On the day of my wedding, my fiancé’s young assistant deliberately took a pair of fabric shears to my custom bridal gown. Furious, I demanded she pay for the damages. She dropped to her knees, sobbing violently. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I know it’s all my fault, but this dress… it’s too expensive. I could never afford to replace it. Please, I’m begging you, let me off the hook just this once!” I stared at the jagged, deliberate cuts slicing through the silk organza, a cold laugh escaping my lips. “If you can’t pay for it, then we’ll let the police handle it.” Before I could dial, my fiancé snatched the phone from my hand and smashed it against the floor. He pulled the weeping girl into his arms, shielding her against his chest. Then, he whipped out a sleek credit card and threw it hard. It smacked sharply against my cheek. “It’s just money, isn’t it? Take it. Take the money and get the hell out!” … I gave him a cold, hollow smile and said, “Fine.” I turned my back on them. Later that afternoon, I would go to a clinic and terminate my three-month pregnancy. But in that immediate moment, the wedding had to be canceled. When the announcement echoed through the grand hall, a stunned, deafening silence fell over the hundreds of assembled guests. I walked out of the venue, my face a mask of absolute calm. Carter chased after me, his fingers closing around my arm like a vice. “Nora, do you have any idea what kind of event this is? If you want to throw a childish tantrum, now is not the time!” His tone was ice. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging in so hard I felt my bones might snap. I paled from the pain and looked back at him. The sheer impatience and disgust written across his handsome face stung my eyes. There was a time when, no matter what happened, Carter’s first instinct was always to side with me. To protect me. But not today. Faced with my perfectly justified anger, the woman he chose to protect was someone else. I wrenched my arm out of his grasp, a sarcastic laugh bubbling up my throat. “Do you know what kind of event this is? It’s our wedding. Mia hacked my dress to pieces, and instead of backing me up, you accuse me of throwing a tantrum? Are you out of your mind, Carter?” Carter’s brow furrowed tightly. He reached for me again. “Mia is twenty-two. She’s fresh out of college. How is she supposed to pay for a dress like that? I’ll have someone bring you a replacement right now. The ceremony starts in twenty minutes. Just make do for now, okay?” I was so angry I could barely breathe. “Make do? This is my wedding. I designed that gown with my own hands. I spent six months meticulously crafting it, and now that she’s destroyed it, you don’t even reprimand her, but you want me to make do? Based on what?” Carter rubbed his temples, the exhaustion and annoyance in his voice thickening. “Then what do you want me to do?” “We’ve spent months planning this. The guests are here. And you’re just going to call it off? Nora, you’re twenty-six years old. Can you stop being so damn reckless?” “Do you think you’re still like Mia? That you’re young and have all the time in the world to waste?!” Even as the hostility hung between us, the cruel words from a man I had loved so deeply still physically hurt. My chest ached so badly I could hardly draw a breath. From any objective standpoint, I was the victim here, wasn’t I? So why was every single word out of his mouth dripping with blame for me? I had been suspicious of Mia for months. She joined the company in September. By the time I even knew she existed, she had already been promoted to Carter’s executive assistant. They went to the office together. They traveled for business together. When Carter’s friends brought back souvenirs from Europe, Mia always got a share alongside me. I had asked about it. I had fought about it. But Carter always brushed it off, claiming it was just normal mentorship. She was a young girl navigating the corporate world for the first time, and his instinct was just to look out for her. Back then, he had handed me his phone, leaving it unlocked for me to scroll through their texts. He told me Mia was clumsy, always losing things, and that he was actually looking for an excuse to transfer her to a different department. I had trusted Carter. Of course I did. Until one evening, while Carter was having dinner with me and my brother, we stumbled upon Mia being pressured to drink by an aggressive client at the hotel bar. Right in front of my family, Carter completely lost his composure. He sprinted over and physically beat the client—a man he had spent two months buttering up for a massive contract. Seeing Carter with bloodshot eyes, shoving Mia behind him to shield her… that was the moment the ground shifted beneath my feet. After that, I started visiting the office more frequently. More than once, I walked into his suite to find the door shut and the two of them laughing inside. The sound of that soft, intimate giggling made my stomach drop every single time. I would push open the door, and the laughter would instantly die. Mia would scramble off the edge of Carter’s desk—or off his lap. “Oh, Mrs. Preston, please don’t misunderstand. I tripped, and Mr. Preston was just catching me…” “Get out.” After Mia scurried away, I gave Carter an ultimatum: transfer her or fire her. For the first time in our ten years of knowing each other, Carter blew up at me. “She’s a kid, Nora! She’s innocent. Why would you project such filthy intentions onto her?” “You’re older, you’ve been around the block, but could you please stop using your own twisted insecurities to judge everyone else?” “You just have too much free time on your hands. That’s why you’re constantly paranoid, constantly picking fights. When does it end?!” His face, twisted in defensive rage back then, perfectly mirrored the face looking at me right now. Over the last six months, every argument we had circled back to Mia. Eventually, I stopped fighting. Whether he was driving her home, or rushing out at midnight to bring her cold medicine, I just stopped caring. And today, I no longer wanted to marry him. “I’m not something you can find on a discount rack, Carter. And I sure as hell am not going to wear a makeshift dress to a makeshift wedding.” “Since Mia is so precious to you, why don’t you just give her the wedding?” I stared at him, my eyes tracing the familiar lines of his face. It felt like only yesterday that we were wildly, unconditionally in love. Does love really have such a short expiration date? Apparently, when faced with a younger, prettier woman, it spoils overnight. When the heart dies, it’s time to let go. “We’re getting a divorce, Carter. I’m twenty-six, and I’m done wasting my life on a man incapable of basic loyalty.” With that, I shook off his hand without a second of hesitation and walked away. “Nora!” Carter shouted my name at my back. “Everyone in Boston knows you’re my woman! You’re pregnant with my child! If you don’t marry me today, who else do you think is going to want you?!” My steps faltered for a fraction of a second. Then I pushed the heavy oak doors open and walked out into the air. Something smashed against the doors behind me, accompanied by Carter’s muffled cursing. “Please welcome the bride…” The muffled sound of the officiant and the swell of orchestral music drifted from the hall. The wedding proceeded without me. I sat on a bench blocks away, pulling up the live stream of the “Wedding of the Century” that all the local media was covering. To the sweeping notes of the piano, Carter appeared at the end of the aisle, holding the hand of his bride. It was Mia. She wore a pristine white gown, her hand resting delicately on Carter’s arm, a radiant, triumphant smile on her face. The second I got a clear look at the dress, the tears I had been choking back finally spilled over. It was my dress. The gown I had designed. The one I had bled over, spent a fortune on, and dedicated six months of my life to perfect. Now, it was draped over another woman’s body. She was walking down my aisle, holding my husband, playing the bride at my wedding. My vision blurred, heavy tears splashing onto the glowing screen of my phone. The stubborn pride I had clung to all afternoon completely shattered. Mia’s dress had been altered. The jagged slashes in the silk had been meticulously gathered and stitched into delicate, asymmetrical bows. The dress hadn’t been ruined beyond repair. It wasn’t an impossible problem to fix. He just hadn’t wanted to fix it for me. The moment I encountered a crisis, his only solution was to demand that I swallow my pride and “make do.” Sitting there, I finally allowed myself to accept the truth. Carter didn’t love me anymore. His heart had already moved on. I locked my phone and started walking slowly down the edge of the road. The highway stretched out endlessly ahead of me. Cars whipped past, carrying strangers rushing toward their destinations. I was the only one abandoned, shrinking into a dark corner of the world, getting smaller and smaller until I felt like I was disappearing. The moon hung high above, casting a cold, pale light over the pavement. Suddenly, I remembered a night exactly ten years ago. Under this exact same moonlight, an eighteen-year-old Carter had looked at a sixteen-year-old Nora and promised he would protect her for the rest of his life. Ten years. I thought we would always be us. I never imagined our story would end on the exact day it was supposed to culminate. The bride standing next to him at the altar wasn’t me. My phone buzzed relentlessly in my purse. I pulled it out and answered. “Nora, where are you?” The second I heard my brother’s voice, a tidal wave of grief crashed over me. I broke down entirely. “Harrison…” Our parents had died in a plane crash. I was only six; Harrison was ten. We were left in our grandfather’s care. When I was sixteen, Grandfather passed away. Harrison went overseas for his MBA, and I was taken in by the Prestons. My relationship with Carter bloomed in the quiet corners of that sprawling estate, born from proximity and shared secrets. But his parents never approved. They believed someone of Carter’s pedigree deserved a girl with old money and a pristine lineage. Not a destitute orphan with zero social capital. They went so far as to tamper with my college applications, ensuring I was routed to an obscure state school hundreds of miles away. But Carter. My Carter. He threw away his acceptance to an Ivy League university, secretly altered his own applications, and followed me to the middle of nowhere. Left with no other choice, his father finally pulled strings, transferring us both to a prestigious design academy in the city. God, Carter truly loved me back then. His blatant, unapologetic favoritism for me was a spectacle for the world to see. Everyone knew Carter Preston worshiped the ground his girlfriend walked on. In college, I discovered a natural gift for bridal design. Harrison sent me seed money, and I designed my first commercial gown, making my first real paycheck. I used that money to launch my own studio, build my own brand, and finally earn the right to stand beside Carter as an equal. We had carried each other through a decade of our youth. Today, that chapter was permanently closed. I walked under the moonlight for a long, long time. If the moon could break its promise, then it was time for me to let go, too.

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When my mother became the CEO, she threw her husband and son away like yesterday’s trash to build a lavish love nest with the one who got away. And yet, my poor father spent his days and nights hoping she would have a change of heart. Even as he lay dying, her name was the last thing on his lips. Unable to watch him leave this world anchored by such a heavy regret, I swallowed my pride and dialed her number. “How many times do I have to spell it out for you?” she snapped, her voice dripping with impatience. “Make an appointment with my assistant!” I looked at my father’s desperate, fading eyes and pleaded, “Victoria, please. Dad won’t last much longer. I’m begging you to just come and look at him one last time. Give him peace.” Seeing that I wouldn’t back down, she lashed out. “Will my presence magically bring him back from the brink? What is he even holding on for? If he’s going to die, he should just get it over with! Stop wasting my time!” The line went dead. And with that dial tone, my father entirely gave up his will to live. He passed away, swallowing a sorrow so deep it fractured my soul. I gently reached out and closed his vacant eyes. “In the end, she got exactly what she wanted.” 1. Directly across the street from the hospital, the marching band of St. Jude’s Preparatory Academy was playing, the air thick with the sound of cheering and celebratory fireworks. They were throwing a massive graduation gala. The star of that gala was Spencer Pierce—my mother’s beloved adopted son, who had just been crowned the state’s National Merit Scholar. Basking in the envious gazes of the city’s elite, my mother—acting in her dual capacity as a major board member and the proud mother of the valedictorian—stood on stage, beaming as she pinned a medal to Spencer’s chest and handed him a massive scholarship check. The noise and the triumph belonged to them. Just two blocks away, inside a sterile hospital room, there was only a suffocating silence. My father had left this world steeped in regret. He hadn’t even wanted to close his eyes. A few nurses and the attending doctor bowed their heads deeply toward me. “We did everything we could. We are so incredibly sorry for your loss.” The doctor hesitated before handing me a stark white mortality declaration. “Is there any way… could your mother come down to sign this?” I took the clipboard, the pen feeling like a lead weight in my hand, and signed my own name on the family line. “She’s not available,” I said, my voice hollow. “She’s across the street at the prep school. Attending a gala.” The doctor’s mouth opened slightly in shock, but a nurse beside him quickly nudged him, shooting him a warning look. She had experienced my mother’s absolute cruelty firsthand just hours prior. That morning, when my father’s condition rapidly deteriorated, that same nurse had stayed by my side without leaving for a second. My dad knew his time was up. He finally forced out the words he had been burying for years. “Connor… I want… I just want to see your mother. One last time.” I couldn’t bear to see him leave with that crushing disappointment, so I gritted my teeth and made the call. And she had said, “Will my presence magically bring him back from the brink? What is he even holding on for? If he’s going to die, he should just get it over with! Stop wasting my time!” The nurse, bless her heart, had been furious. She snatched the phone from me to make one final, desperate plea. “Ma’am, Thomas Davis is in critical condition. The doctor has issued the final notices. We need you—” “You just want money, don’t you? The Davis family is rotten to the core. The father is a pathetic loser who can’t stand on his own two feet, and the son is a delinquent street rat. How dare you even call me.” Then, she hung up. When I tried to call back, my number had already been blocked. “Forget it,” my dad had whispered, his breath rattling. “Seeing her… I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway.” He looked at me, his vision clouding over. “Connor… don’t hate your mother.” Two solitary tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, and with a final exhale, my father said goodbye to this world. I gently brushed my hand over his eyelids, closing them. “Dad, I’m sorry. But I can’t not hate her.” 2. My dad used to be a brilliant doctor of internal medicine. During a joint medical outreach program years ago, his hospital sent him to an elementary school to run physicals for the kids. My mother, a teacher there at the time, happened to overhear one of my dad’s colleagues teasing him—joking about how a guy whose father was the CEO of the massive Davis Enterprises was slumming it as a public hospital physician. That very day, my mother made it her mission to get his number. Within a week, she ruthlessly broke off her engagement to her fiancé and began relentlessly pursuing my dad. They say a woman’s pursuit is like piercing through paper—effortless. Add to that the fact that my mother was stunning, with the polished allure of a movie star, and it only took a few months before they rushed to the courthouse to get married. After the wedding, my grandfather pulled strings to get her a corporate role at Davis Enterprises. She climbed the ladder fast. After she gave birth to me, she was transferred to corporate headquarters as a director. Eventually, my grandfather fell ill and had to step down. My mother seamlessly slid into his seat as CEO. The day my grandfather died, my mother entirely dropped the act. The mask shattered, revealing the monster underneath. “Let me be completely honest with you, Thomas,” she had said, standing in our living room with ice in her veins. “The only reason I married you was because your daddy ran the board. Now he’s dead. Your family has nothing left to offer me. There is absolutely zero reason for me to stay.” My dad broke down, begging her not to tear our family apart. Unbelievably, my mother turned it around on him. “When you stole me away, did you ever stop to think about the agony you caused another man?” “Donovan gave up his own future for me fifteen years ago. He had to let me go. Do you know how many times he tried to end his own life over the years? If I hadn’t been there to stop him, he’d be in the ground. You can’t be this selfish, Thomas. I gave you the best years of my youth. What more do you want? Are you really going to stand in the way of true love?” That was the moment my father realized the woman he cherished more than his own life had never loved him at all. He let go. He stepped aside so my mother could be with her “one that got away,” Donovan Pierce. The very next day, my mother used Davis family money to buy a sprawling estate for Donovan, a “compensation” for having abandoned him. She eagerly adopted Donovan’s teenage son, Spencer, and used her corporate leverage to pull him out of his failing public school and drop him right into the most elite honors program at St. Jude’s. As for me? Simply because Spencer offhandedly mentioned he “didn’t want to see my face in the hallways,” my mother forcibly transferred me out of St. Jude’s and threw me into Southside High—the absolute worst, most notoriously underfunded public school in the city. My dad was terrified my future would be destroyed. He went to her office multiple times to fight for me. Her response? She claimed I was mediocre anyway. She said the only reason I ever got into St. Jude’s was because of her influence, and she explicitly blacklisted me from every other decent school in the district, ensuring no one else would take me. My old homeroom teacher from St. Jude’s used to sneak me advanced placement tests in the evenings. Every time he handed me a stack of papers, his eyes would well with pity. “The valedictorian