1 The first autopsy I performed as a forensic pathologist was on my murdered parents. I completed the procedure, closed the final incision, and collapsed. A burning fever consumed me, leaving me bedridden and delirious for three days. But my fiancé, Richard, the lead prosecutor on the case, did the unthinkable. In court, he argued for a reduced sentence, securing a lenient involuntary manslaughter conviction for my parents’ killer. After the trial, he approached me, gently holding the killer’s daughter’s hand. He looked at me with sickly-sweet tenderness. “Sylvia, Jillian will live with us now. We’ll sponsor her education. She was just accepted into a top university. She’s severely depressed after losing her father—we can’t take away her will to live.” Behind him stood nineteen-year-old Jillian, her cheeks glistening with delicate tears. But the look she gave me over his shoulder was pure provocation and triumph. I stared at his hypocritical face and let out a hollow laugh. “And my parents? They were stripped of their right to breathe!” Richard clutched my cold hands, speaking like a condescending saint. “Sylvia, be the bigger person. Your parents spent their lives sponsoring students. Taking Jillian in is what they’d want from heaven.” I snatched my hands away. “Oh? So you do remember!” Richard’s face went pale. A sharp flicker of guilt flashed in his eyes. He remembered perfectly well: the first student my parents ever sponsored was him. … “Sylvia, I have never forgotten everything they did for me. I know it is hard for you to accept their sudden passing, but this is not Jillian’s fault.” Richard stepped protectively in front of Jillian. His defensive posture made it look as though I was the monster in the room. Jillian peeked out from behind his broad back, her voice trembling with manufactured sobs. “Sylvia, please! Just give me a chance to survive!” “I promise I won’t be a burden. I will do all the chores, I will study hard, and I will spend the rest of my life repaying you and Richard.” She kept repeating his name with such breathless adoration. It was as if Richard was her personal savior. “Sylvia, you need to calm down. I am taking Jillian out to get something to eat.” Like a frightened little rabbit, Jillian scurried after Richard. My phone started buzzing relentlessly in my coat pocket. Forcing down the grief and rage threatening to choke me, I opened the screen. It was my college alumni group chat. [Richard is a saint. Repaying hatred with kindness. Truly a man of the people!] [Seriously. The man gets a light sentence for the guy who killed his fiancé’s parents, and now he is taking in the killer’s daughter. I could never reach that level of enlightenment.] [Honestly, do you guys think Richard has other intentions with this girl? Sylvia’s parents haven’t even been dead a week, and he is already moving her into their house. If you tell me nothing is going on, I call bluff!] Someone immediately tagged the last speaker. [Delete that! Do you not realize Sylvia is in this chat?] Seconds later, those messages vanished from the screen. But the invisible knife twisted in my chest refused to disappear. My fingers flew across the keyboard. [My engagement to Richard is officially canceled. Please spread the word. From this moment on, he and I are completely severed!] I hit send and permanently left the group chat. By the time I gathered my shattered emotions and returned home from the forensic institute, my blood boiled over all over again. I pushed the front door open. Jillian was sitting on the plush sectional my late mother had specially picked out, happily watching television while digging into a massive bag of chips I had bought for myself. And Richard was in the kitchen, wearing an apron, boiling pasta. Something inside me snapped. A blinding wave of fury severed my last nerve. I marched over, snatched the bag of chips right out of Jillian’s arms, and hurled it into the trash can. “Why are you in my house? Get out!” Richard immediately rushed out of the kitchen, pulling Jillian behind him. He furrowed his brow, confronting me with a look of deep disappointment. “Sylvia! We already discussed this this afternoon. Are you still throwing a tantrum?” My voice shook with absolute rage. “I never agreed to anything! Do you even remember who bought this house? Have you completely forgotten the entire purpose of this place!” He answered with infuriating calmness. “I haven’t forgotten. Your parents bought this for us to use as our bridal home.” I stared at the tall, imposing man standing in my living room and let out a chilling laugh. “So you do know! My parents bought this! They died before they ever got the chance to stay here, and you have the audacity to move their killer’s daughter in!” Richard’s eyes darkened, a swirl of conflicting emotions surfacing in his gaze. Right on cue, pathetic little whimpers drifted from behind his back. “I am so sorry! Sylvia, please have a little mercy. Just give me a corner to sleep in! Treat me like a stray dog or a rescue cat. I truly have nowhere else to go!” She reached out, trying to grab my hand while sobbing hysterically. I instinctively swatted her away. But Jillian exaggerated the motion entirely, throwing herself violently onto the hardwood floor. Richard snapped out of his daze and immediately rushed to help her up. “Richard, I am fine. If she really hates me this much, I should just leave!” I watched her cheap little theatrical performance with dead eyes. It baffled me how a brilliant prosecutor who could instantly spot a suspect’s lie couldn’t see through a teenager’s pathetic manipulation. I grabbed her fluffy pink tote bag from the entryway and threw it at her feet. “If you are leaving, then hurry up. You are not welcome here.” Tears spilled down Jillian’s cheeks in dramatic streams. She clutched her bag, her eyes red and puffy, pretending to walk toward the door. A large hand grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks. “Sylvia, enough is enough! Jillian is staying here, and my promise to fund her education remains completely unchanged!” I grabbed a glass water tumbler from the coffee table and smashed it right at his feet. “On what grounds!” He glared at me with absolute ice. “On the grounds that my name is the only one on the deed. You have absolutely no right to kick her out!” 2 I froze for several agonizing seconds. The memory hit me like a physical blow. Because I had been out of the country for a specialized forensic training program, Richard was the one who accompanied my parents to purchase this house. The only reason his name was the sole name on the deed was because my parents already treated him like their own flesh and blood. “Richard grew up right before our eyes,” my mother’s gentle voice echoed in my mind. “He lost his parents in the line of duty, but he has always been so fiercely independent. I don’t want a piece of real estate to make him feel inferior in this marriage.” That was it. They didn’t want him to feel insecure about marrying into wealth! My parents funded this bridal home to relieve his financial burden, not for him to turn it into a sanctuary for the daughter of the man who slaughtered them! “Richard, I dare you to look at my parents’ memorial portrait and say that again. What gives you the right to forgive their murderer on their behalf?” My voice was trembling uncontrollably. “I am not forgiving him on their behalf. I am simply executing the law with a degree of human warmth.” He frowned, his face twisting with impatience. “Sylvia, you study the law too. Stop being so overly emotional. The verdict is final. We need to look toward the future.” His tone shifted into hard concrete. “My decision is final. I already had the housekeeper prepare the guest room for her.” Without another word, he escorted Jillian up the stairs, shielding her as if she were made of priceless glass. This beautiful house was the last tangible piece of my parents I had left. And now, it was infected by the daughter of my enemy. If my parents knew the boy they had lovingly sponsored for a decade would turn out like this, how much agonizing regret would they feel? I walked up to the second floor, my entire body shaking. Under the warm glow of the guest room lamp, Jillian was twisting the hem of her shirt while Richard softly comforted her. “Don’t be scared. Treat this place like your own home from now on.” “Thank you, Richard. You are so good to me.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. It was the exact kind of fragile, damsel-in-distress routine designed to trigger a man’s savior complex. Swallowing down the bile rising in my throat, I walked into the master bedroom, shoved a few clothes into a duffel bag, and walked out of that pathetic excuse for a “bridal home.” The moment I returned to the cramped dormitory at the forensic institute, I pulled out my phone and dialed Rowan. He was my senior from university, now a ruthless senior partner at a top-tier corporate law firm. I was taking Richard to court. I was going to tear that house right out of his hands. Over the next few days, Richard showed up at the institute a few times. His goal was always the same: to mentally beat me into accepting Jillian. He told me how Jillian woke up before dawn every single day, scrubbing the house spotless. He constantly demanded I come back home. He claimed that because of my unforgiving nature, Jillian was eaten alive by guilt and losing weight by the day. When he spoke of her, his voice was dripping with undeniable heartache. “Sylvia, Jillian never had a good life growing up. I just want her to feel a little warmth. You don’t understand the psychological toll of being a poverty-stricken student. We cannot punish a child for the sins of adults.” Then, he tried to play the emotional manipulation card. “Just like what you did for me. I was a terrified orphan once too. I just want you to embrace Jillian the way you embraced me.” I looked at him with dead, vacant eyes. “Keep your guilt. I already filed the lawsuit, Richard. That house was bought with my parents’ pre-marital assets. I highly suggest you start looking for a new apartment.” Richard turned purple with rage. He spun on his heel and stormed out without a single word. A few days later, a colleague casually mentioned spotting Richard and Jillian at a high-end shopping district. He was buying her designer dresses and the newest smartphone. He even drove two hours out of the city just to buy a specific pastry she casually mentioned craving. One evening, I needed an old case file from my mother’s forensic archives. After my shift, I drove back to the house. As soon as my car pulled into the driveway, I noticed the lights in the study were on. My mother had designed that study herself. After they passed, I had moved all of their personal belongings into that room and locked the door. Who was in there? The blood froze in my veins. I sprinted up the stairs to the second floor. The heavy oak door was wide open. And the sight inside instantly shredded whatever sanity I had left. 3 The classic, elegant mahogany study had been desecrated. It was now a nauseatingly pink princess room. Jillian was sitting cross-legged on a brand-new canopy bed. And in her hands, she was holding my mother’s original, handwritten autopsy journals! Just then, Richard walked in, a bright smile on his face. “Sylvia, you finally came to your senses! Don’t worry, I am covering all of Jillian’s expenses…” I cut him off, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Where are my parents’ belongings? What did you do to the things in this room!” Seeing my explosive anger, his smile vanished, replaced by an annoyed scowl. “They were just some old things. I told the housekeeper to box them up and shove them in the basement storage.” “Old things?” I was shaking so violently I could barely stand. “Richard, those were my parents’ final possessions! Who gave you the right to touch this room!” “Sylvia, calm down.” Richard grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side, lowering his voice. “It was Jillian. She said she wanted to study medicine so she could become a doctor just like your mother and atone for her father’s crimes. Your mother’s journals are incredibly useful to her.” I stared at him, refusing to believe what I was hearing. “So, you just let her defile my mother’s life’s work?” “She is just using it to study.” He spoke with absolute entitlement. “You are already a top forensic pathologist. That basic theory is useless to you now. But to Jillian, it could change her entire future. Sylvia, if your mother is watching from above, she would want her hard work to guide a young mind, right? Just look at it as doing a good deed.” A good deed! There it was again. His favorite weapon. He always did this. He would stand on his little moral pedestal, arbitrarily deciding what was “useless” to me, and then gaslight me for being unreasonable and unaccommodating. I lunged forward and ripped the notebook right out of Jillian’s hands. The pages were covered in neon highlighter and senseless, colorful doodles. “Is this her version of studying?” Jillian immediately shrank back, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. “I have always studied like that. Color coding helps me memorize things…” Richard looked completely unbothered. “She just made some annotations. Didn’t you highlight your books in college?” I looked at him, and suddenly, I just felt bone-deep exhaustion. I wiped the stray tears from the corners of my eyes, walked straight down to the dusty basement, and dragged every single box of my parents’ things out. But as I packed my car, I realized something critical was missing. I marched back into the house and stood directly in front of Richard. My voice was terrifyingly calm. “Richard. The joint account we set up for our wedding. Did you touch it?” Richard’s face tightened. His eyes darted away from mine. “Jillian’s tuition and living expenses required an upfront deposit. I just… temporarily reallocated the funds.” “Reallocated?” A miserable, hollow laugh escaped my lips. “Richard, five minutes ago you were bragging about paying for her expenses out of your own pocket. That account held three hundred thousand dollars of my parents’ money meant for my dowry. How did you even have the face to touch it?” “Sylvia!” My words hit his fragile ego like a bullet, and he lashed out. “Stop obsessing over the money! Why do you always have to be so petty over every little thing? Why can’t you just be accommodating and gentle like Jillian?” “Gentle?” Pushed to the absolute brink of a psychological breakdown, the tears finally spilled over. “So in your twisted mind, treating the daughter of my parents’ murderer like a beloved sister, throwing away my mother’s legacy, and giving my wedding dowry to pay for her college is what makes a woman gentle and accommodating?” My interrogation left him completely speechless. Right on cue, Jillian started her waterworks. “Sylvia, please don’t blame Richard! It is all my fault. I will pay back every cent. I will get a job. Even if I have to sell my own blood, I will pay you back!” Richard immediately pulled her into his chest, stroking her hair. “Jillian, don’t worry about it. I will handle it.” Then, he lifted his chin and glared at me with pure disdain. “Sylvia, you are behaving worse than a nineteen-year-old girl who just lost her father.” “I know the money was your dowry. Once we are officially married, I will surrender my entire paycheck to you every month as compensation.” “But I have one non-negotiable condition. You have to make peace with Jillian and let her stay!” Hot tears mixed with a bitter, self-deprecating smile on my face. He was treating our marriage like a charitable donation, using his mediocre salary as leverage in a hostage negotiation. And all of it was for Jillian. It was utterly pathetic. The man who once swore on his life to protect me forever, to never let me suffer a single injustice, had mutated into a monster I didn’t even recognize. Since the rot was this deep, nothing else he said mattered. “Richard, we are completely, utterly done.” 4 I took all of my things and left. Richard didn’t even try to stop me. It wasn’t until a week later that my phone lit up with his texts. His tone was as arrogant and condescending as ever. [Sylvia, stop throwing this tantrum and come home. Jillian knows she messed up, and I already lectured her.] [Are you really going to hold a grudge against a teenager? Grow up and stop acting like a spoiled brat.] I stared at the messages, feeling absolutely nothing but disgust. I didn’t even bother replying. Just as I was about to hit the block button, an anonymous text popped up. [Sylvia~ Please don’t be mad! Richard actually misses you a lot. He cooked a candlelight dinner for me tonight, and the steak you usually like was so delicious. He even took me on the Ferris wheel and promised to bring you next time!] I scoffed. The only person dumb enough to fall for this blatant manipulative garbage was a brainwashed idiot like Richard. I swiftly blocked both of their numbers and deleted their contacts. A few hours later, an unknown number called me. The voice on the other end was loud and frantic. “Hello? Ms. Sylvia? I am calling from the memorial park! Your fiancé is up here trying to dismantle your parents’ graves! Did you authorize this?” Before the groundskeeper could even finish, a deafening crash echoed through the receiver. “Hey! Stop the machine! Why the hell did you smash the headstone?” The call abruptly dropped. Panic seized my chest. I broke every speed limit getting to the