The post-Thanksgiving holiday rush was brutal. Driving my fully loaded 18-wheeler, I merged onto the packed Interstate. On a continuous downhill stretch, I noticed a yellow school bus full of kids ahead of me. I proactively downshifted, leaving a massive, safe following distance. Suddenly, an SUV cut aggressively right into the gap between me and the bus. I honked my air horn to warn him—pulling a stunt like that on a downhill grade in front of a semi is practically a death wish. The driver ignored the warning and simply stuck his hand out the window, flipping me the middle finger. For the next few miles, he made it his mission to play games with me. He’d speed up, then slam on his brakes, intentionally brake-checking my heavy rig. For the sake of safety, I swallowed my rage and refused to engage. But I never expected this psycho to suddenly swerve across lanes without a blinker right on the next steep, downhill curve. Seeing that my massive grill was about to rear-end the school bus, I jerked my steering wheel hard to the side. Because of the sheer momentum, my rig clipped the rear of his SUV, sending him spinning directly into the steel guardrails. The chain reaction caught the surrounding traffic. Over a dozen passenger cars ended up crashing into the pile-up. I immediately jumped out of my cab to help. I had just managed to drag the SUV driver out of his smoking, crumpled vehicle when he turned around and slapped me hard across the face. “What’s your excuse going to be?!” he screamed. “First, you couldn’t see me? Second, your air brakes failed? Third, your job is so hard? Fourth, we’re all just trying to make a living?!” … That slap hit me so hard it knocked one of my teeth loose. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the asphalt and tried to explain. “You cut me off first…” The man standing in front of me just laughed. “Cut you off? Do you own the damn Interstate? You’re the only one allowed to drive on it? If I drive on it, you have the right to run me over?!” “If I wasn’t so tough, I’d be dead, and you think you can stand here and argue with me, you animal?!” “You son of a bitch truckers, you murderers! Seeing you scum who treat other people’s lives like garbage makes me sick! Why don’t you go drop dead?!” As he yelled, the man threw a brutal punch right at my face. That punch shattered my nasal bone. Blood immediately poured down, covering my entire face. But the man had no intention of letting me go. He grabbed me by my hair and violently smashed my head against the jagged, wrecked hood of his SUV. Just one impact left me dizzy and seeing stars. Jagged pieces of broken plastic pierced my forehead, the excruciating pain contorting my features. I tried to fight back, but it only earned me a more savage beating. He even kept screaming as he rained down punches. “Scum! Animal! You livestock who treat passenger cars like speed bumps!” “Think you’re invincible because you have full commercial insurance?! As long as I’m breathing, I’m going to destroy you brain-dead bastards!” The other drivers involved in the pile-up began stepping out of their cars. Seeing my face covered in blood, someone couldn’t help but speak up. “Hey man, let it go. We had an accident, we’ll just go through insurance. If you keep hitting him like that, you’re going to kill him…” The man’s voice instantly spiked an octave. “It’s exactly because of spineless cowards like you who just cry to your insurance companies that these truckers think they can get away with murder!” “If everyone acted like you—getting hit and just taking a payout instead of demanding justice—you deserve to get run over like a speed bump!” The chaotic scene went dead silent. You could hear a pin drop. No one said another word in my defense. Instead, their eyes filled with hostility toward me. It was the collective hatred reserved for someone who seemingly despised human life. The passengers on the school bus had evacuated too. The lead chaperone, a female teacher, stepped up to defend me. “Whatever happened, it doesn’t give you the right to assault him!” “Besides, I saw it clearly from the back of the bus! You were aggressively weaving and changed lanes without a blinker! You caused this crash!” The teacher was telling the absolute truth, but the man just raised his fists and marched menacingly toward her. “What does a woman know about driving? Say one more word and I’ll rip your mouth off!” 2. The man was big. Standing over six feet tall and pushing two hundred and fifty pounds, he was incredibly intimidating. The female teacher’s body trembled slightly. But she stubbornly stood her ground. “I’m stating a fact! If you don’t believe me, go pull the footage from the dashcam in his truck…” Before she could even finish her sentence, the man popped the trunk of his wrecked SUV, pulled out a baseball bat, and viciously smashed it into the grill of my rig. He shattered my windshield, reached inside to rip out my dashcam, and threw it onto the pavement, stomping it into a pile of shattered plastic and silicon. After doing that, he glared at the teacher with a vicious, warning look. She trembled even harder than before, but still insisted on defending me. “Smashing the dashcam won’t help you! There are traffic cameras on this stretch of the Inter… Ah!” Before she could finish, the man swung the bat and struck her hard on the side of the head. Blood trickled down her temple. The kids from the bus huddled together, terrified. The man ignored her bleeding wound and turned to address the crowd of angry drivers. “I didn’t use my blinker because it’s broken.” “But I slowed down and used hand signals!” “This bitch is completely slandering me! For all we know, she’s sleeping with this trucker!” “I say we make him pay up right now! Out of pocket! Otherwise, he’s going to skip town on us!” This animal was spouting absolute lies! He did slow down, but that was only when he was brake-checking me to mess with me! Right before he cut me off, he had accelerated, nearly getting us all killed! And the “hand signal” he used was nothing but a humiliating, provocative middle finger! “That’s not what happened! He’s lying!” “We need to call 911 and let the State Troopers handle this!” I pulled out my phone, but the man snatched it from my hands and hurled it violently onto the concrete. He jumped on it, stomping on it with his heavy boots. He didn’t stop until my phone was shattered into pieces, the internal battery and chips spilling out. Then he grabbed me by the collar and slammed me against my truck’s grill. “You think you’re smart, huh? You know you can’t afford to pay for this, so you want to call the cops to play the victim and get a discount.” “I’m telling you, no way in hell! If you don’t compensate every single one of us for our damages today, you aren’t leaving this highway!” The other drivers, convinced by his logic, began swarming me, demanding money. Even though I repeatedly explained that this chain-reaction crash was not my fault. And even if it was, I had commercial insurance. Any payouts needed to be handled by the insurance adjusters. But they refused to listen to a word I said. The man continued throwing gasoline on the fire. “You all heard it, right?! We almost died in a massive pile-up, and this bastard doesn’t even plan on giving us a dime for the repairs!” “Let the insurance handle it? Easy for him to say! There are over a dozen wrecked cars here. The damages are easily going to top a million bucks. What insurance company is going to pay that out on the spot?” “They’ll drag this out for a year or two! We’re all working people trying to feed our families! Can any of you afford to wait that long?!” His words were incredibly inflammatory. I was nearly drowned in the angry spit of the mob surrounding me. A few hotheads in the crowd, taking a cue from the SUV driver, started rolling up their sleeves, ready to beat the money out of me. Left with no choice, I told them I was just a driver making a delivery after the holiday. I didn’t have cash on me. The man, who had somehow climbed up the side of my trailer, pointed to the massive load of cargo secured in the back. “Then we’ll use whatever you’re hauling to cover the bill!” “No!” I shouted, rejecting his proposal instantly. The cargo in my trailer consisted of donated supplies I was transporting for free on behalf of a local charity. It was heading to a foster care facility. It contained enough winter clothes and supplies to last those kids for the next six months. If it was looted to pay these people off, what would the kids do? Besides, I wasn’t at fault! Why should I pay anything? But the man ignored me entirely. He ripped open the heavy canvas tarp covering the back and started pulling boxes out. 3. Riiip! The man violently tore through the heavy packing tape sealed by the charity volunteers. When he saw the cheap, bulk-ordered winter coats inside, his eyes filled with undisguised disappointment. “What the hell is this? Can’t you haul something actually worth money?!” With a look of pure disgust, he threw the box off the trailer. Refusing to give up, he ripped open several more boxes. Unfortunately for him, the boxes contained either winter coats, thick blankets, or cartons of used children’s books. “Fuck! Are you a damn garbage collector? Why is your rig full of worthless trash?!” The enraged man started hurling the boxes off the truck. They tumbled over the guardrail, rolling down into the deep, dark ravine beside the Interstate. My heart bled. This wasn’t trash! This was love and charity donated by good people for orphans! I tried to climb up the rig to stop him, but the mob of drivers, thinking I was trying to make a run for it, tackled me to the ground. They pinned my shoulders against the asphalt, refusing to let me move. A voice in the crowd spoke up ominously. “I heard these trucker guys are sneaky. They like to hide the high-value cargo at the front of the trailer and put the cheap stuff at the back.” “Why don’t you check the front?” My pupils dilated in sheer panic. It was true. The front section of my trailer contained highly valuable cargo. But it wasn’t trade goods. It was a shipment of rare, genetically engineered seedlings I had promised to deliver to the State University’s Agricultural Research Institute. They held immense, irreplaceable scientific value! If this scumbag found them… I didn’t dare to imagine. My breath hitched, and with a surge of adrenaline, I broke free from the men holding me down, scrambling on all fours toward my truck. But before I could climb up, they yanked me back by my ankles, throwing me to the ground and slapping me across the face repeatedly. “Motherfucker! Still trying to run?!” “Let me tell you something! Today, even if you try to run to the ends of the earth, you’re paying us for our cars first!” My face was battered and bleeding, but I still craned my neck and roared. “This is my truck! None of you have the right to touch what’s on it!” “Get the hell down right now! Or I’m pressing charges against all of you for armed robbery!” My eyes burned with a feral intensity. I wanted nothing more than to rip the man on the trailer apart with my bare hands. But he wasn’t afraid of me at all. Instead, he jumped down, walked over, and patted my bloody cheek. “Ooh, getting defensive. Hit a nerve, didn’t I? There really is something valuable at the front of this rig!” “Don’t just stand there, guys! Get up here and help! If we find a few boxes of premium freight, our repair bills are covered!” Hearing there was money to be made, several car owners scrambled up the side of my trailer alongside the man, brazenly rummaging through my freight. I was forced to watch helplessly as box after box filled with hope for those orphans was tossed off the truck, discarded like garbage down the ravine. My heart ached so badly it felt like it was bleeding. Looking at this mob acting like literal bandits, even though I knew the accident wasn’t my fault, I had no choice but to surrender. “Stop! I’ll pay! I’ll pay you all, okay?!” The man dusted off his hands and hopped down from the trailer. “Should’ve just said that from the start.” “Eighty grand. Wire transfer or cash?” 4. My hand, reaching for my wallet, froze. Even though I was prepared to be extorted, the sheer size of the man’s demand left me stunned. Looking at his rusted-out, ten-year-old domestic SUV, I tried to reason with him. “A brand-new model of that car is barely worth twenty grand. Don’t you think eighty is a bit much?” The man kicked me squarely in the chest. “Fuck you! I was almost killed by your rig! You think eighty grand is too much?!” “This is attempted murder! Attempted murder gets you life in prison! I’m giving you a chance to buy your pathetic life back. You should be kissing my feet, and instead, you’re whining?!” “Pay up! Or your entire cargo belongs to us!” In that moment, I wanted to stand up and beat this extortionist to death—the man who broke the law, pinned the blame on me, and was now trying to rob me blind. But I knew I couldn’t. The truck held not only the charity supplies but also the priceless agricultural seedlings. I couldn’t let the people who trusted me suffer catastrophic losses just to play the hero for a minute. Forcing myself to sit up, swallowing the agonizing pain radiating from my ribs, I choked down my pride. “But I don’t have that kind of money…” I was instantly kicked back to the ground. “Then what the fuck are we talking about?! Stop wasting my time!” “Keep digging, boys! This punk definitely has the expensive shit hidden up front!” The man climbed back onto the trailer, vengefully throwing more cardboard boxes over the side. I wanted to stop him, but with fractured ribs, simply standing up was an excruciating ordeal. The female teacher, who had hastily bandaged the bleeding wound on her head, helped me up. “Don’t panic, young man,” she whispered. “I already called the State Troopers. They’re on their way. These thugs won’t be able to act tough for much longer.” But I shook my head, pointing desperately toward the front of the trailer. “There’s a crate of scientific research seedlings up there! They absolutely cannot be allowed to find it!” The teacher’s eyes widened. She was just about to step forward to help me pull the crate down when the man on the trailer caught our frantic gestures. His eyes lit up with predatory excitement. “I found where this bastard hid the good stuff!” He rushed straight to the front of the trailer, pulled out the secured crate containing the seedlings, and prepared to rip it open. My heart leaped into my throat. The teacher who had been helping me stepped bravely forward. “Stop!” “That cargo belongs to him! What you’re doing is highway robbery! Aren’t you afraid of getting locked up for ten years in federal prison?!” The man just laughed. “Paying debts is the law of the land!” “Besides, this low-life crashed into me first! I’m doing him a favor by not pressing charges for attempted murder, and he wants to accuse me of robbery?!” The man’s sheer shamelessness ignited my rage. I gritted my teeth and shouted at him again. “I didn’t hit you! Your own reckless driving caused this crash!” The man lost his temper. He jumped down from the trailer, raising the heavy crate above his head, aiming right for my skull. “Motherfucker! You just won’t quit, will you?!” “A murderer acting this arrogant? I’m going to teach you the lesson your parents never did!” I didn’t dare to dodge. I instinctively reached up, trying to catch the crate to protect it. But the crate crashed heavily against my arms, splintering and breaking apart completely. The fragile University seedlings cascaded down, covering my head, my shoulders, and scattering across the asphalt. In that single instant, my heart plunged into the darkest abyss. The man looked down at the mess on the ground, his lips curling in utter contempt. “Fuck! I thought it was something actually valuable! It’s just a bunch of rotten weeds!” “If you had told me your rig was full of literal garbage, I wouldn’t have even bothered climbing up!” As he spoke, he vengefully ground his heavy boots into the few remaining intact seedlings on the pavement, crushing them to mush. Looking at the destroyed, irreplaceable research specimens, the raging inferno in my heart suddenly went terrifyingly cold and calm. I stared at the man standing in front of me and spoke, enunciating every single syllable. “You’re done.” “Even if you rot in a cell for ten lifetimes, you won’t be able to pay for what you just did.” The man completely brushed off my words, still acting like a tough guy. “What the fuck kind of crazy shit are you babbling about now?!” “Let me tell you right now, today you either pay us the cash, or you’re leaving this Interstate in a body bag!” He raised his fist, preparing to strike me again, when a thunderous roar echoed from behind him. “BACK OFF!” Without anyone noticing, a convoy of more than a dozen massive 18-wheelers had pulled up, forming a barricade that completely boxed the entire scene in!