of his class, forced to study in a dump like this. What kind of mother destroys her own flesh and blood?” Then he’d shake his head, sighing bitterly. “And that adopted golden boy of hers, Spencer? The kid is practically illiterate. Your mother ordered all his teachers to pass him, but you can’t polish dirt. God, what a mess.” My chest would tighten. I’d duck my head, thank my mentor, and sprint back to my cramped bedroom to furiously work through the equations. She wanted to bury me in the mud. But I refused to let myself rot. “Connor Davis? Your father’s remains have been cremated. Please come to the front desk to receive the urn.” The wooden box was so small, so perfectly square. I stood there staring at it, unable to process how my father—the giant of a man who used to carry me on his shoulders, my immovable mountain—had been reduced to this tiny, confined space. I wiped the tears from my face and took him home for the last time. The road to heaven is long, Dad. Don’t forget the way back home. Early the next morning, I packed a bag, preparing to head to the cemetery to pick out a burial plot. The moment I opened my front door, two burly men in cheap police uniforms were blocking my path. “Connor Davis? We received an anonymous tip that your father, Thomas, helped you cheat on your SATs and college entrance exams. You’re coming with us for questioning.” Their faces were hardened and mean. They didn’t stand or speak like real cops. My dad wasn’t even in the ground yet. There was no way I was going quietly into the back of an unmarked car. “Sure, Officers,” I said smoothly. “Let me just tie my shoe.” I crouched down, pretending to fiddle with my laces. The second they glanced away, I bolted. I barely made it out of the apartment complex before they caught up to me. The two of them tackled me onto the concrete, pinning my face to the asphalt. “Little punk thinks he can play games with us? Let’s see you run now!” One of them pulled back his heavy steel-toed boot and brought it down viciously on my kneecap. I heard the sickening, unmistakable crack of splintering bone. “Ahhhh!” Instantly, the veins in my neck bulged. I writhed on the pavement, screaming in blinding, white-hot agony. One of them ran up to my apartment and came back down. “Thomas isn’t there. Just throw the kid in the car and let’s go.” They dragged me to a windowless, concrete room. Four blank white walls. The two men sat across from me at an iron table. “Connor, do you know why we brought you here?” Their act was embarrassingly amateurish, and I had zero interest in playing along. I clamped my mouth shut and glared at them. “You know how this works. Confess now, and it goes easy on you. So spit it out—how did you cheat on the exams?” “I didn’t cheat!” Hearing that, one of them stood up, unholstering a heavy nightstick. He stepped into my space, looming over me. “We did a full background check. A street rat from a garbage school like yours doesn’t pull a near-perfect score. You better start talking, kid, before I make you talk!” He slammed the baton down onto the table right in front of my chest. The recoil was so violent the stick slipped from his grip, the heavy rubber end snapping up and smashing directly into my forehead. My father’s death had happened so fast. I hadn’t had time to process it, hadn’t had time to breathe. The immense pressure building inside my chest chose this exact moment to violently detonate. I screamed right back into their faces, “What the hell is wrong with my school?! Are you saying the kids there are handed a death sentence the day they enroll? That we don’t deserve to get high scores? That we don’t deserve a way out? That we don’t deserve a future?!” “You want proof of my scores? Fine! I’ll give it to you. But you tell Victoria she’s going to regret this for the rest of her miserable life!” I unzipped my blood-stained backpack, reached inside, and pulled out the crisp, embossed acceptance letter from MIT. “Here is your damn proof!” Before they could even react, I ripped the letter in half. Then into quarters. I tore it into absolute shreds and threw it into the air like confetti. “Holy shit, the crazy bastard just ripped up an MIT acceptance letter!” “Do me a favor,” I spat, blood trickling down my brow. “Tell Victoria the letter is gone. I’m not going to college anymore.” The two men stared at each other, completely bewildered. After a silent exchange of panicked looks, one of them finally stepped out into the hall to make a frantic phone call. 3. Inside the ballroom of the city’s most exclusive country club, Victoria Croft was hosting a lavish gala for Spencer. Her phone buzzed. It was the hired thug, his voice panicked. “Ms. Croft, the kid tore up his acceptance letter! He said he’s not going to college!” Victoria couldn’t have cared less whether I went to college or died in a gutter. She gripped her champagne flute tightly. “What about the proof? Did he admit to the cheating? Did you get the recording?” “No, the kid is tough. He won’t crack. We didn’t get anything.” “Then try harder,” she hissed. “Make it hurt. I don’t believe for a second he won’t break.” “Ms. Croft, we shattered his kneecap and he still didn’t say a word. I think he knows we’re not real cops. What do we do now?” Conscious of the wealthy donors milling around her, Victoria kept her voice at a venomous whisper. “You absolute useless idiots. You can’t even handle a teenager? Where is Thomas?” “He wasn’t at the apartment when we got there. Ms. Croft… what if this kid goes to the real cops?” “I am his mother,” Victoria sneered. “If he dares go to the police, I’ll have you break his other leg.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. Anything involving Thomas and Connor was always an exhausting, humiliating stain on her perfect life. She often daydreamed about the two of us getting into a fatal car crash, just so she could finally have some peace and quiet. Donovan noticed her tense posture and slipped his arms around her waist from behind, pressing a kiss to her neck. “Tell me,” he murmured smoothly. “Who’s upsetting my beautiful girl? Just say the word and I’ll take care of them.” The heat of his breath immediately melted Victoria’s temper. She leaned back against him, pouting. “It’s just those two useless Davis losers. They always find a way to ruin my mood.” “Well, I have some bad news,” Donovan sighed. “Those two idiots I hired couldn’t squeeze a confession out of the boy. I told them to just let him go.” Victoria spun around, alarmed. “Why would you let him go? If he won’t talk, you beat it out of him! Or just forge some evidence and force his thumbprint onto it!” “Victoria, he’s going to the same city for college as our Spencer. Spencer is a sensitive, gentle boy. Connor is a thug. He’ll bully our son to death.” My mother looked at him, surprised by the intensity of his malice. Donovan quickly caught himself and softened his tone. “That’s part of it, yes. But mostly… I did this to protect you, my love.” “Connor goes to a slum of a high school. It’s a miracle if a single kid from there gets into community college, let alone MIT. When the board of education sees a fairy tale like that, they’re going to investigate. And when they look closely at him, they’ll look closely at you. It will drag your name through the mud.” He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “My darling, you bled to get the CEO seat. I won’t let some delinquent ruin your empire. That’s why we needed to get a confession first. If you proactively threw him to the wolves, the public would praise you for your integrity. You’d be a hero.” Victoria pouted. “But you let him go. Now what?” “Don’t worry,” Donovan cooed. “I’ll find another way to get the evidence.” Victoria looked up at him, her eyes misty with adoration. “You’re always protecting me. I love you so much.” 4. The two thugs dumped me on the asphalt in front of the emergency room doors, shouting a final warning to keep my mouth shut or Victoria would ruin me. A security guard saw me crawling across the pavement and rushed over with a wheelchair, rushing me straight to orthopedics. The surgeon held up my X-rays, his face grim. “Connor, your knee is completely shattered. The bone is splintered. You need a total knee replacement surgery immediately. Where are your parents? I need them here to sign the consent forms.” “They can’t come,” I rasped, gripping the armrests. “My dad just passed away. Can I sign it myself?” “No, you’re not eighteen yet. It has to be a legal guardian.” Right on cue, my phone rang. It was my mother. “Where the hell is Thomas?!” she barked through the speaker. “I’ve called him a dozen times and he’s ignoring me! Where is he hiding?” “I told you three days ago he was dying. He’s dead, Victoria. Did you finally get what you wanted?” “Connor Davis, is this how Thomas taught you to speak to your mother?” she mocked. “With an attitude like that, no wonder you have to cheat to get into MIT. Who would ever believe you earned it?!” “Listen to me clearly, you little brat. I am going to find out exactly how you and your father pulled off this fraud, and I am going to personally hand you over to the authorities!” The surgeon standing next to me was completely speechless. It took him a moment to process the sheer vitriol before he leaned in toward the phone. “Mrs. Davis? This is Connor’s doctor. Your son’s knee is severely fractured and requires emergency surgery. Can you please come down to the hospital?” “Do I sound like I have the time?” she snapped. “And you have the wrong person. I am not his guardian.” “But Connor said…” “Did he say his father is dead? Doctor, let me give you a piece of advice. Those two are pathological liars and grifters. Don’t believe a word that comes out of their mouths.” She shifted her venom back to me. “Connor, you went through all this effort to fake an injury just to make me feel guilty? Keep dreaming. Even if you and Thomas died right in front of me, I wouldn’t bat an eye.” She hung up. The harsh beep echoed in the sterile room. The doctor let out a long, heavy sigh. “Doctor,” I said, my voice dead calm. “Just treat me as an orphan.” He didn’t argue anymore. The next morning, they wheeled me into the operating room. When I woke up, the surgeon stood at the foot of my bed. “Connor, once you finish physical therapy, you’ll be able to walk completely normally. But… you can never play competitive sports or do any intense physical activities again.” I didn’t feel an ounce of regret. Because for the first time, there was titanium in my body. A piece of me was completely my own. I wasn’t entirely made of the flesh and blood that monster had given me anymore.

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From the moment the ink dried on our marriage license, my husband drew a line down the center of our lives—an invisible, impenetrable border. He claimed it was his mysophobia, a clinical obsession with cleanliness. His son, Henry, inherited the trait, flinching as if burned whenever I so much as brushed against his sleeve. For twenty-seven years, father and son occupied the pristine bedrooms, while I slept on a cot in the drafty sunroom. We existed in parallel, never intersecting. It wasn’t until I was burning up with a fever of 104, lying delirious on that narrow cot, that the reality of my life truly settled in. Through the thin drywall, I could hear them. I heard the rustle of sheets, the heavy sighs, the sharp sounds of their disgust. They could hear my ragged breathing, my moans of pain. They simply chose not to care. I struggled to sit up, desperate for water. My trembling hand knocked the glass from the nightstand, sending it shattering against the hardwood. A second later, Silas’s voice boomed from the hallway, not with concern, but with raw irritation. … 1 “Nora, are you done yet? It’s the middle of the night! Can’t a man get some peace?” Then Henry’s voice, a younger echo of his father’s cruelty: “I told you a thousand times not to use my glass! Do you have zero boundaries?” In a fit of rage, they stormed out of the house, slamming the front door, leaving me alone in the silence. Three days later, I died in that cramped sunroom. My soul, untethered and aching, drifted to my stepson. I watched them in a restaurant, Silas and Henry, laughing as they served food to Silas’s ex-wife, Camille. In that moment, hovering above their happy reunion, I finally understood. Their “boundaries,” their obsession with hygiene—it was never about the germs. It was a demarcation line. A wall built solely to keep me out. Given a second chance, I knew one thing for sure: I was done with walls. I opened my eyes and found myself back on the day of the wedding. A heavy oak door separated the hotel lobby from the Grand Ballroom, dividing the world into two distinct realities. I stood on the inside, the hum of the reception and the clinking of champagne flutes behind me. On the other side of the door stood Silas. And wrapped in his arms was Camille—his ex-wife, his muse, the one who got away. She was kissing him with a desperation that spoke of a history I could never touch. When she finally pulled away, her voice broke. “Do you really have to marry Nora? The seamstress?” Silas pulled her tighter, his frame trembling, leaking a tenderness he had never once shown me. “Nora is suitable,” he whispered, his voice pragmatic and cold. “She’s good with the boy. She’s domestic.” He stroked her hair. “You’re different, Camille. You shouldn’t be trapped in the drudgery of marriage, worrying about bills and groceries. The stage is where you belong. You’re meant to shine.” I stood there, frozen, a voyeur at my own funeral. I watched Silas ruthlessly calculate my value—a utility, a buffer—so he could protect Camille’s dreams. The memory of my previous life washed over me. I remembered dying alone on the cold floor of the sunroom. The resentment and the physical pain of my final moments wrapped around my heart like barbed wire, squeezing until I couldn’t breathe. Then, Camille looked up. She saw me standing in the doorway. A flicker of contempt passed through her eyes before she masked it with fragility. She tugged at Silas’s lapel, her voice dropping to a whisper. “But… will you touch her?” Silas stiffened. He took her hand, pressing it to his chest, his eyes crinkling with a doting smile. “Aside from you, the thought of looking at anyone else makes me sick.” Camille smiled then, a victorious, radiant thing. Her pale pink cashmere coat made her skin glow like porcelain. I looked down at myself. My white blouse was washed thin, my black trousers practical and dull. The cheap red plastic corsage pinned to my chest, bearing the word Bride, looked grotesque. Without a word, I reached up and ripped the corsage off. The pin pricked my finger, but I didn’t flinch. I tossed it into a trash can in the corner. I turned on my heel and walked into the banquet hall. Henry, Silas’s seven-year-old son, spotted me immediately. His eyes, usually indifferent, flashed with hatred. He raised his cup of steaming hot cocoa and hurled it at me. The heavy ceramic mug struck my forehead with a sickening thud. Scalding brown liquid drenched my hair and dripped down my face, ruining everything. But before I could react, Henry opened his mouth and wailed. “Get out! Just get out!” “You’re a homewrecker! I don’t want you to be my mom! You aren’t good enough!” Silas, hearing the scream, burst through the doors. He saw the red marks on his son’s hand where the hot liquid had splashed back. Instant fury ignited in his eyes. He shoved me hard. His voice was ice. “Nora, is this how you take care of a child?” 2 I wasn’t expecting the shove. I lost my balance and crashed to the floor, my palm landing squarely on the shards of the broken mug. Sharp, stinging pain shot up my arm. Camille rushed in behind him, weeping beautifully. She threw her arms around Henry, sobbing as if her heart were breaking. She looked at me over the boy’s shoulder, her eyes wet but gleaming with malice. “Nora… today is your big day. If you don’t want Henry and me here, we’ll leave. I’ll take him and go.” She sniffled, playing to the crowd. “I can’t fight you. I won’t fight you. I surrender. But the child is innocent…” Suddenly, the room shifted. Dozens of judgmental eyes bored into me. The whispers started low but grew like a brushfire. “Did you hear that? I wondered how a factory girl like Nora landed a senior engineer like Silas. She’s a homewrecker.” “She’s not even married yet and she’s already abusing his son.” “Shameless. How does she have the nerve to throw a wedding?” Silas heard them, too. He stood there, his face dark, staring at the cocoa dripping from my hair and the blood on my hand. He frowned, but he didn’t move to help. I wiped the sticky liquid from my eyes and slowly stood up. My gaze locked onto Henry. He glared back, nestled safely in Camille’s arms, shouting with a practiced ferocity. “It’s you! You chased my mommy away!” “You made them break up! I hate you, you bad woman!” I looked at the boy calmly. Then, a short, dry laugh escaped my lips. Tears followed, unbidden, hot and fast. In my past life, I raised him for twenty years. Twenty years. I took him from a sallow, malnourished toddler and nurtured him until he walked across the stage at his college graduation. The cocoa he just threw at me? I bought that by skipping meals, saving every cent so he could have his treats. You’d think even a dog would show a shred of loyalty after twenty years of kindness. But when Henry got married in my last life, the first thing he did was seat Camille at the head table. He looked me in the eye, devoid of guilt, and said, “Aunt Nora, birth matters more than bread. It’s my wedding. My mom sits in the seat of honor.” “If you’re unhappy about it,” he added, “don’t come.” So I didn’t go. But the grief lodged in my chest like a stone. I developed a fever, which triggered my asthma. I coughed through the nights, alone. When I took one of Silas’s cough pills, he screamed at me. “Nora! How many times have I told you not to touch my things?” “The whole bottle is contaminated now. Take them. I hope you choke on them.” He threw the bottle at my face. Even in sickness, Silas needed to draw his line. Father and son—a legacy of selfishness and cold blood. I shook the memory away and looked at Silas. “Silas,” I said softly. “Aren’t you going to explain?” “Are you going to tell them who really destroyed your marriage? Was it me? Or was it her—” “Nora!” Silas’s voice cracked like a whip. He grabbed my arm, yanking me toward him, his eyes void of anything resembling affection. He lowered his voice to a lethal hiss. “Nora, if you still want to sign those papers, you will leave my ex-wife out of this. How are she and Henry supposed to hold their heads up? Today, right now, you are going to make a promise in front of everyone.” “Otherwise, I can’t guarantee there will be a wedding to finish.” He straightened his jacket, cleared his throat, and turned to the guests, instantly regaining his composure as the aloof, respected engineer. “Thank you all for coming to celebrate with Nora and me.” “Please, for my sake, let the past stay in the past. But to move forward, I need Nora to make a few promises in front of you all, to ensure the harmony of our home.” “First, she will resign from the garment factory immediately.” 