My daughter’s ballet slippers had three holes worn straight through the toes, yet she refused to let me bring a new pair to her school. She kept her head low, her voice barely a whisper. “Mom, all the other girls’ moms wear haute couture when they come to our shows.” “Your hands are covered in chilblains and grease. Please, just don’t come.” Later, she received her acceptance letter from the elite academy of dance. I practically jumped for joy, but she threw the envelope straight into my face, her eyes rimmed with angry red. We couldn’t afford the tuition. “Mom, I wish you were like other moms. Just a gentle push from them, and their kids are flying high in the clouds.” “But with you? We fight with everything we have, and we still end up suffocating in the mud.” I stared at her scarred, calloused toes, my chest aching as if a dull blade were carving through my heart. I didn’t have the courage to tell her that the chronic headaches I’d been suffering from had finally been diagnosed the day before. A brain tumor. Terminal. Quietly, I pulled out that old, dust-covered organ donor agreement and my high-payout accidental death insurance policy. Evie, sweetheart. Your mom doesn’t have much to offer. But I can give you my life to buy you a ticket to a bigger stage. … 1 “You’ve flipped that damn fish eight hundred times! Are you going to buy it or are we just wasting my time here?” The fishmonger’s sharp, grating voice snapped me out of the blinding pain in my temples. I forced a polite, pleading smile, holding back the throbbing agony of the tumor. “I’ll take it, I’ll take it,” I murmured. “Could you maybe give me a small discount on this one, Lou?” “My daughter has her preliminary ballet showcase today. I wanted to make her some fish soup to keep her strength up.” “A discount? I have bills to pay too, Helen! Look at you—living on pennies, and your kid is doing ballet? You sure she isn’t just taking you for a ride?” Her eyes swept over me with pure disdain. I squeezed the crumpled diagnosis slip tucked deep inside my pocket and handed over the cash. “Just this one, please.” The tumor in my brain was a ticking time bomb. I didn’t know when it would finally go off. But before it did, I had to pave the way for my Evelyn. Taking the meager change, I hurried home first, then carefully packed a pair of pristine, snow-white ballet slippers. I made my way to the theater, keeping out of sight. Evelyn never wanted me near her school, and she certainly didn’t want me delivering shoes. She said it was humiliating. But today, I just wanted to steal a single glimpse of my beautiful daughter—my graceful swan—from the lobby doors. Just one look. But the moment I reached the backstage entrance, a security guard stepped in my way. “Whoa, hold on. Where do you think you’re going? No unauthorized personnel back here.” “I… I’m looking for my daughter, Evelyn. Evelyn Davies—she’s in the showcase.” “Families belong in the audience seats!” “And what is that smell on you? Step back, lady.” He pinched his nose, grimacing. The smell of raw fish was a permanent fixture on my skin, baked in from years of working the docks and fish markets. Once, that smell had been my badge of honor—the proof that I could pay for her classes. Now, it was the barrier keeping me from her. As we argued, a group of young girls in beautiful, matching leotards walked out. Right in the center was Evelyn’s classmate, Chelsea. She spotted me immediately. Covering her nose, she let out an exaggerated gasp. “Oh my god, Evelyn, is that your mom?” “Why does she smell like a rotting pier? Did she come backstage to scale some fish for us?” Dozens of eyes locked onto me instantly. I watched the color completely drain from Evelyn’s face. She stared at me. It wasn’t sadness in her eyes; it was raw, burning humiliation. I stood frozen, clutching the cardboard box with the new slippers to my chest. “Evie…” “What are you doing here?! Who told you to come?!” She lunged forward, her voice shrill and trembling. “I… I was worried your old shoes would tear. I brought you a new pair.” I held out the box, hoping she’d take it. She didn’t even look at it. Instead, she shoved me away with a violent push. “I don’t have a mother like you! Haven’t you embarrassed me enough?!” The shove caught me off guard. My foot slipped, and I crashed hard onto the concrete. The shoe box flew out of my hands, landing right in a murky, oil-slicked puddle nearby. Water seeped through the cardboard caught in the puddle, ruining the pristine white satin. Evelyn stared at the ruined slippers, the disgust in her eyes intensifying. “You can’t even hold a shoe box straight. Is there anything you can do?” Sprawled on the freezing ground, the blinding pain in my head flared up again. But it was nothing compared to the agony in my chest. The hallway erupted in snickers, Chelsea’s laughter ringing loudest. “Wow. Such a beautiful family moment.” Evelyn’s face burned crimson. She didn’t help me up. She didn’t even look at me again. She just turned around and ran back into the theater. I struggled to push myself up from the cold floor. Under the mocking stares of strangers, I gathered the wet, muddy box. These slippers had cost four figures. It was more than I made in an entire month of scaling and gutting fish in the freezing market. They were dirty, yes. But maybe I could wash them. Maybe they were still salvageable. 2 That evening, I prepared a feast of all her favorites. Roasted pork ribs, garlic bread, corn cream soup… “Evie, honey, wash your hands. I made everything you like…” Before I could even finish, she violently slapped my hand away. “Are you trying to ruin my body with this garbage? As if you didn’t humiliate me enough today!” She grabbed the plate of pork belly and dumped it straight into the trash can. Then the ribs, then the fish… plate after plate, gone. “What are you doing?!” I couldn’t hold it back anymore. My voice shook with exhaustion. “What does it look like? I’m throwing out the trash!” With a bitter sneer, she pulled a document from her bag and flung it directly at my face. “Look at it. The acceptance letter from the Royal Ballet Academy. Happy now?” My hands shook as I smoothed out the paper. “You got in? Evie, you actually got in!” “What is there to be happy about? Look at the tuition!” She pointed a trembling finger at the exorbitant figures listed at the bottom, her voice rising to a scream. “Fifty thousand dollars! Where are you going to get fifty thousand dollars?!” “Do you think I’m like Chelsea? Her mom can write a check with a single phone call!” “And what about you?” “What can you do besides make a fool out of me?!” My head felt like it was splitting in two. I leaned heavily against the dining table, barely able to keep my balance. “Evie, listen to me. Your mom…” I wanted to tell her. I wanted to say I was sick—terribly, desperately sick. “All you ever do is cry! All you ever do is play the victim!” She cut me off, her eyes dripping with pure contempt. “If you couldn’t afford to raise me, why did you even have me? Why don’t you just die?” “Why don’t you sell your life to get me the money?!” Sell your life to get me the money. Those words were like a key turning in a lock, releasing the final chain in my heart. She slammed her bedroom door shut, leaving me standing alone in the ruins of the dinner I had spent hours preparing. A sudden wave of warmth rushed up my throat. I covered my mouth, coughing violently. When I pulled my hand away, my palm was smeared with bright, crimson blood. I stared at the blood, then looked toward my bedroom where the terminal brain tumor diagnosis lay in a drawer. A strange, quiet smile crept onto my face. Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? My life could buy her future. Evelyn’s father had walked out before she was even born; I had never been able to give her a proper family or a comfortable life. But now, I could give her this one final gift. I walked over to the old chest of drawers, unlocked the bottom panel, and pulled out the accidental death insurance policy alongside my organ donor registry form. On the policy, the sole beneficiary was listed in clear print: Evelyn Davies. I didn’t sleep at all that night. I gathered every single dollar of cash I had hidden around the house. Bill by bill, I smoothed them out and stuffed them deep into her old, torn ballet slippers. She always called those shoes her ultimate shame. But I knew they were where her dream began. She would never throw them away. The next morning, Evelyn dragged her suitcase toward the door, ignoring me entirely. “I’m leaving. I’m staying at Chelsea’s place for a few days.” “Her house has a private dance studio. It’s infinitely better than this dump.” I held a warm bowl of oatmeal, my hands trembling. “Evie, don’t go. Eat some breakfast first.” “I’m not eating that. Just looking at your cooking makes me sick.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “And don’t you dare show up at my school again. If you embarrass me one more time, I swear I will never call you my mother again!” The front door slammed shut. I slowly finished the bowl of oatmeal by myself, then walked out into the cold morning toward the fish market. “Lou… could you… is there any way I could get a three-month advance on my pay?” I kept my head down, unable to meet her gaze. “An advance? Are you out of your mind, Helen?” Lou shoved my shoulder roughly. “You’ve been getting slower and slower lately. I was actually thinking of cutting your hours!” The shove sent me stumbling back, nearly losing my footing. Right then, a cold, horribly familiar voice cut through the noise of the market. “Mom? What the hell are you doing here?” “Do you have no shame at all?!” I spun around. Evelyn and Chelsea were standing just a few feet away. Chelsea had a smug, mocking smirk plastered across her face. “Oh, wow. If my mom hadn’t insisted we get fresh king crab for the party tonight, we would have missed this little performance.” Evelyn’s face burned a dark, furious red as she marched over. “Are you trying to make sure everyone knows my mother is a beggar at a fish market?” “No, Evie, that’s not it. I was just…” I reached out, desperate to grab her hand and explain. 3 “Don’t touch me!” She violently slapped my hand away, her eyes flashing with pure revulsion. “Your hands are filthy. It’s disgusting!” A small crowd began to gather, whispering and pointing at us. With every word she spoke, my heart was slowly torn to shreds. Chelsea crossed her arms, taking a slow step forward. “Honestly, Evelyn, don’t be too hard on her. People from her class just don’t know any better.” “Unlike my mom—she gives me a credit card, and the pocket change on it is more than your mom could make gutting fish for a lifetime.” Evelyn’s expression grew even more humiliated. She leaned in close, her voice a harsh, venomous whisper. “Are you happy now?” “Do you only get off on stripping away every shred of dignity I have in front of my friends?!” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Chelsea’s arm and walked away. I was left standing alone, surrounded by the quiet murmurs and mocking snickers of the crowd. … It took me a long time to gather the strength to walk back to that silent, empty apartment. I pulled out the insurance policy. With a hand that wouldn’t stop shaking, I traced my finger over the letters of her name in the beneficiary column: Evelyn Davies. Then, I carefully tucked the document into her bedroom drawer. Once that was done, I picked up my phone and sent her one last text message. My sweet girl, Mom is finally going to give you those wings to fly. The screen lit up almost instantly with her reply. What kind of dramatic nonsense is this now? I’m telling you, I am sick of your guilt trips. They don’t work on me anymore! I didn’t reply. I just stared at the text as tears blurred my vision, spilling over my cheeks. Then, another soft chime echoed in the quiet room. For a brief, foolish second, my heart leaped, hoping she was checking on me. But when I opened the message, a single line stared back at me: Unless you die, I will never be able to stand on the same level as Chelsea. I stared at the cold words on the screen until a hollow, breathless laugh broke from my throat, tears streaming down my face. So, that was her final wish. Then I would grant it. I wiped my face, changed into my cleanest outfit, and walked out the door. The fish market at night was much quieter than during the day, smelling heavily of damp concrete, salt, and raw scale. I walked all the way to the back of the facility, stopping in front of the massive, decommissioned industrial freezer unit. The iron door was incredibly thick. Once locked from the inside, it couldn’t be opened from the outside even with a key. It would require a heavy-duty circular saw to cut through. I took a deep breath. The sharp, cold scent of the fish market suddenly felt like the scent of freedom. I stepped inside, grabbed the heavy iron latch, and pulled it shut. Click. Locked from the inside. “Evie, Mom is going to make sure you fly high.” The temperature inside the freezer began to plummet rapidly. I shook violently, my teeth clicking together. The blinding pain of the tumor flared in tandem with the biting, razor-sharp cold. I curled into a tight ball in the corner, my consciousness slowly slipping away. Just when I thought my body was finally giving up, I felt a strange lightness. It was as if my physical form no longer held me down, and I began to drift upward. I floated right through the heavy iron door, past the darkened streets, until I came to a halt outside a magnificent, brilliantly lit estate. The thumping bass of music and the sound of laughter spilled out from the windows. I drifted through the walls, and there she was. My daughter, Evelyn. She was wearing an exquisite white cocktail dress—one I had never seen before. A group of teenagers had gathered around her, hanging onto her every word. She looked beautiful. “Evelyn, you look like an actual princess tonight.” “That routine you showed us was incredible! You’re going to dominate at the academy!” Evelyn smiled modestly, basking in the warmth of their praise. Just then, her phone vibrated in her hand. She glanced at the caller ID, her brows knitting together in irritation. She stepped into a quiet hallway to answer. “What do you want?” she snapped. On the other end, Lou’s voice sounded panicked and breathless. “Evelyn! Have you seen your mother?” “I was doing inventory, and someone turned on the main breaker to the abandoned freezer. The door is locked from the inside, and no one is answering when I knock!” “Is your mother in there?!” My spirit form tensed, hovering close to her face. Evelyn, please. Come save me. But in the next second, a mocking, cold laugh slipped from my daughter’s lips. “Lou, don’t let her fool you.” “She’s just putting on another one of her pathetic guilt shows. She’ll say anything to force me to come home.” “No, I’m serious! I think I heard a faint scratching sound from inside!” “You need to get down here. If she’s actually in there…” “Let her scratch,” Evelyn cut her off, her voice dripping with ice. “When she gets tired, she’ll come out on her own.” “I’ve dealt with her manipulation my entire life. I’m sick of it.” 4 She hung up the phone without another word, immediately blocking Lou’s number. Hovering in the air, my soul watched as she severed my very last lifeline. My heart died in that moment. She adjusted her dress, painted a perfect, dazzling smile back onto her face, and walked back into the center of the party. Chelsea strolled over, holding a glass of champagne, raising her voice so everyone could hear. “Evelyn, it’s such a great party. Why didn’t you invite your mom to come see how the other half lives?” I saw Evelyn’s shoulders stiffen for a fraction of a second. Then, she casually tossed her hair back and laughed. “Oh, you mean Helen, our housekeeper?” “Her family had an emergency today, so she couldn’t make it.” “My actual mom is overseas most of the year managing her international business. She’s so busy we barely see each other.” Our housekeeper. Even though I knew she was only trying to save face in front of her wealthy classmates, the words cut like a knife. To her, I wasn’t even worthy of being called her mother. Slowly, my spirit form began to turn translucent, drifting away. … The next morning, Evelyn woke up in a guest room at Chelsea’s mansion. She reached for her phone, habitually checking to see if I had sent any more pathetic messages. Nothing. Not a single text. She smirked, thinking I had finally learned my lesson. Ding. An automated notification popped up. It was a tuition reminder from the ballet academy. Staring at the cold, clinical demand for fifty thousand dollars, Evelyn felt a wave of frustration. She opened our chat and began typing furiously. Where’s the money? Did you get the fifty thousand dollars yet? Don’t play dead with me. If I don’t have the tuition by the end of the day, I am cutting you out of my life for good! She hit send, expecting me to immediately beg for her forgiveness as I always did. But minutes turned into hours, and the screen remained blank. Are you dead? Answer me! I’m counting to three. If you don’t reply, don’t ever expect to see me again! Helen, I am warning you! Her messages vanished into a silent void. Evelyn’s patience finally snapped. A blind fury took over. She threw herself out of bed, determined to go back to the apartment and tear into me in person. She kicked the front door open. “Helen! Get your ass out here right now!” The apartment was freezing. The stove was cold; there was no smell of food, no sign of life. “Where are you hiding? Do you think hiding means you don’t have to take responsibility?!” She began tearing the place apart, throwing water glasses against the wall and throwing cushions onto the floor to vent her rage. In the middle of her tantrum, a heavy knock sounded at the door. Thinking I had finally crept back home, she lunged at the door and ripped it open, her face twisted in anger. But standing on the threshold were two solemn-faced police officers. “Are you Evelyn Davies?” the older officer asked. “Yes. What do you want?” Evelyn snapped. The officer verified her ID, his expression turning grim. “Miss Davies, we are very sorry to inform you, but your mother, Helen Davies, has passed away.” Evelyn froze for a second. Then, a sharp, cynical laugh escaped her lips as she crossed her arms. “Officers, you must have the wrong person.” “My mother is fine. Did she hire you to play along with her little act?” “I’ve seen her sob stories my whole life. I know exactly what she’s doing.” The older officer’s jaw clenched, his eyes burning with a quiet, suppressed fury. His younger partner, unable to maintain the same restraint, reached into an evidence bag and held an item out to her. It was a pair of old, worn ballet slippers. I had hand-stitched the tears in them multiple times; the satin at the toes was worn down to a dull grey. “This was recovered next to your mother’s body.” Looking at those slippers, Evelyn’s laugh withered on her face. Her hands began to tremble uncontrollably. But she kept pushing. “She really went all out this time, didn’t she? Even got the props right.” “Where is she? Is she waiting around the corner to see my reaction?” “That is enough!” the older officer barked, his voice echoing in the small hallway. “Evelyn, your mother was trapped in a sub-zero industrial freezer for over eight hours!” “The metal door was covered in her blood where she clawed at it with her bare fingernails!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457774”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

A spring trek through the rugged Wyoming backcountry. The moment we touched down, my boyfriend’s toxic “girl-bro” insisted on heading straight to the deep woods of the back mountain to shoot grizzly bears. She claimed she wanted to film a viral clickbait video—something along the lines of LexieWildlife Interaction Meets Wilderness Survival GuideLexie. What she didn’t know was that the grizzlies in these mountains right now were fresh out of hibernation. They weren’t majestic forest dwellers; they were starving, hyper-aggressive man-eaters. Even if you went in packed to the gills with tactical gear, surviving them was a roll of the dice. In my past life, I reported her plans to our local trail guide. Threatened with the forfeiture of their steep security deposit, the guide kept a tight lock on the camp. But she snuck out in the dead of night anyway. By the time they found her, two starving grizzlies had left nothing of her but a single, blood-soaked hiking boot. When my boyfriend found out, his face remained flat and indifferent. Yet, the night before we were set to leave, he snapped. “You had to open your fat mouth!” he’d screamed, pinning me down. “If I had gone with her, we would’ve gotten a viral hit, and she’d still be alive!” He tied me to a lodgepole pine. The grizzlies found me, and they tore me open from chest to groin. When I opened my eyes again, the phantom sensation of my own wet, warm intestines spilling onto the pine needles was still burning in my gut. I was back at the campsite, listening to them argue about heading into the back mountain to find the bears. 