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “397485”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was sitting at a long red light on my way to meet Caleb at the hospital, so I pulled out my phone to kill time. The top recommended post on Reddit caught my eye: [Life, Freedom, Love, and Money: How would you rank them?] The comments section was chaotic, but the vast majority ranked Money first. Only one comment stood out, completely at odds with the rest. “Love will always be my first choice. With love, everything else has meaning.” Someone immediately replied mockingly: “Another hopeless romantic.” But looking at that comment, a faint sense of agreement rippled through me. Of course love should come first. The love Caleb had given me had always been flawless. Amidst the chorus of cynical replies, the original commenter responded calmly: “If you were in my shoes, you’d choose the same.” “Last year, I went into acute renal failure. He gave me one of his kidneys. At the time, he wasn’t even my boyfriend; he was just my attending physician.” My heart inexplicably skipped a beat. Last year, Caleb had also donated a kidney. To a patient he supposedly didn’t even know. I had fiercely opposed it at the time, but he just coaxed me, saying: “Saving lives is a doctor’s calling.” My fingertips went cold. With a trembling hand, I scrolled down. “He only has one kidney left now, but in that department… he’s still so intense it’s hard to keep up.” The comment continued, “Broad shoulders, narrow waist. Every night he tosses me around until my back aches.” Attached below was a photo. Under the dim, amber glow of bathroom lighting, it showed a man’s muscular back. On the left side of his waist, there was a faint bite mark. It was the bite mark I left on him when I was eighteen, punishing him for getting into a fistfight with a senior who had a crush on me. It wasn’t until a chorus of honking horns erupted behind me that I snapped back to reality. I was still twenty minutes away from Caleb’s hospital. I abruptly pulled the car onto a side street and turned off the eng

When it was time to head back to college, my stepmother shoved a cheap, off-brand carton of milk into my suitcase. “Take this. Drink it at school.” It was a leftover holiday gift from someone else that had been sitting untouched for months. My dad leaned against the doorframe. “I’m not giving you any money this semester. Didn’t you make $2,000 working your winter break job? $500 a month for living expenses—that’ll cover you for four months perfectly.” “You’re an adult now. It’s time you learned to be independent.” My hand, in the middle of packing my suitcase, froze in mid-air. Nearby, my younger sister, staring at her phone, suddenly screamed in excitement. “Yes! I got the concert tickets!” “Dad, hurry up and book my flights! And I want to stay in a five-star hotel!” My dad wrapped an arm around her, immediately agreeing to everything. My stepmother glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, the large hoop earrings she wore glinting in the light. The three of them huddled together, laughing as they booked flights and hotel rooms. I’ve watched this warm, picture-perfect family scene for ten years, and it still makes it hard to breathe. Suddenly, a notification popped up on my phone. [Chase Bank: Dear Ms. Harper Davis, your Certificate of Deposit ending in 1234 has matured. Principal balance: $800,000. To renew, please reply 1.] 1 A Certificate of Deposit? I silently counted the long string of zeros on the screen. Eight hundred thousand dollars. Assuming it was a scam text, I didn’t reply. “Dad, I was planning to use the $2,000 I earned from my winter job to get this mole removed.” My dad, Richard, glanced at the pea-sized dark mole near the corner of my mouth. “You go off to college and suddenly you’re full of wild ideas! Wasting money on useless vanity!” “You’re just like your dead mother—born with bad luck!” My stepmother, Brenda, wearing a thick layer of foundation, batted her heavy fake eyelashes. “Oh, Harper, sweetie. Wait until you graduate college, and I’ll personally take you to get it removed.” Before, they used to say: Wait until you finish middle school. Wait until you finish high school. Wait until you get into college. Now, the mole is getting bigger, and they’ve pushed it to: Wait until you graduate college. Actually, before winter break started, I went to a clinic to ask about the price. It only cost $2,000. For my entire winter break, I didn’t take a single day off. I worked from open to close at a fast-food chicken joint. Looking at my sister, Mia, happily humming a tune nearby, a knot of suffocating anger swelled in my chest. “Dad, you didn’t even blink before buying her a $2,000 VIP concert ticket, but you won’t even give me $500 for a month’s living expenses.” “I’m your biological daughter too!” My dad’s face turned beet red with rage. “You think you can lecture your own father in this house?!” “Fine! Since your mother has been dead for ten years anyway, I’ll tell you the truth today!” “Mia is my biological daughter with Brenda!” Brenda turned her face away, refusing to look at me. My mom died ten years ago. I am 18 this year; Mia is 14. My dad started messing around with Brenda when I was four. Back then, my mom wasn’t sick yet. She was a top-tier CPA at a corporate firm, and she was always incredibly busy. During those years, she would often spend entire days locked in her office. I remember she always had a look of deep, irremovable sorrow on her face. But the moment she saw me, she would automatically erase that sorrow, smile, and pull me into her arms. When I was seven, my mom collapsed. She spent a year lying in a hospital bed. Right before she passed, my dad held her hand. “Evelyn, do you have any savings left under your name? You’re leaving, but we still have to survive.” My mom was so emaciated her cheeks were hollowed out, her face completely devoid of color. She motioned for my dad to lean in closer, and then she spat right in his face. For all these years, my dad has held a deep, bitter grudge against my mom because of that. With a look of pure disgust, I pulled that cheap carton of milk out of my suitcase. Brenda turned her head back, looking visibly displeased. My dad slammed his hand down on mine. “Brenda was nice enough to pack that for you! How dare you be so ungrateful!” “She specifically told the rest of us not to drink it so she could save it just for you!” I struggled, but he clamped his hand down hard on my forearm. An intense, searing pain shot up my arm, making my scalp tingle. When frying chicken at work, hot oil frequently splashed onto my arms. My forearms were constantly covered in small burn blisters. Tears welled up in my eyes from the pain. “Did she save it just for me, or did she give it to me because literally nobody else wanted to drink it?” “If it’s such a ‘good thing,’ you should keep it here for Mia to drink!” Smack. My dad slapped me hard across the face. This wasn’t the first time I had been hit. I wiped away my tears and looked at my dad’s flushed, angry face. He is 45 years old this year. For all these years, I had clung to a desperate hope—the hope that my dad would eventually treat me a little better. After all, I am his biological child. I am his only flesh-and-blood daughter from his first marriage. I waited for ten years, and he hasn’t changed one bit. It turns out, I wasn’t his only biological daughter. No wonder. I kept my head down and continued packing my suitcase. The new semester was about to start, and I would finally be able to leave this house. But thinking about the pea-sized mole on my face, a wave of bitter sadness washed over me. I didn’t want to deal with people’s weird stares anymore. If only I had a sum of money right now. 2 I zipped up my suitcase and went into my room. Closing the door, the very first thing I did was turn on the light. My room doesn’t have any windows. If the light is off, it’s pitch black. There are five bedrooms in this house. My dad and Brenda share the master suite. Right next to the master suite is Mia’s bedroom. Of the other three rooms: one is my dad’s private lounge, one is Brenda’s walk-in closet, and one is a dedicated room just for Mia’s K-pop merchandise and posters. I live in the storage closet under the stairs. I’m not even worthy of the smallest, north-facing bedroom. Brenda pushed the door open a crack. “Harper, I washed some grapes for you. Have some.” The grapes on the stem were shriveled and dry. Earlier, I had seen Mia pop one into her mouth, frown, and immediately spit it out. “Ew, so sour! That’s disgusting!” The food she likes is never shared with me. The food she throws away is always boxed up with a smile by Brenda and handed to me. The second month after my mom died, my dad moved Brenda into the house. He told me to call her “Mom.” I couldn’t force the word out of my mouth. Brenda set the grapes down, pulled two crisp $100 bills from her pocket, and handed them to me. “Harper, things are a little tight right now, but take this $200 for now. Use it at school.” She had just gotten a new set of acrylic nails. They were blindingly red. I stared at her coldly. “Stop with the fake hypocritical act.” My dad snatched the money right out of her hand. “You spoil her too much! That’s why she acts like such an entitled brat!” “From today on, she isn’t getting a single cent out of this house! Let’s see if she still dares to talk back to us!” My dad threw the bunch of grapes onto the floor and stomped on them. “Don’t give her anything to eat!” “Let her starve for a day and think about what she’s done. Let her realize who the actual masters of this house are!” In high school, my monthly living allowance was $300. When I got to college, it went up to $500. During the first month of my freshman year, I spent $120 of that $500 on the cheapest, unreserved train ticket available. I had $380 left for the month. For the last week of that month, I survived by eating plain bread and pickles every single day. When I asked my dad for the next month’s allowance, he screamed at me over the phone. “Asking for money again?! It’s barely been a few weeks! Were you born just to drain me dry?!” “It’s hard enough for me to make a living, and you’re just sitting at school living it up on my dime!” “If you keep wasting money, drop out and go find a job at a factory!” Half a month later, I finally received the $500 he transferred me. I pulled a photo of my mom from under my pillow. As I stared at it, my vision blurred with tears. If only my mom were still here. Everything would be okay. The smell of dinner wafted in from under the door. I heard Mia’s excited voice. “Wow, Mom! You made so much good food!” Nobody called me to eat. I was dizzy with hunger. Because I never had money, I was used to being half-starved. Now, whenever I get hungry, my stomach physically aches. Mia spoke between bites. “Mom, your ribs are my absolute favorite! You’re the best, Mom!” Brenda’s voice was full of laughter. “Eat as much as you want, sweetie.” I crouched on the floor, trying to curl myself into the tightest ball possible to lessen the stomach cramps. My phone rang. It was Chase Bank. “Hello, am I speaking with Ms. Harper Davis? The $800,000 Certificate of Deposit you opened with us ten years ago has matured. Would you like to renew it?” “You must have the wrong person. I’ve never opened a CD. Ten years ago, I was only eight.” The voice on the other end continued. “Ten years ago, Ms. Evelyn Davis deposited a principal amount of $800,000 into an account under your name.” “May I ask, what is your relationship with Evelyn Davis?” Evelyn Davis. My mom. I gripped my mom’s photo tightly, lowering my voice. “Can the money be withdrawn right now?” 3 I tucked my mom’s photo into my jacket pocket, grabbed my ID, and walked out the door. Brenda watched me, nudging my dad. “Why are you arguing with the kid? Her biological mother passed away early; it’s normal for her to have a bit of a temper.” “Harper, come eat. The food is getting cold.” I looked at the meager leftovers on the table and shot her a look of pure contempt. “What exactly are you expecting me to eat?” My dad, having eaten his fill, was currently fiddling with his expensive tea set. “There’s still food left. You should be grateful you have anything to eat at all. Don’t be ungrateful.” “Oh, and when you’re done, wash the dishes and wipe the table clean.” I turned around and walked toward the front door. Behind me, my dad’s roaring voice echoed. “You ungrateful brat! Are you trying to climb over my head now?!” “If you think you’re so tough, then once you walk out that door, don’t ever come back!” Followed by Brenda’s slow, measured voice. “Where is she going at this hour?” “Maybe you should go check on her. Kids these days are sensitive. What if she runs away?” “Good riddance if she doesn’t come back! She’s 18 now anyway. I have zero legal obligation to keep supporting her!” I walked faster, their voices fading into the distance. I arrived at the local Chase Bank branch. The bank teller who assisted me was incredibly polite. She informed me that I had a principal balance of $800,000, and the accumulated interest over ten years was approximately $128,000. Right now, the account ending in 1234 held a grand total of $928,000. I stood there, completely stunned. The teller handed me a sealed package. “Ms. Evelyn Davis left this in a safety deposit box ten years ago. She instructed us to give it to you when you came in.” My hands were shaking. Inside was a letter, a key, and a property deed. I unfolded the yellowed piece of paper: To my precious 18-year-old Harper, How are you doing right now? I am so sorry, Mommy couldn’t be there to watch you grow up. Before Mommy leaves, you are the only thing I can’t bear to let go of. The money in this account and this apartment are Mommy’s coming-of-age gifts to you. If you are doing well right now, that’s wonderful. This gift is just the icing on the cake. If you are facing hardships right now, don’t be afraid. You still have Mommy. Mommy will always protect you from behind the scenes. You probably know about your dad’s affairs by now, so I won’t mention it. I will love you forever. Mommy. 2016. I read those few short lines over and over again. Without me realizing it, the paper was soaked with tears. My mom had known about my dad and Brenda the entire time. Ten years later, I finally understood the irremovable sorrow that had always lingered on her face. I finally understood why my mom refused to tell my dad how much savings she had before she died. I finally understood why she spat in his face. Now, it all made sense. My mom left everything to me. Ten years ago, she had prepared all of this for me. I tucked the letter into my jacket pocket, keeping it safe right next to her photo. I looked at the $928,000 balance on the account statement. Suddenly, I thought of how my dad had cursed and complained for all these years. After my mom died, he tore the house apart searching for money. But he found absolutely nothing. He took all his hatred for my mom and took it out on me. He even suspected my mom had an affair and gave the money to another man. He slandered her name for ten years. But he was the one who destroyed our family. The scabbed-over burn blisters on my arm itched a little. I scratched them gently. And then, I clenched my fists tight. This money was left to me by my mom. Nobody else was going to touch a single cent of it. 4 It was getting dark. I didn’t go back to my dad’s house. I typed the address from the property deed into my phone and caught a bus. When I inserted the key into the lock, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and turned it. The moment the door opened, a smart-home system triggered my mom’s pre-recorded voice. “Welcome home, my precious Harper.” Hearing her voice again after ten years, an overwhelming wave of grief and longing crashed over me. Crying, I walked through the rooms of my new home. Two bedrooms, one living room. The windows were massive, letting in so much natural light that you wouldn’t even need to turn on the lights during the day. I stayed there for two days. For those two days, my dad didn’t call me a single time. But I saw his posts on Facebook. “Taking my precious daughter to see her idol!” The three of them had concert stickers on their faces, beaming with excitement. When I left, I hadn’t taken my keys, but nobody even noticed or cared. Brenda posted a new update on her Instagram. “My ears are ringing from the concert! Finally getting some much-needed rest.” The attached video showed a sweeping view of a luxury hotel family suite. Mia’s TikTok was also updated. “I finally saw him live! Best night ever!” “Thanks for the support, Dad! Love you!” I clicked onto Mia’s profile and scrolled down. January 12th. “New phone! Thanks, Dad!” The photo showed the newest iPhone Pro Max. The screen on the budget Android phone I had used for four years was shattered. Fixing it would cost $30. When I asked my dad for the money, he told me he already gave me my living allowance and to figure it out myself. December 15th. “It’s getting freezing outside! Dad bought me a new winter coat!” I searched the brand online. It was a $600 designer puffer jacket. I was wearing a $20 clearance coat. Because I was always cold, my hands were covered in chilblains that still hadn’t fully healed. January 1st. “Dad sent me a massive New Year’s cash drop! Happy New Year!” November 3rd. “Got so many gifts today! Happy Birthday to me!” I haven’t celebrated my birthday since I was eight. Nobody cared enough to remember. October 1st. “Fall Break! Dad took the whole family out for a trip! So crowded but so fun!” During that break, I didn’t go home because I couldn’t afford the bus ticket. I stayed in my empty dorm room, eating plain bread and pickles for the entire holiday. … There were plenty of comments under her posts. “So jealous! I wish I had a great dad like that!” I locked my phone screen. I stared at the ceiling of my new apartment for a long time, then threw on my jacket and headed back to my dad’s house. When I reached the front door, I ran right into the three of them returning from their trip. My dad immediately started mocking me. “I thought you were so tough? Why did you come crawling back?” Brenda maintained her hypocritical, fake-concerned act. “Harper, where did you go? I was worried sick these past two days.” I ignored them and walked straight into my “room.” As always, I immediately turned on the light. I started packing up the rest of my belongings. I was planning to take everything that belonged to me and leave for good. I grabbed a duffel bag for my clothes. But I quickly realized that aside from a few worn-out shirts and pants, there was nothing else to pack. A ratty stuffed animal I had held onto since I was six, some ID documents, and a few textbooks. That was it. Those were the only traces of my existence in this house. I pulled my suitcase behind me, keeping my head down as I walked toward the door. I didn’t want to look at any of them, and I didn’t want to look at this house ever again. Brenda watched me. “Harper, your semester doesn’t start for another two days. Why are you leaving today?” I looked up at her. “Aren’t you exhausted from pretending all the time?” “Whenever I’m home, you act like my very existence annoys you. Now that I’m leaving, aren’t you thrilled?” I saw the flash of genuine disgust in Brenda’s eyes, but she quickly covered it up with an awkward, nervous laugh. Before my dad could raise his hand to slap me, I pulled my suitcase out and slammed the door shut behind me. I hadn’t taken two steps down the hall when I heard my dad shouting from behind the door. “Wait! Did your mother leave you $800,000?!”

