sharply scolded, “Shut your mouth! In this entire city, I have never met a man more outstanding than my husband, Julian Kreiling!” Her voice was loud and carried an unquestionable firmness, leaving Antoine stunned in place, unable to react for a long time. Antoine was completely dumbfounded. He looked at Madeline, his eyes full of confusion and disbelief, his lips trembling. “But you said… you said your husband was garbage, a freeloader who married into your family…” “Shut up! I just… I only imagined those scenarios to relieve pressure because having a husband as outstanding as Julian puts a lot of pressure on me!” Madeline immediately cut him off, scolding him again, a trace of panic on her face as she spoke rapidly. “In reality, I love my husband very much. I even respect him from the bottom of my heart!” She was starting to become incoherent, and I didn’t believe a word she was saying anyway. Actually, whether I believed it or not didn’t matter. Whether she was under pressure or whatever else, why didn’t she talk to me about it? Why talk to a young assistant instead? “Honey, I really know I was wrong. I’ve just been under too much pressure lately. Because you’re so outstanding, and there are so many women around you who want you, I felt insecure.” Madeline held my hand, her fingertips trembling slightly, her eyes full of pleading, her voice softening. “That’s why I imagined you as a kept man and all that… just to relieve my own stress. I really didn’t mean anything else by it.” I shook off her hand, smiling faintly. My tone was casual, yet it carried an unquestionable command. “Then fire him. I don’t like him.” Madeline froze, clearly not expecting me to say that. She quickly shook her head, the pleading in her eyes intensifying. “Honey, no. The reason Antoine said those things is because of the nonsense I told him before. This is all my fault; it has nothing to do with him. Can we please not fire him? I’m begging you.” Her words made me feel ridiculous. Even at a point like this, she was still defending this man. It seemed the relationship between them was indeed not simple. I nodded, my tone flat. “Fine.” A look of joy instantly appeared on Madeline’s face. She hurriedly thanked me. “Thank you, honey. Thank you so much.” I didn’t look at her. I turned to look at Chloe, who was standing to the side. My tone was ice-cold, devoid of any emotion. “Sell off the subsidiary that Madeline manages. It’s fine if we take a loss on the sale, but do it fast. I don’t like dirty things.”

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The memories of that exam day in my past life returned with terrifying clarity. Standing outside the hall, my eyes fixed on that familiar car in the distance. Everything came rushing back. Last time, he’d sped like a madman after his first love and crashed horribly. To pull him from the wreck, I missed two critical exams. Later, to help him through therapy, I gave up aerospace engineering for nursing. I’d foolishly thought years of devotion would earn his love. But on his deathbed, he coldly left everything to his first love. He called me just a live-in maid, while she was an elegant ballerina who needed comfort. He even accused me of causing the crash to come between them, saying I’d guilted him into staying and ruined his life. He said if he could do it over, he’d rather rot disabled than be with me. All those years of sacrifice—he erased them without a thought. I’d signed away my rights to his estate, whispered “Okay,” and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was back at our final exams. This time, I’d play dumb. His life, his choices, his mistakes—none of it concerned me anymore. In this life, I’d live only for myself. 1 The final bell had just rung when my dad grabbed my arm, practically dragging me into the passenger seat of our car. He started the engine while my mom filled me in on the panic. “Did you know Ziad was secretly dating someone? Well, she dumped him right before the exams today, and Ziad…” I didn’t need to hear the rest. I already knew it by heart. Just like in my previous life, Ziad took off in his dad’s car to chase after his girlfriend, crashed, and permanently destroyed his legs. The only difference was that this time, I stood by and watched him drive off to his doom, then calmly walked back inside to finish my afternoon exams. By the time we rushed to the hospital, two surgeons were just stepping out of the operating room, looking absolutely exhausted. “The crash was catastrophic, and there was a