cemetery. When I arrived, the pristine marble headstone was shattered in half. The protective casing of the burial vault was cracked, exposing the urns inside to the dirt and the wind. My blood pressure spiked to lethal levels. Jillian was cowering behind Richard like a frightened quail. He shielded her with his body. “If you are angry, take it out on me! This has nothing to do with her!” My heart had died a long time ago. I ignored his pathetic “hero protecting the maiden” routine and dropped to my knees, silently brushing the debris away from my parents’ resting place. Seeing that I wasn’t going to attack Jillian, Richard’s defensive posture relaxed. A sliver of guilt actually managed to cross his face. He knelt down, reaching out to help me clear the rubble. But the moment his fingers hovered near my parents’ urns, a violent wave of nausea hit me. I whipped my arm back and delivered a brutal, open-handed slap squarely across his left cheek. A bright red handprint instantly blossomed on his skin. “You don’t deserve to touch their ashes! Ten years ago, you pulled me out of a fire. Today, I am sparing your life. We are completely even.” Richard panicked. He grabbed my wrist with a vice grip. “Sylvia, listen to me! Jillian’s dad died of a sudden heart attack in prison. The priest said he needed a blessed, high-ground plot so his soul could find peace.” “I never wanted to smash the stone! The crane arm of the backhoe accidentally swung into it. It was a mechanical failure! Are you really going to blame me for an accident?” “This is the most exclusive cemetery in the city. There were no other plots available. I just needed to borrow a piece of your family’s estate. If your parents were alive, they would have agreed to let me do this!” I was genuinely in awe of his bottomless audacity. “My parents are dead because her father ran them over with a truck.” Richard froze. He subconsciously took a step back, but his stubborn pride refused to break. “But… Jillian’s dad is dead too. He paid for his crimes with his life. You can’t keep holding onto this hatred.” I clutched my parents’ urns tightly to my chest. “Get the hell out of my sight. I am calling the cops.” The police arrived swiftly. Because Richard had no legal authorization, he was forced to pay for the property damage and was slapped with a formal warning. I refused to let my parents stay in a place tainted by his presence. I purchased a plot at a completely different private cemetery and relocated them. After the graveyard incident, Richard tried relentlessly to contact me from burner numbers. I rejected every single one. It wasn’t until the day of our civil lawsuit regarding the house that the calls finally stopped. Strangely, Richard never showed up to the courthouse. As a prosecutor, he knew perfectly well that failing to appear would result in a default judgment against him. That afternoon, right after I secured the victory, my assistant Ben sprinted into my laboratory, hyperventilating. “Dr. Sylvia! It is bad! Look at the news! Prosecutor Richard is in critical condition!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “420120”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 At my elementary school reunion, my old desk mate, whom I hadn’t seen in fifteen years, gripped my hand warmly. “I heard you’re dating someone super rich now, like, the CEO of a publicly traded company?” Out of politeness, I gave a small nod. The moment dinner was served, Ashley suddenly pulled me up. “Everyone, please be our witnesses!” “Evening, you’re about to marry your boyfriend, so when are you moving out of that house of yours?” I simply said, “No rush.” But in the next second, Ashley’s eyes flared. “How can you say ‘no rush’? You’ve been squatting in my house for so many years, and you still refuse to leave?!” My head was full of question marks. Since when did our Norvell family house have anything to do with you? … While planning my engagement party, I got an unexpected call. The person claimed to be an old elementary school classmate and invited me to a tri-annual reunion. Before heading out, I thought it was for the private school my family invested in. But when I arrived, I realized it was the school where I’d only briefly attended for two months in second grade. “Who are you? This is our class reunion. Did you get the wrong place?” Hearing that, I looked up at the banner. It was indeed the school I’d attended. The timing was right too. Before I could even speak, a girl burst out from inside, running and shouting, “I invited her!” “This is Evening Norvell, from our second-grade class! Don’t you remember her?” At Ashley’s reminder, everyone started whispering, but their comments weren’t flattering. “I remember her! The one who always wore flowery dresses, had braids, and got picked up by luxury cars.” “I just remember she acted like she was too good for us.” “More than that! She loved tattling on teachers. I just tugged her braid, and she ran to the teacher to get my parents involved. So petty.” Those voices made me deeply uncomfortable. I just wanted to turn and leave. But Ashley grabbed my hand. “We’re all old classmates, let’s not be so nitpicky, right? It’s rare to get together.” Ashley gave subtle eye signals to the others as she said the last two words. I still didn’t leave, but it wasn’t because of Ashley’s insistent pleas. My driver, who was supposed to pick me up, had a breakdown midway. “Evening, I heard you’re getting married?” Ashley pulled me to a seat with exaggerated enthusiasm. “I heard your fiancé is super rich, the CEO of a publicly traded company.” I just nodded, not saying much. But the other classmates overheard and started constantly raising their glasses to toast me. I knew their actions were simply an attempt to butter me up, to gain some advantage for themselves. Just moments ago, they were sneering; now they’d completely changed their tune. Such is the way of the world. But I despise such people, so I couldn’t be bothered to entertain them. The moment dinner was served, I received a message from my driver. [Miss Norvell, the car is at the hotel entrance.] So I turned to Ashley and said, “I have something to take care of. I’ll be leaving now. You all have fun.” “Don’t rush off, Evening!” Ashley suddenly grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. Then she gestured for a classmate who was singing to hand over the microphone. “Everyone, listen to me for a moment!” “First, let’s welcome our long-unseen classmate, Evening Norvell. Even though we were only classmates for two months, we share a deep bond.” “Second, I want you all to witness something for me.” Ashley turned to me. “When are you going to give me back your family’s mansion?” I was speechless, just coldly asking Ashley, “What does my house have to do with you?” I turned to leave, letting Ashley shout my name behind me. But as soon as I reached the door, a group of classmates blocked my way. “Don’t be in such a hurry to leave, Miss Norvell. First, tell us how you’re going to repay the house you owe our class president.” “Anyway, your family’s house must be mine.” “Evening, why don’t you just marry your boyfriend already? Hand over the house sooner. I’m waiting to move in!” I completely ignored these crazed people. If they wouldn’t let me leave, I’d just have my driver come up to get me. Before I left, Ashley blocked me again. “Evening, you’re so rich. Why don’t you just pay for everyone’s tab today? It’s just pocket change for you, and you wouldn’t want everyone to call you cheap, right?” Ashley’s entitled attitude instantly turned me off. I just told her, “I am rich, but I don’t want to spend my money on you.” Ashley and the group of classmates were so loud that I could still hear their shouting even after I got into the elevator. Back home, I mentioned the day’s events to my boyfriend, Leo. He simply advised me to “let sleeping dogs lie.” I thought it was just a brief farce, but the next day, right after I woke up, there was a frantic banging on the door. When I opened it, I was met with Ashley’s eyes. “Finally! I’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes!” Ashley pushed past me, dragging her suitcase inside, constantly looking around. “Evening, I remember your house being quite big. Why does it look so… ordinary now? Is this enough for my family of seven? I still need to decorate a room as a dance studio!” 2 “You’re insane.” I rolled my eyes, pushing her out with a sleepy haze still clinging to me. Then Ashley got frantic. “Evening, how dare you kick me out of my house? You’re the one who should be leaving!” “I’ve been meaning to ask you, how did my house become yours?” Ashley put her hands on her hips, listened, then turned and pulled a piece of paper from her bag. The paper looked old, with crooked writing around the edges, stating: [Evening Norvell’s house is to be given to Ashley.] My signature was underneath. “You promised this yourself back then. You can’t go back on your word now, can you?” I was so infuriated I didn’t know what to say. Not only was this from when I was in second grade, but thinking back now, I remembered exactly what happened that day. When I temporarily transferred in second grade, the other kids came from different backgrounds and had different perspectives than mine, so they weren’t too fond of me. Only Ashley constantly pestered me with questions. This paper was also inexplicably slipped to me after class, with her saying, “Leave me a signature before you transfer. I’ll miss you so much.” Then, after I signed, she laughed loudly. “Evening, your house will be mine now!” I didn’t take it seriously at the time, it didn’t even register in my memory. But I never imagined this had been Ashley’s long-standing obsession. Fifteen years ago, Ashley was mischievous, always up to no good. Fifteen years later, Ashley brandished the slip of paper triumphantly. “If you don’t give me the house, I’ll tell the police, the media. I’m not afraid of embarrassment, but you and your fiancé’s family are.” Ashley let out a few laughs. “You figure it out yourself!” To further threaten me, Ashley showed me her social media account. With 200,000 followers, she was a minor influencer. “To be honest, I’ve already teased this on my live stream. Hundreds of thousands of people are waiting to see what happens next, and many are waiting for a good laugh at the Norvell Group and the Burgi Group.” Looking at the seemingly decent Ashley in front of me, it was hard to imagine the true person underneath. She pressed on, even going into my house and freely rummaging through my belongings. “These clothes are all designer brands! They’d definitely look better on me than on you.” “A whole wine cellar full of such old vintages! Selling them would be a huge profit. Evening, the house, and everything in it, is mine. Do you hear me?” Ashley was unusually excited as she explored my house, while I sat on the sofa, nodding along. “Mmhmm.” The next second, the front door opened. My bodyguards walked in with a team of officers, immediately spotting Ashley rummaging through my things. “Ma’am, you’ve trespassed and committed burglary. Please come with us to the police station.” “Why are you arresting me? How is taking things in my own home burglary? If anyone should be arrested, it’s Evening! She’s squatting in my house and won’t leave…” She maintained this story even after arriving at the police station. But besides her stubbornness and that piece of paper with no legal validity, Ashley had nothing. Unlike me, with connections, resources, and irrefutable proof of ownership in the form of a property deed, Ashley wanted to fight me? Simply impossible. Although Ashley caused me no actual harm, she still earned herself three months in prison. That stack of civil service exam prep books at her house would gather dust. Leo and my engagement party proceeded as planned, at the most luxurious skyscraper in A-City. Promotions had been running city-wide for days, our engagement photos plastered on every commercial screen across A-City. #NorvellGroupAndBurgiGroupAllianceToday #LeoBurgiEveningNorvell These trending topics stayed high on social media. The engagement party was going smoothly, until all the guests arrived, and the trending topics on social media shifted. #NorvellGroupHeiressEveningNorvellDefaultsOnDebtConfrontedAtEngagement “Everyone, don’t be fooled by Evening Norvell. She’s not at all what you see.” Ashley burst onto the stage, megaphone in hand. “The Norvell family is so rich, yet she’s been defaulting on a debt to me for fifteen years. To avoid paying, Evening even schemed to have me locked up by the police!” Ashley truly was a performer. She started crying for the cameras. “How difficult it is for a girl from the slums like me! The only thing that could change my life was this debt, but Evening keeps pushing, does she want to push me to my death?” I, who was just moments ago surrounded by well-wishers, instantly became the target of public scrutiny. Reporters swarmed me, asking blunt, aggressive questions. “Miss Norvell, do you really think power and wealth can solve everything? Do you truly disregard the lives of ordinary people?” Someone even pressed Leo, “Mr. Burgi, are you really going to marry this spoiled heiress, Evening Norvell?” Leo glanced at me, then coldly spoke. “No.” 3 Leo’s answer stunned every guest. What did he mean, “No”? Was Leo not marrying Evening anymore? “While Evening and I were betrothed by our families, I have many requirements for my future wife. The most important is her character.” Leo turned to me. “A spoiled, overbearing temperament like hers? My family, the Burgi, won’t tolerate it.” When the live stream hit the internet, comments were sharply divided. [I thought Evening Norvell was a socialite, but she’s so vicious, won’t even spare an ordinary person.] [Mr. Burgi has such integrity! He should dump a woman like that without hesitation. Such a handsome Mr. Burgi deserves better!] “Leo, are you sure you want to call off our engagement?” “Absolutely.” Leo announced again to the guests and countless viewers, “From this day forward, Leo Burgi and Evening Norvell have no further connection. Whatever outrageous things she does, please do not involve the Burgi family.” Watching Leo lead his entire family away, I hadn’t even had a chance to explain when my mother rushed over and slapped me. “You’re an utter disgrace!” “I don’t owe Ashley anything. Not a single word she said was true.” “Do you think someone as smart as Leo can’t tell truth from lies? If you didn’t do it, why would he break off the engagement with you?” My mother’s face was puffed with anger. “I think we spoiled you too much, that’s why you’re so lawless!” If my father hadn’t held her back, my mother would have continued to scold me publicly. The live stream had been stopped, but the on-site chatter hadn’t. Meanwhile, the instigator, Ashley, was secretly smirking in front of the cameras. When she saw me looking, she immediately lunged forward and knelt at my feet. “Please, Miss Norvell, keep your promise and give me back the house!” “If you promised, you should give it back.” “They’re so rich, a house is like a bottle of water to the Norvells, but it’s her lifeline. Don’t you have any conscience?” The more the surrounding whispers grew, the uglier my mother’s face became. She was about to flare up again, but my sister, Anne Norvell, grabbed her arm. “It’s fine, Mom, don’t be mad at Sis. She’s just being impulsive.” “You two are sisters, Anne is so sensible, but you only cause trouble every day!” My mother stormed off. Only my father remained from the Norvell family, his face grim as he dealt with the media. The public opinion was already ignited, and I couldn’t quell it quickly. Just like if I told the world that Ashley was pressuring me for a house with a legally invalid paper from second grade, not a single person online would believe me. The night the engagement ended, Anne, on behalf of the Norvell family, transferred the property deed to Ashley’s name. I had no choice but to move out that night. But I had moved there to live alone because of disagreements with my family. Now that Ashley and her family of seven had taken over, and my other properties were frozen by my mother, I could only return to the old family estate. The moment I dragged my suitcase through the door, I heard my mother’s voice. “Marcy, close the door. Don’t let any riff-raff sneak into the house.” I watched as the front door closed in front of me. As I turned and walked onto the main road, a black sports car pulled up. Ethan Brown rolled down the window. “Hop in, Miss Norvell. I’ll give you a ride.” Twenty years ago, my family wasn’t as well-off as it is now. Although my grandfather’s side had been wealthy for generations, they favored my uncle, which left my father to build his wealth from scratch with my mother after they married. When I was young, nannies raised me. My parents were always out entertaining clients and working late. They built their empire, but completely missed my childhood. In contrast, my sister, Anne, was born when the company earned its first fortune, so Anne was seen as their “lucky star” from birth. My parents always said, “We’ve already missed one daughter’s growth; we can’t miss a second.” So they took Anne everywhere. Anne was their darling daughter. I only returned to their side when I was twelve, and we were very distant. They favored Anne, prioritizing her in everything. After they scolded me countless times for Anne’s mistakes, I moved out. Three years passed before we saw each other again, for my engagement to Leo, but it ended badly.