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Tricked by my boyfriend into going to a remote, lawless compound deep in the backwoods, I was reduced to nothing more than a breeding machine. The day the local quack cut my stomach open to deliver a breached pregnancy, I lay in a pool of my own blood. Through the haze, I heard the two women guarding the door chewing sunflower seeds and gossiping: “These college girls from the city are so gullible. She actually thinks she was kidnapped by human traffickers.” “Right? Who told her to mess with Mr. Vance’s precious best friend?” “Mr. Vance paid our boss a hundred grand to have the whole compound play along with this ‘escape room’ game. He even personally mailed the labor-inducing drugs.” “I heard Mr. Vance say that as long as she rots in this hellhole for three years and experiences the pain his ‘bestie’ went through, he’ll mercifully take her back to the city to marry her.” Through the crack in the door, I saw the video call from my fiancé, Arthur Vance, playing on the woman’s phone. So, this pitch-black purgatory I had endured for three years was just a customized punishment he orchestrated to make his female best friend happy. The excruciating pain in my abdomen tore at my nerves. As my consciousness teetered on the edge of collapse, a mechanical voice echoed in my mind: [Host, the abuse meter for the target, Arthur Vance, is full. Do you wish to abandon the conquest and detach from the current world?] I opened my eyes, staring at the blackened wooden beams of the ceiling. The heavy wooden door was violently kicked open. The hinges snapped, and the door crashed into the mud, splashing filth everywhere. Arthur Vance, dressed in an immaculate black suit, stepped into the dim, foul-smelling barn. Behind him were five bodyguards in sunglasses. And two private doctors carrying medical kits. The local quack was squatting beside me, holding a rusted needle threaded with coarse black string, hovering over my abdomen. The flesh there had been brutally sliced open, and blood was relentlessly pouring out. Arthur stopped in his tracks, looking at the blood-soaked hay and pig manure covering the floor. He raised a hand and pointed at the quack. “Stop. Get the hell out.” The quack dropped the needle and thread. With his hands covered in dark red blood, he scrambled and crawled out of the barn. Arthur turned his head, issuing a command to his private doctors. “Give her a shot of adrenaline. Use a high dose of stimulants. We can’t have her sleeping through this.” The two doctors immediately stepped forward. One opened a medical kit, pulling out a long syringe to draw a clear liquid. He grabbed the shriveled flesh of my inner thigh and drove the thick needle into my vein. The liquid was rapidly pushed into my body. Ten seconds later, the drug’s effects spread through my bloodstream. My muscles began to spasm uncontrollably. My body thrashed and twitched against the filthy hay. With every convulsion, more blood gushed from the unstitched wound on my stomach. The blood ran down my thighs, pooling into a dark red puddle on the dirt floor. Arthur took a step back, avoiding the blood creeping toward his Italian leather shoes. “Stop acting. I know all your little tricks.” He stared down at me from his high horse. “I read the script the compound boss sent me. The fake wound and the pig’s blood pouch on your stomach? Nice prop work.” He let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Do you really think making yourself look like a tragic heroine is going to erase what you did to Chloe?” The stimulation from the drugs made my brain throb with agonizing pain. My upper body violently lurched forward, my hands instinctively reaching out. My skeletal, withered fingers brushed across the mud and grazed the hem of Arthur’s tailored trousers. The moment my fingertips touched him, I used my raspy, broken throat to force out a faint whisper. “Arthur… it hurts…” Arthur’s face darkened. He violently kicked my hand away. The back of my hand smashed against a stone trough, scraping off a layer of skin. He pulled a pristine white silk handkerchief from his breast pocket. Bending down, he aggressively wiped the spot on his shoe where I had touched him. “Put away that disgusting face.” He crumpled the used handkerchief into a ball and threw it directly at my face. It slid off, landing in the bloody puddle on the floor. “Chloe hasn’t forgiven you yet. You have no right to touch me.” I looked at the handkerchief and didn’t reach out again. I had to leave him. Arthur stood up straight and waved at his bodyguards. “Take her away. Don’t get my car dirty.” Two bodyguards stepped forward. They grabbed my arms and dragged me up from the hay. My legs had been broken months ago. The bones had healed misaligned; I couldn’t straighten them. As they dragged me, my paralyzed legs carved two long trenches through the mud and gravel. The skin on my knees was torn open by the sharp rocks, exposing the white bone underneath. Arthur walked out of the barn and stood on the dirt road at the edge of the compound. Old Man Cletus, the compound boss, stood by the road with a few locals, clutching several thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Arthur swept his gaze over them. “You all played your parts well these past three years. Her acting in this little setup of yours was very convincing.” Cletus nodded profusely, stuffing the cash into the pockets of his ragged coat. The bodyguards dragged me over to Arthur and dropped me. My body slammed heavily against the gravel road. Arthur looked down at my broken legs. “You didn’t want to do farm work, so you actually went far enough to break your own legs.” He scoffed through his nose. “Playing the beggar to get sympathy? Making yourself smell like an open sewer—did you really think that would soften my heart?” I closed my eyes. Three years ago today, I was slicing an apple in the kitchen of our mansion. The knife slipped, leaving a tiny, shallow cut on my index finger. A single drop of blood welled up. Arthur had sprinted in from the living room, snatching the knife away from me. He held my finger under running water for ten minutes, brought out the first-aid kit, and wrapped my finger in a thick cocoon of gauze. A month later, he rented out an entire private island. He covered it in red roses. He knelt on one knee in the flowers and slipped a flawless ten-carat diamond ring onto my finger. Two days later, Chloe Miller returned from abroad. She moved into the guest room of our mansion. A week later, Chloe walked down the stairs wearing a white dress that belonged to me. She picked up a pair of scissors from the coffee table and sliced a shallow bloody line into her own forearm. Arthur pushed the front doors open and walked in. Chloe clutched her arm, pointing at me. “Arthur, Stella cut me with the scissors!” Arthur snatched the glass of water out of my hand and shielded Chloe behind him. Another week passed. Chloe was holding a cup of boiling hot coffee. She poured the entire cup directly onto her own shoulder, screaming and shrinking into the corner of the sofa. Arthur rushed down from the second floor. Chloe pointed at me. “Stella tried to burn me to death with boiling water!” The next day, Chloe stood on the edge of the thirtieth-floor rooftop. Arthur rushed over and tackled her to safety. Following that, in front of a swarm of reporters, Arthur shredded our prenuptial agreement. He froze all my bank accounts and had his bodyguards shove me into a car. He personally drove me to this remote backwoods compound and handed a massive stack of cash to Old Man Cletus. He told me to rot here for three full years to experience the pain Chloe had gone through. And those three years were authentic, unfiltered torture. After taking the money, Cletus locked me in the barn. A heavy iron chain was padlocked around my neck. Every day, my only food was rancid pig slop. Every night, those backwoods creeps would walk into the barn. In the suffocating darkness, I suffered miscarriage after miscarriage. The bodyguards hauled me up by the arms and threw me into the trunk of the SUV. When the private jet took off, I lay crumpled in the corner of the cabin. I opened my mouth, wanting to make a sound. Only a broken, raspy wheeze squeezed past my throat. Sitting on the plush leather sofa, Arthur put on a pair of black noise-canceling headphones. “Enough, stop playing mute. Save your energy. When we get back to the city, you’re going to crawl on your knees and beg Chloe for forgiveness.” The jet landed at a private helipad in downtown Manhattan. The bodyguards wrapped me in a black industrial tarp and shoved me into the very back of a luxury van. The vehicle pulled into the underground garage of the Grand Continental Hotel. The elevator went straight to the penthouse ballroom. The grand doors were pushed open. The ballroom was lined with thick red carpets, the crystal chandeliers radiating blinding light. The bodyguards pulled off the tarp and threw me directly into the center of the room. Arthur, holding a microphone, stood under the spotlight. Surrounding us was a crowd of high-society elites holding flutes of champagne. Arthur pointed a finger at me. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the gift I prepared to help cleanse Chloe of her bad luck.” He scanned the crowd. “A vicious, toxic woman I dragged back from the backwoods.” A roar of laughter erupted from the crowd. Several women in expensive evening gowns stepped forward, swirling their wine glasses. They looked down at me. “I heard she stayed in the woods for three years?” “Covering herself in mud on purpose, smelling like a rotting fish… is she trying to disgust Chloe?” I lay flat against the red carpet. I reached out my right arm, planting my elbow against the floor, and dragged my body forward. My broken legs trailed behind me, leaving a dark, wet streak of blood and grime across the immaculate carpet. Chloe, wearing a pristine white tulle gown, walked down the grand spiral staircase. Seeing the blood on the floor, she let out a dramatic gasp. She collapsed into Arthur’s arms, gripping his suit jacket tightly. “Arthur… her blood is so red… I’m scared…” Arthur’s face instantly went ice-cold. He turned to the hotel security guards stationed by the door. “Bring buckets of water. Wash that filthy blood off the carpet right now!” Two guards ran over carrying heavy plastic janitorial buckets. The buckets were filled with freezing, dirty mop water. Arthur pointed at me. “Dump it over her head. Help her wash off this pathetic, vulgar disguise.” The guards lifted the buckets. The freezing water, mixed with dust and grime, crashed down directly over my head. The torrent washed over my matted hair and seeped deep into the unstitched, gaping wound on my abdomen. The bone-chilling cold triggered violent, agonizing muscle spasms. Arthur walked up to me, his polished leather shoe stopping just an inch from my fingertips. “Crawl over here. Bow your head to the floor three times for Chloe.” He looked down at me. “Admit that you faked your pregnancy and faked your death just to fight for my attention. As long as you do that, I’ll give you a chance to be a janitor at the company.” I lowered my head. The gala transitioned into its second half. The bodyguards dragged me out of the ballroom and tossed me into the corner of the hallway outside the women’s restroom. My clothes clung tightly to my body. The bloody water from my abdomen dripped steadily onto the marble tiles. Chloe walked out of the restroom holding a compact mirror. She stopped right in front of me. She lifted her right foot, bringing the razor-sharp heel of her stiletto down hard onto my broken right index finger. She ground her heel left and right. The pain shot straight to my heart. My body seized violently, instinctively trying to shrink back. Watching me, Chloe let out a light, airy laugh. “Did you really think Arthur set you up at a nice little farm retreat?” She bent down, staring right into my face. “The day Cletus got the money, he texted me, asking how I wanted you handled.” She stood up straight, smoothing out her dress. “I texted back: Play with her however you want. Just leave her with one breath.” Chloe stared at the blood pooling around my stomach. “These past few hundred days and nights… tasted pretty good, didn’t they?” The sharp click-clack of leather shoes echoed from the other end of the hall. Arthur appeared around the corner. Chloe immediately threw herself backward, crashing heavily onto the marble floor. She grabbed her ankle, massive tears rolling down her cheeks. “Sister, I know you hate me, but why did you push me…” Arthur’s face changed instantly. He sprinted toward us. Without even glancing at me, he swung his right foot directly into my body. The toe of his leather shoe slammed precisely into the gaping wound on my abdomen. The fragile skin instantly ruptured. Blood and shredded tissue splattered against the wallpaper. I lay flat on my back, my eyes wide open, my breathing coming to a dead stop. Leaning against the wall, Chloe panted, her face pale. “Arthur, I was so scared, my anemia is acting up… I feel so dizzy…” Arthur immediately turned his head, his gaze locking onto me like ice. “Since you have enough energy to push her, you can use your blood to compensate Chloe.” He pulled out a walkie-talkie and called his private doctors waiting outside. Seconds later, a doctor ran down the hallway with a medical kit. Arthur pointed at my arm. “Draw her blood.” The doctor crouched down and pulled up my left arm. He tied a tourniquet around my bicep and pulled a thick, glass vacuum-extraction syringe from his kit. In my mind, the System’s alarm blared again, the frequency incredibly fast. [72-hour countdown has encountered lethal external trauma. Termination protocol accelerating.] [Biological vitals severed. Pain-shielding function deactivated.] [Soul detachment successful. Wishing Host a pleasant journey in your next world.] The needle plunged viciously into my collapsed vein. The extraction pump clicked on, emitting a faint whirring sound. Arthur stood to the side, looking down at his luxury watch, his expression dripping with extreme impatience. “Draw it faster. She won’t die.” He glared at me coldly. “Starving away all your subcutaneous fat just to fake an illness… this pathetic pity act is only going to fool the clueless servants.” My head tilted back, staring at the chandelier on the ceiling. The light in my vision slowly grew darker. I didn’t even have the strength to twitch the corners of my mouth anymore. My eyes lost their focus. Pulled by gravity, my head rolled softly to the right, resting limply against my shoulder. Arthur frowned tightly, barking a sharp order. “Stop playing dead! Lift your head!” The moment the words left his mouth. CRASH. An ear-piercing shattering sound echoed through the hallway. The private doctor let out a horrified scream, his hands jerking back violently. The glass extraction tube hit the marble floor, shattering into a thousand pieces. Dark red liquid splattered everywhere. Arthur took a massive step forward. “What the hell are you doing?!” The doctor didn’t answer him. His eyes were wide with absolute terror. He scrambled backward across the floor until his back slammed into the wall. His hands shook violently in the air, pointing at the ruptured hole in my abdomen. Putrid, black blood was pouring out in a continuous, endless stream. The doctor’s voice was so shrill it completely broke. “M-Mr. Vance… that tube… it was entirely filled with septic blood caused by severe internal organ failure!” He grabbed his own head in horror. He pointed a shaking finger at the rotting flesh. “And her abdomen has absolutely no healing muscle tissue… there is a necrotic, decaying fetal remain inside!” The air in the hallway froze solid. Everyone stood paralyzed in place. The doctor’s trembling voice continued to echo. “Mr. Vance… this body was irreparably destroyed days ago. She is completely, undeniably dead!”