3 “Second,” Silas continued, his voice projecting to the back of the room, “she must devote herself entirely to caring for Henry. Without Camille’s express permission, Nora will not have children of her own.” “Third, even after we are married, she must respect my privacy. She needs to understand that I require space and distance.” “Nora, can you agree to these three things?” The room erupted in gasps. It was the 1980s. People didn’t use words like boundaries or personal space the way they do now. But Silas’s meaning was brutally clear: Unless his ex-wife allowed it, I was to be barren. I was to be a celibate wife. It was laughable. He wasn’t looking for a partner. He was hiring a live-in nanny who not only worked for free but subsidized the household expenses. In my previous life, Silas waited until after the wedding to tape these rules to the wall. The day after we married, I moved out of the master bedroom and onto the cot in the sunroom. I stayed there for twenty-seven years. But this time, Camille’s tears had short-circuited his logic. He was desperate to humiliate me, to cement my status as the grasping stepmother so Camille could shine as the tragic victim. I looked at Silas cold. He stared down at me with arrogance, his eyes urging me to submit. He was certain he had me trapped. My heart turned to ice. How had I endured this man? How had I swallowed this twisted version of a marriage year after year? Right. In the past, he forced me to quit my job. I lost my financial independence. I had to survive on a fifty-dollar monthly allowance, documenting every penny in a ledger. If the numbers didn’t add up, Silas would stare at me with disappointed silence—a daily, grinding emotional violence that made me walk on eggshells. But not this time. I yanked my arm from his grip. The warmth left my eyes completely. “I can’t make those promises.” Silas’s face darkened instantly. He stared at me, stunned. He hadn’t expected a refusal. He knew how desperate I was for a family, how I had agreed to this humiliating “wedding first, license later” arrangement just to please him. He had promised that once Henry accepted me, we would make it legal. He delayed it for half a lifetime. I eventually stopped asking. A wave of bitterness and old grief crashed over me, making me tremble. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the emotion down. When I opened them, my voice was quiet but steel-hard. “Silas, the wedding is canc—” “Nora!” Silas barked, panic flashing in his eyes. “Think very carefully before you speak!” Before I could finish, Camille dropped to her knees in front of me, clutching Henry. She wept loudly, a performance for the ages. “Nora, it’s all my fault. Blame me.” “Please, as one woman to another, just be good to Henry. I promise I’ll never disturb your family again!” Her theatrical collapse terrified Henry. He screamed, lunging at me. He grabbed a silver fork from a nearby table and stabbed it wildly toward my face. “Bad woman! You hurt my mommy! I hate you!” “Daddy, hit her! Kill her!” The fork grazed my cheek, dangerously close to my eye. I threw my hands up to block him. Henry, unbalanced by his own rage, stumbled backward. He fell into Camille’s arms, and they clung to each other, a tableau of victimhood. Slap! Before I could process what happened, Silas’s hand connected with my face. 4 “Nora! How can you be so vicious?” The slap was full-force. I hit the floor hard, my ears ringing, my cheek burning. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. Silas paused, looking at his hand. For a split second, regret flickered in his eyes. But it vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by righteous anger. “If Henry has a single scratch on him, I will destroy you!” “Apologize!” Camille looked up, tears clinging to her lashes like diamonds. She shook her head weakly. “No, Silas. I don’t need an apology.” “I just want her to sign the paper. I just want security for our son. Please, Nora?” I looked at her from the floor. My gaze was arctic. I enunciated every word. “In. Your. Dreams.” Silas’s face contorted. “Camille is on her knees begging you! What more do you want?” “Don’t push your luck, Nora!” I wiped the blood from my lip and smirked up at him. “Silas, if you love Camille so much, why don’t you just remarry her?” Panic flashed through Silas’s eyes. The crowd, which had been murmuring against me, suddenly went quiet. The logic hung in the air, undeniable. The only sound was Camille’s jagged breathing. “It’s my fault… I shouldn’t be here… I should have just died the day we divorced…” “Nora, don’t blame Silas. Don’t hate Henry. I’ll go. I won’t ruin your marriage.” Wailing, Camille scrambled up, abandoned her son, and ran out of the hotel. Silas snapped. He scooped up Henry and sprinted after her. At the door, he turned back, his glare venomous. “Nora, if anything happens to Camille because of this, you’ll pay.” “And as for the marriage license? You can wait until your next life!” I sat on the floor, feeling like a puppet whose strings had been cut. My mind was a blank static. I don’t know how long I sat there. A draft from the open door finally made me shiver, bringing me back to the present. The hall was empty. Just the debris of a disaster. The red “Double Happiness” characters pasted on the stage backdrop seemed to be mocking my stupidity. I stood up, smoothed my clothes, and walked out. I headed straight for the garment factory’s administrative office. When I handed in my resignation, Mr. Henderson, the plant manager, frowned. “Nora, are you sure?” “With the economy changing, if you leave now, it’ll be hard to get back in.” “And… with the engineer… with Silas…” The wedding fiasco had traveled fast. Everyone knew. My face was swollen, throbbing with heat. I gave him a bitter smile. “Mr. Henderson, I’m not doing this out of spite.” “And Silas? He won’t stop me. Believe me.” He looked at the handprint on my face and sighed. He signed the release papers and my letter of recommendation. “The factory will always be home, Nora.” I took the thin sheets of paper, my eyes stinging. I nodded, unable to speak. As I walked out of the office, I ran straight into Silas. He was radiating cold fury. He marched up to me, grabbed me by the collar, and tried to drag me toward the exit. “You’re coming with me. You’re going to apologize to Camille!” “I wrote up the guarantee. You sign it, and I’ll give you one more chance to be my wife!” I saw the paper in his hand—the list of demands. Rage, hot and blinding, flooded my vision. I snatched the paper and tore it into confetti. I fought against his grip. In the struggle, the strap of my purse snapped. My belongings spilled onto the dirty concrete floor. Silas shoved me backward, his voice booming. “Nora! What the hell is wrong with you—” His eyes snagged on something on the ground. His voice died in his throat.

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Bad news: I’m dead. Good news: I’ve transmigrated into a book. Bad news: I woke up in the womb of a rural farm wife, destined to be the “Fake Heiress” in a trashy melodrama. Good news: I’ve read the book. Cover to cover. I know exactly what happens. The “True Heiress” returns, weaponizing our parents’ guilt to dismantle my life. She orchestrates a scandal, framing me for an incestuous affair with my brother. The scandal destroys the Calloway family’s reputation, my parents kick me out in a rage, and I end up dying alone in a rain-slicked alleyway. So, I started planning early. At five years old, I emptied my piggy bank and hired a little beggar girl to knock on our front door and claim she was the long-lost daughter. At eight, I hired the second one. At ten, the third. … By the time I turned fifteen, the Calloway mansion was stuffed with eight “True Heiresses.” The ancients didn’t understand the science of DNA, and neither did the modern pseudo-science peddled in this book’s universe. They just knew that when you mixed alum with water, blood merged. And miraculously, the blood of all eight girls blended perfectly with the Marquis and Marchioness. As for how one missing daughter turned into eight… As the family’s spiritual guru—a Monk from the Hills—said: “Destiny is ineffable.” Then came the year I turned sixteen. The real True Heiress finally showed up. 1 “I’m looking for Senator Calloway, or Lady Catherine. Please, just tell them… I’m their biological daughter. There was a switch at the hospital sixteen years ago.” The day Tiffany, the actual True Daughter, came to claim her birthright, the rain was coming down harder than a scene from The Notebook. She stood ramrod straight at the wrought-iron gates. Her cheap, thin clothes clung to her starving frame, outlining every rib. Rainwater streamed down her matted hair, and her skin was the color of old paper. But her eyes? They burned with a terrifying, manic brightness. Or, as Old Man Miller, the gatekeeper, put it: “That girl’s got a few screws loose, standing out in a hurricane like that.” “Besides, I can’t drag a soaking wet stray in front of the Senator and Her Ladyship. If she tracks mud on the Persian rugs or gets everyone sick, it’s my head on the block!” Miller looked at the shivering girl with a pained expression. Ever since the mansion started collecting daughters like Pokémon, every month brought a few new hopefuls claiming to be the lost Calloway heiress. Most were frauds. But you never knew when a real one might slip through. When the news reached the inner parlor, I was sitting with Mother. Hearing that another daughter had arrived to claim her bloodline, Mother physically shuddered. “Oh, dear God. When will it end? I don’t have any fingers left to prick!” She held up her hands, looking utterly tragic. Ten fingers, all wrapped in bandages. “Do you know how long it’s been since I played the piano? I see a needle now and my phantom pain flares up.” She thrust her bandaged hands into my face, pouting like a child. “Mommy needs ten of your special lattes to recover from this trauma.” I laughed, carefully cradling her hands and blowing on them gently. “Okay, okay. I’ll make them this afternoon. With the extra caramel drizzle you like.” “Why couldn’t she come when your father was home?” Mother sighed, defeated, but she still extended a finger for the maid to unwrap. “Why does it always have to be my blood?” Jinx, Mother’s personal assistant, brought over the gilded bowl and carefully took a drop of blood. “Let’s just hope this is finally Number Nine. Then we can stop the bloodletting,” Jinx muttered. “Heaven have mercy, this has to be Sister Nine!” I said cheerfully. The whole household knew the prophecy: Nine daughters would return. Counting me, that made ten. Mother always said I was the one who made the family “a perfect ten.” When the first “True Daughter” arrived, the blood merged, and my parents wept tears of joy. When the second one’s blood merged, Father cried, but Mother grabbed a decorative sword from the wall—until her blood merged too. By the third, they hired the Guru. The Guru stroked his beard and declared, “Nine is the number of the ultimate. Through a twist of cosmic fate, the Calloway destiny has split into nine avatars.” Why nine? Ineffable. With so many “True Daughters” running around—and so many fakes trying to get in—I, the “Fake Daughter” who grew up by their side, actually became a rare commodity. I was the constant. The emotional support animal. Plus, I had a silver tongue. Being the favorite was simply my paycheck for managing this circus. Jinx returned with the bowl. Naturally, Tiffany hadn’t even met Mother yet. DNA testing—or this world’s mystic blood equivalent—was an industrial assembly line at the Calloway estate. Mother looked at the two merging drops of blood in the bowl and wept tears of relief. “Finally! Number Nine! Get a suite ready! And tell security: if anyone else comes claiming to be my daughter, release the hounds!” 2 Tiffany was cleaned up and brought to the main courtyard. Why the courtyard and not the living room? Honestly, there were too many of us. We wouldn’t fit on the sectional. Tiffany, looking bewildered in fresh designer clothes, was immediately swarmed by a gaggle of beautiful, loud women. “How old are you, sis?” “Don’t be stupid, she’s the same age as us!” “Where have you been living? Why did it take you so long to come home?” “Did you go to school? What’s your GPA?” “You look anemic. Have you been taking your iron supplements?” “What’s your talent? We can trade skills!” Mother looked on with a satisfied, maternal glow. Sure, it was chaotic, but they were all her good girls. Sister One came back early; she’s a prodigy in arts and literature. Sister Two, the General, isn’t into the arts. She leads the “Extinction Unit” in the Special Forces. She’s rarely home. Sister Three grew up poor and terrified, so she became a Wall Street shark. She manages the family’s investment portfolio now. Sisters Four through Eight came later, but they all hustled. Four is a fashion designer—her embroidery is so exclusive even the Royal Consorts have to get on a waitlist. Five is a painter. Six is a top-tier surgeon. Seven is a PR genius who knows everyone. Eight is young but brilliant, currently interning as a companion to the Princess. And me? I control the food supply. I introduced modern cuisine to this world. I own their stomachs. And Tiffany? As far as I knew, she had zero skills. The farm wife who raised her was poor. Tiffany didn’t suffer abuse, but she didn’t get piano lessons or coding boot camps. “Who… who are they?” Tiffany asked, her voice trembling. “Oh, sweetie, these are your sisters. Come, say hello,” Mother said, beaming. Tiffany looked like she was about to faint. This wasn’t in the script. She traveled hundreds of miles to reclaim her life, only to find the mansion already stocked with eight other versions of herself? “No! Impossible! I am the real one! I am your only daughter! Mother, they’re lying to you!” Silence fell over the courtyard like a heavy blanket. The smile faded from Mother’s face. She frowned, elegant brows knitting together. “Nine, don’t speak nonsense. These are your flesh-and-blood sisters. Their blood merged with mine just like yours. How could they be fake?” “Blood? What blood?!” Tiffany screamed, losing it. “Them! They have to be fakes! It’s a trick! Mother, you have to believe me, I am the only one!” She was shaking, her eyes darting wildly across the faces of the sisters. Finally, her gaze landed on me, standing right next to Mother. It was like she found the smoking gun. Her finger stabbed the air in my direction. “It’s her! It has to be her! Beatrix! You did this, didn’t you?! You came back too, didn’t you?!” “You knew I was coming, so you hired these imposters to gaslight me, right?!” I stood there, holding a half-peeled pine nut I was preparing for Mother, and let a look of perfect, innocent confusion wash over my face. Mother’s face went dark. She pulled me behind her protectively. “Number Nine! Have you lost your mind? What ‘coming back’? What imposters? If they are fakes because their blood matches mine, then what does that make you?” “Jinx! Take Miss Nine to her quarters. She is not to leave without my permission. And call Dr. Evans. Have him check her head.” “I won’t go! I’m not crazy! Mother, believe me! Believe me!” Tiffany was dragged away by two sturdy housekeepers, kicking and screaming, hair flying everywhere. “Beatrix Calloway! You will die screaming! Just you wait! I won’t let you get away with this! I am the True Heiress! I am the one—” Tiffany’s outburst revealed a lot. Mother didn’t understand it, but as a seasoned reader of the genre, I did. Tiffany was a Rebirth case. Oh, wow. A “True vs. Fake Daughter” story just mutated into “Reborn True Daughter vs. Transmigrated Fake Daughter.” Spicy. 3 After a few days of solitary confinement, Tiffany learned to play the game. The day she was released, she went straight to Mother and dropped to her knees with a thud. Tears fell before she even spoke. “Mother, I was wrong.” She sobbed, shoulders trembling. “That day… seeing so many sisters… I was just so scared.” “I was afraid… afraid that because I came back last, because I can’t compare to them, you wouldn’t love me…” She lifted her face—which looked about 60% like Mother’s did in her youth—eyes swimming with tears. “I never knew I could have such a gentle, beautiful mother… that I could live a life where I didn’t have to feed chickens or scrub floors…” Looking at that thin, pale face and hearing about the hardships of farm life, Mother’s heart melted instantly. She sighed and bent down to help Tiffany up. “There, there. We don’t talk about the past. You’re home now. We are family.” “Your sisters are good people. You’ll see once you get to know them. As for love…” Mother stroked Tiffany’s hair tenderly. “You are all my daughters. Naturally, I love you all.” Tiffany buried her face in Mother’s chest, sobbing a muffled, “Yes, Mother. I understand.” But from an angle only I could see, she shot me a look of pure, venomous triumph. A few days later, Father came home. He stood in the hallway, staring at the room full of blooming, beautiful daughters, and closed his eyes in resignation. By now, everyone in the Capital knew the Calloway family was unique. Nine daughters! All biologically linked! The Guru said these were the avatars of a celestial goddess, a great blessing for the House of Calloway. What could the Senator say? He couldn’t argue with a blessing. “Well, since everyone is here,” Father cleared his throat, using his Senate-floor voice. “It’s time we threw a Gala. A proper debut for our daughters!” The news spread, and the mansion went into overdrive. Tailors were measuring nine girls for gowns. Jewelers were commissioning nine identical sets of diamonds. Everything had to be equal. Down to the millimeter. Tiffany was suspiciously quiet during this time. Aside from greeting Mother in the mornings, she stayed in her room. When a toddler goes quiet, they’re drawing on the walls. When a villain goes quiet, they’re plotting a murder. In the original book, this Gala was where Tiffany orchestrated the scene where I was found in bed with my brother, Harrison. That led to my public shaming, expulsion, and eventual death. Tiffany wasn’t satisfied with just exile; she hired thugs to assault and kill me in the rain. But since I transmigrated, I’ve kept a strictly platonic, ten-foot distance from my brother, Harrison. I also started brainwashing my parents early. I told them a real man serves his country. I told them the Calloway title was at risk if we didn’t show some military grit. I mentioned how Grandfather built this house on valor, and how sad his rusty spear looked on the wall. Apparently, Father had a dream that night where Grandfather chased him with a stick. The next day, Harrison was shipped off to the Border. He hasn’t been back in three years. Even for this Gala, Harrison only sent back ten identical white jade bracelets from the frontier. I was very curious. Without Harrison, what script was Tiffany going to write? It turns out, you can be reborn, but you can’t transplant a brain.