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1 My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Hot, bitter tears spilled over my cheeks, blurring my vision. Just yesterday, I took a freelance makeup gig. My client turned out to be a sweet young girl in a wheelchair, secretly in love with my boyfriend. She, just like me, viewed Nolan as the absolute light of her life. He was my anchor, the man who had pulled me out of my darkest psychological depths step by step. But today, the brutal truth finally hit me. His boundless warmth wasn’t exclusive to me. It was a public commodity. He held the young girl’s hand, looking at me with utter disappointment. “Alyson, she’s struggling. Can’t you just show a little empathy for once?” I swallowed the lump of glass in my throat, choked back my tears, and boarded a flight across the ocean to get the psychiatric help I desperately needed. It all started with that makeup appointment. The client was a vibrant girl who had recently lost the use of her legs. Her eyes sparkled with a naive, contagious hope. “Could you give me a soft, romantic look?” she had asked, her cheeks flushing. “I want to confess my feelings to the guy I like.” Looking at her, I felt a pang of nostalgia. She reminded me of myself when I first fell for Nolan. On a rare whim, I decided to stick around and watch her big moment. “Sure,” I told her. “Having someone there might give you a little courage.” I hid behind a cluster of manicured hedges in the park, ready to witness this girl’s fiery declaration of love. But when the man turned around, the breath was knocked right out of my lungs. It was Nolan. My boyfriend. When their lips met, my mind short circuited into a deafening static. “So, does this mean my boyfriend can kiss me?” the girl asked softly. Nolan crouched down, gently cupping the back of her head, and pulled her into a deep, lingering kiss. The girl’s earlier words echoed in my ears like a broken record. “He’s such an amazing guy. Most people look at my wheelchair with pity or disgust, but he treats me like a normal human being. He told me we all have one mouth and two eyes, and I’m no different from anyone else. I was terrified to tell him how I felt, but he’s so good to me. He’s worth risking a broken heart.” Those words were practically identical to how I used to talk about Nolan. She was physically broken. I was psychologically broken. We were both just lucky enough to cross paths with a saint like him. Except reality was currently chewing me up and spitting me out. The man I worshipped was making out with someone else in broad daylight. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cause a scene. I just turned around and walked away, completely hollowed out. When I got back to our apartment, I grabbed my brushes and painted the exact scene of them kissing. I left the canvas right in the middle of the living room. Nolan had been incredibly busy lately. He told me he was assigned a new case, a devastated young woman named Daisy. She was in her early twenties, right in the prime of her life, when an accident took her legs. She was spiraling into a deep depression, and the community outreach program assigned Nolan to be her dedicated social worker. He even reassured me before he left. He said my bipolar episodes had been stable lately, so I should be fine on my own. Just call him if I needed anything. I always supported his career. I genuinely wanted people trapped in the dark to find their way out, just like I did. But he conveniently left out the part where his therapy sessions required tongue. Daisy was a chronic oversharer. After that makeup session, she flooded my phone with texts about her and Nolan. That was before I knew the “amazing guy” she was talking about was my boyfriend. But looking at the video she just sent, a clip of Nolan tenderly massaging her atrophied legs, a sick feeling twisted in my gut. Was she doing this on purpose? Was she rubbing it in my face, or did she genuinely just think we were friends and wanted to share her joy? People like me don’t have many friends. Nobody wants to deal with a ticking time bomb who could have a mental breakdown at any given second. My phone buzzed. A text from Nolan. [Her mental state is really fragile today. I need to stay and make sure she’s safe. Don’t forget to take your meds.] I stared at the neatly organized pill organizers on the kitchen counter. He had sorted them all for me. Every time my emotions went off the rails, I would inevitably knock those bottles to the floor in a fit of rage. And every single time, he would patiently pull me into his arms and sweep up the mess. But today, the apartment was dead silent. He wasn’t coming home. 2 “Why are you sleeping out here?” Nolan’s voice was as gentle as ever when he finally walked in. He draped a warm blanket over my shoulders, then sighed with a helpless smile as he noticed the scattered pills across the floor. “What’s wrong, Alyson? Are you mad I worked late?” I didn’t say a word. I just picked up the canvas from the table. “Nolan, do you think this painting is beautiful?” His pupils shrank the moment the image registered. A heavy silence stretched out before he forced a laugh and reached for my hand. “Why are you painting stuff like this? I thought you were working on those portraits for our anniversary.” I dodged his hand and stubbornly held up the canvas. “I asked you a question. Is it beautiful?” Before he could craft a lie, the doorbell rang. “Let me get that,” he muttered, practically sprinting away. The person at the door made both of us freeze. Daisy was sitting in her wheelchair, a bright, bubbly smile on her face. She rolled herself inside and naturally grabbed Nolan’s hand. “Hey! I came to drop off your wallet. You left it on my couch.” She paused, blinking at me in surprise. “Oh, hey! You’re here too? Wait, are you one of his assigned cases as well?” I kept my mouth shut. My eyes were locked onto Nolan. He didn’t drop her hand. Instead, he gave her a soft, affectionate pat on the head. “Yeah. She is.” He looked down at Daisy. “You shouldn’t have come all this way in the cold. Just text me next time, and I’ll come pick it up.” Daisy’s eyes drifted to the canvas I was holding. Her face lit up. “Oh my gosh, that’s gorgeous! Is that us? Did you paint this for us? Wow, I love it so much!” I stared at Nolan. He looked away, completely mute. My phone dinged in my pocket. It was a text from him, sent right there in the living room. [Daisy is highly unstable right now. Do not trigger her.] Do not trigger her? So I was just supposed to stand here and watch another woman act like a lovesick puppy with my boyfriend in my own living room? A wave of absolute exhaustion washed over me. I looked at Daisy. “Yeah. You two make a perfect match.” “Aw, thank you! I think so too.” Daisy tugged at Nolan’s fingers, lacing hers with his. “I’m starving. Come get late night takeout with me.” Nolan shot me a warning glance, then turned to leave with her. My hands were shaking uncontrollably now. I made one final, desperate attempt to pull him back. “Nolan, I haven’t taken my meds today. My chest hurts. The panic is starting again.” His footsteps didn’t even slow down. He didn’t even look back. “You’ve been doing great lately. One night won’t kill you.” But he was wrong. I was slipping back into the dark. I was waking up at 3 AM drenched in cold sweat, my hands trembling so badly I couldn’t even hold a paintbrush. He didn’t know any of this. Because for the past few weeks, he had been glued to Daisy’s side, terrified that the reality of her disability would push her over the edge. But what about me? I was his client once too. I was his girlfriend. Why was I always the one getting pushed to the back of the line? I walked over to my laptop and opened an email from a highly specialized psychiatric facility in Europe. My condition had plateaued here. The local treatments weren’t doing enough anymore, and I had been considering this overseas program for months. But Nolan’s whole life and career were here, and having him around used to keep me grounded. I had initially declined the offer for him. Tonight, I changed my mind. Nolan’s compassion was a bottomless well for everyone else. He put his clients on a pedestal, willing to sacrifice anything to fix them. Even if it meant playing the role of someone else’s boyfriend. And me? The actual girlfriend? I was just a ghost haunting his apartment. The next morning, I was dragging my suitcase toward the front door when the lock clicked. Nolan walked in. “Where are you going?” he demanded, his brow furrowing. “This isn’t my home. I’m going back to my own place.” He stepped forward and gripped the handle of my luggage, stopping me in my tracks. “Stop making a scene, please. I already explained this to you. Daisy is in a really dark place. She needs me right now.” “But Nolan, I’m sick too. I need you too.” The tears I had been fighting finally broke free. “You’re perfectly stable right now. You’ve been sleeping through the night, haven’t you?” His absolute ignorance felt like a bucket of ice water to the chest. I violently yanked my hand away from his, shoving my sleeve up to my shoulder to expose the mottled bruises and raw scratches on my arms, the physical aftermath of my recent panic attacks. “Before we got together, you actually cared. You hovered over me, terrified I would have a breakdown and hurt myself. But the second I became yours, all your energy went to saving other people. You’re so dedicated to your job you’ll just play boyfriend to a patient?” “Kissing? Holding hands? Is that standard protocol for a social worker now?” I fired the questions at him like bullets. Nolan stood there, his jaw tight, unable to form a single excuse. A heavy silence stretched between us until his phone started buzzing in his pocket. “Yeah, I’m here. Don’t panic, Daisy. I’m on my way back right now.” He hung up the phone and looked at me. His eyes were cold, completely drained of the warmth I used to love. “Alyson, grow up. Do you have any idea how young she is?” “You’re almost thirty. She barely just hit twenty. And you’ve been managing your condition for years. This is her first time dealing with trauma. I kissed her to calm her down, to give her some hope. Stop being so damn heartless.” He reached out and roughly grabbed my bruised arm, inspecting the marks with a scoff. “Scratches? You haven’t had an episode in months, and the second I start spending time with Daisy, you suddenly magically relapse?” “Alyson, you’re disappointing me.” I said absolutely nothing. I just rolled down my sleeve. Grabbing the handle of my suitcase, I walked out the door and never looked back.

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I have been dead for three years. Today, my lawyer wife showed up at my overgrown childhood home in the countryside, clutching a printed plea deal. She couldn’t find me anywhere, so she eventually had to knock on a neighbor’s door to ask for my whereabouts. “Mike has been dead for a long time,” the neighbor told her flatly. “Word is, right after he got out of prison, the victims’ families tracked him down and beat him to death.” My wife refused to believe a single word. She was convinced the neighbor and I were running some kind of sick con. She scoffed, her face twisting with absolute disgust. “He spent a couple of years behind bars, and now he’s got the nerve to fake his own death to avoid me?” “You tell him something for me. If he doesn’t show up in court this Monday, his crazy mother locked up in that asylum won’t see another dime of my money!” With that, she turned on her heel and stormed off. The neighbor watched her stubborn, retreating figure and let out a heavy sigh. “But his mother already starved to death in that ward a long time ago…” 01 I floated in the weed-choked yard of my old estate, watching Diana stumble awkwardly through the dead grass in her designer stilettos. She was tightly gripping a few sheets of paper. A confession form, I figured, meant to make me take the fall one more time. “Mike! Get out here! Do you think hiding in this dump is funny?” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Her voice bounced off the empty, decaying walls of the farmhouse. “If I hadn’t pulled strings back then, you would have been beaten to a pulp inside! Now I actually need you, and you have the guts to hide from me?” Listening to Diana talk about the past with zero remorse felt like an ice pick driving straight into my chest. Three years ago, she said the exact same things. Back then, Oliver had driven drunk and hit someone. Diana came to me with fake evidence and a cold ultimatum. “It’s just two years. You go in for two years, and I guarantee your mother gets the absolute best medical care. But if you say no…” I remember staring at her in pure disbelief. We fought until I flipped the dining table. “Diana! I am your husband! How could you throw me in a cell just to save him?” She didn’t even bother to explain herself. She just looked at me with a sickening amount of contempt. “Either sign the confession, or watch your mother’s treatment get cut off today. Take your pick.” And now, here she was again, wearing the exact same ugly expression. It was late into the night, but Diana was still yelling. The noise finally woke up Mrs. Gable next door. The older woman shoved her window open and poked her head out. “What is all that screaming about at this hour? Nobody lives there anymore!” Diana immediately aimed her hostility at the old woman. “You know Mike, don’t you? Is he hiding in there?” Mrs. Gable squinted through her reading glasses for a good while before letting out a soft sound of realization. “Oh, you mean Mike? He passed away almost three years ago.” Diana’s face froze for a fraction of a second. “What did you just say? Dead?” “That’s right. He didn’t even make it two days out of prison before he was killed. People say it was the family of the victims from that old case. Beat him till he stopped breathing right on the spot.” Mrs. Gable frowned, her tone turning sour. “Who exactly are you to him? How do you not know this?” “Impossible!” Diana’s voice suddenly spiked in pitch. “Someone like him wouldn’t just…” Before she could even finish her sentence, her hands were shaking as she pulled out her phone. She dialed Oliver’s number. She put it on speaker. Oliver’s smooth voice drifted out into the cold night air. “Hey D, what’s wrong?” “Oliver, that fifty grand you said you gave to the victim’s family. Did you actually hand it over?” There was a half-second pause on the other end, followed by Oliver’s confident reply. “Of course I did. Handed it to them myself. Why?” I hovered right next to the phone, so close I could hear the static, and almost let out a string of curses. He didn’t do a damn thing. When I was released, those relatives showed up at my door, screaming about getting blood for blood. It was only as I was being beaten within an inch of my life that I realized Oliver had never paid them a single cent. They hadn’t even heard the word “settlement.” I died in Oliver’s place. Hearing his lie, the tension drained out of Diana’s face. She snapped her head back toward Mrs. Gable, glaring with pure revulsion. “I knew it. You and Mike are just teaming up to play me!” “So what if he had to sit in a cell for two years? Now he’s playing dead to hide from me?” “You tell him, Mrs. Gable. If he doesn’t show his face in court next Monday, that crazy mother of his can rot!” She spun around and marched away, her heels clicking sharply against the stone path with absolute finality. Mrs. Gable watched her go, shaking her head at the empty air. “Love really makes a fool out of people. Mike’s poor mother passed on ages ago. Heard nobody even checked her room for days. Starved right to the bone.” 02 Diana practically fled the old property, totally missing Mrs. Gable’s final words. My soul, tethered to her by some invisible, suffocating thread, had no choice but to drift along. Her cab sped through the city, eventually pulling up to Oliver’s downtown penthouse overlooking the bay. The moment the door swung open, Oliver was right there, a desperate, eager smile plastered across his face. “D, how did it go? Did Mike agree?” Diana paused as she took off her coat, avoiding his eyes. “He… wasn’t home.” The smile slid off Oliver’s face, instantly replaced by a masterfully crafted look of guilt. “Is he still mad at me? Mad about the time I made him take the fall? I know I put him through hell.” He looked down, his voice dropping to a miserable mumble as his eyes perfectly welled up with tears. “Maybe we should just drop it. It’s my mess anyway. I can’t drag him down again.” “It’s just… if I really get locked up, what are you going to do all by yourself…” Diana always crumbled when he played this card. She immediately pulled him into a tight hug, her brow furrowing with protective anger. “Stop talking like that. What right does he have to be mad?” “I paid him a massive amount of hush money last time, and I took care of the victims’ families! It was just a couple of years inside. It’s not like I asked him to die for you. He has absolutely no reason to be difficult!” She gripped Oliver’s shoulders, her tone absolute. “Don’t worry. I will find him. He has to take the heat for you this time, no matter what.” Floating right beside the living room chandelier, I caught the fleeting, smug smirk on Oliver’s lips. A coldness seeped into my ghostly core. I never saw a penny of that money. And those “taken care of” families were the reapers who took my life. Oliver buried his face in the crook of Diana’s neck, smiling his victorious little smile right where she couldn’t see. I reached out, desperately wanting to wrap my hands around his throat, but my fingers just phased through his flesh like smoke. “Trust me,” Diana whispered, rubbing his back. “I’ll track him down. He is going to fix this.” Determined to dig me out of whatever hole she thought I was in, Diana drove back to my old farmhouse at the crack of dawn. Morning light spilled through the shattered windowpanes of the decaying house. She stood in the overgrown yard, her frown deepening by the second. “These flowers…” She crouched down, running a finger over a massive bush of dead, blackened roses. She knew how much I worshipped my garden. Unless something physically stopped me, I would never have let them wither like this. I hovered behind her as she pulled out her phone, taking photos of the cobwebs thick on the window sills. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a long time before she finally called her assistant. “I need you to trace every move Mike has made. Dig up everything.” She hung up and took a few steps closer to the porch. My heart would have hammered in my chest if I still had one. Right there, just past the corner, the concrete was still stained with my dried, blackened blood from three years ago. Just two more steps. Suddenly, a piercing ringtone shattered the silence. It was her custom ringtone for Oliver. She answered, and Oliver’s panicked voice blasted through the speaker. “D! I just heard the victims got their hands on new evidence. If we don’t handle this right now, I’m completely screwed!” “What?!” Diana’s face drained of color. “I’m heading back right now!” She turned and sprinted for the car, abandoning the bloodstain and the dead roses without a second thought. I could only laugh bitterly. It didn’t matter what was happening; her precious Oliver always came first. 03 I was dragged along as Diana pushed her car well past the speed limit, the city blurring into gray streaks outside the window. She drummed her manicured nails frantically against the steering wheel, muttering to herself. “We have time. We have to have time…” The Bluetooth clicked on. Her assistant’s voice filled the cabin. “Diana, I still can’t find a single trace of Mike anywhere in the system. It’s almost like he really is…” “Useless!” she screamed, slamming her palm against the horn. “Keep digging! Hack into the city’s traffic grids if you have to!” She killed the call, her breathing ragged. Then, her eyes suddenly lit up. It was that familiar, calculating look she always got right before she won a tough case. She dialed Oliver, her voice actually trembling with excitement. “Oliver, I figured it out! That old bat is still locked up in the psychiatric ward. Mike cares about her more than anything in the world…” My soul violently violently shook. The image of my mother, reduced to skin and bones, flashed before my eyes. After all these years, she still wanted to use my mother as a bargaining chip! I screamed at her to stop, but she couldn’t hear a thing. Intoxicated by the thrill of finding my weak point, she slammed on the gas and aimed the car straight for the asylum. Her heels echoed like gunshots down the sterile, fluorescent-lit hallways. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of bleach and stale urine. Diana pinched her nose in disgust and raised her voice. “Somebody get out here! Where is Mike’s mother? Bring her out to me right now.” A middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses rushed out of an office. “Counselor, what an unexpected surprise…” “Cut the crap, Dr. Lawson,” she snapped. “Which room is Eleanor in? I’m taking her with me.” Dr. Lawson’s face hardened, a thin layer of sweat instantly breaking out across his forehead. “Well… you might not be aware, but Eleanor is…” “She’s what? Oliver was just here last month paying ten grand for her care! Take me to her right now!” My spirit twisted in agony. That ten grand went straight into Oliver and Lawson’s pockets. Dr. Lawson scrambled to his desk, frantically clicking through his patient database until a death certificate popped up on the monitor. [Time of Death: March 15, 2023. Cause of Death: Severe Malnutrition.] “Counselor… Eleanor passed away two years ago.” “Bullshit!” Diana shoved him aside and grabbed the mouse, her eyes boring into the screen. I watched her pupils dilate, her fingers trembling slightly against the plastic mouse. But a second later, she let out a dry, mocking laugh. “Wow. How much did Mike pay you to forge this, Doctor?” She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a lethal whisper. “Do you know the maximum sentence for falsifying medical records?” Dr. Lawson looked like his knees were about to give out. “I swear to God, this is the official system! You can check the registry number with the state…” “Shut up.” Diana slammed the laptop shut and marched toward the door. “I’ll look into this myself. And if I find out you two are playing games with me…” She didn’t finish the threat, but Lawson already looked like a corpse. I knew exactly what he was terrified of. He was the one who personally injected my mother with fatal doses of sedatives. When Diana got back into her car, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely turn the key. She called Oliver, her voice sickeningly sweet. “Hey babe, don’t panic. I will find that old hag. Mike does whatever she says…” Sitting in the passenger seat, watching the absolute devotion in her eyes, a wave of hatred so pure it burned washed over me. If ghosts could cry, I would have wept blood. 04 But Diana only ever saved her gentleness for him. The moment she hung up, her foot went flat to the floor. She tore through the streets, blowing past three red lights. She screamed at her assistant over the phone, gripping the leather wheel until her knuckles turned white. “Investigate that hospital right now! I want a full audit! Mike definitely bribed them to hide her!” I looked at her twisted, furious profile and couldn’t help but laugh. The irony was staggering. The hospital did fake the records. But it wasn’t my money. And they weren’t protecting me. They were covering up for her precious, untouchable Oliver. Watching the city blur past, I remembered a rainy night three years ago. Oliver had his arm wrapped around Diana’s waist. “That old woman is a massive problem,” he had whispered to her. “She’s at the precinct every single day. If she keeps making noise, she’s going to blow our whole cover.” Diana hadn’t even looked up from her phone. “Handle it however you want,” she had replied, utterly indifferent. And just like that, Oliver slapped a fake psychiatric hold on my mother and locked her in a living hell, stripping away her freedom and eventually her life. The violent screech of tires yanked me back to the present. Diana had slammed the brakes near City Hall, but she made no move to get out. She was staring at a text from Oliver. “D, the trial is tomorrow. Why haven’t we found Mike yet?” Her manicured fingers tapped a frantic rhythm on the steering wheel before she finally called him back. “Oliver, listen to me. We have to trigger an emergency to push the court date back.” Oliver sounded confused. “An emergency?” “Yes. A sudden illness, a severe accident, something undeniable that forces the judge to delay…” Oliver went dead silent on the line. A minute later, a blood-curdling scream erupted from the phone, followed by the heavy, sickening thud of someone tumbling down a flight of wooden stairs. All the blood drained from Diana’s face. “Oliver? Oliver!” There was a chaotic shuffling sound, and then a panic-stricken voice came through. “Ms. Diana! Mr. Oliver… he just fell down the entire staircase!” I floated behind her as she sprinted through the sliding doors of the emergency room. Oliver was lying on a gurney, his right leg already in a thick plaster cast, looking as pale as a ghost. Diana threw herself over him, tears freely pouring down her cheeks. “Are you insane? We could have figured something else out! Why would you hurt yourself like this?” Oliver managed to put on a weak, tragic smile. “I just… I owe you too much. I couldn’t bear watching you run yourself ragged trying to fix my mistakes.” Diana let out a ragged breath and kissed his forehead tenderly. “You idiot. But… the doctor said your tibia is fractured. You need two weeks of bed rest. That pushes the trial back by at least half a month.” “You just focus on healing. I’ll handle the rest.” By the time she walked out of the hospital, the cold, ruthless lawyer was back. She called her assistant. “What did you find? Good. Now scrub every location Mike might be hiding. His old friends, his favorite bars, anywhere…” I hovered in her shadow as she slid into the driver’s seat. She would never guess that the man she was tearing the city apart to find was sitting right beside her.