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On the eve of getting our marriage license, I discovered my fiancé was hiding a girl in a private psychiatric facility. That day, I slapped the marriage application down on the table and gave him two choices. Either withdraw the application, or send her back to her hometown. Liam Vance chain-smoked all night at the training grounds. In the end, he picked up the pen and signed our marriage paperwork. But later, right in the middle of our wedding reception, a girl with scarred wrists suddenly rushed the stage. “Liam, my brother died because of you. Won’t you even give me the last shred of your love?” The bridal bouquet I was holding dropped to the floor. He left me with nothing but the sight of his frantic, retreating back. I pulled the corsage off my dress and pressed my hand down on the officiant’s notes. “If you walk out those doors today, our marriage certificate is void.” His footsteps paused for a fraction of a second. But he still walked away. … The music at the wedding venue ground to a halt. The whispers of the guests stabbed into my ears like needles. I stood frozen on the stage, staring at those empty double doors. My parents walked up and draped a coat over my shoulders. “Chloe, let’s go home.” I nodded and followed them off the stage. Passing the table where Liam’s parents sat, I stopped. Liam’s mother grabbed my hand, her eyes red. “Chloe, Liam didn’t mean to do this. Don’t blame him.” I pulled my hand away and gave them a deep, respectful bow. “Mr. and Mrs. Vance, I’m sorry.” After that, I didn’t linger. I followed my parents out of the hall. That night, Liam didn’t come home. The next day, he still didn’t come back. On the third night, he returned, reeking of alcohol. He stood in the doorway, looking at me sitting on the sofa. “Why aren’t you asleep yet?” I didn’t answer. I just pointed to a document on the coffee table. “Take a look.” He walked over and picked it up. It was an involuntary psychiatric hold and transfer order for Mia Lawson. Because she had self-harmed at a military officer’s wedding, disrupting the peace, she had been transferred to a secure mental health facility. “Did you do this?” he asked, his voice cold. “It’s protocol,” I said flatly. He crumpled the document into a ball and hurled it fiercely at the ground. “Chloe, she’s just a sick girl! Her brother died trying to save me. I owe her!” “What you owe her shouldn’t be paid by me.” “Can’t you just try to understand where I’m coming from?” I looked at him and suddenly felt like I was looking at a stranger. We had known each other for ten years. He had never spoken to me in that tone before. I stood up and walked toward the bedroom. “Liam, let’s separate for a while.” I closed the door and listened to the sound of him smashing things in the living room. Lying in bed, I stayed awake the entire night. 2 When I woke up the next morning, Liam was already gone. He left a sticky note on the kitchen island. [I went to take care of Mia.] I threw the note into the trash and headed to the military hospital. I am the youngest Chief of Neurosurgery at the General Hospital. Today, I had an incredibly high-stakes, complex procedure. I was on my feet in the OR for thirteen hours. By the time I walked out, I was almost completely exhausted. A colleague handed me a bottle of water. “Dr. Evans, you broke your own record again.” I managed a weak smile but didn’t speak. Back in my office, I saw an insulated thermos sitting on my desk. Liam had brought it. I opened it; it was my favorite clam chowder. The soup was still warm. I put the lid back on and pushed it to the side. My phone rang. It was Liam. I didn’t answer. He followed up with a text: [Did you eat the soup? I made it specially for you.] I replied with a single letter. [K.] He texted back almost immediately. [I’m sorry. I was impulsive yesterday.] [Chloe, we’ve been together for so long. Let’s not throw it away over something this small.] I stared at that message and didn’t reply for a very long time. That evening, I returned to the apartment we had bought to be our marital home. Someone was standing by the door. Mia Lawson. She was wearing hospital scrubs, her face deathly pale. She looked at me timidly. “Dr. Evans.” “Why are you here?” I asked. “Liam got me out,” she lowered her head. “He said the facility was too stifling.” I pulled out my keys to unlock the door. “Do you need something?” “Could I… could I come inside and sit for a bit?” “No.” I refused her flatly. She bit her lip, and tears began to fall. “Dr. Evans, I know you don’t like me. But… I really have nowhere else to go.” “Liam said he would take care of me, just like my brother took care of him.” “I just want… to have a home.” Looking at her, I only felt a deep sense of absurdity. “Your home shouldn’t be my home.” I pushed the door open to go inside, preparing to shut it behind me. Suddenly, she stuck her foot in the doorway, blocking the door, and then threw her entire body forward, crashing into the entryway. Her forehead hit the doorframe hard, instantly turning an angry shade of red. “Ah!” she cried out in pain. Liam rushed up the stairs from the landing. He shoved me aside and helped Mia up. “Mia, are you okay?” Mia trembled in his arms, crying and shaking her head. Liam looked up, glaring at me furiously. “Chloe, do you really have to be like this?” “Did I push her?” I asked. He didn’t answer. He just held Mia, his eyes filled with profound disappointment. “She is my brother-in-arms’ sister. He sacrificed himself for me. Now she’s homeless and struggling with her mental health.” “I just want to let her stay here temporarily. Is that really so hard for you to accept?” “This is supposed to be our home,” I reminded him. “It’s just temporary!” he emphasized, his voice rising. I stared at him, unable to form a single word. He carried Mia past me, walking straight into our house. Walking straight into our bedroom. 3 Mia moved into the master bedroom. Liam didn’t leave that night. He also slept in the master bedroom, claiming he was “afraid she might have an episode in the middle of the night.” I locked myself in the guest room, listening through the wall to the muffled sounds of his comforting whispers and her quiet sobbing. The next day, I went to work as usual. When I came back, the house had changed. My favorite landscape painting in the living room had been taken down, replaced by a generic oil painting. The orchids I had carefully cultivated for three years were gone, replaced by a pot of lucky bamboo. Mia was in the kitchen, cooking, wearing my pajamas. When she saw me, she smiled somewhat sheepishly. “Dr. Evans, you’re back. I made dinner. I hope you like it.” I stared at the pajamas she was wearing. My mother had sewn them by hand for me. I hadn’t even worn them once. I walked over and pointed to where the painting used to be. “Who told you to touch that?” “It… it was Liam,” she said timidly. “He said the colors in the landscape were too depressing and not good for my recovery.” “And the flowers?” “That was Liam too… He said orchids are too delicate and I wouldn’t know how to care for them.” I stepped right in front of her. “Take them off.” She froze. “What?” “Take off the pajamas you’re wearing right now.” Her face instantly flushed crimson, and tears welled up in her eyes. “Dr. Evans, I’m sorry. I just thought they were pretty… I didn’t mean anything by it.” Liam walked out of the hallway. “Enough, Chloe!” He walked over to Mia, shielding her behind him. “It’s just a pair of pajamas. Are you really going to make a huge deal out of this?” “If she likes them, let her wear them. You have a whole closet full of clothes, you’re going to miss one set of pajamas?” I looked at his face, so full of righteous indignation. The very last shred of feeling I had for him evaporated. “Liam, tell her to leave.” “Absolutely not,” he answered with ironclad certainty. “Fine. Then I’ll leave.” I turned around, went into the guest room, and started gathering my most precious medical journals and handwritten research notes. I stacked my notes on the desk and pulled out my suitcase to start packing. Just as I turned around, Mia walked in carrying a glass of water. “Dr. Evans, have some water. Please don’t be mad.” She held the glass out toward me. I didn’t take it. Her hand suddenly “slipped.” The entire glass of water splashed directly onto my handwritten notes. The water instantly soaked into the pages. My brain let out a loud, ringing buzz. I rushed over, grabbed the notebook, and frantically tried to dab up the water with tissues. But it was useless. The ink was already bleeding into illegible, blurry smears. I looked up at Mia, who wore an expression of sheer panic. She kept apologizing: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Dr. Evans, I didn’t mean to…” Liam walked in then. Seeing the scene, he frowned, pulled Mia toward him, and inspected her hands. “Did the water burn you?” Mia shook her head, crying even harder. “Liam, I ruined Dr. Evans’s things…” Liam glanced at the soaked notebook. “It’s just a notebook. I’ll buy you a new one to replace it.” He said dismissively, “Mia didn’t do it on purpose. Can you stop holding grudges over every little thing?” I held the ruined notebook, my hands shaking uncontrollably. My mentor had left that notebook to me before he died. It was the only one of its kind in the entire world. I looked at Liam. “You’ll replace it?” “How exactly are you going to replace it?” He choked on his words, his face flushing with embarrassment. “Chloe, stop being so unreasonable.” I laughed. I tossed the ruined notebook onto the floor, turned around, pulled out my suitcase, and started packing my clothes. Liam stood in the doorway, watching me. “What are you trying to pull now?” “I told you, I’m leaving.” I didn’t look back. “Over something this trivial, you’re running away from home?” “Chloe, can you please act like an adult?” I ignored him and kept packing. Mia cried softly beside him. “It’s all my fault. Liam, please don’t fight with Dr. Evans…” Liam sighed and patted her shoulder to comfort her. “It’s not your fault. She’s just being completely irrational.” I zipped up my suitcase and stood up. As I walked past Liam, I didn’t even glance at him. At the front door, I stopped. “Liam, this is the choice you made.” With that, I rolled my suitcase out the door, leaving behind the place I once thought would be my forever home. That was the first time I had ever walked out. Three days later, Liam found the hotel I was staying at. He brought my favorite pastries from a high-end bakery, and a beautifully wrapped notebook. “Chloe, stop being mad. Come home with me.” “I had someone restore that book. Look, it’s as good as new.” I opened the notebook. The handwriting inside was forged, and much of the complex medical data didn’t match up at all. I handed the notebook back to him. “Liam, please leave.” The smile on his face froze. “Chloe, how long are you going to keep throwing this tantrum?” “I already sent her away to a facility. What more do you want?” “Can you please stop making a mountain out of a molehill?” I looked at him straight in the eyes. “I never make mountains out of molehills.” I closed the door in his face. He stood outside for a long time, but eventually, he left. 4 After that, we didn’t speak for a month in a cold war. He didn’t come looking for me, and I didn’t go back. Until news broke from the western border. A massive earthquake had struck. The General Hospital needed to assemble an emergency medical response team to head to the disaster zone. I was appointed as the team leader. When the roster was finalized, I saw Liam’s name. He was the overall commanding officer of the military rescue operation. We met up on the tarmac at the airbase. He looked surprised when he saw me, then walked over. “What are you doing here?” “I’m a doctor,” I said. He looked at me, hesitating as if he wanted to say more. In the end, he only said two words. “Stay safe.” I nodded. The transport plane took off, heading for the disaster zone. The situation on the ground was far more catastrophic than we had imagined. Rubble and collapsed buildings were everywhere, and the number of casualties was staggering. We immediately threw ourselves into the rescue effort. I performed five back-to-back surgeries in a makeshift, poorly-lit medical tent. It got dark, and the rain was still pouring down. A nurse ran in, frantic. “Dr. Evans, this is bad! The blood bank in Sector A is critically low, and a shipment of specialized serum got stranded by a mudslide on the mountain road.” That serum was desperately needed for a critically injured soldier. Without it, he wouldn’t survive the night. “I’ll go get it,” I said. “It’s too dangerous, Dr. Evans. The roads have collapsed.” “I am a doctor.” I stripped off my surgical scrubs, threw on a rain poncho, grabbed a med kit, and sprinted out into the storm. Liam’s unit was responsible for perimeter security. I found him. “I need to go retrieve the serum. I need a Humvee and two men.” He looked at me, his brow furrowing deeply. “No. It’s too dangerous.” “The patient can’t wait.” We stared each other down in the pouring rain. Finally, he compromised. “I’ll go with you.” “No, you need to stay here and command the operation.” He assigned two of his best men to escort me. We bounced violently along the treacherous, muddy mountain road in the military Humvee. Suddenly, Liam’s anxious voice crackled over the radio. “Chloe, what’s your location?” “Almost there.” “Turn back immediately! There’s a high risk of a secondary landslide!” Before the words even finished echoing in the cabin, I felt the vehicle lurch violently. The mountain had started shaking again. “Quick! Turn around!” I yelled to the driver. But as the Humvee rounded a bend, the entire road ahead of us crumbled and slid into the valley below. We were trapped. And the radio went dead. We had no choice but to wait for rescue. I stared at the empty med kit, my heart burning with anxiety about the serum. Every second felt like an eternity. Suddenly, I heard the heavy thwop-thwop of helicopter blades. Liam had personally led a Blackhawk team to extract us. The chopper hovered over us in the storm, lowering a rescue basket. They hoisted the serum up first. Then, me and the two soldiers. As soon as my boots hit the ground at the temporary command post, I sprinted to deliver the serum to the surgical tent. Liam followed closely behind me. “Are you hurt?” “I’m fine.” He grabbed my arm tightly. “Chloe, you are never allowed to take a risk like that again.” I looked at him and said nothing. Just then, a communications officer ran up, saluting breathlessly. “Reporting, Commander! We just got word that a civilian snuck into the rear supply convoy, and now she’s missing on the road!” “A civilian? Who?” Liam demanded. “Her name… her name is Mia Lawson.” The color drained instantly from Liam’s face. He let go of my arm and turned to run. “Liam!” I yelled after him. “I have to go save her.” He didn’t even look back. “The situation out there is incredibly dangerous, you can’t go!” “She came here for me.” With that, he grabbed a squad and vanished into the wall of rain. I stood frozen in the mud, my body feeling like ice. A colleague walked over and patted my shoulder sympathetically. “Dr. Evans, try not to worry. Commander Vance is highly experienced. He’ll be okay.” I nodded slowly and turned back toward the surgical tent. The wounded were still waiting for me. I scrubbed back in, put on a fresh gown and gloves, but my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to compartmentalize and calm down. I picked up the scalpel. At that exact moment, the earth violently bucked again. The heavy steel support beam above the tent ceiling broke loose and plummeted downward. Pure instinct took over; I shoved the nurse and the patient on the operating table out of the way. But I didn’t have time to dive clear myself. The steel beam crashed heavily onto my right arm. Blinding, white-hot agony shot through me. My vision went black, and I lost consciousness. I don’t know how long I was out. When I woke up, I was lying in a sterile hospital bed. My right arm was heavily wrapped in thick layers of gauze. I tried to twitch my fingers. Nothing happened. I felt absolutely no sensation. Just a terrifying, heavy numbness and a deep, pulsing ache. The Director of the hospital was standing by my bed. He looked at me, his expression grave. “My hand… how bad is it?” I forced the words out, my throat raspy. The Director was silent for a long time. “Severe comminuted fracture in the right forearm, with catastrophic nerve damage.” My mind went completely blank. Catastrophic nerve damage. That meant I would never be able to hold a scalpel again. I was a neurosurgeon. My hands were my entire life, my entire identity. And now, my life as I knew it was over. I stared blankly at the ceiling as tears streamed silently down my face. The Director let out a heavy sigh. “I’ve contacted the best specialists in the country. We are going to do everything we possibly can.” I closed my eyes. “Director. I want to submit my resignation and request a medical discharge.” “Chloe, don’t make any rash decisions right now.” “I’ve made up my mind.” My career as a surgeon ended the year I turned twenty-eight. I lay in that hospital bed for a week. Liam didn’t visit me a single time. I heard from colleagues that he had found Mia. She only had a few minor scrapes, but was severely spooked. He had been staying with her at the rear recovery camp the entire time. The day I was discharged, I processed all the paperwork myself. I went back to the military housing complex. The apartment was completely empty. All of Mia’s things were still there. My belongings had been neatly packed into boxes and stacked in the corner of the living room. Next to the boxes was a sticky note. [Let’s talk when you get back.] It was Liam’s handwriting. I walked over and unzipped my suitcase. Inside were all my clothes and personal items. Resting right on top was a ring box. It contained my engagement ring. I took it out and placed it gently on the table. Then, I pulled two documents out of my bag. One was my approved medical discharge and resignation from the military medical corps. The other was a formal Declaration of Broken Engagement. I signed my name at the bottom. Chloe Evans. I lined up the two documents and the engagement ring side-by-side on the table. After finishing, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and took one last, long look around the apartment. Then, I walked out the door, closing it firmly behind me, and never looked back. This time, I didn’t go to a hotel. I booked the earliest possible flight and left the city entirely.