1 “Come on, Darcy. Don’t tell me you’re actually chickening out?” Lexie twirled my expensive carbon-fiber trekking pole between her fingers. The sharp carbide tip scraped against the gravel with a grating, metallic screech. She looked at me, her eyes wide with that practiced, delicate innocence that made my stomach turn. “The internet says grizzlies are practically docile this time of year,” she purred, flashing a smug, dimpled smile. “If you toss them some food, they’ll roll over on their backs and play like oversized golden retrievers. Zach’s channel is practically dead right now. He needs a hook. As his girlfriend, shouldn’t you be supporting him instead of pulling the emergency brake?” I stared at her smooth, sun-kissed face. My stomach rolled with violent nausea. The memory of teeth ripping through my flesh, of cold mountain air hitting my exposed organs, was so visceral I had to squeeze my hands into fists to keep from shaking. I didn’t say a word. Standing right beside her, Zach immediately scowled. He stepped forward, defensively pulling Lexie behind his shoulder. “What’s with the attitude, Darcy?” Zach snapped. “Lexie flew all the way out to the Rockies just to help me shoot content. She pushed through altitude sickness to be here. And you? Since we landed, you’ve done nothing but throw cold water on every single idea.” “We’re trying to build a business here,” he continued, his voice rising, practically vibrating with self-righteous anger. “You don’t get views without taking risks. Do you even understand how the algorithm works? Or do you just want to see me fail?” A few other hikers from our group drifted over to watch the drama unfold. Dave, a guy in his fifties holding a stainless-steel thermos of rehydrated soup, chimed in. “Honestly, Darcy, the kid has a point. Young people need that drive. I looked at the map earlier; that back trail is barely a mile from the camp line. What’s the worst that could happen? You’re twice her size, but you don’t have half the grit of little Lexie here.” Luke, another guy from the group, nodded in agreement. “Yeah, Zach is busting his ass to secure a future for the two of you. You’re holding the girlfriend title, but you’re just dead weight on this trip.” I looked at them. A slow, cold smile crept onto my face. In my past life, these were the exact same people who took fifty thousand dollars in hush money from Zach’s family. They had stood before the sheriff and sworn up and down that I must have sleepwalked into the deep woods of my own accord. “You guys are entirely right,” I said. My voice was quiet, incredibly calm. Zach blinked, caught off guard. He clearly hadn’t expected me to roll over so easily. “Since it’s for your career, of course I support it,” I added, looking Zach dead in the eye. “The landscape back there is stunning. The footage will be spectacular.” Lexie’s eyes lit up instantly. “Really? You mean it?” She took an eager step toward me. “Great! Let me borrow your DJI Mavic drone then.” Before I could answer, a gravelly, furious roar cut through the camp. “Like hell you will!” Jed, our local guide, came marching out from behind the supply tents. His face was weathered and dark red from years of mountain wind, his heavy flannel shirt billowing as he strode over. “Who the hell thinks they’re going into the back mountain?” Jed snarled, pointing a thick, calloused finger at Lexie. “Those aren’t ‘docile’ bears. Those are starving grizzlies. They’ve been asleep all winter, and they will chew your bones to splinters the second they smell you. You go back there, you’re suicide bait.” Jed glared at the group. “If you want to die, don’t do it on my permit. As long as I’m the registered guide for this sector, no one steps a foot past the camp boundary. Try me, and I’ll have the sheriff haul your asses down the mountain before sunset.” The atmosphere went ice-cold. Lexie shrunk back, tucking her head into her shoulders, looking up at Zach with watery, helpless eyes. Zach’s face flushed a deep, angry crimson. “Jed, stop trying to scare everyone. We have bear spray. Besides, we’re only shooting at the tree line. We’ll be back in thirty minutes. You don’t own the national forest.” Jed’s eyes bulged. “I own the liability for your pathetic lives!” Seeing them on the verge of a fistfight, I stepped forward and gently patted Jed’s arm. “Jed, take it easy,” I said, pulling a notepad and a sharpie from my tactical jacket pocket. “They’re grown adults. They have the right to make their own choices. If you’re worried about the liability, we can just write up a waiver.” Jed stared at me, dumbfounded. Zach looked equally stunned. I popped the cap off the pen and quickly scribbled a few lines on the paper. LexieWe, Lexie Vance and Zachary Thorne, hereby choose to enter the restricted back mountain area of our own free will. We fully acknowledge the high risk of wild predators in this sector. Any injury, death, or accident occurring during this excursion is solely our responsibility and is entirely unrelated to guide Jed or fellow hiker Darcy Rollins. We assume all risks.Lexie I handed the pen and paper to Zach. “Sign it,” I said. “Once you sign, Jed won’t have to worry about losing his license. And you two can go get your viral masterpiece.” I looked at Lexie, the corner of my lips turning up in a shadow of a smile. 2 Zach stared at the paper. His eyes flickered with a brief, uneasy hesitation. “Darcy, what is this?” he muttered. “Drawing lines like this… are you seriously still pretending to be my girlfriend?” I shrugged. “Even married couples keep their finances separate these days, Zach. Jed has a family to feed. It’s not fair to ruin his livelihood just because you guys want to play National Geographic.” Dave scoffed from the sidelines, taking a noisy sip of his soup. “Man, Darcy, you really know how to play the accountant, don’t you? Just looking out for your own skin and your own wallet, huh?” Luke let out a dry laugh. “Modern romance. Zach, looks like your girl doesn’t want to carry even an ounce of risk for you.” Lexie’s eyes darted between us, her expression shifting instantly into one of deep, wounded victimization. “Darcy, if you’re still mad at me, just say so,” she whimpered, her voice trembling. “If you don’t want to lend us the drone, you don’t have to make this passive-aggressive point to humiliate Zach. Forget it. I won’t go.” She made a show of turning around to walk back to her tent. Zach caught her by the wrist. “No, we’re going.” He whipped around, glaring at me with pure venom, and snatched the paper and pen from my hand. “You want a waiver? Fine! I’ll sign the damn thing!” He scribbled his signature with aggressive, slashing strokes. Then he shoved the pen into Lexie’s hand. “Sign it, Lexie. When this video hits a million views, she isn’t getting a single cent of the ad revenue.” Lexie hesitated for a fraction of a second. But with Zach pressuring her and the rest of the hikers watching, she had no choice but to bite her lip and sign her name. I took the paper back, satisfied. I folded it carefully and slid it deep into the zippered inner pocket of my sports bra. Jed looked at me, slowly shaking his head. “Kid, you’re playing with fire,” he muttered, turning on his heel to check the guylines on the cook tent. Since the liability waiver was signed, he wasn’t going to waste his breath. If these city slickers wanted to serve themselves up as grizzly chow, let them. “Well, the paperwork’s done,” Lexie said, her meek, fragile persona evaporating the second Jed walked away. She strutted over to me, her eyes scanning me from head to toe. “Since you’re being so LexiesupportiveLexie now, Darcy, a drone isn’t going to be enough.” She pointed directly at my Arc’teryx alpine parka. “The wind is picking up, and my jacket is way too thin. Let me wear yours.” I raised an eyebrow. The parka was a top-tier mountaineering shell I’d bought specifically for this trip. It had cost me nearly a thousand dollars. Zach immediately chimed in. “Yeah, Darcy, you’ve got a thick build anyway. You’re just staying in camp; you won’t freeze. Lexie has asthma; she can’t handle the cold. Take it off and give it to her.” He reached out his hand, entirely entitled, as if demanding a tax payment. “And give us your satellite phone, too. Just in case there’s no service back there and we need to check in.” I looked at the two of them. In my chest, there wasn’t even a spark of anger left. Just a cold, dead vacuum. “Sure,” I said. I unzipped the parka, slipped it off, and handed it over along with the Garmin inReach satellite communicator from the sleeve pocket. Lexie couldn’t grab them fast enough. She threw the parka over her shoulders. The sleeves were a bit too long for her petite frame, so she rolled up the cuffs with a smug little giggle. “Thanks, babe,” she chirped, before turning her attention to my heavy-duty Osprey pack resting on the camp table. “Let me see what else you’ve got in here.” She unzipped the main compartment without asking, rummaging through my personal belongings like she was picking through a thrift store bin. Zach stood beside her, watching with quiet approval. Suddenly, Lexie’s hand paused. She pulled a heavy, matte-black aluminum canister from the side sleeve. It was emblazoned with a bright orange safety label. “Ooh, what’s this?” Lexie tossed it lightly in the air. “Bear spray?” She let out a loud, mocking laugh. “Darcy, you actually believed that old mountain man’s garbage? Who even carries this junk? You think spraying some hot sauce in a grizzly’s face is going to stop it? You think they’re vegan?” Before I could stop her, she flicked off the plastic safety clip and pressed down on the nozzle. A sharp, orange cloud of aerosolized capsaicin burst into the air. “Cough—cough!” The wind caught the edge of the mist, blowing it right back into Lexie’s face. She gagged, her eyes watering instantly as she fell into a violent coughing fit. Zach rushed to her side, frantically patting her back. “Lexie! Are you okay?” He whipped his head around to glare at me, his face twisted in fury. “Darcy, are you insane? Why do you have hazardous materials just sitting in your bag? Are you trying to kill her?” Lexie was hacking so hard tears streamed down her cheeks. Humiliated and furious, she snatched the canister from the table and slammed it onto the gravel. She lifted her heavy hiking boot and brought it down hard on the plastic nozzle mechanism. LexieCrack.Lexie The plastic collar shattered. The pressurized canister hissed weakly, venting its chemical load into the dirt until it went completely flat. “Trash,” Lexie wheezed, spitting on the ground. “Taking up space for nothing.” I looked down at the ruined canister of bear spray. It was the only thing standing between them and a violent death. And she had just crushed it under her own heel. “Good call,” I said, looking at Lexie. My voice was entirely sincere. “It was taking up space anyway.” 3 As twilight crept in, the sky turned a bruised, heavy purple. The wind carried the sharp, icy sting of an impending storm. Zach and Lexie were packing their gear, eager to get into the tree line before the last of the light faded completely. “Darcy, hand over your honey jar,” Zach demanded, walking up to my chair with his hand outstretched. I was sitting by the portable fire pit, holding a mug of hot water. I looked up. “The honey?” “Yeah,” Zach said impatiently. “Lexie said she saw signs of wild beehives on the lower trail yesterday. We’re going to shoot a ‘man versus nature’ bit. We’ll smear the raw honey on a pine trunk and film her pretending to harvest it. It’ll look amazing on camera.” My fingers tightened around my mug. The memories rushed back, cold and suffocating. In my past life, that rough lodgepole pine bark had scraped against my back. The sticky, sweet honey had been smeared all over my throat and chest. I remembered the heavy, wet hot breath of the grizzly against my face just before its jaws closed around my shoulder. The utter, paralyzing despair of that moment flashed like a spark of white-hot lightning behind my eyes. “What? You’re going to be stingy over a jar of honey now?” Zach sneered, taking my silence for defiance. “It’s a twenty-dollar jar of raw honey, Darcy. When the video blows up, I’ll buy you ten of them.” Dave, who was swapping out a propane canister nearby, let out a loud grunt. “Honestly, Darcy, your pettiness is something else. Your guy is trying to build a brand, and you won’t even chip in a jar of honey. You’re a pretty lousy partner, you know that?” A couple of other hikers chuckled. I ignored them. I took a slow sip of my water, set the mug down, and walked over to my tent. I reached into the gear crate and pulled out the large glass jar of high-viscosity, organic wild honey. “Here,” I said, handing it to Zach. “Take the whole thing.” Zach snatched it, grunting as he glanced at the dried dirt on the glass. “Finally.” He stuffed it into Lexie’s pack, then pulled two printed sheets of paper from his own pocket and slapped them onto the camp table. “Since you’re so determined to play the victim,” Zach said, his voice dripping with condescension, “let’s put it in writing.” He tapped the papers. “This is an official Disassociation and Revenue Waiver. It states that you have no part in this production, and you have zero claim to any intellectual property or financial returns from the footage we shoot today. Sign it.” He stared at me, his eyes full of cheap calculation. He truly believed he was protecting his future empire from a greedy girlfriend. Lexie hovered by his shoulder, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Zach, maybe we shouldn’t… I mean, I’m sure Darcy doesn’t mean to be a drag. But I guess if we make real money, it’s safer to have it in writing so she doesn’t try to sue us later.” I looked at the documents and had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. They were so blinded by the mirage of internet fame that they were systematically cutting off every single cord that tied them to me. They were legally locking their own trap from the inside. “Sure,” I said. I picked up the pen and signed both documents without a second thought. I even pressed my thumb onto the ink pad from my journal kit and left a bright red print next to my name. “All yours,” I said, sliding the papers back. “I hope you get exactly what you deserve.” Zach checked the signatures, satisfied, and slid them into a waterproof ziplock bag. “Good. At least you have some common sense left.” He hoisted his pack and called out, “Lexie, let’s go!” Lexie, clad in my expensive Arc’teryx parka, carrying my drone, and carrying my honey, sauntered past me. She paused, turned back, and flashed me a vulgar middle finger. “Have fun playing housewife at the camp, Darcy! We’ll show you the footage when we get back!” I sat back down in my folding chair. I watched their silhouettes shrink into the dark, jagged line of the pine forest until they were swallowed by the shadows. They looked exactly like walking corpses. The wind howled louder now, carrying the faint, distant echo of a low rumble from the deep valley. I pulled my fleece jacket tighter around myself, finished my water, and waited for the show to start. 4 By eleven o’clock that night, the wind outside was screaming like a banshee. I lay flat on my cot inside the tent, my eyes wide open. My phone was gripped in my hand, its screen glowing in the dark, displaying a high-definition infrared live feed. I had paid a premium for a cellular-linked, night-vision trail camera and set it up on the perimeter of the back-mountain trail before we arrived. I had bought it to keep an eye out for gear thieves. Now, it was my front-row ticket to the main event. Suddenly, a blood-curdling shriek pierced through the roar of the wind. It was a sound of absolute, primitive terror—so warped and shrill it didn’t even sound human. Immediately after came the sound of snapping timber and a deep, guttural roar that vibrated through the floor of my tent. The entire camp erupted. Zippers hissed open as flashlights cut through the dark. Dave threw his tent flap open, stumbling out into the cold in his long underwear. “What the hell was that? Was that a wolf?” Jed ran out of his tent holding a high-lumen spotlight, his face pale. “That’s no wolf. That’s a grizzly. A big one.” About thirty minutes later, the brush at the edge of the camp rattled violently. A shadow stumbled out, falling face-first into the dirt. It was Zach. He was coated in black mud and pine needles. His jacket was shredded down the back, exposing raw, bloody gouges across his shoulders. His hair was wild, his eyes rolling back in his head. “Help… please, God, help me!” he shrieked, his entire body convulsing with dry heaves. Jed ran over, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Where is she? Where is the girl?!” At the mention of Lexie’s name, Zach let out a horrific, high-pitched scream, covering his ears and thrashing in the dirt. “The bear… it was huge! It took her! There was so much blood!” The camp fell into a horrified silence, broken only by the howling wind and Zach’s hysterical sobbing. Jed didn’t waste a second. He ran to his cabin tent, grabbed his sat phone, and dialed search and rescue. Two hours later, three search and rescue deputies and a local ranger arrived at the camp, their spotlights cutting through the swirling snow. The lead deputy, a burly, stern man named Deputy Briggs, took one look at Zach’s shock-induced state. “What happened here?” Briggs demanded, his voice dropping like an anvil. “Didn’t you people see the warning signs posted at the trailhead?” Zach slowly raised his head. His vacant, bloodshot eyes scanned the crowd until they landed on me. In an instant, his grief turned into a feral, rabid hatred. He dragged himself across the gravel, grabbing the cuff of my pants. “It was her!” Zach roared, pointing a trembling, muddy finger at my face. “Officer, she killed Lexie! She forced Lexie to go out there!” He was screaming so hard spit flew from his lips. “She was jealous of Lexie! She refused to give us our safety gear! She poisoned that honey to attract the bears! It was a setup!” Every eye in the camp locked onto me. Dave, looking terrified but eager to shift blame, jumped in. “Officer, I saw it! Darcy was egging them on all afternoon! She even made them sign a waiver just to wash her hands of it!” Luke chimed in. “Yeah! And she broke their bear spray! We saw her stomp on it!” Zach wept hysterically, clutching the deputy’s jacket. “She’s a murderer! You have to lock her up! She killed Lexie!” Deputy Briggs frowned, his gaze shifting to me, hard and suspicious. “Is this true, ma’am?” He reached for the heavy steel handcuffs on his utility belt. “I’m going to need you to step forward and cooperate with our investigation.” Zach stared at the handcuffs, his lips twitching into a tiny, sick grimace of triumph. He thought he had won. Just like in my past life, he thought he could use his tears and lies to bury me under the weight of public outrage. I looked at him. I felt no anger. No panic. I calmly pulled my phone from my pocket and unlocked the screen, opening the cloud-synced security app. The blue light cast a cool glow over my face. “Are you sure I’m the one who forced her to go, Zach?” I pressed play.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457773”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Dr. Diane Mercer, one of the country’s leading cardiothoracic surgeons, was hosting her first public seminar. She was widely regarded as a savior for heart patients, having maintained a legendary zero-mortality record throughout her long career. During the Q&A session, a student stood up and asked, “Dr. Mercer, how do you avoid losing a patient on the table?” She closed her eyes, a look of profound sorrow crossing her face. “In my entire career, I have only had one failed surgery. It was my resident, my apprentice. She secretly donated her heart to her boyfriend under a pseudonym, and I couldn’t save her.” The lecture hall erupted into whispers. “Oh my god! That is so tragic. He must carry that guilt forever, right?” Dr. Mercer opened her eyes, tears brimming. “No. He mistook someone else for his savior. Instead, he treated the girl who gave him life as the monster who killed his mother.” She paused, hardening her resolve. “I promised her I would keep her secret. But my conscience won’t let me remain silent anymore.” “I want him to know that his rise to become a titan of Wall Street was built entirely on his ex-girlfriend’s sacrifice.” “And his current fiancée is the very person who murdered both his mother and the woman who saved him.” The clip exploded online, shooting to the top of every social media feed. The public quickly pieced together the identity of the mysterious billionaire. But Daniel Foster knew nothing of this. He had just spent the entire night finalizing wedding plans, and he was about to take his beloved fiancée to try on her wedding dress. … Chelsea Price sat in the passenger seat, her makeup flawless, practically buzzing with excitement. “It feels like a dream. I can’t believe we’re finally getting married.” Daniel’s bloodshot eyes shone with intense warmth. “I wanted to take our engagement photos on our three-year anniversary for a reason. I want us to have nothing but beautiful memories going forward.” “You’re the reason I’m alive, Chelsea. I will spend the rest of my life making sure you’re cherished.” Chelsea suddenly pouted. “Are you sure none of those beautiful memories still belong to Paige?” Daniel’s hands stiffened on the steering wheel, his smile freezing. “Of course not. I only have room in my heart to hate her.” He spat the word hate. But there was a tremor in his voice—a tiny, flickering hesitation he didn’t even notice. He was so distracted he didn’t realize the light had turned green. In my phantom chest, my empty heart began to ache all over again. He still believed the beautiful, rotten lie. The lie that I had maliciously leaked fake stock market tips, causing the ruined investors to target and murder his mother. The lie that I had embezzled every single cent from his startup and run away. While the true architect of his ruin became his sole anchor. Suddenly, Daniel’s phone buzzed on the dashboard. It was Dr. Mercer. “Mr. Foster, do you have time to come in for a follow-up appointment today?” Ever since the transplant, Daniel’s heart had been incredibly stable. He was about to decline, but he caught Chelsea’s suddenly tense expression out of the corner of his eye. He immediately spun the wheel. “Actually, yes. I’ll bring Chelsea in for a checkup right now.” In the narrative Chelsea had spun four years ago, she was the one who had donated her heart to save him. Daniel was obsessively protective of Chelsea’s health. If she so much as sneezed, he would panic and rush her to the ER. So, whatever protest Chelsea wanted to voice died in her throat. When they arrived at Dr. Mercer’s office, Daniel walked in with a familiar ease, though his chest was hammering with a strange, unaccountable rhythm. He had always wondered why seeing Dr. Mercer brought on this overwhelming sense of familiarity. “I suppose I’m just deeply connected to the person who gave me this heart,” Daniel murmured, a faint smile touching his lips. “Thanks to you, Chelsea has been in perfect health. We’re planning our wedding for this winter, and you absolutely must attend.” Dr. Mercer froze, staring at him. She carefully weighed her words. “Actually, about Paige Evans…” “Dan! I’m all done. The doctor said all my vitals are perfect.” Chelsea swept into the office with a clipboard, her bright laugh cutting through the room. She stepped closer to Dr. Mercer, dropping her voice to a lethal whisper only the doctor could hear. “Dr. Mercer, you wouldn’t want to ruin your perfect reputation, would you?” Dr. Mercer stared at her, her lips pressed into a hard, thin line. Chelsea immediately turned back to Daniel, wrapping her arms around his sleeve. “Let’s go, babe. We’re going to miss our fitting appointment.” As they reached the door, Daniel hesitated, turning back. “What about Paige?” he asked, unable to let it go. Before Dr. Mercer could speak, a swarm of reporters suddenly burst through the hallway, thrusting microphones into Daniel’s face. “Mr. Foster! How do you respond to the viral video regarding your ex-girlfriend’s murder?” Daniel’s brow furrowed into a deep scowl, his voice instantly turning icy. “What are you talking about?” Chelsea frantically tugged at his sleeve, clutching her chest and whimpering in pain. Daniel shoved past the reporters, shouting for a nurse. But one persistent journalist held up a phone, playing the video right in front of his face. “Miss Price never had heart surgery! The donor was Paige Evans!” Daniel whipped around, his eyes wild with fury. The reporter, desperate for an exclusive, didn’t back down. “Are you refusing to admit that your current fiancée murdered Paige Evans, Mr. Foster?” The air in the corridor seemed to solidify. The shock in Daniel’s eyes curdled into pure, unadulterated rage. He practically roared: “Don’t you dare mention that piece of trash’s name in front of me!” “If you vultures keep spreading these sick rumors for clicks, I will sue every last one of your networks into bankruptcy!” He scooped Chelsea up, begging Dr. Mercer to save her. But Dr. Mercer didn’t move. She just stared at him, her voice dead-calm and heavy. “The reporter is telling the truth. The heart beating in your chest belonged to Paige Evans. I performed the surgery myself.” During every single checkup over the past three years, Daniel would unconsciously ask about his donor. He did it with a quiet, desperate obsession he didn’t even understand. Dr. Mercer had wanted to keep her promise to me—to let him live his life in peace. But seeing Chelsea parading around in her stolen happiness, while I had died in agonizing pain, rejected by my own body’s defense systems, unable to even rest in peace… It wasn’t fair. Daniel’s arms went stiff around Chelsea. His voice was cold, rigid. “What did you say? Since when do you play along with these sick jokes?” Dr. Mercer shook her head, her eyes filled with profound grief. “To keep you alive while we waited for a real donor, she wore a mechanical heart. The side effects were brutal.” “I could have saved her. But Chelsea…” Before she could finish, Chelsea conveniently fainted, her head lolling back. Daniel’s attention was instantly pulled back to her. Dr. Mercer threw her professional dignity aside, physically blocking his path. “Chelsea is perfectly fine! She has been lying to you—” “Enough!” Daniel’s knuckles turned white as he yelled, cutting her off. “Dr. Mercer, I don’t know what kind of sick game Paige is paying you to play.” “But I don’t believe a single word out of your mouth.” “If Paige wants to clear her name, tell her to show her face and confess to my face. Otherwise, I will make sure she never finds peace in this lifetime!” ——– On the very day Daniel achieved everything he had ever dreamed of in his career, he spent hours dialing my old, deactivated number. His assistants searched every corner of the city. But they found nothing. No trace of Paige Evans. Chelsea then staged a series of fake threats, pretending I was stalking and blackmailing her. Daniel’s remaining sympathy for me withered away. He leaked my personal information to the darkest corners of the internet. Slanderous videos circulated. Uncensored photos of me were pasted on street corners. Even though my parents had passed away years ago, internet vigilantes tracked down their graves. They desecrated the headstones, scattering my parents’ ashes and spraying vulgar graffiti across the marble. Our old family photos were turned into cruel memes. My remaining relatives were harassed. Red paint was splashed across their front doors. My elderly aunt knelt on the pavement, crying, begging Daniel to show mercy. But Daniel only watched from the tinted window of his sedan, his eyes cold and detached. “I want to see just how long Paige Evans can hide,” he muttered. He put a five-million-dollar bounty on my head. I hovered beside him, watching this horrific farce drag on for a year. Of course, no one would ever find me. They didn’t know I had already become a “silent teacher”—a willed body donor in the anatomy lab of Hudson University. He didn’t know that Chelsea had intercepted every attempt I made to contact him. Dr. Mercer slowly let go of his arm, letting out a long, hollow sigh. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. I am going to release the records. I will expose the truth.” “I only hope you don’t regret this when it’s too late.” Daniel’s toe tapped against the floor—a nervous habit he only did when his mind was spinning. Chelsea whimpered, feigning a tremor. Without another word, Daniel turned and carried her away. Dr. Mercer faced the reporters’ cameras, her voice cracking with exhaustion. “Paige Evans’s body is currently at the Hudson University School of Medicine.” Daniel had always been a man who only believed what he chose to believe. Back in college, when a classmate maliciously accused me of cheating on an exam, Daniel was the first one to stand up in front of the dean’s office. “I don’t believe it,” he had said, completely ignoring the fabricated evidence. He spent three sleepless days tracking down witnesses to clear my name, eventually helping me secure my scholarship. On the night I cleared my name, I asked him, “What if I really did cheat?” He looked at me under the streetlights, his eyes bright and clear, a slow smile spreading across his face. He reached out and gently ruffled my hair. “I know you, Paige. You wouldn’t.” An orphan and a boy from a broken home—we were both bruised by the world, clinging to each other for warmth until graduation. We had a shared dream: Hudson University’s finance program. I remember him looking up at the night sky, vowing to build a financial empire. “We’re going to make so much money, Paige. So much that no one will ever be able to hurt us again.” And for a while, the story went exactly as planned. We lived in drafty basements, split cold sandwiches, and drank ourselves to the point of stomach ulcers at corporate dinners just to secure clients. Finally, the company began to take off. But Daniel’s heart began to fail. During the hardest months of my life, Chelsea arrived with an impressive resume. She was brilliant. She helped scale our operations. But her intentions were as old and tired as time itself. She wanted Daniel. When Daniel turned her down and threatened to fire her, his condition took a nosebleed plunge. The doctors issued a terminal prognosis. Every venture capitalist rejected my pleas for funding; we didn’t have a fraction of the money needed for his transplant. That was when Dr. Mercer contacted me. There was a clinical trial for an advanced, fully bio-compatible mechanical heart. It was fully funded, experimental, but promised to sustain life. I remembered Daniel’s mother weeping by his bedside: “What is my boy going to do? He is so young…” So, I decided to give Daniel my heart. I was healthy, I was young, and I had no family left to grieve me. That was the first time I ever lied to him. I told him his name had magically cleared the national transplant donor registry. Before he went into the operating room, we both smiled, believing this was just another temporary hurdle we would clear together. But everything spiraled out of control. I didn’t wake up from my own surgery until three months later. By then, Chelsea had already painted me as a thief who had embezzled the company’s funds and abandoned him on his deathbed. I dragged my frail, mechanical-hearted body to the office and slapped her across the face in front of everyone. I screamed every ugly word I knew. But Chelsea just sank to the floor like a broken, fragile doll, weeping silently. When Daniel walked in, the way he looked at me was terrifying. It was the look you give a mortal enemy. “Paige Evans. You actually have the nerve to show your face here?” I tried to tell him the truth, but a sudden, blinding pain flared in my chest. I coughed, spitting blood onto the pristine floor. For a split second, his cold expression softened with panic. But Chelsea chose that exact moment to faint. Daniel’s concern vanished. He kicked my hands away from his shoes. “Stop acting. For the sake of what we used to be, I won’t call the police on you.” “But if you ever touch Chelsea again, I will make sure you pay with your life.” I don’t remember how I got back to the hospital. Dr. Mercer told me that Chelsea had become his entire reason for fighting to live. They were all over the business news—the brilliant young CEO and his beautiful savior. I was cast as the villain who used and discarded him. Daniel used the public sympathy to secure millions in venture capital. As his new firm soared, my body underwent five agonizing episodes of transplant rejection. Suddenly, I didn’t want to fight anymore. The mechanical heart was tearing my body apart. If I couldn’t find a matching human donor within two years, I would die anyway. What was the point of telling him the truth? To shatter the life he had finally rebuilt? Perhaps God had a twisted sense of humor. On the day Daniel proposed to Chelsea, I finally got the call: a perfect donor heart was available. I wanted to live. I truly did. But then I heard that Daniel was planning to sign over all his company shares to Chelsea. I was terrified she would ruin him. I tried to reach him, but before I could, Chelsea’s hired thugs cornered me and dragged me to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town. The blows rained down on me. My chest felt like it was imploding. Chelsea knelt beside me, forcing a handful of incompatible medications down my throat. “Just lie here and die quietly, Paige. I’ll make sure Daniel thinks you took your own life out of guilt.” With my last ounce of strength, I dialed Daniel’s number. “Daniel… I’m dying… don’t trust Chelsea…” He was with Chelsea. I could hear their breathing, the rustle of sheets. There was a long silence before his voice came through the line, dripping with mockery. “Then congratulations. I hope you enjoy hell.” To the sound of their soft laughter, my world went black. If Chelsea hadn’t intercepted the donor heart meant for me, the paramedics might have saved me. In the final second of my life, I heard Daniel’s voice through the thin drywall of the adjacent hospital wing where they had eventually dumped me. “Doctor! Please, save my fiancée! She’s having chest pains!” When my body was wheeled out under a white sheet, we crossed paths in the corridor. He seemed to feel something. He glanced back at the gurney. But a second later, he muttered, “What a nuisance,” and turned away. In the high-rise boardroom, the atmosphere was suffocating. The viral video of Dr. Mercer’s seminar was already tanking the company’s stock. Daniel sat at the head of the table, his face grim. “Do whatever it takes to kill the story,” he ordered the PR team. “Chelsea’s name must remain clear.” “Get the car ready. I’m going to Hudson University.” When he stormed into the anatomy lab, I was lying silently on the stainless steel table, my cold, preserved body surrounded by medical students. Dr. Mercer walked in right behind him. “According to her final wishes, all her viable tissues were donated,” she said softly. “She served as a silent teacher here for three years. Her body is beginning to show wear, and the department is preparing for her burial. I wanted to ensure she finally rests in peace.” I hovered right beside her, reaching out to comfort her, but my ghostly fingers slipped right through her shoulder. Dr. Mercer was the only person who had stood by me. She wasn’t just my doctor; she was my mentor, my protector. During those endless nights when the pain of rejection kept me awake, she had stayed by my bedside, holding my hand. I felt so guilty. She had given me five chances at life, but my foolish decisions had ruined her flawless surgical record. Daniel’s presence was like a dark cloud in the room. His sharp, hollow eyes stared at my bloated, formalin-soaked face. The professor quietly dismissed the students. As they filed out, I heard one whisper, “Hey, isn’t that the donor the senior was messing around with? Is the CEO here to investigate?” Daniel’s brow furrowed deeper. “You must have gone to a lot of trouble to find a corpse that looks this much like her,” he sneered, looking at Dr. Mercer. “Has she been stalking me for the last three years? What is this, another one of her sick plays?” “I’m marrying Chelsea. Even if Paige pretends to be dead, I will never forgive her.” Dr. Mercer gently drew the white sheet over my face. “Today is the third anniversary of Paige’s death, Daniel.” “Her last phone call was to you, begging for help. But you hung up and let her die.” “Chelsea never had a heart condition. The donor heart you hijacked in the next ward that night? It was supposed to go to Paige.” Daniel’s fists clenched so hard the veins in his forearms bulged. He took a step back, a mocking laugh escaping his lips. “How long are you going to keep playing along with her theater?” Dr. Mercer pulled a thick, faded medical file from her bag and slapped it onto the metal table. “See for yourself. Look at who actually gave you your life.” Daniel’s eyes fell on the signature page. My name was written there in my neat, familiar handwriting. He flinched as if he had touched hot iron, dropping the papers. “You’re a doctor! You could easily forge a medical file!” he snarled, his voice cracking. “If Chelsea’s heart was fine, why didn’t any other doctor say anything?” “Because she paid them off!” Dr. Mercer’s chest heaved with heavy, ragged breaths. Her eyes were rimmed with red. She thrust my death certificate directly in front of his face. “Look at it! Paige Evans died three years ago!” “Do you think I would destroy my entire medical career to tell a lie?” Daniel froze. “She was thinking of you until the very moment her heart stopped,” Dr. Mercer choked out. “She was terrified the truth would break you, so she begged me to keep it a secret.” “And what did you do? For three years, you’ve been parading around with her killer, ruining Paige’s innocent family in the process.” “Your new heart is perfectly healthy now, Daniel. But it’s time you face the truth.” Daniel’s face was completely rigid. A cold, hollow laugh bubbled up from his throat. “Beautiful. Quite a performance. All this just to turn me against Chelsea?” “Do me a favor and tell Paige that Chelsea is the love of my life. Even if she made mistakes, it was Paige who drove her to it.” Dr. Mercer closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pulled out her phone. She hit play on a video and handed it to him. “Watch this. And then tell me if you still feel the same way.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457772”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When my husband’s company went under, I stayed. When the bank took the house, I didn’t blink. But when I caught him playing the field behind my back, that was it. I hit my breaking point and demanded a divorce. The words had barely left my mouth when something impossible happened. A string of glowing, neon-blue text floated through the air right in front of my eyes, like a ticker tape only I could see: [Wow, the new Female Main Character is ruthless. Reincarnated just to steal the guy from his throwaway ex-wife. Classic villain-era FMC!] [The ex-wife is such an idiot, though. The FMC literally Photoshopped one picture, and the wife immediately screams for a divorce. No wonder she’s just cannon fodder.] [The FMC is gonna help the guy rebuild his empire and become a billionaire’s wife. Meanwhile, the ex gets lured in by a romance scammer, trafficked overseas, and dies pregnant. Tragic, but she’s so dumb.] Jeremy stared at me, his face registering a flash of shock before settling into a terrifying, hollow calm. “Alright,” he said. “We’ll go to the courthouse first thing tomorrow.” 1 I snapped back to reality, my chest heaving. Pointing a trembling finger at his chest, I spat, “I said I want a divorce, and I mean it! You never loved me, did you? You absolute bastard!” Jeremy flinched. For a second, a shadow crossed his face, but then his mouth curled into a self-deprecating, bitter line. “It’s entirely normal that you want out,” he said, his voice flat. “I understand. I accept it. You don’t have to make up excuses to justify leaving.” Panic flared in my chest, but I kept my chin high. “What do you mean, make up excuses? If you hadn’t cheated on me, do you think I’d be standing here screaming about a divorce?!” I laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. “You agreed so fast. Don’t tell me you don’t have a guilty conscience!” Maybe my sheer audacity stunned him, because it took him a long moment to reply. “You’re accusing me of cheating. Where exactly is your proof?” “You think I don’t have it?” I challenged, fueled by righteous indignation. I did have proof. Even if that floating text called it “Photoshopped by the FMC.” I shoved my hand into my pocket and yanked out my phone. But when I opened my messages, my blood ran cold. The anonymous text—the one with the photo of Jeremy kissing some stunning brunette on a city street—was gone. Vanished. My thumbs flew across the screen, scrolling frantically, my breath catching in my throat. “Why isn’t it here? Where did it go?” [Where did it go? Because the FMC hacked your phone and wiped it, you moron!] [Look, the guy only married her out of a sense of duty to her dead mother anyway. He never had real feelings for her. She’s been high-maintenance forever, and now she’s ditching him at his lowest point. He’s completely disillusioned.] [This spoiled trophy wife does nothing but cry and spend money. She never deserved him. Can’t wait for her to get written out of the story so the FMC and the male lead can become a corporate power couple. Period.] Watching me fumble with my phone, Jeremy’s patience finally evaporated. He let out a low, mocking exhale—a sound that cut deeper than a knife—and turned his back on me, walking into the bathroom. He didn’t say another word. He didn’t have to. The silence was deafening. My throat tightened. A sharp ache pierced the bridge of my nose, and the tears I’d been trying to hold back finally spilled over. 2 I retreated to our cramped bedroom, burying my face in the pillows to muffle my sobs. I didn’t know what was wrong with me lately. My emotions were entirely out of my control; the slightest breeze of conflict had me ready to break down. It had always just been me and my mom. Seven years ago, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Despite every aggressive treatment money could buy, she faded fast. In her final days, terrified of leaving her naive, sheltered daughter alone in the world, she entrusted me to Jeremy. Jeremy had been a foster kid my mother mentored and put through college. Brilliant, driven, and relentlessly hard-working, he had started his own tech firm right after graduation and was already making a name for himself. I had always known him, had always harbored a quiet, blooming crush on him. So, when he held my mother’s frail hand and swore he would protect me for the rest of his life, I didn’t object. After she passed, we simply… fell together. Jeremy was endlessly patient with me. He was gentle, indulgent, and absorbed every one of my flaws and tantrums without complaint. For years, I truly believed it was because he loved me. But those floating words… they said he didn’t. They said it was just a debt. A transaction to repay my mother’s kindness. The thought felt like physical pressure on my chest. There were a million ways to repay a mentor. He could have paid her back in stock, in charity, in taking care of her affairs. Why marry me if he didn’t even like me? It was sick. But as I lay there, my tears drying into a stubborn resolve, a new thought took root. I might not be a genius, but if I knew Jeremy was destined to become a titan of industry again, I wasn’t going to just hand him over to some manipulative “Female Main Character.” Fine, we could divorce. But not until he was back on his feet and could give me a settlement large enough to secure my future. Until then, this “FMC” could wait in line. I owed her nothing. Fifteen minutes later, the bedroom door clicked open. Jeremy stood at the foot of the bed. The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating, before he spoke. His voice was devastatingly calm. “I have nothing left to my name right now. If we divorce, I can’t give you the alimony you deserve. But if I ever make it back… I’ll make it right.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “You don’t need to worry about the creditors. The debt is entirely mine. It won’t touch you.” I sat up, glaring at him through swollen eyes. “I’m not divorcing you! Don’t even think about it!” Jeremy opened his mouth to argue, but the fight seemed to drain right out of him. “Whatever you want, Gemma. When you’re ready to sign, let me know. I’ll make it easy for you.” He turned and walked out. He didn’t say it, but I felt the weight of his disappointment. Just like the phantom text said, my asking for a divorce had broken something fundamental between us. But without the photo, what was I supposed to do? I’d just have to cling to him. Dig my heels in. Being shameless was the one thing I was actually good at. [The guy is totally heartbroken. He’ll push for the divorce soon.] [I don’t know. He’s got a toxic level of loyalty. Even if he doesn’t love her, he won’t force her out if she refuses to leave. Based on her reaction, this might drag out.] [Relax. She’s a pampered princess who can’t handle poverty. The second a better option flashes some cash, she’ll jump ship. It won’t take long.] I rolled my eyes at the empty air. Pampered? Yes. A gold-digger? Absolutely not. If I only cared about money, I would have bolted the day the bank locked the doors to his office. If I hadn’t been blinded by the sheer betrayal of that Photoshopped kiss, I never would have thrown the word “divorce” at him. Stupid, judgmental ghost text. 3 I lay in bed for another hour, sinking deep into my own misery. Eventually, Jeremy appeared in the doorway, an apron tied around his waist. “Dinner’s ready.” His tone was detached. Cold. It made my skin crawl. Back in the day, if he had dared to speak to me with that kind of ice, I would have thrown a fit. But now, terrified of pushing him entirely into the arms of the “FMC,” I dragged myself out of bed without a word. I had never cooked a day in my life. After the bankruptcy, when we had to let the housekeeper go, I tried. But my culinary skills began and ended with microwave ramen and frozen pizza; everything else I touched turned to charcoal. Jeremy, raised by his grandfather after losing his parents young, was entirely self-sufficient. He was actually a phenomenal cook. When he was home, the kitchen was his domain. He had made seared salmon, garlic asparagus, and a delicate squash soup—all my favorites. Looking at the steam rising from the plates, the back of my throat burned. Tears, unbidden and humiliating, slipped down my cheeks. I turned my head away fast, wiping my face with the back of my hand, and stared rigidly at my plate. Maybe it was the heavy atmosphere, but the food tasted like ash. After a few bites, my stomach rolled. A wave of nausea hit me so hard I had to put my fork down. “I’m full,” I whispered. Jeremy frowned, setting his own fork down. He looked at me, his eyes guarded. “I’m flying to Chicago for a few days. Take the weekend to really think about what you want to do about us.” My hands curled into fists under the table. “Where in Chicago? For how long?” “Just downtown. I’ll be back Sunday night at the latest.” I stood up, my chair scraping harshly against the floor. “I already told you, I am not getting a divorce!” Jeremy looked at me, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes, before he looked away. “Suit yourself.” Suit myself? I let out a sound of pure frustration, stomped my foot like a petulant child, and stormed back to the bedroom. Half an hour later, I heard him zipping up his duffel bag. I curled into a tight ball, facing the wall, silently weeping into the quilt. It took him less than ten minutes to pack. He didn’t come in to say goodbye. I heard the scrape of his bag, the heavy thud of the front door closing. Once he was gone, the silence of the apartment crashed down on me. The silent weeping turned into a sob, and the sob tore into a full-blown, ugly wail. [Cry, cry, cry! That’s all she does. Crying away whatever good luck she has left!] [This side-character is so useless. All tears, no brains.] [What did you expect from the ‘beautiful but useless’ trope?] [Honestly, if she wasn’t so pathetic, it wouldn’t be this easy for the FMC to steal her husband. The more useless she is, the better.] [True that, lol!] 4 Reading the words hovering in the air