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I was reborn. Brought back to the exact moment the hospital laboratory went up in flames. Fire devoured everything in sight. Christian and I were trapped inside the burning room. Then Stella appeared. She was my girlfriend. But without a single second of hesitation, she chose to save Christian first, treating me like I was completely invisible. I did not stop her. I did not beg. Because the memories of my past life were still burned into my brain. Back then, I revealed my secret identity as the hospital director’s son, using her career to force her to save me. Christian was left behind in that inferno forever. Afterward, she weaponized my guilt, slowly draining every single cent of my family’s wealth. In the end, she locked me inside a lab and set the room on fire. As I begged for my life in sheer despair, she flashed a twisted, demonic smile. “Rowan! If you hadn’t used your family’s power to threaten me, Christian would never have died that horrible death!” “Every ounce of pain he felt in those flames, I am going to make you pay back a thousand times over!” This time, I chose to let her have exactly what she wanted. And in doing so, I would save myself. … 01 A deafening crash shook the room. The heavy steel cabinet slammed into my body, the agonizing pain instantly snapping me fully awake. Ignoring the blinding agony, I desperately tried to make sense of my surroundings. Thick, toxic smoke forced my eyes shut. I could only cover my mouth, coughing so hard my lungs felt like they were bleeding. A dull, throbbing pain radiated from my right leg. I instinctively threw my arms over my head to protect myself. “No!” But my arms, which had been charred to the bone in my past life, were perfectly intact. How was this possible? Before my brain could process anything, a frantic, desperate voice pierced through the roar of the flames. “Christian! Christian! Are you okay?!” Why did that voice sound so agonizingly familiar? A second later, Christian’s weak, pathetic voice drifted over. “Stella… please help me…” I forced my head up in total disbelief. Through the haze, I saw Stella kneeling next to Christian, frantically shoving a fallen desk off his body. Watching the two of them, I literally couldn’t catch my breath. Wait. Wasn’t I just locked in a lab, burning to a crisp while Stella laughed at me? The realization hit me so hard I curled into a ball, my entire body violently shaking. From the lab doorway, my best friend Ben screamed until his voice cracked. “Stella! Are you completely out of your mind?! Save Rowan! He is your boyfriend!” The raw heat on my skin and the smoke stinging my eyes made it undeniably real. This wasn’t a nightmare. I was reborn. Brought back to the very day Christian, the hospital’s golden boy, and I were trapped in the fire. With a loud scrape of metal, Stella finally pushed the desk away. Without so much as a glance in my direction, she hauled Christian up and dragged him toward the exit. A bitter, mocking laugh escaped my throat. In my last life, this was exactly what she did. I was supposed to be the man she loved, but her eyes only ever saw him. It made sense. Christian was gorgeous. He was practically worshipped by the staff, and rumors constantly swirled that he was the sole heir to the Harrington Medical Empire. Even if Stella wasn’t single, she had probably fallen for him a long time ago. I struggled to stand, but the steel cabinet had my leg pinned to the floor. Shards of broken glass had sliced my calf open, and blood was pooling beneath me. I couldn’t move an inch. Stella finally seemed to notice I existed. But there was zero concern in her eyes. Only pure annoyance. She wrinkled her nose. “Christian is the sole heir to the Harrington family. If he dies here, this entire hospital goes down with him!” “I am looking at the bigger picture!” “Your injuries aren’t even that bad. Once I get Christian to safety, I will come back for you.” I laughed again. If I hadn’t already lived through this hell once, I might have actually believed her garbage excuse about “the bigger picture.” I was covered in my own blood, yet to her, my injuries “weren’t that bad.” Ben didn’t hesitate. He tried to charge straight into the fire, but a group of panicked nurses dragged him back. “Ben! Stop! The lab is full of combustible chemicals! It’s going to blow!” They were right. In my memory, this room had roughly fifteen minutes before it detonated. In my past life, after I was dragged out, I immediately screamed for everyone to evacuate, saving dozens of lives. Stella had actually wanted to run back in for Christian, but the flames grew too wild, and she chickened out. So why the hell would I ever believe she was coming back for me this time? I knew she wouldn’t. But I refused to drag the people who actually cared about me down into the grave. I propped myself up on my bloody elbows, screaming at the door with everything I had. “Ben, stay back! It’s going to blow! All of you, run!” Hearing the word “blow,” Stella froze in her tracks. She snapped her head back, glaring at me with eyes so cold she looked like a total stranger. “Rowan, since when did you become such a manipulative liar?!” “The fire department will be here in half an hour to contain this. If you scream about explosions, what are all the colleagues outside going to think of me?!” “Can’t you be a little more like Christian and show some actual basic human decency?!” Her absolute hypocrisy made my blood boil. “You didn’t call me manipulative when you were in my bed!” Hearing that, Christian weakly tugged at Stella’s collar, his voice trembling. “Stella, it hurts so much…” The moment Christian spoke, Stella immediately broke eye contact with me, her gaze softening entirely. “Hold on, Christian. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” And just like that, she practically carried him out the door. She never looked back. 02 I gritted my teeth and pushed against the crushing weight of the cabinet. A blinding, drilling pain shot up my spine. But compared to being burned alive in my past life, this was absolutely nothing. Watching Stella abandon me, Ben collapsed to his knees in the hallway, his face pale with disbelief. “Stella! You are sick in the head!” “The Chief of Medicine is going to ruin you for this!” Ben was the only person in the entire hospital who knew my real identity. But his threat only earned a cruel, mocking sneer from Stella. “The Chief is going to ruin me? Hilarious.” “Christian is the only son of the Harrington Medical group! If he dies, the Chief will be the one begging for mercy!” I dragged my bleeding body through the narrow gap beneath the cabinet. The jagged edges tore my wound open further, soaking my clothes in fresh blood. But I didn’t care. I needed to live. Seeing the clock ticking down, I screamed at Ben. “Stop talking to her! Get out of here!” I would never forget the look in Stella’s eyes when she poured gasoline over my head in my past life. There was no love left. Only absolute, psychotic hatred. She ignored my begging. She ignored our years together. She just struck the match. That was when I realized she had blamed me for Christian’s death every single day since the fire. She despised me. Before I could fully shake off that agonizing memory, Ben broke through the crowd and charged straight into the burning room. “Rowan! Stay with me!” Toxic smoke filled my lungs, blurring my vision. The only clear thing in the world was Ben’s figure pushing through the orange flames. “Are you insane?! Get out!” I roared. Ben ignored me. He gritted his teeth, hoisted half my weight onto his shoulder, and began dragging me toward the exit. The blistering heat scorched our skin. I watched a lock of his hair catch fire, glowing with orange embers, but he acted like he couldn’t feel a thing. He just kept pulling. Looking at his soot-stained face, a massive wave of guilt crashed over me. I weakly lifted my arm to check my watch. Time was up. If we didn’t move now, we were dead. I took a deep, ragged breath and screamed in his ear. “Listen to me! I am going to count down from three. When I hit one, we dive for the door. Do not look back at me, do you understand?!” Ben didn’t even turn his head. “Keep screaming! I am not letting go of you!” A knot of emotion tightened in my throat. I stopped arguing and locked my eyes on the doorway. Our only way out. Three! Two! One! “Jump!” I roared with every ounce of strength left in my broken body, dragging Ben with me as we launched ourselves through the door. Boom! The exact second we cleared the threshold, a catastrophic explosion detonated behind us. The massive shockwave blasted us across the hallway. My eardrums felt like they had ruptured. My vision went completely white. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. Just a high-pitched, endless ringing echoing in my skull. “Rowan! Rowan! Can you hear me?!” I don’t know how long I blacked out, but Ben’s panicked voice eventually broke through the static. I forced my eyes open. “I’m fine… just my leg…” Ben followed my gaze down. His face instantly drained of color. “It’s bad. Don’t look at it. Just… wait right here!” He scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the hall. A few minutes later, Ben returned with a team of colleagues carrying a stretcher. When they saw the state of my leg, every single one of them gasped. One of the male nurses covered his mouth. “Oh my god… how many stitches is that going to take?!” My entire body felt shattered, but my mind was violently clear. As they wheeled me past the emergency triage, I saw Stella. She had her arms wrapped tenderly around Christian’s shoulders, whispering sweet comfort into his ear, acting like the horrors of the last twenty minutes never happened. Acting like I didn’t exist. The head nurse, who had always treated me well, began examining my wounds. She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “Rowan… what kind of karma is this? You have so many fractured bones. It’s going to take at least a year of physical therapy to walk right…” Her voice cracked into a sob. “Thank God your right hand is safe. Once you heal, you can still operate.” I managed a weak, bloodstained smile, wanting to comfort her, but the pain robbed me of my voice. The head nurse lowered her voice, glancing nervously toward the triage bay. “That Christian guy… I heard it’s just a few minor scratches! And look at Dr. Stella treating him like he’s dying. Disgusting…” Hearing that, Ben completely snapped. He marched right up to triage, pointing a shaking finger directly at Stella’s face. “Stella! You make me sick to my stomach!” Before Ben could even finish his sentence, Christian let out a pathetic, breathy cough. “Stella… I’m feeling really weak…” Stella immediately went into panic mode, stroking his hair. “Just hold on, Christian. The specialists will be here any second.” Then, she slowly looked up, glaring daggers at Ben. “Rowan is fine, isn’t he?!” “Rowan is my boyfriend. Whatever happens between us is our business. Why do you always have to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?!” I stared at Stella’s repulsive, self-righteous face from my stretcher. My voice was hoarse, but it cut through the room like a knife. “We are done.” “We are breaking up.” Ben nodded aggressively. “Good! No point reasoning with trash!” Stella froze. She clearly hadn’t expected me to drop the hammer in front of everyone. Her brow furrowed in deep annoyance. “Rowan, what is your problem now? Are you playing games with me?” I let out a cold, raspy laugh. “Playing games? You aren’t worth the effort.” I forced the tears back, staring dead at Christian hiding behind her. “You would rather save another man than save my life. And you have the nerve to call yourself my girlfriend?!” Christian, a grown man, immediately forced tears into his eyes like a victim. “Rowan… how could you say that to her?” “She just knows you’re stronger than me. She believed in you. She simply chose to save the person who needed her the most…” The ER erupted into chaotic whispers. Stella’s aggressive defense and Christian’s pathetic weeping drew a massive crowd of onlookers. “Well, the golden boy has a point. He’s so fragile, obviously he needed help first!” “Exactly. Dr. Stella was just making the logical choice. Why is Dr. Rowan being so incredibly bitter?” “No kidding. Christian is the heir to the Harrington Empire. Saving him is objectively more important!” Just then, my father rushed into the ER, having caught the first flight back from his overseas conference. Seeing him, Stella instantly dropped her defensive attitude and rushed over, putting on a professional, respectful face. “Chief Thomas! The lab exploded, and I… I risked my life to pull Christian out of the flames.” “Christian just promised me he would have Harrington Medical double their funding for our hospital!” My dad’s face was completely black. “Where is Rowan?!” Assuming the Chief was looking for someone to blame, Stella eagerly threw me to the wolves. “Sir, it was just Rowan and Christian in the lab. Christian is flawless with his protocols, so this incident is entirely Rowan’s fault.” “They just pulled him out. His injuries aren’t severe. But honestly, I strongly recommend banning him from the research labs going forward. Christian is more than capable of leading the projects alone.” My father’s expression turned murderous. Lying on the stretcher, I just smiled coldly to myself. Just wait, Stella. Once I am out of the picture, your life is going to become a living hell. Before I could even see my dad’s reaction, the darkness pulled me under, and I passed out cold. When I woke up, it was already dusk the following day. My arms and legs were encased in heavy plaster and bandages. I couldn’t move, but breathing the sterile hospital air, I felt completely reborn. “Rowan!” Ben walked up to my bed, looking exhausted but incredibly relieved. I tried to lift my hand to greet him, but a sharp spike of pain forced me to stop. Seeing me wince, Ben lost his composure. “You absolute idiot! Do you have any idea how close you were to dying?!” I offered a weak smile. “At least… I’m still breathing…” In this life, I didn’t owe Stella a damn thing. And neither my dad nor I were going to die. “Man,” Ben sighed heavily, pulling up a chair. “I already told your dad exactly what happened. He was so furious he called an emergency disciplinary board meeting for tomorrow morning!” Hearing about my dad, hot tears finally spilled over my eyelashes. In my past life, my blind trust in Stella eventually led to my father’s tragic death. “Ben…” I took a shaky breath, steadying my voice. “I need you to do one last thing for me.” “Name it.” “The security cameras… inside my private lab. I need you to pull the footage from right before the fire…” Ben grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Already on it, brother.” “We hit a small firewall, but don’t worry. I completely bypassed it. We have the video.” Looking at him, a tidal wave of guilt practically crushed my chest. In my past life, Stella had brainwashed me into believing Ben was jealous of me. She convinced me he was trying to sabotage my career. I got into a massive screaming match with him, cut him out of my life, and died before I ever had the chance to apologize. I was so blind. I threw away gold for a piece of trash. I was just about to close my eyes and rest when the door swung open. Stella walked in. And of course, Christian was trailing right behind her. He stood there looking absolutely flawless, adjusting the collar of his designer shirt, drawing the admiring eyes of the passing nurses. Then there was me. Mummified in plaster, broken on a hospital bed.