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Annual Performance Review. Once again, I was rated a zero-star Loan Officer. I stared at the review sheet in my hand, the paper cheap and flimsy against my thumb. Right there, in the comments section next to my name, the same line that had haunted me for years was stamped in bold: [Contractor Status. Ineligible for Performance Grading.] I asked the Branch Manager when I could finally transition to full-time. Her answer was a broken record, skipping over the same scratched groove: “Just keep your numbers up, Miles. It’s only a matter of time.” “A matter of time.” I’d been waiting on that promise for seven years. For seven years, I had been the mule. I originated more loans than anyone else in the branch. I took home the lowest salary in the building. Benefits? 401k matching? Health insurance? None of it applied to me. This time, I didn’t bother sending the email appealing the rating. I was done. The illusion was shattered. Thirty days from now, Manager Cole was going to look at her crimson-red quarterly projections and lose her absolute mind. 1. “Miles! Hey, get over here and help me haul this crap.” I sighed, the sound lost in the hum of the office AC. It was Todd, a senior officer who treated the bank like his personal country club. I ripped the review sheet in half, then into quarters, and let the confetti drift into the recycling bin. When I walked over, Todd was huffing and puffing, dragging a pallet of heavy cardboard boxes across the carpet. “What’s inside, Todd?” I asked, genuinely curious. He wiped sweat from his receding hairline, his tone sharp. “Why all the questions? Just lift.” My jaw tightened. In their eyes, I wasn’t a colleague. I was hired help. A glorified intern with a seven-year tenure. I didn’t snap. Not yet. I bent my knees and helped him stack the boxes in the breakroom. Todd leaned against the counter, catching his breath. “These are the holiday bonuses from Corporate. Gift baskets. Premium hams, wine, the works. Twenty-seven of ’em.” Twenty-seven? “There are twenty-eight people working in this branch, Todd,” I said. Todd looked at me, a sneer curling his lip. It was a look of genuine confusion, as if I had claimed the sky was green. “Who told you there are twenty-eight people? You don’t count.” “You’re just a contractor, Miles. Agency hire. You don’t qualify for Corporate perks.” “You want a ham? Go ask your temp agency.” He waved his hand dismissively, like shooing a fly from a sandwich. When they handed out bonuses, I was invisible. When they needed quotas filled, I was “part of the family.” When they went to happy hour, I wasn’t on the invite list. But when the toilet clogged or the archives needed organizing? Miles, get in here. Where exactly was I lacking? I did the same job. But I lived in a different economic reality. Sure, the first year I was green. I had to learn the ropes. I missed my targets then. But every year since? I didn’t just meet the quota; I crushed it. Year two: $2.5 million in personal loans. 6.5% of the branch’s total. Year three: $3.4 million. 9%. Year four: $4.5 million. 12%. … This year: $7.8 million. 23% of the entire branch’s output. There were seventeen loan officers in this building. I was miles ahead of the pack—pun intended. So why was I lesser? My paycheck remained a stagnant pool: $2,800 a month, after taxes. Commissions, quarterly bonuses, year-end profit sharing? If I saw a dime of that, it was a miracle. When I pushed for answers, Manager Cole would lean back in her ergonomic chair and say, “You’re agency, Miles. We can’t adjust your comp until you’re converted to FTE (Full-Time Employee).” I believed her. I drank the Kool-Aid. I spent seven years running myself ragged, chasing a carrot that was nailed to a stick. And for what? Where was my contract? Nowhere. Enough. I went back to my cubicle—the small one near the bathroom—and printed my resignation letter. A colleague walked by. “Whatcha printing? Loan apps?” “Client files,” I lied. She smirked. “Oh, look at our Zero-Star Superstar. So dedicated.” I ignored the barb. I took the resignation letter and drove straight to the staffing agency that legally employed me. When I slapped the paper on the desk, the agency rep, a woman named Janice, looked up with confusion. “Excuse me?” I slid the paper forward. She picked it up, her eyes widening. “Miles? You’re quitting? You’ve been there seven years. You haven’t converted to bank staff yet?” She pulled my file, flipped it open, and actually laughed. A dry, rasping sound. “Seven years. Zero-star rating every single year.” She looked up, her expression dripping with pity that felt a lot like mockery. “You know, everyone else from your intake group converted years ago. The bank loves my recruits. They usually tell me I have an eye for talent. You’re the only stain on my record.” “The others either had the numbers or the social skills. Why couldn’t you just play the game?” “No wonder you’re quitting. Honestly, if you didn’t leave, they were probably going to cut you loose. Ha.” I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. I forced the words out through gritted teeth. “Just sign it.” She sighed, annoyed, and scribbled her signature. “Thirty days notice. Then you’re out. I’m not even going to call the bank; I’m too embarrassed. You tell them.” “And don’t say I didn’t warn you. The market is trash right now. If you couldn’t make it work as a temp, what makes you think you’ll survive out there?” “Don’t come crawling back here when you can’t pay rent. I don’t re-hire failures who can’t close a conversion.” I stood up, buttoning my cheap suit jacket. “I know exactly what I’m worth, Janice. You don’t need to worry about me.” I turned and walked out, the bell on the door jingling behind me. In the parking lot, I pulled a crumpled recruitment flyer from my pocket. I hesitated for a long moment, staring at the number. Then, I dialed. “Hi, this is Miles. I’m calling about the Senior Loan Officer position… Yes, the full-time role.” When I got the confirmation for an interview, I took a deep breath. The air tasted like exhaust fumes and freedom. Come on, Miles. You can do this. Prove them wrong. 2. The moment I walked back into the bank, the atmosphere shifted. “Cole is looking for you,” a colleague muttered. Then, without asking, he dumped a stack of manila folders on my desk. The pile slid, nearly knocking over my coffee mug. “Call these people when you get a sec,” he commanded, not even looking at me. I put a hand on the files. “Stop. This isn’t my caseload. I’ve already finished my calls.” He paused, looking at me like my head had spun around. “These are bank clients, Miles. Why are you acting brand new?” He adopted that patronizing tone again. “You do the cold calls every year. It’s almost fiscal year-end. Chop chop.” My voice dropped an octave. Hard. Cold. “No. I manage my clients. These? These aren’t mine.” He let out a sharp laugh. “Yours? Ours? It’s all the same pot, buddy. Just make the calls. It’s grunt work. What else are you good for?” I stood up. “What am I good for? I closed twenty percent of this branch’s volume this year. What did you do?” I pointed a finger at him. “You, Todd? Did you even hit two million? Where do you get the nerve?” He wasn’t used to Miles the Doormat fighting back. His face flushed a blotchy red. His voice cracked, spiraling into a screech. “Miles! Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? My numbers are none of your business!” “Yeah, you hit twenty percent. So what? You’re a Zero-Star officer!” “I missed my quota, and guess what? I’m still Three Stars! You can’t compare yourself to me!” “I can order you around because you are a temp! You don’t even technically work here!” He was right. I carried the branch, and I was a zero. He barely showed up, and he was a solid three. By metrics alone, I should have been Five Stars since year two. But my caste determined my worth. The shouting match drew a crowd. I could hear the whispers circling like vultures. “What’s up with Miles? Why is he so aggressive today?” “Probably the ratings again. It’s hilarious he thinks he’s one of us. Letting him participate in the ceremony was a charity case.” “It’s embarrassing, honestly. Someone tell Cole to just ban him from the meetings.” The anger in my chest was a physical weight. I shoved the stack of files back across the desk. They spilled onto the floor. “Call them yourself. If you dump your trash on my desk again, I’m shredding it.” Todd glared at me, venom in his eyes. “You’re dead, Miles. Watch.” Five minutes later, my phone rang. Manager Cole. Perfect. I wanted to tell her I was done anyway. As soon as I walked into her office, she started. “Miles! I hear you’re causing a scene on the floor.” Causing a scene? I had been the silent workhorse for seven years. I raise my voice once, and I’m the problem. She tapped her acrylic nails on the mahogany desk. “I know, I know. You’re upset about the star rating. It’s just policy, Miles. It’s not personal. We fought to even get you listed on the sheet. That’s recognition!” “Besides,” she leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “if you keep your head down and hit the numbers, I’m going to bat for you. I promise.” “Clear this list of clients this month, and I will personally go to Corporate and demand they convert you. We’ll get that contract signed.” She slid a list across the desk. Then, she smiled. It was the same smile I’d seen for seven years. Sugary, rehearsed, and completely hollow. From the first time I complained about my pay, this was the face that fed me lies. Then, she reached under her desk and pulled out a gift basket. “Todd told me you were feeling left out. That was an oversight on his part. Of course you’re part of the team!” “Finish the year strong! The bank takes care of its own.” I looked at the plastic-wrapped ham and the cheap bottle of Merlot. I looked at the layers of foundation settling into the lines of her insincere smile. I decided right then not to tell her I had resigned. It wasn’t my job to give them a heads-up. They wanted to feed me empty promises? Fine. I’d feed them a nasty surprise. 3. That night, for the first time in history, I didn’t stay late. Manager Cole had emphasized how “urgent” the new leads were. I didn’t care. Did the urgency come with a commission check? No? Then it wasn’t my emergency. In thirty days, I was a ghost. I hummed a tune as I walked into my apartment. My younger brother, Toby, looked up from his textbooks, eyes wide. “Miles? You’re home? It’s still light out.” The apartment smelled of sodium and cheap beef flavoring. “I made food this morning before I left,” I said, gesturing to the fridge. Toby looked sheepish. “I was starving at lunch. I ate it all then.” I froze. I’d been so buried in work, trying to prove my worth to people who hated me, that I hadn’t noticed. Toby was seventeen. He was growing. And he was skinny. I felt a sting of tears in my eyes. “I’m sorry, Toby. That’s on me. I didn’t make enough.” “Put that cup away. I’m making real dinner tonight.” Toby grinned, and the room brightened. Our parents died in a car wreck when I was twenty. Toby was ten. I dropped out of college because we couldn’t afford the tuition and the rent. I cut hair. I worked in a warehouse. I did day labor. Then the staffing agency got me into the bank. It looked respectable. It was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It put food on the table. But it stripped me of my dignity. Seven years. And they wouldn’t even give me a contract. I shook my head, willing the tears away. Toby had his SATs coming up. He wasn’t going to end up like me. I was going to pay for his college. I was going to find my worth. The next morning, the morning briefing was a funeral service. Manager Cole stood at the front, her face a mask of thunder. “Construction loan. J&G Builders. It defaulted this morning. One. point. five. million. dollars. Whose account is this?” Silence stretched across the room. Todd’s hand went up, trembling like a leaf in a gale. I suppressed a scoff. Todd spent his days playing fantasy football and flirting with the tellers. He didn’t know the first thing about risk assessment. Manager Cole turned her laser gaze on him. “It’s… it’s my account,” Todd stammered. “But… but Miles does the maintenance calls! He handles the monitoring!” I spoke up, my voice steady. “Six months ago, I analyzed J&G’s cash flow. They were eight months behind on supplier payments. Their operating account had less than twenty grand in it. I flagged it. High risk.” I turned to Todd. “And what did you say, Todd? You said, ‘Miles, you’re such a worrywart. Jim is a big player. A million bucks is nothing to him. Relax.’” Manager Cole cut in, snapping at me. “Excuses! Why didn’t you report it to me?” I pulled out my phone. “I did. Here’s the email. Dated August 12th. What was your reply?” I read it aloud. “Miles, you’ve been here five minutes. The risk algorithm didn’t flag it. You’re a contractor. Do you think you know better than the system? Stay in your lane.” She opened her mouth, then closed it. The silence was deafening. I savored it. Later that afternoon, I was in the breakroom getting water when I heard whispers from the hallway. “Corporate is furious. They want a head on a spike for the J&G default.” “Todd’s been crying in Cole’s office for an hour. Begging her to save him.” “I heard Cole say they’re going to pin it on Miles. He doesn’t have performance bonuses to lose, and since he’s agency, they can just terminate the contract. Clean break.” A chill went down my spine, followed immediately by a wave of heat. Sure enough, five minutes later, I got the summons. When I pushed open the door, Todd was sitting there, eyes puffy, looking pathetic. “Manager Cole, what am I gonna do? If this goes on my record, my career is over. I have a mortgage! The Audi payments!” When he saw me, he lunged out of the chair and grabbed my arm. “Miles! Buddy! You gotta help me. Please. Take the fall for this one? You’re a contractor! Worst case, they cut you loose, and you go back to the agency. I’m staff! If I get fired for cause, I’m blacklisted!” “I can’t lose this job, Miles. I can’t!” And I can? I thought. My survival is optional? Before I could shake him off, Manager Cole slid a report across the desk. “Sign it. It states that you failed to conduct the quarterly check-in. It absolves Todd and the branch of negligence.” 4. “Why?” I looked at them, genuinely baffled by the audacity. “Why on earth would I do that?” Manager Cole didn’t even blink. “Because you’re the contractor. You take this hit, and I’ll make sure Todd cuts you a check. Three grand. Cash. And if you survive the review, I’ll fast-track your conversion next year.” Todd nodded frantically. “Yes! Miles, please! Three grand! Make it five! Five thousand dollars!” Did they think I was brain-dead? A default investigated by Corporate wasn’t just a “fired” offense. It was gross negligence. It could be legal trouble. “Do you think I’m stupid?” I asked, a smile touching my lips. Cole slammed her hand on the desk. “Miles! Watch your tone!” “We’ve done this before. We pay you a little extra, you take the heat for a minor screw-up. Everybody wins.” She was right. We had done this before. Back when I was naive. Back when she said, Take one for the team, Miles. Loyalty gets you hired. Three years ago: The Lee account. Missed paperwork. $500 fine. I took it. Two years ago: The compliance audit. Risk scores ignored. I took the blame. Last year: A bad debt from Cole’s own cousin. I took the reprimand. I was the perfect tool. The designated scapegoat. All of the blame, none of the bonus. “Cat got your tongue?” Cole shouted, standing up. “Let me tell you something. You’ve been here seven years because I let you stay. Because you’re useful. If you weren’t eating our mistakes, you’d have been gone years ago!” “You don’t sign this today, I will dock your pay to zero. I will make sure you never work in finance in this state again!” I bit my lip. I wasn’t going to sign. And since I had already resigned, her threats were toothless. Cole slapped the paper against my chest. “Last chance! Sign!” Todd, fueled by panic, rushed me and shoved my shoulder. “Miles! Are you deaf?! Sign the paper!” I touched my chest where he hit me. I looked him dead in the eye. “No.” Todd crumbled, looking back at Cole. Cole’s face twisted into something ugly. “Fine. You want to play hardball? I’m calling Corporate right now. I’m reporting you for intentional negligence and fraud.” “Let’s see who they believe. The Branch Manager, or the temp?” “I tried to help you. I tried to get you a severance. But now?” She pulled out her phone. “I’m calling the agency to have you terminated immediately.” “Don’t bother,” I said quietly. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my copy of the resignation letter. “I already resigned. Effective immediately.” Cole froze. “What?” “I quit. You don’t have to fire me. I’m leaving.” Cole slammed her phone down. “You can’t just quit! You tried to sneak away? I will report this to the top! You are taking this fall, Miles, whether you like it or not!” I turned to the door. “Miles!” she screamed. “Walk out that door and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!” Regret it? I pulled my phone out of my pocket and hit [Stop Recording]. Did she think I came in here unprepared? Who was going to regret this? And their problems were just beginning. I opened an app on my phone. A private group chat. [Small Business Owners of [City Name]] It was my client group. They constantly complained about the other officers—lazy, rude, slow. I was the only reason they stayed. “If Miles leaves, we leave.” “Miles is the only one who actually answers the phone.” I typed a message: “Hey everyone. Just wanted to let you know I’ve resigned from [Old Bank]. I’ll be interviewing with competitors soon. If I find a place with better rates and actual service, you’ll be the first to know.” The phone buzzed instantly. Wait for us! We’re with you, Miles! Finally! That bank didn’t deserve you. I smiled. This was the leverage of a free man.