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The day before my wedding, Arthur Sterling accompanied me to the bridal boutique for my final dress fitting. I had just stepped out of the dressing room. I saw Arthur frantically taking off his suit jacket, turning around, and preparing to leave. “Lily had an accident. Evelyn can’t handle it alone, I need to rush to the hospital. Let’s cancel tomorrow’s wedding for now.” In the past, I would have blocked the door. I would have demanded to know who was more important: me, or Evelyn Hayes and her daughter. But this time, looking at his retreating back, I didn’t say a word to stop him. This was the ninety-ninth time he had canceled our wedding for Evelyn and her daughter. Half an hour later, Evelyn posted a new update on her Instagram. [You are my only pillar of support in this world.] In the live photo, Arthur had his arm wrapped protectively around Evelyn, while little Lily called them “Daddy and Mommy.” They looked exactly like a perfect family of three. My parents sighed helplessly when they heard the news. “Chloe, is the wedding canceled again tomorrow? But we’ve already mailed out all the invitations…” I shook my head, my face completely calm. “The wedding will proceed exactly as planned. My groom just won’t be him.” … Hearing my words, my mom quickly pulled a spare wedding invitation from her purse. My dad’s eyes immediately fell on the line where the groom’s name was written. I watched the tension visibly leave both of their bodies. “If you’re marrying him, your mother and I can finally rest easy.” “Chloe, I told you a long time ago that Arthur Sterling wasn’t worthy of a lifelong commitment. I’m so glad you’ve finally woken up.” I had spent years banging my head against a brick wall, refusing to turn back. But this time, I chose to finally let myself go. After I finalized the dress, Arthur happened to call. “I remember you’ve always wanted to try that viral Italian bistro downtown. I paid a concierge broker triple the price to secure a lunch reservation for us today.” I originally wanted to refuse. But thinking about the six years we had spent together, I figured we owed it to ourselves to end things with some dignity. I arrived at the entrance of the bistro. Arthur reached out to take my purse, his other hand habitually reaching out to wrap around my waist. I dodged his touch and walked straight into the restaurant. Looking at his hand frozen in the air, his brow furrowed, a trace of impatience bleeding into his tone. “Chloe, stop throwing a tantrum.” “Lily had a sudden medical flare-up, and I’m the only person Evelyn can rely on.” “You know this. Before David died, I promised him I would take good care of his wife and daughter.” I didn’t reply. I sat down and began looking through the menu. He sat down next to me, tugging at his tie in frustration. “A man is only as good as his word. You wouldn’t want to marry a man who breaks his promises, would you?” I pulled out my phone to scan the QR code for the menu. He waited a moment. Seeing that I was still giving him the silent treatment, he let out a heavy sigh. “Alright, stop being mad. I promise the wedding won’t be canceled next time. I told you I’d give you the most perfect wedding, and I won’t break that promise.” But his promises were only valid when it came to Evelyn and her daughter. I was the one who always had to step aside. Just then, a waiter walked over. “Excuse me, Miss. Your table has already ordered a four-person family meal. If you order more, it might be too much food. Would you like me to cancel the extra items?” Before I could react, a familiar female voice rang out from behind me. “The line for the restroom was so long. Sorry to keep you waiting, Chloe.” Evelyn Hayes walked toward us, holding little Lily’s hand. She sat on the other side of Arthur, while Lily squeezed right into the space between Arthur and me. I froze for a second. Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but Evelyn beat him to it. “It’s all Arthur’s fault. I just casually mentioned I was craving this bistro, and I didn’t expect him to take it to heart and pay triple to a scalper just to get a table.” “Chloe, you don’t need to cancel your order. Eat whatever you like.” Watching her act like she owned the place, I couldn’t help but let out a cynical laugh. In the past, I thought Arthur was just oblivious to Evelyn’s manipulative tactics and hidden motives. Now, I realized he had been enjoying the ego trip of two women fighting over him all along. I looked up at the waiter. “Cancel my order…” “Ahhh—! It hurts! Daddy, Auntie Chloe pinched my arm! It’s swelling up!” Lily suddenly held up her supposedly red, swollen arm and began crying hysterically. “Chloe! If you’re unhappy with me, take it out on me! Why would you bully a child? She’s innocent!” Evelyn’s eyes went red. She looked at Arthur, her gaze overflowing with grievance and helplessness. “Arthur, thank you for taking care of us all these years, but we shouldn’t see each other anymore. If she has the nerve to abuse a child right in front of you, I don’t even dare to imagine what she’ll do in the future…” Saying this, she grabbed Lily’s hand, acting like she was about to flee. Lily gripped the hem of Arthur’s shirt, refusing to let go. “I don’t want to leave Daddy! I want Daddy and Mommy to be together forever! Auntie Chloe is a bad person, she’s trying to steal my Daddy!” The commotion at our table instantly attracted the attention of everyone in the restaurant. A few influencers who were live-streaming their meals immediately rushed over, pointing their phone cameras right at my face. “Oh my god, chat! I came to review a restaurant and ended up catching a homewrecker picking a fight with the real family! Screenshot this mistress’s face so she doesn’t steal your husbands!” “That poor kid! The mistress actually dared to abuse the child right in front of the parents! Imagine if she became a stepmother!” The waiter, who had been polite to me just moments ago, turned his expression to ice. “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Our establishment doesn’t welcome people like you.” As the situation spiraled out of control, I looked at Arthur, hoping he would stand up and clear my name. But he just shot me a cold, disgusted glare. “Chloe, Lily is just a child. How could you be so cruel?” “Arthur, I didn’t pinch her.” I pointed a finger at the security camera mounted on the ceiling. “If you don’t believe me, go ask the manager to pull the footage right now.” The moment those words left my mouth, Lily suddenly rolled her eyes back and “fainted” on the floor. “Arthur! Lily fainted! We need to get her to the hospital!” Evelyn screamed at the top of her lungs. Arthur scooped Lily up into his arms and sprinted toward the door. Just as he crossed the glass threshold, he paused and looked back at me. I was currently surrounded by livestreamers and “righteous” customers. Every kind of vile insult was being hurled at me. Just as I thought Arthur’s conscience might have finally kicked in, he suddenly spoke. “Chloe, I never knew you were this malicious. Don’t come looking for me until you realize what you did wrong.” With that, he left without looking back. Leaving me entirely alone to face the abuse of the influencers and bystanders. Finally, a sympathetic customer called the police, and only then was I escorted safely out of the restaurant. Sticky pasta sauce dripped from my hair. My white sundress was stained with food and smelled awful. No Uber driver would pick me up, so I had to walk three miles back to the house. When I pushed open the front door, Arthur was sitting on the living room sofa, smoking a cigarette. Even though he tried to suppress his expression, I still caught the flash of utter disgust in his eyes. “You’re back?” I looked at him calmly. “Arthur, we’re done. Let’s end this here.” His hand, holding the cigarette, paused. He stood up and walked toward me. “Is this because of what happened at lunch?” He stared at my face, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Chloe, I thought you would be mature enough to understand the situation. If I had defended you in that restaurant, the internet mob would have turned their crosshairs on Evelyn and Lily.” “Besides, this only happened because you were insanely jealous and hurt Lily. You have no one to blame but yourself for ending up like this.” “Lily has already forgiven you, and Evelyn said she won’t hold a grudge. We’re dropping the subject.” He reached out, wanting to pat my head. But the moment his hand neared the dried sauce in my hair, he quickly pulled it back. “Go clean yourself up first.” “Arthur.” Looking at him turning his back to me, I took a deep breath. “Tomorrow is my wedding day.” His footsteps halted. He whipped around, looking like a man whose patience was completely depleted. “You know perfectly well that every time Lily has a flare-up, someone needs to monitor her for a full week. How am I supposed to have time to marry you tomorrow?” “Chloe, can you please grow up and act like an adult?” I stared at him, my face completely devoid of emotion. “I am informing you. I am not asking for your permission.” His face darkened like a storm cloud. “Can you stop being so unreasonable?! I told you, I don’t have time tomorrow.” “If you want to host a wedding with no groom, go right ahead! You and your parents will be the only ones humiliated!” I clenched my fists and met his gaze head-on. “My wedding doesn’t need you.” He suddenly burst out laughing. “Chloe, besides me, who else would actually marry you?” Right as the words left his mouth, a massive crash echoed from the nursery down the hall. My heart seized. I sprinted to the nursery and pushed the door open. The stuffed animals that had been perfectly arranged in the display cabinet were scattered all over the floor. The tiny baby clothes my mother had hand-stitched were cut to shreds. And sitting on the custom crib my father had built with his own hands, was Lily. A shattered porcelain urn and gray ash were scattered around Evelyn’s feet. Evelyn blinked her tear-filled eyes, her face a perfect portrait of helplessness and fear. “I accidentally knocked this jar over.” Arthur rushed in, shoving me out of the doorway, and grabbed Evelyn’s hands. “Evelyn, are you hurt? Did you get cut?” Evelyn’s gaze drifted over Arthur’s shoulder, shooting me a provocative, victorious smirk. I knew it. She did it on purpose. But I still couldn’t control myself. I lunged forward and slapped her hard across the face. Evelyn clutched her red, swollen cheek, her voice trembling. “I’m so sorry… I just saw there was dust on the jar, and I wanted to help wipe it clean. I never thought I’d drop it… I really didn’t mean to…” Arthur grabbed my arm violently, trying to force me to bow my head to Evelyn. “Chloe! You’ve gone too far! Apologize right now!” “Arthur, that was our baby!” Two years ago, Arthur and I were expecting a child. The jar Evelyn shattered was my baby’s urn. Receiving a covert signal from Evelyn, Lily suddenly covered her ears and ran out of the room screaming. “Lily!” Evelyn immediately chased after her. Arthur’s face was livid. “Look what you’ve done! Since when do the dead matter more than the living?! Did you really have to hit her?!” I stared directly into his eyes, absolute disbelief crashing over me. “Arthur, you know exactly what this nursery means to me! That was your child! How could you…” “Chloe!” He cut me off sharply. “If you hadn’t bullied Lily at lunch today, would I have had to bring her here to calm her down?! I’m doing all of this to atone for your sins!” Just then, Evelyn’s loud sobs echoed from the living room. Arthur panicked instantly. He forcefully shoved my arm away and sprinted out of the room. Caught off guard, I was thrown to the floor. My forehead slammed against the hardwood, and my vision instantly went black. Suddenly, a memory from two years ago flooded my mind. It was a night with torrential rain. One frantic phone call from Evelyn was all it took for Arthur to abandon me, leaving me five-months pregnant and stranded on the side of a flooded highway. A drunk driver lost control and crashed his truck directly into me. That night, Arthur knelt beside my hospital bed, violently slapping his own face, begging for my forgiveness. “I’m sorry, I was wrong! I never thought an accident would happen.” “I just didn’t want to let David down… I never wanted to hurt you.” “Chloe, I failed you and our baby. Let’s just get married, and we can try again. Our baby will come back to us.” That time, I forgave him. But now, he was telling me our dead child didn’t matter as much as Evelyn and her daughter. “Chloe.” Arthur’s face suddenly magnified in front of my blurry vision. Just as I blinked, trying to figure out if this was a nightmare or reality, Lily’s voice chimed in. “See? I told you Auntie Chloe was just faking it.” Seeing that my eyes were open and clear, Arthur immediately stood up and shielded Lily behind his legs. It was as if he was terrified I would attack her again. Before I could even sit up, Evelyn rushed forward and dropped to her knees in front of me. “Breaking the urn was my fault! If you want to hit someone or curse someone, do it to me! Lily is innocent! She’s just a child, please don’t hurt her!” Arthur aggressively hauled Evelyn up from the floor, his face dark with rage. “Chloe, stop pushing it!” “First you assaulted her, and now you’re forcing her to her knees?! What the hell is wrong with you?!” “You’re the one in the wrong here! Apologize right now!” “I was wrong.” A cynical, exhausted smile crept onto my lips. I was blind. I was stupid. I chose the worst possible man, and I made my parents worry about me for years. “I’m sorry.” I was tired. I didn’t want to play this toxic game with them anymore. Arthur was visibly stunned. In all our arguments involving Evelyn, I had never once backed down. My sudden, flat apology made a bizarre wave of panic rise in his chest. His voice actually softened a fraction. “I’m not genuinely angry with you. Just don’t be so impulsive and resort to violence next time.” A flash of bitterness crossed Evelyn’s eyes. She tugged pitifully at Arthur’s shirt. “Arthur, since this room holds ashes, we shouldn’t stay here. I’m terrified Lily will have nightmares sleeping under this roof.” “Lily and I will just go back to our own apartment… I’m just so scared she’ll have another episode…”

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In the delivery history of our grocery app, my husband was ordering fresh milk and organic eggs to a strange address every single morning at 5:30 AM. The delivery note simply read: For Joey’s Kitchen. Joey is my husband’s nickname. But that address wasn’t our house. I stared at the screen, my fingers turning ice-cold. He leaves the house every morning at 5:00 AM to “go jogging.” For eight years. I actually thought he was running. 1. My name is Sarah, thirty-six years old, the CFO of a mid-sized tech company. Base salary: $150,000 a year, plus bonuses. It sounds glamorous, but my breakfast usually consists of a lukewarm bagel from the deli downstairs or instant oatmeal from my desk drawer. It’s not that I don’t want to eat well. It’s that I have no time. I leave the house at 7:00 AM every day and get home at 10:00 PM. By the time I walk through the door, my husband, Joseph, is already asleep. The living room lights are off. The kitchen is spotless. It is always spotless. I open the fridge, grab a carton of milk, and drink it standing in the dark kitchen. There are eggs, flour, and butter in the fridge. But no one has ever used them to cook a single meal for me. Joseph calls himself a “freelance photographer.” In reality, being a freelance photographer just means he has no stable income. He picks up one or two gigs a month, pulling in maybe $500 to $800. Our mortgage is $2,400 a month. He pays $400. My car payment is $800. He pays zero. Our daughter’s private preschool tuition is $12,000 a semester. He pays zero. The HOA fees, utilities, insurance, groceries—every single bill is auto-drafted from my account. I’ve done the math. In our eight years of marriage, I’ve sunk over $900,000 into this household. He has contributed less than $40,000. But he has one “redeeming quality.” Every single morning at 5:00 AM, he wakes up to go “jogging.” Rain or shine. When we first got married, I was actually touched by it. “Look how disciplined my husband is,” I used to boast to my coworkers. They would say, “You’re so lucky. My husband sleeps in until noon on the weekends.” I would just smile. Yeah. I was so lucky. Every morning, he wakes up at 5:00, comes back at 6:30, takes a shower, and then drops our daughter off at preschool. He never eats breakfast at home. I asked him once, “Don’t you get hungry after your run? Do you want me to leave some breakfast out for you?” He said, “No need, I just grab a bite while I’m out.” “What about me?” “Just pick something up on your commute,” he replied, his tone entirely casual. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t mind. I was too busy. Too busy to care about trivial things like that. Until that night, when I got home from the office at 11:00 PM. I opened our shared Instacart account to order some fruit for our daughter’s lunchbox the next day. And then I saw the order history. Daily delivery. Every morning at 5:30 AM. 12 organic eggs, 1 gallon of whole milk, 1 block of Kerrygold butter, a bag of artisan bread flour. Delivery Address: The Riverfront Condos, Building 18, Unit 1402. Delivery Instructions: For Joey’s Kitchen. We live at The Heights, Building 9, Unit 2201. Not The Riverfront Condos. I stared at the address, then looked at the order frequency. Every day. Every. Single. Day. The earliest record dated back exactly eight years ago. I put my phone down. I picked it up again. I put it back down. The harsh, fluorescent light of the kitchen illuminated my hands. They were shaking. He leaves at 5:00 AM every day. Not to jog. He goes to that place. To cook. For who? 2. The next morning, my alarm went off at 4:50 AM. I didn’t turn on the light. Lying in the dark, I listened to the rustling beside me. Joseph got out of bed as quietly as possible. The sound of him getting dressed was incredibly faint. He was terrified of waking me. In the past, I thought this was him being considerate. Now, I knew it was guilt. When he left the bedroom, I started counting. From the moment he got out of bed to the click of the front door, it took exactly four minutes. There was no sound of him brushing his teeth or washing his face. Meaning, he didn’t get ready at home. He got ready over there. I waited five minutes, got out of bed, threw on some clothes, and left the apartment. His car was missing from our assigned spot. I called an Uber. “Riverfront Condos, please.” The Riverfront Condos weren’t far from our house. A twelve-minute drive. When I arrived, the sun hadn’t even come up yet. Parked in front of Building 18 was his car. A white Volvo. The one I bought. I didn’t go upstairs. Instead, I walked into the 24-hour diner across the street and ordered a coffee. At 6:10 AM, he walked out of Building 18. He was holding a trash bag. He tossed it into the dumpster out front. From where I sat, I could see eggshells inside the semi-transparent bag. An empty milk carton. Used aluminum foil. He had made breakfast. Not for me. Not for our daughter. For whoever lived in Unit 1402. He got into his car and drove away. I sat in the diner, my coffee completely cold. I hadn’t taken a single sip. I pulled out my phone and opened the county property tax database. Riverfront Condos, Building 18, Unit 1402. The owner information was hidden behind a privacy block, so I couldn’t see the name. But I found something else. The HOA payment portal. I couldn’t see the owner, but I could see the payment history. I smiled. He was even paying the HOA fees for this place. Which card was he using? I opened my Chase banking app. We have a joint checking account. Every month, I deposit $2,000 into it to cover various household bills. Scanning the transaction history, I spotted a recurring monthly charge of $250. Merchant: Riverfront HOA. The HOA fee for our own house is $400. Which meant, every single month, he was taking $250 out of our household account to pay the HOA fee for that condo. Using my money. I kept scrolling. There was another fixed monthly expense. $300. Category: Groceries. $300 a month, $3,600 a year. Over eight years, that was $28,800. Twenty-eight thousand dollars. That was the exact amount he spent of my money to buy groceries and cook for someone else. I closed the app and walked out of the diner. The sun had risen. The morning light was beautiful. I stood on the sidewalk and took a deep breath. Then, I walked toward Building 18. I took the elevator to the 14th floor. Unit 1402. There was a pair of slippers outside the door. Women’s slippers. A small decorative sign hung on the door. A wooden plaque with one word painted on it: Home. I didn’t knock. I took out my phone and snapped a picture. Then I left. I needed to find out exactly who lived inside. When I got home, Joseph had already showered and was sitting on the couch, scrolling on his phone. “Why are you up so early?” He glanced at me, looking genuinely surprised. “Couldn’t sleep. Went out for a walk.” “Oh.” He didn’t ask any more questions. He just went back to looking at his phone. I stared at him. His hair was still damp. On his index finger, there was a tiny, fresh blister. A burn. From cooking oil splattering. Every time he came back from his “morning run,” he had little injuries like this on his hands. I used to think he scraped himself falling on his runs. God, I was so stupid. 