only made me cry harder. I was drowning in my own pity party when the mattress suddenly dipped behind me. I gasped, spinning around in terror. Jeremy was sitting on the edge of the bed. I had no idea when he’d come back. He was looking down at me, his expression a complicated mess of exhaustion and sorrow. I choked on a sob, glaring at him defensively. “What… what do you want?!” He stared at me for a long time. Then, without a word, he reached out, pulled me against his chest, and buried his face in my hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. I froze against him. I knew what that apology meant. He was apologizing for failing. For losing the company, for the cramped apartment, for not giving me the charmed life he had sworn to my mother he’d provide. But business was just business. Fortunes rise and fall. When he first went bankrupt, I was terrified, yes. But I adapted. I always believed he would find his way back to the top. I never, not even for a fraction of a second, considered leaving him because the money ran out. I wasn’t crying because I missed the penthouse. I was crying because he didn’t trust me. He didn’t believe that someone had sent me that photo, and worse, he didn’t believe I could stand by him when things got dark. “You are wrong,” I said, my voice thick and muffled against his shirt. “I did get a picture of you kissing someone. Why won’t you just believe me? Why is it so hard to believe someone hacked my phone and deleted it?” Jeremy’s hand stroked a slow, rhythmic circle on my back. “Okay,” he said softly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have doubted you.” I let out a wet huff. I knew he was just placating me, but there was a time to fight and a time to fold. I let myself sink into his warmth. He held me a little tighter. “If everything goes according to plan,” he murmured, his voice rumbling against my ear, “I can clear the debt in three years. We might not have the private jets again, but we’ll be comfortable. We’ll be okay.” I didn’t offer some fake, noble speech about loving the struggle. I just pressed my face deeper into the crook of his neck and breathed in the scent of his cedarwood cologne. “Okay.” He didn’t say anything else. He just leaned down and pressed a long, soft kiss to my forehead. In that quiet, suspended moment, I could have sworn he loved me. We stayed like that for a long time, just breathing together, until he finally pulled back. He kissed my forehead one last time. “I have to catch my flight. Wait for me. When I get back, I’m taking you out for a real dinner.” I nodded, feeling absurdly small. “Okay.” I walked him to the door, suddenly reluctant to let him leave. “Be careful in Chicago.” “I will.” He smiled, a genuine, blinding smile that made my chest stutter. He reached out and ruffled my hair. “Be good. Wait for me.” My heart did a violent flip. Flustered, I muttered a quick goodbye and shut the door. [Wait, I’m kind of shipping them now. The arranged marriage to lovers arc is hitting.] [Ew, why? She brings nothing to the table but her face. The FMC is a powerhouse. Power couples are way better.] [Yeah, FMC all the way.] I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. Right. The FMC was a powerhouse. And her definition of female empowerment apparently included breaking up a marriage. Cool. 5 Making peace with Jeremy shifted the atmosphere in the apartment. Even while he was in Chicago, the tension evaporated. He texted me constantly, checking in, asking if I had eaten, reminding me to lock the door. He was back to being the attentive, endlessly gentle man I knew. Even knowing he might not truly love me, I found it impossible to be mad at him. As for the future, my plan remained intact. I’d stick it out until he struck gold again, take my lucrative alimony, and vanish. Sunday arrived. I slept in until ten, the autumn sunlight streaming through the blinds. Stretching out of bed, I went to the kitchen and boiled a pot of the dumplings Jeremy had made from scratch and frozen before his trip. Pork and scallion. My absolute favorite. I set the steaming bowl on the counter and grabbed a fork. But the moment the smell of the pork hit my senses, my stomach rebelled violently. I clamped a hand over my mouth, bolted to the bathroom, and dry-heaved over the toilet until my ribs ached. I slumped against the cool tile, wiping my mouth, my mind racing. I had never been pregnant, but I wasn’t an idiot. …dies pregnant. The floating text’s gruesome prophecy echoed in my head. To be absolutely sure, I threw on a coat, walked to the pharmacy down the block, and bought two different brands of pregnancy tests. Twenty minutes later, they sat on the edge of the sink. Two lines on both. Pregnant. A year ago, Jeremy and I had actively tried for a baby. But when the company collapsed, we shelved the idea indefinitely. If I refused to divorce Jeremy, I knew the “FMC” would keep gunning for him. I had been terrified I wouldn’t be smart enough to hold on to a future billionaire. But this? This was the ultimate trump card. I rested a trembling hand on my flat stomach. “Hey there, kid,” I whispered, a nervous laugh escaping me. “Our whole future is riding on you.” Jeremy was intensely loyal. A man driven by duty. With a child in the picture, he would never abandon me. I reached for my phone to call him, then remembered he was probably mid-air. It could wait. I wanted to see his face anyway. I would surprise him tonight. I waited. The hours crawled by. By seven p.m., he should have been walking through the door. Anxiety gnawing at me, I texted him. A few minutes later, my phone buzzed. Caught up with some unexpected business. Going to be late. I didn’t overthink it. I turned on Netflix and curled up on the couch to wait, eventually drifting into a restless sleep. I didn’t know what time it was when the sound of the deadbolt clicking woke me. I jolted upright. Jeremy was standing in the entryway, setting his keys in the bowl. Adrenaline and joy spiked in my veins. I threw the blanket off and practically ran toward him. “Jeremy, I have to tell you—” He didn’t move to catch me. He stood entirely still, his face carved from stone. The air around him was freezing. “Gemma,” he said, his voice stripped of all emotion. “We need to get a divorce.” I slammed on the brakes, my bare feet skidding on the hardwood. I stared at him, sure the sleep hadn’t entirely left my brain. “What?” He met my eyes, his gaze steady and dead. “A divorce. I’ll have a settlement agreement drawn up for you tonight.” My jaw locked. My hands curled into fists at my sides. “Give me one good reason.” A muscle feathered in his jaw. “We aren’t a good fit anymore. Let’s just end it cleanly.” Fire exploded in my chest. “You’re the one who promised my mother you’d marry me! You didn’t think we were a bad fit then, did you?!” Jeremy lowered his eyes, staring at a spot on the floor between us. “I’m sorry.” I took a ragged breath, fighting the sudden, violent sting of tears. My voice shook so badly it barely sounded like me. “Jeremy. Look at me. I’m going to ask you one more time. Why are you doing this?” He turned his head away, unable to meet my gaze. “I met someone who’s a better fit for me.” A hysterical, broken laugh ripped out of my throat. Someone who’s a better fit. The Female Main Character. I knew it was coming. I knew she existed. But God, I didn’t think she would move this fast. I had planned to stubbornly occupy the role of his wife until he could afford to buy me out. In my most secret, shameful heart, I had hoped I could beat her plot armor. That I could stay his wife forever. It was a delusion. If he had already fallen for her, if he was standing in our home asking to end our marriage, then fighting for him was pointless. Begging would only make him resent me. Clinging to him would turn me into the villain in his eyes. Fine. If he wanted out, I’d take the settlement and walk. But I was keeping my baby. If this “FMC” could play the homewrecker and steal my husband, I could certainly keep my own child a secret.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457771”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On Valentine’s Day, my ex-boyfriend, Kevin, cornered me in the most crowded dining hall on campus. He was holding a microphone from the student radio station, declaring to the entire room: “Zoe, if you just agree to give us another chance, I’ll withdraw my application for the Dean’s Fellowship.” The entire cafeteria erupted into cheers and whistles. Beside him stood Delilah, his childhood best friend, her eyes red as she pleaded with me: “Zoe, Kevin is doing all of this for you. Please, stop being so dramatic.” From the crowd, whispers drifted over. Some called me cold-hearted. Some said I didn’t know how good I had it. Others muttered that a girl like me deserved to be dumped anyway. I simply smiled. I reached for the glass of iced lemonade on my tray and threw it directly into Kevin’s face. “Using public resources to stage a tragedy, Kevin?” I said, my voice cutting through the silence. “You’re pathetic.” He thought I was just lashed out because he had backed me into a corner. But he had no idea. From the moment he and Delilah began plotting to steal my fellowship spot, I had already started digging his grave. And the first shovel of dirt would fall next week, during our senior capstone presentations. 1 Today was Valentine’s Day. The first floor of the campus student center was packed to the gills. I had just picked up my lunch tray and walked toward the seating area when a sudden roar of excitement erupted behind me. “She’s here, she’s here!” “Zoe’s here!” “Make way, let the leading lady through!” I froze. Before I could even register what was happening, the crowd parted automatically, forming a long path. At the end of that path stood Kevin. He was wearing a crisp white shirt, dark trousers, and his hair was meticulously styled. In his hand, he held a wireless microphone. At his feet lay a massive ring of red roses, inside of which sat a heart made of glowing tea lights. Next to it was a chalkboard sign that read: Zoe, let’s start over. Looking at those words, my stomach churned. Start over? Only two months ago, I had walked into the local indie theater and found him in the back row, holding Delilah in his arms. Delilah had been wearing the forest-green wool scarf I had spent three weeks knitting for him. She had leaned against his shoulder, her voice soft and sweet: “Kevin, won’t Zoe be upset if she finds out?” And what did Kevin say? He had stroked her hair and murmured, “Don’t worry about her. She’ll never leave me.” I hadn’t made a scene that day. I simply took a photo of them, walked out, and texted him that we were over. At first, Kevin acted like he didn’t care. “You’ll regret this, Zoe,” he’d warned me. “You’re never going to find another guy who treats you the way I do.” I hadn’t regretted it for a single second. But it seemed he was starting to. Our department had only one spot for the fully-funded Dean’s Fellowship this year—a direct track to the university’s prestigious graduate program. When our cumulative GPA rankings came out, Kevin and I were tied for first place. The final decision would come down to the senior capstone project presentations next week. Delilah was ranked third. If either Kevin or I dropped out of the running, the runner-up spot would automatically go to her. This grand gesture wasn’t an act of devotion. It was a setup. Kevin raised the microphone, his eyes glistening with rehearsed emotion. “Zoe, these past two months apart have been a nightmare. I haven’t slept. I know I made mistakes, but I truly can’t imagine my life without you.” The crowd went wild. “Oh my god, he’s so romantic!” “What is she waiting for? Say yes!” Kevin took a step forward, pulling a folded piece of paper from a leather portfolio. I recognized the official department letterhead. It was a Voluntary Withdrawal Form for the fellowship. He held it up for everyone to see. “If you take me back, I’ll sign this right now. I don’t care about the fellowship. I only care about you.” The cafeteria erupted. People were clapping, cheering, and recording videos to post on their socials. “Giving up a full-ride fellowship for love? Kevin is a literal prince!” “If Zoe rejects him now, she’s just being heartless.” I stood in the center of the room, pinned to the floor by hundreds of staring eyes, like a criminal on trial. Kevin looked at me, a subtle gleam of triumph in his eyes. He was certain I would be swept up by the romance, or at least too afraid of the public pressure to humiliate him. He knew the old me too well. During our two years together, I had always protected his ego. When he was late, I told him it was fine. When he forgot our anniversary, I blamed it on his heavy workload. When he spent hours alone with Delilah, I told myself I trusted him. But a person can only be a fool for so long. Once was enough. Just then, Delilah stepped out from behind him. She was wearing a delicate white sundress, her eyes rimmed with red, looking like the victim of some grand tragedy. She walked over to me, her voice trembling. “Zoe, please don’t hold a grudge against Kevin. He’s been in so much pain lately. If you’re refusing to forgive him because of me, I’ll apologize. I’ll do whatever it takes.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll keep my distance from him from now on. Just please, stop torturing him like this.” It was a masterful performance. The moment she spoke, the whispers around us shifted, growing sharper, uglier. “Zoe is being so cold.” “Even the friend apologized, and she’s still standing there with that look on her face.” “Is she just stringing him along because she likes the power trip?” Kevin didn’t stop Delilah. He just watched me, the faint twitch of a smirk touching the corner of his mouth. In that moment, his entire plan became crystal clear. He wasn’t here to beg for my forgiveness; he was here to force me to submit. If I accepted, he won. He could occupy the moral high ground, regain control over our relationship, and eventually manipulate me into stepping down from the fellowship anyway. If I rejected him, he still won. He would use the court of public opinion to paint me as a ruthless, ungrateful villain, making it impossible for me to survive the department’s review process. No matter what, he wanted to ensure I lost. I looked at him, and suddenly, I laughed. Kevin’s eyes lit up, thinking I was softening. He opened his arms, his voice dropping into a deeper, tender register. “Zoe. Come back to me. I’m so sorry.” I set my lunch tray down on a nearby table, picked up the tall plastic cup of iced lemonade, and before he could react, I threw the contents straight into his face. The sticky, ice-cold liquid drenched his hair and ran down his neck. A slice of lemon clung to his collar. The entire cafeteria went dead silent. The mask of devotion on Kevin’s face shattered instantly. He wiped the liquid from his eyes, his chest heaving as he roared, “Zoe! Are you insane?” I took the microphone from his hand. My voice wasn’t loud, but in the quiet of the hall, it carried perfectly. “First of all, we broke up two months ago. I am not interested in getting back together. Ever. “Second, the Dean’s Fellowship is an academic honor. It is not a prop for you to use in your pathetic romantic dramas. Staging this little show isn’t noble, Kevin. It’s desperate.” A collective gasp rippled through the room. Delilah’s face drained of color. “Zoe, how can you say that? Kevin did this because he loves you—” I turned my gaze to her. “Because he loves me? If he withdraws, you’re third in line for the spot. If I walk away because of the drama, it goes straight to you. Tell me, Delilah, why are you crying? You should be throwing a party.” Delilah froze, her mouth slightly open. Kevin went rigid. Finally, some of the onlookers started putting the pieces together. “Wait, Delilah is third in the department?” “So if Kevin drops out and Zoe gets distracted, Delilah gets the funding?” “Holy shit. Is this a setup?” Delilah’s tears fell faster. “No! That’s not true! I never wanted to take anyone’s spot! Zoe, why do you always assume the worst of me?” Before she could finish her sentence, a stern, authoritative voice boomed from the back of the crowd. “What is going on here?” The students parted to reveal Professor Harris, our department head. His face was dark. He was notorious for his strict academic standards and his absolute disdain for students who treated their studies like a game. He had clearly heard enough. Kevin panicked. “Professor Harris, I was just—” “Just what?” Professor Harris cut him off, his voice like ice. “Using a graduate fellowship as a bargaining chip for your love life? Kevin, what do you think this university’s academic standards are? A playground?” Kevin’s face was white. I didn’t give him a chance to recover. I stepped forward and bowed slightly to the professor. “Professor Harris, since things have escalated to this point, I have a proposal. To ensure complete fairness, I suggest we make the capstone defense next week entirely transparent. Let the entire faculty panel grade us live, and let the highest score take the fellowship. No one has to withdraw, and no one gets to play the martyr.” Professor Harris was silent for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Fine. Next Friday, a public defense. Everyone speaks with their work.” I looked back at Kevin. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscles in his cheek twitched. Delilah’s fingers were white from clutching the fabric of her skirt. Their first move had failed. But at ten o’clock that night, my roommate, Grace, kicked our dorm door open and shoved her phone in my face. “Zoe, look at the campus forum. Kevin is dragging you through the mud.” 2 By midnight, the campus forum had completely caught fire. An anonymous post had been pinned to the top of the homepage. The title read: Exposing the cold-blooded genius who threw ice water on the campus golden boy on Valentine’s Day. The post was written with dramatic flair, painting Kevin as a tragic romantic who had offered to sacrifice his entire future for me, only to be publicly humiliated. It claimed I had used him for support throughout our relationship, only to discard him the moment I didn’t need him anymore. It even suggested that my call for a public defense was because I had already bribed the faculty. It was so absurd I wanted to laugh. But the comments underneath were filled with genuine, vitriolic anger. “Zoe looks so innocent, but she’s actually a sociopath.” “Who cares if she’s smart? Her character is trash.” “People like her shouldn’t get fellowships. They ruin academic departments.” “She was the one who suggested the public defense. I bet she already has the professors in her pocket.” Our class group chat wasn’t quiet either. Kevin’s roommate was the first to speak up. “@Zoe, you went way too far today. Kevin was willing to give up his career for you, and you poured ice water on his head? You’re cold.” Delilah’s roommate immediately chimed in: “Some people think they can treat others like garbage just because they have a high GPA. Delilah has been crying all night, and she did absolutely nothing wrong. Zoe, you owe her an apology.” I stared at the screen, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. Before I could type a single word, Grace snatched the phone from my hand. “Don’t waste your breath, Zoe,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Let me handle this.” Within seconds, she fired off a dozen messages in the group chat. “Kevin is a romantic? Is that what we’re calling a guy who cheats on his girlfriend with his ‘childhood best friend’?” “Is it romantic that while Zoe was running a hundred-and-four-degree fever, Kevin claimed he was stuck in the lab, only to go see a movie with Delilah?” “Is it romantic that he took the green scarf Zoe spent weeks knitting for him and gave it to Delilah?” The chat went silent for a few seconds. Then, Grace dropped the bomb: a photo of Kevin and Delilah sitting in the back row of the movie theater, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist as she fed him popcorn. The chat exploded. Kevin’s roommate tried to salvage the situation: “So what? Friends can’t go to the movies together?” Grace fired back: “To a theater’s love seats? Feeding each other popcorn? Wearing his girlfriend’s hand-knit scarf? Is everyone in your dorm room lacking a mirror, or just lacking a brain?” I couldn’t help but chuckle. Grace never needed a script to dismantle someone. Kevin finally appeared in the chat. “Grace, don’t make this uglier than it needs to be. Whatever issues Zoe and I have, we’ll resolve them privately.” Grace replied: “Oh, now you want privacy? You didn’t care about privacy when you set your online mob on her. Now that you’re caught, you want to act dignified? Kevin, you’re a joke.” Nobody else in the chat said a word. But the storm on the campus forum didn’t stop. The next morning, a new anonymous thread appeared. The headline was even more malicious: Why is Zoe so desperate for a public defense? What’s the real nature of her relationship with a certain professor? There were no facts, only insinuations. It implied that my academic record was manufactured, and that Professor Harris and I had a personal connection that would guarantee my win. Grace looked ready to throw her laptop through the window. “Are these people out of their minds?” I stared at the screen, tracing the usernames of the most active commenters. They all had similar registration dates and posted with identical phrasing—defending Kevin, attacking me, pretending to be objective bystanders while steering the narrative. It was a coordinated effort. “What are you looking at?” Grace asked, leaning over. I took screenshots of everything and saved them to an encrypted folder. “I’m looking at them digging their own graves.” Grace blinked. “You already have a plan, don’t you?” I opened the project directory on my computer, revealing the final architecture of our machine learning model. “I’m not planning. I’m just waiting for them to take the bait.” 3 For the next four days, Grace and I practically lived in the computer science lab. Our capstone project was an AI-driven predictive analytics model for regional healthcare logistics. It was a highly complex codebase, but if we could get the optimization algorithm to run smoothly, the results would be undeniable. Every night at 2:00 AM, the lab was pitch black except for the glow of our monitors. Grace sat slumped over a bag of potato chips, staring at the endless lines of Python code. “I feel like these brackets are staring back at me and calling me stupid,” she groaned. I kept typing. “What exactly are they saying?” “They’re asking why I haven’t crawled into bed yet.” I smiled. “Two more days, Grace. Just hang in there.” She put her head on the desk. “When you get this fellowship, you’re buying me dinner. Five times.” “Deal.” Despite our joking, we both knew what was at stake. This wasn’t just about beating Kevin anymore. It was about our work. It was about the endless nights we’d spent debugging, the spreadsheets of data we’d meticulously cleaned, and the simple fact that we refused to let someone ride our coattails or destroy our future. Kevin had been quiet. He didn’t try to corner me in the halls, and he stayed out of the group chats. But whenever we crossed paths in the department building, his gaze was dark and venomous. On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the printing room to grab some physical reference sheets. As I pushed the door open slightly, I heard voices from inside. It was Delilah, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Kevin, I’m scared. If Zoe wins the presentation, I’ll lose my chance at the graduate program entirely.” There was a long silence. Then Kevin spoke. “She won’t win.” “But her model is so much faster than ours,” Delilah whispered. “How are we supposed to beat her?” Kevin’s voice dropped, cold and sharp. “We don’t have to beat her. We just have to make sure she has nothing to present.” My hand froze on the doorknob. Behind me, Grace’s eyes went wide. I made a sharp gesture for her to stay quiet. Inside, Delilah sounded startled. “What do you mean?” Kevin let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Zoe’s a creature of habit. She’s used the same password combination for everything since freshman year—her birthday followed by her initials. I checked. She never changed her access credentials for the department’s shared project server.” Delilah’s voice was barely a whisper. “Isn’t that… too risky?” “If she walks onto that stage on Friday with empty hands, the fellowship is mine,” Kevin said. “Once I have the funding secured, I’ll work out a way to transfer the research assistantship to you. Delilah, don’t you want this?” A pause. Then, Delilah murmured, “You’re the only one who truly cares about me, Kevin.” I almost laughed out loud. They truly were made for each other—one malicious, the other entirely spineless. Grace looked ready to charge through the door, but I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the hallway. “Did you hear that?” she hissed once we were out of earshot. “He’s going to delete our repository!” I nodded. “I heard.” “So what do we do? Change the passwords right now?” I looked back at the heavy wooden door of the printing room. “No. Let him do it.” Grace stared at me like I had lost my mind. “Are you crazy?” “If he doesn’t do it,” I said softly, “how can we ensure he gets caught?” Right then, my phone buzzed in my pocket. A notification from my cloud dashboard popped up: Multi-factor authentication bypass detected. Server monitoring active. I looked at the screen and smiled. “He’s taking the bait. Now, we let him play his hand.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457770”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