delay in getting the rescue teams to the site. We managed to save his life, but there is a very high probability he will never walk again. If the post-op recovery goes poorly, we might be looking at a double amputation.” The moment those words left the doctor’s mouth, Ziad’s mother, Valerie, broke down into agonizing sobs. Mr. Prescott held his wife up, his own face contorted in devastating grief. My parents stood frozen in shock, completely speechless. “It’s just such a shame. Ziad worked so hard in school all these years, only for this to happen on the most important day of his life,” my mom whispered. My dad shot her a warning look, silently telling her to shut her mouth. When they finally wheeled Ziad out, all four parents swarmed the gurney. I was the only one hanging back, staring blankly at my own hands. They were slender and smooth. There were no thick calluses. My knuckles weren’t swollen and deformed from years of washing his dirty bedsheets in freezing water. I really had been reborn. And I had actually finished my exams this afternoon. In my past life, Ziad’s first love, Stella, had coldly dumped him on the morning of our finals. Desperate to win her back, Ziad stole his dad’s car and sped after her without a second thought. I had seen him speed off. Terrified for his safety, I hopped in a cab and followed him, which meant I witnessed the gruesome crash with my own eyes. To get him to the hospital as fast as possible, I missed my two afternoon exams. I was a straight-A student who regularly scored near the absolute top of the state, but my final score was completely ruined. I originally planned to take a gap year and retake the exams, but Ziad suddenly dropped to his knees and confessed his love to me. He told me, “The doctors said if you hadn’t risked your life to pull me out of that burning car, they would have had to amputate both my legs.” “You gave up your exams for me. You sacrificed your dream of aerospace engineering. I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of you. That is… if you don’t mind being with a cripple.” My years of secret, unrequited love for him had suddenly blossomed into reality. At that moment, my brain totally short-circuited. “But… what about Stella?” I had stammered. Ziad’s eyes had filled with pure venom. “If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be in this wheelchair! I hate her guts!” After hesitating for a day, and listening to Ziad swear up and down that he couldn’t survive without me, my stupidly romantic heart gave in. I gave up the major I was born for. To help him walk again, I enrolled in a nursing program. For the next couple of decades, my entire existence revolved around his physical therapy. He claimed he hated having strangers in the house, so I was the only one who cooked his meals, washed his clothes, and massaged his atrophied muscles every single day. I waited on him hand and foot until he finally managed to stand on his own two feet again. When he refused to wallow in self-pity and decided to start his own tech company, I was the one running around behind the scenes, handling all the grunt work. But on the night his company finally went public, during the lavish celebration banquet… I overheard him talking to his executive assistant. “Did you manage to hire Stella as my plus-one for tonight?” The assistant nodded, hesitating. “Yes, Mr. Prescott. But… what about your wife?” Ziad looked at his own impeccably tailored reflection in the mirror and let out a cold sneer. “My wife? Please. She’s just the hired help.” I had stood frozen behind the heavy oak doors, my fingers turning white as I gripped the fabric of my evening gown in utter humiliation. Maybe God finally took pity on me, because not long after, Ziad suffered massive complications from his old injuries and ended up back in the ICU. But right before he flatlined, he transferred every single penny of his massive estate to Stella. He even had his lawyers drain our joint accounts, giving the meager savings I had built up to her as well. “Harper, you and her are fundamentally different,” he had gasped out. “You’re a maid. But she is an artist. She has lived an elegant life, and she needs this money to keep her comfortable.” “Besides, if you hadn’t staged that entire car crash back then to play the hero, she and I would never have broken up in the first place.” “You used a fake life debt to chain me down. You ruined my entire life.” “If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would rather rot in a wheelchair than ever