3. I didn’t make a scene. For an entire week, I woke up at 4:50 AM and followed him. In that one week, he went to the Riverfront Condos six times. Monday through Saturday. He rested on Sundays. Because on Sundays, he had to “spend time with our daughter” at home. Which meant, that person didn’t need him to make breakfast on Sundays. Maybe she handled it herself. Or maybe she had other plans on Sundays. On the seventh day, I didn’t follow him to the Riverfront Condos. I went somewhere else. My office. I’m a Chief Financial Officer. I have the clearance to access highly detailed banking and financial tracing tools. Not for the company. For myself. I pulled a comprehensive audit of every single transaction under Joseph’s name. And then, I found a massive wire transfer. Three years ago. $130,000. Recipient Account: Chloe Evans. Chloe Evans. I stared at the name, a loud ringing exploding in my ears. Chloe. It was Chloe? Chloe is my best friend. We went to college together. We’ve known each other for fourteen years. She is the Marketing Director at a mid-sized tech firm. Single. Or at least, she claimed to be single. She came over to our house for dinner all the time. Every time she visited, Joseph would cook a massive feast. He never cooked for me when it was just the two of us. But whenever Chloe came over, he would tie on an apron and say with a smile, “Since Chloe’s here, I guess I have to show off a little.” I thought he was just being a good host. I thought he was doing it to give me face in front of my best friend. After dinner, Chloe would always say, “Sarah, your husband is such an amazing cook. You’re so lucky.” I would reply, “Yeah. It’s a shame he’s so busy normally, he rarely cooks at home.” Chloe would just smile. Thinking back on that smile now… it wasn’t envy. It was smugness. Because all that time he was “so busy normally,” he was spending it cooking for her. Every single morning. For eight years. I picked up my phone and opened Chloe’s text thread. Her last message was from three days ago. She had sent me a picture. A beautifully crafted latte with perfect latte art. Caption: “The coffee today is sooooo good~” I scrolled up. Our entire chat history was perfectly normal. Just standard best-friend banter. “You busy lately?” “Wanna grab dinner this weekend?” “Does this dress look good on me?” There was absolutely nothing suspicious. She hid it even better than he did. I put my phone down. $130,000. Wired from Joseph’s account to Chloe. But every single dime in Joseph’s account was money I had transferred to him. I gave him a $3,000 “allowance” every month. Plus the money in the joint account for household bills. Over eight years, the total amount of money I had transferred to him exceeded $400,000. He took $130,000 of it to help Chloe buy a house. Riverfront Condos, Building 18, Unit 1402. He went there every single day. To make her breakfast. With groceries bought using my money. In an apartment partially funded by my money. I supported this family for eight years. And he used my money to support a second family for eight years. I picked up my water glass from the desk and took a sip. My hand wasn’t shaking. It was strange. I thought I would have a complete mental breakdown. But I didn’t. I just felt cold. Frozen solid, from the inside out. 4. I started thinking back. Over the last eight years. Starting from the very beginning. The first year of our marriage. We had just moved into The Heights. My parents paid the down payment; I paid the mortgage. Joseph had said, “Once my photography career takes off, I’ll take over the mortgage.” Eight years later, his career hasn’t taken off. The first month of our marriage. One morning, I woke up and found he wasn’t in bed. I called him, and he said, “I’m downstairs going for a jog.” It was the dead of winter. 5:00 AM, twenty-five degrees outside. I said, “It’s freezing, and you’re still running?” He said, “Gotta stay disciplined.” I hung up the phone and thought to myself, I married such a disciplined, dedicated man. I’m so lucky. Was that the first time he went to the Riverfront Condos? I didn’t know. But the Instacart order history told me the deliveries started that exact same month. The first month of our marriage. Which meant— He was never faithful to this marriage. Not for a single day. I remembered something else. When I was pregnant. My morning sickness was brutal. I couldn’t keep anything down. I asked him, “Could you just make me something light in the mornings? Plain oatmeal is fine.” He said, “I’m not really good at cooking. Why don’t you ask your mom to come stay with us?” Not really good at cooking? He woke up at 5:00 AM every day to make Chloe artisanal pour-over coffee, French toast, and Eggs Benedict. But to me, he was “not really good at cooking.” Later, my mom flew in from out of state and took care of me for three months. When she left, she said, “Joseph is a good guy, he just doesn’t really know how to take care of people.” Mom, it wasn’t that he didn’t know how. It was that he didn’t want to take care of me. His tenderness had a dedicated recipient. And it wasn’t me. There was another incident. Three years ago. For Chloe’s birthday. She took us out to dinner. At the table, having had a few glasses of wine, her face flushed as she said, “Sarah, you’re so lucky to have a husband. I feel so lonely by myself.” Joseph chuckled from across the table. “Chloe, you’re such a catch. You’ll meet the right guy eventually.” They were putting on a play right in front of me. Right to my face. And I actually comforted her. “Don’t rush it, the right person will come along when the time is right.” I was holding her hand. And she was holding my husband. I felt nauseous. Not morning sickness. Just pure, unadulterated disgust.

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On my second day after transferring to the County Clerk’s Marriage License Bureau, I took over a colleague’s desk. A young woman had come in to request a replacement marriage certificate. My colleague leaned over and whispered, “This is the 99th time this girl has come in for a replacement! We have her files backed up, so it’ll be quick.” I froze. “99 times?” My colleague laughed. “Yeah. The little brat married a rich older guy. Whenever they get into a fight, she loves to tear up their marriage certificate to throw a tantrum.” “Only an older man would put up with that kind of childish behavior. Word is her husband is the wealthiest man in the state, from the Sinclair family!” Instantly, my brow furrowed. “The Sinclair family prides itself on being low-key and humble. Are you sure her husband isn’t a fraud?” My colleague looked terrified and slapped a hand over my mouth. “Girl, keep your voice down! That is the legitimate head of the Sinclair empire—Arthur Sinclair.” I sat there, stunned. My phone slipped from my hand and clattered onto the desk. On the lit screen was my lock screen wallpaper: a photo of Arthur Sinclair and me, cuddled close together. The young woman in front of the desk suddenly changed her expression. She snatched my phone right off the table. “Who are you? Why do you have a picture with my husband?” … I opened my mouth, but my throat felt completely blocked. She said my husband. But the man in that photo was the husband I had been married to for five years. The Sinclair family was a massive, sprawling dynasty with deep-rooted power. Because of that, our marriage was kept a secret. He told me that keeping it hidden was to protect me. He said his business was too high-profile, and he was terrified the media would harass me. I believed him. And I kept believing him for five whole years. I never expected that, in the end, I was the punchline to a sick joke. The young girl’s face flushed red with fury. “I’ve seen plenty of women like you! The second you see a wealthy man, you throw yourselves at him like your life depends on it, ruining other people’s families! And you have the nerve to work at the Marriage Bureau? I’m going to file a complaint! I’ll get you fired!” My colleague hurried over to smooth things out. “Ms. Harper, please calm down, there has to be a misunderstanding…” “What misunderstanding? The photo is right there!” I took a deep breath, took my phone back, and spoke with surprising calmness. “It is a misunderstanding. I used to work in a neighboring city as a journalist. I interviewed Mr. Sinclair and asked for a photo together. That’s all.” Hailey Harper stared at me, skeptical. “An interview?” “Yes. For work.” She studied my face for a few seconds before her expression gradually relaxed. “Oh… I’m sorry then, my mistake.” She let out a small laugh. “It’s just that my husband is so successful, there are always women trying to climb into his bed. I have to keep my guard up.” I forced a smile. “It’s fine.” “So, about my replacement certificate…” “Your file is missing your original birth certificate,” I said. “You’ll have to go back and get it.” Hailey frowned. “My house is close by. I’ll just run back and grab it.” “I can go with you,” I said, standing up. “I can just take a picture of it on my tablet and upload it directly so you don’t have to make another trip down here.” She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Sure, let’s go.” I followed her out of the city hall building. She drove a brand-new white Porsche. The interior was a sickly sweet, overwhelmingly girly pink. Twenty minutes later, the car pulled up to the gates of a very familiar luxury condo complex. It wasn’t until we went upstairs and stood in front of the door to the unit that my heart skipped a beat. Because I knew this condo intimately. Two years ago, when we got married, I used all my pre-marital savings to put the down payment on this exact place as our marital home. I knew the Sinclair family was incredibly wealthy and probably looked down on this modest condo, but I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t with him for his money. At the time, Arthur said his company was facing cash flow issues. He suggested we keep the marriage quiet and wait to hold the wedding until his finances freed up. I understood, and I supported him. Later, when his company’s cash flow recovered, he never brought up the wedding or this condo again. I asked him about it a few times, and he told me he had rented it out. I did receive rent money, transferred into my account right on time every single month, so I never once thought to come check on the place. Standing in the entryway, I looked into the living room and saw a massive wedding portrait hanging dead center on the wall. In the photo, Arthur wore a crisp white tuxedo, and the woman beside him wore a long, trailing bridal gown, smiling sweetly. “Come in, have a seat,” Hailey called out. I stepped inside. My feet felt like they were sinking into cotton. In five years of marriage, Arthur never gave me a wedding. He never took a wedding photo with me. Our only photo together was that tourist selfie I had practically begged him to take. In it, he stood next to me looking as stiff as a stranger. Yet here, a massive portrait of him and his bride hung on the wall. It was six feet tall, framed in gold, and facing the sofa for everyone to see. “Your home is very cozy,” I said, forcing the corners of my mouth up. She beamed. “I actually thought the wedding photo was way too big, a bit tacky even. But my husband insisted. He said he wanted everyone who walks in to know that I am his wife.” “He… treats you well.” “He’s alright,” she said, feigning modesty, though her eyes were shining with triumph. “Take a seat, I’ll go find my birth certificate.” I sat on the sofa, staring blankly at the wedding photo. Arthur’s smile was so gentle. It was a tenderness I had never once seen directed at me. It turned out he didn’t hate taking pictures. He just hated taking them with me. Hailey rummaged around for a while before coming back out empty-handed. “Weird, my documents aren’t here.” She picked up her phone. “Let me call hubby.” The call connected, and she put it on speaker. “Hubby, where did you put my birth certificate? I’m at the clerk’s office trying to replace our marriage license and I can’t find it.” Arthur’s voice floated through the speaker, so full of indulgence it made my stomach churn. “You tore it up again? Honestly, you’re a mother now, why do you still have such a child’s temper?” She whined affectionately, “So where did you put it?” “I have it with me. I was out looking at new houses for you today, so I happened to have your files in my briefcase. I’ll bring it to you soon.” “Well hurry up, I have someone waiting at the house.” “Got it. Did you buy the baby formula?” “Yes, yes, the brand you mentioned last time.” “Good girl. Wait for me.” She hung up, smiling like the happiest woman in the world. “My husband will be right back, sorry to keep you waiting. Oh! Let me show you my son!” She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the bedrooms. “He’s six months old and absolutely adorable.” I let her drag me to the nursery, completely numb, only snapping back to reality when we crossed the threshold. In the nursery, a chubby, fair-skinned baby boy lay fast asleep in his crib. Hailey leaned over the railing, her face overflowing with maternal love. “Isn’t he cute? My husband says he looks just like me.” I stood there, a terrifying coldness seeping into my bones. They had a child. Arthur and I had been married for five years. Six months ago, I had finally gotten pregnant. At seven months, I suffered complications. They told me I needed an emergency induced labor, and that the baby didn’t make it. After that traumatic loss, he told me we should focus on his career and hold off on trying again. I thought he was just trying to spare my feelings. I never questioned it. It turned out he didn’t not want a child. He just didn’t want me to be the mother. “What’s his name?” I asked. Hailey’s smile grew even sweeter. “Grayson. My husband picked it out. He said he loved the sound of it.” A bomb went off in my head. Grayson. That was the name Arthur and I had picked out together. When I first got pregnant, he said we needed a meaningful name. My middle name is Grace. He said “Grayson” was perfect—literally Grace’s son. A tribute to me. “Does the name… have any special meaning?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking. Hailey let out a dramatic sigh. “My husband’s late wife… her middle name was Grace. She had a terribly difficult labor, and neither she nor the baby survived. He chose this name to honor her.” I stared at her, the bitter taste in my mouth so strong I couldn’t speak. Hailey’s tone suddenly dropped, laced with insecurity. “Every time we fight, I tear up the marriage certificate. Please don’t think I’m just petty. The truth is, I’m terrified deep down.” “He is so deeply attached to his dead wife. What does that mean for anyone else? What if one day he just…” She trailed off. I stood by the crib, staring at the sleeping infant, a storm raging in my chest. If the baby I lost at seven months had lived, he would be exactly this big right now. “He told you his ex-wife died in childbirth?” Hailey offered a sad smile. “Yeah. The whole thing devastated him. It took him years to recover. It wasn’t until he met me that he slowly started to heal. Sometimes I think it must be fate… I kind of look like her.” I looked at her face. She looked absolutely nothing like me. If we had to share one common trait, it was that we were both utter fools. “Does he treat you well normally?” I asked. Her eyes lit up. “Of course, he’s wonderful, just incredibly busy. But he promised me that in a few years, he’s going to hand the company over to a board and take me around the world.” I nodded slowly. He told me the exact same thing. Five years ago. I stood in the nursery for another moment, my mind chillingly clear. “I don’t see a memorial or an urn for his late wife anywhere?” Hailey scoffed gently. “You care about that stuff? I asked him about it once. He said when someone is gone, they’re gone. As long as they live in your heart, you don’t need all those physical formalities.” I lowered my eyes. As long as they live in your heart. What profoundly touching words. Then where exactly did the child I lost at seven months live? I uncurled my tightly clenched fists, leaving deep crescent-moon indentations in my palms. “I have one more question for you.” “Hm?” “Your family is so incredibly wealthy. Why live in such an ordinary condo?” Hailey laughed. “I demanded it! My husband is too rich. He’s so rich that his mansions don’t even feel like human homes. I made him buy this place in a normal neighborhood so we could live like a regular family.” She pointed at the decorations on the walls. “See? I decorated all of this myself. He hated it at first, but he grew to love it. He says this place actually feels like a home.” “Your husband bought this place for you?” “Yep. He bought it as a gift.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Between you and me, I had my own selfish reasons. If he ever decides he doesn’t want me anymore, I won’t be left out on the street. He promised me this house is mine forever.”