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The first time I took a boyfriend home, the road grew narrower, the trees grew thicker, and the air grew heavy with the smell of damp earth and isolation. He grew terrified. As we approached the Border Patrol checkpoint near the jagged edge of the South Texas brush, he did something I never expected: he leaped out of the moving truck. He scrambled toward the officers, sobbing, clutching a bewildered agent’s tactical vest, screaming that I was trying to sell him into a cartel labor camp. After that, I stopped telling people where I grew up. Then came the new guy. Three months in, he told me he wanted to take me to his hometown. I handed him my ID, my phone, and a smile of twenty-four-karat trust. When I opened my eyes and saw the sun-bleached, lawless cluster of shacks near the Mexican border—a place where the law ends and the “disappeared” begin—I didn’t scream. I smiled. If you don’t hunt me, I won’t hunt you. But if you try to sell me? I’ll sell you back to the devil ten thousand times over. 1. After we hopped off the cross-country bus, I told him the itinerary: a Greyhound, a local shuttle, a rusted-out van, a couple of dirt bikes, and finally, a literal horse-drawn cart. If we timed it right, we’d hit his “home” by 9:00 PM. My boyfriend’s face was ashen, a sickly shade of gray beneath his designer stubble, but he managed a weary, trembling smile. “Babe,” he whispered. “We’re serious about each other, right? This is… this is really your family’s place?” “Of course,” I said, patting his hand. “You’ll see when we get there.” He seemed even more terrified now. Maybe it was the sheer scale of the mountains, the way they loomed over us like silent judges. It was a little bit overwhelming, I suppose. The van was nearly empty, bouncing violently over the unpaved ruts. A few locals sat in the back, speaking a thick, melodic Tex-Mex dialect that tasted of dust and tequila. One guy with a full sleeve of tattoos—let’s call him Big Rick—started chatting with his buddy. Thinking my city-boy boyfriend couldn’t understand a word, they began openly mocking his thin frame and soft hands. Rick even reached out and squeezed my boyfriend’s bicep, tsk-tsking with a patronizing smirk. You don’t need a translator to know what a “tsk” means. It’s the universal sound for pathetic. I glared at the man, snapping a warning in the same sharp, local dialect. Rick grunted and went silent, looking out the window. I slept through the next leg of the trip. My boyfriend, however, couldn’t even blink. He stared out the window as if he were looking for a sniper. When I finally drifted awake, I saw him frantically sending his GPS location to his mother. Probably describing the “rustic charm” of the wilderness. It was the hottest part of the afternoon. Not a single living thing moved in the brush. The road was a mess of jagged limestone and red clay—our local specialty—so the van couldn’t go more than twenty miles per hour. Through the cracked windshield, I saw a tattered American flag snapping in the wind ahead. My boyfriend suddenly nudged me. “Hey, Nora… give me your ID. I’ll keep it for you.” “You lose everything, babe. It’s safer in my bag.” He insisted, his voice tight. “No, really. Let me hold onto it. For safekeeping.” I dug through my messy tote bag, grumbling about how hard it was to find. “Just let me keep it, okay? It’s buried in here.” “Babe, just find it. We have so much gear; I don’t want it getting crushed or lost in the shuffle.” After a minute of digging, I fished it out and handed it over. His voice instantly loosened. “It’s so stifling in here. I’m going to crack the window… I feel a bit carsick.” My heart went out to him. I reached over and helped him slide the heavy glass pane all the way back. The next second, he moved like a panicked animal. He gripped the frame, swung his legs out, and threw himself out of the moving van. Good God! The mountain road was a jagged mess of rocks. One wrong move and he’d be a collection of broken bones. “Stop! Stop the car!” I screamed at the driver. “My guy just jumped out!” “Don’t run!” I shrieked at my limping boyfriend, who was already scrambling into the brush. “Come back!” The more I called out to him with genuine concern, the faster he ran on that twisted ankle. Honestly, I hadn’t seen him move that fast when we were training for a 5K last spring. Luckily, he ran straight toward a Border Patrol station. I caught up to him, breathless, only to find him clutching a burly, confused agent. He was practically buried in the man’s chest, refusing to let go. “Officer, you have to save me! It’s her! They… they’re human traffickers! All of them!” I stood there, stunned. My house was a little remote, sure. And yes, it was uncomfortably close to the lawless border zones. But how did he manage to hallucinate a quiet Ivy League grad like me into a cartel boss? The agents checked our IDs. They checked the van. They even knew the driver—he’d lived there for forty years. But it didn’t matter. My boyfriend insisted on staying at the station. He called his parents to come drive twelve hours to “rescue” him. I looked at him, disgusted. “You’re a grown man. Have some backbone!” He wouldn’t even meet my eye. He just kept muttering the same thing: “The mountains are too scary. I want to go home.” That night, I walked into my house empty-handed. My parents looked up from the table. “Where’s the boy?” I sighed. “He jumped out of a window and ran away.” They didn’t say anything. They just piled an extra mountain of brisket onto my plate. After dinner, my older brother, Silas, stared out at the dark, looming silhouettes of the peaks. “Don’t sweat it, Nora,” he said. “That’s only your first one. I’ve had three girlfriends ditch me before we even hit the county line.” Well, at least I wasn’t the only one. When the holidays ended, I went back to the city. I planned to lock my heart away forever. But, being the fool I am, I fell in love again. Three months in, my new boyfriend, Lucas, suggested we go to his hometown. “Babe, you really don’t mind that I’m from the middle of nowhere? You’re willing to go back there with me?” “Of course I don’t mind,” I said, showing him my 24K trust. “Let’s buy the tickets today. We leave tomorrow!” I made sure he knew I had absolute faith in him. After all, it’s a civilized country. How many criminals could there really be? “Here,” I said, handing him everything. “My ID, my ticket, my phone. You keep them all. I trust you completely.” 2. After we got off the bus, Lucas repeated the same grueling itinerary: shuttle, van, dirt bike, horse-cart. He told me we’d arrive around 9:00 PM. I nodded obediently. “Sure. I’m going to sleep in the van. Don’t wake me up.” He saw how chill I was and rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Don’t worry, babe. Get some rest. I’ve got everything handled.” Ever since the last heartbreak, I’d been playing a part. I didn’t use my local slang; I spoke with the polished, neutral accent of a news anchor. I even took a speech elective to perfect it. I was committed to being a “city girl.” Lucas thought I grew up in some cookie-cutter suburb. I used that persona to prove I was “open-minded” and “didn’t look down on rural folks.” I figured I’d wait to see just how remote his place was before I told him I was basically his neighbor. The van jolted over the rugged mountain passes. I leaned my head on Lucas’s shoulder and pretended to snore. Besides the driver, a guy named Bo, we’d picked up another couple. The guy mentioned his family lived somewhere out in the sticks, too. As we drove, the landscape began to look familiar. My heart started racing with excitement. This was my town! Wait… was Lucas a scholarship kid from the next valley over? I remembered hearing about a guy who’d gotten into a top-tier school a year before me. No way. Could it be? He was the “golden boy” from Cattle Creek. I was the “smart girl” from Devil’s Ridge. It was destiny! My mother would never have to worry about a boyfriend looking down on our dusty little corner of the world again. I couldn’t stop grinning. The other girl in the van, Sadie, looked miserable. From the moment she boarded, she’d been white-knuckling her backpack, her face pale and drawn. She reminded me of my ex. To lighten the mood, I looked out at the rolling blue ridges. “Lucas, growing up here must have been amazing. I’m so jealous.” Lucas’s jaw twitched. He didn’t answer. Bo, the driver with the blurred tattoos, caught my eye in the rearview mirror. He and Lucas exchanged a look—a silent, confused question: Does this girl seriously like this hellhole? “How much longer?” Sadie’s voice was brittle. “Almost there,” her boyfriend, Cody, said. “Just over the next ridge. Then we switch to the cart for the final stretch.” “A cart?” Sadie’s voice spiked. “You said your family lived right outside the city!” The air in the van turned to ice. I tried to play peacemaker. “Hey, the country is great! Fresh air, honest people. Don’t worry, Sadie. It’s not like both our boyfriends are secretly human traffickers, right?” 3. Across the valley, past the river that marked the border, you could see the flickering lights of the “no-man’s-land” villages. The van we were in even had some faded Spanish lettering on the dashboard that looked like it belonged to a cartel transport. As soon as the words left my mouth, the temperature in the van dropped another ten degrees. Sadie went ghost-white. She stared at Cody. “Give me my ID. Now.” “Stop being dramatic,” Cody said, trying to grab her hand. She shoved him away. “Give it to me!” Bo slammed on the brakes. Everyone lurched forward. “We’re here.” We were in a clearing halfway up a ridge. A battered old horse-cart sat there, an old man with a hunched back holding the reins. Usually, these carts were for farmers selling produce, gathered under the giant oak tree in town where everyone shared news. But this was isolated. Just one cart. Waiting. “I’m not going,” Sadie said, backing away. “I want to go home.” The smile vanished from Cody’s face. “Don’t be difficult.” “There are no road signs,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “And now a horse-cart? Nora, don’t you think this is weird?” I tried to soothe her. “Well… some of these mountain hollers are really deep in. We’re still on the US side of the river, Sadie. It’s okay!” When she heard that, her eyes filled with pure despair. She turned to run back toward the main road. Cody lunged, grabbing her around the waist. She started screaming. Bo cursed and reached under his seat for a tattered rag. The next thing I knew, Lucas caught the rag Bo tossed and pressed it hard over my nose and mouth. It happened so fast. Before the darkness took me, I saw Bo and Cody hoisting a limp Sadie onto the cart. Damn it. This was embarrassing. I was being kidnapped in my own backyard. My Ivy League degree was about to be canceled out by the sheer humiliation of being sold three miles from my uncle’s house. Right before I went under, I heard Lucas mutter: “This one’s a college grad. We can get fifteen grand for her, easy.” 4. When I opened my eyes, I was in Cattle Creek. Well, at least I wasn’t being sold in my own village. I was being sold right in front of my uncle’s place instead. Sadie was gone—taken somewhere else. Lucas and Bo had me tied up, and they dumped me unceremoniously onto the dirt from the cart. It was pitch black, but I recognized the stone marker at the edge of the village. Bo was itching for a cigarette. “Go ahead,” he told Lucas. “I’m gonna go see my girl for a few days. Catch up with me when the deal’s done.” Lucas nodded. “Don’t get yourself killed over some woman.” Bo grinned, looking me up and down. “You’re the one who’s always so disciplined. Why not have some fun before we ship her off? Look at Cody and the other girl…” “Forget it,” Lucas snapped. “His girl is worth five grand. Mine is worth fifteen. No comparison.” Bo left, and Lucas dragged me toward a small shack. “Don’t even think about running,” he hissed. “These mountains are a maze. You’ll never find your way out without me. If you want to make this easy on yourself, do what the buyer says. You’ll get beaten less that way.” “Is Lucas even your real name? Was our whole relationship just a long con to sell me?” I asked, giving him the ‘soul-searching’ triple question. He ignored me. “You know you’re breaking the law, right? If I keep my job in the city, I can make eighty thousand a year. You’re selling me for fifteen? You’re a terrible businessman.” He laughed. “You’d give me eighty thousand? I can make fifteen in a day. You’re the college grad—do the math.” I nodded slowly. “Got it. You’re right.” Since he’d made up his mind to sell me, I didn’t need to be polite anymore. He looked at me suspiciously. He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t sobbing or screaming. “Why aren’t you scared?” “I’ve always loved the mountains,” I said calmly. “Being here… it feels like coming home. Like I finally belong.” He stared at me, looking like he’d just swallowed a fly. I could see the thought crossing his mind: Is she brain-damaged? We walked a bit further, and I saw a familiar wooden flagpole by the road. As a kid, I’d spent every summer terrorizing this village with my cousins. Cattle Creek still whispered legends about me—the girl who climbed onto the roof of the general store to catch the mayor cheating with a local widow. The boy who’d climbed up there with me was my loyal sidekick—Josh.