let you touch me.” After serving him like a slave for half my life, I was left absolutely penniless, with nothing to my name but the calluses on my hands. In my past life, I paid the ultimate price for being blindingly, foolishly in love. 2 This time, I stood in complete silence, watching Mr. and Mrs. Prescott cry their eyes out. “He’s our only son. Christophe and I poured everything we had into him. Ziad was always such a brilliant, perfect kid. Why did he have to go and fall for some girl?” “I already asked around. That girl is just some performing arts student with terrible grades. The final exams didn’t even matter to her! But she had no right to destroy Ziad’s life on the most important day of the year!” Valerie sobbed hysterically. My mom sighed in sympathy. “That girl really is something else. Ziad nearly died for her, and she hasn’t even bothered to show up at the hospital.” A flash of pure hatred crossed Valerie’s face as she abruptly stood up. “We are reasonable people, but that little tramp ruined my son! The least she can do is get her ass down here and apologize!” Valerie was about to storm out to hunt Stella down, but before she could take two steps, agonizing screams erupted from inside the hospital room. “Stella! Stella!” I followed the panicked parents into the room, lingering near the back. Ziad’s head was heavily bandaged, and both of his legs were locked into thick braces. He was thrashing wildly, desperately trying to sit up but failing miserably. Because I hadn’t chased after him this time, rumor had it that Ziad was trapped unconscious in the crushed car for over an hour before a passing teacher finally spotted the wreck and called 911. The delay in medical attention meant his spinal injuries were far more severe. The surgeons had warned that the odds of amputation were terrifyingly high. Valerie rushed to the bedside, choking back her tears. “Don’t move, sweetie! The doctors said you absolutely cannot move. Your incisions haven’t even begun to heal!” Ziad stared down at his legs, blinking in confusion before forcing a weak, nonchalant smile. “It’s fine, Mom. It’s just a couple of broken bones, right? It’s not a big deal.” “Look, I can still move them.” Ziad tried to shift his legs. Nothing happened. The forced smile on his face slowly froze. As he tried again and again, sheer panic began to bleed into his features. “Why can’t I move my legs? It’s just the anesthesia, right? It just hasn’t worn off yet, right?!” His parents stood there with tears streaming down their faces, completely unable to form the words. “Say something! Tell me what’s wrong!” Ziad frantically slammed his fist onto the nurse call button. The moment a nurse rushed in, he cornered her with panicked demands. “What happened to my legs?!” “Tell me right now! What is wrong with my legs!” The young nurse recoiled in shock. Just as she opened her mouth to explain, Ziad suddenly started violently punching his own thighs. “Why can’t I feel anything?!” He was completely hysterical. It took three people to physically pin him down to the mattress. Watching him thrash around like a pathetic worm, a dark, twisted sense of satisfaction blossomed in my chest. I stepped up to the edge of the bed and looked down at him, enunciating every single word. “Keep punching them. Right now, your legs are just paralyzed. But if you keep smashing your own crushed bones, they’ll just amputate them entirely.” Ziad stiffened instantly, as if the word “paralyzed” was a bullet that had just struck him in the chest. “P-paralyzed?” Valerie finally broke down, wailing in absolute despair. Mr. Prescott rubbed his face tiredly. “Your mother and I know exactly what happened today. Now that you’re in this state, that Stella girl…” Before his dad could even finish the sentence, Ziad snapped. “This has nothing to do with Stella!” “It was my fault. I was driving too fast.” I lowered my eyes to hide my smirk. So this is what blind devotion looks like? She literally caused you to become a paraplegic, yet you still defend her honor in front of everyone? No matter how you looked at it, this car crash had absolutely zero to do with me. Yet in my past life, Ziad had ruthlessly pinned the entire blame on my shoulders without a shred of guilt. The difference between who he loved and who he used was glaringly obvious. In my past life, he said he’d rather rot as a cripple than have anything to do with me. Well, in this life, he gets to be a cripple, and I get to go to my dream college. Everybody wins. 3 This time around, I didn’t volunteer to stay overnight at the hospital. I sat in the plastic chair for twenty minutes, then quietly went home. But the very next day, the stress and trauma caused Valerie to physically collapse. She was admitted to the hospital herself. To make matters worse, the media caught wind of the fact that a high school senior had caused a massive pile-up while driving without a valid license. The internet was tearing Ziad to shreds. Mr. Prescott couldn’t handle the fallout alone. Out of desperation, my mom forced me to go to the hospital to help out, since my exams were officially over. When I walked into his room, the flicker of hope in Ziad’s eyes instantly died when he realized it was me. I ignored him entirely. I just pulled up a chair in the corner and played on my phone, strictly treating my presence as a required chore. But when it was time to change his dressings, Ziad turned into an absolute nightmare. “Bed 18, time to change your bandages,” the nurse said gently. Ziad whipped his head around, his eyes completely bloodshot. “Get out.” The nurse sighed, clearly exhausted but completely unsurprised. She looked like she had dealt with a hundred patients exactly like him. “If we don’t clean the wounds, the necrotic tissue will spread. It’s going to get much worse.” She stepped forward and reached out to unwrap the gauze around his shattered knee. “I said get out!” Ziad violently swatted his arm out, knocking the metal medical tray right out of her hands. Bottles of iodine and sterilized tools crashed onto the linoleum floor with a deafening clatter. I frowned and stood up. In my past life, Ziad had struggled to accept his paralysis too, but he was never this much of a violent bastard about it. I quickly replayed the memories in my head and realized the difference. In my previous life, after the crash, I had personally hunted Stella down and begged her to visit him. Thanks to my pleading, she showed up the very next day. But this time, the news of his horrific accident had spread like wildfire through the entire school, yet Stella hadn’t so much as sent him a text. He wasn’t angry at the nurse. He was throwing a tantrum because he was heartbroken. The young nurse looked like she was on the verge of tears, but she bent down to pick up the supplies, trying to do her job. Before she could even touch him, Ziad actually shoved her hard in the shoulder. “Are you deaf?! I said I don’t need you! Are all you hospital workers this pathetic? Do you just not understand English…” My patience snapped. I marched up to the bed and slapped him squarely across the face. The sharp crack echoed in the room. “If you want to rot and die, sign yourself out against medical advice. Don’t take your psychotic breakdown out on the staff.” The nurse wiped her eyes, took a deep, shaky breath, and hurried out to grab a fresh tray of supplies. “Bed 18…” she started softly when she returned. I snatched the iodine and bandages from her hands and tossed them directly onto Ziad’s chest. “If you want to die, do it faster. If you don’t want to die, change it yourself.” The nurse shot me a look of profound gratitude before practically fleeing the room. I felt genuinely sorry for her. Having to deal with a piece of trash like Ziad was far above her pay grade. Ziad was panting heavily like a rabid dog, glaring at me with pure venom. “Harper Bennett, who the hell gave you the right to hit me?!” Looking at the angry red handprint blooming on his cheek, I felt a deep sense of catharsis. “Before you act like a spoiled brat, take a look at your parents. Your mom is hospitalized from a panic attack. Your dad aged ten years overnight. What right do you have to act like a victim here?” “Just because Stella didn’t visit you? If you’re so mad, why don’t you go throw a fit at her?” My words struck a nerve. Ziad instantly fell silent. After a long pause, his voice cracked as he mumbled, “Stella is probably just at her dance camp… She probably just hasn’t heard the news yet. That’s why she hasn’t come.” I brutally popped his delusional little bubble. “Exams are over. She was literally at the senior class party last night.” Ziad’s jaw clenched tight. He turned his head away, staring at the blank wall, violently refusing to accept reality. When I came back from the bathroom ten minutes later, I noticed he had quietly changed his own bandages. In my past life, I was so heartbroken by his condition that I waited on him hand and foot. I spoon-fed him. I bathed him. I basically babied him until he turned into a helpless man-child who wouldn’t even swallow his painkillers unless I placed them directly into his palm. Look at him now. Left to his own devices, he’s perfectly capable of wrapping his own wounds. When I got home that night, I checked Stella’s Instagram. She was living her absolute best life. Parties, shopping, beach trips. After thinking it over, I opened my DMs and clicked on her name. I wanted to see exactly how she would treat him without me constantly playing the peacemaker in the background. 4 The next morning, Stella and I arrived at the hospital ward just a few minutes apart. When I walked in, Ziad looked like a corpse. The moment Stella walked in, he suddenly came back to life. His eyes lit up like Christmas morning. “Stella! You finally came.” “How did you know I was here? It’s so hot out today, thank you for making the trip. Harper, hurry up and go buy Stella an iced latte.” Even though I had completely purged this man from my heart, the sheer audacity of his request still made me laugh out loud. In my past life, I sacrificed my college education, dedicated my life to nursing, and dragged him out of his wheelchair. Instead of showing an ounce of gratitude, he treated me like the hired help and accused me of orchestrating his accident just to trap him. I guess it really is true. The one who is truly loved doesn’t have to lift a finger—they just have to exist, and they win. I didn’t move an inch. Stella crossed her arms over her chest and coldly told him not to bother. She stood as close to the door as possible, keeping a massive distance between them. “I’m not here for coffee.” “Ziad, what exactly is your game here? You drove like an idiot, crashed your car, and now you’re trying to tie yourself to me so I’m forced to take care of you?” “Are you out of your mind? You crashed your car after I dumped you. We have absolutely nothing to do with each other anymore, do you understand?” It was the first time I had ever seen Ziad make that specific face. It was a mix of shock, profound embarrassment, and a desperate, fragile smile that looked utterly pathetic. He stammered, “Stella, no… I never expected you to take care of me, I just…” Stella ruthlessly cut him off. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out you had your friends spread the news of your accident all over school? You’re just trying to guilt-trip me into staying!” “The harder you try, the more disgusting I find you! You’re the one who refused to let me go. Are you seriously trying to drag me down with you for the rest of my life?” “Don’t ever contact me again. I’m telling you for the absolute last time—we are done!” Stella spun on her heel and stormed out. Ziad actually shed a couple of tears. In his past life, he didn’t shed a single tear on his deathbed. In this life, he didn’t cry when he found out he was permanently paralyzed. But a few harsh words from Stella broke him completely. A vindictive smirk touched my lips. “College applications are opening up soon. I need to go home and finalize my university choices.” “Mr. Prescott needs to take care of your mom, so you guys should probably just hire a professional nurse.” I rattled off my exit speech, completely unbothered by the fact that Ziad didn’t hear a single word of it. It didn’t matter. I had fulfilled my mom’s mandatory hospital visit quota. Though I did hear through the grapevine that Ziad spiked a massive stress fever that night and had to be rushed into emergency care again. 5 I stopped visiting the hospital entirely. Instead, I buried myself in textbooks on orbital mechanics and astrophysics. In my past life, Ziad degraded me as a maid because I threw away my degree for him. This time, I was going to conquer the stars. I signed up for a highly competitive aerospace engineering summer intensive, scheduled to leave in three days. But the very next morning, while my mom was helping me pack my duffel bag, her phone started ringing frantically. It was Valerie. She was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, and the wail of police sirens echoed loudly in the background. “Get to the hospital, please, right now! That girl Ziad likes just posted a picture with a new boyfriend. Ziad lost his mind—he’s trying to kill himself!” “Ziad, please, step down from there!” Valerie screamed into the phone. My parents locked eyes in absolute terror. My dad, who had been chopping vegetables, sliced right into his own thumb. “Suicide?! Let’s go, let’s go, get in the car!” During the chaotic drive, my parents were beside themselves. “Such