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After five grueling years working overseas with my fiancé, our long-awaited payday never arrived. Instead, we were greeted by the deafening roar of artillery shells from the neighboring border. While I was stressing over the extortionate, million-dollar black-market flight tickets, the company accountant looked at me with pure envy. “Maya, you are so lucky. Carter just withdrew your combined two-million-dollar salary to buy flight tickets. Even if it means draining every cent of your hard-earned savings, he’s determined to get you back to the States safely. It’s so romantic!” My heart swelled with warmth, and I immediately rushed back to our quarters to pack my bags. But after dozens of unanswered phone calls, I stayed up until midnight, only to receive a single, freezing text message. “Maya, you’ve made a lot of friends over here, you know how to survive. Elena is a widow with no man to protect her, and she’s too soft for this environment. She’d get eaten alive. I’m sending her back to the States first, and then I’ll figure out a way to come back and get you!” As the sky lit up with anti-aircraft fire, I silently blocked his number. What Carter didn’t know was that I had just received a classified call from the US Embassy. Due to my status as a top-tier technological asset, I had been granted immediate access to a military extraction flight—and I was allowed to bring my family for free. Furthermore, the local airport had just been entirely commandeered by the US Armed Forces. Their commercial flight wasn’t going anywhere. …… When my armored transport arrived at the airport, thousands of desperate expats were already pacing anxiously on the cracked tarmac. The vehicle crawled slowly through the chaotic crowd. Outside my tinted window, right in front of the Embassy’s emergency registration desk, I spotted them. Carter was holding Elena tightly against his chest, shielding her. The sight of them was blindingly repulsive. Sitting in the passenger seat, Agent Sterling, the embassy liaison sent to extract me, was diligently filling out a clipboard. “Dr. Vance, do you have any other family members currently in-country? Given your High-Value clearance, we have the authority to extract them with you right now.” I looked at the intimately entangled pair outside the window and let out a soft sigh. Years ago, when my parents died in a tragic accident, it was Carter’s mother, Mama Hayes, who constantly invited me over for dinner and kept me company. If it weren’t for her, I might have succumbed to my depression and joined my parents. For the sake of Mama Hayes’s memory, and knowing full well that Carter and Elena wouldn’t be able to escape tonight, my heart wavered for a fraction of a second. I was just about to raise my hand and point to them when the embassy worker outside spoke to Carter in a hurried, anxious voice. “Sir, do you have any other family members in the country? The geopolitical situation is deteriorating by the second. Every minute they stay behind is a lethal risk. Even if you have to borrow money, you need to leave together!” Carter froze. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the black-market tickets in his hand. We both knew the truth. Our combined salary was two million, but as a middle-management executive at the multinational firm, he could easily request an emergency cash advance. Corporate wouldn’t just leave an employee to die. Elena looked up at him nervously and whispered, “Carter, if we contact Maya right now, knowing her temper, she’ll definitely throw a massive fit. We might end up missing our window to leave entirely…” The hesitation in Carter’s eyes instantly vanished, replaced by a cold resolve. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “No. It’s just us.” Those words pierced right through the bulletproof glass and slammed ruthlessly into my heart. Amidst the smoke and distant gunfire, the two of them clung to each other, looking like a pair of tragic, star-crossed lovers. Seeing Elena’s satisfied smile, Carter lowered his voice to comfort her. “Maya is tough. She acts like a total tomboy anyway. Even if she stays behind, no one would dare mess with her. Unlike you—you’re too fragile and delicate. You’d be bullied in a heartbeat.” Caught up in the emotion of his own twisted heroism, he gently kissed her forehead. “Don’t be afraid. As long as I’m here, I will keep you safe!” The bitter irony was that he had said those exact same words to me when he proposed. Now, he was perfectly fine abandoning me in a literal warzone, acting as if my “toughness” was a bulletproof vest that could magically deflect mortar shells. But he conveniently forgot something. Before I followed him to this desert wasteland, I was a quiet, soft-spoken academic who spent all her time in a sterile physics lab. Growing up, whenever I visited the Hayes house, Carter was always the one who looked after me. Naturally, he became the sole protagonist of my teenage daydreams. So, after Mama Hayes passed away, I threw away my brilliant career as a young, tenured physics professor back in the States to follow him overseas to strike it rich. To support his ambitions, I—one of the youngest genius physicists of my generation—worked alongside the rugged construction crews, grinding my way up from a manual laborer to a lead draftsman, all just to hear him say: “Once I save up two million dollars, I’m taking you back to the States to give you the grandest wedding imaginable! I’ll make sure your parents can rest in peace!” Last year, when our salaries finally got bumped up to the executive tier, I thought I could finally catch my breath. Instead, he flew his newly widowed sister-in-law over, claiming she was sweet, docile, and was getting bullied by her extended family back home. He told me to “take good care of her.” Elena hadn’t worked a day in her life. One minute she was complaining that the desert dust made it hard to breathe, the next she was whining about the heat making her dizzy. From that day on, I—the woman who wasn’t even legally married into the family yet—had to bake in the scorching sun at the construction site, only to come back to the barracks and play maid for my future sister-in-law. When the rough local contractors disrespected her for being overly dramatic, I was the one who stood in the doorway, hands on my hips, screaming back at them in their native language to protect her. I thought my sacrifices would earn Carter’s gratitude and devotion. Instead, I got nothing but disgust and betrayal. I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh, lowered my hand, and turned to Agent Sterling, who was still waiting for my answer. Mimicking Carter’s exact tone, I said: “No. It’s just me.” Sterling nodded sympathetically. The armored SUV finally broke through the crowds and pulled up right in front of the main terminal. While Sterling went inside to expedite my clearance, I grabbed my bags from the trunk. Before I could take a step, two furious figures blocked my path. Carter’s eyes were ice-cold. “Didn’t I text you? You’re already used to living out here, waiting a little longer won’t kill you. Why are you shamelessly stalking us? Are you trying to guilt-trip me and force me into a difficult choice?” I glanced at the visibly nervous Elena and let out a dry, exasperated laugh. “I never thought you were torn about your choice for a single second.” Carter’s face stiffened, and he guiltily looked away. Elena hurriedly jumped in. “Maya, please don’t misunderstand! Carter only did this because he knows my health is terrible, and I’m not as thick-skinned and resilient as you are. That’s why he decided to take me first. But I completely understand why you’re angry. After all, I’m just a widow—I don’t deserve to have a million dollars spent to save my life. Just let Carter take you. I’ll stay here and wait to join my late husband…” Her performance was flawless—weeping like a fragile flower, acting as if I had inflicted some massive, unbearable injustice upon her. The guilt on Carter’s face instantly evaporated, replaced by blazing anger as he glared at me. “You know perfectly well that Elena is physically weak and can’t handle emotional stress! Did you specifically follow us here just to throw a tantrum and make her cry?!” He spoke as if I were somehow immune to bullets and emotional trauma. Hearing the artillery fire creeping closer, I had zero desire to entangle myself with them any further. I grabbed my suitcase and said coldly: “Since you don’t want to see me, get out of my way. From now on, whether I live or die has absolutely nothing to do with you!” Seeing me turn and walk straight toward the embassy staff who had just registered them, Carter panicked. He grabbed my arm, his eyes filled with utter contempt. “Maya Vance, I never thought five years in this country would turn you into such a toxic, vicious bitch! You’re actually going to the Embassy to report us? Is this because you’re mad I used your half of the salary to buy Elena a ticket?! In your eyes, is money seriously more important than family?!” It hit me then. He was terrified I was going to expose his embezzlement, which could stop them from boarding their flight. Elena instantly caught on to his panic and amplified her performance. Her eyes red, she took off the luxury watch David had given her for their wedding and tried to shove it into my hand. “Maya, I don’t have your luck. I don’t have an amazing man like Carter to protect me. This is the only valuable thing I own—the last thing my husband left me. I’ll use it to pay you back right now. Please, just don’t make things difficult for Carter, okay?” Absolutely disgusted, I slapped her hand away. “If you like spending other people’s blood money, be my guest. But I won’t take yours!” I barely even brushed her arm, but Elena dramatically threw herself onto the tarmac, bursting into pathetic tears. “Maya, please don’t hit me! I know everyone on the construction site calls you the crazy psycho lady! I’m scared!” Hearing the commotion, the surrounding passengers crowded in. A few American expats who recognized us looked at me with blatant disgust. “Isn’t that the notorious shrew from the Sector 4 site? Now she’s assaulting people in public? She’s an embarrassment to Americans everywhere!” “That’s her own sister-in-law, and she actually hit her! People like her deserve to be left behind to let the bombs teach them a lesson!” “Hanging around groups of sweaty male laborers all day, she’s either a complete slut or totally uncultured. How does trash like this even have the nerve to show up at the airport and mingle with people of our class? Just looking at her makes me feel dirty!” I recognized them instantly. They were the same entitled managers from our project site who used to bully Elena, the ones I had screamed at to protect her. But Elena pretended she didn’t know them. She pathetically tugged at Carter’s sleeve. “My future sister-in-law has offended so many people, and with the way she usually treats me… I’m so scared!” Feeling his ego bruised, Carter shoved me violently to the ground. “Look at your own reputation! This just proves that whenever I wasn’t looking, you were bullying Elena! I was completely blind when it came to you! You love money so much? Fine, here! Take it and get the hell back to the barracks! Stop making us sick!” He pulled a few crumpled bills from his pocket and threw them at my face like he was tossing change to a beggar. The sharp edges of the paper sliced across my cheek, leaving several bleeding paper cuts. I never expected that my first physical injury in an active warzone wouldn’t come from enemy shrapnel, but from my own fiancé. I was just about to snap back when an artillery shell slammed into a building just a few miles away. The massive shockwave forced everyone to hit the deck and cover their heads. The embassy staff sprinted off to assess the perimeter breach. In the distance, I saw Agent Sterling waving at me, signaling that my clearance was ready. I didn’t have time to waste on this toxic pair. I stood up, my expression icy. “Don’t worry. I have zero expectations of you taking me anywhere, and I don’t give a damn about your filthy money.” Seeing me nod in Sterling’s direction, Carter’s face turned pitch black. “So this is what it’s all about! To save your own pathetic life, you actually seduced another man?! Did you forget that you’re engaged to ME?!” The crowd around us suddenly looked at me with dawn realization and deep revulsion. “No wonder she had the nerve to show up here. She sold her body for a plane ticket! How is she any different from the cheap hookers in the red-light district?” “Don’t let dirty trash like her onto our commercial flight! It’s disgusting!” “She acted so high and mighty at the construction site, but the second she needs to flee, she throws her dignity in the trash!” Seeing them swarm around to block my path, I raised my voice to defend myself. “I didn’t! I am a Defense Specialist! I have the security clearance to board—” “Stop lying through your teeth!” A resounding, vicious slap trapped the rest of my words in my throat. Carter grabbed me aggressively by the collar. “High-level executives like us had to spend a million dollars on the black market just to secure a civilian seat! You think the United States Government is going to dispatch a dedicated flight to save a construction draftsman?! Do you think we’re all fucking idiots?!” Elena couldn’t hide the smug smirk playing on her lips, but she put on a mask of deep pity. “Maya, even I have my dignity. As weak as I am, I would never stoop to doing something so filthy just to survive. Grabbing a random man to sleep with just to escape? Don’t you think that’s a bit reckless? You haven’t even officially married into our family yet, and you’ve already dragged the Hayes name through the mud. If Mama Hayes knew about this, she’d be rolling in her grave!” Seeing me cornered by the mob from afar, Agent Sterling assumed I was saying goodbye to friends. To help me leave faster, he shouted across the tarmac. “I’m going to finalize the aircraft coordinates! Grab your gear, I’ll come pick you up in a minute!” He jogged off before I could even shout his name. Carter erupted in absolute rage. “The guy you’re fucking just admitted it! What else is there to deny?! Selling yourself to elope, and you have the audacity to call yourself an ‘expert’?! How could you betray everything I’ve done to take care of you over here?!” In his eyes, my face—tanned, weathered, and covered in dust from the harsh desert winds—no longer resembled the soft-spoken, easily blushing scientist he once knew. But if it weren’t for a grown man dropping to his knees, sobbing and begging me because he was terrified a long-distance relationship would cause another man to steal me away… If he hadn’t relentlessly begged me to come to this desolate, arid wasteland… how could I have ever ended up looking like this? I was burning with an uncontrollable fury. I pointed at the scar on my forehead from a falling brick, the burn marks on my hands from cooking for Elena, and the jagged knife scar on my leg from defending her from local thugs. My eyes were bloodshot as I screamed: “THIS is how you took care of me?!” I pulled out my phone and pulled up the urgent email he had sent to corporate that very morning. “Is this how you take care of me?! Leaving me to die in a warzone and dragging another woman to safety?!” His eyes darted nervously, and he turned his face away. “Whatever. Our flight is about to board, and I don’t want to argue anymore. You’re on your own…” Sensing his hesitation, Elena instantly fired up her toxic, tearful routine. “It’s all my fault. Because my husband died early, and my health is so poor, it made Carter pity me. I’ll just die right here! I won’t get in the way of you two reconciling…” She turned and acted like she was going to sprint directly toward the active mortar fire. Carter panicked, yanking her back and pulling her tightly into his arms. When he looked back at me, all the guilt was completely gone. “Elena, the person who deserves to be blown up by artillery fire is this cheating slut!” Holding the trembling, sobbing Elena in his arms, his face turned dark and sinister as he glared at me. “Get on your knees and apologize to Elena right now! If she doesn’t feel emotionally stable, you and your new lover aren’t getting on any plane today!” I was shaking with rage. I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt—which, I noticed, had a faint lipstick stain on it. “She is the one who needs to apologize! Last night, the moment the bombing started, you instantly grabbed her and ran straight for the underground bunker! But you forced ME to run to the office building to salvage the critical project blueprints! Spending the whole night alone together in that bunker listening to the bombs… I’m sure you two found ways to keep yourselves entertained, didn’t you?!” Exposed and humiliated, Carter snapped. He violently shoved me back, knocking me to the ground. “Slandering me is one thing, but how dare you ruin Elena’s innocence?! I sent you to get the blueprints to give you a chance to earn credit! In the end, weren’t you the one commended for it?!” “Really?” I let out a bitter, heartbroken laugh. I pulled up the corporate report he had submitted this morning after seeing me run into the bunker, covered in soot, clutching the crucial documents. At the bottom of the report, under the section detailing the “heroes” who secured the critical assets, the primary name listed was Elena Hayes. “In your eyes… I have to act as her personal maid at home, I have to pave the way for her career at work, and I even have to hand over my fiancé on a silver platter! Who are the ones actually acting without an ounce of shame, sleeping together behind my back?!” Seeing the surrounding crowd begin to look at him with suspicion, cold sweat beaded on Carter’s forehead. He knew that if his illicit affair with his sister-in-law reached corporate HR, even if he survived and made it back to the States, he would be fired and blacklisted. He crouched down, his face twisting into an ugly sneer, and gripped my jaw fiercely. “I’ll say this one last time. Stay here and be a good girl! Stop fighting with Elena! Once I get back to the States and get hailed as a corporate hero, I will personally arrange to bring you home. If you keep making a scene and we all go down together, you won’t survive this either!” “Who the hell needs you to bring me anywhere?” Having finalized the flight coordinates, Agent Sterling rushed back over, furious. He violently shoved Carter away. “We are here on classified orders to extract a top-tier US asset! If you disrespect her again, you’re going to end up in a federal black site!” Seeing Sterling, Carter’s rage exploded. He sneered at him. “Still trying to use these pathetic excuses to cover up your affair?! Do I really need to remind everyone what kind of cheap trash she actually is?” The crowd, finally shifting their attention to Sterling, chimed in with relentless mockery. “Everyone here knows she’s just a construction site draftsman. Did she suddenly become a ‘top-tier asset’ in your bed?” “This so-called ‘expert’ probably bought her plane ticket while she was on her back!” “With the war raging outside, how many nights did she have to service you for a single seat?” Sterling was left utterly speechless by their vile ignorance. He quickly pulled out his federal credentials. “Are you people insane? I represent the US State Department, and I am here to extract Dr. Vance! How dare you slander a federal operation?!” The next second, an angry mob member snatched his badge without even looking at it and tore it to shreds. “Trying to impersonate a federal agent to protect this whore?! You’re an embarrassment to our country!” Furious, Sterling reached for his satellite phone to call for tactical support, but Carter slapped it out of his hand, smashing it against the concrete. “Degenerate scum like you two don’t deserve to sit on our civilian evacuation flight!” Suddenly, another mortar shell shrieked through the air, detonating incredibly close to our position. Carter instantly shoved me—the person closest to him—aside, throwing his body over Elena to shield her. Caught completely off guard by his violent shove, I had no time to find cover. I was hit by the blast wave and thrown heavily onto the jagged asphalt. As the dust settled and people began scrambling frantically toward the commercial airliners, Carter staggered to his feet, pulling Elena up with him. As he walked past me—bleeding profusely from the impact—he hesitated for a split second, before finally crouching down next to me. I thought his conscience had finally kicked in. I reached out and grabbed the hem of his pants. “Get a medic… hurry…” But instead of helping me, he pried my bleeding fingers off his leg, one by one. He picked up my scattered passport and ID from the ground and tossed them directly into a nearby debris fire ignited by the mortar shell. He let out a heavy sigh. “Maya, I’m sorry. If you keep these documents today, you will forever be a threat to Elena’s safety. I’ve already taken care of you enough since we were kids, but Elena was never as lucky as you. As for the wedding… I’ll make it up to you in the next life.” Agent Sterling, who had only suffered minor scrapes from the blast, saw the horrific state I was in. His eyes went red with sheer fury. He lunged forward and grabbed Carter, who was about to run away. “Help me carry her to our plane! Right now! If you save her, I guarantee you can fly out with us! Otherwise, once the military lockdown initiates, none of you are leaving this airport!” Carter violently shook him off. “Still trying to scam me?! Spit! We paid a million dollars for commercial tickets! I’d like to see who’s going to stop us from leaving!”