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All because I refused to cook a goddamn meal for the man Victoria had spent her whole life loving. That was why she pulled the plug on my mother’s treatment. I was burning up with a hundred-and-three-degree fever, kneeling in the freezing sleet outside her townhouse for an entire night, begging her. I called her phone over and over, my fingers numb and bleeding from the cold, until the line finally went dead. She had blocked me. By the time I dragged myself back to the oncology ward, my mother was already gone. She died in agonizing pain. And Victoria’s golden boy? He was posting a photo of the two of them on Instagram. In the picture, they were smiling, flushed with wine and the thrill of being together. The caption read: “If you’re the one waiting at the end of it all, I don’t mind that it took this long.” I went numb. I handled my mother’s cremation with hollowed-out efficiency, sent Victoria a text saying we were done, and tried to disappear. But she wouldn’t let me go. 1 “Victoria. We’re done.” I could endure the neglect. I could stomach the countless times Victoria cast me aside the second Spencer snapped his fingers. I could even swallow my pride and play the role of the dutiful, invisible boyfriend while she chased the ghost of her childhood sweetheart. But I would never—could never—forgive her for treating my mother’s life as collateral damage. She had cut off the funding and revoked the specialist care for my mom’s stage-four cancer without a second thought. She knew. She knew better than anyone that time was the only thing keeping my mother breathing, that every delayed hour was a death sentence. And she signed the order anyway. All because I wouldn’t play private chef for the man she was having an emotional affair with. It was absurd. It was so profoundly sick. In her eyes, a living, breathing human being was worth less than a moment of her lover’s fleeting comfort. My mother’s life weighed less than a plate of food. After the funeral, I went back to the house to pack the last of my things. It wasn’t until I was sitting in my cramped, temporary studio apartment that I realized I had left the locket behind. It was a delicate silver thing, hand-crafted for my eighteenth birthday. Mom had taken it to Father Thomas at our old parish to have it blessed. I had left it on the dresser in Victoria’s master bedroom. I had no choice. I had to go back to the estate. I thought the house would be empty. But the moment I pushed open the heavy oak doors, I found myself staring dead at Victoria and Spencer. They looked exhausted but glowing, designer luggage scattered across the marble foyer. God knows where they had just flown in from. Victoria caught sight of me, a cynical, mocking smirk twisting her lips. “So, you finally decided to crawl back?” “Spencer is going to crash here for a few days,” she ordered, tossing her coat onto a chair. “Go upstairs and get the guest suite ready.” I stared at her, genuinely marveling at the sheer audacity of her mind. Why was it that every time Spencer graced us with his presence, I was expected to play the help? Looking at them now, it felt like I was the beaten-down spouse being forced to fluff the pillows for the mistress. Before I could even formulate a rejection, Spencer flashed me a practiced, apologetic smile. He casually, almost territorially, draped his arm over Victoria’s shoulder. “Cole, man, I’m so sorry. Vic and I just got back from Gstaad, and the jet lag is brutal. We’re just too wiped to deal with hotels right now. You don’t mind taking care of us for a couple of days, do you?” “You’re cool with that, right?” A laugh tore out of my throat. It was jagged and ugly. So that was it. While my mother was suffocating in a hospital bed, they were skiing in the Swiss Alps. A week ago, Spencer had a sudden craving. He mentioned to Victoria that he wanted to try “Cole’s famous home cooking.” He wanted me to make him dinner. I had a fever that was cooking my brain, and I was terrified for my mother whose vitals were dropping. I politely declined. Spencer threw a subtle, passive-aggressive fit. I have no idea what he whispered to Victoria behind closed doors. But the next morning, I got the call from the hospital administrators. Victoria had revoked the medical mandate. The hospital was part of the Kensington Medical Group. Her family owned the board. They had the best oncologists in the country on payroll. Without Victoria’s explicit authorization, no one there would touch my mother. I called her until my phone battery died. I got nothing. Two days later, the delay in treatment caused massive organ failure. My mom died screaming. And Victoria? She was flying across the Atlantic with the love of her life. When my world was ending, she didn’t even bother to look back. While my mother was howling in the ICU, while I was freezing my knees off in the snow—what was she doing? She was curled up in his arms. My entire body was vibrating. I had to curl my hands into fists so tight my nails cut into my palms, just to keep myself from doing something I couldn’t undo. “Victoria, we are broken up.” My voice was eerily calm. “From this second forward, your life is none of my fucking business. And do not ever ask me to do another goddamn thing for Spencer.” 2 I bypassed them entirely, walking straight toward the master closet to retrieve the locket from the jewelry stand. When I crossed back through the living room, Victoria and Spencer were sitting thigh-to-thigh on the sofa. Victoria was swirling a glass of Cabernet. She fixed me with a dark, glacial stare. “Stop right there. Did I say you were dismissed?” “Do you think my house is a revolving door? You walk out when you throw a tantrum and waltz back in when it suits you?” “Cole, if you take one step out that door today, you can go ahead and plan your mother’s funeral.” I froze. My foot hovered over the carpet. She was… she was holding my mother hostage? Victoria knew exactly how much my mother meant to me. She was the center of my universe. And Victoria leveraged that. She knew that as long as my mom was sick, I couldn’t afford to leave. I was trapped. I had to be her obedient little dog, taking every ounce of disrespect, every blatant betrayal involving Spencer, because I needed her money to keep my mom alive. But she didn’t know the game was already over. I had buried my mother yesterday. There was nothing left keeping me here. Any thread tying me to Victoria Kensington had been incinerated in that crematorium. Misinterpreting my silence as surrender, Victoria lifted her chin, her tone dripping with arrogant triumph. “I’m starving. Go make dinner for me and Spencer. Do that, and I’ll pretend this little rebellion of yours never happened.” God. Who the hell did she think she was? I looked at her, my eyes entirely dead. “Are you deaf, Victoria? I said we are done. You want me to cook for you and your little side piece? You aren’t worth the dirt on my shoes.” I had never spoken to her like that. For years, I was the peacemaker. I smoothed out the rough edges. I swallowed my pride. But standing there, knowing my mother was in an urn on my cheap apartment counter, Victoria Kensington meant absolutely nothing to me. She was just a stranger in an expensive suit. Her face darkened instantly, a storm brewing behind her eyes. “Watch your mouth, Cole. My patience has limits.” I knew that. God, I knew that better than anyone. In six years, every fight ended with me apologizing. She never once tried to comfort me. Every dinner date, I arrived thirty minutes early because Victoria didn’t wait for people. I remembered our first hiking trip, back when things were new. I asked her to wait ten minutes while I grabbed us water from a crowded kiosk. When I got back, she was gone. She had just started the trail without me, leaving me in the dust without a text. From that day on, my eyes were glued to my watch. Victoria only had patience for Spencer. It didn’t matter if it was 3:00 AM; if Spencer called, she was in her car, speeding through the rain. If Spencer kept her waiting for hours, she sat there with a smile. Never a complaint. Never a sigh. Everyone in our social circle knew the truth: Victoria Kensington had been waiting for Spencer for six years. They met in prep school. They were the golden couple. Then Spencer took off for Europe, chasing art or business or whatever excuse he used to avoid settling down. And Victoria waited. And then… she bumped into me. I was just the placeholder. The understudy. I met her in my senior year of college. She was brilliant, radiant, untouchable. In a crowded room, she was the only thing I saw. I fell for her, hard and fast. But I was drowning. My mom had just gotten her diagnosis. I was working three jobs, trying to scrape together enough money for chemo. That was when Victoria swooped in. She paid the bills. She saved us. I thought it was fate. I thought we were soulmates, drawn together by tragedy and love. I didn’t know her heart was already occupied by a ghost everyone else seemed to know about. None of her friends told me. None of our mutuals warned me. I played the happy idiot for three years, convinced I was the love of her life. I even proposed. I bought a ring. I thought I was the luckiest man alive. Then, six months ago, Spencer moved back to the States. The day he landed was the day of my mom’s high-risk surgery. Victoria and I were in the car, heading to the hospital. Her phone rang. She took the call, pulled the car over, got out, and hailed a cab. She didn’t show up for the surgery. Because Spencer’s flight had touched down at JFK. Since that day, Victoria morphed into someone else. The canceled dates turned into blatant, unapologetic abandonments. Spencer started showing up at our house, claiming his territory, taking what he wanted. She couldn’t spare ten minutes to sit with me in the oncology waiting room. She couldn’t wait two minutes for me at a restaurant. On our anniversary, I woke up violently ill. I popped ibuprofen, praying the fever would break. Victoria hadn’t even come home the night before. I was so dizzy I couldn’t stand. The migraine was blinding. I couldn’t even see the screen of my phone to call for help. Victoria went to the restaurant I had booked. She sat there for exactly ten minutes before calling me. “You’re two minutes late. Where the hell are you?” I tried to ask her to call me an ambulance. She scoffed, called me pathetic, and hung up. Leaving me alone on the bathroom floor, too weak to dial 911. That night, my fever finally broke. I opened Instagram. The first thing on my feed was a photo of her and Spencer, shopping on Fifth Avenue. She was smiling a smile I hadn’t seen in years. She couldn’t wait two minutes for me. She abandoned me when I was half-dead on our floor. But she was perfectly happy waiting three hours for Spencer to try on watches. The memory fractured as Spencer stepped in front of Victoria, looking at me with feigned disappointment. “Cole, listen. Even if you don’t want to cook for us, there’s no need to talk to Vic like that. Throwing around the word ‘breakup’ every time you throw a tantrum… it’s toxic, man.” I let out a harsh breath, shaking my head. “Who the fuck do you think you are? This is between her and me. Keep your mouth shut.” Spencer’s smile faltered. He immediately dropped his gaze, playing the victim perfectly. “Cole… I’m sorry if I overstepped. I just…” As he spoke, he took a clumsy, theatrical step forward. He “tripped,” his hand jerking out. The full glass of red wine splashed directly onto the silver locket in my hand. Spencer let out an exaggerated gasp, grabbing his sleeve to frantically dab at the metal. In the chaos, his hand shoved mine. The locket slipped. It hit the marble floor. The clasp snapped. The delicate silver chain broke apart, the tiny beads and religious medals scattering across the stone with a sickening, chaotic clatter. The jade cross my mother had worn around her neck for twenty years—the one housed inside the locket—shattered right down the middle. I snapped my head up. Through the mess of apologies, I caught the fleeting, venomous smirk in Spencer’s eyes. He did it on purpose. Something inside me—the last remaining thread of my sanity—snapped. Before I even realized my feet were moving, my fist was already connecting with his jaw. 3 Neither of them expected the violence. The room plunged into a suffocating, echoing silence. The smack of bone on bone seemed to ring off the high ceilings. It took a few seconds for reality to set in. Victoria lunged forward, grabbing Spencer’s arm to steady him. When she looked at me, her eyes were absolute murder. “Cole! Have you lost your damn mind?! Who gave you the right to touch him?!” Spencer cradled his cheek, his voice trembling perfectly. “Cole, man, I swear it was an accident. I’ll pay for the necklace, whatever it costs…” “Heh… hahahaha…” The laughter bubbled up from my chest, raw and hysterical. Tears blurred my vision, threatening to spill over, but I forced my eyes wide, glaring at Spencer with pure, unadulterated hatred. “Pay? Pay for it?!” My voice cracked, echoing in the massive room. “With what, Spencer? Are you going to give me a life for a life?!” My mother was dead. This was the only thing I had left of her. And now it was ruined. Just like everything else. Victoria scoffed. The sound was so cold it chilled the blood in my veins. “It’s a cheap piece of junk, Cole. It broke. Get over it. I’ll buy you a thousand of them.” Before I could react, she reached down, snatched the broken half of the locket from the floor, and threw it hard against the marble. But that wasn’t enough. In her designer heels, she brought her foot down. The stiletto heel dug into the fragile silver casing, crushing it completely flat. I stared at the mangled metal, my brain misfiring. The grief, the rage, the profound exhaustion of the last six years surged up, threatening to blow my skull apart. I threw myself toward her, my voice tearing from my throat. “Stop! Get off of it!” Victoria didn’t even flinch. She just kicked me back, a sharp thrust of her heel into my shin. Then, right in front of my eyes, she ground her heel in again, twisting it until the silver was nothing but a deformed piece of scrap. When she was finished, she looked down at me, her expression completely detached. “Apologize to Spencer.” I collapsed onto my knees. My hands were shaking uncontrollably as I reached out to gather the jagged shards of the locket and the shattered jade. The sharp edges sliced into my fingertips. Blood beaded up, mixing with the tears falling from my chin, but I couldn’t feel the pain. I just tried, frantically, to piece it back together. When I didn’t answer, Victoria’s jaw clenched. She reached down to grab my collar. I whipped my head around. The look I gave her—the absolute, soul-deep revulsion radiating from my eyes—made her hand stop in mid-air. She instinctively pulled back. “I won’t say it again, Cole.” In that moment, I hated myself more than I hated her. Mom, I’m so useless. I couldn’t even protect the last thing you gave me. Victoria seemed to register the shift in me. She opened her mouth, the anger faltering slightly, but Spencer cut her off. He tugged on her sleeve, whimpering. “Vic, my jaw is killing me. Can you look at it?” A bruise was already forming, angry and purple, where my knuckles had connected. Victoria’s eyes darted to his face, softening for a fraction of a second, before snapping back to me, the fury returning tenfold. “Cole, I have been way too lenient with you. I am giving you one last chance. Apologize to Spencer. Now.” It was an ultimatum, heavy with threat. “And if I don’t?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, holding her gaze. She narrowed her eyes, delivering the killing blow. “Do you just not care if your mother lives or dies anymore?” I let out a breath. And then, I smiled. It was a broken, tired smile. “I’m laughing at how stupid you are, Victoria. Do you really think I’m the same guy you can just push around? You think you can just snap your fingers and I’ll drop to my knees? If you had bothered to make a single phone call, you wouldn’t be standing there making threats you can’t cash.” If my mother were still breathing, I wouldn’t just apologize to Spencer. I would wash his feet if it meant keeping her safe. But she was gone. Victoria had no leverage left. She had nothing. Spencer stepped forward, his voice rising in panic. “Vic, I told you! I told you guys like him are manipulative liars!” “If his mom was really that sick, why is he acting so calm right now? I bet he’s been faking the whole thing just to drain your bank account!” “Shut your fucking mouth!” I roared, the sound ripping from my chest, cutting his slander dead. “You parasitic piece of shit!” Victoria had seen the reality of my mother’s illness. She had been there when the chemotherapy made her vomit blood. She knew the sacrifices I made. But as Spencer called me a liar, she stood there. Silent. Complicit. And then, she delivered the final verdict. “Cole, this is the last time. Say you’re sorry to Spencer, and I will pretend none of this happened. Your mother keeps her doctors.” 4 “Go to hell.” That did it. The ice in her eyes shattered. She let out a harsh, incredulous laugh, still fully believing she held all the cards. “I got your mother the best oncologist on the East Coast. If you swallow your pride right now, I’ll make sure the treatments continue.” “But you’re really pushing it, Cole. It seems like you need to learn the hard way.” She pulled out her phone, her manicured thumb tapping aggressively at the screen. I watched her with a dead, hollowed-out expression. There was a sick part of me that wanted her to press call. I wanted her to realize how monumentally stupid she was. I wanted her to feel the floor drop out from under her. When I didn’t drop to the floor and beg, her finger trembled slightly. But her pride won. She hit the dial button, calling her executive assistant. The phone was on speaker. The assistant’s voice came through, frantic and confused. “Ms. Kensington? Mr. Cole’s mother… wait, did you not know? She passed away.”