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I have been feeling like there is a pair of eyes rummaging through my brain lately. It feels exactly like someone flipping through my private diary in the dead of night. Memories that should be carved into my bones are slipping away. My apartment passcode, my parents’ phone numbers, even my own name feels blurry sometimes. It all started when our new coworker, Erik, showed up. He wears crisp, tailored suits and a textbook perfect smile that makes my stomach turn. The most terrifying part happened during our project pitch. I suddenly blanked on the core algorithm steps, and he recited them word for word, exactly as I had conceptualized them in my head. “You have been a bit forgetful lately, Rainey,” he said with fake concern. “Am I?” I stared dead into his eyes. “Then how do you know the exact ideas I have never told a single soul about?” He panicked, averted his gaze, and practically ran out of the conference room. I finally understood. He was using some kind of neural interface to hack my mind. My three years of blood, sweat, and tears were being siphoned away drop by drop. This monster in a tailored suit was using my intellect as a stepping stone to climb the corporate ladder. But he didn’t know one crucial detail. Memory transfer is a two-way street. While he was digging through my head for secrets, I caught a glimpse of his own filthy skeletons. 01 Erik parachuted into the company three months ago. He is tall, maybe six foot two, always rocking a perfectly pressed suit and flashing that blinding, rehearsed smile. The girls in the office swooned over him, gossiping about his relationship status by the water cooler. But he rubbed me the wrong way from day one. It was a subtle feeling. The way he looked at me wasn’t friendly. He looked at me like I was a commodity on a shelf, calculating my exact market value. I never thought it would get this bad. I got booted from the core engineering team and tossed onto a dead-end project. Meanwhile, Erik, a guy who hadn’t even been here a hundred days, took over the exact project I had poured three years of my life into. I dragged my heavy feet home tonight, only to realize I couldn’t even remember my own front door code. I had to pull up my phone notes just to get inside. The second the door clicked shut, I collapsed onto my bed, tears spilling out uncontrollably. I unlocked my phone to call my parents and vent, but my mind drew a complete blank on their numbers. I scrolled through my contacts, realizing with absolute horror that I couldn’t even tell which number belonged to my dad and which to my mom. It was terrifying. I grabbed a notebook and frantically started scribbling down the day’s events. “April 12. Project pitch failed. Severe memory glitches.” “Erik knew things only I could possibly know. I suspect he has something to do with my missing memories.” I ripped the page out and taped it right above my pillow. Starting tomorrow, I was going to document every single anomaly. My phone buzzed. It was Maggie from HR. “Rainey, are you okay? That meeting today was rough.” “Maggie, I think I am losing my mind.” I spilled everything about my memory gaps. The line went dead quiet for a few seconds. “You need to see a neurologist. I will go with you.” “It is not a medical issue.” I pulled at my hair in frustration. “I swear it is Erik. He knows what is inside my head.” “Are you saying he snooped through your files?” “No. He knows ideas I haven’t written down anywhere. It is like he literally stole my memories.” Maggie stayed silent for a much longer time. “Rainey, listen to yourself. That is completely impossible.” “I know it sounds insane, but I need you to trust me. Just do a deep background check on Erik, please?” “I will see what I can do. But you seriously need to see a doctor.” I hung up and started tearing my apartment apart. I dug up every single old work journal and reviewed every project detail, absolutely terrified I would wake up tomorrow and forget something crucial again. That night, I had a bizarre dream. I was standing in a strange, high-end apartment, staring at a monitor filled with code. My fingers were flying across the keyboard, tweaking a predictive algorithm. But it didn’t feel like my hands. They were the hands of a man. Then I walked into the bathroom. The face staring back at me in the mirror was Erik. 02 The next morning, I showed up at the office two hours early and made a beeline for the main conference room. I had an epiphany last night. If my memories were really bleeding into Erik’s brain, he should be able to answer a question only I knew the answer to. I needed to test this crazy theory. I grabbed a marker and drew a complex math equation on the whiteboard. It was a personal shorthand system I invented back in college. Absolutely nobody else could decipher it. I snapped a quick photo on my phone and erased it spotless. At exactly nine o’clock, Erik strolled into the bullpen, looking sharp and wearing his signature fake smile. “Morning, Rainey.” He gave a polite nod, his tone dripping with a winner’s superiority. “Morning, Erik.” I squeezed out a smile faker than his. “Thanks for bailing me out in the meeting yesterday.” “Anytime.” He stopped by the espresso machine. “You have been looking pretty exhausted lately, though. Memory loss is usually the first sign of severe burnout.” He heavily emphasized the words “memory loss”, a sly glint flashing in his eyes. “Maybe.” I kept my voice casual. “Hey, by the way, what do you make of this formula?” I held up the photo I just took. Erik glanced at the screen, and his face instantly tightened. “That is your custom shorthand for the core predictive logic. You have been using that exact syntax since your sophomore year of college.” My stomach dropped to the floor. There was zero chance he could know that. Unless… “How do you know that?” My voice actually shook. He narrowed his eyes. “You must have mentioned it to me at some point.” He quickly turned on his heel and walked away, his stiff posture betraying his panic. I immediately pulled out my pocket notebook and logged the interaction. A horrifying reality was taking shape in my mind. My memories were genuinely being hijacked. At noon, Maggie dragged me to a quiet coffee shop down the street. “I dug up some dirt,” she whispered, leaning over the table. “His resume is completely cooked.” “He claimed he spent five years at Google, but I reached out to a buddy in their HR. He was there for two years, tops.” “And he left his last startup incredibly abruptly. Word on the street is he caused a massive disaster on a classified project.” “What kind of project?” I asked. “No idea. They scrubbed the data clean,” Maggie frowned. “But here is the real kicker. His graduate research at MIT wasn’t in Artificial Intelligence. His thesis was on Neural Interfaces and Memory Storage.” The ceramic mug nearly slipped out of my hand. “There is more,” Maggie continued. “I pulled the security logs for the building. For the past month, he has been staying late almost every single night. He usually doesn’t badge out until three or four in the morning.” I flipped open my notebook, matching the dates of my memory glitches. A perfect match. Every single time I woke up with a mental fog, Erik had been alone in the office until the early hours of the morning. “Maggie, do you believe me now? About the memories?” She hesitated. “I don’t know if the sci-fi stuff is possible. But I know you wouldn’t get this paranoid over nothing.” “If your gut says he is dirty, then he is dirty.” “I need hard proof. I am staying late tonight to see exactly what he is doing in the dark.” 03 That night, I packed my bag and pretended to leave for the day, but I actually just camped out at a diner across the street. By ten-thirty, the entire building was mostly dark. I slipped back in through the loading dock, using a spare keycard I borrowed from Gary, the night shift security guard. Gary was a sweet older guy who always appreciated the donuts I brought him on Fridays. “Rainey? Burning the midnight oil again?” “Yeah, tight deadline. Hey, is the new director still up there?” “Oh yeah. Guy practically lives here.” Gary lowered his voice. “He is a weird one. Always locks himself in the back lab and refuses to let the cleaning crew inside.” “The lab? What is he even doing in there?” “Beats me. Claims it is highly classified.” My suspicion deepened. The lab was supposed to be a shared testing space. Who gave Erik the right to claim it as his personal fortress? I took the service elevator up and crept barefoot toward my cubicle. The main floor was pitch black, except for a sliver of blue light spilling from under the lab door at the far end of the hall. I tiptoed closer, holding my breath, and peeked through the frosted glass panel. Erik had his back to the door. He was tinkering with a massive piece of hardware I had never seen before. It looked like a sleek, metallic helmet, wired directly into a stack of high-powered servers. The main monitor displayed a dizzying stream of raw data flowing into a glowing 3D model of a human brain. I pulled out my phone and quietly snapped a few photos. Suddenly, Erik spun around. I threw myself flat against the wall, but I was a second too slow. “Who is out there?” he snapped. I pressed my hands over my mouth, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. His heavy footsteps echoed as he marched toward the door. Just as the handle clicked, a voice called out from the opposite end of the corridor. “Mr. Mercer? Your food delivery is downstairs.” It was Gary. The footsteps stopped, then pivoted away. I seized the window and bolted into the women’s restroom, shaking uncontrollably. Once the coast was clear, I snuck out of the building and ran all the way to my apartment, too terrified to even look over my shoulder. Safe inside, I immediately checked my camera roll. Most of the shots were blurry garbage, but one captured the main monitor perfectly. I zoomed in. Right above the glowing 3D brain model was a distinct file name. Target: Rainey Woods. My phone hit the floor. I was right. Erik was literally hacking into my mind. But how was he doing it without touching me? And why me? My hands shook as I grabbed my notebook. I logged everything I saw, then set three aggressive alarms, absolutely terrified of what I might forget by morning. Right before I shut my eyes, I made a desperate move. I wrote a message on the last page, ripped it out, and shoved it under my mattress. “If you are reading this, remember. Erik is stealing your memories. The proof is in your photo gallery.” 04 I woke up feeling groggy. I couldn’t remember my dreams, but one specific visual was burned into my mind. I was in a dark, unfamiliar room, staring at a computer screen, editing a highly encrypted file. The document title was “Rainey Woods Memory Extraction Progress”. I bolted upright in bed, grabbed my notebook, and read the entry from last night. Seeing the photos on my phone brought the entire nightmare crashing back. I called Maggie immediately. “Maggie, I need a massive favor. Dig up everything you can find on Erik’s MIT research. Neural interfaces, memory extraction. Leave no stone unturned.” “What happened? You sound like you are about to have a panic attack.” “I saw him in the lab last night. He has this insane rig, and my name was literally on the monitor.” “I am completely positive he is using experimental tech to download my brain.” She went quiet. “Are you sure you didn’t just see a project file?” “Maggie, please. Just find the files.” “Okay. I will look. Just watch your back.” Hanging up, I made a solid decision. I was going to play the clueless victim today, but I was setting a lethal trap. When I got to work, I took a deliberate detour past Erik’s office. He wasn’t at his desk. His workspace was sterile, wiped completely clean. The only personal item was a heavy, biometric briefcase. I was just debating if I should risk touching it when a smooth voice echoed behind me. “Looking for something, Rainey?” I spun around, keeping my face perfectly neutral. “Oh, hey Erik. I brought over the weekly metrics, but I wasn’t sure if I should just leave them on your chair.” He took the invisible “metrics” from my empty hand with a knowing, condescending smirk. “Thanks. But maybe knock next time.” “Of course. Sorry for intruding.” I turned to walk away. “Hold on,” he called out. “Sleep well last night? Have any… vivid dreams?” My heart skipped a beat, but I forced a look of pure confusion. “Not really. Slept like a rock. Why?” “Just making conversation.” That slick, fake smile made me want to punch him. Back at my desk, I executed my plan. I opened my code editor and created a massive file named “Core Algorithm Final Build”. I stuffed it with thousands of lines of incredibly complex, totally useless garbage code. I pretended to review it obsessively, waiting to see if he would take the bait. At lunch, I faked a bathroom trip and looped past his glass office. Sure enough, he was glued to his monitors, typing frantically with a disgustingly smug look on his face. At three o’clock, our CEO, Mr. Harrison, called the engineering heads into the boardroom. Erik sat at the right hand of the boss, practically glowing with confidence. He shot me a smug glance across the table. “Alright team,” Mr. Harrison started. “We pitch the algorithm prototype to the venture capitalists next week.” “Erik, where do we stand?” Erik stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, and projected his laptop to the big screen. “We are in perfect shape. I just finished optimizing the final core logic, and the efficiency metrics are blowing our projections out of the water.” He began flipping through a deck of complex diagrams and data sets. It was word-for-word the garbage data I had planted in my fake file that morning. I clenched my fists under the mahogany table. He took the bait. The second the meeting wrapped, I texted Maggie. “Massive breakthrough. Meet me after work.” She replied instantly. “I have something huge too. See you at six.” At seven, Maggie drove us to a run-down diner on the edge of town, making sure nobody from the office could track us. “I pulled some serious strings,” she said, sliding a thick manila folder across the sticky table. “His MIT project was called ‘Cognitive Extraction and Transfer Protocols’. The university shut it down three years ago for severe ethical violations.” “His lead professor testified that the tech violated basic human rights and had terrifying potential for corporate espionage.” “I knew it!” I flipped through the classified documents, my pulse racing. “He is using that exact tech to strip-mine my brain!” “It gets worse.” Maggie pointed at a redacted NDA form. “His last employer? Horizon Dynamics. Our biggest market rival.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “He is a corporate rat.” “Exactly. I talked to my industry contacts. Horizon has been trying to launch a predictive model just like ours.” “But their backend is years behind us. If he steals your technical knowledge…” “He hands them the keys to crush us,” I finished her sentence. “And the dead-end project I am on right now? It actually houses the foundational architecture for our entire ecosystem.” “We have to take this to Mr. Harrison.” I shook my head. “Without hard proof, Harrison will laugh us out of the room. He thinks Erik walks on water.” “Then what do we do?” I stared at my cold coffee. “I have a plan.” “If he wants to dig around in my head, I am going to serve him something incredibly toxic.”

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1 I woke up on the cold, filthy floor of an abandoned kennel, my head throbbing. Harsh lights revealed dozens of Shiba Inus with sickly green eyes behind fences. Victoria stood a few yards away, her gaze icy. Beside her, Felix filmed me with a smirk. “Since you love dogs so much,” Victoria said flatly, “stay with them. They haven’t eaten in a week.” Felix chimed in with fake pity. “A saint like you wouldn’t fight back, even as they chew you to the bone.” Bitterness filled my mouth. My wife was trying to have me killed to avenge Felix—her secretary whose career I’d ruined days ago. I’d caught him torturing a stray, stepped in, and the video went viral. He was fired, and I was called a hero. Victoria hadn’t argued. She’d even agreed that keeping someone so cruel was a liability. Believing she’d finally seen the truth, I relaxed. Over a celebratory dinner, she handed me wine. One sip, and everything went black—landing me here. 2 Victoria scoffed, looking down at me like I was a bad joke. “Are you threatening me, Arthur? Don’t forget you brought this entirely on yourself.” She crossed her arms, her designer heels clicking on the metal grating of the catwalk above me. “You just had to play the hero, didn’t you? Felix was just blowing off some steam, messing around with a mutt. You blew it way out of proportion. Because of you, he got cyberbullied, lost his career, and can’t even walk down the street without getting harassed. And you? You didn’t feel an ounce of guilt. You just sat there soaking up the praise. You’re a snake, Arthur. And tonight, you’re going to learn your lesson.” She gestured to the cages. “You love animals so much? Look at them. They’ve been starved for seven days. Let’s see if you can keep up that saintly persona when they’re tearing chunks out of your legs.” I glanced at the massive monitor set up behind them, showing my own disheveled reflection on the live feed. A bitter laugh escaped my throat. Felix was a two-faced sociopath. I saw him with my own eyes, pressing a lit cigarette into that stray dog’s open wound just to get a sick kick out of it. I stopped him because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t ask anyone to film it, nor did I ask for it to go viral. But I didn’t regret a single second of it. Trash like him deserved to be dragged out into the light. I just never expected my own wife to be so utterly blind, throwing away her morals just to coddle him. Seeing me stay silent, Felix leaned over the railing, his face practically glowing with malice. “Did the big tough guy get scared speechless?” He turned to Victoria, putting on his best puppy-dog eyes. “Boss, do you think he’ll hold a grudge if we do this? Maybe we should just let it go. If he just gets on his knees, begs for my forgiveness on the live stream, and admits he framed me, we can let him walk.” Victoria looked at me with pure disgust. “You see that, Arthur? You’re not even half the man Felix is. Look how forgiving he is. He’s still thinking about your wellbeing.” She pointed a manicured finger at me. “Kneel. Apologize to the camera. Tell the world you orchestrated the whole thing. Tell them you faked the abuse to weaponize the internet against him. Do that, and I’ll open the door.” On the big screen, the viewer count was skyrocketing. The chat box was moving at lightspeed, filled with comments reacting to Victoria’s narrative. “Wait, so Arthur set the whole thing up because he was jealous? That’s sick.” “I can vouch for Felix! We went to college together. He wouldn’t hurt a bug. It had to be a deepfake or heavily edited!” “I work with Felix too! Arthur always used his status as the CEO’s husband to bully him and steal his accounts. Arthur is the real psycho!” I didn’t even need to guess. Felix had clearly bought a massive bot farm and paid off trolls to steer the narrative. Led by the fake accounts, the real viewers were starting to turn on me. “Cancel this guy immediately.” “Stop wasting time and release the hounds! Teach this manipulative loser a lesson. He’s an embarrassment to men everywhere.” My jaw clenched. I looked dead into Victoria’s eyes, my voice dripping with absolute defiance. “I will never apologize to a piece of trash.” Felix’s lips twitched upward, exactly as he had planned. Victoria’s face hardened, shocked that I would actually refuse her in front of thousands. She raised her right hand. “Then I’ll let the dogs keep you company.” 3 The heavy metal latches clacked open. The feral Shibas poured out of the cages. These weren’t the cute internet meme dogs. These were starving, desperate animals. Their ribs poked through their coats, saliva dripping from their bared teeth as their glowing eyes locked onto me. I backed up, my heart hammering against my ribs. Up on the catwalk, Felix was laughing so hard he had to hold his stomach, while Victoria watched with terrifying indifference, as if my life meant absolutely nothing to her. In a split second of distraction, the lead dog lunged. I threw my arm up on pure instinct. Jaws clamped down hard. I violently shoved the dog away, but a sickening rip echoed through the room as a chunk of my flesh went with it. “Ah!” I yelled, stumbling back as warm blood instantly soaked my sleeve. Cold sweat beaded on my forehead. The pain was blinding, but the adrenaline cut through it. If I didn’t fight back right now, this pack was going to strip me to the bone. Spotting a rusted iron pipe near a support pillar, I sprinted for it. Another dog leaped at my throat. I swung the pipe like a baseball bat. The heavy metal connected with a brutal crunch. The dog hit the floor, yelping and thrashing before it finally stopped moving, a pool of dark blood pooling beneath its head. The rest of the pack flinched, barking frantically as they saw one of their own go down. They didn’t retreat, but they stopped charging, circling me slowly, waiting for my legs to give out. My palms were incredibly slick with sweat and blood, but I gripped the pipe tighter. I had to stay sharp. Buy time. On the screen above, the chat was absolutely losing its mind. “We finally see his true colors! If he really loved animals, he’d let them bite him. He just beat a dog to death!” “Dogs have rights too! They’re just hungry! How could he kill it just to save his own skin?” “His nice-guy act is completely shattered. What a monster.” The sheer stupidity of the internet was almost laughable. If I didn’t swing that pipe, I would be dead. I wasn’t some kind of martyr, and I didn’t plan on dying for a PR stunt. I just wanted to survive. Was that a crime now? Victoria’s voice boomed through the speakers again. “Kneel, Arthur! Apologize right now and I’ll pull them back!” I glared up at her, my eyes bloodshot. “In your dreams.” “You!” Victoria’s chest heaved with rage, her tone turning nasty. “You love playing the animal rights activist! Are you really going to slaughter these innocent dogs just to save yourself? You killed one. Are you going to kill a second? A third? Is this your so-called compassion?” I couldn’t believe the absolute mental gymnastics she was doing. She set this death trap up, yet she was lecturing me about morals? I let out a harsh laugh. “Tell me, Victoria! What exactly did I do to make you want me dead?” For a fraction of a second, she froze, unable to answer. But before she could find her words, a vicious glint flashed in Felix’s eyes. With a fake gasp, Felix tossed a handful of dried beef strips directly over the railing. They landed right at my boots. The scent of the meat hit the starving pack. Any hesitation they had vanished. They went completely rabid and swarmed. 4 I swung the pipe with everything I had, but there were simply too many of them. They came in waves, driven mad by the hunger. A set of teeth sank into my calf. Another clamped onto my waist. I staggered, losing my footing, and a heavy weight slammed into my back, jaws locking onto my shoulder blade. I was going down. The sea of fur and teeth was swallowing me whole. I gritted my teeth and let out a raw, guttural roar. “Ahhhh!” I thrashed violently, spinning and cracking the iron pipe blindly. I managed to shake off the dogs, but the cost was horrific. Flesh tore away with their teeth. I stumbled backward, my shredded shirt completely soaked in crimson. Sensing I was running on fumes, the Shibas scraped their claws against the concrete, preparing for the final leap. Up on the platform, Victoria finally realized this wasn’t a game. She gasped, her eyes going wide with panic. She grabbed the collar of her security chief. “You told me these dogs were well-fed and trained! You said they wouldn’t actually hurt him!” “I just wanted to scare him!” Her voice cracked. “Why are they attacking for real? Look at how much he’s bleeding! Arthur can’t handle pain like this. Make them stop! Tell them to stop right now!” The bodyguards exchanged nervous glances. Felix’s expression darkened for a second before he smoothly wrapped his arms around Victoria’s waist, burying his face in her neck. “He’s still your husband, huh? You still feel sorry for him? But he hasn’t even apologized to me yet.” He gently touched his bandaged forearm. “The trainers said the dogs just nip. It looks worse than it is, it’s just surface scratches. Does it really not matter what Arthur did to me? Because I’m just a nobody, I deserve to be ruined, right?” He forced a tear to roll down his cheek. “Even if the internet drove me to the brink of suicide, you still side with him.” Victoria melted instantly. She cupped his face, wiping the tear away. “No, baby, no. You’re the most important thing to me.” “Then let him fight them off for just a little longer,” Felix whispered softly. “Just until you’re not angry anymore. Please?” A sickeningly satisfied smile crept onto his face. The microphone picked up every word. I heard it all. The absolute betrayal carved a hole in my chest deeper than the bite marks. My wife knew I was in mortal danger, yet one fake tear from this parasite was all it took for her to let me bleed out. Victoria caught me looking at her and looked away guiltily. “You brought this on yourself, Arthur! It’s just a few scratches anyway. Compared to the mental torture Felix went through, this is nothing!” The chat was eating it up. “Oh, so it’s just a prank to scare him! Victoria is too nice. RIP to the dog that got killed though.” “Not gonna lie, Arthur’s acting is Oscar-worthy. I actually thought he was dying.” “Sit back and enjoy the show, guys. Let’s see what else this manipulative crybaby tries to pull.” My cuts were deep enough to see bone. I was painted in my own blood. Anyone with eyes could see these dogs were trying to rip my throat out. But Victoria was so brainwashed she genuinely believed I was just dealing with a few scrapes. Fine. If that’s how it was going to be, I had nothing left to hold back. I checked the shattered face of my watch. It was time. I made my choice. 5 Dropping my defensive stance, I let out a battle cry and charged headfirst directly into the thickest part of the pack. To the viewers, it looked like suicide. They thought I had lost my mind. Victoria slammed her hands on the railing, absolute terror washing over her. “Arthur, what are you doing?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” “They won’t kill you, but you’re making them crazy! Stop it! You’re insane!” I gave her one last, cold smirk before the wave of dogs overtook me. The camera could only capture a frantic blur of snarling muzzles, tearing fabric, and my muffled shouts. Victoria completely lost it. She screamed at her men, “Get down there! Cage them! He’s actually going to die!” The mood in the live chat suddenly shifted as reality set in. “Hold up… those don’t look like trained guard dogs. Trained dogs bite and hold. These things are shredding him.” “Look at the blood on the floor! That’s not a scratch, he just lost a chunk of his shoulder!” “Wait a minute… is this stream hijacked? The people defending Felix sound like literal bots. Who paid for this?” Victoria saw the comments turning. She glared at Felix, but there was no time to argue. She shoved her bodyguards toward the stairs. But the security chief was pale, his hands shaking. He wouldn’t move. “What is going on?!” Victoria shrieked. “Why are they so aggressive? Talk, or I’ll throw you in there myself!” The guard swallowed hard. “Ma’am… they’re not trained. They’re feral. They haven’t been fed in a week. Anyone who goes down there is going to get eaten alive.” Victoria stumbled back, her heels catching on the grating. “What are you talking about?” The guard looked nervously at Felix. The pieces finally clicked in Victoria’s head. Felix immediately turned on the waterworks, his eyes wide and innocent. “I just wanted to teach him a lesson! I told the kennel to skip their meals, but I didn’t know they would get this violent! Boss, I swear I didn’t mean to actually kill him!” Seeing his panicked, tear-stained face, Victoria’s anger evaporated. “I’m not blaming you… I just…” “Forget it,” she sighed, rubbing her temples. “You were just hurt. It’s not your fault.” Laying on the concrete, feeling teeth rake across my ribs, I heard every single word of her forgiveness. I didn’t even feel angry anymore. Just a cold, heavy numbness. My body was riddled with punctures. My fingers lost their grip, and the iron pipe clattered loudly against the floor. Just as my vision started to fade to black, the blaring wail of police sirens pierced the air outside the warehouse. The dogs pinned me down, snapping at my face, but I managed a bloody, savage smile. My ride was finally here.

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I was riding my bike near the campus gates to grab some afternoon takeout when a Porsche suddenly gunned its engine, speeding right at me. I swerved desperately, dodging once, twice, but the car was relentless. With a sickening crunch, both my bike and I were sent flying onto the pavement. The driver stepped out. My jaw clenched. It was Lexi, my gorgeous, popular college roommate. Instead of apologizing, she pointed a manicured finger at me and sneered. “Have you completely lost your mind, Sienna? You saw a luxury car and decided to throw yourself at it for an insurance payout?” My blood boiled. I reached for my phone, ready to dial the cops. Seeing this, she let out a loud scoff. In front of the gathering crowd of students, she pulled out an exclusive black credit card and threw it at my feet. “Consider it my bad luck running into a broke loser like you.” “The money on this card is enough to buy your life,” she mocked. “My boyfriend is the heir to Vanguard Industries. He runs this city. You pull a stunt like this again, and he will make sure you get kicked out of this university for good.” I picked up the sleek black card and examined it, a sharp, cynical laugh escaping my lips. This was absolutely hilarious. That Porsche? It was the exact one I had lent my boyfriend. This black card? Also mine. And the CEO of Vanguard Industries? He only had one child. Me. 1 I was just trying to grab a quick dinner on my bike when that Porsche purposely chased me down. I dodged a few times, but it clipped my back wheel, sending me crashing onto the curb. Luckily, I wasn’t badly hurt. But the driver seemed to hold a massive grudge against me. She reversed and drove over my fallen bike repeatedly until the carbon fiber frame was completely crushed into an unrecognizable heap. Furious and limping, I walked over and slammed my fist on her window. “Who the hell taught you how to drive? You did that on purpose.” The tinted window rolled down at a painfully slow pace, revealing a face I knew all too well. It was my roommate, Lexi, the reigning campus queen. She rolled her eyes, looking at me with pure disgust. “What is your problem, Sienna? You saw me driving a nice car and suddenly remembered you were out of grocery money? Don’t think I don’t know you threw yourself at my bumper.” I was genuinely speechless. She ran me over, crushed my property, and hadn’t even bothered to step out of the vehicle. I grabbed her designer blouse through the open window, yanking her toward me. “Get out of the car and look at what you did. Look at my bleeding leg. Look at my crushed bike. And you think I need your dirty money?” Lexi shoved my hands away, stepping out of the car with a dramatic sigh. She crossed her arms, looking me up and down. “You ride a piece of trash, yet you claim you aren’t broke. Who are you kidding? Open your eyes, peasant. This is a Porsche.” It was the first time in my life someone had called my ride a piece of trash. I chuckled darkly. “That ‘piece of trash’ is a custom Trek Butterfly. Even if you sold your soul, you couldn’t afford to replace it.” Lexi pouted her lips in mockery. “I don’t care if it’s a butterfly or a moth. It’s a stupid bicycle. How much could it possibly cost?” “Listen to yourself,” she sneered, projecting her voice. “All you care about is money. And you claim this isn’t a scam.” She dug into her designer purse, pulled out a couple of crisp hundred-dollar bills, and slapped them against my chest. “Take it. Consider it my charity for the week. Two hundred bucks should cover your cheap cafeteria meals for a while.” She shoved my shoulder hard, turning back to grab her door handle. “Now get lost. I have a date with my boyfriend, and I’m already late.” I slammed the car door shut right in her face, blocking her path. “Lexi, you are not leaving here until you give me a proper apology.” A sleek Porsche parked sideways at the campus gates naturally drew a massive crowd. Students were already filming on their phones. Instead of backing down, Lexi played the victim. She turned to the crowd, putting on a flawless distressed expression. “You guys have to help me. Sienna is totally out of her mind. She saw my car, deliberately threw herself at it, and now she is trying to extort me for cash! How does someone this trashy even go to our school?” I wiped a trickle of blood from my scraped knee, glaring daggers at her. “You deliberately ran me off the road. Are you blind?” “And drop the whole ‘luxury car’ act,” I shot back. “I have the exact same model.” The bystanders, swayed by Lexi’s flashy arrival and designer clothes, immediately took her side. Whispers and snickers broke out around me. “Everyone knows Sienna is on a work-study program. What a joke. She owns a Porsche? She is definitely trying to squeeze Lexi for cash.” My blood boiled. I worked at my own family’s corporation to gain experience, and somehow that got twisted into me being a charity case? And even if I were broke, how did that excuse her trying to run me over? Before I could defend myself, Lexi cut me off with a triumphant smirk. “Just because you sat in one doesn’t mean you own it, honey. I know you used to ride shotgun in Tristan’s Porsche.” She leaned against the car door, her eyes gleaming with malice. “But guess what? Tristan is my boyfriend now. And he told me he must have been blind to ever date someone like you.” Tristan. The guy who always acted so sweet, so obedient, so totally devoted to me. Lexi and I were never close. We lived in the same dorm, but we barely spoke. That was until two months ago when I started dating Tristan. Suddenly, she was always hovering, asking weirdly specific questions. “Tristan drives a Porsche? Is his family loaded?” “How did a guy like him fall for you? I am obviously way prettier.” I had brushed her off back then, trusting Tristan implicitly. I thought we had something real. I trusted him so much that I let him borrow my car and even gave him my black card to cover his expenses. And this was how he repaid me? By sleeping with my vain, shallow roommate? I glanced down at the license plate. The numbers matched perfectly. It was literally my car. He didn’t just cheat on me. He gave my car to his sidepiece to flaunt. The betrayal snapped something inside me. I raised my hand and slapped Lexi so hard the sound echoed across the street. “You steal another girl’s boyfriend and you parade around like you own the place. Who gave you the audacity?” Lexi gasped, clutching her stinging, red cheek. She glared at me like a cornered viper. “You can’t blame him for upgrading, Sienna. Have you never heard the saying? The one who isn’t loved is the real third wheel. And honestly? He never loved you.” She pulled out her phone, tapping the screen to play an audio message. Tristan’s voice blasted through the speakers. “I’m so sick of Sienna. She is so plain, she has zero fashion sense, and she is boring as hell. You are a million times hotter, baby.” “I never even liked her. She practically threw herself at me. I only said yes out of pity.” A cold chill washed over me. That was how he talked about me behind my back? After everything I did for him? The crowd of students gasped, their whispers growing louder and meaner. “Oh my god. Tristan is insanely rich. I can’t believe he actually dated someone as basic as Sienna.” “The heir to Vanguard Industries dating a broke, boring girl? She must have manipulated him somehow.” “Thank god they broke up. Lexi is way more his type.” I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms. Tristan was dead to me. I would handle him later. Right now, I had to deal with the girl standing in front of me, driving my car, who had just used it as a weapon. I pointed a finger right at Lexi’s nose. “Keep that cheating garbage. You two deserve each other. But the fact that you hit me with this car? I am not letting that go.” Lexi casually inspected her manicured nails, utterly unbothered. “Please. You threw yourself at my car. Broke students like you love playing the victim for a quick payday.” “It is past six. I am already late for my date. You wasted my time, and you are going to apologize to me right now.” The crowd started jeering, backing her up. “Come on, Sienna. Lexi is rich and pretty. She has no reason to target you.” “I hate people who play the victim card. Just apologize and get it over with.” I gritted my teeth, pulling out my own phone. “Whether I am running a scam or not isn’t up to you, Lexi. And it isn’t up to these idiots either.” I pointed straight up at the security camera mounted on the campus gate. “We have HD footage right there. When the cops arrive, we will let them decide who is telling the truth.” I dialed emergency services right in front of her. For the first time, a flicker of panic crossed Lexi’s face. She stepped forward, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “Sienna, I am warning you. A police record will ruin your future. You better think this through.” I let out a sharp scoff. “I am the victim here. Why would I worry about my record? You should be worrying about yours.” Lexi stomped her designer heel on the pavement. “Fine. I am not scared of you. My boyfriend is the heir to Vanguard. He practically owns this city. You cross him, and your life here is completely over.” I ignored her threats entirely and told the dispatcher our location. The police arrived quickly. They reviewed the security footage and immediately turned to reprimand Lexi. “What is wrong with you? A public street is not your personal playground.” They determined Lexi was completely at fault and ordered her to fully compensate me for the damages. Lexi crossed her arms, throwing a tantrum. “Why should I pay her? Do you know who my boyfriend is? If you mess with Tristan, you will all lose your badges.” The older officer rubbed his temples, completely unimpressed. “I don’t care if you are dating the president. You hit a pedestrian. You pay the fine.” Seeing her intimidation tactics fail, Lexi huffed, pulling out her designer wallet. She looked at me with absolute disdain. “Fine. How much do you want?” I glanced down at my scraped knees. The physical injuries were minor. I held up two fingers. Lexi burst into laughter. “Is that it? Two thousand dollars is what my boyfriend spends on a single pair of sneakers.” I nodded slowly. “I want two thousand for the medical expenses.” Lexi and the crowd erupted into fresh giggles. “This is pathetic. She finally hooks a rich guy and she doesn’t even know how to properly extort him.” “Two grand is probably a fortune to her. If she asked for more, Lexi’s boyfriend would probably sue her into oblivion anyway.” Lexi whipped out her phone and transferred the money to me instantly. “There. You have your precious money. Now stop obsessing over me.” “Running into a broke loser like you is seriously ruining my vibe.” She turned her back to me, reaching for the car door again. I stepped in front of her, my gaze icy. “Hold on. You haven’t paid for my bike yet.” Lexi rolled her eyes, her patience wearing thin. “How much?” I held up three fingers. She didn’t hesitate, immediately wiring me three thousand dollars. “Done. Now back off, Sienna. If I ever see your ugly face on campus again, I will make you regret it.” I looked at the transfer receipt on my screen and smiled a genuine, chilling smile. I shook my head slowly. “Not three thousand, Lexi. Three million.”