For three years, I’ve been styling wigs and doing makeup for my friends on the cheap. Everyone was always thrilled. Until this fresh-out-of-college girl showed up: “Are you guys insane? Two hundred bucks for a full styling? You can get that on Depop for a hundred and fifty, easy. Have you seriously let yourselves get ripped off like this for three years?” She added a hand-over-mouth laughing emoji. “Just give me a hundred and fifty each, and I’ll handle your cosplay styling from now on~ I just graduated, so I’m not in it for the money. I just want to make friends.” I stared at my screen and let out a long, quiet breath. She had no idea. I’d been ready to stop bleeding money for these girls for a very long time. 1. It was the final week of prep before LuminaCon, and the group chat was blowing up. The messages were from Hailey, the group admin’s shiny new friend. She’d been dragged into the chat last month, and her feed was nothing but polished con selfies and heavily edited close-ups. Right then, I was at my workbench, struggling with a gravity-defying wig for Fiona. It was a complex design, and I had already poured three days of meticulous work into it. “Hey Queena~” Hailey’s text popped up. “I was just looking over the budget for the Aether Crest lineup. Over two hundred for hair and makeup? Is my math off, or is there… something else going on here?” She added a smug little emoji. I assumed she thought I wasn’t charging enough. I started typing to explain that since we were all close friends, I didn’t mind cutting my rates to the bone. But then she followed up: “You can get this for a hundred and fifty on Depop, max. Even professional studios only charge a hundred and eighty for bulk orders. Queena, aren’t you a little embarrassed charging us that kind of markup?” “We’re supposed to be friends. Charging us tourist prices… feels a little off, doesn’t it?” She capped it off with a whimpering cat emoji. My fingers froze over the keyboard. Christine, our group admin, was the first to chime in. “Omg, Hailey, you’re so good at saving money! I never even noticed, haha. Guess we’ve been overpaying this whole time.” Then Christine’s inner circle started piling on. “Yeah, when I did the group cosplay with the other crew, we only paid like a hundred and seventy.” “Queena’s work is great, so it makes sense she charges more… but honestly, if we can save money, that’d be amazing.” Two people tried to defend me, but Hailey quickly drowned them out. “Oh, I’m not saying she’s bad at it!” she replied with an innocent wink. “But we’re doing this for fun, right? It’s not a commercial gig. Do we really need high-end studio standards? Think of the cash we’d save for new outfits!” “Tell you what, let me handle it this time. I’ll only charge a hundred and fifty per person. I don’t need to make a profit; I just want to help my girls out.” The chat went quiet for a moment. Then Christine, of course, broke the silence. “Yes, please! Hailey, you are a lifesaver! Queena, looks like we won’t be needing you for this run.” The rest of the dominoes fell instantly. “Me too! Count me in!” “Hailey, you’re literally an angel!” “Yeah, I’ll switch to Hailey too. It’s so much cheaper.” “Queena, we’ll catch you next time, okay? Promise!” I stared at the screen, watching the neat line of betrayals stack up. It felt like a slow, deliberate twist of a knife. “Sure,” I replied. Just two letters. Honestly, it was fine. I was exhausted from subsidizing their hobbies anyway. Three years ago, when I first got into cosplay, I taught myself makeup and wig-styling just to save some cash. They saw how good I got and begged me to style them. Back then, they were using thirty-dollar synthetic wigs off Amazon that reflected light so badly the photographers wanted to cry, and their makeup was patchy at best. I was the one who spent nights detangling, ventilating, cutting, and styling. For three years, I lost count of the all-nighters I pulled. My fingers were scarred from hot glue, my cervical spine was shot, and my prescription had jumped by two diopters. Two hundred dollars barely covered the baseline cost of high-grade materials. Not only was I donating my labor, but I was also paying out of pocket to upgrade their supplies. If they went to a real professional who did custom wigs, makeup, and prop coordination like I did, they’d be looking at a starting rate of a thousand dollars, booked months in advance, excluding materials. But I wasn’t going to argue in the group chat. Even if I told them I was losing money, they’d just say, “Well, you chose to do that. No one forced you.” Explaining myself in that chat would feel like laying my dignity on a table just to watch them pick it apart. I stayed quiet. Then Christine slipped into my DMs. “Hey Queena, Hailey’s just blunt, don’t take it personally. But we’re not made of money, you know? Maybe you could recalculate your costs? If you can beat her price, we’d love to stick with you.” “After all, we trust your work~” I almost laughed. Pressuring me to lower my prices while trying to make it sound like a favor. Why should I care who they went with? I had plenty of paying clients. “No, thanks,” I wrote back, keeping it simple. She immediately went back to the group chat and tagged me: “Hey everyone, Queena’s going to hand over the materials to Hailey, so Hailey will be taking over the styling for this con!~” “Also, Queena, we’re actually at capacity for the Sovereign Five group now, so maybe sit this one out? It’s just easier to coordinate with Hailey in the lineup.” The Sovereign Five was a fixed group of five characters. I was supposed to play one of them. But I didn’t fight for my spot. I just typed: “Got it.” 2. The group chat erupted in celebration. “Christine, you’re the best!” “A hundred and fifty for everything? Hailey, I’m literally obsessed with you! You’re an angel!” “Hailey is a goddess!” … My phone buzzed with a private message from Prima. “Queena, are you okay?” I didn’t reply. I locked my phone and set it face down. On my workbench, Fiona’s gravity-defying white wig sat half-finished. Good. I didn’t have to finish it now. I stared at the headpiece for a long time. Then I picked up my needle-nose pliers and slowly, methodically, tore it apart. I salvaged the materials. I had other projects to focus on. That night, I wrapped up work three hours earlier than usual. I was just about to crawl into bed when my screen lit up again. It was Hailey. “Hey Queena, I hope you’re not mad at me for taking over the gig? It’s nothing personal, honestly. I just don’t think friends should take advantage of friends.” “By the way, could you send over the contact info for your material supplier? Just wanted to compare prices~” I was speechless. She calls me a scammer, and then has the nerve to ask for my sources. I started typing a furious response, but my thumb hovered over the send button. Then I deleted it. Not worth the energy. I sent her the links to a few of my regular wholesale suppliers. A few minutes later, she came back crawling into my inbox: “??? These are insanely expensive!” “Are you trying to sabotage me?” “If I buy from these places, the raw materials alone will cost five hundred per person. You didn’t pay anywhere near that when you did it!” Exactly. Because for three years, I had been quietly subsidizing them. I should probably thank her. She’d just saved me from throwing any more of my own money down that drain. I opened my professional app, and saw a message from Maeve. Maeve was one of the premier wig fiber suppliers in the country. Her high-end custom hairpieces were so sought after that people booked her a month in advance just to get on her waiting list. I called her directly. “A girl reached out to me today,” Maeve said, her voice crackling over the line. “From the way she talked, I’m guessing she’s from your old circle?” I rolled onto my side. “Yeah. I’m done doing their styling. She’s their new girl.” The line went quiet for a beat. “I figured. I didn’t give her a discount. Did you want me to?” “No.” Maeve was a veteran in the scene; she didn’t need me to spell it out. “When outsiders want my materials, I mark them up three times over and still turn them down,” Maeve scoffed. “Those kids have been spoon-fed luxury by you for years, and now they’re turning up their noses?” “Maeve,” I interrupted gently. “It’s fine. I have more commissions than I can handle anyway.” My skills had only sharpened over the last three years. “Fair enough. I can’t wait to see what their cosplays look like this time without you.” After we hung up, the bedroom was incredibly quiet. I opened my personal social media account and scrolled back to my very first posts from three years ago. Every single shoot was a carefully preserved memory. The first group photo: seven of us. Christine was right in the center. I had stayed up for two straight nights styling her wig, and I’d crafted her hairpins piece by piece from shrink-plastic. The comments were flooded with people calling her the perfect fantasy heroine. The second photo: Phoebe as the celestial general. I had carved her armor plate by plate from EVA foam, spray-painting it until four in the morning. The third, the fourth… I went through them all, then closed the app. I opened a different platform. On TikTok, I had a creator account I’d never shared with any of them. The username at the top of the profile read: Sweetbriar & Snow. Three hundred thousand followers. Everyone in the local scene knew Sweetbriar & Snow was a master wigmaker and stylist, but no one in my immediate circle knew it was me. I switched to my main account and messaged another local cosplay group: “Hey, about the styling we discussed—I have an opening now. Are you still looking for someone?” Within seconds, three exclamation points popped up. “Omg, the master replied! Yes, yes, yes! We’d be honored!!!” A small smile touched my lips. I couldn’t wait to see what happened when our two groups crossed paths at the con. 3. Hailey began posting feverishly in the group chat, practically humming with chaotic energy. “Look at this wig, guys! Only forty bucks! I spent hours comparing shops to find this deal. Such a steal!” “And the outfits are pre-made, so I don’t have to waste time sewing. I’m not like some people who insist on doing everything by hand. It’s such a waste of time and money.” At first, the girls cheered her on, but as the updates kept rolling in, the enthusiasm began to curdle. Eventually, someone started a separate group chat—excluding Hailey and Christine—and added me. “I’ve bought from that shop before,” one of the girls wrote. “The color is always completely off. Are we sure Hailey knows what she’s doing?” “Oh god, I just looked up the wig shop. The reviews are terrible. Someone said the fibers started shedding the second they put it on…” I watched the chat silently, offering nothing. Every time Hailey boasted about a new purchase in the main chat, the secret chat tore it to shreds. Finally, Prima tagged me. “Queena, what do you think? Are these materials actually legit?” I took a slow sip of my coffee. “No idea. Never used them.” It wasn’t a lie. I had never touched that cheap trash. Prima DM’d me privately. “Queena, maybe you should talk to Christine again? You get what you pay for, and honestly, your prices were incredibly fair.” “No,” I replied instantly. “I’m not interested in chasing after people who threw me out.” It was harsh, but it was the truth. We’d been friends for years, and they knew what professional stylists charged. The fact that Christine had sided with Hailey so quickly proved she didn’t value me. Prima sent back an ellipsis. By that evening, Hailey proudly announced that all the materials had arrived. The total came to just under a hundred dollars. “I’ll take the extra fifty as a small labor fee, even though I’m practically doing this for free,” she sent, followed by a grinning emoji. “After all, I put a lot of heart into this!” Then, she slipped into my DMs. “Hey Queena, now that I’m doing the math, I see how much of a markup you were charging~ Keeping half the budget as profit? No wonder you could afford such nice things.” I ignored her. She pushed harder. “Don’t say we’re leaving you out! What are you going as this time? Want me to do your hair and makeup? I’ll give you the friend discount—only a hundred and fifty!~” Still, I didn’t reply. Instead, I opened a blank document and began drafting a comprehensive guide on wig fibers and prop materials, analyzing products at every price point from high-end to budget-bin. I spent forty minutes writing, filling it with raw, undeniable facts. I’d post it after the convention. I shut my laptop and lay down in bed. My phone chimed. “Hey! The con is in four days. Do you have time tomorrow to check out our outfits and props?” It was the cosplayer I’d messaged, who went by Hazel. There were seven of them in total, planning to debut characters from the new Aetheria expansion. They had a massive following—even their smallest account had over a hundred thousand followers. “Tomorrow afternoon works for me,” I replied. “Oh my god, thank you so much!” Hazel shot back. “I can’t believe you were free! Their loss is definitely our gain, haha.” I stared at her message for a long beat. “I had a booking,” I wrote. “They bailed on me.” “What the hell? Do they have any idea what they just gave up?!” I smiled faintly. I didn’t know what they had given up. But I knew what I had given up: three years of a one-sided friendship. 4. Three days before LuminaCon, Hailey’s orders started arriving. She hosted an unboxing livestream in the group chat, uploading a dozen videos back-to-back. The first video showed the wigs. They were cheap, forty-dollar Amazon specials. The synthetic fibers glinted under the fluorescent light with a harsh, plastic sheen, and the ends were already tangling into a frizzy mess. “Aren’t they gorgeous?~” Hailey gushed in the voiceover. “This shine is going to look so good on camera!” The chat fell dead silent. Finally, Prima spoke up. “…Is it just me, or is that fiber going to reflect the camera flash like crazy?” Hailey fired back instantly. “That’s what Photoshop is for! No one posts raw photos anyway!” I didn’t say anything, but I knew better. No amount of editing could fix that. The cheap plastic shine would bleed through any filter, making a quick touch-up impossible. The editor would have to manually brush out the glare frame by frame. For seven people, it would be an absolute nightmare. But it wasn’t my problem anymore. Hailey’s second video showed the makeup. A pile of cheap palettes from brands I’d never even heard of. She swatched a concealer on the back of her hand to show it off, but the formula was so dry it cracked as it spread, catching the light in ugly creases. “Full makeup kits! The color selection is way bigger than what Queena used to bring. And it’s incredibly cheap!” Sure, the palettes had plenty of colors, but the quality compared to my professional-grade kits was laughable. I used to custom-blend foundation shades for each of them to match their skin tones and types. I kept my mouth shut. In the secret chat, the girls were spiraling. “Oh my god, look at the ends of those wigs. It looks like spider legs.” “Who is actually going to let her put that cheap makeup on their face? My skin is going to break out.” Prima ventured into the main chat, keeping her tone cautious. “My skin is really sensitive and prone to breakouts. Are we sure about these brands?” “Aren’t you a little high-maintenance?” Hailey replied with a rolling-eye emoji. “It’s just makeup. The ingredients are all the same; you’re just paying for the brand name. Someone’s been spoiling you guys too much.” A passive-aggressive dig aimed right at me. I remembered the first time I did Prima’s makeup. Her skin was incredibly sensitive, covered in acne scars, and easily irritated. I spent weeks testing seven different professional foundations on her skin before finding one that didn’t trigger a reaction. I had bought those products specifically for her. And how had Prima repaid me? Sure, she’d checked in on me privately. She’d made the secret group chat to make me feel included. But when it mattered, none of them had stood up to Christine for me. So, I washed my hands of it. The night before the con, Hailey posted the schedule: Everyone meet at 7:00 AM sharp. I’ll do everyone’s hair and makeup. I’m handing out the wigs tonight, so adjust them yourselves. Seven people. The con started at nine. She was starting at seven. Subtracting travel time, that gave her less than twenty minutes per person. I didn’t have time to worry about their train wreck. I was out the door by 3:00 AM to style Hazel’s group, spending at least forty minutes on each person. By the time I finished Hazel’s entire crew, my feet were throbbing. I finally sat down and unlocked my phone. Christine had posted a heavily filtered photo in the chat. “Looks gorgeous! Hailey, you have such a great eye, and this was so cheap!” Hailey tagged me in the main chat. “How’s it look, Queena? Not bad, right?” At the exact same moment, the secret chat exploded with notifications. My screen lit up with panicked texts. “Queena, help!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457769”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The moment HR sent out the email about our upcoming department retreat, Hailey practically flew into my office. She leaned over my desk, her face glowing with a self-satisfied warmth, and told me we didn’t need to worry about the lodging budget anymore. “Rachel, seriously, don’t worry about booking hotel rooms,” she said, her voice bright and eager. “Let’s just use my house. It’s a private estate up in the hills. There’s more than enough room for the entire department to stay over.” I figured saving the company some money was a win-win, so I agreed without a second thought. But the moment she got back to her desk, she started spamming our team group chat with videos of the property. I tapped on one of the clips absentmindedly. As the camera panned across the spacious living room, my breath caught. Hanging prominently on the wall was a massive, custom-commissioned abstract expressionist canvas. It was the wedding gift Elliot had given me. I had fallen in love with it instantly, which was why it had hung in the living room of our suburban estate since the day we got married. Eventually, I grew tired of the grueling daily commute and moved into a penthouse closer to the city center. We hadn’t been back to the estate in months. In the group chat, notifications were rolling in at lightning speed. Everyone was fawning over Hailey, calling her a wealthy heiress. Hailey replied with breezy modesty, mentioning how massive the backyard was and telling everyone to bring barbecue gear and beer. Saturday at two o’clock, she wrote. See you there! That night, I sat alone in my dark study and pulled up Elliot’s bank statements. It took me less than an hour to piece together the truth. They had been sleeping together for months. I quietly downloaded the files, saved the evidence, and said absolutely nothing. On Saturday afternoon, the team arrived at the estate in high spirits, laughing and chatting as they walked up the driveway. But when Hailey stepped up to the front door to type in the passcode, her smile completely vanished. 