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The holidays were screaming toward us—that frantic, tinsel-draped stretch between Christmas and New Year—when my parents dropped the bomb. They were leaving. Not for a vacation, but for good. “Tyler and Madison said things are too crazy at work,” my father announced, not looking me in the eye as he packed a crate of old records. “They can’t get the time off to fly back here. It’s too much of a hassle.” “So your father and I decided we’ll just go to them,” my mother added, her face lit with a glow I hadn’t seen in years. She looked twenty years younger just talking about it. “If Madison and I hit it off, we might just stay through the spring. Maybe longer.” She leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “They’re going to start trying for a baby soon. They’ll need me there. A grandmother’s touch, you know? It’s different from hiring help.” They kept talking, their voices overlapping in a frantic, joyful duet. They were already mapping out a new life in a city halfway across the country, a place where my brother Tyler had built a life they actually wanted to be part of. I felt a coldness settle in my chest. “And me?” I asked, my voice cutting through their excitement. “Where am I supposed to go for the holidays?” My mother paused, a look of genuine confusion flickering across her features. “Don’t you have Mark’s family? You’re married, Nora.” … “You’re one of them now,” she continued, patting my hand as if she were comforting a distant cousin. “Spend the New Year with the in-laws. When you have a long weekend, you can fly down and visit us. You’ll be our guest.” A guest. The word tasted like ash. My brother gets married, and suddenly my childhood home—the very concept of ‘home’—migrates to whatever city he happens to live in? I looked at her, my mind racing back to three years ago. Back to the reason I was even standing in this kitchen in suburban Ohio. I had been in love with Simon. We had been together for eight years, a lifetime of shared jokes and Sunday mornings. He was perfect—or as close to it as a human can get. His family was the kind you see in Hallmark movies, and more importantly, his city was the hub for my industry. Moving there wouldn’t have just been a romantic choice; it would have been a career leap. My salary would have tripled overnight. But my mother had spent every night for a month weeping. She’d sit at the edge of my bed, her eyes red-rimmed, clutching my hand. “They say travel is easy now,” she’d sob. “A three-hour flight, they say. But you’ll have a life, Nora. You’ll have a job. You won’t have two days to waste on airports just to sit in this living room for a few hours. You’ll make excuses. You’ll stay away.” She’d bring up the neighbors. “Look at Sarah. She moved to Seattle and we haven’t seen her in three years. There’s always a sick kid or a deadline. I only have maybe thirty years left, Nora. Am I only going to see you thirty more times before I die?” That was the line that broke me. It was the ultimate emotional ransom. I chose my mother over my soulmate. I walked away from Simon and the high-paying career, moved back to this sleepy town, and married Mark—a “stable” local guy I met through a family friend—just to be near her. I wanted to be the daughter who took her for walks when her knees gave out, the one who brought her favorite pastries on a Tuesday just because. And now, the moment Tyler—the golden son—called from the sun-drenched coast, her “thirty years” didn’t seem to matter. Her proximity to me was suddenly a disposable luxury. It was a masterclass in hypocrisy. “But Tyler’s city is thousands of miles away,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “If you and Dad move there, you won’t be coming back here much, will you?” My mother laughed, a light, airy sound. “Why would we come back? My son is there. My grandson will be there. That’s where the roots are now. I suppose they’ll fly us back in boxes when we’re gone, but until then? We’re looking forward, Nora.” She didn’t even look sad. She was vibrating with the thrill of a fresh start, one that didn’t include me. “But I’m still here,” I whispered. “I married a local man. It’s going to be hard for me to just drop everything to see you.” She didn’t even register the hurt in my voice. “Oh, honey, you need to focus on your own little family. Build a good relationship with your mother-in-law. Be a good wife so Mark doesn’t have a hard time. And really, you two should start thinking about kids. It’s time.” She kept preaching about how I belonged to Mark’s family now, how my duty was to them. If that was the case, why did she chain me here three years ago? I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw a fit. What would be the point? To force a hollow apology? To make her stay and resent me the way I secretly resented her? I wasn’t going to beg for a place in a heart that clearly had no room for me. I numbly helped her pack. I drove them to the airport. I watched them disappear through security without a single backward glance. A week later, she called. “Madison’s pregnant! It’s happening, Nora! We’re selling the house here—we need the cash to help them put a down payment on a bigger place with an in-law suite. If anyone wants to tour the house, I told the realtor you’d have the keys.” Even the house wasn’t mine to return to. The last physical tether was being severed for a down payment in a city I’d never been to. On the second day of the New Year, I was at Mark’s parents’ house, doing exactly what was expected of me. I was the “good wife,” hosting his sisters and their families, managing a mountain of laundry and a twelve-person dinner by myself. I didn’t mind the work. The busyness kept the silence in my head from getting too loud. I told myself I could handle this. People move on. Families change. But then, the doorbell rang. Standing on the porch was a woman I recognized from old photos on Mark’s phone. It was Becca, his ex. She was holding a toddler who looked to be about two years old. “He’s Mark’s,” she said, her voice trembling but defiant. “And Mark needs to step up.” I froze. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Mark walked up behind me, his face turning a sickly shade of gray. “Becca? If you were pregnant when we broke up, why the hell didn’t you tell me?” She let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “Your mother hated me, Mark. She made it clear I wasn’t ‘good enough’ for this family. If she knew I was pregnant, she would have shredded me. I wasn’t going to let her touch my baby.” I knew their story. They had been “the” couple in high school. Madly in love, until Mark’s mother decided Becca’s family background wasn’t prestigious enough. She had used every guilt trip in the book—the tears, the “heart palpitations”—to force them apart. It was a mirror of my own story, only Mark had folded even faster than I had. “Why now?” I asked, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. If she had come forward sooner, I never would have married him. Becca looked at me with bored eyes. “I’m young. I want a life. I found someone—a guy with money—and he doesn’t want another man’s baggage. This kid is a Miller. He belongs to you people.” She practically pushed the boy into Mark’s arms and walked away. Mark didn’t stop her. He just stood there, holding a child that was a living testament to a life he’d lived before me. Inside, the house erupted. Mark’s mother and sisters were already hovering, cooing over the boy. “Look at his eyes,” his sister whispered. “He’s the spitting image of Mark at that age.” The joy in the room was suffocating. They had a new toy, a new legacy. No one looked at me. No one asked how I felt about my marriage being firebombed on a Tuesday afternoon. That night, Mark sat on the edge of our bed, his head in his hands. “The timeline works out,” he said. “I’ll do a DNA test tomorrow, but… if he’s mine, Nora…” He looked at me, and I saw the resolve in his eyes. “I can’t turn my back on my own blood.” “So I’m just supposed to be a stepmother?” I asked. “Just like that? Overnight?” I started shoving clothes into a suitcase. He jumped up, trying to grab my arm. “Where are you going? Your parents sold the house, Nora. You have nowhere to go.” It’s the classic line from a bad movie. Where will you go? You have no one. I lived ten minutes from the street where I grew up, and my husband was telling me I was homeless. “There are hotels, Mark. We need space. I need a plan. Because I’m telling you now: I didn’t sign up for this. If this is the new reality, I want a divorce.” I wasn’t being cruel; I was being honest. I had spent my life being the “sensible” one, the one who sacrificed. I wasn’t going to sacrifice my future for a child that was a product of a lie by omission. But as I tried to leave, his mother and sisters blocked the hallway. They took my suitcase out of my hands. They swarmed me like a hive of angry bees. “The baby is here, Nora. You can’t just put him back!” “Even if you leave, who are you going to find? A thirty-year-old divorcee? You’ll just end up with some other guy’s kid anyway. At least this one is family.” “Don’t be so selfish. This is a blessing for the Miller family.” I couldn’t even finish a sentence before they drowned me out. I was trapped. I had a phone, but who was I going to call? My parents were three time zones away, busy playing house with Tyler. I had stayed for them, but when the storm hit, I realized I was standing in an open field alone. I locked myself in the guest room and cried until my throat burned. When Mark eventually came in, he didn’t apologize. He didn’t hold me. He just got into bed and turned his back to me. “He’s my son,” he said into the darkness. “I’m not giving him up.” The betrayal felt like a physical weight. I had tried so hard to be the perfect daughter, the perfect wife. And in the end, I was just a placeholder. I thought about Simon. I wondered if he was happy. I wondered if he had a wife who didn’t have to fight for her right to exist in her own home. For the first time since I said goodbye to him, I felt the sharp, agonizing sting of regret. The next morning, I woke up with a fever that made my bones ache. My throat was so swollen I could barely swallow. But the house was empty. They had all gone to the clinic for the DNA test, then to look at preschools. They had started their new life without me. I needed help, but it was the holidays. Every friend I had was busy with their own families. I lay there, shivering, the silence of the house mocking me. Eventually, I had to crawl—literally crawl—to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of lukewarm water from the tap. The DNA results came back a few days later. 99.9%. When they gathered in the living room, glowing with the news, I handed Mark the papers. “I want a divorce.” The insults started immediately. They called me heartless. They called me “less of a woman” for not having an instinctual love for the boy. “You think you’re so special?” Mark’s mother hissed. “Go ahead. Leave. See where you end up. Your brother won’t want you cluttering up his new guest room.” Mark didn’t defend me. He just watched me walk out the door. The only stroke of luck I had was a single cancelled ticket on a train heading east. As I sat in the quiet car, watching the Ohio landscape blur into a grey smudge, I sent Mark a draft of a settlement. I told him I’d let the lawyers handle the rest. I was going to a city where I knew no one. I was starting over with a bruised heart and a resume that was three years out of date. But as the train picked up speed, I felt a strange, terrifying lightness. I was finally, for the better or worse, on my own.

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It started with a dare. A stupid, drunken game that ended with my boyfriend’s mouth on another woman’s. Bennett and I hadn’t even shared a kiss that night before Tina lunged forward, pushing me aside to claim his lips for herself. “Stop messing around, Tess. It’s Claire’s birthday,” Bennett said, his voice laced with that infuriatingly indulgent tone as he pinched her cheek. The room went deathly silent. My friends sat frozen on the velvet sofas of the lounge, eyes darting between me and the girl currently preening under my fiancé’s touch. Tina giggled, a sharp, girlish sound. “Don’t be mad, Claire. Bennett doesn’t even see me as a girl. Right, Ben?” Bennett looked at me, his expression shifting into that familiar mask of weary patience. “It was just a dare, Claire. Don’t be so sensitive. Don’t ruin the night.” … Everyone expected me to explode. They were waiting for the tears, the screaming match, the usual dramatics that defined our three-year cycle of “Bennett and Tina vs. Me.” Instead, I felt a strange, hollow calm. I reached down, slid the engagement ring off my finger, and took Tina’s hand. I slipped the diamond onto her ring finger. It glided on perfectly. “Let me know when the wedding is,” I said quietly. “Oh my God, Bennett! You’re so sweet. What have you been eating? Honey?” Tina’s voice was a saccharine coo that filled the private booth. Bennett had been looking at her with a soft, reminiscent smile, but as the silence of the room finally registered, he noticed me—standing there, having been shoved onto the edge of the sofa. He let go of Tina’s face and gave her a playful swat on the back of her head. “Alright, enough. It’s Claire’s birthday.” Tina pouted, her lower lip trembling with practiced precision. “Ugh… Claire isn’t going to be that girl, is she? It was just a dare.” The air in the room felt thick. This wasn’t a harmless slap on the wrist or a shot of tequila. This was a kiss. A real one. I saw a few of our friends pull their shoulders in, bracing for the impact. They knew my history. They knew I usually fought for him until I was breathless. But I just looked at the ring. Then I looked at Tina. I walked over and slid it onto her finger. It was a perfect fit. Eerily so. I forced a smile. “Invite me to the wedding.” The room gasped. Even Tina looked stunned, her eyes wide as she stared at the rock on her hand. “Claire, it’s a game. Are you seriously doing this right now?” Bennett’s voice had turned icy. “I know it’s a game,” I replied, my voice steady. “I’m just helping you guys win.” Bennett’s face darkened, a muscle leaping in his jaw. Tina tugged at his sleeve, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Fine, Bennett. It’s my fault. I didn’t realize she’d be so… fragile about it.” She slipped the ring off and tossed it toward me with a careless flick of her wrist. “Here. Stop being mad. I didn’t mean anything by it.” The ring hit me square in the cheek before clattering onto the floor. Clink. The silence was absolute. My cheek stung, but my heart felt nothing. I bent down, picked up the ring, and looked at it one last time. “If you don’t want it, then it’s useless,” I said. I tossed it into the tall trash can by the door. “Claire, are you insane?” one of our friends yelled. “That’s your engagement ring! Bennett spent a fortune on that!” “Quick! Get it out!” “Where did it go? I can’t see it!” Suddenly, half the party was scavenging through the trash, hands diving past discarded watermelon rinds, beer cans, and someone’s half-eaten burger. But the ring was small, and the trash was deep. Tina looked panicked now, clutching Bennett’s arm. Her eyes welled with tears. “Bennett, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think she’d react like this. Is it me? Am I the problem? We’ve just always been so close, I forgot…” Bennett stepped in front of her, shielding her with his body. “Stop! Everyone, stop looking!” They froze, looking up at him from the trash can. His eyes pierced through me, cold and judgmental. “If you can’t handle the game, why did you play?” he spat. “Now everyone is miserable because of you. Are you happy now?” A lump formed in my throat, but I refused to let it break. Tina was the one who kissed my fiancé. I was the one being “flexible.” And somehow, I was the villain who ruined the party. In the past, I would have sobbed. I would have pointed at Tina and listed every boundary she’d crossed since we started dating. But looking at them now, I just felt… finished. I picked up my purse. “Then I’ll leave. Enjoy the rest of the night.” As the heavy door swung shut behind me, I heard someone whisper, “Wait… it’s Claire’s birthday. It’s kind of messed up that she’s leaving, right?” Bennett’s voice was sharp, impatient. “Let her go. She needs to grow up. Anyway, Tina just got that faculty position at the university. Since the cake is already here, let’s celebrate her instead.” The room erupted into cheers again. “Congrats, Tina! To a brilliant career!” I felt something cold on my cheek. I wiped it away. I was crying. But I wasn’t sad. I was just… empty. I grew up in the faculty housing of a prestigious university, always the quiet girl in the shadow of the golden boy, Bennett. He was the star, the genius, and I was the one who studied until my eyes bled just to see my name next to his on the Dean’s List. I never had Tina’s spark. I was the polite stranger in his life until we got to college. When Tina went to a local state school and got a boyfriend, I finally found the courage to tell him how I felt. And by some miracle, he said yes. From that moment on, every choice I made was for him. He wanted to stay and teach, so I turned down a fellowship in Europe. My advisor begged me to go, citing all the brilliant researchers who had gone on to become department heads before thirty. I just blushed and told her, “A quiet life with him is enough for me.” I gave him everything. And he never even considered me. Standing in the freezing night air, I took a long, shaky breath and dialed my old mentor. “Professor? Is that spot on the Dublin project still open?” There was a pause, then a surprised laugh. “Claire? Did you finally come to your senses?” “I think I did.” “Of course it’s open! I’ve been fending off interns for weeks hoping you’d call. When can you be here?” I smiled. “Give me two weeks. I need to get my affairs in order.” I spent the next few hours deep-diving into the project details. Dublin was hours ahead. By the time I finished the call, the sun was starting to peek through the clouds in Ireland. Here, it was nearly 3:00 AM. My head throbbed. I ran a hot bath and sank into it, letting the steam coat my skin. The exhaustion hit me like a wave. I put on some ambient music and drifted off right there in the tub. I woke to the sound of the front door slamming. “Claire?” It was Bennett. His voice echoed through the apartment, growing more agitated as he moved through the rooms. When he finally shoved open the bathroom door, his expression was dark. “Claire.” He looked at me with genuine reproach. I didn’t understand what he was angry about. Was he mad I wasn’t waiting on the sofa to scream at him? Mad I didn’t ask where he’d been for the last four hours? “You’re back,” I said, my voice raspy. “Sorry, I fell asleep. I didn’t hear you.” I gripped the edge of the tub and looked at him. “Could you please step out?” My tone was polite, distant. Like I was talking to a landlord. He frowned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looked exhausted. “I’m late because Tina was wasted. Her ex has been stalking her again, and I couldn’t just leave a girl alone in that state…” “I get it. Safety first,” I said. He froze. I gave him a small, tight smile. “You’re… not mad?” I actually laughed. “Why would I be mad? You’ve been best friends since you were in diapers. Of course you’d see her home. Especially since she lives alone.” For a second, Bennett looked at me like I was a stranger. I waited for him to move, but when he didn’t, I simply stood up and reached for my towel. We lived together; he’d seen it all before, but suddenly, the familiarity felt wrong. I wrapped the towel around myself and walked past him. He grabbed my wrist. “Claire, just say it. Whatever you’re thinking, just spit it out.” I blinked. “Say what?” “You… you usually have a lot to say,” he muttered, his grip loosening. I thought about it. In the past, every fight involving Tina was a marathon of me trying to explain why his “friendship” felt like a betrayal. But I realized then that you only go crazy when you’re still trying to save something. I didn’t feel the need to save anything anymore. I gently pried his hand off. “Don’t be silly. It’s after 2:00 AM and I have lab work tomorrow. Let’s just go to sleep.” His hand stayed suspended in mid-air. I yawned. “Don’t stay up too late. Goodnight.” I climbed into bed and closed my eyes. A moment later, a thunderous BANG shook the walls. Bennett had slammed the bedroom door from the outside. I knew why he was angry. He had offered me a “truce”—a chance to play my part in our usual drama—and I had refused to take the bait. I slept better than I had in years. The next morning, I was ordering takeout when the door opened. A small, elegant cake was placed on the table. Bennett sat behind it. “Late birthday wish. Happy birthday, Claire.” I paused, my thumb hovering over the ‘pay’ button on my phone. “I know yesterday was a mess,” he said, his long, pale fingers sliding his phone toward me. “And I know the ring is gone. It was an old style anyway. Pick a new one. Tina… she’s a child, Claire. Don’t take her seriously. That kiss meant nothing to her. She’s just impulsive, you know how she is—” “You got me a custom cake? Thank you, Bennett. That’s so sweet.” The sudden interruption cut him off mid-sentence. He stared at me, dumbfounded. “Claire?” I leaned over the cake, reading the inscription: To my girl, eighteen forever. “What a lovely sentiment,” I said brightly. “I love it.” He scowled. “Claire…” I started grabbing plates and forks. “What?” He looked down. “Nothing.” “This bakery has the best buttercream in the city,” I chirped. “I can never get a reservation. You really put effort into this.” He gave a noncommittal grunt, looking unsettled. “Claire… the ring. Look, this one is the biggest they have. You can’t waste this one.” I slid the largest slice of cake onto a plate for him. “Here. You can’t let this go to waste.” I took a small bite of my own. “Is this a new flavor? It’s delicious.” “Claire.” His voice was tight. “Will you please look at what I’m showing you?” I looked down at his phone. It was an order page for a Tiffany & Co. True Love setting. The kind of ring that’s marketed as a once-in-a-lifetime promise. My hand trembled slightly. If he had shown me this twenty-four hours ago, I would have burst into tears of joy. Now? It just looked like an expensive piece of carbon. “No, thank you,” I said, chewing slowly. “It’s a lot of money for something so symbolic. It’s fine.” “Claire?” He looked at me like I’d grown a second head. I smiled. “Really. I’m just over that kind of thing. Don’t waste the money. The cake is more than enough.” I set my empty plate down. “I have a meeting, so I have to run. Put the dishes in the dishwasher, okay?” I turned to go to the bedroom to change. Creeeeeak—thud! The sound of his chair being shoved back. I turned around. Bennett was pocketing his phone, his face a mask of cold fury. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll give it to Tina. She actually appreciates nice things.” He slammed the door on his way out. He hadn’t touched a single bite of the cake. A few days later, I was walking past the faculty lounge when I heard the squeals. “Oh my God, it’s stunning! Look at that pavé work!” “Who bought this for our girl Tina? If a man buys you this, you marry him on the spot!” I glanced through the glass. Tina was surrounded by a gaggle of admiring TAs. On her finger sat the very ring I had seen on Bennett’s phone. The “True Love” setting. They say the meaning behind that specific cut is Love Until Death. “Oh, stop it! It’s just a gift from a friend,” Tina giggled, her eyes darting toward Bennett, who was sitting at a nearby desk. When she saw me, she feigned a gasp, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh! Claire! I didn’t see you there.” She lowered her voice, though not enough. “This isn’t from Bennett, I swear! Don’t get the wrong idea!” She had made eye contact with me the second I walked in. She had been flaunting that hand the entire time. The room went quiet. Everyone remember the “incident” at the birthday party. They all looked at me, waiting for the explosion. Bennett looked at me, too, his expression unreadable. I walked right up to Tina and took her hand, lifting it to the light. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “Your boyfriend has excellent taste.” Tina froze. Bennett’s hand, holding a coffee cup, tensed. The silence stretched until someone nervously laughed. “Well, Claire knows her jewelry. If she says it’s good, it’s good! Tina, your mystery man really pulled through.” Someone whispered loudly, “See? If it were Bennett’s, Claire would be screaming. It must be someone new.” The tension broke. “Tina, who is he? Don’t keep us in suspense!” “When’s the wedding?” Tina’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second, then she looked at me, her voice trembling with a hint of malice. “Well, I don’t know how he chose it. I just said I liked it, and he bought it for me. I didn’t think he had such… sophisticated taste.” “Take it off.” The voice was sharp. Sudden. Tina blinked, looking at Bennett.