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After three grueling years of fertility treatment in a Swiss clinic, I finally conceived. Overjoyed, I flew straight back to New York, eager to surprise Alexander. Society friends had warned me that in my absence, he’d grown close to a spoiled young secretary. I ignored them—Alexander used to dismiss anyone who displeased me with just a frown. But when I reached our Hamptons estate, the gate code had been changed. As I tried our anniversary date, the door swung open. A woman stood there wearing my silk robe, her gaze sharp and arrogant. “Where did this trash come from?” she shouted. “Get out, or I’ll set the dogs on you!” I laughed bitterly, chin raised. “Bring Alexander here. I want to ask my husband when he started bringing strays into our home—” And whether he still wanted the baby inside me, the heir he once begged for. 1 The massive Rottweilers behind the iron gate sensed her hostility and began barking viciously at me, emboldened by their master. Amber rolled her eyes, her lips curling in disgust. “Who do you think you are, lady? You think our CEO just sees anyone who wanders in off the street?” She looked me up and down, taking in my understated, unbranded travel clothes. “What the hell is estate security doing? Letting a beggar in cheap rags wander into an exclusive neighborhood!” My skin had always been painfully sensitive. Synthetic fabrics broke me out in terrible rashes. Because of this, Alexander used to commission a private tailor in Lake Como to handcraft all my garments from the softest, pure natural silks and cottons. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be humiliated for not wearing flashy designer logos. I nearly laughed out of pure fury. In all our years together, this was the very first time someone had dared to block me from seeing Alexander. I reached into my bag for my phone, ready to call my husband and demand an explanation. But as I pulled it out, the black screen stared back at me. It had died during the long flight. Without missing a beat, I held out my hand and ordered Amber to hand over her phone. “If you delay his business, you know exactly what the consequences will be.” My icy tone caught her off guard. For a split second, she froze, and I snatched the sleek phone right out of her manicured fingers. I dialed the number etched into my memory. Just as I was about to unleash my anger, Alexander’s deep, gentle chuckle came through the speaker, cutting me off. “I didn’t text you back for two minutes, and you’re already calling? Miss me that much?” His voice was like velvet. “I’m in a board meeting, babe. I’ll be home the second it’s over.” My hand trembled, and every word I wanted to say piled up in my throat, choking me. That tender, indulgent tone. If I wasn’t holding Amber’s phone, I would have sworn he was talking to me. In a flash, Amber snatched the device back, her voice instantly melting into a sickeningly sweet whine. “Then hurry up and come home! I want to eat the dinner you promised to cook for me!” She deliberately tapped the speakerphone button, making sure I heard every word. Listening to them flirt so effortlessly, I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. “Alexander, get back here this instant!” There was a brief pause on the line. Alexander’s voice shifted, sounding mildly confused. “Amber, is there someone else there with you?” Amber glared at me, her eyes venomous. “Just some crazy homeless woman. Don’t worry, I’m having her thrown out right now.” Alexander sighed dismissively. “Alright. Just keep it quiet. The company is in the middle of a massive merger, and a public scene is the last thing we need.” His utter indifference felt like a bucket of ice water crashing over my head. Just last month, he had flown all the way to Europe to hold my hand through the treatments, yet right now, he didn’t even recognize the sound of his own wife’s voice! I couldn’t hold back anymore. My voice cracked as I screamed into the receiver. “Alexander! You don’t want me anymore? Do you not even want your own child?” 2 The atmosphere plummeted into a freezing chill. When Alexander finally spoke, his tone was laced with absolute venom. “You have a lot of nerve, trying to pull a scam on me.” His voice was a razor blade. “That bastard is absolutely not mine. Amber, handle it. Get rid of her.” He still didn’t recognize me. A hollow, self-deprecating laugh escaped my chest. “If that’s how it is, then there is no reason for this baby to exist.” Alexander remained completely unbothered. “Some random stray’s kid. Do whatever you want, you’d be doing the world a favor.” My fingernails dug so hard into my palms that they broke the skin. I never thought the man who promised me the world would casually refer to his own flesh and blood as a stray. He had no idea that the child growing inside my womb was the only legacy he would ever have. Alexander suffered from severe sterility. For five agonizing years of marriage, we had tried and failed. The Kensingtons were a proud, old-fashioned family, desperate for a male heir. When the diagnosis came out, his parents were beside themselves with grief. It was only after their relentless, tearful begging that I agreed to go into isolation in Europe. I endured three years of needles, hormones, and heartbreak before finally securing this one viable pregnancy. I thought coming home would be the greatest joy of his life. Instead, the surprise he gave me was fatal. Just as I resolved to call my lawyers and draft a divorce settlement, Amber hit the end call button with a sharp click. Her eyes blazed with malice. Without warning, her hand flew out, slapping me across the face so hard my head snapped to the side. “I knew you were just a gold-digging whore! Trying to pin your filthy bastard on the CEO!” I had been born into unimaginable wealth. From the day I took my first breath, nobody had ever dared to lay a finger on me. Shaking with pure rage, I stepped back and slammed my fist into the emergency security terminal mounted on the brick pillar. Amber didn’t even try to stop me. She just crossed her arms and smirked. “You stupid bitch. You clearly haven’t done your research on what the Kensington name means in New York.” “Forget one slap. Even if I beat you to death right here on the driveway, nobody would dare say a word!” I stared at her, my eyes cold and dead. The Kensingtons had money, sure. But my family was an institution. Marrying Alexander was considered a massive step down for a Armitage. Every single successful corporate bid, every open door in his career, was paved with my family’s influence. Even the head of security for this very estate was someone I had personally promoted because of his diligent service. Within three minutes, a golf cart roared up the driveway. A squad of security guards jumped out. I scanned their faces, my brow furrowing. Mr. Davis, the man I knew, wasn’t among them. Before I could demand to see him, Amber immediately threw herself at the lead guard, her voice taking on a sickening, whiny pitch. “Brando! It’s this disgusting woman! She dragged her pregnant belly here, screaming that the baby belongs to the CEO! I can’t get her to leave!” Disgusted by her pathetic act, I spoke up, my voice dripping with authority. “Call your manager, Mr. Davis, right now. Have him come down here and confirm whether or not I am Mrs. Kensington!” The burly guard paused, looking confused. “Mr. Davis is out of state for a convention. How do you know him?” Amber spat on the ground near my feet. “No wonder you managed to sneak past the gates! You’ve been sleeping with the security manager! I bet the bastard in your belly belongs to him!” One of the younger guards muttered under his breath. “Doesn’t Mr. Davis have a wife?” Amber cackled loudly. “So she’s a habitual homewrecker! Used up and thrown away, so now she’s trying to find a billionaire to foot the bill!” My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached. I tried to speak over the noise. “I am not a mistress. I am Serena Armitage, the woman Alexander begged on his knees to marry!” But the gathering crowd of staff and guards only exchanged mocking glances. “Pretty face, but absolute trash on the inside.” “She actually picked a fight with Miss Amber? That’s a death wish. Everyone knows the CEO treats Miss Amber like royalty.” “He literally moved her into the master suite. They’re basically practically married. This crazy ex-fling must have found out and came to throw a tantrum!” Hearing the crowd validate her status, Amber’s expression twisted into pure, arrogant malice. She lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of my hair and delivering several brutal slaps across my face. “You filthy whore! I knew you were here to ruin my life!” 3 Her long, sharp acrylic nails dragged down my cheek, tearing the skin. Warm blood pooled in the corner of my eye, turning my vision into a hazy, crimson nightmare. Still not satisfied, Amber reached down and unclipped the heavy leather leashes. “They haven’t had their dinner yet. Let’s see how you taste!” The moment the restraints fell away, the massive Rottweilers lunged. A horrifying set of jaws snapped open right in front of my face. I threw my arm up instinctively, and razor-sharp teeth sank deep into my flesh, tearing through muscle. Amidst the blinding agony and terror, a sharp, terrifying cramp ripped through my lower abdomen. The pregnancy had always been high-risk. The specialists had warned me that the slightest trauma or stress could cause a miscarriage. In that terrifying moment, I felt the sickening warmth of blood pooling between my legs. Seeing the blood, one of the guards panicked and stepped in. “Hey, don’t kill her on the property. Let’s just drag her out to the curb.” Amber scoffed loudly, and immediately, another guard tried to kiss up to her. “What are you scared of? Miss Amber is the boss’s true love. Last week, some socialite outbid her for a necklace, and the next morning that same woman was on her knees begging Miss Amber for forgiveness!” “Even if this trash dies, the CEO will cover it up. You have nothing to worry about!” The lead guard, Brando, stepped forward, grabbing my good arm and violently dragging me toward the estate gates. “Amber is my cousin, which makes the CEO practically family! A homewrecking slut like you deserves to be taught a permanent lesson!” My scalp burned in agony as Amber followed closely, staring at my bleeding face with a sick, jealous glimmer in her eyes. “His actual wife couldn’t even keep him, what makes a cheap hooker like you think you stand a chance?” I froze, the physical pain momentarily eclipsed by shock. “You know he’s married?” Amber laughed, a shrill, ugly sound. “Some aging, miserable housewife he got bored of years ago! Why else do you think he shipped her off to Europe?” Alexander had never even told her. He never mentioned that his wife went away to endure endless medical torture just to give him the family he wanted. Before I could form a sentence, a dark, murderous shadow crossed Amber’s face. “You really thought you could use a baby to secure a bag! I’m telling you right now, you don’t have the luck for it!” She drew her leg back and kicked me squarely in the stomach. The impact sent me collapsing to the pavement. A wave of indescribable agony crashed over me, and I felt the fragile spark of life inside me rapidly fading away. Panic seized my throat. “The baby is Alexander’s! I swear to God! Call an ambulance! If this baby dies, he will ruin every single one of you!” Seeing the sheer amount of blood staining the concrete, the crowd murmured nervously. Brando turned back and roared at them. “This is Kensington family business! If anyone pulls out a phone to call the cops, you’re dead!” He shoved my face hard against the rough asphalt, pinning me down. He looked up at Amber with a pathetic grin. “Take your time, cousin. Have fun.” A relentless rain of blows fell upon my head and back. My face was numb, battered completely out of shape. Amber’s eyes shone with a manic, sadistic thrill. She turned to the terrified onlookers, her voice echoing over the manicured lawns. “This is what happens when you try to seduce the CEO! If I catch anyone else looking his way, they’ll end up worse than this bitch!” Panting heavily, she pointed a manicured finger at Brando. “Strip her. Rip her clothes off and throw her out on the main road! Since she loves acting like a whore, let her show it all off!” I gripped the collar of my torn shirt with trembling, bloodied fingers, using the absolute last ounce of my strength to fight back. “Don’t touch me! I am not a mistress!” Realizing I was about to be dragged completely out of the gated community, I desperately screamed a phone number at the surrounding crowd. “Call this number! Tell them what’s happening here! Whoever makes the call gets a million dollars in cash!” 4 Someone in the back of the crowd clicked their tongue. “Is she seriously trying to call for backup?” The onlookers burst into cruel laughter. “Backup? Who the hell is going to show up? Who in this city has more power than the Kensingtons?” Amber sneered, digging the toe of her designer heel into my ribs. “You stupid bitch, you just can’t drop the act, can you? Look at the rags you’re wearing. Who exactly are you going to summon?” Ignoring the searing pain, I stared wildly at the hesitant faces in the crowd and doubled the stakes. “Ten million! Whoever makes that call gets ten million dollars!” Before the words fully left my mouth, Amber delivered a brutal kick to my jaw. My vision spun wildly into a blur of dark colors, and I spat out a mouthful of blood and a broken tooth. “Keep lying! Your entire miserable life isn’t even worth a hundred bucks!” “Tear her clothes off! Now!” Brando and his goons wore sickening, predatory grins as they reached down, their rough hands grabbing at my ruined garments. Someone in the crowd had even pulled out their phone, starting a live stream, loudly bragging that the internet was about to see how homewreckers were dealt with in high society. Just as the fabric of my shirt began to tear, a sleek black Maybach glided smoothly to a halt right at the neighborhood entrance. A refined, distinctly cold voice drifted through the air, carrying a trace of weary indulgence. “Didn’t I tell you to keep this quiet?” Alexander stood by the open car door, his bespoke suit immaculate. He only had to slightly furrow his brow for the entire crowd to instantly hold their breath in terrified silence. Amber’s entire demeanor flipped. Like a frightened little bird, she rushed over and clung to his arm, burying her face in his shoulder. “Alexander, this woman was being so disgusting! She was screaming awful things, ruining your reputation in front of all these people! I only did it to protect you!” Alexander’s cold expression instantly softened into complete adoration. He reached out, gently stroking her hair. “You, always with that fiery temper. You just know I’ll always clean up your messes, don’t you?” His tone of absolute indulgence struck me like a physical blow to the heart. Years ago, I was known in our social circles as the untouchable, fiery Armitage heiress. Back then, Alexander had protected me exactly like this. He had always been the one to stand behind me, smoothing over my reckless moments. He once stood in a ballroom full of elites and declared to the world: “If anyone wrongs you, you hit them back twice as hard. Let’s see who dares to touch you.” Everyone in the city knew that offending the ruthless Alexander Kensington was dangerous, but crossing the Armitage heiress was a true death sentence. I never imagined that the fierce, unconditional protection that once belonged solely to me would be handed so freely to another woman. The last ember of hope inside me turned to ash. Whatever lingering love I held for Alexander evaporated into thin air. Alexander finally cast a brief, annoyed glance in my direction. “Is this the crazy woman you were talking about?” My face was swollen and mangled almost beyond recognition. My clothes were soaked in blood and dirt. In that brief, dismissive glance, he didn’t recognize his own wife. Seeing Alexander look at me for more than a second, Amber quickly tugged at his sleeve to reclaim his attention. “Yes! That’s the bitch! I was just about to go live and show the world what happens to trash like her!” Alexander looked away from me, entirely indifferent. “Let the security handle the trash. Don’t dirty your own hands.” Amber beamed with triumphant joy, clinging to him tighter. “She’s so crazy, she actually told everyone she was Mrs. Kensington!” The air around Alexander instantly turned lethal. “Serena is the only woman who holds the title of Mrs. Kensington. Anyone who dares to drag my wife’s name through the mud is asking to die.” Seeing his sudden, terrifying rage over my name, a flash of twisted jealousy crossed Amber’s face. She hastily changed the subject. “I know, I know, I was just so mad. Come on, let’s go inside. Didn’t you say you were going to cook for me?” As she turned away, she shot a quick, meaningful glare at the guards. Taking the cue, the men immediately lunged at me again, grabbing at my torn clothes. I thrashed violently against the pavement, a hoarse, broken sob tearing from my ruined throat. Alexander walked right past me, his arm wrapped tightly around Amber’s waist. He didn’t spare me a single backward glance. I curled into a fetal position, my trembling hands hovering over my flat, aching stomach. Bitter, agonizing tears carved tracks through the dirt and blood on my face. I’m so sorry, my baby. I’m sorry your mother was blind enough to choose a man with such a hollow heart. Perhaps it is a mercy that you never have to see this cruel world. Just as the fabric of my skirt ripped with a sickening sound, a massive convoy of imposing, midnight-black vehicles aggressively boxed in the entrance. The crowd erupted in shocked murmurs. “Who is that? That convoy costs more than the Kensington estate!” “That custom silver Rolls-Royce… there’s only one in the entire state! And that vintage license plate, you can’t just buy that kind of old money!” Alexander stopped dead in his tracks. Watching the figure step out of the lead vehicle, the color completely drained from his face. He instinctively dropped Amber’s arm and hurried forward, his posture submissive. “Mother Armitage, what brings you…” SMACK! A vicious, echoing slap struck Alexander across the face. The entire street plunged into dead silence.

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Lenore and I had a deal: a child-free marriage. For ten years, that was our truth. Then she came home with mixed-race twins. “It’s for the company, Noah. They belong to an overseas partner,” she said calmly. The betrayal cut deep. “How could you?” “What’s a small sacrifice for my career?” she replied, a cold smile on her lips. “Be honored to contribute.” Her parents, our friends, even my lawyer turned against me: “You’re being selfish.” “Be the bigger man.” “Without that pact, she’d have never married you.” “Just cut ties with them, Lenore. I don’t want a divorce,” I pleaded. She slid off her wedding ring and set it on the table. “They’re my flesh and blood. You’ve never understood me.” Her gaze was icy, detached. “If you force me, I’ll leave.” I looked at the ring, then at her. “Fine,” I said, the word raw. “Let’s get a divorce.” … “Noah, search your conscience,” her father sneered, his voice cutting through the tense air of the living room. “What have you ever truly contributed to this family, to the company? Now we ask for one small sacrifice, and you fall apart?” “Noah, just calm down,” Mark, my supposed friend, muttered, clapping a hand on my shoulder. Her father piled on, his voice dripping with contempt. “This is a strategic alliance, don’t you get it? Most men would kill for this kind of opportunity! And here you are, throwing a tantrum.” “Noah, I know this is hard for you,” Lenore said, her voice a practiced performance of distress. “But I had no choice. When the news leaked that you were sterile, the company’s stock plummeted. I had to do something.” I squeezed my eyes shut, the scene feeling like a surreal nightmare. Ten years ago, it was Lenore with tears in her eyes. “Noah, I can’t live without you, but my career… it’s everything to me. Can we just… not have kids? Please?” Back then, I had a promotion on the table, a fast-track position at headquarters. My boss told me my potential was limitless. But that night, Lenore wrapped her arms around me, her voice a soft, manipulative whisper. “Noah, that promotion… could you let Richards have it? The company is at a critical stage. I need you here, by my side.” To help her solidify Knightwood Industries’ position in Westwood, I gave up my future. For ten years, I became her shadow, her support system. I cooked, I cleaned, I ran our home like a well-oiled machine so she could conquer the world. I was her rock. I endured the constant jabs from her parents without a single complaint. “For God’s sake, Noah, show some ambition! You spend all day in the kitchen like some… househusband!” “Can’t you get a real career? This aimless act is pathetic!” They’d say these things right at my own dinner table, and Lenore would just watch, a silent observer, never once defending me. Back then, I told myself that as long as her career was thriving, their opinions didn’t matter. Five years ago, their attitude shifted. The insults stopped, replaced by a sudden, cloying warmth. I was naive enough to think they had finally seen my worth, my sacrifice. The truth was far uglier. Lenore had already started sleeping with someone else. The company was already on its way to becoming an industry titan. And the man she was sleeping with? It was Richards. The same man she’d asked me to step aside for, all those years ago. “You have to accept this, Noah. For the children, and for the company,” Lenore delivered her final ultimatum, her voice absolute, leaving no room for argument. At the emergency board meeting, she stood at the head of the long, polished table, a picture of power and control. “To deepen our partnership with the André Group, I have decided to bring on two new strategic partners,” she announced, her red lips forming the words with chilling precision. The projector flared to life. Two faces, the faces of mixed-race children, filled the screen. Those eyes… they were a mirror of Lenore’s. “They are Mr. André’s children, Ryan and Lily,” she continued, her voice unwavering. “From this day forward, they will officially join the Knightwood family.” The doors flew open with a bang that made everyone jump. Lenore turned, her brow furrowing in annoyance when she saw me. There was no surprise in her eyes, only impatience. “What are you doing here?” “Lenore, you tell me what the hell is going on with those kids!” She coolly set down the remote and looked at me, her expression a mask of indifference. Her lips parted. “They are my children.” I stumbled back, my legs threatening to give out. She repeated it, her tone as casual as if she were discussing the weather. “Five years ago, the company was on the brink of collapse. I went overseas to ask André for help. He saved us.” “So you just… you betrayed our marriage? Our vows?” “Betrayed you?” She let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Noah, I’ve kept you in a gilded cage since the day we were married, making sure you never wanted for anything. Don’t you dare accuse me of betrayal.” Seeing my stunned silence, her expression softened, a calculated shift into practiced tenderness. “Noah, I know this is a shock. But you have to believe me, I did all of this for us. For our home. For the future of the company.” She moved toward me, reaching for my hand. I flinched away as if her touch would burn me. “Noah, don’t be angry, okay? Look how adorable the children are. They’re your family now, too.” Her voice was laced with a coying sweetness that turned my stomach. Family? Her children with another man were now my family? I was the only one in this room who was truly an outsider. “Lenore’s right, Noah. Don’t be so stubborn,” one of the board members chimed in, his face a mask of condescending sympathy. “Mr. André is an international powerhouse. This partnership is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Knightwood Industries! As Lenore’s husband, you should be supporting her, not making a scene!” another one added, patting my arm as if I were a child. “Yeah, Noah, you can’t be this selfish!” “What’s a little personal drama compared to the success of the company?” “Look at everything Lenore has sacrificed! And you’re still not satisfied?” One by one, they turned on me. These same men who had always greeted me with forced smiles and fawning respect were now sneering, their words like stones. I suddenly remembered them using the exact same tone ten years ago, urging me to “think of the bigger picture,” to “make a small sacrifice for the greater good” when I gave up my promotion. I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to a friend. The second the divorce is final, I’m back in the game. Just then, the doors opened again. André stood there, flanked by the two smiling twins. “Thank you all for coming to witness this special day for my two children,” André said in perfect, unaccented English. He lavished praise on Lenore, calling her a “magnificent mother.” Her parents were beaming, fussing over André as if he were a king. The way they looked at me? With disgust. Contempt. Like I was a piece of trash spoiling their perfect family portrait. “Ryan, Lily, say hello to Grandpa and Grandma,” Lenore prompted gently. “Grandpa! Grandma!” The two sweet, childish voices were like daggers in my heart. They had a grandpa and grandma. What about me? What was I? A joke to be thrown out with the garbage? A failure abandoned by his wife, his in-laws, by everyone? André stood beside Lenore, his arm possessively around her shoulders, watching the happy scene unfold. “Ryan, Lily, do you like it here? This is your new home now!” her mother cooed, stroking the children’s hair with a loving smile. “We love it! Grandpa and Grandma are the best!” Ryan chirped, and her parents melted. “You know, Noah, Lenore and Mr. André make such a handsome couple,” a relative whispered loudly nearby, their voice dripping with sycophantic praise. “They really do! A true power couple!” “Honestly, this is how it should have been all along. Strength attracts strength!” “Shh, keep your voice down, Noah might hear you…” “So what if he does? What’s a freeloader like him going to do about it?” I turned, needing to escape the suffocating room. “Noah, where are you going?” Lenore’s voice called after me, thick with false concern. “It’s stuffy in here. I’m just stepping out for some air. I’ll be back.” When I returned, I overheard Lenore’s announcement. “…and to show my gratitude for Mr. André’s unwavering support, and to secure a bright future for Ryan and Lily…” “…I have decided to transfer 50% of my personal shares in Knightwood Industries. 20% will go to Ryan, and 20% to Lily.” Just like that. With a few careless words, she erased everything I had ever worked for. “Furthermore, I will be gifting an additional 10% to Mr. André himself. May our two companies grow and prosper together!” Her parents’ faces were masks of pure, unadulterated greed. The board members erupted in cheerful congratulations, falling over themselves to praise André and Lenore. “Mr. André and Lenore, a match made in heaven! This is a true merger of titans!” “Congratulations, Mr. André! And to Lenore, for her beautiful children and her business acumen!” André tightened his grip on Lenore’s waist, basking in the adoration. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Thank you for your generosity, my dear. I assure you, the André Group will give Knightwood its full and unconditional support.” My nails dug into my palms, the sharp pain grounding me. A piece of those shares was mine. I had earned them through sleepless nights, endless revisions of business plans, and thankless grunt work. And she was giving them away like party favors. The relatives swarmed me, their faces plastered with fake smiles. “You see, a real man is decisive, a man of action. Like Mr. André!” I grabbed a glass of whiskey and downed it in one gulp. Then another. And another. “Well, well, if it isn’t Mr. CEO-in-waiting,” a slimy voice slurred next to me. “Drinking all alone?” It was Richards. The same man who used to trail after me like a puppy, calling me “boss” with sickening sweetness. “Here,” he said, raising his glass. “Let me propose a toast. To you… finding a new meal ticket soon!” He drained his glass, his eyes mocking me. The sight of his smug face made my stomach churn. I shoved him aside and stumbled out of the banquet hall, gasping for fresh air. My phone buzzed. It was Lenore. “Noah, where are you? Let me come get you.” Her voice was the same gentle purr it had always been. She found me slumped on a park bench down the street. “Noah, you’ve had too much to drink. Let me take you home.” She was still in her stunning evening gown, her makeup flawless. The contrast between her elegance and my disheveled state was a cruel joke. “Don’t touch me!” I spat, pulling my arm away like she was poison. Lenore froze for a second, then quickly rearranged her features into a mask of concern. “Noah, I know you’re hurting, but what’s done is done. We have to…” “We?” I cut her off, my voice a raw whisper. “There is no ‘we’ anymore, Lenore. What’s left between us? Tell me!” She opened her mouth, then closed it again. I looked at her, and my mind flashed back to the early days. The company was just a startup, bleeding money. To support her dream, I gave up my own and worked alongside her, chasing clients, begging for investments. I remembered one time, we pulled three all-nighters in a row to land a major contract. I was so exhausted I could barely see straight, but I kept brewing coffee and organizing her files. “Lenore, you should get some sleep. I’ll finish up,” I had mumbled. She had looked at me with such tenderness then, shaking her head. “I can’t. I’ll stay with you.” Back then, I was her entire world. I grabbed her shoulders, my grip desperate. “Lenore, let’s try again. I’ll reverse the vasectomy. We can have our own child, a real family!” I stared into her eyes, searching for a flicker of the woman I once knew. But she just gently pushed my hands away, her face a carefully constructed mask of pity. “Noah, don’t be silly. I can’t have children anymore. Just accept Ryan and Lily. They can be your children, too…” She paused, her gaze shifting away for a fraction of a second. Her voice dropped. “Besides… what can you really offer me now? What can you bring to Knightwood Industries? I… I can’t afford to wait any longer.” The air went still. She turned to the two security guards standing behind her. “Take him home.” The next day, Lenore brought Ryan and Lily to the house. She said it was to help them “bond” with me, but the children looked at me like I was something they’d scraped off their shoe. “This is our new house? It’s so small! André’s house has a pool bigger than this,” Lily whined, her pretty face twisted in a sneer. Ryan was even more direct. He crossed his arms and looked down his nose at me. “So, Mom, is this the… ‘dad’ you were talking about?” He dragged out the word with theatrical disdain. Lenore forced a laugh. “Ryan, Lily, this is your… Uncle Noah.” “Uncle?” Ryan scoffed. “Didn’t you say he wouldn’t be part of our family for much longer?” I turned and walked away, heading for the sanctuary of my study. But when I pushed open the door, my world shattered. Bookshelves were overturned, my collection of years scattered across the floor like garbage. An ink bottle had been smashed, its black contents splattered across the walls and floor in grotesque, spiderweb patterns. And in the middle of the wreckage stood Ryan and Lily, not a hint of remorse on their faces. “What are you doing?!” I roared, my voice raw with disbelief. Lily jutted her chin out. “We’re helping you clean! This junk should have been thrown out years ago!” Ryan took it a step further. He picked up one of my most prized possessions, a rare first-edition novel, and deliberately ripped a page out. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it at me. “You’re an old relic, just like this trash. What’s the point of any of it? Can it make you a man again?” “Get out!” I pointed a trembling finger at the door. “GET OUT!” Lenore rushed in at the sound of my shouting. The instant she appeared, Ryan and Lily burst into crocodile tears. “Mommy, he’s a mean man! He yelled at us! We want to go see Uncle André!” “Noah, how dare you raise your voice to children!” Lenore snapped, pulling the two sobbing kids into a protective embrace. “This is their home now. If anyone should get out, it’s you!” She swept out of the room with them. I stared at the empty, cavernous house. I walked over to my desk, pulled out the divorce papers, and signed my name. Then, I opened my phone and blocked her number. “Mark,” I said into the phone, my voice steady for the first time in days. “Get the jet ready. I’m on my way.”

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