1 The day after the retreat was announced, Hailey became the undisputed star of our department. During lunch, she strolled over to my desk carrying an iced latte. She sat across from me, her posture radiating a subtle, practiced boastfulness. “Rachel, I just checked the forecast,” she said, holding up her phone to show me photos of the estate’s backyard. “Saturday is going to be beautiful. Perfect weather for a barbecue on the lawn.” She swiped through the images, showcasing the lush greenery. “Look at the grass. My boyfriend just hired a landscaping crew to trim it last week, and he had the frame of the customized swing reinforced. I even bought some outdoor string lights to hang up. It’s going to look so dreamy at night.” I stared at the screen, my expression blank. Elliot had built that swing with his own hands during our first year of marriage. “That swing is beautiful,” I murmured, keeping my tone carefully conversational. Hailey blinked, momentarily caught off guard, before quickly recovering her dazzling smile. “Oh, that? It came with the house when we bought it. The realtor said the previous owner left it behind. I thought it was cute, so I kept it.” She raised her voice slightly, ensuring her words carried across the quiet office. “Honestly, Rachel, the whole interior design is a bit much. It’s totally the previous owner’s taste, and I’m already planning a complete remodel. Like, look at that abstract painting in the living room. It’s so cold and clinical. Who even hangs art like that in their home anymore?” She sighed dramatically. “My boyfriend bought me some limited-edition designer sculptures from Europe. I’m planning on putting those in the living room instead…” My fingers tightened around my coffee mug. A hundred-thousand-dollar piece of fine art, and she thought it was clinical. I stayed silent. Hailey’s eyes darted over my face, searching for a reaction, before she asked, “Rachel, don’t you think my boyfriend treats me incredibly well?” I lowered my gaze, letting a faint, polite smile touch my lips. “He certainly does. You should hold onto him tightly.” Hailey’s smile stiffened for a fraction of a second. But she was a professional at keeping up appearances. When she looked up again, her expression was sweeter than ever. “Oh, I will. He loves me so much, he’d never let me go.” I didn’t offer a reply. She turned away, gliding over to a group of colleagues to show off more photos. Daisy, one of our junior analysts, let out a soft gasp. “Wait, this place has three floors? Hailey, how much did this cost?” Hailey pouted playfully. “Honestly, I have no idea. My boyfriend bought it for me.” Daisy’s eyes widened. “He bought it for you? Is your name on the deed?” Hailey hesitated for a heartbeat, her tone dripping with casual indifference. “Of course it is.” For the rest of the day, the office was buzzing with gossip about Hailey’s mysterious, ultra-wealthy boyfriend. Before leaving for the day, I opened my phone. Elliot’s contact thread had been buried beneath a mountain of unread work messages. His last three texts to me read: Working late tonight. Don’t wait up. Leaving for a business trip. Back Wednesday. I’ll be at the office through the weekend to hit this project deadline. As it turned out, he wasn’t drowning in work. He was simply drowning in her, too exhausted to split his life between us anymore. The screen dimmed to black. I wanted to laugh, but the sound caught in my throat. Just last week, Elliot had made time to accompany me to my family’s estate to visit my parents and grandmother. He had played the part of the devoted, perfect son-in-law to a t. I had never realized what a master of time management my husband was. Career, marriage, and an affair—all balanced with clinical precision. When I got home, the penthouse was empty. I walked through the quiet rooms, finally noticing the subtle details I had overlooked before. Elliot’s closet was noticeably emptier. Several of his favorite suits were gone, along with the luxury watches he wore most frequently. I closed the closet door, walked over to the bed, and pulled open the bottom drawer of the nightstand. Deep beneath a stack of financial documents lay our marriage certificate, bound in its smooth red cover. I opened it. In the photo, we were both wearing simple white shirts, our heads tilted toward each other. I was leaning against his shoulder, laughing without a care in the world. I stared at our younger, happier faces until my phone buzzed, shattering the silence. It was a text from Elliot. Stuck at a client dinner tonight. Get some rest, babe. Don’t wait up. I stared at the words for a long time, then locked my phone without replying. When we first built this company, we had kept our relationship strictly private to avoid conflicts of interest and streamline our investments. Only a few founding board members knew we were married. Once the company stabilized, we both threw ourselves into our respective divisions. Neither of us felt the need to make loud, public declarations of ownership like insecure teenagers. I never could have imagined that my discretion would give him the courage to keep a mistress right under my nose. Another notification vibrated against my palm, breaking my train of thought. It was a message from Daisy. Hey Rachel, are you coming to the retreat on Saturday? Hailey keeps bragging about how gorgeous her estate is. The whole department is going! A cold, sharp smile spread across my face. I typed out a quick response. Of course. I wouldn’t miss it. After sending the text, I scrolled through my contacts until I found the name of the estate’s property manager. 2 The estate was part of an exclusive gated community where every homeowner was assigned a dedicated manager. I messaged him directly, asking who had been staying at the property recently. Good evening, Mrs. George, the manager replied almost instantly. Your husband informed us four months ago that he was lending the estate to a relative for a short period and told us to suspend our regular interior cleaning services. Would you like us to schedule a lawn maintenance session before the weekend? Four months. They had been together before Hailey even passed her initial interview at my company. I paused, then typed back: No need, thank you. I do have one question: if I wanted to change the entry passcodes for the estate, can that only be done by the primary owner? Yes, Mrs. George. The smart-lock system is tied to the deed. Passcode overrides require the registered owner’s physical ID verification. No one else has authorization to change it. I had all the information I needed. I set my phone down. The next afternoon, a small crowd had gathered around Hailey’s desk during the post-lunch lull. Daisy was leaning in, her eyes fixed on Hailey’s hand. “Oh my gosh, Hailey, is that the ring your boyfriend got you? That gemstone is huge! What is it?” Hailey raised her hand, tilting her fingers so the stone caught the harsh fluorescent office lights. “He bought it at an estate auction in Europe,” she said, her voice dripping with casual luxury. “He mentioned something about it belonging to a royal family once.” “A royal family?” “Yeah, some minor European royalty. I don’t really know much about that stuff.” Daisy’s jaw dropped. “How much did it cost?” Hailey looked down at the ring, pretending to search her memory for a trivial detail. “A few hundred thousand, I think. I didn’t really ask. Honestly, I told him it was unnecessary, but he insisted. He said only the best suited me. Since it was a gift from the heart, I couldn’t really say no.” The surrounding colleagues looked stunned. Someone asked what her boyfriend looked like, but Hailey lowered her voice, wrapping her reply in a layer of mystery. “He’s incredibly successful. If I showed you a picture, you’d definitely recognize his name.” The group pressed her for details. “Oh come on, tell us! Which local titan is he?” But Hailey remained tight-lipped, enjoying the suspense. That was when Martha, one of our senior accountants, looked up from her spreadsheet. “Well, Hailey, if he’s such a big deal, why does he have to stay in the shadows?” The office went dead silent. The underlying implication of Martha’s words hung heavily in the air, and the atmosphere shifted instantly. Hailey remained calm. She adjusted the ring on her finger, met Martha’s gaze, and spoke in a sweet, chilly tone. “What a strange thing to say, Martha. He bought me a ring. A wedding can’t be far off. You’ll definitely be on the guest list.” Martha offered a polite, empty smile and went back to her work. A junior intern quietly backed away from the desk, but Hailey grabbed her arm. “You have to come too, sweetie. I’ll make sure you get a prime table.” The intern nodded awkwardly and scurried back to her station. Not long after, Hailey started making calls at her desk. She didn’t bother lowering her voice. “Are you coming over tonight? I bought some new lingerie…” She paused, giggling softly into the receiver. “Guess what color… No, you have to guess.” Her voice was high-pitched and dripping with honey. I walked past her desk just as she hung up. She looked up at me, her smile bright and dripping with mock concern. “Rachel, you look a little exhausted today. Didn’t sleep well?” She paused, her eyes searching mine. “Your husband isn’t keeping you company lately?” I walked past her without breaking stride. “He’s been busy with a major project. Traveling a lot.” She let out a long, knowing sigh. “Ah, I see…” A few minutes later, Daisy sent me a private message. Rachel, is it just me, or does Hailey have a really weird attitude toward you? I stared at the screen and smiled. It seemed the little fox was getting tired of hiding her tail. 3 When the clock struck five on Friday, Hailey stood up and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, let’s head to the gourmet market to get everything for tomorrow’s barbecue! Grab whatever you want—steaks, wine, imported beer. It’s all on my boyfriend’s tab.” A few of the younger employees cheered and grabbed their coats. The rest of her usual circle quickly followed. I remained at my desk, reviewing a quarterly report. As Hailey walked past my office door, she slowed down. “Aren’t you coming, Rachel?” “You guys go ahead. I have plans.” She smiled, turning to catch up with the group. As they walked down the hallway, their voices drifted back to me. “Hailey, what’s the limit on your boyfriend’s card anyway?” “I don’t know. I’ve never managed to max it out.” The elevator doors chimed, and their laughter faded. I set my pen down and leaned back in my chair, looking out over the empty office. Martha walked past my door with her mug, glancing toward the exit. “Going grocery shopping like she’s planning a royal banquet,” she muttered. I laughed. It was a fitting description. Hailey had chosen an ultra-exclusive, membership-only gourmet market. She pushed the oversized cart, leading her entourage through the aisles. One of the girls held her arm. “Hailey, you’re officially my favorite person. I am never letting you go.” Hailey giggled, stopping in front of the imported dry-aged beef section. She tossed a hundred-dollar ribeye steak into the cart without looking at the price. Daisy tried to gently intervene. “Hailey, that’s probably enough. We don’t want to waste food.” Hailey turned, her expression perfectly earnest. “It’s fine if there are leftovers, Daisy, but running out is embarrassing. My boyfriend specifically told me to make sure everyone is fully taken care of.” She added several more prime cuts, filling half the cart with meat. Next came the imported microbrews, fancy sodas, artisanal snacks, and premium disposable tableware. Soon, they had filled three entire shopping carts. At the checkout, it took two cashiers ten minutes to scan everything. The grand total came to $5,400. Hailey pulled a sleek, heavy card from her designer handbag, holding it between two manicured fingers, and handed it to the cashier. The colleagues erupted into cheers. “You are the absolute best, Hailey!” “Seriously, where do you find a boyfriend like that?” The intern was recording the whole thing on her phone. “Hailey, I’m posting this on my story right now!” Hailey smiled warmly. “Oh, please. This is nothing. As long as everyone has a great time tomorrow, that’s all that matters.” At that exact moment, I was standing in the adjacent aisle of the same high-end market, helping my pregnant best friend, Diana, pick out organic baby supplies. The commotion at the registers caught Diana’s attention. She turned, her eyes narrowing as she locked onto the checkout counter. She froze, her fingers digging into my forearm. “Rachel.” She was staring intently at the card in Hailey’s hand. “Is that… is that Elliot’s Amex Centurion card?” I stared at the black card. It was identical to the one in my own wallet. Before I could say a word, Diana turned to me, her face flushed with fury. “What the hell is going on? Elliot is keeping an intern? Is he out of his mind? Did he completely forget how hard he had to fight just to get you to look at him?” Seeing how upset she was, I quickly rubbed her arm to calm her down. “Don’t let your blood pressure spike, Diana. I’ve known for a while.” Diana gasped, staring at me in disbelief. “You knew?!” Over at the registers, Hailey was directing the male colleagues to load the heavy grocery bags into their cars. I watched her figure disappear through the sliding glass doors before turning back to Diana. My voice was entirely steady. “Let her spend. Every dollar she charges to that card is marital property. She’ll have to return every single cent of it. I don’t care about the money, Diana. I care about the paper trail.” Diana stared at me for a long time. She had always been hot-tempered, and pregnancy had only amplified her emotions. Her eyes welled with tears of frustration. “Have you already decided what you’re going to do?” I nodded slowly. She didn’t push for details, but she spent the entire drive home cursing Elliot’s name. There was one thing I hadn’t told her. Elliot’s affair with Hailey had started long before she ever set foot in our office. Bringing her into my department was his way of testing my boundaries, seeing how much he could get away with. Unsurprisingly, Elliot didn’t come home that night either. But my heart had already turned cold. I felt absolutely nothing. 4 Saturday afternoon, the sun was bright and unforgiving. A caravan of cars carrying over twenty employees from our department pulled up to the security gates of the exclusive residential community. Hailey was leading the pack. She marched up to the pedestrian gate, but before she could step through, a security guard stepped out and stopped her. “Afternoon, ma’am. Are you a resident?” Hailey straightened her spine, chin tilting upward. “Yes. I live at number eighty-eight.” The guard nodded politely, pointing to a sleek digital console beside the gate. “We require facial recognition for guest access. Please look into the camera to verify your registration.” She stepped up to the device, aligning her face with the scanner. The system let out a series of sharp, red-light warning beeps. A message flashed on the screen: Access Denied. Unregistered User. The air grew instantly still. Behind her, someone whispered, “What’s going on? Isn’t this her place?” “Yeah, didn’t she say her name was on the deed?” Hailey’s composure cracked for a split second before she forced a bright smile, turning to the guard. “Oh, my husband bought this house for me. He’s been incredibly busy lately and hasn’t had a chance to register my profile with the HOA yet. The system probably hasn’t updated.” The guard looked at her, then glanced at the large crowd of office workers standing behind her. His tone remained firm. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we cannot grant access to guests without direct authorization from the registered homeowner. Perhaps you could call your husband to clear this up?” The group began whispering among themselves. Hailey bit her lip, pulling out her phone to make a call. The first call went unanswered. On her third attempt, the call finally connected. “The security gate won’t let us in,” she said, her voice tight and hurried. “The facial recognition didn’t work… You need to authorize this right now. My entire department is standing out here waiting…” She listened to the response, muttered a quick confirmation, and hung up. She stood in place for a moment, her knuckles white around her phone. Two minutes later, the security guard stepped out, saluting her politely. “Thank you for your patience, ma’am. You’re cleared to enter.” Hailey let out a visible breath of relief, turning back to the crowd with her signature sweet smile. “High-end neighborhoods are always so strict with security. Let’s go.” The tension evaporated, and the chatter started up again. “This place is absolutely gorgeous. Hailey, your boyfriend must be incredibly wealthy.” Daisy chimed in, “Seriously! That guard had me worried for a second. I thought we wouldn’t make it in.” Another colleague added, “With this level of security, you must feel so safe living here.” The compliments washed over Hailey, restoring her confidence. She walked in the center of the crowd, basking in their admiration. Daisy jogged up to her side. “Hailey, when you guys get married, are you going to have the wedding here?” Hailey offered her a sweet, patronizing look. “Oh, this place is too small for a wedding. We’ll probably do a destination wedding on a private island. I’ll make sure to cover everyone’s flights and lodging.” The younger staff squealed with excitement, and the mood was even rowdier than when we had first set out. Number eighty-eight sat at the very end of the cul-de-sac, a massive, modern estate surrounded by manicured hedges. Becca, the intern, peered through the iron gates, gasping. “Hailey, your home is stunning!” Hailey smiled, walking up to the front door’s digital keypad. She typed in the passcode. The screen flashed red. Incorrect Passcode. She blinked, cleared the screen, and tried again. Still incorrect. “I must have made a typo,” Hailey said, her voice dropping an octave. She stared intently at the screen and carefully pressed the buttons a third time, much slower than before. The lock didn’t budge. Daisy leaned in, whispering, “Did he change the passcode?” Hailey bit her lower lip, a cold sweat breaking out across her forehead. “No… he wouldn’t do that without telling me…” She dialed Elliot’s number again. This time, he picked up immediately. “Babe, why isn’t the passcode working? I’ve tried three times and the door is locked…” She listened to his reply. Slowly, the color drained from Hailey’s face. Her hand began to tremble, and her voice cracked with unshed tears. “How could you not know? What do you mean? This is my home, why can’t I get inside?” The whispers among the colleagues were growing louder and more frantic. I quietly walked through the crowd, stepping past the murmuring onlookers until I reached the front of the line. “That’s because,” I said, my voice cutting through the noise, “this house doesn’t belong to you.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457768”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

At two in the morning, I was sitting in the back of a squad car, finishing my statement. The female officer handed me a tissue. “It’s late. Do you want to call your husband to come get you?” I pressed the tissue against the drying blood on my neck. “He won’t pick up. He’s a heavy sleeper.” Just seconds ago, a notification had popped up on my phone. It was an Instagram Story from my husband. The photo was a shot of a dimly lit porch light at Alyssa’s apartment complex. The caption read: Late-night escort duty, number sixty-one. Goodnight. Meanwhile, I had just narrowly escaped a mugging in a blind alleyway with no security cameras. The knife scrape on my neck was still weeping blood. Before I left work, I had texted him. I told him the streetlights were out on my block and that someone had been following me. We had been married for four years. He had driven over to pick up Alyssa—who was “afraid of the dark”—sixty-one times. He hadn’t come to pick me up once. For over four hundred days, I had worked late. I had walked down countless unlit streets with my keys threaded through my fingers and a canister of pepper spray heavy in my pocket, entirely alone. After finishing the paperwork, I stood on the steps of the police precinct. The avenue was completely hollowed out. In the biting, bone-deep wind, it was just me. I let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh. I should have realized long ago that you can never wake a man who is only pretending to be asleep. My work visa for the London transfer had already been approved. The divorce papers were already drawn up. Tonight was the absolute last time I would ever ask him to save me. … 1 At 3:12 AM, I turned my key in the lock. The living room lights were blazing. By the entryway, Gary’s leather loafers were kicked off haphazardly, the leather still carrying the damp sheen of night dew. The air was thick with a cloying, sickly-sweet perfume. Alyssa’s signature scent. He was sitting on the sofa, clipping his nails. He didn’t even look up when the door clicked shut. “Working late again?” I stood frozen in the entryway. He had completely ignored the SOS texts I sent him. My scarf hid the wound on my neck. The bleeding had stopped, but the superficial slice across my skin throbbed with a hot, rhythmic sting. The harsh, clinical smell of antiseptic from the precinct still clung to the inside of my nose. “Yeah. Working late.” He stood up, tossing his balled-up socks onto the sofa cushions, and stretched out a yawn as he headed for the master bedroom. “I’m crashing. Early meeting tomorrow.” “Are you driving Alyssa tomorrow, too?” I heard my own voice ask. His footsteps faltered. He glanced back over his shoulder. “She lives alone, Emma. She gets spooked. It’s on my way, anyway. Don’t make a thing out of it.” On his way. His corporate park was in the North Suburbs. Alyssa’s apartment was deep in the South Side. It was practically a different time zone, let alone on the way. “What happened to your neck?” His eyes had finally snagged on the edge of the bandage peeking out from beneath my wool scarf. “Paper cut,” I said. “Huh. Be careful.” He stepped into the bedroom and shut the door behind him. A second later, I heard the heavy, metallic click of the deadbolt sliding into place. Four years of marriage, and we hadn’t shared a bed in months. His excuse was that my snoring kept him awake. But I remembered our first two years. Back then, he snored so loud the windows rattled, and no amount of shoving would wake him. I used to tease him about it, and he would just pull me closer and say, I can’t sleep unless I hear you breathing. Guess my wife will just have to suffer. When did it change? Probably around the time someone else moved into his headspace. I walked into the guest room and closed the door quietly behind me. My suitcase was already tucked into the darkest corner of the closet. Inside were my passport, my resignation letter, and the freshly printed divorce agreement. I had only made one stipulation: A fifty-fifty split of marital assets. No further disputes. I didn’t even mention the diamond pendant he bought for Alyssa last month, or the four thousand dollars he had quietly transferred out of our joint savings account. I was tired. A soul-deep, bone-crushing kind of tired. I sat on the edge of the guest bed. This room was supposed to be the nursery. First, he said we needed to buy a house before having kids. Once we bought the house, he said we needed to wait until he made director. Then, he said we should wait until Alyssa found her footing and “settled down” after her messy breakup. But Alyssa’s footing, it seemed, was perpetually slipping. My phone buzzed against my thigh. It was a text from Becca, a girl on my team: Hey, did you make it home okay? That creep following you was terrifying. Should I call the cops tomorrow and get the building’s security footage? I typed back: I’m home. I’m okay. Don’t worry about the cops. Well, at least tell your husband about it so he can drive you to and from work for a while. I stared at that glowing bubble for a long, quiet minute. Then I typed: No need. Before locking the screen, I opened Instagram one last time. Under his Late-night escort duty, number sixty-one post, our mutual friends had already left a dozen comments. Husband of the year. Emma is so lucky. Is that Emma you’re walking to the door? Gary had replied to that last one: Just an old friend. Don’t start rumors. Just an old friend. He probably didn’t even realize that the angle he used to photograph Alyssa’s porch light was the exact same angle he used to take the very first photo he ever took of me. We had just started dating. He walked me back to my college dorm, stopped me under the amber glow of the streetlamp, whispered, Don’t move, and snapped the picture. He used that photo as his lock screen for two years. Now, his lock screen was a picture of a succulent Alyssa had bought for his desk. I set the phone down and pulled back the curtains. The city at 4:00 AM was as silent and still as a sprawling graveyard. The cut on my neck flared with pain again. I had told myself earlier that if he just showed up tonight, I would pretend none of this was happening. I stood up, dragged the suitcase out from the closet, and began folding my last few sweaters. Out in the hallway, I heard the toilet flush, the creak of floorboards, and then, silence returned. He would never know that tonight, I almost didn’t make it back to this house. And I didn’t plan on ever telling him. On the divorce papers, I left the “Reason for Dissolution” line completely blank. 