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When my mother asked which man I wanted to marry into the Sterling family, I didn’t choose Julian this time. Instead, I chose his uncle, Sam Sterling. My mother looked at me, her expression a mix of confusion and concern. After all, everyone in the elite circles of North Heights knew that Julian and I were childhood sweethearts. I had spent ten years following him like a shadow, loudly proclaiming to anyone who would listen that I wouldn’t marry anyone else. I offered her a bitter, weary smile. My mind drifted to my previous life—the years spent in a hollow marriage where Julian never touched me. I had spent those years convinced he suffered from some secret, shameful illness, going to great lengths to protect his dignity. It wasn’t until our golden wedding anniversary that I accidentally stumbled into the basement vault he had forbidden everyone to enter. The walls were covered, floor to ceiling, with thousands of candid photographs of my cousin, Stephanie. In that moment, the truth shattered me. He wasn’t cold; he just didn’t love me. He never had. Since the universe had seen fit to give me a second chance, I decided to step aside and let them have each other. But later, when I walked toward his uncle in a Vera Wang gown, Julian’s face turned deathly pale. And then, he lost his mind. … Three days after the engagement was finalized, I ran into Julian at an upscale lounge. His friends saw me walk in and immediately began to snicker, their eyes gleaming with mockery. “Look, Julian, your little shadow is back!” “Hey, Nancy, the contract is signed, isn’t it? Do you really need to keep him on such a short leash? Can’t the guy even grab a drink with the boys?” When Julian saw me, his irritation was palpable. He looked at me as if I were a stain on his expensive suit. “Nancy, are you really that desperate?” he hissed, stepping close enough for me to smell the bourbon on his breath. “Going behind my back to get our families to settle the contract? Now everyone in the city thinks we’re engaged. You really outdid yourself this time.” The disdain in his eyes used to make my heart ache. Now, it just felt like a dull, distant noise. I took a slow breath and spoke calmly. “I didn’t need your permission. Because the man I’m marrying isn’t you.” The room went dead silent for a heartbeat before erupting into laughter. Julian’s friends were practically doubled over. “Julian, man, go comfort your little fiancée!” one of them wheezed. “Or she’s going to find an even crazier way to get your attention!” Julian frowned, his ego clearly bruised by my lack of tears. “Nancy, is this a new game? Playing hard to get?” He scoffed, stepping into my personal space. “Marrying into the Sterlings? If it’s not me, who else could it be? You’ve been screaming about being my wife since you were in pigtails. Everyone already considers you my property.” He leaned down, whispering harshly into my ear: “I’ll let the engagement thing slide. But remember this—I’ll give you a grand wedding to keep the families happy. But the legal papers? The actual marriage license? I’m saving that for the woman I actually want.” I looked up at him, stunned. In my last life, Julian had followed his family’s orders perfectly. We had signed the papers and married almost immediately. Did he… remember? Was he reborn, too? Before I could read the expression on his face, Stephanie arrived. The moment she saw Julian and me standing together, her eyes welled up with practiced precision. “Nancy… Julian…” she sobbed, her voice trembling. “I heard you’re… you’re getting married soon. I didn’t bring a gift, but I just wanted to wish you… wish you both a lifetime of happiness.” Before she could finish, she turned and ran out of the lounge, crying. “Look what you did!” Julian snarled at me. He didn’t spare me another glance before charging out after her. When they finally returned, they were holding hands, fingers interlaced. Stephanie’s lips were swollen and red, and there was a very deliberate, dark hickey on Julian’s throat. The crowd watched me with hungry eyes, waiting for the explosion. In the past, if I saw another woman so much as breathe near Julian, I would have caused a scene, screaming and crying until he looked at me. Julian stepped in front of Stephanie, shielding her, his face set in a look of defiant anticipation. He was waiting for me to break. But minutes passed, and I just sipped my sparkling water. Julian looked surprised, then let out a cold, mocking laugh. “I see you’ve finally grown some sense. At least you aren’t making a fool of yourself tonight.” When the party ended, Julian caught me by the arm. “It’s late. It’s not safe. I’ll drive you.” I didn’t decline. A free ride was a free ride. As I walked toward the car, I moved for the front passenger door, but Julian blocked me, his body a solid wall. “Sit in the back,” he said curtly. He then held the front door open for Stephanie, ushering her in with a gentleness he had never shown me. “I’m so sorry, Nancy,” Stephanie chirped from the front seat, looking back with a faux-pitying smile. “Julian is just so worried about me. He knows I get car sick if I’m not in the front.” I said nothing and climbed into the back seat—exactly where I had intended to sit anyway. The entire drive was filled with their hushed giggles and whispered inside jokes. At a red light, Stephanie leaned over, pouting, asking Julian to help her apply lip gloss. They lingered, their faces inches apart, their breathing becoming heavy and synchronized in the quiet cabin of the car. Suddenly, Julian glanced in the rearview mirror, as if remembering I was there. When he saw me staring blankly out the window, completely indifferent, his expression shifted. His jaw tightened, and he slammed the car into gear, his mood turning inexplicably foul. When we reached my house, I moved to get out, but Julian caught my wrist again. He shoved a small jewelry box into my hand, his tone condescending. “Fine. Stop with this ‘indifferent’ act. It’s beneath you.” He sighed. “This bracelet is your engagement gift. Just be a good girl, and I’ll give you the wedding. At least in the eyes of the city, you’ll be my wife.” I looked at the box, then at him. “And the marriage license? Who are you signing that with? Stephanie?” Julian’s temper flared, though there was a flicker of smug satisfaction in his eyes. “I knew you were faking. I’m warning you, Nancy—don’t you dare say a word of this to our parents. What Stephanie and I have is beyond your understanding. She’s fragile, she’s kind, and she doesn’t have a manipulative bone in her body. If you hurt her, don’t blame me if I call off the wedding entirely.” I almost laughed. He was so cowardly, so afraid to stand up to the Sterling patriarchs, yet he framed it as if I were the villain in his tragic romance. I didn’t answer. I simply turned and walked into my house. The second I closed the door, my phone buzzed. It was a video from Stephanie. In the video, Julian was carefully fastening a diamond necklace around her neck. I recognized the brand—a luxury boutique. I realized then that the bracelet Julian had shoved at me was likely a “gift with purchase” from that very necklace. The camera tilted. Their lips met, and the wet, rhythmic sound of their kissing filled my quiet hallway. “Nancy,” Stephanie’s text followed. “Julian told you, right? After the wedding, he’s signing the papers with me.” “Think about it—a marriage that isn’t legally recognized means no inheritance. No rights. I think it’s my turn to be the billionaire’s wife this time around, don’t you?” My blood ran cold. Stephanie had been reborn, too. No wonder they were moving so fast. In the previous life, they had hidden their affair for decades. Now, they were trying to rewrite history together. I looked down at my phone, remembering the business trends from my past life. After Julian and I “married,” the Sterling Group had suddenly exploded with new contracts and unprecedented growth. Everyone said I was his lucky charm. I had lived in that lie for fifty years before seeing those photos. My mother came into my room then, her voice soft. “Sam is coming back from London in five days.” I felt a spark of genuine hope. In my last life, Sam Sterling—Julian’s uncle—had never married. He was the ghost of the family, a powerful, silent figure who lived mostly abroad. I remembered him as a kind, older-brother figure from my childhood. Marrying him felt like finding a safe harbor in a storm. The next day, I went to my “secret garden”—a private glass conservatory on the rooftop of my family’s office building. I had spent years filling it with exotic blooms, all of them Julian’s favorites, in a desperate attempt to please him. Now that my future husband had changed, the garden needed to change, too. I spent the next few days clearing out the old and planting the flowers Sam preferred—deep blue hydrangeas and white lilies. I stepped away to the breakroom for a coffee, and my phone pinged. I opened Instagram to see Stephanie’s latest post. My heart stopped. The photos showed my conservatory in ruins. My carefully tended flowers were snapped at the stems, petals scattered like blood across the floor. In the center of the carnage, Julian was holding Stephanie, both of them beaming at the camera. “Julian knew I needed a place for my photoshoot, so he found this hidden gem for me! It feels so good to be loved!” I sprinted back to the roof. Inside, Julian was plucking a stray jasmine bloom—one of the few left—and tucking it behind Stephanie’s ear. “This is my private space!” I screamed, my voice cracking. “How dare you bring her here? How dare you destroy my garden!” Stephanie flinched, her eyes instantly brimming with tears. “Julian… did I do something wrong? Why is she so angry? I’m so scared…” Julian stepped in front of her, his face darkening. “Nancy, quit the theatrics. You grew these flowers for me anyway, didn’t you?” He gestured vaguely at the wreckage. “I was bored of your little obsession with this place. What does it matter if Stephanie uses it for a few photos? Stop making everything about you.” I looked at the crushed lilies on the floor, my eyes stinging. “Who said these were for you? I was preparing this for my future husband!” Julian let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter. “Give it a rest, Nancy. We all know I’m the only man you’ve ever wanted. I’ve already agreed to marry you—stop acting like a brat.” I looked at the broken petals and began to cry. Just then, a crew of workers began hauling in massive crates of sunflowers—Stephanie’s favorite. As they began to unpack them, the air became thick with yellow pollen. My throat tightened instantly. My skin began to flush a violent red. Julian knew. He had known since we were ten years old that I was deathly allergic to sunflower pollen. But his eyes weren’t on me. He was busy directing the workers, his face lit up as he watched Stephanie twirl among the bright yellow blooms. Suddenly, Stephanie let out a small gasp. “Julian… I think I scratched my finger on one of Nancy’s roses. It hurts…” Julian’s face twisted into a mask of maternal worry. He swept her up into his arms, then turned to me, his voice a roar of fury. “Nancy! Even your flowers are as spiteful and vicious as you are! If Stephanie gets an infection from this, I swear to God, you’ll pay for it!” He turned and carried her out, ignoring the way I was clutching my throat, my face turning purple, my hand reaching out to him in a desperate plea for help. I don’t know how long it took me to crawl out of that room. Every breath felt like swallowing glass. When I finally reached my medication in the office below and the air began to return to my lungs, the cold truth settled in my gut. In the past, I thought Julian just didn’t love me. I never realized he was capable of watching me die for the sake of a scratch on Stephanie’s finger. I leaned against the wall, shaking. Thank God. Thank God I wasn’t marrying him. I took several hours to compose myself. Tonight was the formal family dinner to welcome Sam back. I needed to look perfect. I needed to make a good impression. When I reached the underground parking garage, I saw a car rocking rhythmically in the distance. As I got closer, I recognized Julian’s silver Maserati. The driver’s side window was half-down. Julian had Stephanie draped over his lap. Her eyes were glazed, her body moving in a slow, steady rhythm. Even though I no longer loved him, the sheer audacity of it—doing this in the family garage before a formal dinner—made my chest tighten. Julian opened his eyes and locked onto mine. A flicker of panic crossed his face, but it was gone in a second. Instead of stopping, he reached up, brushed a strand of hair from Stephanie’s face, and kissed her deeply, moaning loudly enough for the sound to echo off the concrete walls. He was doing it on purpose. He wanted to break me. I looked away, climbed into my own car, and drove toward the Sterling estate. On the way, I stopped to pick up a silk tie I had ordered for Sam. I arrived at the mansion at the same time as Julian. As he stepped out of his car, I could see discarded wrappers on the floor of his passenger seat. He saw the gift bag in my hand and his smirk returned, full of smug entitlement. “Bought me a gift? Let me see.” I pulled the bag behind my back, my pulse racing. “It’s not for you.” He chuckled, lighting a cigarette and blowing a cloud of smoke toward me. “I saw you in the garage, Nancy. I know you’re dying inside.” He leaned against his car. “I told you already. You get the wedding. Stephanie gets the license. She’s the one making the sacrifice here, really.” He flicked ash onto the pavement. “She’ll be my legal wife. What we do is natural. She’ll probably stay at our house sometimes. You’ll have to get used to it. It’s for your own good, really—keeps the family name intact.” The level of his delusion was staggering. I turned to walk away, but he grabbed my arm. “Listen. My uncle Sam is going to be there tonight. The whole family answers to him. This dinner is serious.” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low warning. “I’m giving you enough face by showing up. If the elders ask about the marriage license, you tell them we’ve already signed it. Understand?” “Also, Stephanie’s finger is still sore. After dinner, you’re going to apologize to her. If you don’t… well, I can always call off the wedding before it’s official.”

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