a brilliant kid, totally destroyed just like that. He had such a bright future! Harper, promise me you will never get involved in high school drama. No, promise me you’ll never become one of those girls who throws her life away for a boy!” My mom glared at my dad. “Don’t be ridiculous! Our daughter would never be that stupid!” I sat in the backseat, silent, a bitter taste in my mouth. Actually, in my past life, I never regretted pulling him out of that burning car. But I certainly paid the price for being blindly, stupidly in love with him afterward. My mistakes in my past life forced my parents to spend their golden years worrying themselves to death over me. “Don’t worry, Mom, Dad. I promise I’ll never be like that.” No matter who the guy is, it’s never going to happen again. Instead of playing the martyr, in this life, I was going to do right by myself. 6 The streets around the hospital were gridlocked with traffic, so my mom dragged me out of the car and we sprinted the last few blocks. Police cruisers and fire trucks had swarmed the plaza. Inflatable rescue cushions were already being deployed on the pavement. The hospital room was on the 15th floor. Up there, a tiny figure in a hospital gown was dangling out of an open window. It was Ziad. Honestly, I didn’t feel a shred of panic. I calmly pulled out my phone, recorded a quick video of him on the ledge, and texted it directly to Stella. Whether he genuinely wanted to die or was just putting on a psychotic show to emotionally blackmail her, that was their toxic problem to sort out. It had nothing to do with me. I just didn’t want to see him die so easily. Because compared to dying, living the rest of his life like this was going to be pure agony. By the time we fought our way up to the 15th floor, Ziad was sitting precariously on the windowsill, the glass pushed wide open. All it would take was a slight lean backward, and gravity would do the rest. My mom leaned in and whispered the question everyone was thinking. “Wait… aren’t his legs paralyzed? How the hell did he drag himself up there!?” My dad nudged her hard with his elbow. “Is this really the time for logistics?!” He stepped forward, raising his hands pacifyingly. “Ziad, listen to me. Come down from there. You’re so young, there’s nothing in this world you can’t overcome.” Ziad looked like a shattered porcelain doll. He pointed a shaking finger at his lifeless legs. “Look at me. What is the point of being alive?” I sent another video clip to Stella. I added a quick text: “If you don’t want the guilt of a dead body hanging over your head for the rest of your life, you better get your ass down here.” Valerie was slapping her own thighs in hysterics. “Come down, sweetie, please! Your life is just starting! So what if your legs don’t work? We have money! Your dad and I can take care of you forever!” “Please, just come back inside!” Ziad screamed back, totally unhinged. “How?! How are you going to take care of me?! I’m never going to stand up again!” “Harper gets to go to her dream college. Everyone else gets to have a future! I have to rot in a wheelchair until the day I die!” “Mom, Dad, I really don’t want to do this anymore. Just let me go.” “You guys aren’t that old. You can have another kid. Just make sure the next one doesn’t end up a pathetic loser like me.” Ziad closed his eyes and began to lean backward into the open air. Just as the entire room shrieked in horror, Stella finally burst through the doors. “Ziad Prescott, don’t you dare!!!” Ziad froze on the ledge. Stella was doubled over, her hands on her knees, gasping for air. “Don’t jump. I’m begging you, don’t jump.” “I know what you want. I agree. I’ll stay with you.” A flicker of pure, unadulterated joy sparked in Ziad’s eyes, but he quickly forced it down, replacing it with a look of tragic martyrdom. He shook his head slowly. “I know you already moved on… I don’t want to be a burden to you.” Stella took a slow, cautious step toward the window. “I only did that because I was too scared to face you, but I couldn’t forget you. That’s why I tried to date someone else.” “Ziad, I want to be with you.” The moment the firefighters hauled Ziad safely back inside, Valerie collapsed onto the floor, sobbing uncontrollably in relief. My mom knelt beside her, rubbing her back soothingly. “It’s okay, it’s okay now. Everything is going to be fine.” Is it? Because the look of pure, homicidal rage burning in Stella’s eyes didn’t look “fine” at all.

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