2 Early the next morning, a sharp rap on the guest room door woke me. “Emma, I gotta head out early today. Get up and make breakfast, will you?” I opened my eyes. The edge of the bandage had rubbed off against the pillowcase during the night. The slice on my neck was exposed, a dark, bruised red line catching the pale morning light. I reached for my phone. It was 5:30 AM. He never woke up before seven. I didn’t move. He banged on the door twice more, his voice laced with irritation. “Did you hear me? I’m on a schedule here.” I threw on a cardigan and walked out of the room. While I was flipping the last egg in the pan, he yelled from the hallway, “Is it done yet?” By the time I brought the plates out to the island, he was already pulling Tupperware from the cabinets. There wasn’t much food—just some breakfast sausage, eggs, and a sliced cantaloupe. Without hesitating, he scraped all of it into three containers and shoved them into his insulated lunch bag. “You aren’t leaving any for me?” He zipped the bag shut and finally looked up at me. “Don’t you eat bran flakes every morning?” We had bought those flakes a month ago. He refused to eat them, Alyssa refused to eat them when she came over, so they just sat in the back of the pantry. “I don’t want cereal today.” “Then boil some pasta or something. Takes five minutes.” He picked up the bag and dug his car keys out of his pocket with his free hand. As he bent down to tie his shoes, he suddenly paused, sniffing the air. “Do you smell that? Smells medicinal. Like a hospital.” I had reapplied the Betadine to my neck last night. The nurse told me to use it morning and night, and the chemical scent was strong. I offered no explanation. “No.” “Huh.” He stood up. “Alright, I’m taking off. Gotta pick up Alyssa.” “Didn’t you say you had an early meeting?” “That’s why I’m leaving now, beat the rush hour traffic. I’ll drop her off and still make it.” “What about me?” He already had the front door pulled open. He cast a look back at me. “You? You love walking to work. You said it was your cardio.” I had said that. Last winter, I mentioned we should look into getting a second car. He said it was a waste of money. I said, Fine, I’ll walk, I guess I need the exercise anyway. He had smiled and said, Yeah, you could use a little more movement. Since that day, I walked forty minutes to my office in the freezing wind, while he drove forty minutes in the opposite direction to drop Alyssa at her building. “My neck is bothering me. I wanted to ride with you today.” “Then call an Uber! Why are you bothering me with this? I’m not your chauffeur.” The door clicked shut. The distant chime of the elevator arriving, and then, nothing. My neck throbbed. I turned on the hot water in the kitchen sink. The steam rose, blurring my reflection in the window until my face was just an indistinguishable shape in the glass. My phone pinged. A text from Gary. Alyssa’s coming over for dinner tomorrow night. Make those red wine roasted short ribs. She specifically asked for them. I didn’t reply. I dug a fresh bandage out of my purse and pressed it over my skin. Before leaving the apartment, I stopped by the master bedroom. On his nightstand sat a framed photo of him and Alyssa from their college years. She was in a white sundress, his arm draped casually over her bare shoulders, both of them laughing at something out of frame. My phone buzzed again. An email notification: UK Visa – Status: Approved. I booked the earliest flight out. Three days from now. 3 Saturday evening, 5:00 PM. The short ribs were simmering on the stove, the kitchen smelling of rosemary and red wine. “Watch the threshold.” Gary’s voice drifted in from the hallway, carrying a buoyant, boyish lightness I hadn’t heard directed at me in years. “Your doorway is so annoying, I trip over it every time.” Alyssa’s voice was breathy, laced with a practiced, helpless pout. I walked out of the kitchen. Alyssa was bending over to take off her boots. Gary was crouched by the shoe rack, pulling a pair of fluffy pink slippers with bunny ears from the bottom shelf. “Got these for you. You said the soles on the old ones were too thin.” “Gary, you are literally the sweetest.” I looked at the pink slippers, then down at Gary’s feet. He was wearing dark grey slippers with bear ears. The exact same plush material. Matching couple’s slippers. I looked down at my own feet. I was wearing a generic blue pair I had bought on clearance at Target last year. Alyssa looked up and beamed. “Emma! It’s been so long.” “Hi.” “Gary said your short ribs are to die for, so I totally invited myself over.” “It’s the only thing she actually cooks well,” Gary said, taking Alyssa’s coat and hanging it in the closet. “Take a seat, dinner’s almost ready.” The only thing she actually cooks well. I turned around and walked back into the kitchen. Behind me, their laughter echoed against the walls, rolling in waves. Standing in front of the stove, a memory suddenly bubbled up—years ago, Gary and I used to be like that. We could talk about absolutely nothing and make a dinner last two hours. When did the shift happen? Two years ago, during a bitter winter, Alyssa got divorced and moved back to our city. Gary had gotten off the phone with her, his eyes rimmed red. Alyssa’s husband left her. She’s all alone here. It breaks my heart. From that moment on, they had endless things to talk about. And Gary and I ran out of words. “Need a hand, Emma?” Alyssa appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. “No, I’m good.” “Let me at least carry the plates.” She reached for the stack of dishes on the counter. Her sleeve slipped down, revealing a delicate gold chain sparkling on her wrist. The four-thousand-dollar transfer. It wasn’t a necklace; it was a bracelet. And foolishly, I had thought it was an early anniversary present for me. “Hey, get out of there, the grease will ruin your clothes,” Gary said, stepping in and gently pulling Alyssa out by the elbow. Funny. He knew women didn’t like smelling like kitchen grease. I forced down the lump in my throat and plated the food. “Oh my god, this smells incredible! Emma, you’re amazing. I burn water when I try to cook.” “She likes doing this stuff,” Gary said, rotating the serving dish so the best cuts of meat were facing Alyssa. “Try it.” Alyssa took a bite and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “So good! Gary, you are so spoiled.” “If you like it, you can come over every night. I’ll have Emma make it for you,” Gary said, his tone entirely casual. Every night. I’ll have Emma make it. No discussion. No asking. He just took my time, my labor, and handed it over to her like a party favor. I held my fork, staring at my plate. I didn’t say a word. “Well, I won’t say no to that,” Alyssa said, tilting her head at me. “You won’t get sick of me, right Emma?” “Emma has the patience of a saint. She’s fine with whatever,” Gary answered for me. I put my fork down and took a slow sip of water. Across the table, they kept talking. About his work, a new sushi place downtown, inside jokes about people from their undergrad years. Laughter washed over the table. I sat across from them, feeling distinctly like a private chef they had hired for the evening. “Oh, right, Emma,” Alyssa said, putting down her napkin, her expression shifting into something resembling concern. “I heard you’ve been working super late lately? It’s really not safe for a woman to walk alone at night. You should have Gary pick you up.” Gary’s chopstick paused mid-air. “She walks for cardio.” “Still, late at night is sketchy,” Alyssa frowned slightly. “Gary, why don’t you swing by Emma’s office first, and then take me home?” “No need,” I said. “See? She says she doesn’t need it,” Gary immediately chimed in, the relief evident in his voice. Alyssa smiled a small, soft smile and let the subject drop. I looked at them. So, she knew the streets weren’t safe at night. She knew exactly what the dynamic was. She knew everything, but she changed nothing. She wanted the moral high ground of offering, while still keeping the prize. After dinner, they retreated to the living room. I stood at the sink, the clatter of dishes masking the sound of her intermittent giggles. “Gary, do you remember junior year when you wiped out on your bike with me on the back?” “How could I forget? You still have that scar on your knee, right?” The faucet rushed loudly. I scrubbed the Dutch oven with a coarse sponge. The sauce had burned into the bottom of the pan, dark and stubborn, refusing to come clean. My phone buzzed on the counter. It was the final HR confirmation from the London office. I looked up. Through the glass panels of the kitchen doors, I saw Gary and Alyssa sitting on the sofa. Their heads were practically touching. Alyssa laughed, and Gary’s face lit up as he laughed with her. I looked down at the screen and typed two words: Offer accepted. 4 Monday morning, I stayed in bed. Gary knocked on the door. “Emma, you still in bed?” I kept my eyes closed. “Mmhmm.” “You feeling sick?” “Yeah.” “Drink some water. I gotta go. Alyssa and I will grab bagels on the way.” I heard his footsteps retreat toward the front door, then pause, and walk back. “By the way, I know today is your birthday. Alyssa said there’s a great new bistro that just opened. We’ll swing by your office and pick you up for dinner tonight.” I stayed silent. Even my birthday dinner was chosen by Alyssa. And she was going to be there. The silence stretched for two seconds outside my door. He was waiting for a Thank you, or an Okay. I gave him nothing. He put his shoes on, grabbed his keys. The door opened and shut in one smooth motion. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. The sun was streaming in, bright and golden. It was too beautiful a day for a funeral, which is exactly what this felt like. I got up, taking my time. I fried an egg. After breakfast, I opened the photo album on my phone. Three thousand, seven hundred and twenty-one photos. A digital museum of our five years together. I deleted them, one by one. My thumb flying across the screen, a repetitive, merciless motion. It took nearly twenty minutes to erase him completely. Then, I started stripping the apartment. My toothbrush. My towels. My hairbrush. My pajamas. The oversized, fuzzy cardigan he always said looked ugly but I secretly loved. All of it went into heavy-duty trash bags. By 3:00 PM, there was absolutely no physical evidence that I had ever lived in this house. On the glass coffee table, I placed the signed divorce agreement. I pulled the handle up on my suitcase. I didn’t look back. In the back of the Uber, my phone vibrated. It was a text from Gary. A picture of a stuffed plushie—a cartoonish, bug-eyed dog with a big head. The text read: Is this cute? Alyssa picked it out. She says you girls love this kind of stuff. I didn’t reply. In our five years together, he had never once bought me a stuffed animal. Last year, on my birthday, I had lingered a few seconds too long looking at a plush rabbit in a store window. He had pulled my arm and said, Aren’t you a little too old for toys? At 3:40 PM, I arrived at O’Hare. Checked my bag, cleared security. Every step felt mechanical, a protocol executing flawlessly. I didn’t feel like a woman fleeing her life; I felt like a ghost crossing over. At 4:30 PM, I was sitting at the departure gate. My phone lit up again. Alyssa and I are heading out. We’re on our way to your office now. They were calling boarding for my zone. I held the power button and turned the phone off. Outside the massive glass windows, the runway stretched out toward the setting sun, painting the silver wings of the airplanes in a wash of warm gold. It was my birthday. He had brought Alyssa along, used a restaurant she picked, and bought a plushie she chose, delivering one final, thoughtless paper cut on my last day in his life. But it didn’t matter anymore. Happy birthday to me. For every year after this, I would never have to hear someone tell me to “drink some water” when I was bleeding, and I would never have to accept another woman’s leftovers masked as a gift. The plane began to taxi. I leaned my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and felt the corner of my mouth curve upward. Goodbye, Gary.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457767”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My husband, Glenn, always called himself a “low-maintenance, online-only bot.” He claimed a Taurus like him just couldn’t handle the exhausting emotional demands of a water sign like me. To deal with my supposed neediness, he set up an auto-responder on his phone, specifically for my texts. On the day of my mother’s funeral, I messaged him. Glenn, my mom’s service is about to start. How far away are you? A second later, the reply flashed on my screen. Sure. I stared at the screen, a cold weight settling in my chest as I realized I had fallen for his automated machine once again. Yesterday, when I asked if he could make it to the funeral, he replied: Sure. Last month, when a strange man followed me for three blocks after twilight and I begged Glenn to pick me up, he replied: Sure. Last year, a high-profile client who despised me accused me of stealing her designer bracelet. Desperate for help, I called Glenn ninety-nine times and sent ninety-nine messages, begging him to bring the store receipt to prove my innocence. Every single text received the exact same response: Sure. He never showed up. The terror and public humiliation of that night pushed my body past its limit, and I miscarried our baby. He always promised he would change, that he would turn off the automated replies, but he never did. Now, a notification from his childhood sweetheart, Cecilia, popped up on my screen: Hey Fiona, look at this! Glenn’s been sending me the cutest stickers to cheer me up. Did he steal these from your phone? She attached a screenshot of their chat. The contrast was staggering. Two conversations, occurring at the exact same moment, handled with two entirely different souls. I ignored Cecilia’s message. Instead, I opened my chat with Glenn and typed one last message. Let’s get a divorce. I’m moving to Norway. His auto-responder didn’t hesitate: Sure. 1 Staring at that single word, I swallowed the lump in my throat and set up an auto-reply of my own. My phone buzzed relentlessly in my coat pocket, but I didn’t reach for it. I forced myself through the agonizing blur of my mother’s service, only pulling my phone out once the burial was complete and the mourners had dispersed. Okay. Sure. Okay. Sure. The screen was a checkerboard of cold, mechanical acknowledgments. I let out a dry, bitter laugh at my own pettiness. I had actually harbored a tiny, foolish hope that he might open our chat for once and read what I wrote. “Glenn, do you think Buster is happy in doggy heaven?” “Of course he is, Cecilia. Don’t cry. He’s running free now.” The familiar voices drifted through the damp afternoon air. I looked up. A short distance away, Glenn was tenderly wiping tears from Cecilia’s cheeks, his eyes filled with a soft, protective warmth I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. My lungs seized, the breath trapped in my throat. Glenn turned, his eyes catching mine. He froze in surprise, jogging over to me while leaving Cecilia by a fresh mound of earth. “Fiona? What are you doing here? I thought you were at the hospital taking care of your mother.” “Because—” Before I could finish, Cecilia let out a sharp cry of pain. She had tripped on the uneven grass. “Cecilia!” Without a backward glance, Glenn spun around and rushed to her side, his voice thick with panic. “Where does it hurt? Are you okay?” “I’m fine, really… just twisted my ankle. Go back and check on Fiona.” “She’s fine,” Glenn dismissed, his hands gently examining her ankle. “But you’ve always been fragile. Let’s get Buster buried, and then I’m taking you straight to the clinic.” He helped her up, guiding her steps as they walked right past me. He didn’t look at me. Just like my messages, I had been filtered out of his reality. By some twisted irony, the pet cemetery was situated right next to the public plots. Glenn cast a brief, unseeing glance toward the fresh grave where my mother lay, then turned his back. He and Cecilia carefully lowered a small wooden urn into the ground, and he spent the next ten minutes meticulously wiping down the tiny granite marker. A spark of fury flared in my chest, but it died just as quickly, leaving behind nothing but a hollow, freezing silence. Mom, I thought, looking at the heap of floral wreaths beside me. We both got him completely wrong. Years ago, when Glenn was a starving student who couldn’t afford a warm meal, my mother had practically adopted him, paying his tuition and treating him like a son. He had promised to repay her kindness with his life, and to love me forever. Now, he couldn’t even see us. I turned and walked quietly out of the cemetery. Glenn finally caught up to me near the gates. “It’s about to pour,” he said, checking the gray sky. “Why are you loitering around a cemetery by yourself? Go home. I have to take Cecilia to the urgent care.” He helped Cecilia into the passenger seat of his sedan, climbed in, and drove away. The exhaust fumes hit my face, making my eyes water. For a second, the old urge flared up—the desperate need to text him and scream. Why didn’t you ask why I was at the cemetery? Didn’t you see the black mourning pin on my lapel? If it’s about to rain, why didn’t you offer me a ride? Are you that afraid I’ll ruin your intimate car ride with her? Then I remembered the word Sure sitting on my screen. The answer was already there. There was no point in asking questions when you already knew the truth. My phone rang. It was an international number. “Ms. Ross? This is the consulate. Please come in this afternoon to finalize your visa paperwork.” “I’ll be right there,” I said. 2 The sky opened up just as I stepped out of the consulate. I waited under the awning for ten minutes, but every rideshare app showed no drivers available in the storm. Out of muscle memory, I unlocked my phone to text Glenn. That was when I noticed his new profile picture. It was a matching illustration—half of a couple’s set. Cecilia’s profile now held the other half. When we first got married, I had begged him to use matching pictures. “Taurus men are practical, Fiona,” he had scoffed. “We don’t waste time on childish, performative nonsense.” I closed the app, called Zoe, and confirmed our plans. My flight to Norway was booked for the day after tomorrow. Two hours later, a taxi finally dropped me off at the house. The moment I unlocked the front door, the rich, savory aroma of pork rib soup hit me. Glenn was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of my favorite comfort food. “I told you to come straight home,” he said, walking over with a dry towel and gently draping it over my wet hair. “Look at you, you’re shivering. What took you so long?” “I had to go to the consulate,” I muttered. “What were you doing at the consulate? Actually, hold that thought… I need to wake Cecilia up.” He tossed the towel onto the arm of the couch, pulled out his phone, and dialed her number. He was her personal afternoon alarm clock. In the past, whenever I felt neglected, I would spend hours scrolling through relationship forums, trying to rationalize his behavior. Taurus men are online bots, the articles claimed. They show affection through physical, real-life stability, not text messages. But watching him with Cecilia, the theory fell apart. He was endlessly attentive in person, and online, his messages to her were a constant stream of warmth and humor. Glenn emerged from the bedroom and ladled a steaming bowl of soup, placing it in front of me with a soft smile. “Drink this. It’ll get the chill out of your bones.” I sat in silence, waiting for him to ask about the consulate so I could lay everything out. But the question never came. Instead, he cleared his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable as he brought up the profile pictures. “Fiona.” “About the matching icons with Cecilia… don’t be upset. We actually thought about you when we picked them.” “Look,” he said, turning his screen toward me. “You can use this one. It’s a little cartoon girl. That way, we all match.” “So I play the child while the two of you play the parents?” My voice was flat. “We become a happy little family of three?” It was so absurd it was almost funny. I knew without asking that this was Cecilia’s idea. She had a habit of doing things like this. On my last birthday, she had insisted on a circus theme and made me wear a clown hat. Whenever we walked down the street together, she would grab Glenn’s arm, then look back at me with a sweet, apologetic smile, asking if I minded. “Don’t be so sensitive,” Glenn said, sighing. “Cecilia just thought it was a fun game. We’ll change them back in a few days. Besides, if you refuse to join in, she’s going to feel self-conscious.” It was always about Cecilia’s feelings. What about mine? Did I even have them anymore? When I didn’t argue, Glenn took my silence as acceptance. He sank into the couch and opened a mobile game, hopping onto a voice call with Cecilia. “Glenn? Did Fiona change her picture yet?” Cecilia’s voice drifted clearly through his speakers. “No. She’s being petty about it.” “Oh… maybe we should just change ours back. I don’t want you guys fighting because of me.” “Don’t worry about her. Let’s just play.” Hearing them talk about me like a mild inconvenience in my own living room should have made me scream. Instead, I just looked down at my soup. The pork tasted metallic, almost rancid. The next morning, I began packing my suitcases right in front of him. Glenn didn’t ask a single question. Instead, he grabbed my arm and insisted we go to a local escape room event. “All our friends are going to be there,” he urged. “It’ll cheer you up.” I didn’t have the energy to fight him, so I let him lead me out the door. 3 The moment we arrived at the venue, Cecilia bounced over and slipped her arm through Glenn’s. A few of our mutual friends laughed, throwing teasing glances our way. “Glenn, honestly, if we didn’t know better, we’d think you and Cecilia were the ones married.” “Yeah, man, thinking of trading up?” Cecilia’s cheeks flushed a delicate pink, but she didn’t detach herself from his arm. “Cut it out,” Glenn snapped, though there was no real anger in his voice. “Cecilia is like a sister to me. Besides, my wife doesn’t have an issue with it, so why do you?” He turned to me, offering a tense, reassuring smile. “Right, honey? You don’t mind at all.” I forced a polite nod. “I don’t mind.” I