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My Best Friend Reported My Reselling Business for Tax Evasion; After the Customs Audit, Her Store Was Shut Down First. When the agents from Customs and Border Protection knocked on my door, I was in the middle of packing a box of SK-II Facial Treatment Essence for a client. Eight people. Six in uniform, two in plain clothes holding folders. The lead agent took one look at my hundred-square-foot warehouse and frowned. “Maya Brooks? We received a report alleging that you are evading import duties and taxes on your personal shopping business. Please cooperate with our investigation.” I froze. In my three years of running this import reselling business, I hadn’t missed a single invoice or declaration. Every order’s import record, duty payment certificate, and bank statement was filed away monthly, stacked neatly into fourteen distinct binders. It took me half an hour to haul every single binder out. The lead agent flipped through a few pages, his expression shifting subtly. He glanced at me and lowered his voice. “The information in the tip-off report was incredibly detailed. It even listed your exact flight numbers for your weekly sourcing trips to the airport.” A cold shiver ran down my spine. Whoever could write a report like that had to know me inside and out. And my specific sourcing routes, supply channels, and client lists had only ever been shared with one person. My best friend of ten years, Stella Montgomery. The agents began to inventory the goods in my warehouse, documenting them piece by piece. Six cases of Japanese and Korean skincare, four cases of supplements, two cases of premium baby products. For every single item, I produced a corresponding purchase receipt, an entry declaration form, and proof of duty payment. I leaned against the wall, watching them rummage through my life. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it would leap out of my throat. But I knew my books were perfectly clean. Three years ago, when I first got into this industry, I paid $500 for a cross-border e-commerce tax compliance course. I still remember the first thing the instructor said: “As a reseller, you shouldn’t fear running out of clients. You should fear an audit your books can’t survive.” From that day on, I bought a small fireproof safe specifically to store my duty payment certificates. Every payment, every customs document—I photographed them for digital archives, and locked the hard copies in the safe. Other resellers in my circle laughed at me. “You’re not running a massive corporation, why are you being so dramatic and official?” I never bothered explaining. I just kept doing my thing. “What was the total declared value for this specific shipment?” the lead agent asked. “$12,342.60. The corresponding tax documents are in the seventh binder, under the blue tab.” He opened it, cross-referenced the numbers, and stayed silent. A younger agent next to him couldn’t help but shoot me a look. I read his expression clearly—making a mountain out of a molehill. But a federal report was a report. The protocol had to be followed. “Have you received any inventory from unknown sources within the last month?” “No. I only source and sell my own inventory. I don’t drop-ship or handle other people’s goods.” I paused. “However…” “However what?” “Last month, my best friend borrowed my corporate courier account to ship three batches of goods. She said her own account had hit its volume limit.” I unlocked my phone, pulled up the direct messages, and handed it over. “This is the conversation when she asked to borrow my account. I explicitly told her she had to generate her own labels and fill out the customs declarations herself. I didn’t handle the shipments.” The lead agent took the phone and scrutinized the messages. “What is your best friend’s name?” “Stella Montgomery.” Saying her name made my throat tighten. Ten years. High school seatmates, college roommates, and after graduation, we both fell into this reselling industry together. She ran a much bigger operation than I did. I stuck to the legal, tedious channels. My profit margins were thin, my client base small but stable. She played fast and loose. Just last month, she was flaunting a brand-new BMW X3 on her Ins feed. I had never asked questions. The agent took photos of my chat logs and spent another half hour flipping through the binders. Right before leaving, the lead agent turned back to look at me. “Maya, let me give you a heads-up. There are details in that tip-off letter that a random outsider wouldn’t know. Your exact landed costs, your profit margins, and even the exact location of your safe.” “Think about it. Who possesses that information?” After the door closed, I stood alone in the warehouse. The SK-II was still sitting on the packing table, the shipping bag unsealed. The location of my safe. I had only ever brought one person to this warehouse. The day Stella came over to help me move boxes, I had personally made her a cup of fresh-ground coffee right here. I didn’t sleep that night. I tossed and turned, desperately trying to convince myself there was a mistake. Maybe it was someone else? Maybe it was a jealous competitor? But flight numbers, landed costs, and the safe’s location—the only intersection of those three data points was Stella. At 2:00 AM, I opened her Ins profile. Her latest story was posted six hours ago: eating an omakase dinner at a high-end sushi bar, with the caption, “Treating myself after a long day of grinding.” In the photo, her makeup was flawless. Across from her sat a man, only his cuff visible. I recognized that navy blue Hugo Boss shirt. It was her boyfriend’s. I scrolled further down her feed. Three days ago: “Ladies, clearing out top-tier Japanese beauty brands! SK-II Miracle Water marked down by $60! DM me ASAP!” The accompanying photo grid showed a table completely overflowing with high-end skincare. I stared at that image and zoomed all the way in. In the bottom right corner of the fifth photo, a tiny corner of a cardboard box was visible. Pasted on that box was a label bearing my corporate courier account details. I recognized the tracking number format. It was the batch she had borrowed my account to ship last month. I put my phone down and stared at the ceiling. My mind was chaotic, but one thing suddenly became terrifyingly clear: The goods she shipped through my account and the goods I declared myself went through the exact same customs audit channel. If there was an issue with her shipment, the one who would get audited and penalized was me. This was no coincidence. At 9:00 AM the next morning, Stella called me. “Maya! I heard you got raided by Customs? What’s going on?!” Her voice was thick with surprise and concern. If I hadn’t made those discoveries last night, I would have believed her completely. “It’s no big deal. Just a routine check.” “I knew it! You’re so meticulous, how could there be an issue? Do you want me to ask around for you? I know a guy at a customs brokerage—” “No need.” “Hey, don’t just tough it out. A Customs audit is no joke. If your inventory gets seized, what about your clients? If you need, I can cover your urgent orders from my stock for now.” I gripped my phone, my nails digging hard into my palm. I had only told my mother about the audit. “Stella, how did you know I was being audited?” The line went silent for two seconds. “Ah… didn’t you post a story on Ins yesterday? Saying the warehouse was temporarily closed for shipping—” “I put that story on a Close Friends list. Only my clients could see it.” Another two seconds of silence. “Maybe… a client screenshotted it and sent it to me? I don’t really remember.” “Oh. Okay then.” I hung up the phone. My palm was slick with sweat. She was lying. And it wasn’t the first time. I opened my laptop and pulled up every record of our cooperation over the last three years—how many times she borrowed my account, which goods she handled, the declared amounts, and whether there were customs forms. Customs wasn’t the only one who needed to conduct an audit. For the next week, I did absolutely nothing on the surface. I replied to client messages as usual, and met Stella for boba tea as usual. But every night when I got home, I started organizing. Over the last three years, she had borrowed my account to ship seven batches of goods. The first four batches had records; the amounts weren’t large, the biggest being maybe $1,800. But the last three were different. Those three were shipped in a concentrated burst between last October and this January. I couldn’t find the declared amounts for those batches. Because at the time, she had told me, “I’ll fill out the customs declaration forms myself, I don’t want to trouble you with the paperwork.” Back then, I thought she was being considerate. Now, I knew she was being deliberate. Wednesday lunch. I asked her to meet me at the mall for food. She was wearing a camel-hair Max Mara coat. I recognized it—it retails for about $3,800 on the official website, and she had flaunted it on her Ins last month. “Maya, why have you lost so much weight? Is the Customs stuff crushing you?” “I’m managing. My books are clean, anyway.” “That’s a relief.” She picked up a piece of sashimi with her chopsticks. “By the way, your client, Mrs. Thornton—the one who buys three sets of Sulwhasoo every month—has she contacted you lately?” My heart sank. “How do you know that?” “She came to me last week and bought them. Said she heard you were under investigation and was too scared to get stock from you.” Stella bit her chopstick and smiled. “Don’t worry, once your situation blows over, I’ll give her back to you.” Give her back. As if my clients were property she had just borrowed. “Besides Mrs. Thornton, who else has contacted you?” “Just… a few. Some people are just terrified of being implicated, it’s normal.” She was looking down, scrolling on her phone, and didn’t see my hand trembling around my chopsticks. When I got home, I went through my client list and messaged them to confirm their status, one by one. The results turned my entire body to ice. Out of the sixty-seven stable clients I had accumulated over three years, twenty-three were gone. Nineteen of them had transitioned to Stella. It wasn’t because they were afraid of my audit. It was because Stella had proactively contacted them, saying, “I don’t think Maya is going to clear this Customs hurdle, you shouldn’t wait around. Come over to me, my prices are lower anyway.” A client named Jenna sent me a screenshot of their direct messages. The last line Stella sent her was: “Rest assured, just stick with me. She’ll never know.” I put my phone down. There was no anger, just an unspeakable, numbing chill that spread from my spine all the way to the top of my head. Ten years. A ten-year friendship was apparently worth exactly nineteen clients. No, maybe it was worth more. Maybe from the very beginning, every step of this friendship was just her maneuvering closer to my client list. I started rewinding the tape in my head. Every event that had seemed completely normal back then now had a different flavor. Freshman year of college, she said her family was struggling financially. I helped her get a side gig running errands for an import business. Junior year summer, she said she wanted to learn the reselling ropes. I gave her my entire six-month archive of Japanese pharmacy lists, trending item price sheets, and shipping company comparisons. After graduation, I took her to Tokyo three times, personally introducing her to all my supply channels. I even fronted the money for her first solo buying trip to Japan. $500. She said she’d pay me back next month, but she never did. And I never chased her for it. Later, she scaled up. She rented proper office space to use as a warehouse, hired two girls to help with packing and shipping, and incorporated her business. I was genuinely happy for her. Sometimes when we video-chatted at night, she’d be working overtime in her fancy office, backed by a literal wall of inventory shelves. Meanwhile, I’d be on the balcony of my small apartment, slapping shipping labels onto six cardboard boxes. She would say, “Maya, why are you still playing so small? Come join my company, I’ll help you scale up.” Every time, I’d smile and politely decline. I was used to doing things my way. My books were clear, and my conscience was peaceful. But while her mouth said “help me scale up,” her hands were busy poaching my clients. I drafted a timeline. Last July: I tell her Mrs. Thornton orders three sets of Sulwhasoo religiously every month. Last August: Mrs. Thornton makes her first purchase from Stella. Last September: Stella borrows my corporate courier account to ship her first batch of goods. Last October to this January: Concentrated borrowing of my account to ship three massive batches. This February: Someone files a federal report alleging I am evading taxes. The timeline was entirely too perfect. She first poached my clients to build a baseline, then used my account to funnel goods that were likely illegal, and finally delivered the kill shot with a tip-off letter. If Customs found issues with the goods shipped through my account, they would hold me accountable. If my business was destroyed by the investigation, my remaining clients would have no choice but to go to her. Three birds, one stone. I sat in front of my computer, hands resting on the keyboard, not moving for a very long time. Outside the window, the sky was dreary and grey. It was about to rain. I didn’t cry. I just felt tired. The kind of exhaustion that seeps out from the marrow of your bones. The Customs investigation continued. I was required to remain available to provide supplementary materials, but they hadn’t seized my inventory. When Agent Miller called to inform me of this, his tone was entirely flat.

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