used to care. I used to scream and cry, begging him to draw a line between himself and Cecilia. But he never listened. Our worst fight had happened a year ago, on the night of the bracelet incident. I had called him ninety-nine times from the police station, terrified and humiliated as store security threatened to strip-search me. He didn’t answer a single call because he had put my notifications on mute. He claimed I was “too high-maintenance and sensitive.” While I was undergoing the most degrading night of my life, he was at Cecilia’s apartment, fixing a clogged drain. The stress and terror of that night caused me to faint. By the time they wheeled me into the emergency room, the heartbeat was gone. Our five-month-old baby was dead. When Glenn finally strolled into the hospital room hours later, his face was a mask of mild regret. “I’m sorry, Fiona. Cecilia texted me that her pipes were bursting, so I had my phone face-down… I’m devastated about the baby too, but we’re still young. We can always try for another one.” I had thrown my pillows at his face, screaming until my throat bled. I fell into a feverish state and fought with him for seven straight days. In the end, his elderly parents came to my hospital bed, weeping and begging me to forgive him. Glenn wept too, writing out a long, handwritten promise never to ignore my calls again. My heart, weak and desperate for love, had softened. I wanted to believe there was still a shred of hope for us. But love doesn’t survive infinite cuts. It bleeds out slowly until there is nothing left. The day my mother died, the last drop drained away. The game we were playing tonight was a murder mystery LARP with a heavy romantic drama theme. I expected Cecilia to claim the role of Glenn’s primary love interest, but to my surprise, she handed the “current wife” character sheet to me. Our friends praised her for being mature and respectful. But as the game progressed and the clues were revealed, Cecilia walked over to my station and slammed a piece of prop evidence onto my table. “You’re the home-wrecker!” she declared, her voice dripping with venom that felt entirely real. “You took advantage of my time abroad to seduce my childhood sweetheart!” I realized then what this was. She was using a silly parlor game to publicly brand me a thief. I let out a soft laugh, reached into my folder, and pulled out the counter-evidence. “You abandoned him for a wealthier life overseas,” I read from the script, looking directly into her eyes. “He was a broken shell of a man until he met me. Now that you’ve crawled back, what exactly is your goal?” Glenn sat in the center of the room, his face pale and incredibly tense as he watched our exchange. “Hey, guys, it’s just a game,” one of our friends muttered, sensing the sudden shift in temperature. “Let’s not get too carried away.” Soon, the story reached its climax. The game master turned to Glenn. “The childhood sweetheart is the regret you’ve carried for years. The current wife is the harbor that saved you from the storm. Player One, who do you choose to spend the rest of your life with?” 4 Cecilia gazed at Glenn, her eyes shining with unshed tears as she delivered her final lines. “I was young and foolish, and I let you go. But we’re here now. We can finally fix what we broke.” She extended her hand to him. I remained seated, my hands folded in my lap. I didn’t read my prompt. I didn’t beg, and I didn’t offer a dramatic plea. I simply watched. Glenn looked at Cecilia’s hand, then at me. For a man who usually never hesitated to touch her, his hand remained frozen at his side. “There are some roads you can’t walk down twice,” he said quietly, choosing the second option—the wife. Cecilia’s smile faltered, her hand dropping slowly to her side. I felt no satisfaction, no rush of victory. It didn’t matter who he chose in a game. Tomorrow, I was leaving. After the event, Cecilia insisted on coming back to our place for dinner, and Glenn agreed. While Cecilia was washing her hands in the restroom, Glenn cornered me in the hallway. “She’s just here for a quick meal, Fiona. Don’t make a scene. Just play nice for an hour, and once she leaves, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll take a month off work, and we can go visit your mom’s place. I’ll buy you whatever you want.” I looked at him, feeling an overwhelming sense of pity. “There’s no need. I’m not angry.” Glenn blinked, searching my face. “You’re… really not mad?” “I’m not,” I said sincerely. Why waste anger on a man who was already a stranger? “Oh, thank god,” he breathed, a visible wave of relief washing over him as he hurried into the kitchen to start cooking. Cecilia walked into the living room, glancing toward the kitchen before turning her sharp eyes on me. “Fiona, do you honestly believe Glenn loves you?” She didn’t bother hiding her contempt anymore. “It doesn’t matter,” I replied, sitting down on the couch. “Of course it does,” she sneered, pulling out her phone and opening her messaging app. “Glenn isn’t some cold, unresponsive robot. He’s only like that with people he doesn’t care about. See for yourself.” She handed me the phone. Scroll after scroll of their chat history. Glenn sending silly face emojis, responding within seconds, reminding her to take an umbrella because of a 10% chance of rain, sharing photos of his lunch, and writing paragraphs of affectionate text. It was a systematic execution of every excuse he had ever given me. Each message was a tiny dagger peeling back the scar tissue on my heart, but instead of making me weep, it only cemented my resolve. “Fiona,” Cecilia whispered, leaning close. “What’s the point of holding onto a man who only gives you his leftovers?” “You’re entirely right,” I said, looking up at her. I reached into my bag, pulled out a document, and laid it on the table. “Since you love secondhand goods so much, you can have him.” It was a divorce agreement, already signed by me. Cecilia’s eyes flared with greed. She didn’t even read the terms; she snatched the papers up and ran straight into the kitchen. “Glenn! I have a contract proposal from the office that needs your signature right now!” she called out. I sat in the quiet living room, waiting. Less than a minute later, Cecilia walked out of the kitchen, a victorious smirk plastered across her face. Glenn’s bold signature was scribbled at the bottom of the page. Glenn followed her out a moment later, carrying platters of food—every single dish was Cecilia’s favorite. I ate a few silent bites of rice, excused myself by saying I was exhausted, and went to our bedroom. I packed the remainder of my things, lay down, and slept more deeply than I had in years. At five in the morning, I walked out of the bedroom with my suitcase. On the living room sofa, Glenn and Cecilia were curled up together, fast asleep under a single throw blanket. I didn’t wake them. I quietly slipped out of the house, locked the door behind me, and headed to the airport to catch my flight to Norway. At nine o’clock that morning, Glenn stirred. “Morning, Glenn. Have some milk,” Cecilia said, handing him a glass. “Milk needs to be warmed up with a spoonful of oats first. Fiona always does it that way,” Glenn mumbled, taking a sip. He looked around the quiet house. “Where is she? Is she still asleep?” “Oh, her?” Cecilia smiled, sliding the document across the coffee table. “She’s gone. And this house is finally ours.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457766”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was in a car crash on our third wedding anniversary. I sat in the crowded ER, blood dripping from a gash on my forehead, watching my husband—the man who was supposed to be three states away on a business trip—gently holding his childhood friend by the waist, guiding her toward the radiology wing. When our eyes met, my gaze didn’t waver. I looked straight at him, my voice completely flat. “What a coincidence.” Dustin froze. A flicker of sheer panic crossed his face, but in the end, he didn’t follow me. He didn’t even try to reach out as I limped past them. I went to the pharmacy counter alone to collect my pain meds. Through the thin curtain of the waiting area, I heard Rebecca whisper to him, “You should go check on your wife.” Dustin’s voice was laced with an easy, dismissive confidence. “No need. Let’s get your scans done first. Paige isn’t going anywhere. She’ll be there.” I let out a cold, quiet breath. He was certainly a busy man. But did he really think I would just wait around forever? … It wasn’t until I was finally settled into a hospital bed that the adrenaline faded, and the ache in my bones truly set in. The nurse hooked up my IV drip and gave me a sympathetic look. “Bed 32, we couldn’t get ahold of your emergency contact. There’s no one here to keep an eye on your line, so if you need absolutely anything, just press the call button.” “Thank you,” I murmured, nodding weakly. As the nurse turned to leave, Dustin finally walked through the door. “Paige, what the hell happened?” he demanded, standing over my bed. His first instinct wasn’t to ask how badly I was hurt, or where it pained me. His face was twisted into a scowl of pure irritation. “You were in a major accident. Why didn’t you call me?” I looked up at him, studying his face. I knew every line of it. We had been together for seven years, from our freshman year of college to our wedding day, yet looking at him now, he felt like a stranger. “You told me you were traveling for work,” I said, my voice measured and slow. I watched his eyes, looking for even a microscopic shred of guilt. If he had shown a single ounce of genuine remorse, I might have found it in myself to give him one last chance. But there was nothing. Dustin merely blinked, then tossed his leather briefcase onto the bedside table and slid into the vinyl armchair. “I was on my way to the airport,” he said, defensive anger creeping into his tone. He spoke as if escorting Rebecca to the hospital was a noble, mandatory duty. “Becca called me in a panic. She was feeling incredibly weak. If I didn’t step up to help her, who else would?” “Right,” I replied quietly. “Then you should go back to her. She has no one else but you.” Dustin’s shoulders tensed. He had clearly walked in here bracing himself for a screaming match, preparing his arguments to shoot down my jealousy. My quiet compliance caught him completely off guard. He stared at me, momentarily speechless. Then, he stood up quickly, grabbing his bag. “Look, you’re obviously going to be monitored here for a while. I’m going to drive Becca home, and then I’ll come back to stay with you.” “Don’t bother,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Stay with Rebecca. She looks fragile.” “I’ll be back as soon as I’m done,” he insisted, already turning toward the door. I didn’t argue. I didn’t say anything at all. Once the room fell silent again, the throbbing pain in my head returned, but compared to the heavy, suffocating weight in my chest, the physical pain felt almost dull. Dustin didn’t return that night. He didn’t return the next day, either. It was entirely expected. I had stopped building castles out of his promises, so his absence didn’t even sting. The nurses brought me my meals. I realized that as long as I kept myself fed and rested, I didn’t have to think. The reckoning between Dustin and me could wait until I was discharged. During those empty days in the hospital bed, Dustin didn’t call. He didn’t text. But I didn’t need him to; Rebecca’s Instagram feed kept me perfectly informed. She posted every day. One photo showed Dustin from behind, wearing a checkered apron, standing over her stove cooking. Her caption was brief: Still the only one who knows exactly how to spoil me. Another post showed Dustin leaning over a kitchen island, carefully arranging a vase of fresh eucalyptus and peach roses. Rebecca’s caption read: Fresh blooms every single morning. He’s too good to me. A bitter ache bloomed in my throat. I had never once seen Dustin wear an apron. Before we got married, we had made an agreement: the kitchen was my sanctuary, a place where I loved to create, and he was to stay out of it. Dustin had happily agreed. For three years of marriage, I prepared three meals a day and served them to him. Sometimes, when he was too engrossed in his design work, I would bring plates directly to his desk. Back then, he would wrap his arms around my waist, press warm kisses to my neck, and murmur, “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Paige. You’re my whole world.” He used to brag about my cooking to all of his friends. I had thought it was sweet. We were partners; taking care of him felt like a natural extension of my love. A week after the crash, I signed my own discharge papers. Dustin was still nowhere to be found. When I unlocked the front door of our townhouse, the air inside was cold and stale. Everything was exactly as I had left it on the morning of our anniversary—clean, organized, and entirely devoid of life. On the entryway bench, Dustin’s favorite leather house slippers were sitting under a thin layer of dust. He hadn’t slept here all week. On the dining table, the bouquet of white lilies I had bought to celebrate our third anniversary had withered into dry, brown skeletons, dropping brittle petals onto the wood. I picked up the vase and dumped the dead flowers and the stagnant, cloudy water straight into the trash. My hands were steady. I felt no rage, no hot tears, not even a spark of anger. Just a profound, hollow realization that I had spent years pouring myself into a vessel that was full of holes. In the kitchen, a pot of beef bourguignon sat on the back burner. I had slow-cooked it the day before the accident, intending for us to share it when he got home from his “trip.” I lifted the lid; a sour, rancid smell wafted up. I tipped the spoiled stew down the garbage disposal, scrubbed the heavy iron pot until it gleamed, and placed it back in the dark cupboard. For three years, this kitchen had been my domain. I knew the weight of every knife, the hot spots on the range, the exact temperature of the oven. Dustin didn’t even know where the gas shut-off valve was. I used to think I was shielding him, keeping him pampered and rested. Now, looking at the spotless countertops, it just felt pathetic. He wouldn’t lift a finger to boil water for me, yet he was perfectly willing to play house in Rebecca’s kitchen, wearing an apron, chopping vegetables, letting her broadcast his devotion to the world. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting a follow-up text from my physical therapist. Instead, it was a screenshot sent by a mutual college friend. It was a post Rebecca had uploaded thirty minutes prior. In the photo, Dustin was slumped on a velvet sofa, his head resting lightly against Rebecca’s shoulder. They were holding a single fork, sharing a slice of strawberry shortcake. The caption read: With him, every day is an anniversary. The geotag placed them at a bakery just three blocks from our townhouse. I stared at the screen for three long seconds, my face entirely blank, before locking the phone. I didn’t even care to read the comments. In the past, a photo like that would have made my ribs tighten. I would have spent hours agonizing over why he was doing this to me, desperately spinning excuses for him. He’s just soft-hearted. They have history. He’s just trying to be a good friend to a grieving girl. But hearing him say “She isn’t going anywhere” in that hospital corridor had shattered the illusion. Dustin didn’t respect me because he believed I was permanent. I was the reliable fixture of his life, the dog that would always be waiting at the door no matter how late he came home. But he seemed to have forgotten that in college, he was the one who had chased me. When we met freshman year, I was entirely focused on my pre-med track, keeping my head down. After crossing paths a few times, Dustin began pursuing me with a relentless, earnest intensity. They say persistence wears down resistance, and it did. I fell for him, completely and deeply, giving him every ounce of my trust. But once he had me, the warmth began to cool, slow and steady, like a burner turned down to low. Over seven years, he had come to view my devotion as a baseline utility. He assumed that because we had survived college, career changes, and a move across the country, I was bound to him by default. I had known about Rebecca for a long time. We met during our senior year of college when Dustin introduced her as an old childhood friend who had just moved back to the city. I remember looking at her and feeling a strange, prickling sense of familiarity. It took me weeks to realize what it was: Rebecca and I shared the exact same delicate jawline, the same dark, wavy hair, the same quiet way of speaking. I had asked him about it once. “Do you think we look alike?” His response had been quick, almost sharp. “Don’t be ridiculous, Paige. There’s no comparison.” I had flattered myself into thinking he meant I was the one who mattered. Later, Dustin told me that Rebecca’s family had moved away under a cloud of financial ruin, and that her parents had recently died in a tragic car accident back East. She was entirely alone in the world. “Becca has had a brutal life, Paige,” he had told me, wrapping his arms around me. “If I spend a little extra time helping her get back on her feet, you won’t be upset, right?” How could I say no? To refuse would make me look cruel, small-minded, and insecure. So Rebecca became a silent shadow in our lives. She showed up at our dinners, our weekend outings, and eventually, our marriage. There were times Dustin cancelled our plans because Rebecca had a panic attack or needed help moving furniture. I swallowed my frustration, telling myself that being a supportive wife meant being understanding. But the boundaries had eroded until they were non-existent. I had been playing dumb, hoping my warmth would eventually draw him back. But being invisible to the person who is supposed to cherish you is a slow, agonizing death. And I was done dying. I walked into the bedroom and pulled my small leather suitcase from the top shelf of the closet. I didn’t have much to pack—just my clothes, a few cherished books, and my camera gear. Within ten minutes, my half of the closet was completely bare. Dustin’s expensive wool coats, custom suits, and designer shirts occupied the remaining ninety percent of the space, many of them bought with my salary or chosen by my eye. I dragged my suitcase into the living room, sat on the sofa in the dark, and waited. I wasn’t sure if he would show up tonight, and I didn’t intend to scream or demand explanations. I just wanted to close the book. As I sat there, memories of our early years drifted through my mind—the late-night study sessions, the cheap takeout on our first apartment floor, the way he used to look at me as if I were the only light in a dark room. But those memories felt like old film reels belonging to someone else. At eleven o’clock, the front door unlocked. Dustin walked in, flipping on the overhead lights. Seeing me sitting there in the dark, his face didn’t soften with relief. Instead, his brow furrowed with annoyance. “You’re home,” he said, taking off his coat. “You should have texted me. I was planning to pick you up from the hospital tomorrow morning.” His voice was light, entirely conversational. He made no mention of his week-long disappearance, offered no apology for leaving me stranded in a hospital ward, and showed zero shame. He was wearing a cashmere sweater I had bought him for his birthday. His hair was perfectly styled, and his face was relaxed, showing none of the exhaustion you would expect from someone caring for a sick friend. He looked like he had just come back from a lovely date. “No need,” I said, my voice incredibly calm. “I managed fine on my own.” Dustin’s eyes finally traveled down to the floor, landing on the suitcase parked next to my boots. His face hardened. “What is this? Why are you packed?” “I’m leaving,” I said. The two words felt surprisingly light in my mouth. Dustin let out a dry, incredulous laugh. He stepped closer, his eyes cold. “What are you talking about, Paige? Don’t start this.” “I want a divorce, Dustin.” He froze, his expression shifting from irritation to a dangerous, quiet anger. He walked over and knelt down in front of me, reaching out to cup my cheek. I pulled back, avoiding his touch. An impatient sigh escaped his lips. “Paige, seriously, stop the theatrics. Do you have any idea how exhausting this week has been for me? Taking care of Becca has taken everything out of me, and I really don’t have the bandwidth for a temper tantrum right now.” “Once we’re divorced, you can take care of her full-time,” I replied, my voice steady, cutting through his excuses. Dustin’s face darkened. “I’m trying to be patient here. I’m offering you an olive branch, Paige. Don’t push this too far. You know you don’t actually want to do this.” “I’m not throwing a tantrum, Dustin.” I looked directly into his eyes, letting him see the absolute, dead silence in mine. “I’m not going to argue about the past anymore. Let’s just look at this week. I was in a head-on collision. I was covered in blood, sitting in an ER, and I watched my husband hold another woman.” “I spent a week in a hospital bed. You didn’t call. You didn’t text. But you had plenty of time to cook for her, buy her flowers, and take her out for cake. You told her I wouldn’t run away.” I stood up, pulling my coat over my shoulders. “But you were wrong. I’m running.” As the reality of my words began to sink in, I watched the arrogance drain from Dustin’s face. It was replaced first by shock, then by a flicker of genuine panic. But even then, he couldn’t admit what he had done. “You’re seriously going to throw away seven years over this?” he hissed, standing up to face me. “Becca was in crisis. I was just being a decent human being. We are married, Paige. You’re supposed to have my back, not walk out the second things get complicated.” “Complicated?” I let out a soft, humorless laugh. “My car was totaled, Dustin. I have stitches in my forehead and bruised ribs. That is a crisis. Rebecca wanting a personal chef and a flower arranger is not. You have spent years treating my love as a resource you can drain without ever replenishing it. So let me ask you: what exactly are you contributing to this marriage?” He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was so accustomed to my silence, to my ready forgiveness, that he had never had to defend his actions before. He truly believed that if he waited a couple of days, I would swallow my pride, cook him dinner, and let things go back to normal. “I’m not going to argue with you while you’re this emotional,” he said, turning his back to me and walking toward the bedroom. “Go stay at a hotel for the night. We’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.” I reached out and caught his wrist. My grip wasn’t tight, but it was unyielding. “I am calm,” I said softly. “And I am entirely sober. I’ll have my lawyer draft the papers and send them to your office. I won’t be coming back to this house.” Dustin whipped his head around, his eyes wide, looking at me as if he were seeing me for the very first time.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “457765”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel