My brother wanted me to play the innocent, wide-eyed boy—the kind who could coax his fiercest corporate rival into falling head over heels. Then I laid eyes on Wilder Fox. He had unruly crimson hair, a lean waist, and a reckless, predatory grace that belonged in a high-end bourbon ad. He was an untouchable heir to an empire who treated the world like his private playground: fickle, notoriously hard to please, and utterly ruined by indulgence. And more importantly… I stared at the glossy dossier in my hands, my stomach sinking into my shoes. “Garrett, I’m straight.” Later. Wilder was sprawled across silk sheets, a cigarette smoldering between two calloused fingers, looking down at me with heavy, hooded eyes. The pale expanse of his thighs was littered with dark, swollen bite marks. Breathing hard, he nudged my hip with his bare foot. “Still calling yourself straight, Mercer?” A wicked smirk pulled at his swollen lips. “You went straight for my throat the second the lights went down.” 1 Three days after I landed back in the States, my half-brother ordered me to seduce a man. We were sitting in the shadowy back booth of a dimly lit cocktail lounge in Midtown. The memory of Garrett’s morning briefing still hummed bitterly in my ears: Remember, Wilder likes them sweet. Fresh. Sincere. You just got back from London. You’re entirely off the radar. You’re his exact poison. “Garrett,” I had said, my hands tight on my coffee mug, “is this seriously the best corporate espionage strategy you could cook up overnight?” I didn’t even know what the man looked like. Just because my brother was desperate to snag a multimillion-dollar municipal redevelopment project, I was supposed to offer myself up as bait to distract the competition? To a man, no less. “I’m straight,” I’d repeated, my voice hollow. “You owe me, Logan,” Garrett had replied, sliding a single photograph across the polished mahogany table. “If I hadn’t covered your back in the Holloway house after our father brought you in, you wouldn’t have survived long enough to get that degree abroad.” He leaned in, cold and calculating. “A trust-fund parasite like Wilder Fox doesn’t do love. Relationships are just distractions to him. I need you to make him fall, make him lose his focus, and tear him apart when it matters.” I looked down at the photograph. Slender hips, sharp jawline, and a mess of defiant red hair. The man was laughing straight into the lens—feral, unapologetic, entirely unbothered by the world burning around him. A bad boy through and through. The kind who took what he wanted and left a trail of wreckage in his wake. “Can you do it?” Garrett had asked. I had pressed my lips into a thin line and said nothing. 2 Truth was, I wanted to tell him it was suicide. You didn’t have to hire a private investigator to unearth Wilder Fox’s reputation; a two-second Google search on Page Six gave you the entire gory picture. FOX HEIR SPOTTED WITH NEW BOY TOY AT HAMPTONS GALA. TEN-DAY FLING BURNS OUT: WILDER FOX BACK ON THE PROWL. THE BLUEPRINT: INSIDE THE BRIEF, VOLATILE ROMANCES OF NEW YORK’S WILDEST BACHELOR. Gossip rag fodder. From top to bottom. As the sole heir to Fox Enterprises, he ought to have been groomed for the boardroom, yet he treated his family’s billion-dollar conglomerate like an inconvenient joke. He drifted through penthouses and after-parties, swapping partners the way ordinary people changed coats. His only tangible achievement was Nocturne, a moody, ultra-exclusive lounge where high-society heirs went to lose their minds. Word on the street was that his father, old man Fox, had finally grown fed up and dumped a mid-tier waterfront bid on his desk to force him into adulthood. Lost in thought, my gaze drifted toward the centerpiece of the lounge. Under the warm pendant lights, a shock of brilliant red cut through the velvet gloom. He was perched lazily on a leather barstool, long legs crossed, a custom charcoal suit hugging the narrow taper of his waist and the lean line of his back. I gave my glass a slow swirl, set it down, and stood up. 3 “Usual. Negroni,” Wilder murmured, propping his chin in his hand, his tone effortless and dripping with boredom. Brushing past a stray lock of red hair, I slid onto the adjacent stool and nodded to the bartender. “Make that two, please.” “First time here? Haven’t seen your face around,” Wilder said, turning his head. A slow, speculative brow arched upward. Meeting those amber, amused eyes, a strange stillness washed over me. Garrett had been right about one thing: Wilder Fox was undeniably curious. “Just got back to the city,” I said, pitching my voice softer, letting it carry the tentative cadence of someone younger and slightly overwhelmed. “A friend mentioned this place had an atmosphere you couldn’t find anywhere else.” The corner of his mouth ticked up. “An expat?” “Architecture student,” I said smoothly. “Taking a year off to handle some personal family affairs.” A half-truth was always the sturdiest shield. If everyone in this zip code traded in fabricated personas, I could play the part just as well. “Fair enough.” He extended a pale, ring-adorned hand, his smile teasing. “Wilder Fox. I own the joint. Ring any bells?” I shook my head, keeping my grip light and brief. “Logan Mercer. Should they?” “Ha. Do me a favor and don’t look me up,” he said, the dry heat of his palm lingering on my knuckles a second longer than necessary before he withdrew. “Trust your gut. Let our first impression be untainted. It’s more fun that way.” “Deal,” I murmured, watching him while my mind added: Untainted, maybe, but already etched in stone. Irresponsible. Hedonistic. Beyond saving. The bartender set down two crystal tumblers, ice clinking musically. Clink. Wilder tapped the rim of his glass against mine. “Boys like you shouldn’t linger in places like this. You’re bound to get picked apart by someone with bad intentions.” As he spoke, he loosened the top buttons of his tailored shirt. No tie. Just the clean, porcelain slope of his collarbones on display. The slight upturn at the corners of his eyes lent him an air of effortless debauchery. I had to admit—he was vastly more magnetic in the flesh than in Garrett’s grainy dossier. I offered a modest, disarming smile. “With the owner standing right beside me, I figure I’m in safe hands.” Wilder narrowed his eyes playfully. “Just call me Wilder.” I took a slow sip. “Wilder.” His fingers twitched against the crystal. Beneath his breath, I caught a soft, rough curse: “Jesus.” When he looked back up, the tips of his ears carried a faint, dusty flush, though his smirk remained intact. “Where are you crashing while you sort through your family stuff?” “An apartment down by the river,” I replied. “It’s quiet. A little too empty, to be honest.” His smile widened. “Funny. I keep a loft right around there. If the quiet gets too loud, you know where to find me.” Before I could answer, he signaled the bartender. “Mix Mr. Mercer a glass of First Sight.” Turning back to me, his eyes caught the amber light. “On the house. Low proof. A toast to meeting by chance.” The faint scent of cedarwood and dry gin drifted from his skin, dizzying and sharp. He was undeniably striking, with full lips and eyes that seemed to look at everyone as though they were a secret he already understood. He waited patiently for me to take the bait. “I think I’ll pass tonight. Thank you, though,” I said softly, rising from the stool. “I’ve had enough to make me lightheaded, and I’d hate to get reckless.” Wilder’s eyebrows shot up. His fingers darted out, hooking lightly into the cuff of my jacket. “Not even a number?” I slipped my sleeve gently from his grasp, stepping backward toward the exit. “Let’s leave the first impression right here. We’ll see if fate orders us a second drink.” Behind me came another quiet, startled laugh, followed by the sound of whiskey going down his throat. I didn’t look back. 4 Our paths crossed again four days later. Le Mirage. Corner table overlooking the fountain tier. 8:00 PM. The text from Garrett glowed on my screen: 7:57 PM. He should be arriving any minute. Garrett had tipped me off that Wilder was seen around town with someone new, and that they had reservations here tonight. My brother had hounded me all afternoon, terrified that another pretty face would monopolize the target before I sank my hooks in. It was almost pathetic how much stock Garrett placed in my supposed charm. Right on schedule, a tall, languid silhouette stepped past the velvet rope. Wilder had his arm draped casually around a slender, brown-haired boy. He was wearing a fluid black silk shirt, unbuttoned just low enough to be indecent, his long legs moving with easy arrogance. The boy clinging to his arm was pretty in an understated, cherubic way—the soft, doe-eyed aesthetic Wilder clearly favored—but he looked faded next to Wilder’s vibrant, feral heat. “I asked for this table specifically,” Wilder was saying, his tone smooth and detached. “The view gives you a clear shot of—” He cut off mid-stride. “A clear shot of what, Wilder?” the boy asked, blinking up at him. I looked up from my menu, affecting mild surprise as my eyes locked onto the crimson-haired man. Wilder dropped his arm from the boy’s shoulder. He closed the distance between our tables in three long, deliberate strides, his eyes gleaming with dark delight. “Well. Look who decided to exist outside my head.” “Dining alone?” he asked. “I was—” “Wilder, the water show starts in five minutes,” the brown-haired boy interrupted, scurrying over with a sharp glare directed squarely at me before attaching himself back to Wilder’s forearm. “Let’s sit down, please?” Wilder looked down at the boy’s hand for two silent seconds. Then, catching the boy by the wrist, he peeled him off. “Go home,” Wilder said smoothly. “What? But we just got—” “Do I look like a man who enjoys repeating himself?” Wilder’s lips curved into a smile, but his eyes were pure ice. The boy’s face drained of color. He smoothed his cuffs with trembling fingers and stormed toward the coat check in humiliated silence. Too impatient. Too transparent, I noted silently. Did he really think Wilder Fox was an idiot with an open checkbook? “Mind if I join you?” Without waiting for permission, Wilder pulled out the leather chair opposite mine and settled in. 5 “Not at all,” I said softly, keeping my eyes modest. “Small world, Mr. Fox.” He leaned back, grinning. “So you figured out who I am.” “It’s hard not to be curious about someone who introduces himself as the owner of the hottest club in Manhattan,” I replied. “I just didn’t expect you to be that Fox.” Before he could respond, our server arrived, gracefully setting down a pair of elaborate appetizers. Wilder made a mock gesture of standing. “Ah. Seems I’m interrupting a date.” “Stay,” I said quickly, offering an embarrassed, sheepish smile. “A friend had an emergency and bailed last minute. I ordered the tasting menu for two… there’s no way I can finish it alone.” Wilder looked down at me from across the table, a low chuckle rumbling in his throat. “Did you plan this?” “An unfortunate coincidence,” I lied without missing a beat. He picked up his water goblet and tapped it against my wine glass. “To fortunate misfortunes, then.” Coincidence is a magnificent liar. Wilder picked up his fork, casually asking, “So now that you know who I am—the trust-fund playboy, the tabloid regular—did your pretty little first impression come crashing down, architecture boy?” The crimson hair fell loosely over his forehead. He projected an air of absolute indifference, as though my judgment wouldn’t graze him in the slightest. I nudged the bread basket closer to him and answered honestly, “A little.” His fork paused. He stared at me. “Psychology calls it the primacy effect,” I said evenly, holding his gaze. “The initial impression anchors our perception. It makes us forgive the noise that comes afterward. You feel it too, don’t you?” The primacy effect: the cognitive bias that causes early information to carry more weight than everything that follows. A beat passed. “…Cheeky,” he murmured, a genuine, startled grin breaking across his face as he looked down. The dinner unfolded with effortless warmth. Wilder asked about my time studying in Europe, swapping stories about his own chaotic stints in Paris and Milan. Listening to him, you wouldn’t mistake him for a deadbeat heir; he possessed the sharp, cultured wit of someone who had seen the world and found it mildly amusing. He deftly carved a piece of seared foie gras, lifted his fork, and brought it directly to my lips. “Taste.” It was an overt breach of boundaries. An unmistakable test. I hesitated for half a second before leaning forward, parting my lips, and letting the fork slide free. The rich, savory fat melted instantly on my tongue. “Good?” Wilder’s eyes darkened, a predatory spark dancing in them. “You look tense.” “I am,” I admitted, my fingers brushing the back of his hand as I reached for my napkin. Snap. His hand clamped down around my wrist, his skin burning hot. He leaned across the small table, trapping me under his heavy, golden gaze. “You know what I like, Logan. And I’m entirely unattached right now.” I met his stare, my expression entirely placid, and said quietly, “Wilder. Let go.” He arched a brow. His grin widened by a millimeter, but after a second of silent standoff, his fingers uncurled. “Jesus… you handle me like I’m a dog on a leash.” I rubbed my wrist, shaking my head. “Never. I just prefer to sit across from you as an equal.” “Then tell me, Logan,” he said, the teasing edge softening into something almost earnest. “Do you want to be my boyfriend?” Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass, the outdoor fountains erupted into towering plumes of illuminated spray, catching the neon glow of the city skyline. It was the textbook moment for surrender. All I had to do was say yes. I would become the latest ornament on his arm. In two months, he’d tire of me, Garrett would quietly secure the contract while Wilder was distracted, and I would walk away clean. Neither Garrett nor Wilder saw me as an actual person with a pulse. To both of them, I was a variable to be managed. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I don’t date men.” For the first time, a flicker of genuine shock cracked Wilder’s unflappable exterior. His fingertips tapped a restless rhythm on the tablecloth. Then, his shoulders shook with a sudden, breathless laugh. “Give me a shot, Logan. Just one.” He leaned in, his voice dropping an octave. “I’ll make you like me.” “…” He slid his smartphone across the table, screen open to a blank contact card. “Take my number. In case you find yourself needing a little company.” By the time I stepped out of the restaurant, the autumn air had turned sharp. He offered to call a town car for me; I politely declined. I walked down the riverside promenade alone, the cold wind biting my cheeks. My phone buzzed in my pocket. An unsaved number: Thanks for dinner. Tomorrow night is on me. You free? By the way, you look devastating in that cream turtleneck. Don’t overthink it—it’s just a fact. 6 Wilder meant what he said. He launched a campaign that was as relentless as it was unsubtle. He clearly had no idea how to court someone through gentle persistence. Money had always solved every obstacle in his life, so he treated courtship like an auction: bouquets of rare orchids arriving at my lobby desk every morning, limited-edition sneakers, high-end watches worth three years of my London rent dropped off in discreet gift bags. He kept inviting me back to Le Mirage, entirely undeterred by my lack of definitive answers. The notorious playboy seemed genuinely, absurdly domesticated. Garrett was thrilled. He reveled in reports that Wilder was spending his afternoons scouring boutiques instead of reviewing RFP documents for the upcoming municipal bid. And me? …I had no idea where I stood. I couldn’t tell if the heat in my chest was the dirty thrill of playing a part, or something far more dangerous. “What’s got you so deep in your head?” The voice came from behind me, threaded with that familiar, mocking warmth. I turned around, clutching two admission passes at the steps of the modern art museum. Wilder wore a charcoal cashmere turtleneck beneath a long, tailored black wool coat. He looked like he’d stepped directly out of an editorial spread. The fiery red of his hair had faded slightly to a warm, burnt copper, falling loosely over his forehead without its usual sculpted gel. It took the edge off him. Made him look almost vulnerable. “Nothing,” I said as he reached me. “Just wondering if you were going to leave me standing here.” “For you? I’d show up an hour early just to watch you walk up the steps,” he teased. “Come on. The galleries are quiet today.” I took a few strides forward, realized he wasn’t beside me, and glanced back. Wilder had stopped, holding out an open, pale hand with a shameless, crooked grin. “Do a guy a favor. Hold my hand. Please?” 7 The gallery was cavernous and quiet, pale autumn sunlight filtering through the vaulted skylights, gilding the gilded frames in soft amber. Wilder moved through the rooms with surprising familiarity, keeping our fingers loosely laced together, occasionally leaning in so his warm breath grazed my ear as he murmured details about the painters. “You come here often?” I asked. His thumb traced absentminded circles on the back of my hand. “My mother used to bring me when I was a kid. She was an artist. Loved this place more than anywhere in the city.” He paused. In the low gallery light, I caught a sudden, brief shadow passing over his eyes. “She passed away when I was twelve. After that, this was the only place where she didn’t feel entirely gone. She gave up painting after she had me. I used to think I ruined her life.” The confession caught me entirely off guard. A ruthless operative would have seized the opening, using his dead mother as an emotional wedge to pry him open further. But as I looked at the slight downturn of his mouth, I found I wasn’t cold-blooded enough to turn his grief into an asset. “I’m sorry,” I murmured. Wilder shook his head, tugging my hand gently. “Come here. I want to show you my favorite.” His grip was hot and steady. For all his posturing, his skin was remarkably soft against mine. He led me past three interconnected galleries, stopping before a massive, moody canvas. The painting was dominated by an ocean of suffocating, ink-black tones. But dead center, a sliver of pale, incandescent light pierced the clouds, striking a tiny circle of still water below. It hummed with an ache that was impossible to name—loneliness and salvation knotted together. “Don’t worry about sounding smart,” Wilder said softly. “Do you like it?” “I do,” I answered. “Why?” “I like the dark,” I said. “It feels safe enough to disappear into. But that light… it reminds you that there’s still somewhere to run toward.” It was the story of my entire life. Wilder let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh. “Funny. It’s my favorite piece here, but I despise the dark.” His voice dropped so low I had to strain to hear it. “Some things happened when I was younger. Ever since, darkness is just… an empty room. No light at all.” He squeezed my fingers. “Come on, Mercer. There are happier things to look at.” 8 For the rest of the tour, Wilder was a ghost of himself. He stopped whispering in my ear, stopped laughing at his own jokes. He simply drifted alongside me, offering mechanical nods when I pointed out a sculpture. The arrogant, untouchable heir was gone, replaced by someone small and defenseless. Remember who he is, I commanded myself. He’s still a weapon Garrett pointed you at. Outside, under the sprawling limbs of a bare oak tree, I guided him toward a circular wooden bench. “Sit down,” I murmured. “Are you alright?” Wilder looked up at me, managing a weak, sarcastic curve of his mouth. “What, worried about me?” “Yes.” He was sitting; I was standing. The power dynamic flipped, forcing him to crane his neck to meet my eyes. The mask slipped entirely. “God,” he whispered, turning his head away toward the gravel path. “Pathetic. I’m completely pathetic around you.” “Wilder—” “I envy you, Logan. Truly.” “Envy me for what?” “You’re clean,” he said, turning back, his eyes glassy and bright. “There’s a… purity to you I can’t even describe.” He swallowed hard. “I grew up in rooms where nobody ever said what they meant. Every single person who ever crawled into my bed had an invoice waiting in their back pocket. I knew what they wanted. They never said no to me, they just clung closer and closer… and the closer they got, the less they heard a single damn word I said.” He stared at me, his gaze tracing the bridge of my nose, my lips. “You’re different. You’re that light in the painting.” The evening wind caught his copper fringe, making him look young, fractured, and terribly exposed. The corners of his eyes were rimmed with pink. Clean? My chest burned with self-loathing. I’m the dirtiest thing that ever walked into your life. A suffocating panic gripped me. I took a half-step back, wanting desperately to run. Grab. His hand caught my wool sleeve. He looked up at me, hair tangled across his forehead, his fierce eyes pooling with unshed tears. “Kiss me,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “Please. Just kiss me.” … I didn’t think. I reached down, fisted both hands into his lapels, buried my fingers in his hair, and crushed my mouth against his. 9 It was nothing like the gentle seduction I had mapped out in my head. It was violent, desperate, my teeth catching his bottom lip hard enough to draw copper. The taste of salt and blood flooded my mouth, swallowing every lie I hadn’t told yet. “Mmh…” Wilder let out a muffled gasp, startled by the ferocity of it. Then, his hands flew up, winding tightly around the back of my neck. He pulled me down harder, parting his lips, surrendering completely to the assault. His neck arched, his lean hips tilting upward toward mine. In a surge of blind frustration, my hand dropped to his waist, digging hard into the lean muscle above his hip bone. “Ah…!” A sharp shudder ran through him. I didn’t know who I was angry with. Him, for using his misery to disarm me? Or myself, for feeling like a monster? His eyes were glazed, dazed with tears and oxygen deprivation, when I finally tore my mouth away. “Ha…” Wilder’s chest heaved against mine, his eyes blinking rapidly in the twilight. “Be with me, Logan,” he panted, breathless. “I know my track record is garbage. But I mean it this time. Say whatever you want to me, do whatever you want. I’m in.” I stood over him, my pulse pounding in my ears, completely silent. Reading my frozen silence as rejection, Wilder’s expression shuttered. He produced a silver lighter and a cigarette with shaking hands, attempting to patch his cool facade back together. “Right. If you don’t buy it, forget I spoke. Go on home.” “I…” My throat felt like sandpaper. “It depends on how you act.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “If you’re still just a spoiled brat with nothing to show for his life, count me out.” It wasn’t the script. I was supposed to say yes, hook him, and keep him pliable. Wilder froze, the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. Then, a deep, resonant laugh tore through his chest, vibrating with sheer, unadulterated delight. “Logan Mercer,” he said, rising from the bench and letting his thumb brush my burning earlobe. “Watch me.” He pressed the unlit tip of the cigarette lightly against my breastbone, his eyes burning with renewed fire. “I won’t give you a single reason to say no.” 10 Three days later: the Fox Foundation Annual Charity Gala. I arrived thirty minutes before the scheduled start, but the grand ballroom of the Plaza was already swelling with Manhattan’s elite. Tiered champagne fountains, crystal chandeliers, and an endless parade of diamonds and bespoke tuxedoes. “Mr. Mercer,” an attendant whispered, guiding me through the foyer. “Mr. Fox is finalizing his remarks upstairs. Please enjoy the reception.” I nodded, stepping into the periphery. This wasn’t my world. When my mother fled my father’s family, she severed every tie to high society. To the Holloways, I had always been an embarrassment—an illegitimate son tolerated only because Garrett occasionally used me as a buffer during family disputes. If Garrett hadn’t intervened when my uncles were circling like vultures, I might not have survived my teenage years. My mother eventually reclaimed her maiden name, took me with her, and we lived quietly until she fell ill. I returned to New York only because my father’s health had collapsed, triggering a bloodbath over the estate. Garrett and my uncle Richard were at each other’s throats, and Garrett needed every chip he could play. Including me. In the center of the hall, an archival black-and-white photograph hung on an easel: an elegant woman smiling gently, holding a five-year-old boy in her lap. The boy’s grin was radiant and pure—a world away from the jaded playboy I knew. “Mr. Fox has arrived!” A collective hush swept through the room as the double doors parted. A pair of long, perfectly tailored legs stepped across the threshold. Wilder was clad in a razor-sharp, midnight-black tuxedo, the silk lapels catching the light with subtle, understated elegance. His hair was no longer crimson. He had dyed it back to a deep, natural raven black, slicked back from his forehead to reveal the sharp, aristocratic architecture of his brow and cheekbones. Gone was the decadent drifter. In his place stood an heir who commanded the room with effortless authority. “Holy shit, did Fox get an exorcism?” a young venture capitalist whispered nearby. “I thought he was boycotting tonight!” Through the murmuring crowd, Wilder’s gaze swept across the sea of faces with cool detachment. Then, he stopped. His eyes locked onto mine. A slow, private warmth crept into his amber irises. Lifting his champagne flute in my direction, his lips shaped four silent words across the cavernous room: How did I do? 11 For the remainder of the evening, Wilder operated with staggering finesse. He moved between senators, hedge fund managers, and foreign dignitaries with the grace of a seasoned diplomat. When he took the stage for the closing address, his posture was immaculate, his hands steady on the lectern. I watched him from the shadows, a knot of unease tightening in my stomach. Was his playboy routine just a performance? A deliberate mask to keep the vultures at bay? And if it was… did I stand a chance of walking away from him intact? “…Tonight, thanks to your generosity, we have secured thirty-five million dollars, every cent of which will be directed toward youth educational initiatives in underprivileged districts.” Wilder offered a dignified bow, and the room erupted into thunderous applause. As the crowd began to thin toward the exits, my arm was roughly seized from behind. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I turned to find Garrett staring down at me, his eyes bloodshot and venomous. He shoved me behind a massive marble pillar, his voice an incensed hiss. “I told you to ruin him. I told you to make him useless, not turn him into the damn poster boy for civic responsibility!” “Garrett—” “A charity gala?” Garrett sneered, his fingers digging into my bicep. “What’s next? Is he going to polish up his redevelopment proposal and sweep the city council off their feet just to impress you?” I pried his fingers off my arm, my jaw clenched. “This wasn’t part of the plan, but you don’t know him—” “Are you falling for him, Logan?” Garrett spat, his face inches from mine. “I need corporate dominance, not a tragic queer romance. Are you going to deliver, or are you just as worthless as your mother thought you were?” The venom in his voice was familiar. Back in the Holloway mansion, he had protected me only so long as I remained useful. Now that the inheritance war was peaking, I was just another pawn to sacrifice. “I have it under control,” I said coldly. “If I want him to hand over the contract, I have to be the only thing he cares about. Let me work.” Garrett scoffed, adjusted his cuffs, and vanished into the crowd. I leaned back against the cold stone pillar, letting out a long, ragged exhale. “Found you.” Wilder’s voice cut through the quiet. 12 The top floor of the venue housed a private penthouse suite reserved for the Fox family. Wilder lay sprawled across a deep velvet sofa, having already discarded his jacket and untied his bowtie. The starched white collar was undone, exposing the pale hollow of his throat. “My sanctuary,” he said, crooked finger beckoning me forward. “I come up here after these stupid galas to breathe. Tonight’s the first time I didn’t come up alone.” I sat on the edge of the sofa, looking out over the glittering Manhattan skyline. “So,” he murmured, his gaze tracing my profile, “give it to me straight. Did I pass the test? I wrote that damn speech myself. Nearly bored myself to death practicing it in the mirror. Logan, do you ever get exhausted playing the saint?” Every single day, I thought. “I’m used to it,” I said aloud, offering a soft smile. “You were incredible tonight. Truly.” Wilder chuckled, taking a sip from his glass. The amber bourbon glistened on his lower lip. “Do I get a reward?” I leaned down, aiming for his mouth, but his index finger pressed against my lips, halting me. “Not yet,” he whispered, looking up at me through dark, thick lashes. “I want the real answer first. Am I your boyfriend now, Mercer?” His eyes were wide, unguarded, reflecting my own face back at me with terrifying clarity. I ran my fingers through his black hair. “Yes.” Wilder let out a breathless laugh, hauling me down by the lapels until I tumbled against his chest. He kissed me hungrily, his hands roaming my back, muttering against my mouth: “What did that Holloway asshole say to you down there…?” My heart stopped. I pushed back, staring at him. “You saw?” Wilder’s hands slid down to my waist, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles. “Look at you, all jumpy. I saw him grab your wrist by the pillar. By the time I walked over, he took off. Was he harassing you?” Relief washed over me, cold and sickening. “He… he was asking for directions, got aggressive when I blew him off.” “Fucking parasite,” Wilder cursed softly, his brow furrowing. “Putting hands on you in my building. He’s lucky I didn’t break his jaw.” I let out a shaky laugh. My brother was using me. I was deceiving Wilder. And through it all, Wilder was the only one in the room acting with something resembling honor. “You’re laughing?” Wilder pouted, tugging at the hem of my shirt. “I was about to lose my mind with jealousy.” Before I could reply, he pulled me down again, his lips gentle this time, nuzzling my jaw with clumsy affection. The heat shifted, thick and heavy. My fingers traced his ribs, and he pulled me closer, guiding my weight on top of him. I reached for his tie, murmuring against his throat, “Let me make it up to you.” He caught my wrist, his gaze dark and heavy with desire. “You know how this works?” I paused. “What?” “Innocent little virgin,” he teased softly, though his pupils were dilated. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. It might sting the first time, but I’ll be careful.” As his fingers worked my buttons, I hesitated, then whispered, “I want to be on top.” He stopped. “I’ve always hated pain, Wilder,” I murmured honestly. Growing up in the Holloway house had left me with plenty of bruises; I had zero desire to collect more. Wilder stared at me for a long, stunned second before groaning into the cushion. “Jesus Christ.” He looked up, resigned and completely wrecked, his cheeks blooming with heat. “Fine. You win. Take what you want.” “Just… go easy. It’s my first time this way, too.” I rested my hand tentatively on his thigh, suddenly uncertain. “Show me what to do.” Wilder’s face turned scarlet. He kicked my shin lightly, his eyes flashing with mortified indignation. “Are you seriously asking me for a tutorial right now?!” “…” “Shower first,” he grumbled, his bare toes hooking around my waist to haul me up. “And use your hands.” …

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Shane Callahan was the single most offensive human being I had ever encountered. The first time I took an interest in him, he looked me dead in the eye and sneered, “Back the fuck off, you sick faggot. You disgust me.” Three years later, I found him bleeding to death on the concrete floor of an unsanctioned underground fight club. I bought his life. When he finally came to, he stared up at me through swollen, purple lids, voice raw and suspicious. “Why the hell did you pull me out?” I smiled, letting the silk lapels of my coat fall open. “I’m a queer, Callahan. What the fuck do you think a queer wants with a man like you?” He immediately dragged his hands down, shielding his groin, his lips peeling back in a snarl. “You filthy dog.” I reached out, caught him by the shoulder, and flipped him flat onto his stomach, pinning him into the mattress so hard the air left his lungs in a wheeze. “With a man like me,” I murmured into the shell of his ear, “what good do you think covering the front is going to do?” 1 The pit had a new problem child. The club manager practically bowed as he led me up the private iron staircase into the VIP mezzanine, his hands wringing together like dry parchment. “It’s this kid, Mr. Mercer. He refuses to take a dive.” The manager leaned close, lowering his voice against the roar of the crowd below. “He’s won six bouts in a row. The odds are completely fucked. The high-rollers on the books are starting to lose their minds.” I rested my forearms on the brass railing and looked down into the cage. Sitting on an overturned grease bucket in the corner, staring blankly at the blood-spattered canvas, was Shane Callahan. Memory hit me like an electric shock, dragging me back thirty-six months. I didn’t hand out my attention easily; in my world, men bent over backward for a fraction of my favor. But three years ago, when I had extended a silver-plated invitation his way, what had he given me in return? Back the fuck off, you sick faggot. I tapped the edge of my cigarette against the railing, watching the ash drift down through the smoke-choked air. “Put Maddox in the cage with him next round. Triple the dose on Maddox’s pre-fight cocktail.” The manager swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Right away, sir. And… how far should Maddox take it?” I didn’t turn around. My voice remained as light and indifferent as the autumn wind outside. “Beat him until he stops breathing.” 2 Down in the pit, there were no weight classes, no rounds, and no refereeing. The animals in the bleachers paid for one thing: red meat. Maddox was built like an industrial press, six-foot-four of scarred muscle and unhinged aggression, and tonight he had enough synthetic amphetamines coursing through his veins to stop an ox’s heart. He felt no pain. Shane was fast. He moved like water, ducking hooks that would have shattered brick, constantly pivoting, hunting for an angle, an exposed throat, a liver shot. But you cannot reason with a bulldozer that has no nerve endings. The roar inside the warehouse nearly blew the corrugated roof off when Shane coughed his first mouthful of dark blood onto the floor. He staggered, caught himself on one knee, and forced himself back up. That face of his—god, even split open and dripping red, there was an infuriating, untamable vitality to it. He lasted two more exchanges before Maddox caught him mid-pivot and slammed him into the concrete. The fists came down like sledgehammers. Heavy. Rhythmic. Shane’s mouth and nose sprayed crimson with every impact, his head bouncing off the deck. The crowd went feral, pounding the chain link, spitting foam. “Kill him! Break his fucking neck! Kill him!” I curled the corner of my mouth. Game over. I stood, smoothing the crease of my slacks, preparing to leave. But just as I turned my back, my gaze snagged on Shane’s eyes. Unfocused. Glazing over. Those were the eyes that had arrested me three years ago—alive with an arrogant, sunlit insolence, burning with youth. Now, the light in them was flickering, guttering out like a dying match. My shoe stopped mid-stride. A sudden, sharp hollow opened up behind my ribs. After everything, I still wanted him. “Call it,” I told the manager. “Get him out.” 3 By the time they hauled Shane into the back locker room, his pupils were blown wide, his consciousness slipping through his fingers like sand. I crouched beside the rusty gurney and waved my hand in front of his battered face. “Two choices, Callahan,” I said, voice calm and level. “You come home with me, and I keep you breathing. Or you lie right here and bleed out.” His cracked lips twitched. I leaned down, bringing my ear close to his mouth. “Go… fuck… yourself…” he rasped. A laugh slipped out of me. “Still the same feral stray. Suit yourself.” I straightened and turned toward the metal door, throwing a careless sentence over my shoulder. “You really have nothing left to live for? Not a single thing?” Every human being has an anchor. Nobody walks through hell without a reason. The room went dead silent. Just as my hand touched the brass handle of the door, a sound cracked through the damp concrete room. Hoarse. Desperate. “Save me.” I didn’t turn back. I merely lifted two fingers in the air, signaling the private medical team waiting in the corridor to go in. I walked out into the cold night air, and someone immediately draped my cashmere coat over my shoulders. I checked the Patek Philippe on my wrist. I was five minutes behind schedule. Five minutes wasted on Shane Callahan. In my precisely engineered, mechanically cold life, Shane was already proving to be an anomaly. 4 It took two months in a high-end private facility to piece his ribs, his skull, and his spleen back together. The moment the discharge papers were signed, my driver delivered him directly to my penthouse. I cut my afternoon board meeting short, driving back through the city faster than usual. When I took the private elevator straight up and entered the master suite, I heard the sound of rushing water from the bathroom. I pushed the frosted glass door open. Shane jerked around, water streaming down his lean, corded shoulders. “What the fuck!” He instantly clamped both hands over his groin, backing into the subway tile, his glare venomous. “Are you out of your mind? Can’t you see I’m taking a shower?!” I unfastened my watch, setting it on the marble vanity, and began unbuttoning my shirt. Piece by piece, right in front of his deteriorating expression, I stripped completely bare. “I see it.” “You sick faggot, you—” Before he could finish the curse, I stepped under the hot stream, grabbed his arm, spun him around, and slammed his chest flat against the wet tile. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you, Callahan?” I murmured, pressing my weight against him until his spine arched. “When you’re dealing with a queer like me, it’s the back you need to cover.” The roar of the showerhead did little to drown out the gasps, the choked groans, and the steady stream of filth Shane spat into the steam. It was the same handful of words, over and over. Pervert. Disgusting. Animal. Get the fuck off me. “Is that all you’ve got?” I chuckled against his neck. He ground his teeth together, the veins in the back of his hands bulging as his fingers clawed at the slick ceramic. “Fucking sickos like you used to get dragged behind trucks.” I hooked my fingers into his hip, shifting his angle, and a violent shudder ran through him, his knees buckling so hard he nearly hit the shower floor. I leaned over his shoulder, watching the sharp profile of his jaw. “Before you throw stones at me, Shane, maybe check your own glass house,” I whispered. “A straight guy being handled by a queer isn’t supposed to get hard.” He froze. He looked down at himself, water dripping off the tip of his nose, staring in total, uncomprehending horror at his own body’s betrayal. The sheer, childlike bewilderment on his face in that split second was so raw it was almost endearing. A sharp ache coiled deep in my lower belly. I reached around, caught his wet chin between my fingers, and turned his face to press my thumb against his bruised, crimson lips. “All right,” I breathed against his mouth. “I’m done in here. Let’s move to the bed.” 5 I possessed neither the patience nor the temperament for gentleness. He trembled beneath me, his hands clutching my forearms with white-knuckle force as his breath fractured into ragged, hitching sobs. His handsome face was crumpled in pain, damp brown hair plastered to his temples by sweat and steam. He looked ruined. Utterly, intoxicatingly wrecked. Every drop of desire in my blood caught fire. Even the curses he hissed through his teeth felt like lighter fluid poured straight onto the flame. “Filthy dog…” “Mm.” “Get off… get the fuck…” I pushed harder, burying myself deeper. “What was that?” His neck arched back, exposing the long, vulnerable line of his throat, practically begging for teeth. I leaned down and bit the cord of his neck, hard enough to taste salt and iron, and a strangled whimper tore out of his chest, vibrating straight through my ribs. He drove me out of my mind. I wanted to crush him. I wanted to grind his bones down and swallow them whole until he lived inside my skin. For the first time in my thirty years, I finally understood why men burned down empires for an hour in bed. The wet, frantic rhythm of skin on skin filled the dark room. He had no breath left to swear at me, his defiance eroding into something thin, desperate, and pleading. “Please… don’t… no more…” I shifted, kissing the wet salt trailing down the corner of his eye. “Shane,” I murmured, my voice thick. “Whose bed is this? Who am I?” He gasped for air, his chest heaving three, four times before he could piece together the syllables. “Adrian… Mercer.” His voice was rough, low, and beautiful. It sounded infinitely better wrapped around my name. “I was going to let you sleep tonight,” I said against his mouth. “Too bad.” Shane, you are far too breathtaking when you break. 6 Shane stayed in my penthouse. The first rule I laid down was absolute: he was never stepping foot inside an underground ring again. He fought me on it with everything he had. “Who the fuck are you to tell me what I can do?” he snarled across the dining room table. “You come back from those bouts bruised to the bone, limping, wincing every time I lay a finger on you,” I said, slicing into my steak without looking up. “It ruins my mood.” “Do you have any idea what it means to cut off a man’s livelihood?” he shouted, slamming his palms on the dark wood. “You’re taking food off my table!” “And?” “You arrogant prick!” He lunged. He had professional reflexes, and I took his right hook square across the cheekbone. The butler dropped a silver tray; the maids in the hallway froze in terror. I had never, in my entire privileged life, been struck by another human being. Yet, oddly, I didn’t feel a flicker of rage. The scuffle dragged us both onto the Persian rug, fists turning into grips, fury bleeding into friction. We sparked like flint and steel. By morning, I had taken my fill. I dragged myself out of bed, buttoning a fresh shirt, while Shane lay tangled in the Egyptian cotton sheets, glaring at me like a caged wolf. “Someone ought to cut that thing off you and feed it to the coyotes,” he spat. I paused by the door, adjusting my cufflink. “Want another round?” His gaze dropped instantly, his shoulders tensing. I smirked and reached for the doorknob, but before I could turn it, his voice drifted from the bed, quiet, muffled, and thick with defeat. “You can’t just stop me from earning money, Mercer.” There was an edge of helplessness in it. A tiny, raw tremor of despair. A ripple disturbed the smooth, icy surface of my chest. Before I could examine what that ache was, it slipped away into the shadows. 7 I had my private investigator pull Shane Callahan’s background that afternoon. The file was thin, but heavy. His parents had died in an industrial boiler explosion at a textile plant just outside the city. Shane had been fifteen. His brother, Luke, had been ten; his little sister, Maisie, just seven. “The settlement from the company was insulting,” my assistant explained quietly, standing on the other side of my mahogany desk. “Non-union shop. They barely paid burial costs. A fifteen-year-old kid carried the entire family on his back from that day forward.” He flipped a page. “The sister, Maisie… she’s in end-stage renal failure. She’s been living in a county hospital ward for the past eighteen months waiting on a kidney. The brother, Luke, just started his freshman year at state college.” My assistant’s face softened with genuine pity. He could look at those numbers and feel the suffocating weight of an impossible life. I couldn’t. I had been born into private equity and old money; poverty was an abstract concept, like zero-gravity physics. You cannot truly comprehend a cage you have never touched. I closed the manila folder. “Understood.” As autumn turned bitter and gray, Shane couldn’t go back to the cage, so he found a part-time gig at an auto body shop on the west side. One evening, on a whim I couldn’t quite justify to myself, I had the driver take a detour all the way across town to pick him up. Outside the garage, under the freezing neon light, two young men were leaning against a rusted fender, sharing soft-serve ice cream despite the bite in the air. One was Shane. The other was a kid his age, wiping motor grease from his hands with a rag. The coworker slung a heavy arm over Shane’s neck, leaning in close to whisper something right against his ear. Shane didn’t pull away. With me, he flinched or braced himself whenever I got within arm’s reach. But here, he leaned into the casual contact, threw his head back, and laughed—an open, bright, unguarded sound that cut through the cold. Had I ever seen Shane laugh like that? Not once. A sour, suffocating heat flared behind my ribs. Shane spotted the black Maybach idling by the curb. He waved goodbye to the kid, jogged over, and slid into the leather interior, smelling of motor oil and cheap vanilla. “What are you doing here?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The tightness in my chest deepened. “Had business in the district. It was on the way.” He nodded, asked no further questions, and went back to chewing the edge of his sugar cone. “Stay away from other men,” I said, my voice dropping an octave. Shane paused, frowning. “He’s a coworker.” “I don’t care. Don’t let them hang on you like that. You don’t know what kind of filth is running through their heads.” His brow furrowed deeper, a look of profound disgust washing over his face. “You think everyone in the world is as sick as you?” I turned my head, my eyes locking onto his. “What did you just say?” “Normal people aren’t like you, Mercer.” The words barely cleared his teeth before I grabbed him by the front of his jacket and slammed him down across the wide leather bench. The privacy partition whirred upward, sealing us in the dim, soundproof darkness. Shane stiffened. Outside the penthouse, in public, his resistance was always muted—he hated making a scene, suffocating his protests in the back of his throat like a trapped animal. I didn’t understand the sudden, blinding fury tearing through me, but I didn’t care to stop it. I pinned his wrists above his head, pressing down until my chest crushed his. “Not like me?” I sneered, leaning into his ear as his breathing turned shallow and jagged. He clamped his jaws shut, turning his face away into the leather, his body shivering. I reached down, dragged his calloused hand between our bodies, and forced his palm flat against the damp, warm front of my trousers. “Feel that, Shane. Whose reaction is that? Tell me again how you aren’t like me.” He jerked his hand back as if he had touched white-hot iron, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and fractured with a panic he couldn’t hide. I gave a low, bitter laugh, but the irritation inside me only sharpened. “You and I are cut from the exact same cloth, Callahan. Don’t let me catch you forgetting it again.” I was drowning in him, completely blind to how lethal that current already was. 8 When I woke the next morning, Shane was already sitting up on the edge of the mattress. His hair was a messy nest of dark strands, one stubborn cowlick sticking straight up in the back. Looking at it, a ridiculous warmth brushed against my ribs. “Don’t go to the shop today,” I said, sitting up against the headboard. “Stay home and rest.” I knew I had been too rough in the car. “I have a shift,” he muttered, not looking back. My silk tie had knotted poorly, and I yanked it loose with an irritated tug. “Can’t I afford to keep you?” He was still half-asleep, his voice dull and groggy. “What, you’re gonna keep me forever?” “What if I do?” The words slipped out of my mouth before my brain could vet them. “What if I keep you for the rest of your life?” The bedroom fell dead silent. The gentle morning draft from the balcony fluttered the loose hair at the crown of his head. I looked away, clearing my throat, terrified of digging into the terrifying truth behind what I had just said. I pivoted sharply, needing to change the subject. “About your sister,” I said, keeping my tone crisp and managerial. “My people found a compatible donor kidney through a private registry. I’ve already retained the chief of transplant surgery at St. Jude’s. You can go down there this afternoon, meet the team, and lock in the surgery date.” I stood, smoothing my cuffs. “Don’t worry about the billing. It’s handled.” Shane’s mouth parted slightly. He turned around, staring at me as if I were speaking an alien language. I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and ruffled his hair, smoothing down that ridiculous cowlick. “I have to go.” As I pulled my hand away, his fingers suddenly shot out, clamping around my wrist. His eyes were rimmed with red, his grip trembling with an intensity that bordered on pain. He looked so fragile, so utterly stripped bare, looking up at me for confirmation. “Is that… are you serious?” It was such a minor thing for me—a phone call, a transfer of funds from an auxiliary account. Back then, I didn’t understand that the things we step over without looking can be the very boulders crushing someone else to death. The nightmare that had kept him awake in the dirt, bleeding his knuckles raw in back alleys for years, had been erased by me with a stroke of a pen. “Why would I lie to you about that?” Shane lowered his head, his chest hitching in silent, ragged breaths. I looked down at his dark eyelashes, fluttering against his cheek, and a bizarre, foreign ache tightened in my chest. Much later, I finally understood what that feeling was. It was an urge entirely detached from lust. It was simply the desperate, overwhelming need to press my lips against someone’s forehead and keep them safe. In my entire life, until Shane Callahan, I had never felt it once. 9 A multi-billion-dollar acquisition entered its final closing stages that month. I lived on black coffee and adrenaline, practically sleeping in the corporate boardroom, forgetting meals until my assistant placed them directly in front of my face. I hadn’t been back to the penthouse in four days. Realizing a crucial environmental clearance document was locked in my private study at home, I buzzed my house manager. “Yes, bottom drawer of the walnut desk.” “Right away, Mr. Mercer. I’ll have the courier bring it down.” My eyes wandered to the small porcelain dish on my desk. Strange—I was a man who ignored trivial domestic details, yet I had somehow memorized the fact that Shane had a weakness for blueberry tarts. “Is Shane at the house?” “Yes, sir.” “Have him bring it.” The moment Shane walked into my corner office forty minutes later, I realized what a catastrophic mistake I had made. Winter was setting in. He was wearing a cream-colored turtleneck beneath a tailored charcoal wool coat I had bought for him. As the coat swung open, the lean, firm contour of his waist was on full display. One look, and forty-eight hours of corporate strategy evaporated from my brain. I dismissed my vice president and general counsel immediately, waving them out the door. Shane touched his cheek self-consciously. “What are you staring at?” I gestured for him to come over. He hesitated, then walked behind the desk. I reached out, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him against my chair. He looked down at me, his fingers twitching slightly. For a second, I held my breath, waiting for him to touch my hair. But his hand stalled in midair, dropping back to his side. “You lost weight,” he said quietly. “I’m exhausted,” I mumbled, burying my face against his sweater. I didn’t even realize how much I sounded like a man whining to his lover. “What have you been doing all week?” At the mention of that, a faint, genuine warmth broke across his features. “At the hospital with Maisie. The doctors say her labs are stable. They set the surgery for next Tuesday.” He paused, swallowing hard, his voice dropping into something delicate. “Thank you, Adrian.” Had Shane ever been this soft with me? My grip on his waist tightened instinctively. If buying his gratitude was this easy, I would have moved heaven and earth for him ten times over. “That’s all the thanks I get?” Shane blinked, uncertain. “What else do you…” I parted my knees, reached up, and pulled him down by the collar until he was kneeling between my legs on the plush carpet. The gesture was unmistakable. The color drained from Shane’s face, leaving him rigid and pale. To be honest, I had wanted him on his knees for months. But with his feral pride, I had always assumed he’d bite me bloody out of sheer spite. Now, though, I knew he wouldn’t. Because beneath the rough exterior, Shane was far more decent, far more innocent than I was. He believed in debts. He believed in paying them back. Just as I anticipated, he took a slow, shuddering breath, his trembling hands reaching for the zipper of my slacks. Anticipation spiked through my veins, hot and sharp. But as I watched his crimson lips part, drawing closer, I couldn’t miss what was sitting in his eyes: humiliation, endurance, and a profound, hollow helplessness. My fingers tangled in his hair—and froze. A sudden, suffocating ache clamped down on my heart. I caught him under the arms and hauled him up violently, pulling him into my lap and burying his face into my shoulder. “What now…?” he gasped, disoriented. “Forget it,” I rasped, wrapping both arms around his back, pressing his chest flat against mine. “Just let me hold you. Let me recharge.” He stiffened, whispering a soft, bewildered, “You’re out of your mind,” but he didn’t pull away. I closed my eyes and tightened my grip, trying to drown out the frantic, chaotic beating of my own heart. I was feeling mercy. For a plaything. To develop a bleeding heart for an untamed stray was a dangerous, pathetic defect. It was a terrible sign. 10 The corporate war dragged on until the final week of December. The only redeeming part of those grueling weeks was knowing that when I returned to the cold glass tower, there was a warm body waiting beneath the duvet. Shane was a heavy sleeper. One night, I found him dead to the world, a faint red crease pressed into his cheek from the pillow. I stood by the bed, looking at him, an unreasonable irritation prickling at me. I wanted to hear his voice. I slid under the covers and deliberately pressed my freezing feet against his calf. He jumped, his face contorting in a groan. “Jesus Christ! Mercer, are you trying to give me hypothermia?!” He cursed, but he didn’t kick me away. “Sorry. Accidents happen. Go back to sleep.” “How the fuck am I supposed to sleep after that?” “Good. Stay awake then.” “You… get off me… mmph.” When I woke the next morning, the gray winter light was filtering through the sheer curtains. Shane was still out cold. I slipped out of bed with utmost care, but before I walked toward the dressing room, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning down and pressing a feather-light kiss to his forehead. It didn’t carry an ounce of lust. As I pulled away, Shane’s hand twitched in his sleep, his fingers curling slightly into the sheet—the exact same way he unconsciously held onto the hem of my shirt when he drifted off beside me. When bodies stay tangled for too long, the distance between hearts begins to fray. And it happens without a sound. It was New Year’s Eve. Following tradition, I prepared holiday bonus envelopes for the domestic staff. After handing them out in the marble foyer, I called the house manager over. “Find me another envelope.” He brought back a standard white one. I frowned. “Something bigger.” He returned with a heavy stationery envelope. “Bigger.” When we ran out of options, I stuffed a thick stack of cash into the largest one we had, took it upstairs, and set it gently on Shane’s nightstand. I leaned down, brushing the stray bangs from his forehead. “Happy New Year, Shane.” There was an embarrassing amount of tenderness in my voice, so quiet I barely recognized it myself. After I pulled the door shut with a soft click, the man on the bed slowly opened his eyes. A faint, tired smile touched his lips, his voice soft against the pillow. “Happy New Year, Adrian.” 11 The Mercer family was vast, which meant the annual New Year’s gathering at the ancestral estate in the hills was an exercise in performative elegance. Children ran through the manicured courtyard with sparklers. Near the bay window, my uncle was losing an aggressive game of chess to my grandfather. My mother, Victoria, approached me holding a flute of champagne, her diamonds catching the chandelier light. “Did you stop by the Montgomery estate this morning?” “I did.” “Good. Vivian is your future wife. Show some courtesy to her family.” I nodded vaguely, my fingers unconsciously fiddling with the leather band of my watch. Beneath the strap, hidden against my pulse point, was a faint ring of teeth marks Shane had left three nights ago. Outside, fireworks erupted over the valley. Inside, crystal clinked against crystal amid hollow laughter and polished smiles. Surrounded by all this glittering noise, an unbearable loneliness hollowed out my chest. I wanted Shane. I slipped out to the terrace, pulled out my phone, and dialed. He picked up on the third ring. The background was dead quiet. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Haven’t been back to my place in months,” he replied, his voice calm. “Doing some cleaning. Fixing a leaky pipe.” A beat. “Why? You need something?” “I’m a little…” The words jammed in my throat. I miss you was a sentence that had never existed in my vocabulary. “Bored.” A soft huff of laughter came through the receiver. “You’re surrounded by fifty of the richest people in the state and you’re bored?” Suddenly, a small tug hit my trouser leg. “Uncle Adrian! Come light sparklers with me!” my niece chirped. Shane heard her. “Sounds like you’re busy,” he said evenly. “Go back inside.” He hung up. I stood there for three seconds, looking at the black screen. I patted the little girl’s head. “Uncle has to leave, sweetheart. Go play with your cousins.” I snatched my coat off the hall rack and headed straight for the front double doors. My mother set her porcelain cup down, her voice sharp as glass. “Adrian. Where are you going?” My boots didn’t break stride. “Don’t worry about it.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “617940”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

On the evening of our third wedding anniversary, Nicholas Prescott stood before a room full of flashbulbs and federal prosecutors, publicly handing over the ledger that dismantled my family’s empire. Overnight, Robert and Marian Mercer tumbled from the heights of old-money Manhattan society into federal custody. I dropped to my knees on the polished marble floor, clutching at the hem of his tailored trousers, begging him for mercy. Nicholas looked down at my red, swollen eyes, his mouth twisting into a razor-thin sneer. “Love you? Evelyn, my entire existence has been about destroying you.” His voice was low, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd like shattered glass. “Fifteen years ago, when your parents drove mine to jump from our penthouse balcony for the sake of corporate debt, did they show any mercy? This isn’t cruelty. This is justice. The Mercer family owes me blood.” In the months that followed, he used my parents’ survival in prison as a leash, keeping me locked inside his sprawling coastal estate, subjecting me to slow, deliberate torment. When I took a blade to my wrists, he tore it from my grip. When I starved myself, he held my head back while private doctors forced nutrient lines down my throat. His face contorted with cold fury as he hissed into my ear: “I will drag you back from the edge every single time, Evelyn. I will keep you alive just to make sure you suffer for the rest of your days.” What Nicholas didn’t know was that my parents had never driven his family to their deaths. Nor did he know that “Donor E”—the anonymous benefactor whose trust fund had paid for his private schooling, his Ivy League tuition, and his rise from an orphaned boy to a Wall Street titan—had always been me. In the end, I climbed the cliffs behind the estate, seeking the only silence left to me. And that time, when I stepped off into the salt air, his outstretched fingers were just a second too late to catch the hem of my falling dress. 1 “Kneel, Evelyn. Beg them for forgiveness.” Nicholas’s voice had barely cut through the howling wind before the bodyguard behind me clamped two heavy hands onto the back of my skull, slamming my forehead down against the cold granite headstone. Crack. The impact vibrated through my teeth. Blood gushed from my split hairline, warm and thick against the freezing stone. A November squall was sweeping across the hillside cemetery, pelting us with driving rain. I had no umbrella, no coat; water and crimson rivers rushed together down the bridge of my nose, dripping onto the chiseled names of Arthur and Grace Prescott. The bodyguard didn’t pause. He grabbed my tangled, soaked hair, pulling my head back only to drive it into the stone again. And again. Not until the grey granite was slick with my blood did Nicholas finally lift two gloved fingers. “Get up,” he said, stepping forward. “Wipe it off. Don’t let your filthy blood stain my parents’ resting place.” My throat was raw, but I didn’t dare make a sound. Any sign of defiance would only be visited tenfold upon my parents in their upstate cells. For their sake, to keep the guards from looking the other way while they were beaten, I swallowed every scream. My body shuddered with violent tremors. I pressed my palms into the muddy sod, struggling three times before I managed to haul myself onto trembling knees. I reached into my pocket for a handkerchief, but Nicholas tossed a bundle of sodden, shredded fabric directly into the mud before me. My breath caught. My vision blurred. It was ivory silk and hand-sewn French lace. The bespoke wedding gown he had commissioned for me three years ago, shredded into ragged ribbons. Nicholas tilted his head, savoring the horror in my eyes. He stepped in, his leather-clad fingers pinching my jaw until bone ground against bone. “Heartbroken?” he whispered, his breath warm against my freezing skin. “Watching you walk down the aisle in this made me sick to my stomach. Every sweet word, every tender touch—it was an act, Evelyn. An agonizing performance. Using it as a rag to scrub my parents’ grave is the only real purpose it has ever served.” He leaned closer, his eyes pitch-black. “Scrub it clean. If that headstone isn’t dry, the warden won’t bother feeding those two old convicts tonight.” He released his grip, shoving me backward. I fell hard, the rough, gravelly earth tearing the skin off my palms. Satisfied by my humiliation, Nicholas turned on his heel. He slipped an arm around the slender waist of Elise Warren, pulling her under the shelter of his black umbrella. Elise shot me a smirk of triumphant pity over her shoulder as they walked down the stone path toward his idling Maybach. I had no choice. I gathered the wet shreds of silk, crawled back to the headstone, and began to wipe. Blood oozed from my forehead and the palms of my hands, mixing with the rain, smearing across the granite in ugly streaks. I had to scrub over and over, my fingers numb and stiff, fighting the downpour that refused to let the stone dry. I lost track of time. My knees went entirely numb; the rain soaked through my thin clothes until my core turned to ice. Eventually, the sky emptied itself, the rain tapering into a sullen mist. The bodyguard stepped forward, ran a calloused finger over the damp granite, and gave a reluctant nod. “That’ll do.” He reached down to haul me to my feet by my collar, but my strength was already gone. The heavy exhaustion that had been building inside me for months finally won. My eyes slipped shut, and my knees gave out completely. I tilted backward, falling into the dark. Before the light went out, a jagged edge of the neighboring plot’s stone base slashed deep across the side of my neck. A flare of sharp, brilliant pain—and then, a profound sense of lightness. I didn’t feel fear. I only felt relief. In the final fraction of a second before my consciousness shattered, through the blur of my fading vision, I caught a glimpse of Nicholas. He was running back down the gravel path, his umbrella cast aside in the mud, his face pale and contorted with sheer panic. “Evelyn! Evelyn, look at me!” His voice sounded muffled, as if coming from the bottom of an ocean. For a fleeting moment, it felt like an old dream—back when he still pretended that I was the center of his world. “Evelyn, don’t you dare close your eyes! Talk to me! Evelyn!” 2 I woke to the smell of damp plaster and industrial bleach. Opening my eyes, I stared at the peeling white ceiling of the basement utility room. I reached up, my stiff fingers brushing against the thick gauze wrapped around my neck. There was no surge of gratitude for being alive. Only a hollow, suffocating regret. I survived again. Before I could fully gather my senses, the heavy wooden door was kicked open. Mrs. Gable, the head housekeeper who had once bowed politely when I entered a room, stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. “Still lying there playing the invalid?” she sneered, tossing a bucket and a bundle of rags onto the concrete floor. “You think you’re still the mistress of this estate? You’re nothing more than a stray dog Nicholas keeps around to kick. Miss Warren wants the master suite cleaned from top to bottom. Get moving.” She grabbed my arm, dragging me off the narrow cot. My feet hit the floor, soft and unsteady. A deep, unnatural heat burned behind my eyes; fever had settled into my bones, making the room tilt. I picked up the bucket and climbed the stairs to the second floor. When I pushed open the double doors of the master bedroom, the breath left my lungs. Elise was straddling Nicholas’s lap in front of the mahogany desk, her slender arms looped tightly around his neck. They were kissing—deeply, messily. As I stepped over the threshold, she broke away with a soft gasp, a thin strand of saliva glistening between their parted lips before snapping. The sight struck me like an electric shock. The ache in my chest wasn’t a metaphor; it was a physical tearing, as though someone had forced a handful of broken glass down my throat. I lowered my head instantly, tightening my grip on the plastic handle of the bucket. “I apologize,” I whispered, staring at the floorboards. “Mrs. Gable told me Miss Warren requested the room cleaned.” Elise nestled further into Nicholas’s chest, her fingers playing with the lapel of his charcoal suit. Her voice was sweet, dripping with venom. “Oh, yes. Nicholas told me this used to be your bridal suite. No wonder the whole floor smells like defeat.” She looked down at me from his lap, her chin tilted high. “Take every piece of your clothing, every framed portrait, every little keepsake, and throw them in the incinerator. And don’t you dare use a mop. Get on your hands and knees with a rag. I want every single square inch scrubbed until it shines.” She turned her face toward Nicholas, pouting playfully. “Nicholas, darling, you don’t think I’m being too hard on her, do you?” Nicholas glanced at me. His gaze flicked over my fever-flushed cheeks, the dark circles under my eyes, and the white bandage at my throat, but there was no pity in his eyes—only irritation, as if my very presence were an unsightly stain on his rug. He looked away, pressing his lips softly against Elise’s temple. “Not at all. She’s a stray. Treat her however you like, as long as it makes you happy.” I pressed my lips together until I tasted copper, swallowed the shame, and sank to my knees. Keeping my head down, I dipped the rag into the cold water and began wiping the floor, inch by agonizing inch. Above me, Elise cupped Nicholas’s jaw, pulling him down into another lingering kiss. My mind betrayed me, dragging up memories of this very desk. Two years ago, right after we moved in, Nicholas had pulled me onto his lap in this exact spot, his head buried in the crook of my neck, whispering promises against my skin: Evelyn, it’s you and me against the world. I love you, Evie. More than my own life. I’ll spend every day making sure you never know a moment of sorrow. Thud. A sharp kick struck my ribs. I tumbled forward, my hands splashing into the grey water of the bucket. Nicholas looked down at me from the edge of the desk, his brow furrowed with cold impatience. “Take the trash out and finish inside the walk-in closet. Elise and I want to rest.” I used the wet rag to wipe away the stray tears that had dripped onto the hardwood, rose to my feet, and walked into the closet. Our wedding portraits had already been pulled from the walls; someone had used a box cutter to shred my face before tossing the frames onto the floor. My cashmere sweaters, my silk dresses, my jewelry boxes—everything had been stuffed carelessly into black heavy-duty trash bags. Every trace of the life we had built together had been systematically reduced to garbage. I dragged the bags out into the hallway. Through the cracked door behind me, I saw Nicholas sweep Elise up into his arms, carrying her toward the king-sized bed where I had slept for three years. She laughed, a high, melodic sound, before the heavy oak door clicked shut. Then came the muffled sounds of shifting sheets, gasps, and whispered intimacies. My feet felt like they were encased in concrete. I stood there in the corridor, unable to move, listening to the man I had loved make love to another woman in our bed. My fingernails dug into the meat of my palms until fresh blood broke through the scabs. The nausea hit me in violent waves; I braced myself against a marble pillar, dry-heaving until my ribs ached. The fever flared hot behind my temples. The world spun. I staggered toward the grand staircase. Standing at the top landing, looking down at the wide marble steps below, a profound, suffocating self-loathing rose up and swallowed me whole. I was tired. So deeply, impossibly tired. I closed my eyes, leaned forward, and let my weight drift over the edge. Just as the floor vanished beneath my feet, a calloused hand shot out from the side, gripping my wrist with crushing force and yanking me violently back onto the carpet. I opened my eyes, disoriented. Standing before me was a man in the estate’s black security uniform. His features were sharp, his jaw set, but his eyes held something I hadn’t seen in this house for months: fierce, desperate concern. He gripped my wrist tighter, leaning in so his lips barely grazed my ear, his voice a low, urgent murmur: “Miss Mercer. I’m going to get you out of here.” 3 “They spent fifty million on this engagement gala alone! Mr. Prescott treats Miss Warren like royalty.” “Well, can you blame him? I heard Miss Warren is actually ‘Donor E’—the secret benefactor who paid for his education after his parents passed away. Love combined with that kind of debt of gratitude? He’d give her the moon. But what I don’t get is why he suddenly downgraded the wedding to an engagement party.” “Oh, you didn’t hear? The benefactor’s identity isn’t fully confirmed. Mr. Prescott is still verifying the old trust records. He wanted this mysterious ‘Donor E’ to stand as their primary witness at the altar. Since he hasn’t tracked down the final paperwork, he pushed the wedding back and threw this gala instead!” The gossiping voices drifted past the service entrance. I leaned against the tile wall of the catering corridor, a faint, bitter smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. The “E” in Donor E didn’t stand for Elise. It stood for Evelyn. When I was sixteen, using the dividends from the trust fund my grandfather left me, I set up an anonymous endowment through our family attorney to cover the living and educational expenses of the orphaned son of Arthur Prescott. I chose the letter E simply because it was the first initial of my name. None of it mattered anymore. Even if Nicholas discovered the truth tomorrow, what difference would it make? We were separated by a chasm of ruined lives, prison bars, and hatred. We were enemies until the day we died. I kept my head down, picked up my mop and bucket, and walked toward the grand ballroom’s public restrooms to complete my assigned chores. As I passed through the service doors, an expensive leather shoe subtly extended from the edge of the hallway. Splash! I tripped, crashing hard onto the marble floor. The bucket tipped, dumping gallons of dirty, sudsy water all over my uniform. A ripple of cruel laughter broke out among the gathered waitstaff and high-society guests lingering nearby. Before I could push myself up, a pair of glittering silver heels clicked into my field of vision. Elise stood over me, her gown shimmering in the chandelier light, her face tight with barely suppressed rage. She looked around at the onlookers, then down at me, her eyes flashing. I lowered my head instantly, my voice hoarse. “Miss Warren, I’m sorry. I—” Crack. The slap was so hard it knocked my face sideways, my cheek slamming against the wet tile. Before I could draw breath, she struck me again. Crack. The metallic taste of copper flooded my mouth. My lips went numb. “You pathetic little cockroach,” Elise hissed under her breath, her chest heaving. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? Purposely making a scene at my engagement party to humiliate me?” She raised her hand for a third strike, her diamond rings catching the light. Mid-swing, a man’s hand caught her wrist mid-air. Elise spun around, furious words already on her tongue. “Who the hell do you think—Nicholas?” I looked up through my wet, tangled hair. Nicholas stood there, dressed in a bespoke tuxedo, looking tall and imposing. For a single, pathetic second—like the dying spark of a candle before it drowns in wax—a faint glimmer of hope rose in my chest. He had stopped her. Then Nicholas spoke, his tone smooth and cool. He took Elise’s raised hand, rubbing her reddened palm with his thumb, his voice filled with effortless tenderness. “Elise, if she offended you, tell the staff to deal with her. Why hurt your own hand? Look how red your palm is.” He brought her fingers to his lips, kissing them lightly. “Does it hurt?” The breath left my lungs. The pain in my chest didn’t flare; instead, it went completely, terrifyingly hollow. It was as if my nervous system, pushed past the limit of what it could endure, simply shut down all feeling to keep me from going insane. I didn’t give Nicholas the chance to order his guards forward. I couldn’t bear the thought of another beating at the hands of strangers. I raised my own right hand. And slammed it across my left cheek. Smack. The sound echoed sharply against the marble walls. I didn’t stop. I raised my left hand and struck my right cheek. Smack. Smack. Smack. A dozen times. Over and over, with everything I had left, until my jaw felt unhinged and blood trickled from both corners of my mouth onto my soaked collar. Only then did I let my hands drop to my sides. I looked up at Elise, my eyes empty. “I apologize, Miss Warren. I was careless. There is no need for your staff to dirty their hands on my account.” My voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “If you are still displeased, I can continue.” The hallway fell dead silent. Even Elise took a step back, her eyes wide with unease. The guests looked at me as if I were a madwoman who had lost all instinct for self-preservation. Nicholas stood frozen. His expression shifted into something strange—a fleeting, fractured look that almost resembled agony. He took two involuntary steps toward me, his lips parting as if to say my name. His Adam’s apple bobbed once, twice. Then his face hardened, his jaw tightening into a mask of cold dismissal. He waved a dismissive hand. “Get out of my sight.” I gathered my strength, picked up the overturned bucket, and walked down the corridor without looking back. Behind me, Nicholas’s voice rang out, sharp as a whip, directed at the maid who had tripped me: “Pack your things. You’re fired. Prescott House does not employ people who play petty games.” Elise hurried to his side, trying to link her arm through his. “Nicholas, darling, she was just—” He pulled his arm away, his voice ice-cold. “I told you before, Elise. Do not bring your street habits into this house. I have a headache. Go back to your suite.” Elise stood in the hallway, staring at his retreating back, her manicured nails digging deep into her palms. It was nearly midnight by the time I finished scrubbing the restrooms. Dragging my exhausted, aching body back down to the basement utility room, I found a small glass jar of burn ointment and sterile gauze sitting on the threshold. Inside my pocket, the burner phone Wesley had slipped to me buzzed faintly. I unlocked the screen: Everything is arranged, Miss Mercer. Hold on. Tomorrow, you’re free. 4 The day I ran from Nicholas Prescott, the sky broke open. The rain over the Long Island sound fell in sheets, violent and relentless, turning the sea below the cliffs into a churning cauldron of slate-grey foam. My face was still swollen and bruised despite the ointment, but I climbed the winding stone path to the ocean pavilion at the edge of the estate. The housekeeper had ordered me to clean the floor-to-ceiling windows of the clifftop guest house. Years ago, during the first summer of our marriage, Nicholas had brought me here when the waters were calm and blue. He had stood behind me, wrapping a cashmere shawl around my shoulders, whispering: You said you loved watching the ocean from high up, Evie. So I built this pavilion for you. Do you love it? Now, staring at my reflection in the dark glass, I saw a ghost covered in bruises, hollow-cheeked, with dead eyes. I didn’t dare remember anymore. Remembering was a slow suicide. The housekeeper had claimed I was the only one assigned to clean the pavilion today. But as I wiped the salt spray from the glass, the heavy oak doors behind me clicked shut with an ominous echo. I spun around. Elise stood near the entrance, wrapped in a fur coat. Behind her were four burly, rough-looking men in street clothes, their eyes roaming over me like vultures over carrion. Panic slammed into my chest like an adrenaline shot. I turned to sprint for the terrace fire exit, but the men moved faster. Two pairs of heavy hands slammed me down onto the polished oak floor, pinning my arms behind my back. Elise walked over slowly, the sharp click of her stilettos echoing off the high ceiling. She stopped beside my pinned hand, lifted her foot, and drove her metal stiletto heel straight through the delicate bones of my knuckles. I screamed, an agonizing, breathless sound. “You think you’re untouchable, don’t you?” Elise hissed, leaning down, her face twisted with rage. “You seduced him again, didn’t you? That’s why he canceled our wedding this morning! That’s why he fired my girl! He even had high-grade burn ointment delivered to your rat hole of a room! You’re the daughter of two convicted felons! You’re worth less than a stray dog, and you dare try to steal him back from me?” She twisted her heel deeper into my flesh, then pulled back and kicked me squarely in the stomach. The breath exploded from my lungs. A wave of iron rose in my throat; I choked, spitting dark blood across the floorboards. “I don’t have time to play games with you anymore,” Elise said, smoothing her coat. She looked over at the four men with a cruel, indifferent smile. “I brought some friends to keep Miss Mercer company. Let’s see if Nicholas still looks at you with pity after every man in this room has had his turn.” She turned and walked out, the heavy doors locking behind her. The men laughed, low and greasy, stepping closer. One of them knelt, his beer-soaked breath hot against my face as his heavy fingers ripped the collar of my shirt open. “Never had a high-society princess before,” he chuckled, pinning my shoulders down. “Hold still, sweetheart. It’ll hurt less if you don’t fight.” “Look at that skin,” another sneered, unbuckling his belt. “Hey, hold her legs. Let me get a taste first—fuck!” The moment his grip loosened around my knees, I drove the steel-capped toe of my work boot directly between his legs with every ounce of strength I had left. He shrieked, doubling over in agony. I scrambled backward like a wounded animal, pushed myself to my feet, and bolted up the spiral staircase toward the pavilion’s observation deck. Behind me, the sound of heavy boots pounded against the wooden stairs—a relentless, waking nightmare closing in. In the top-floor corner office of Prescott Tower in Midtown, Nicholas felt a sudden, inexplicable tremor in his chest. A deep, cold dread settled over him. A frantic knock shattered the silence. His executive assistant rushed in, out of breath, slamming a manila folder onto the mahogany desk. “Mr. Prescott! The forensic audit on the Prescott Educational Trust just cleared. We tracked the original escrow accounts for Donor E.” The assistant’s voice trembled. “It wasn’t Miss Warren. It was… it was Evelyn Mercer.” Nicholas stared at him, motionless. For three agonizing seconds, his brain refused to process the words. Then he lunged forward, grabbing the files. The documents were clear: established fifteen years ago, authorized by the Mercer family trust. Because Evelyn had been a minor at the time, the trust required the signatures of her legal guardians. Robert and Marian Mercer. His parents’ supposed mortal enemies had signed off on the trust that fed him, clothed him, and sent him to Harvard. They had willingly funded the son of the man who died in their wake—and years later, welcomed that same boy into their home as their son-in-law. “No,” Nicholas whispered, his hands shaking so violently the paper rattled. “No, this is wrong. Get the car!” He shoved the desk back, sprinting toward the private elevator. “Drive to the estate! Now! I need to hear it from her!” His mind was a storm of terror. If the Mercers had funded his entire life, what else had he been wrong about? When the car screeched to a halt outside the estate, Nicholas burst through the front doors, rain dripping from his coat. Mrs. Gable hurried forward, bowing low. “Where is she?” Nicholas demanded, his voice ragged. “Miss Mercer was sent to clean the ocean pavilion, sir,” Mrs. Gable stammered. “To prepare it for your wedding with Miss Warren—” Nicholas’s heart plunged. “I canceled the wedding with Elise this morning,” he said, his voice deadly quiet. Before Mrs. Gable could answer, a young kitchen maid broke through the staff entrance, tears streaming down her face. “Mr. Prescott! You have to go to the pavilion! Miss Warren brought four strange men up to the cliff house, and Miss Mercer is up there all alone!” Crack. The world went white. Nicholas didn’t wait for his security team. He bolted back out into the torrential rain, leaped into the driver’s seat of his SUV, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and tore up the narrow mountain road leading to the clifftop pavilion.

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1 The wedding march was three measures in. I stood at the beginning of the aisle in a strapless silk gown embroidered with thousands of micro-crystals, feeling the weight of the train pooling behind me. All I had to do was wait for Simon to walk down from the altar, take my hand, and lead me the rest of the way. Every seat in the cathedral was taken. Across the nave, the champagne tower caught the morning light filtering through the stained glass, throwing fractured diamonds across the pews. In the front row, my mother, Susan, clutched a lace handkerchief in her trembling fist, her eyes rimmed with red, smiling with a joy so fierce it looked like relief. Seven years. From eighteen to twenty-five. From cramped college dorms to the anchor desk at Channel 7 News. Everyone in our circle said the same thing: Nora Hayes was the luckiest woman in the city because Simon Mercer had carried her on his palms for nearly a decade. He stood under the vaulted archway, sharp in his bespoke tuxedo. I gathered the heavy satin of my skirt and took a step toward him. Then another. I was three paces away when his shoulders hitched. Simon winced, pressing the heel of his palm hard against his temple. He swayed, his knees buckling slightly, and Marcus, his best man, lunged forward to steady his elbow. “Simon?” A knot tightened in my throat. I reached out, my fingers brushing the lapel of his jacket, but he snapped his head up. The eyes that had watched over me for seven years—eyes that had always held a gentle, almost suffocating warmth—were completely blank. He looked through me as if I were a sheet of glass. A stranger trespassing in his line of sight. “Who are you?” he asked. The cathedral went dead. A rustle of confusion rippled through four hundred guests like dry leaves scraping across concrete. I froze. The train of my dress suddenly felt like cast iron anchored to the stone floor. Simon didn’t spare me another second. He looked straight past my bare shoulder, his gaze locking onto the second row of mahogany pews on the left. Evelyn Ward. His childhood friend. The fragile, sickly girl whose family lived next door to his growing up—the one who claimed the world was too loud, too sharp, and that she couldn’t survive without him nearby. Simon shook off Marcus’s grip. He walked past me with brisk, purposeful strides. Then, beneath the gaze of hundreds of colleagues, socialites, and my weeping mother, Simon sank onto one knee on the burgundy runner. He looked up at Evelyn, his microphone clipping his lapel, his voice low, steady, and amplified through every speaker in the vaulted ceiling. “Evelyn, marry me.” A pause, thick as suffocating smoke. “I’ve loved you for so long.” 2 The blood drained from my limbs, leaving my veins filled with slush. Marcus broke the trance first. He bolted down the aisle and grabbed Simon by the collar of his jacket. “Are you out of your goddamn mind, Simon?!” His voice echoed sharply against the limestone walls. “Seven years! Nora is the bride today! She’s twenty-four weeks pregnant with your twins! Don’t pull this psychotic stunt now!” Simon pulled his arm free with a light, dismissive scoff, looking at Marcus like he was a toddler throwing a tantrum in a grocery aisle. “Pregnant?” Simon turned his head slightly, glancing at me. The sheer indifference in his expression—the faint, patronizing irritation—was a blunt knife sawing slowly into my sternum. “I don’t know her,” he said. The room erupted. “What is happening? Did he have another episode?” “Is his amnesia back?” “Jesus Christ, what about Nora? Look at her bump…” My mother tried to stand, her hands gripping the pew in front of her, her lips trembling so violently she couldn’t form a syllable. I stood frozen in the middle of the aisle, my fingers gripping the stems of white calla lilies until the stalks snapped and green sap stained my satin gloves. Marcus’s face was gray. He gripped Simon by the nape of his neck and half-dragged him toward the private vestry off the side of the altar. The heavy oak door didn’t catch. It remained open by a sliver. I moved toward it like a sleepwalker, my feet carrying me across the stone floor without my permission, until I was pressed against the shadowed molding outside. Their voices cut through the jamb with razor clarity. “Are you really going to keep this charade going?” Marcus’s voice was a furious hiss. “Evelyn has a bad week, so you turn Nora into the town joke in front of four hundred people?” Charade. The amnesia. It was fake. The tips of my fingers went numb. A silence hung in the room for several seconds. When Simon spoke, it was that same low, measured voice I had fallen asleep to for seven years—reasonable, calm, utterly devoid of guilt. “Evelyn is spiraling, Marcus. Her doctor said the stress could trigger another cardiac event.” “So you destroy your pregnant fiancée?!” “Evelyn depends on me. She only listens to me,” Simon said evenly, as if explaining an algebraic equation. “I have to give her absolute, unmistakable proof that she comes first. It’s the only way to stabilize her.” Marcus sounded incredulous. “And Nora? She’s six months along! You humiliated her at her own wedding! What happens when she finds out this was all staged?” “Nora will fix herself.” The reply came without an instant of hesitation. “She’s always been sensible, Marcus. Since she was a kid, she’s known how to handle her own mess. With my intermittent amnesia as an excuse, she’ll rationalize it. She always finds an excuse for me.” 3 My spine pressed flat against the chilled plaster. So that was it. The rare, tragic diagnosis. The transient dissociative amnesia his private neurologist had supposedly confirmed three years ago. Every time he looked at me with unrecognizing eyes. Every time he abandoned our anniversary dinners to rush across town because Evelyn couldn’t breathe. Every time he wavered between two women, retreating into the fortress of a convenient, untestable mental fog. It was theater. Seven years of immaculate, rehearsed theater. And for seven years, I had believed him. I had wiped my own tears in hospital waiting rooms, smoothed things over with his horrified friends, comforted my weeping mother, and swallowed every humiliation whole. I had held his hand in the dark and told him, It’s okay, Simon. I love you enough for the both of us. We’ll wait for you to come back. I was the clown in his private circus. Inside the vestry, Simon spoke again, adjusting his cuffs. “Stay out of it, Marcus. If something happens to Evelyn because I hesitated, I won’t be able to live with myself.” I closed my eyes. When I opened them, the small, desperate ember of love I had nurtured since I was eighteen was gone. Not smothered. Crushed into fine, gray powder. He was right about one thing. I was sensible. I knew how to fix myself. And once I fixed myself, I didn’t want his child. And I didn’t want him. I turned around, lifting the hem of my dress, and walked back onto the raised platform. The officiant was still standing frozen behind the pulpit, holding the leather-bound service book like a shield. Four hundred guests stared at me, their eyes burning into my skin like branding irons. I didn’t look back at them. I walked up to the minister, reached out, and took the wireless microphone from his hand. The metal casing was still warm from Simon’s palm. I turned to the congregation. My voice, honed by years of live news broadcasts, came out entirely level. “Thank you all for coming,” I said. “Please consider this your official notice: the wedding is canceled.” Total silence fell over the room. “From this moment forward, Simon Mercer and I have no relation to one another. Our lives are separate.” I set the microphone gently on the wooden lectern. I stepped down from the dais just as the vestry door swung open. Simon stepped out. Hearing my announcement, his face didn’t register a flicker of surprise or panic. He didn’t even look in my direction. Instead, he walked straight back to the second row. He leaned over Evelyn Ward, brushed a stray dark curl away from her forehead, and smiled with infinite tenderness. “Little princess,” he murmured, his voice carrying clearly in the quiet. “Want to ditch this place with me?” A sharp intake of breath rippled across the pews. I smiled. A tiny, genuine pull at the corner of my mouth. It was astonishing how quiet a heart could be when it finally stopped beating for someone. I walked to the front row where my mother sat. Her tears were soaking through her lapels, her hands shaking so hard she couldn’t pick up her purse. “Nora…” she choked out. “My sweet girl…” I pulled a tissue from my pocket, gently dabbed the corners of her eyes, and kept my voice low. “It’s over, Mom. Let’s go home.” 4 After settling my mother into a quiet boutique hotel room downtown and making sure she had taken her blood pressure medication, I called an Uber. The driver glanced at my smeared eyeliner in the rearview mirror. “Where to, miss?” “St. Jude Women’s Pavilion,” I said. “Emergency admission.” He didn’t ask another question. Outside the window, the neon signs of the city blurred into streaks of magenta and cold blue. My hand rested instinctively on the swell of my belly. Twenty-four weeks. Twins. Two little boys. The sonographer had told me at my last scan that they were thriving, measuring slightly ahead of schedule, curled around each other like two small apples. I used to keep the ultrasound printouts hidden in a locked folder on my phone, waiting for Simon’s next “lucid period” so we could celebrate together. There would be no celebration. At the hospital, I bypassed the regular triage desk and checked in directly at maternal-fetal medicine. The intake nurse took my chart, glanced at my driver’s license, and then looked down at my intake form. Her pen stopped moving. “Ms. Hayes,” she said, her voice dropping to a cautious, clinical whisper. “You’re requesting a late-term termination for a twin pregnancy?” “Yes.” “Given your gestational age, this requires medical induction and a surgical evacuation. The risks are substantial. Severe hemorrhaging, uterine scarring, infection, and a permanent risk of secondary infertility.” She hesitated, looking at the diamond engagement ring still on my left hand. “Is your partner here? Have you discussed this with your family?” I looked down at my lap. My fingers curled into a fist, then slowly relaxed. Discuss it? With whom? With the man who dropped to one knee before another woman while his unborn children were inside me? I knew better than anyone what it felt like to grow up in the shadow of a lie. My mother had been deceived into being a married man’s secret mistress for seven agonizing years. I had spent my childhood hearing the whispers behind closed doors, branded a bastard child by suburban neighbors who looked at me with pity and disgust. I swore on my life that my children would never inherit that legacy. They would never be treated as the collateral damage of a coward’s double life. “I don’t need to discuss it,” I said, meeting her eyes. “My signature is on the consent form. Please prepare the room.” 5 Before they wheeled me into the procedure suite, the nurse prepped my arm for an IV line. I turned my head away, watching the fluorescent lights humming in the ceiling. My phone buzzed on the stainless steel bedside stand. A push notification from Instagram. I unlocked the screen with an unsteady thumb. It was a new post from Evelyn Ward. In the photo, she was wearing my custom-tailored silk reception gown—the one I had left in the bridal suite—reclining into Simon’s chest. The background was the ballroom at the St. Regis, where our reception had been scheduled. The five-tier cake stood behind them; the champagne tower remained untouched. Her caption read: Rock bottom isn’t terrifying when someone chooses you again and again, healing every wound you never thought would close. A cascade of likes rolled in beneath it. Marcus’s profile picture was among them. I stared at the image. Her childhood insecurities were worthy of being healed by Simon’s public, theatrical devotion. But my life, my mother’s dignity, and the two heartbeats fluttering beneath my ribs were simply disposable. I laid my hand flat against my stomach. A bitter, metallic taste flooded my mouth. “Family needs to step out,” the transport tech announced, pulling open the curtain. “We’re rolling.” I closed my eyes. As the propofol burned through my vein, cold and thick, I heard something deep in my chest snap. A clean, final fracture. 6 The surgery was complicated by heavy bleeding. The attending physician informed me that my uterine wall was thinned, and the blood loss had exceeded typical thresholds. I had to remain in the recovery bay until late afternoon with an abdominal pressure pack. I lay under the scratchy hospital sheet, watching the water stains on the ceiling tiles. My stomach was flat again. Empty. The emptiness hurt worse than the physical cramping tearing through my pelvis. At four o’clock, the doctor finally signed my discharge papers. “Bed rest for at least two weeks, Ms. Hayes. No heavy lifting, no cold baths, and absolutely no emotional stress. If the bleeding picks up again, come straight to the ER.” I nodded. I stopped by an attorney’s office two blocks from the hospital. In thirty minutes, an experienced family lawyer drafted a clean separation agreement and property division for our co-owned property. She was an older woman who listened to the timeline with tightening lips and a trembling jaw. “You should have left him years ago, dear,” she murmured as she stamped the notary seal. “I know,” I said. By the time the cab dropped me off at our high-rise condominium, twilight had bruised into navy blue. Every step up the carpeted hallway felt like walking through wet cement. I leaned against the doorframe, catching my breath before punching in the keypad code. The door clicked open. I froze. The living room lights were glowing softly. Evelyn was curled up on our Italian leather sofa, draped in my champagne silk robe—the one I had bought three months ago for my wedding night. She held a mug of chamomile tea, looking entirely at home. When the lock beeped, she looked up, her expression entirely neutral. “What are you doing here?” she asked. From the kitchen, the hum of the range hood clicked off. Simon walked out carrying two plates of glazed salmon. The moment his eyes landed on me, his brows knit into an irritated scowl. “Are you serious, Nora?” His tone was thick with exhaustion, like an exasperated homeowner dealing with a persistent stray dog. “I don’t even remember you right now. Stalking me back to my apartment—isn’t this getting pathetic?” Evelyn gave his arm a gentle, playful nudge. “Simon, be nice.” I stood by the entrance console, a cold draft sliding through my coat. My limbs were shaking from blood loss, but the sheer absurdity of the tableau gave me a strange, chilling clarity. I reached into my bag, pulled out the manila envelope, and tossed it onto the kitchen island. “Simon,” I said, my voice deadpan. “How long do you plan to keep playing the amnesia card?” 7 Simon’s hand froze mid-air, the plate hovering an inch above the marble island. The silence that followed was suffocating. He set the plate down slowly. Without looking at me, he walked over to Evelyn, whispered a few soothing words into her ear, guided her gently into the master bedroom, and pulled the door shut behind her. When he turned back around, the blankness in his eyes was gone. He looked exhausted, calculating, and slightly annoyed. “Marcus told you?” he asked quietly. I didn’t answer. He let out a long breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as if organizing his patience. “Nora, Evelyn’s nervous system is shot. She’s been in and out of clinics since we were kids. She relies on me. If I don’t give her absolute reassurance, she spirals into self-harm.” “And me?” I asked. It wasn’t an accusation; it was barely a question. He hesitated for two seconds. “You’re overcomplicating things. It’s an outward gesture, Nora. You know I have an obligation to her—” “An obligation?” “I care about her,” he said smoothly. “But I love you.” I stared at him. The man I had shared a bed with for seven years. He had managed to reduce seven years of gaslighting, public humiliation, and calculated abandonment into a tidy little phrase: an outward gesture. Seeing my silence, Simon softened his posture. He took a step toward me, reaching out to pat my shoulder like an adult soothing an unreasonable child. “Be good, Nora. Don’t throw a fit over optics. Tomorrow morning, I’ll take you to City Hall. We’ll get the marriage license signed properly. Just the two of us.” City Hall. In seven years, he had proposed three times, and all three times, the actual registry appointment had been canceled because Evelyn had an emergency. Now, he was offering me a courthouse signing like a bone thrown to a dog. I nudged the manila envelope toward him with one finger. “Keep it,” I said. “We’re breaking up—” The master bedroom door slammed open. Evelyn charged out, her hands clutching her head, her face pale and damp with tears. “You’re leaving me… you’re going to marry her anyway… I can’t breathe, Simon, I can’t do this anymore—” She stumbled toward the floor-to-ceiling balcony doors. Simon’s face drained of color. He lunged across the living room, catching her around the waist just before she reached the sliding glass. “Evelyn! Stop! Look at me!” She thrashed in his arms, sobbing hysterically. Then, suddenly, she turned her head, saw me standing by the island, and lunged. Her fingers hooked into my hair before I could react. Crack. Her open palm struck my cheekbone. “You!” she screamed, her spit hitting my face. “You’re trying to steal him from me! Get out! Leave him alone!” A second slap landed across my ear, followed by a third. My post-op body had no balance; my knees buckled, and I went down hard on the hardwood floor. A sharp, hot tear ripped through my pelvic wall, and the taste of copper filled my mouth. Before I could push myself up, Evelyn abruptly dropped to her knees, clutching her own shoulders, shaking violently. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” she sobbed into the carpet. “I didn’t mean to… I couldn’t control it…” Simon dropped beside her, wrapping both arms around her trembling frame, pulling her tightly against his chest. Then, he looked up at me. There was no horror in his face. No instinct to help me up. Only cold, mounting resentment. “Nora,” he snapped, his voice sharp with blame. “You know how unstable she is. Why did you have to come back here and trigger her?” 8 I lay on the floor for a long time, unable to gather enough strength in my core to stand. Through the veil of my disheveled hair, I saw Evelyn resting her cheek against Simon’s shoulder. As his hand stroked the back of her head, she tilted her chin slightly. Her eyes met mine. And in that split second, her trembling lips curved into a distinct, razor-sharp smirk. It was deliberate. Triumphant. A cold numbness spread through my chest, drowning out the throbbing pain in my cheek. I dragged myself up, using the side of an armchair for leverage. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely keep my grip. Before I could take a step toward the guest room, Simon’s hand shot out and clamped around my wrist. He was still kneeling, looking up at me with an unyielding scowl. “Apologize to her, Nora.” Apologize. The word echoed in the empty spaces of my mind. With it, the very last fragment of warmth I had preserved for this man vanished completely. I jerked my wrist out of his grip with every ounce of strength I had left. Without a word, I stumbled into the guest bedroom, dragged my duffel bag from the closet, and began tossing my clothes inside. Outside, Evelyn’s muffled whimpering continued through the drywall. “Simon… did I ruin everything again? I didn’t want to hurt her… my chest hurts so much…” Simon’s voice was lower than silk. “It’s not your fault, Evie. I’m right here. You’re safe.” I sank onto the carpet, my forehead pressed against the zipper of my suitcase, my nails digging into the skin of my palms until they bled. Halfway through packing, my phone vibrated in my coat pocket. It was Sandra Powell, the executive producer at Channel 7. I took three shallow breaths, swallowed the blood pooling behind my teeth, and answered. “Sandra?” “Nora, thank God you picked up,” Sandra said, her voice taut with urgency. “Someone leaked the footage from the cathedral. It’s on TikTok, and local news blogs have picked it up.” My stomach plummeted. “What are they saying?” “Someone claiming to be an insider is running a smear campaign on Twitter,” Sandra said, sighing heavily. “They’re framing you as a homewrecker who trapped a wealthy man with a pregnancy while his sick childhood sweetheart was pushed aside. The comments are disgusting, Nora. Broadcast standards has already called me. You need to keep your head down, or management is going to pull you off the six o’clock broadcast.” I closed my eyes. “I understand. Thank you for the heads-up, Sandra.” I hung up and tapped on Twitter. The top trending post under our city’s hashtag was from an account called @EvelynsSun. It was a detailed, emotional thread narrating the tragic romance of Simon Mercer and his delicate childhood love, portraying me as the opportunistic, ambitious journalist who wedged herself between them using an unplanned pregnancy as leverage. The final tweet read: I don’t understand why Ms. Hayes had to do this. Simon and I grew up together; we only took a break. But as long as he’s happy, I will step aside. The replies were a wall of vitriol: —Desperate social climber gets what she deserves. —Getting pregnant out of wedlock to secure a bag? Classic. —Justice for the real partner. My vision blurred, the edges turning gray and static. A cold sweat broke out across my collarbone. I tried to brace myself against the bed frame, but my hands slipped. The room tilted violently, and darkness swallowed the floor. 9 I woke up to the smell of hospital-grade antiseptic and the steady hum of an IV monitor. I turned my head. Simon was sitting in the vinyl armchair beside the bed, looking rumpled and tired. When he saw my eyes open, a flicker of relief—and perhaps a ghost of affection—crossed his face. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a fever?” he asked softly. “If Evelyn hadn’t heard you collapse in the guest room, you could have gone into septic shock.” He reached out, his hand cool against my forehead. “The fever finally broke.” I looked away from him, staring at the sterile white curtain. The window showed a pitch-black night. I reached toward the bedside table for my phone. Simon’s hand moved quickly, hovering over the screen before he reluctantly handed it over. “Don’t look at it right now, Nora. You need to rest.” My chest tightened. I swiped the screen open. Over eighty missed calls. Dozens of frantic texts from colleagues and college friends. And on the local trending tab, a new headline blazed: #Channel7AnchorNoraHayes HighSchoolScandal My thumb shook as I opened the link. Three hours ago, @EvelynsSun had posted another update. This time, she claimed to be a former high school classmate of mine from suburban Ohio. The thread alleged that I had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with our married track coach, Mr. Harrison, causing a scandal in our district. Attached was a class graduation photo. And next to it: a grainy, telephoto shot of Mr. Harrison walking into an OB-GYN clinic in Cleveland, his hand resting on the shoulder of a young woman whose back was turned to the camera. The angle made her hair and posture look eerily identical to mine at seventeen. The caption read: I wasn’t going to say anything, but since she ruined an innocent woman’s wedding, everyone should know the truth about how she operates. A tear slipped silently down my temple, soaking into the cotton pillowcase. I looked at Simon. “Ruining my career. Does that make the two of you feel better?” Simon answered instantly, his tone defensive. “This has nothing to do with Evelyn.” His certainty was absolute. “She doesn’t know anyone from your high school. She wouldn’t even know where to find these pictures. You probably crossed someone in the industry, Nora. An ambitious rival taking advantage of the wedding press.” He paused, his eyes shifting away from mine toward the baseboard. “Or,” he added quietly, “maybe there’s some truth to it.” 10 A sharp, acidic burn shot straight through my sinuses. I stared at him, my voice barely audible. “You think it’s true?” Simon kept his eyes fixed on the wall. “True or not, it doesn’t matter anymore, Nora. It’s in the past. I wouldn’t leave you over something that happened when you were a teenager.” My ribs felt like they were collapsing inward, suffocating my lungs under an impossible weight. My phone rang again. It was Sandra Powell. I pressed the speaker button, my voice hoarse. “Sandra.” “Nora,” Sandra sighed, sounding bone-tired. “You know corporate policy on morality clauses. With the station’s parent company going through a merger, management won’t tolerate this kind of press.” “I understand.” “Take a personal leave. Settle your domestic situation. We’re moving Jessica up to cover the evening desk starting tomorrow.” The call ended with a dull click. The phone slipped from my limp fingers, landing against the rough hospital blanket. I stared at the ceiling tiles, counting the tiny black dots in the plaster. When I spoke, my voice was a flat, dead whisper. “Simon.” “We’re done.” “Get out of my life.” Simon sighed, pressing his fingers into the corners of his eyes. His tone shifted back to that practiced, patronizing cadence—the voice he used when I was being ‘difficult.’ “Stop it, Nora. I know you’re humiliated. I know you’re upset.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the mattress. “But you won’t leave me. We’ve been together seven years. You’re carrying my children. You don’t know how to exist without me, and I know you’re not going to raise those babies alone.” Seven years of devotion. My unborn twins. To him, they weren’t sacred milestones of a shared life. They were leverage. Guarantees that I would remain his compliant, ever-forgiving spectator. The hollow ache in my chest didn’t flare into rage. It settled into a cold, flat calm. His phone buzzed in his breast pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the caller ID, and immediately stood up. “I need to take this,” he murmured. Two minutes later, he pushed the door back open, pulling his coat on. “Evelyn is having another panic attack,” he said briskly. “Her blood pressure is through the roof. I have to go back and check on her.” He walked to the foot of the bed, his tone matter-of-fact. “You’re an adult, Nora. Learn to take care of yourself for one night. Stop overthinking everything.” He reached for the door handle. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” The door clicked shut. His footsteps receded down the linoleum hallway. I looked back at the ceiling. I couldn’t even summon the energy to feel disappointed. 11 Ten minutes after Simon left, a floor nurse entered with an IV bag of saline. She paused at the door, glancing down the empty hallway where Simon had just disappeared. “Was that your husband?” she asked, adjusting the flow valve. “I tried to catch him at the nurses’ station to go over your discharge restrictions. You had a late-term surgical termination of twins yesterday morning, followed by a secondary uterine hemorrhage. You cannot be left alone under any circumstances—” She stopped, noticing my silence. “He told you he had an emergency?” she guessed, her professional mask cracking into quiet sympathy. “Yes,” I whispered. She hung the bag on the metal stand and gently tucked the blanket around my shoulders. “You’ve had two significant bleeds in thirty-six hours, Ms. Hayes. Your hemoglobin is critically low. You cannot afford an emotional breakdown right now. Please, try to sleep.” I nodded, closing my eyes, letting the saline drip cold into my arm. By three o’clock the following afternoon, my fever had vanished, and the cramping had dulled to a low, manageable ache. I signed my own discharge against medical advice and called a cab back to the condominium to gather the rest of my legal documents and clothing. The penthouse was silent when I entered. On the glass coffee table in the center of the living room sat a massive bouquet of three dozen long-stemmed red roses. And resting against the crystal vase were two embossed leather folders. State of New York. Certificate of Marriage. My feet seemed to root themselves to the floorboards. I walked forward as if drawn by a wire, reaching out with a trembling hand to open the top folder. The gold lettering gleamed beneath the recessed spotlights. The photograph showed Simon Mercer in a crisp charcoal suit, and Evelyn Ward wearing a cream lace dress with a fingertip veil. Both of them were smiling with effortless, radiant ease. The date stamped at the bottom was today. Ten o’clock this morning. A dry, hollow laugh escaped my throat. Last night, in my hospital room, he had promised to take me to City Hall to ‘make things right.’ This morning, he had married Evelyn Ward. The bedroom door clicked open. Simon walked out carrying a glass of water. When he saw me standing over the coffee table holding the certificate, he froze. “Nora? What are you doing out of the hospital?” His gaze shifted to the papers in my hand. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t flinch. He simply exhaled a slow, weary sigh, as if explaining an inconvenient administrative delay. “Evelyn is pregnant,” he said. I stared at him. “Last month, on our anniversary trip, you got angry about her calling me and took the train home early,” Simon explained calmly. “She came over to the hotel. We were both drinking. It happened once.” He took a sip of water. “She started vomiting yesterday morning. I took her to urgent care, and the blood test confirmed it. She’s five weeks along.” He looked at me with an expression that bordered on pity. “Nora, she isn’t strong like you. She couldn’t survive the social shame of having a child out of wedlock. I couldn’t let my baby be born a bastard. So we went down to the municipal clerk this morning.” 12 The word hung in the air between us like cyanide. Bastard. I stood there, feeling the cold weight of the leather folder in my palm, my mind struggling to process the sheer depravity of his logic. “And my children?” I asked. My voice sounded thin, scraping against the back of my throat like dry sandpaper. “My twins… they’re supposed to be born bastards?” Simon sighed again, stepping closer, his voice dropping into that soothing, reasonable register. “Once you deliver, we’ll handle it legally. We can arrange an open adoption agreement through Evelyn. On paper, she’ll be their mother of record, and they’ll have the Mercer name. No one will ever know.” He reached out, his fingers lightly brushing my arm. “Nora, a piece of paper doesn’t change what we have. Even with this marriage, you are the woman I love. Nothing between us has to change. You’ve always been sensible, Nora. You understand why I had to do this, don’t you?” Seven years. Seven years of shared meals, shared beds, shared secrets. And in the end, his cruelty was so absolute because he genuinely believed I lacked the pride to walk away. I let out a short, ragged breath. “Nothing changes? You want me to be your secret mistress?” Simon fell silent. He looked down at his leather loafers, then met my eyes, his tone deadening into something vile. “Your mother lived as a mistress for seven years, Nora,” he said quietly. “It’s not like the concept is unfamiliar to you.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “617938”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I was raped. When I woke up, my phone was waiting with photos of my naked body. The message read: You look better in the shower than you do dressed. I scrolled frantically through my contacts and called the only person in the world I trusted—Cole Mercer. He said, “Don’t move. I’m on my way.” He checked the security feeds, brought me warm milk, moved me into his place, and pulled me back from the edge of a nervous breakdown. On the seventh night, I realized he had been standing outside my bedroom door every single night. And the scar on his wrist matched the exact width of the bruises around my throat. 1 I was raped. When I woke up that morning, the dull, throbbing ache through my joints and the violent constellation of bruises in the bathroom mirror told me the nightmare had been real. I crouched on the tile under water hot enough to scald, scrubbing until my skin bled. But the marks felt carved into the bone. No amount of soap could wash them away. Then I picked up my phone. Two photos had arrived from an unknown number. They were pictures of me, passed out cold, completely naked. The lighting was dim, but the purple handprints clamped around my throat were unmistakable. A third text popped up: Call the cops, and these go straight to your office Slack. My fingers trembled against the glass. The fourth message followed immediately: You look better in the shower than you do dressed. I lunged toward the window, tearing the curtains back. The courtyard below was quiet. Empty. Panic took over. I checked every window latch, ran to the front door, and threw both deadbolts. Sliding down the wooden panel until I hit the floor, my palms broke out in a cold, suffocating sweat. I scrolled through my contacts, looking for a lifeline, and dialed Cole Mercer. We had grown up together. He was two years older than me, a brilliant programmer who could pull apart any piece of software. If anyone on earth could trace this monster, it was Cole. 2 4:17 AM. The phone rang five times before the connection clicked open. “…Jesse?” His voice was thick with sleep, but he pronounced my name with sudden, razor-sharp clarity. I opened my mouth. The tears got there before the words did. “…Cole.” Silence fell on the other end for two beats. Then came the violent rustle of bedsheets, followed by the metallic jangle of keys. “Where are you?” “Home.” “Stay on the line. Don’t hang up. I’m coming.” The roar of an engine ripped through the receiver, crackling over the static. His breathing was heavy and ragged, like he had bolted from his sheets straight into the driver’s seat. In under twenty minutes, my doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole. It was him. His white t-shirt was wrinkled, his grey sweatpants rumpled, his dark hair a mess. The second I pulled the door open, his pupils shrank. His hand rose, hovered above my head for half a beat, and then pressed gently against the nape of my neck, pulling me forward. “Inside,” he murmured. “Let’s talk inside.” 3 He closed the door behind him, guided me to the sofa, and knelt on the hardwood, looking up into my face. “What happened?” I handed him the phone. He looked at the two photos. His eyes lingered on the screen for only a fraction of a second—so fast I wasn’t even sure he had processed them. But the knuckles clutching the frame turned stark, bloodless white. “…Did you call the police?” “He threatened me with the pictures. He said if I go to the cops, he’ll send them to everyone I work with.” Cole set the phone on the coffee table. He drew in a slow, ragged breath, stood up, paced the living room twice, and then knelt right back in front of me. “Jesse. Look at me.” I lifted my eyes. “I’ll pull the metadata. I’ll trace the IP. But you cannot stay here alone. Pack a bag. You’re coming to my place.” “I… you have so much work—” “Jesse.” His voice dropped, low and fierce. “Do you have any idea what you just went through? You think I could sleep knowing you’re here alone?” He took my wrist. His grip was feather-light, his palm radiating heat. “I have an empty guest room. You stay with me. I’ll drive you to work, I’ll cook dinner. You don’t have to lift a finger. Just stay there until I find him.” His eyes were ink-black. Watching me, he looked more devastated, more unhinged by the situation, than I was. In that second, something inside my chest caved in—a warm, aching ache of profound relief. Someone was catching me before I hit the ground. “…Okay.” 4 He stood immediately, walked into my bedroom, and pulled open the closet. “Let’s pack. A week’s worth of clothes.” “Right now?” “Every minute you spend in this apartment is another minute I’m terrified for you.” I leaned against the doorframe, watching his silhouette moving back and forth, folding my shirts, grabbing my coat. “Cole.” “Yeah?” “Aren’t you going to ask me… how it happened?” His hands paused. His back remained turned to me. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to ask.” He turned around, a stack of folded sweaters in his arms. “When you’re ready, I’ll listen.” I looked down, blinking rapidly against the burn in my eyes, and walked over to help him pack. When we walked out, I glanced back one last time at my apartment—the living room, the coffee table, the full-length mirror. I couldn’t bear to look at it. I pulled the door shut. Cole drove. I sat in the passenger seat, hugging a duffel bag against my chest. The stereo played a slow, muted piano melody. My head leaned against the glass as streetlights blurred past in amber streaks. Exhaustion dragged me under. “…Cole.” “Yeah?” “Thank you.” He didn’t reply. Halfway between waking and sleeping, I felt the car ease up on the accelerator. A warm hand reached across the console, brushed a stray lock of hair from my forehead, and pulled away just as quickly. I caught the whisper of a sentence, swallowed whole by the engine’s low hum. 5 That first night, the guest room was spotless. The sheets were crisp, dove-grey cotton, and an amber nightlight cast a soft glow on the bedside table. “Get some sleep. I’m right next door. If you need anything, just call out.” He reached over, flicked off the overhead light, and hesitated. “Jesse. Don’t be afraid.” The door clicked shut. I stared up into the pitch-black ceiling, listening to my own pulse hammer against my eardrums. The smell of the room was unfamiliar. The mattress felt strange. Even the air entering my lungs belonged to someone else. Still… it wasn’t that place. Eventually, exhaustion pulled me under. And then I was right back in that suffocating room. My wrists were pinned. A black blindfold cut off the world. The suffocating heat of another body pressed down into mine, heavy and unyielding. A hand dragged slowly down my throat, scraping my skin like thorns. “Don’t cry,” a voice murmured right against my ear, low, amused. “When you cry… it just makes me want to ruin you more.” 6 I gasped, shooting straight up in bed, drenched in ice-cold sweat. My phone screen flickered: 3:12 AM. Next door, a floorboard creaked. Then two soft knocks sounded against my door. “Jesse?” Cole’s voice drifted through the wood, raspy and low. “…I’m fine. Go back to sleep.” The handle turned anyway. He walked in wearing dark navy pajamas, carrying a glass of warm milk. He sat on the edge of the mattress and held it out. “Drink a little. Nightmare?” I took the glass and sipped. It was warm, sweet. He watched me finish it, took the empty glass, set it on the nightstand, and ruffled my hair with infinite care. “I’m right here. Go to sleep.” His palm was warm. His touch was gentle. My eyes stung as I closed them. Drifting off, a stray thought flickered through the fog in my head: There’s a wall and a heavy door between us. I didn’t scream. How did he know I was having a nightmare? 7 When I woke the next morning, the smell of butter and toast drifted from the kitchen. Cole stood by the stove in a grey linen apron, frying eggs. The morning sun caught the sharp angles of his jaw. “You’re up? Go wash your face. Sunny-side up, runny yolks, just the way you like them.” I hovered by the kitchen counter, rubbing my eyes. “What time did you get up?” “Around six. Habit.” He slid the eggs onto a plate beside two slices of golden toast. “Milk’s in the microwave. Grab it yourself.” I carried the warm glass to the breakfast table. He watched me take a sip, his gaze lingering on my collarbone for a fleeting second before darting away. “How’d you sleep?” “…Fine.” “The dream again?” My grip on the glass tightened. I didn’t answer. He didn’t pry. He pushed the plate closer to me. “Eat up. You’re fading away.” I took a bite of the toast. The familiar combination of rich yolk and salted butter tasted like my childhood. Cole had always been a great cook. When we were kids and his house was empty, he was already making dinner for us by the time he was twelve. “Cole,” I mumbled around a mouthful of bread. “Thanks.” He sat across from me, a small, subtle smile touching his lips. “Since when do you say thanks to me?” In that moment, I thought: Thank God I have him. Without him, I would have fallen apart entirely. 8 The nightmare didn’t leave. Like a predator marking territory, it dragged me back into the dark every single night. The voice, the weight, the laughter—it grew sharper, more vivid with every passing hour. On the third night, I woke up gasping at 3:00 AM, my heart kicking against my ribs like a trapped bird. I curled under the duvet, staring at the halo of the nightlight, digging my nails into my palms until the sharp sting anchored me to reality. Then came the knock. Cole walked in carrying another glass of warm milk, sweetened with honey. “Drink it. It’ll help you sleep.” I reached for it, our fingers grazing. I flinched. “Why are your hands so cold?” “Just got out of bed. It’s nothing.” He stood by the bedside, looking down at me in the dim light. “What did you dream about tonight?” I bit the rim of the glass and stayed silent. He didn’t push. He leaned over, tucking the edge of the blanket around my shoulders. “Try not to think so much.” He turned and walked out. As the door clicked shut, a strange scent lingered in the air. Fresh laundry detergent… mixed with something metallic. Like rust. I inhaled deeply, but the scent was already gone. A trick of the mind, I thought. Just a ghost of a dream. 9 I fell into the rhythm of this new life. By day, I went to work, and Cole drove me there and back. “You’re in no state to drive,” he had said, and I hadn’t argued. Every afternoon at five, his sedan was idling at the curb outside my office. At night, he cooked dinner—braised ribs, garlic greens, clear broths. And there was always a glass of warm milk pushed across the table when we finished. “Drink it. It’s good for you.” I teased him once, “You’re starting to sound like my mother.” He froze for a fraction of a second, then ducked his head, shoveling rice into his mouth, the tips of his ears flushing pink. Lying in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, I caught myself thinking: Maybe living like this forever wouldn’t be so bad. The nightmares remained, but every night around three, he would knock, hand me the milk, wait until I drained the glass, and tuck me in before leaving. Every time the latch clicked, it felt like he had locked the terror outside the door. And then a sickening wave of guilt washed over me: I was sexually assaulted. What right do I have to feel this safe? 10 On the fourth night, the voice returned. “Don’t cry,” the whisper purred against my skin, fingers digging into my waist. “You can’t run from me.” I woke up with a violent jerk, gasping for air, clutching the sheets with bloodless fingers. The knock came instantly. Cole walked in with the glass, the amber nightlight softening the contours of his face. I watched him approach, a sudden thought cutting through the haze: “Cole… do you ever actually sleep?” His foot paused mid-step. He extended the glass, his expression unreadable. “Of course I sleep. I just wake up the second you make a sound.” “Do I make that much noise?” “Yeah.” He stood over me, his features cast in shadow. “You scream sometimes.” “…What do I scream?” Silence stretched between us for two seconds. “Couldn’t make it out,” he said softly. “Drink your milk. It’s the weekend tomorrow. I’ll take you to the ocean.” I didn’t press him. But I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I never make a sound in my sleep. I had slept like a stone since I was a child. My mother used to joke that an earthquake wouldn’t wake me. Later that same night, I woke up again. Not from a nightmare. My eyes simply opened. My breathing was steady, my pulse quiet, the room drowning in silence. I turned my head toward the base of the door. Through the crack beneath the wood, there was a faint, unbroken shadow. Someone was standing right outside. Motionless. Like a carved statue. I held my breath. The shadow didn’t budge. I stared at it for what felt like an eternity—one minute, five minutes, ten. Then, the shadow shifted. Almost imperceptible footsteps faded down the hall toward the adjacent room. I stared at the pale sliver of light beneath the door, my mind racing in the dark: How long was he standing there? Why? If I sleep like the dead, why does he knock the exact second my eyes open from a nightmare? Does he stand outside my door all night… or does he not sleep at all? 11 Day five. The coast. The wind was brutal. Cole had driven two hours to a deserted stretch of grey, rocky beach. The winter ocean was a dull slate, waves crashing heavily against the jagged stones, throwing cold mist into the air. He walked ahead of me. I stepped carefully into his footprints in the sand. “Cole.” “Yeah?” “Who do you think… did this to me?” He stopped and turned around. The wind whipped his dark hair across his forehead. “I’ll find him,” he said, his voice flat, emotionless. A sudden chill crawled down my spine. “And when you find him? What then?” He didn’t answer. He walked back to me, reached out, and pulled the zipper of my winter coat all the way up to my chin. His cold knuckles grazed my jaw. “Wind’s freezing. Don’t catch a cold.” Looking at his downcast eyes, an ancient memory surfaced. When Cole was brought back by his father years ago, he was gaunt, silent, his wrists lined with faint, pale scars. When kids at school cornered him, I threw myself into the fight. I ended up with a bloody nose, and Cole knelt on the asphalt to wipe the blood from my face, his hands trembling violently. Jesse, don’t be so good to me, he had whispered. You’re my best friend, I had told him. Who else am I supposed to protect? He had stared at me for a long time, his voice swallowed by the wind: Then don’t you ever regret it. I hadn’t understood him then. Standing on this desolate beach, watching his back, an inexplicable dread settled in my stomach. Something was profoundly wrong. But I had no proof, no logic, no shape to give the fear. That night, he brought the warm milk as usual. “Cole,” I said, peering over the rim of the glass. “You said last night I screamed.” He looked at me. “What did I say?” He stood beside the bed, silhouetted against the hall light. A heavy silence hung between us before he spoke. “You screamed: Don’t touch me.” My chest seized. “Anything else?” “No.” When he said no, the corner of his mouth twitched. A ghost of a smile, there and gone. I lowered the glass. “…How do you remember so clearly?” He tilted his head slightly. “When have I ever forgotten a single thing about you?” The words left me completely speechless. He leaned down and carefully wiped a drop of spilled milk from the wooden nightstand, his thumb dragging slowly across the grain. “Sleep now.” After the door closed, I stared at the half-empty glass for a long time. Then I poured every drop into the potted ivy sitting on the windowsill. I lay down, closed my eyes, and stayed wide awake. 12 2:47 AM. The door next door opened. Footsteps padded down the hall, stopping directly outside my room. This time, I didn’t open my eyes to look at the shadow. I pulled the blanket to my chin and curled into a tight, rigid ball. He stood outside the wood for an agonizingly long time. So long that I thought he was going to turn the knob. Eventually, the floorboards creaked. He moved away. 1:00 AM had passed. 2:00 AM had passed. No nightmares. Because I hadn’t slept at all. 3:00 AM. Silence. 3:15 AM. A knock sounded against my door. 13 “Jesse?” Cole’s voice filtered through the wood—gentle, hushed, the exact same tone he had used for the past four nights, as if terrified of startling me. I didn’t answer. He knocked twice more, and then the brass handle turned. The door swung open an inch. He stood in the frame holding a warm glass of milk, his dark pajamas buttoned neatly to the collar. “Another bad dream?” I sat up straight in bed, staring right into his eyes. “Cole.” “Yeah?” “I haven’t slept a wink tonight.” His hand froze. The surface of the milk trembled, sending ripples across the white liquid. The bedroom went dead silent for three beats. And then, his lips curved. It wasn’t the warm, reassuring smile of the past four days. The gentleness remained on his lips, but his eyes turned completely black, like ice fracturing over a deep, violent current. The look of a hunter realizing the prey had finally noticed the trap. “Is that right?” he murmured. He stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him. Click. The deadbolt fell into place. “Good,” he said, setting the glass on the nightstand. A soft sigh escaped him. “Playing the saint for five days was getting exhausting anyway.”

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1 Even after the pregnancy test turned positive, my husband kept my daily grocery allowance at eight dollars. His secretary—a woman with the kind of sculpted, waist-to-hip ratio that looked engineered for high-fashion lookbooks—personally rejected my request for a dietary increase. “You’ve gained five pounds in your first trimester, Tessa,” Paige had said, looking at me over the rim of her designer glasses. “Our corporate partners are already whispering that Mr. Montgomery married a sow. From today on, every meal is steamed greens. No oil, no carbs.” I was so hungry my vision blurred when I stood up. Desperate, I took thirty dollars from Marcus’s dresser drawer and walked to a diner around the corner, where I inhaled two bowls of beef noodle soup until my stomach cramped from the sudden warmth. Before I could even walk back to the apartment, two patrol officers pulled up, handcuffed me against the brick wall, and took me to the precinct on a grand larceny complaint. Marcus arrived at the precinct, looking down at me in my handcuffs with an expression carved out of cold stone. “I give you an obscene amount of money every single day, and it’s still not enough? Now you’re resorting to petty theft?” The dam broke. I shook in the metal chair, tears scalding my cheeks. “You called the police on your pregnant wife over thirty dollars for food? Who’s the one resorting to extremes here, Marcus?!” His brows slammed together. “What thirty dollars? The accounting flagged thirty million.” Before my hollow, starving brain could process the words, his phone buzzed on the metal table. A text from Paige illuminated the screen, complete with a high-resolution snapshot of an invoice from an elite Fifth Avenue boutique: Mr. Montgomery, Mrs. Montgomery wasn’t satisfied with the cash she took. She just contacted my office demanding another five million in petty cash. Marcus stared down at his phone, his jaw muscles clenching so tight the skin paled around his mouth. From where I sat, clamped to the bolted table, I couldn’t see the screen. I only saw the look that settled over his features—a heavy, suffocating mix of disgust and profound disappointment. “You stole from our accounts just for this?” he asked, his voice dead and level. “Trinkets? Bags?” “If you won’t feed me, I’m not going to starve myself to death just to preserve your idea of marital dignity!” “Are you truly that insatiable, Tessa?” I dug my fingernails into my palms until they nearly drew blood. My eyes burned. Two bowls of soup at a greasy-spoon counter—that made me insatiable? That made me a monster? His thumb flicked across the glass of his phone. A second later, the sharp, automated chime of a completed wire transfer echoed in the small interrogation room. He stood up, adjusting the lapels of his bespoke charcoal suit. “I covered this invoice. But hear me clearly: this is the last time. I will not keep bailing out your bottomless greed.” “Well, thank you so much, Mr. Montgomery,” I spat, the sarcasm shaking with bile and unshed tears. “How generous of you.” He looked at my defiant, emaciated face, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. Turning to the desk sergeant, he said, “I will not be signing a waiver of non-prosecution. Process her however the statute dictates.” He turned on his heel and walked out, the heavy precinct door swinging shut behind him. During the seventy-two hours I spent in the county holding cell, he didn’t visit once. The only person who showed up was a junior associate from his family office’s legal team, carrying intake forms. I didn’t offer a single word of defense. In the eyes of the law, thirty dollars taken without permission was still technically petty theft, wasn’t it? Those three days in county lockup were, horrifyingly, the fullest my stomach had been in three months. My bunkmate watched me scrape every single grain of plain white rice and every limp green bean from the plastic tray, shoveling it into my mouth like a starving stray. She hesitated for a long time before leaning over her bunk. “Honey… did nobody ever feed you on the outside?” My cheeks were stuffed full. I froze. Never eaten good food? How could that be? When Marcus and I first started dating, he had hired private culinary instructors to master regional cooking. French sauces, Italian handmade pastas, rich, slow-simmered broths—whenever I mentioned a craving, he would carve two hours out of an eighty-hour executive workweek just to cook for me with his own hands. On our vacations, he took me through Michelin-starred dining rooms across the world, watching me take my first bites with genuine delight in his eyes. My throat tightened, a thick lump rising in my chest. I wiped the corner of my eye with the sleeve of my rough orange jumpsuit. How could the Tessa Hayes of three years ago ever have imagined that the man who once hand-peeled prawns for her would one day despise her for gaining weight during pregnancy? That she would end up in a concrete holding cell, treating lukewarm prison starch like a banquet? Seventy-two hours later, the medical staff ran a mandatory intake clearance, confirmed my vital signs weren’t crashing, and discharged me. I took the subway back to our penthouse. I had barely unlocked the front door when my phone rang. It was Paige. “Mrs. Montgomery, the municipal health portal forwarded your discharge summary. You gained three pounds during your three days in detention.” Paige’s tone was slick with contempt. “You managed to gain weight on jail rations? Are you biologically incapable of self-discipline?” Before I could get a word out, a notification flashed across my screen from our shared household account. Daily recurring allowance modified. “Starting today, your daily allocation is reduced by fifty percent,” Paige continued smoothly. “Until you shed those three pounds.” A direct deposit hit my checking app. Four dollars. 2 “Four dollars? Paige, that’s insane! How am I supposed to buy food with four dollars in Manhattan?” “These are Mr. Montgomery’s explicit instructions.” “What?” Over the line, Paige let out a low, mocking laugh. “You embezzled such a staggering fortune from Mr. Montgomery, and he’s still willing to grant you a living stipend. What right do you have to complain?” My body went rigid in the hallway. Thirty dollars spent on diner broth was considered a “staggering fortune” to Marcus? “Mr. Montgomery doesn’t even take you to executive galas anymore. Haven’t you figured out why?” Paige asked, her voice dripping with artificial pity. “If you hadn’t let yourself balloon into a circus act, would our prospective partners have dared to joke behind his back that he brought a barnyard animal home? I’m begging you, Tessa—for the sake of the Montgomery name, show some basic pride and watch your silhouette.” My voice cracked, tears choking my throat. “I’m pregnant, Paige! The baby is growing! How am I supposed to not gain a single pound—” “Eat less. It’s simple physics.” The line clicked dead. I called her back three times. Straight to voicemail. I called Marcus’s direct personal line. It rang until it timed out, unanswered. I turned on the television in the living room just to drown out the ringing in my ears. A financial news broadcast was playing a recap of the Global Commerce Summit from that morning. There was Marcus, cutting through the press corps, flanked by Paige. She was wearing a custom navy silk evening gown that hugged every curve of her frame. Nestled against her clavicle was a platinum-and-diamond pendant that had made headlines at Christie’s Geneva auction last month—sold for three million dollars. She leaned in toward Marcus, murmuring something that made him smile faintly, perfectly composed, perfectly polished. My phone vibrated with trending notifications from social media: Montgomery Capital CEO makes stunning appearance alongside lead aide. The power pair of Wall Street: beauty, brains, and billions. The comment sections were a feeding frenzy: —Look at that waist-to-hip ratio. I spend two hours a day in Equinox and I will never look like that. —God really gave her everything. —She looks like an editorial model, and here I am looking like an inflated balloon. The words inflated balloon burned into my retinas. My hands began to shake uncontrollably. I pressed my trembling palm against my lower belly, catching sight of my reflection in the dark television screen. My cheeks were hollow, my skin gray and sallow, my collarbones protruding like dry branches. “What are we going to do, little one…?” I whispered into the quiet, echoing room. Do I have to terminate this pregnancy? The thought terrified me, tearing through my chest like jagged glass. Before I let myself surrender to that darkness, I resolved to give Marcus one last chance to explain himself. I dialed his number ten times in succession. Ten rings. Ten automated disconnects. Finally, the eleventh time, the line picked up—but it wasn’t Marcus. “Mr. Montgomery is in a closed-door session with our European underwriters,” Paige said, her voice sharp with annoyance. “Could you please show a shred of decorum, Mrs. Montgomery? Stop harassing him every five minutes.” “Put him on the phone, Paige.” “I told you, he is in high-stakes negotiations.” “Then have him call me the second he steps out!” “I apologize, Mrs. Montgomery, but as his executive assistant, it is my professional duty to filter out non-essential domestic interruptions.” I gripped the phone until my knuckles turned white. “What gives you the authority to dictate what passes between a husband and his wife?” “If you continue this hysterical behavior,” Paige replied, ice-cold, “Mr. Montgomery will serve you with divorce papers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The call ended. When I tried again, my number had been blocked. I slid down the cold drywall of the hallway, pulling my knees to my chest in the dim apartment. I opened my bank app. My available balance was one dollar and eighty cents. An outpatient termination procedure at the nearest women’s clinic cost nearly two thousand dollars without insurance clearance. My parents were retired blue-collar workers out in Pennsylvania, living off meager pensions and occasional day-labor gigs that paid barely eighty dollars a shift. Just last week, my mother had wired me a thousand dollars she had pinched together from her savings, begging me to buy vitamins and fresh fruit for the baby. But between the mandatory co-pays for my initial prenatal panel and iron supplements, I had already burnt through eight hundred. They had nothing left to give, and I would rather die than ask them for another dime. Sitting in the unlit room, I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and let out a shuddering, broken breath. In the three years I had known Marcus, outside of normal courtship gifts and prenatal medical bills, I had never asked him for a cent. My parents had refused every single offer of financial assistance from their billionaire son-in-law, fiercely determined to stand on their own two feet so Marcus would never look down on our family. I had thought our restraint, our quiet pride, would keep our love clean. Instead, it had brought me here. My phone screen suddenly lit up. 3 It was Marcus. “You called?” His tone was quiet, almost gentle, carrying that low baritone I used to melt into. But the rage that had been festering in my gut flared instantly. “Did you instruct Paige to slash my daily food allowance in half?” “Yes.” “Marcus, if you want this baby to starve to death, just wire me three thousand dollars right now and I’ll go to the clinic and get an abortion myself.” “What kind of childish tantrum is this?” Marcus’s voice hardened with irritation. “I cut the discretionary spending in half so you would stop wasting funds on vanity and actually spend the remaining balance on real food!” My fingers trembled so badly the phone nearly slipped from my grip. “Do you hear yourself? Was I able to eat ‘real food’ before the cut? When did feeding your pregnant wife become a low-cost nuisance to you, Marcus?” Silence stretched across the line, heavy and strained. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded cold and weary. “Tessa, you’re the one who has lost all perspective on money. Even cut in half, what sits in that account is more than an ordinary family spends in a year. If you want cash for yourself, just ask me. You don’t need to insult my intelligence with pathetic lies about starving.” He exhaled sharply, preparing to hang up, then added, “I’ll authorize another transfer to your daily pool. Don’t steal from the house again.” The call went dead. A minute later, a mobile notification pinged. Paige had authorized the transaction from the family trust ledger. Amount: $1.00. A memo attached from Paige’s business handle: Mrs. Montgomery, Mr. Montgomery reiterated that if your insatiable demands continue, he will proceed with dissolution of marriage. I stared at the screen. One dollar. Added to my remaining checking balance of one dollar and eighty cents, I had exactly two dollars and eighty cents to my name. A plain bagel at the corner bodega cost a dollar fifty. That bagel was my breakfast and my lunch. By nightfall, my stomach was convulsing with hunger cramps. I stood outside the artisanal bakery two blocks down, watching the baker pull fresh, steaming sourdough loaves from the ovens through the window. My mouth watered so violently it made my teeth ache. The clerk behind the counter noticed me hovering near the glass and opened the side door. “Hey, you again? Want a loaf? Five bucks each, or three day-old rolls for four.” “Can I… is there any way I could buy a roll for a dollar?” The clerk frowned, waving a hand. “Sorry, lady. This is artisanal grain. We run on thin margins as it is.” I pulled my coat tighter around my hollow frame and turned away into the autumn wind, telling myself that if I walked away, if I didn’t smell the warm yeast, the gnawing in my belly would stop. It didn’t. The hunger was physical, visceral, clawing at my ribs. Wandering the block, I spotted a young woman closing up a small sandwich shop, tossing large plastic bags of bread crusts and trimmed edges into a compost bin near the curb. I stepped forward, my voice cracking with humiliation. “Excuse me… are those… are you selling those?” She stopped, looking at me curiously. Then her eyes widened. “Wait. Aren’t you… aren’t you that gold-digger on the tabloids? Montgomery’s wife?” I quickly waved my hands, pulling my hood lower over my sunken face. “No. No, you have the wrong person.” “Yeah, figures,” she muttered, shaking her head. “That woman siphons millions out of his accounts. Why would she be asking for stale bread trimmings?” I swallowed the bitter bile in my mouth. “Could I… could I give you fifty cents for half of that bag of crusts?” She stared at me, bewildered. “A quarter of the bag is fine, too,” I whispered, my voice shrinking into the cold air. She looked at my protruding collarbones, sighed, and handed me the entire gallon bag of bread heels. “Keep your change, or give me fifty cents if it makes you feel better.” I gave her fifty cents. With eighty cents of my remaining money, I begged her to sell me a bottle of generic tap water that retailed for a dollar, pleading until she took pity and handed it over. I carried my bag of crusts back up the elevator to our dark, empty penthouse. I didn’t dare turn on the lights. Every utility bill felt like another excuse for Marcus to accuse me of extravagance. Huddled in the corner beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminated only by the cold neon glow of Manhattan traffic below, I shoved the dry, chewy bread crusts into my mouth, chewing desperately. A dry chunk caught in my throat. I gagged, coughing violently, and reached for the water bottle. My fingers were so weak, trembling from hypoglycemia, that I couldn’t break the plastic seal. I twisted with everything I had. The plastic ring snapped, but the sudden force jerked the bottle from my grip. It hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud. Clear water gushed across the floorboards, soaking into the rug. I scrambled on my knees, desperately scooping at the puddle, trying to funnel the remaining liquid in the neck into my parched mouth, but only three drops touched my tongue. I broke. I curled over my knees on the floor, clutching the empty plastic bottle, sobbing so hard my chest heaved. Through my tears, my gaze landed on the kitchen sink in the darkness. Our building’s filtered delivery service charged a delivery fee per five-gallon jug. Paige had canceled that account two weeks ago. 4 I dragged myself across the floor to the kitchen sink, reached up, and turned the heavy brass faucet. Untreated municipal tap water, smelling faintly of old pipes and chlorine, poured out. I cupped my shaking hands beneath the stream and swallowed mouthful after mouthful, choking on the rush. My stomach bloated instantly, rejecting the cold deluge. I collapsed against the lower cabinets, coughing until tears and bile spilled onto the marble floor. Around me lay the spilled water, the soggy paper bag, and a few scattered crumbs of dry bread. I lay curled on the tile, gasping for breath, weeping until my ribs burned. When the dry crumbs were gone, the black spots danced behind my eyes again. To silence the tearing ache in my stomach, I drank more tap water, forcing my belly to stretch with cold liquid just to trick my nervous system into feeling full. Only when my abdomen felt tight and sloshing did the trembling subside enough for me to drift into an exhausted, feverish sleep on the floor. The next morning, my phone buzzed at seven sharp. It was Paige. “The smart scale in your master bathroom logged your weight this morning,” she said, her voice crisp and robotic. “You gained another pound overnight. Your rate of weight gain is officially out of control. Effective today, your food allowance is reduced by half again.” The daily deposit notification appeared on my screen. Amount: $2.00. I lay on the cold tiles, staring up at the ceiling, too drained to scream. “Is this Marcus’s decision as well?” “Yes,” she replied flatly, and hung up. I didn’t even have the energy to feel anger. Two dollars. If I tried to survive on two dollars today, my baby and I would both collapse before the sun went down. I pushed myself up, my joints aching, and walked into Marcus’s private study. I stood before the concealed steel safe behind his bookshelf. My fingers hesitated over the keypad. I entered six digits: my birthday. A soft click echoed through the quiet room. The heavy door swung open. He hadn’t changed the combination. It was still the date he had set three years ago when we first moved in together. Inside, banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills were neatly arranged beside blue leather binders containing corporate deeds, bearer bonds, and velvet cases of museum-grade gemstones. My hands shook. I didn’t touch the binders or the jewels. I slipped my fingers into a loose band of currency and pulled out a single green bill. One hundred dollars. “Just one,” I whispered to the empty room, tears blurring my vision as I pushed the heavy safe door shut until the electronic lock engaged. “Just one bill. It won’t hurt him. He won’t notice.” I took the elevator down to street level and walked straight into the noodle bar on the corner. I ordered a steaming bowl of braised beef noodles and sat by the window. The moment the server set the bowl down, I plunged my chopsticks in, lifting a massive clump of noodles toward my mouth. Before the first bite could touch my lips, the wail of a siren cut through the morning air. A squad car screeched to a halt outside the window. Two uniformed officers rushed through the glass door, their hands on their holsters. Within seconds, cold metal ratcheted around my wrists, pinning my hands behind my back. “Tessa Montgomery? You’re under arrest for grand larceny and domestic burglary. Step away from the table.” “Wait! Please!” I cried out, my voice cracking in humiliation as the other patrons turned to stare. “Please, just let me finish this bowl! I’ll cooperate, I swear! Just let me eat!” The officers didn’t hesitate. They hauled me up by my arms, dragging me away from the untouched, steaming bowl of broth. At the precinct, I learned that Marcus had canceled a multi-million-dollar overseas roadshow the moment the alarm tripped on his safe. He sat across from me in the interrogation room, his bespoke overcoat unbuttoned, his face dark with suppressed fury. “Do you have any idea what was in that safe?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. “That was the liquid reserve designated for our child’s trust.” I ignored him. My head was down, my face buried in a cup of instant noodles that a sympathetic desk sergeant had handed me five minutes ago. I slurped the salty, MSG-laden broth like it was nectar from heaven. Marcus’s jaw twitched. “Stealing from the corporate holdings was one thing, Tessa. But taking the money set aside for your own unborn child? Are you completely devoid of a conscience?” I drained the cardboard cup until not a drop remained, set it on the metal table, and looked up at the female officer standing by the door. “Is there… could I have another one, please?” “Tessa! Stop playing dumb!” Marcus slammed his palm against the steel table with a deafening crack. “Where did the money go? Where did you wire our child’s trust funds?” “Don’t interrupt my meal,” I muttered. The female officer walked over and set a second steaming cup of instant noodles in front of me. I tore the plastic fork open and began eating immediately, my throat burning as I swallowed the hot noodles whole. A look of pure disgust crossed Marcus’s face. He clearly couldn’t bear to look at me a second longer. He turned toward the senior partner of his private legal firm, who was standing quietly in the corner of the room. “File the charges under the harshest statutory guidelines,” Marcus instructed, his voice ruthless. “Whatever the maximum sentence for first-degree grand larceny is in this jurisdiction, seek it. No leniency. No plea bargains.” “Understood, Mr. Montgomery,” the lawyer murmured, taking notes on a tablet. “You’re hiring the best attorneys in the state to lock me up?” I swallowed the last mouthful of broth, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and looked straight into his dark eyes. Marcus frowned, pausing by the door. I stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the concrete floor. “Marcus Montgomery, if you have any real power, tell your high-priced lawyers to get me life without parole! Let me stay in a federal penitentiary for the rest of my days!” 5 “What kind of nonsense are you spewing now?” His scowl deepened, his eyebrows drawing tight with impatience. “Nonsense? I’m dead serious, Marcus! I pray to God you lock me away for life!” I laughed, a shrill, hysterical sound that scraped against my dry throat. “Because at least in prison, nobody docks my food rations! The Department of Corrections feeds inmates three square meals a day! They even give pregnant women supplemental milk and fruit! I have had enough of being your high-society trophy! Compared to being your starved, humiliated wife, I’d rather be a convicted felon!” “I restricted your discretionary accounts so you would stop blowing millions on worthless luxury goods!” Marcus looked at me as though I were completely deranged. I burst into bitter, helpless laughter. “Luxury goods? You honestly believe I can afford luxury goods? I’m not your precious secretary, Marcus! I don’t get gifted three-million-dollar diamond pendants from Geneva auctions! I don’t get dressed in custom haute couture to walk arm-in-arm with you at global summits while the entire internet hails us as the golden couple! Just because I got pregnant, just because my body dared to change, I wasn’t even fit to be seen in public with you!” Marcus’s entire frame went rigid. He slowly turned around, his eyes locking onto mine with sudden, sharp intensity. “What are you talking about?” “Isn’t that what you ordered?” My eyes stung, tears finally spilling over my hollow cheeks. “You had a smart-monitoring scale installed in our bathroom, demanding I log my weight every morning. And the second the scale ticked up, you slashed my grocery allowance. From eight dollars a day, down to four! From four dollars down to two! You bought Paige Nichols a three-million-dollar necklace, but when I took a single one-hundred-dollar bill from your safe just so I wouldn’t faint from starvation, you called the police to send me to prison!” Standing behind Marcus, the senior legal counsel’s eyes widened in sheer disbelief. “Mrs. Montgomery… Mr. Montgomery never authorized—” “Hold on,” Marcus commanded, raising a hand to cut his lawyer off. He stepped forward, crossing the distance between us until he was towering over the metal table. He leaned down, his eyes scanning my gaunt face, my sunken collarbones, the papery texture of my skin. “Keep talking,” he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, trembling whisper. “Tell me everything.” “You even…” The room suddenly tilted. A black curtain dropped over my peripheral vision. The air was sucked out of my lungs. I heard Marcus cry out my name in terror, his voice cracking with a panic I hadn’t heard in years. Then the darkness swallowed me whole. When my consciousness flickered back, the pungent smell of antiseptic filled my nose. Above me, a clear IV bag was slowly dripping saline and yellow-tinted lipids into a catheter in the back of my hand. A nurse was adjusting the flow rate, her expression furious as she looked at Marcus standing beside the bed. “Severe maternal malnutrition,” the nurse scolded, keeping her voice tight and scathing. “Her BMI is dangerously below clinical thresholds. She’s carrying twins of early development, yet her weight is barely enough to sustain an adolescent. Are you her husband? Do you not feed your wife?” Marcus stood there, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. He didn’t offer a single word of defense. The nurse shot him one final look of pure disgust, scribbled on the chart, and exited the room, pulling the privacy curtain shut. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, answered with one hand, and spoke in a low, clipped tone: “Cancel all roadshows. Postpone the board meeting indefinitely. I don’t care about the quarterly losses. I have a critical personal matter to handle.” He hung up, pocketed the device, and sat down on the edge of my hospital mattress. He reached out toward my hand, his eyes red-rimmed with profound worry. I turned my head away, staring cold-eyed at the blank white wall. “Tessa,” he began softly, his voice trembling slightly. “That smart monitoring scale… didn’t you ask for it?” “Why on earth would I ask for a machine to police my body?” He hesitated, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Paige told me you wanted to monitor your maternal fitness… to keep your dancer’s figure from slipping.” “When did I ever say that to you?” His jaw tightened. “You never told her you were going on a strict pregnancy diet?” “I am carrying your child, Marcus!” I turned, my hand flying out and striking him across the cheek. Slap. I had put everything I had into it, but my body was so depleted that the blow landed as little more than a weak brush against his stubble. Yet his eyes instantly welled with tears. He grabbed my trembling, ice-cold hand and pressed it against his cheek, holding on as if I were slipping off a cliff. “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I didn’t verify it. I was buried in the merger, and every time the accounting alerts came through, Paige showed me invoices from luxury houses… I thought you were compulsively spending to act out.” I laughed, a dry, hollow rattle. With my free hand, I unlocked my phone from the bedside table and shoved the screen in his face. “I was constantly asking for money because your office was feeding me on two dollars a day!” Marcus stared at the banking app. His pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks. He pulled the phone closer, his fingers rapidly scrolling through the transaction log: + 8.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+8.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+ 4.00 from Montgomery Family Office. + 1.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+1.00fromMontgomeryFamilyOffice.∗∗+ 2.00 from Montgomery Family Office. Line after line. Day after day. The color drained entirely from his face, leaving him as pale as a corpse.

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1 For ten years, I lived in Chase Prescott’s shadow. I was his shadow. When he left for London, our relationship shifted across the nine-hour time difference into something strange and commanding. He started making me call him Sir. He demanded things through glowing screens that made my chest tighten with a suffocating, unfamiliar heat. Good boy. Show Sir how pretty you look when you touch yourself. Do what you’re told, Sean, and there’s five grand waiting in your account. I didn’t entirely understand that world—the rituals of control, the sharp edge of submission. But whatever Chase asked of me, I did. I blushed until the tips of my ears burned, set my phone against the headboard, and obeyed every single command. Tonight was his welcome-back party at an exclusive downtown lounge. Traffic on FDR Drive was crawling, and by the time I made it through the velvet curtains and down the dimly lit corridor of private suites, I was desperately late. My palm was already sweating against the heavy brass door handle when Chase’s cold, smooth baritone cut through the frosted glass. “Oh, Sean?” Chase let out an amused, dry puff of air. “Come on. He’s been trailing behind me since we were seven years old. Once we started dating, he turned into this clingy, suffocating little thing. I couldn’t breathe.” A beat of silence followed, then the distinct sound of ice clinking against crystal. “Thank God I had Damian take over the account while I was in Europe,” Chase added casually. “He never even noticed. Sean’s been orbiting me his entire life. Frankly, I got bored of playing with him a long time ago.” I stood there, paralyzed, my hand welded to the handle. Inside the private booth, a chorus of drunken laughter erupted. “Holy shit, Chase. You’re diabolical.” “Handing Sean over to Damian Cole? You’ve got some nerve. Sean is so docile, so easy to walk over. He doesn’t stand a chance against someone like Damian.” Chase flicked his lighter. I could hear the faint snap-click of his silver Cartier. “It’s fine,” he murmured through a cloud of smoke. “You all know Damian doesn’t care about men.” Someone else scoffed, clearly disagreeing. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, man.” “Have you looked at Sean lately? Anyone with a pulse would want a piece of that.” “I swear, you drop one dirty joke around him and his whole neck turns crimson. The kid is ridiculously sensitive. Remember last spring when someone accidentally touched the dimple of his lower back? He curled up like a live wire shocked him. Most guys couldn’t keep their hands to themselves if they tried.” “If he were my boyfriend, I’d keep him in bed all day.” “Back in prep school, those varsity seniors wouldn’t stop cornering him until Chase stepped in and threatened their families. What if—and I’m just saying what if—Damian actually lost his self-control?” Through the glass, the room fell momentarily quiet. I could almost picture Chase’s brows drawing together into that sharp, irritated line he got whenever his territory was questioned. Another voice quickly broke the tension with a laugh. “What are you even talking about? As if anyone could pull Sean away. His entire universe revolves around Chase. Even if Damian stood in front of him completely naked, Sean wouldn’t spare him a second glance.” The edge in Chase’s tone softened slightly. Then one of his closer fraternity brothers asked, “Speaking of which, Chase… you had a revolving door of flings in Europe. Guys, girls, half the nightlife scene in Mayfair. What’s the play here? Isn’t Sean still your boyfriend?” “He grew up in your house. He’s terrified of strangers, completely attached to you. You used to take him everywhere like an extension of your own arm. What changed?” Chase’s voice lowered, sounding almost contemplative, though devoid of any real warmth. “Sean is good. He’s gentle, obedient, totally devoted to me. If I tell him to walk into traffic, he’ll ask which lane. Sometimes I lose my temper and take it out on him over nothing, and he just bites down on his pillow and takes it. He doesn’t even cry out loud.” The ice shifted in his glass. “The problem is… it’s too easy. Since we were kids, I’ve been the only person in his life. His entire world is the size of a thimble, and he shoved all of it onto me. I never had to chase him. I never had to court him or buy him flowers or wonder where he was on a Friday night. He was just there. Permanent. Predictable.” “At first, it was convenient. Then it became exhausting.” “I raised him, in a way. I didn’t want to break his heart while I was overseas—if he cried, it would just annoy me and make me feel guilty. But I’m a grown man. I’m not a monk. I’m not going to spend my twenties tied down to a domestic pet.” “I needed to get it all out of my system. Once I’m done having my fun, I’ll settle down with him.” Someone snorted. “No wonder you tore through half of London. You were starving.” “Man, if Sean ever finds out, he’ll cry until he goes blind.” Chase’s tone cooled instantly, slipping into the commanding timbre that Brookline society boys used when giving orders to the staff. “There’s no reason for him to ever know. What happened overseas stays there. Every single one of you keeps your mouth shut.” 2 I don’t know what kind of unyielding, desperate grip on my dignity kept me from tearing that door open and screaming in Chase’s face. My mother was the live-in housekeeper for the Prescott estate. When my father died of congestive heart failure when I was seven, my mother had to work seventy hours a week just to keep us afloat. She couldn’t afford childcare, so she brought me along to the manor, tucking me into the utility pantry with picture books. She drilled it into my head every morning: Master Chase is the Prescott heir. He’s an only child, raised on silk and silver spoons, and his temper is vicious. You cater to him, Sean. You make him like you. If he complains, we lose our room and our bread. I was terrified of being cast out onto the streets, so I nodded until my neck ached. What surprised my mother was that Chase took to me instantly. The moment he saw me standing in the sunlit foyer in my frayed sneakers, he demanded that I sleep in his bedroom on the adjoining twin cot. The very next morning, he dragged his mother down the grand staircase and told her I was going to St. Jude’s Prep with him. Mrs. Prescott was so thrilled her temperamental, reclusive son had found a playmate that she paid the forty-thousand-dollar annual tuition without blinking. My mother cried tears of gratitude and told me to treat Chase like royalty. And I did. I carried his tennis bags, brought him water before he asked for it, memorized every food allergy and preference he had, and became his perpetual shadow. Chase was notoriously prickly with other kids, but around me, his edges softened. From the time we were seven, we were inseparable. His possessiveness was quiet, heavy, and suffocating. By high school, if I laughed too loudly with a lab partner or spent ten minutes talking to someone in the hallway after class, he would brood all evening. The moment we walked through the heavy doors of the estate, he would haul me upstairs into his room, lock the deadbolt, and throw me over his knee without a word. He struck hard enough to leave welts. I would bury my face in his duvet, biting into the down filling, shaking and swallowing my sobs because crying made him strike harder. When he was done, he would scoop me up into his arms, using the edge of his thumb to gently wipe away my tears. Sean, look at me. You don’t need anyone else in this world. You only need me. I hated the pain, hated the humiliation, but I was so young and so conditioned that I would nod through my tears. Okay. Just you. Slowly, methodically, my world shrank until there was no one left in it except Chase Prescott. I developed a severe, paralyzing social anxiety. I didn’t know how to look people in the eye, didn’t know how to navigate casual friendships, and was terrified of saying the wrong thing. When we got to college, Chase’s social circle expanded like an explosion. I dragged myself to parties I hated, clinging to his sleeve like a frightened child because the noise and the sea of bodies made my chest constrict. At one of those crowded loft parties, I saw two guys kissing against the brick wall near the balcony. I stopped dead, staring in pure bewilderment. Chase leaned down, smelling of bourbon and mint, a lazy smirk on his lips. “What’s wrong? Never seen two men together before?” He tilted my chin up. “Want to try it with me?” Before I could form a sentence, his mouth was on mine. He kissed me thoroughly, tasting like expensive liquor and authority, leaving me dizzy and breathless on the balcony. By the time he pulled back, I had nodded yes to whatever he wanted. Once we were officially together, my clinging grew worse. I refreshed my phone constantly, waiting for his texts. Wherever he went, I wanted to be there, not because I wanted to control him, but because the rest of the world felt cold and terrifying without him anchored beside me. Once, he went to a dive bar with a group of friends and told me I wasn’t allowed inside because the crowd was too rough. He told me to go home. I didn’t. I stood outside on the damp street corner until three in the morning, shivering under my coat, waiting so we could share an Uber back to the apartment. When he finally stumbled out and saw me standing under the flickering neon sign, his face drained of color. He frantically tugged his scarf up, but not before I caught a glimpse of dark, purple bruises along the side of his neck. People in his circle started making jokes about how Chase had a lapdog on a leash. And Chase began to grow visibly resentful. One night, after coming back from a weekend trip, he sat on the edge of the bed and looked at me with an expression that made my stomach drop. “Sean… don’t you think you’re being a little too dependent on me?” He caught himself, softening his tone with that practiced charm, but the underlying disgust lingered. “I mean, look around. You’re in college. There are thousands of people on campus. Don’t you get tired of following me everywhere? Don’t you want your own friends?” I shook my head immediately. “No. I’m happy just being with you.” He offered a smile, but it was hollow, worn down to the bone by a quiet, profound exhaustion. “Right. Whatever you say.” After that, his absences grew longer. Study groups, Greek life events, venture capital pitch competitions—there was always an excuse. When I asked if he was free for the weekend, he said he was going camping upstate with some guys from his fraternity. “Can I come?” I asked quietly. He paused for several long seconds before looking away. “It’s just guys from the house, Sean. You don’t know them. You’d be miserable. Next time.” I waited through a dozen “next times” until the news hit me like a physical blow: Chase had enrolled in an exchange program in London for the year. I was the last person to find out. We were supposed to be in love. We shared a bed. I spent an entire week crying in the dark, convinced I had ruined everything by being too needy. I sent him essays apologizing for my existence, begging him to tell me what I’d done wrong so I could fix it. Then, about three weeks after he landed in the UK, his behavior suddenly took a sharp turn. His texts became warm, attentive, almost obsessive. He started checking in on me constantly, asking what I was wearing, what I was thinking about. Eventually, the messages turned explicitly sensual. Baby, I just got out of the shower. Just a towel around my waist. Want to see my abs? Do you like how hard I look right here? Tell me to pull the towel down lower, baby. Tell me you want it. I was completely helpless against it. My mouth went dry, my pulse hammering in my throat as I typed back: I want to see. Please. Pull it down. Lower. Then the photos would come through—high-definition, dripping with raw, carnal tension. Chiseled lines of muscle, a dark trail of hair leading down to thick, breathtaking size that pressed against the edge of the frame. I was mesmerized. I had never known Chase’s body looked like that. In person, he had always kept the lights low or turned away when he changed. The texts stripped away every shred of my timidity. I started calling him baby, typing out shameless, filthy confessions I never would have dared speak aloud. Occasionally, the screen would light up with an odd question: Baby, do you know Damian Cole? I would frown at the screen, confused. The name sounds familiar, but I don’t really know him. Why are you asking about him, babe? The typing bubble would appear and vanish for minutes before he simply replied: Nothing. Just wondering. Then came the night my asthma flared. I had moved into a small, third-floor studio apartment after graduation. It was raining, the air heavy and damp, and my inhaler was empty on the counter. The attack hit me so fast my knees gave out. As the darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, I managed to send a scrambled, misspelled text to Chase’s phone. The next thing I registered was being lifted. Strong, steady arms cradled me against a broad chest. A deep, panicked voice was speaking right into my ear, but the words blurred into static. When I opened my eyes hours later in the emergency clinic, a man was sitting in the plastic chair beside my bed. He was breathtaking. He had the kind of sharp, devastating bone structure that belonged on a runway, with cold gray eyes and an aristocratic jawline that made Chase look almost ordinary by comparison. Seeing me stir, the tight tension in his face visibly relaxed. “How are you feeling? Can you breathe?” I stared at him, dazed. “…Who are you?” He hesitated, his gaze holding mine with an intensity that made my skin prickle. “Damian. Damian Cole.” When I asked how he had known to find me, he explained that Chase had panicked from London and called him, begging him to check on me because they were close friends. I believed every word. I thanked him profusely. From that day forward, Damian showed up at my apartment under the guise of Chase’s instructions. He brought groceries, fixed my radiator, and cooked meals that belonged in five-star restaurants. Every time I tried to tell him he didn’t need to babysit me, he would slide a plate of braised short ribs or honey-glazed wings in front of me to shut me up. “You really don’t have to keep doing this,” I told him once, using every ounce of willpower I had. “I can take care of myself.” Damian only smiled, wiping down my stove with practiced ease. “Chase is terrified you’ll pass out again. He made me promise to watch over you.” “Did he really say that?” I asked, a faint flush rising on my cheeks. “Ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.” I did. And Chase’s account had replied immediately: Yes, baby, I asked him. You live alone and your lungs are weak. I can’t sleep at night unless I know someone is there to keep an eye on you. Let him help. I swallowed the lie whole. I tried to keep a polite, distant boundary between Damian and me. Until last night. A nor’easter had slammed into the city, flooding the streets and rattling the old windowpanes. The roads were hazardous, and I couldn’t in good conscience let Damian drive back to his loft in Tribeca, so I insisted he take the pull-out couch in my living room. Around two in the morning, I padded into the hallway to get a glass of water. Damian’s door was cracked an inch. I reached out to pull it shut to give him privacy. And then the breath died in my throat. Damian was sitting on the edge of the bed in the dim glow of the streetlamp outside. In his right hand, gripped tightly against his bare thigh, was a pair of plain white cotton briefs. My briefs. The pair I had spent two weeks searching for in the laundry basket. His head was thrown back, his eyes shut tight, his sharp throat bobbing violently as ragged, suffocating groans tore from his chest. His fist pumped in a frantic, desperate rhythm, wrapping my fabric around his thick cock as if it were my hands holding him, my touch giving him what he was too terrified to ask for in the light of day. I stood frozen in the dark, my heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. That was the exact moment I realized Damian Cole wasn’t just doing a favor for a friend. He was drowning in an obsession with me. Yet he was Chase’s friend. I didn’t want to make things ugly or cause a scene, so I backed away on silent feet and pretended I had seen nothing. My plan for tonight had been simple: take Chase aside at his welcome party, tell him quietly about what Damian had done with my underwear, and ask him to tell Damian to stop coming over. Instead, I had stood outside that lounge door and heard the truth. Chase hadn’t grown protective of me. He hadn’t changed into a caring, attentive partner. He had thrown his login credentials to his best friend like scraps from a dinner table because dealing with me was too tedious. They had been playing me together from the very beginning. 3 I wiped the cold tracks of tears from my face, turned around, and walked out of the club into the freezing drizzle. By the time I unlocked the door to my apartment, my fingers were numb. Inside, the lights were warm. Damian was standing over the sink in the small laundry alcove, his sleeves pushed past his forearms, scrubbing my underwear by hand with lavender soap. The image of him last night—head thrown back, choking on his own breath with my cotton crushed in his fist—flashed through my mind with sickening clarity. A sharp buzz went off in my skull. I crossed the room in three strides and snatched the fabric right out of the soapy water. “I told you the washing machine is right there,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended. Damian didn’t flinch. He turned off the tap, shaking the foam from his large hands, his expression as patient and gentle as an older brother’s. “The spin cycle ruins delicate cotton. Hand-washing is better.” “I have two hands. I can do it myself.” “Sean,” he murmured, his voice dropping into that low, soothing cadence that always made my spine tingle. “Be good. I clean them better.” The words I have a boyfriend, this is inappropriate rose to the tip of my tongue, but they died before they could cross my lips. A boyfriend? Did I actually have one? Chase had handed me over to Damian months ago like an old toy he didn’t feel like putting away. A bitter, stinging ache rose behind my eyes. Chase had spent a decade locking me in a cage of his own making, punishing me every time I smiled at another human being, until I was reduced to a frightened, awkward recluse who couldn’t function without his permission. He broke my legs, then called me pathetic for limping. Even after Chase told Damian to take care of me, I had maintained every boundary. When Damian was in the apartment, I barely spoke. I timed my showers so I wouldn’t cross his path in a towel. I kept an exact three-foot perimeter between us at all times. And for what? So Chase could brag to a room full of prep-school snobs that I was too easy? That I had no value because I didn’t put up a fight? If Chase wanted to play games, why was I sitting on the sidelines keeping score for him? Damian was wealthier than Chase, better-looking than Chase, and treated me like porcelain. If someone was going to play with me, why shouldn’t it be him? I dropped the wet fabric back into the enamel basin. “Fine,” I said, meeting his gray eyes squarely. “Wash them.” Damian blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. “Since you like doing it so much,” I continued, offering a faint, deliberate smile, “you can handle all of my laundry from now on.” His pupils dilated slightly. “Are you serious?” “Of course. If you want to do my chores, I should be thanking you.” I took a step back toward the hallway. “I’m going up to change. Wash whatever I leave in the basket, okay?” I caught the hard, sudden swallow in his throat. A small, dangerous smile touched his lips. “Consider it done.” 4 For dinner, Damian prepared a table full of my favorite dishes: roasted sea bass, garlic greens, and sweet-soy glazed wings. I kept my head down, eating quietly. Damian pulled a cloth napkin from the holder and gently dabbed at a stray smudge of sauce near the corner of my mouth. The gesture was unhurried, utterly natural, his knuckles grazing my cheekbone just a second longer than necessary. “Sean,” he said softly. “Would it be alright if I stayed here permanently?” I looked up from my plate. He kept his expression carefully neutral. “You’ve had two attacks this month. The cold weather is coming in, and the radiator in the building is unreliable. I don’t like the idea of you being alone.” Under normal circumstances, I would have panicked and rejected the idea instantly. Tonight, I chewed my food, swallowed, and set my fork down. “The attacks have been pretty bad lately,” I said smoothly. “I’ve been anxious about it too. If you’re here, I’ll feel a lot safer.” A flash of raw triumph flared in Damian’s eyes before he masked it with a polite nod. “Then I’ll bring the rest of my things over tomorrow.” Later that evening, while Damian was in the shower, I walked over to the nightstand where he had left his phone. I typed in the passcode—my birthday, a hunch that proved sickeningly correct—and opened his messages with Chase. Chase: Where the hell are you? Damian: At Sean’s place. Chase: What are you doing over there this late? Damian: His asthma flared up again this week. I’m not leaving him alone in an old walk-up during a freeze. Chase: Yeah, well, make sure that’s all you’re doing. I asked you to keep an eye on him, Damian. Don’t overstep. Damian: I thought you said you were sick of him clinging to you. Damian: What, did you get your fill in London and now you want to come back to your old territory? Aren’t you afraid he’ll figure out what you’ve been doing? Chase: What happens between Sean and me is none of your business. Chase: Besides, that kid can’t survive without me. Even if he found out, two sweet words and he’d come crawling back wagging his tail. He couldn’t shake me if he tried. I stared at that final sentence until the black letters blurred into jagged lines. My chest burned. The familiar, humiliating sting of tears threatened to spill over, but I clenched my teeth and forced them back down. He isn’t worth a single drop, I told myself. Not anymore. The pipes clanked as the shower turned off. I locked the screen, placed the phone back on the nightstand at the exact angle I found it, and slipped into my bedroom. I opened the bottom drawer of my dresser. Tucked beneath my winter sweaters was a velvet pouch. Inside were two small, silver-plated clamps connected by a delicate chain, each tipped with tiny silver bells. Damian had mailed them to me three weeks ago under Chase’s name, texting me that my chest was so fair and pink that these would look exquisite on me. I had been terrified of them at the time. I stood in front of the full-length mirror, stripped off my shirt, and looked at my reflection. My skin was pale, my ribcage delicate. Taking a slow, trembling breath, I squeezed the tension spring of the first clamp and fastened it directly over my nipple. A sharp, electric bolt of pain shot through my chest, forcing a ragged gasp from my throat. My toes curled against the hardwood floor. I caught my breath, then fastened the other side. With every inhalation, the tiny bells chimed softly—ting, ting—in the quiet of the bedroom. I pulled out my phone, framed the shot from my collarbones down to the taut curve of my stomach, and sent the image directly to the account Chase had abandoned. Babe. I’m in my room. Look what I put on for you. The reply came back within five seconds: You said you were too scared of the pain. Why tonight? Good boy… Tug on the little bells for Sir, Sean. Let me see how pretty you look when it hurts. Heat rushed up my neck. My heart thudded against my ribs like a hammer. I reached up with two shaking fingers, gripped the silver chain on the left, and gave it a sharp, testing tug. The bell let out a clear, high ring. A jolt of pure fire flared through my nerves. I doubled over slightly, biting down hard on my lower lip to swallow the whimper, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. The screen stayed dark for ten agonizing seconds before the text popped up: Good boy. Now pull the other one for me. We kept at it until two in the morning, messages pinging back and forth in a feverish, degrading blur of commands and obedience. By the time I unfastened the metal and walked out of the en-suite bathroom in a loose, thin t-shirt, my chest was swollen and intensely pink. Damian was standing in the hallway, holding a glass of ice water. The moment his eyes dropped to the two distinct, inflamed circles pressing against the thin fabric of my shirt, the blood rushed into his face so fast that the tips of his ears turned a violent, dark crimson.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “617935”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

1 At eight, my brother Kyle unplugged my mechanical heart to charge his phone. Found blue and suffocating, I survived but suffered permanent nerve damage from oxygen deprivation. After that, Kyle became a ghost in our home. Our parents stopped smiling at him, stopped speaking to him, pouring every ounce of themselves into keeping me alive. Father took a grueling offshore job to pay my heart’s maintenance fees. Mother quit hers to watch over me, vowing lifelong penance to beg God for my years. I believed I had parents who loved me fiercely, despite my broken body. Until the national college placement deadline. The house lost power. As the countdown ticked, Mother didn’t hesitate. She ripped the backup battery from my heart to power the laptop. My chest erupted in a shrill alarm. I reached for her. “Mom, no… my heart needs…” She spun, slapping me hard. “Because of this battery, your brother has been punished for ten years! Other backups exist! Why are you so selfish? You ruined his childhood, now you’ll destroy his future?” She snatched the battery and shoved me into my bedroom, locking the door. Minutes later, the portal closed. Through the wood, I heard their ecstatic cheers. My knees buckled, and I collapsed onto the floor. … The piercing alarm of my heart gradually slowed, fading into a flat, hollow hum. I whispered into the darkness, “Mom, I won’t be a burden to you anymore.” As I fell, the back of my head slammed against the sharp edge of the desk. Warm, sticky blood began to pool beneath me. The room spun, darkness encroaching from the edges of my vision. My body grew ice-cold. I tried to scream, to drag myself toward the door. “Mom… help… please, save me…” But the nerve damage from my childhood medical crisis chose this exact moment to paralyze me. I lay on the floor, my muscles spasming, a violent wave of nausea making me dry-heave. My throat felt as though it had been filled with wet cement. I could not even make a sound. Outside, my mother was wrapping her arms around Kyle, pressing a proud kiss to his forehead. “My boy, I knew you could do it! You’re going to change your life!” “Not like your brother, always sick, dragging this entire family down into the dirt. Well, today is a happy day. Let’s not talk about him.” A crushing ache bloomed in my chest. Tears slipped silently down my temples. My mother did not know that the other backup batteries in the closet had died months ago. I had noticed, but because I knew how hard my father worked overseas to send money home, I kept quiet. I figured one working backup battery was enough. I never imagined it would end like this. With the last ounce of strength in my fingers, I clawed at the heavy wooden bookshelf beside me, hoping to make enough noise to alert her. The shelf groaned, then came crashing down in a deafening roar. A faint wave of relief washed over me. Surely, with a noise that loud, she would come running. But the crash only startled her, and she immediately assumed I was throwing a tantrum. “Toby! What is wrong with you?” she screamed through the door. “Just because we borrowed your power source for a few minutes, you throw a fit like a toddler?” The more she spoke, the angrier she became, her voice cracking with resentment. “What did I ever do to deserve this? The entire family has run ourselves ragged to pay for your treatments! We ignored Kyle for ten years, putting every single scrap of our attention on you! Is that still not enough?” I heard her keys jangling as she rushed to the door. “If you have a problem, say it to my face! What is this silent treatment supposed to mean?” But the heavy bookshelf had wedged itself perfectly against the doorframe. No matter how hard she rattled the knob, the door would not budge. “I brought your battery back, Toby! Open the door!” But my lungs were empty. My face was turning blue, my lips dark, and vomit was catching in my throat. I tapped my fingers weakly against the floorboards, trying to make any sound. But it was too faint. She could not hear it over her own anger. Assuming I was just ignoring her, she let out a furious scream and threw the battery hard against the wood. “Fine! Keep acting like a spoiled brat! See if I care!” “You won’t be happy until you’ve driven me to my grave! I sacrificed my life for you, and you turned into this selfish monster!” “You are just jealous because Kyle scored better than you! Toby, you utterly disgust me!” My heart was barely twitching now, yet the phantom pain was agonizing. In my mind, I screamed, Mom, I’m not! I placed first in the entire state! I wanted to surprise you and Dad! I’m not jealous of Kyle! But there would be no surprise. Only horror. Kyle tugged at my mother’s arm, his voice dripping with sweet consolation. “Mom, don’t be angry. You still have me. Toby is just having a hard time accepting things. I’ll talk to him later.” The anger melted from her face instantly. She pulled him into a warm embrace. “Oh, Kyle. At least you are sensible. If only your brother had half your maturity, I could die happy.” I slipped into a cold, crushing dark. My eyelids felt like lead. The blood from the back of my head had pooled so deep it was beginning to seep under the crack of the door. Just as my conscious mind began to fade, the front door burst open. “Toby! Dad’s home!” A tiny spark of hope flared in my chest. My father loved me. He would check on me first. His footsteps drew closer. I curled my body, fighting the agony to blink my eyes open. I thought I felt a ghost of warmth return to my limbs. But before he could reach my door, Kyle dashed across the foyer and threw himself into my father’s arms. “Dad! You’re finally back! I missed you so much!” My father frowned, instinctively reaching to pat him and move past. But my mother chimed in with a beaming smile. “Kyle did amazing on his placement exams, Thomas! He might get into a top-tier state university!” The exhaustion vanished from my father’s face, replaced by pure joy. “Really? That’s incredible! What do you want as a reward, Kyle? Dad will get you whatever you want.” Kyle smiled shyly. “Having you and Mom healthy is the only reward I need.” My father’s eyes filled with tears. My mother turned away to wipe her own. While I lay dying behind the door, choking on my own blood. I wanted to scream, but a thick, metallic taste flooded my mouth, choking out my words. My father finally looked around. “Where is Toby? How is he doing?” My mother curled her lip. “Toby? He’s throwing a tantrum in his room because Kyle outscored him. He thinks he’s too good for us now. I’ve been calling him for hours and he won’t say a word.” My father fell silent, letting out a heavy sigh. He walked over and knocked gently on my door. “Toby? It’s Dad. Can you open the door, please? I bought that strawberry cake you love. It doesn’t matter how you did on the exams, Toby. Dad loves you no matter what.” Behind the locked door, I was covered in blood, my face a terrible shade of blue. Tears and blood mingled, soaking into my collar. I’m sorry, Dad, I whispered in my mind. I’m so sorry I was such a burden. I’m sorry… The silence in my room remained absolute. My mother’s patience snapped. She marched over and kicked the door hard. “Toby! Are you dead in there? Where are your manners? Your father is talking to you, and you can’t even offer a single word? He worked his fingers to the bone for you, and this is how you treat him?” Mom, just open the door, I begged silently. Open it and you’ll see me. My father quickly pulled her back. “Lower your voice. He’s just upset right now.” My mother yanked her arm away and stormed toward the master bedroom. “Fine! Let’s ignore him! Let him play his little game. Let’s see if he can go the rest of his life without speaking to us!” The footsteps faded. I had used up my last breath of life. The cybernetic pump in my chest gave one final, violent shudder, and then stopped forever. When I opened my eyes again, I was standing up. I felt weightless, and the chronic, suffocating pain that had haunted me for years was entirely gone. Overjoyed, I ran toward my parents. “Dad! Mom! I’m cured! I’m not going to be a burden anymore!” But my hand passed right through my mother’s shoulder. I stared at my translucent fingers, and the horrifying truth settled in. I was dead. My mother was sitting on the couch, her face buried in her hands as she wept. “Is he trying to kill me? If anything happens to him, how am I supposed to go on?” I bit my lip, reaching out to brush away her tears. “I’m sorry, Mom. Don’t cry. It’s my fault. I always make you worry.” But my fingers slipped right through her cheek. She suddenly gasped, looking up. “Thomas, do you think… do you think something actually happened to him? No, I have to check on him!” My father stood up to follow her. “Of course not. Don’t scare yourself.” Just then, in the hallway, Kyle quietly slipped over to the breaker box and flipped the switch back up. He hung his head, murmuring softly, “Don’t hate me, Toby. I just wanted Mom and Dad to look at me for once. I’m sorry.” I watched him, paralyzed with shock. A bitter smile crept onto my face. The power outage was a lie. It was a play orchestrated entirely by my little brother. The next second, Kyle raised his own hand and slapped himself across the face with stunning force. He stumbled backward, tears flowing instantly, and ran wailing toward our parents. “Dad! Mom! Toby beat me!” He threw himself into their arms, sobbing hysterically. “I just wanted to go in and apologize to him, but he lunged at me and hit me! He called me a worthless parasite and said I was trying to steal your love! He said… he said you are the most useless parents in the world and he wishes he were adopted! He deliberately shut off the power so I couldn’t submit my college application! He wanted to ruin my life!” Kyle pulled back his collar, showing the red mark on his cheek. “Dad, Mom, I’m so scared!” I rushed in front of my parents, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Dad! Mom! I didn’t do it! He’s lying! I’m dead, how could I have hit him?” But no one heard a thing. My mother trembled, her face twisted in rage. “To think I was actually worried about him! I spent ten years of my life sacrificing everything for him, and I raised a venomous snake!” My father rubbed his face wearily. “We spoiled Toby too much.” I stood frozen, tears streaming down my ghostly face. “I didn’t… I’m not a bad kid. I’m not a snake.” My father gently wiped Kyle’s tears away. “Don’t cry, Kyle. Dad bought cake. Let’s eat it together and ignore him.” Kyle offered a sweet, obedient nod. He cut a slice of cake for each of them. “Dad, Mom, I’m the luckiest kid in the world.” I sat on the empty chair beside them, staring longingly. It was strawberry cake, my favorite. I could almost smell the sweet vanilla frosting. But my mother gently pushed her plate away. “You eat it, Kyle. Mom can’t touch this. It has eggs in it.” She lowered her gaze. “I made a vow before God. I will live on water and simple vegetables for the rest of my life to keep your brother safe.” My throat tightened. I leaned in to wrap my arms around her, but my embrace was nothing but air. The new silver threads in her hair cut through my soul like a knife. My father sighed, picking up a slice of cake and walking over to my door. He knocked, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “Toby, stop this nonsense. Just apologize to your brother, and we’ll forget all about it. Come out and eat something, okay?” But dead boys don’t talk. He waited, then set the plate on the floor. The fire of resentment flared in my mother’s eyes again. She shoved a large forkful of cake into her mouth, chewing aggressively. “If he doesn’t want to eat, let him starve! We aren’t going to pamper him forever. I have more than one son.” I bit my lip. Yes, at least they still had Kyle. They wouldn’t be too lonely when they found out. Suddenly, the phone rang. My mother wiped her mouth and answered with a bright smile. “Hello, Mrs. Gable? Yes, Kyle’s application went through perfectly. Don’t worry.” The counselor on the other end pressed on. “That’s wonderful. And what about Toby? Did he choose Harvard or MIT as his first choice?” The moment she heard my name, the warmth drained from my mother’s face. She did not even care to hear the rest of the sentence. “Toby? He’ll be lucky if he gets into a community college. It doesn’t matter what he chooses.” Without waiting for a reply, she hung up. I stood frozen, my soul splintering into a million pieces. “Mom, I got the highest score in the state. I didn’t embarrass you. Why didn’t you even bother to ask? Do you really hate me that much…” My father shook his head in disappointment. “I never cared about his grades. I only wanted him to be healthy, for us to be a happy family. I don’t understand how he became so bitter.” The injustice of it all felt like a rusty blade twisting slowly in my chest. The dining room fell into a suffocating silence. But before going to bed, they still left a small plate of food outside my door. A pity I would never taste it. The next morning, my mother came to check on me early. She saw the plate of food and the slice of cake sitting untouched. The frosting had melted, and the strawberry was shriveled and dark. Her face fell, her anger returning with a vengeance. She pounded on the door. “Toby! Get out here right now!” Silence. Her eyes brimmed with angry tears. “What do you want from me? You won’t eat, you won’t talk, are you trying to starve yourself to punish me? Do I need to get down on my knees and beg for your forgiveness?” My father rushed over, pulling her back. “Toby, enough is enough! Open this door and talk to us! Your mother’s health is fragile, stop tormenting her!” Just then, the doorbell rang. My mother wiped her face quickly and went to open it. On our doorstep stood a news crew carrying heavy cameras. “Hello, we are from the State Broadcast Network. We’re here to interview your son.” My mother’s eyes lit up, her anger evaporating in an instant. “Kyle! Come out here! The TV station is here to interview you!” Kyle ran out of his room, his chest puffed out with pride. But the reporters exchanged puzzled glances. The lead journalist smiled politely. “Is Toby not home? He scored the highest in the entire state on the national placement exams. We’re here for him.” Kyle’s smile froze. My father gasped, an uncontrollable wave of joy washing over his face. “I knew it! I knew my boy had it in him!” My mother quickly ushered them inside, her hands trembling with excitement. “That silly boy, why didn’t he tell me? Please, come in! He’s in his room. I’ll go get him.” I began to shake with terror. I threw my spectral arms wide, trying to block her path. “Mom, no! Make them leave! Dad, stop her! Don’t let her see me like this, please!” But they could not hear me. The reporters followed closely, their cameras rolling, transmitting the live broadcast directly to thousands of screens across the state. The heavy bookshelf wedged behind my door had already been loosened by my mother’s violent kicks. With one firm push, the entire unit gave way and crashed to the floor inside. My mother stepped into the threshold. “Toby, Mom is coming in! The news crew is here, it’s a live broadcast! Everyone is watching, hurry up and get—” The words died in her throat. Through the camera lens, my pale, lifeless body lay slumped on the floor, surrounded by a massive pool of dark, congealed blood. The reporters froze, but the camera remained fixed on my face. My mother’s face drained of all color. She let out a piercing, soul-shattering shriek. “Toby! Toby!”

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In my previous life, the school’s notorious bad boy made a bet that he could conquer the untouchable ice-queen of our high school within a month. He asked me to pass a love letter to her, my childhood best friend. Back then, I had her bright future in mind. I hid the letter, and as a result, they missed out on each other for five whole years. By the time she returned from studying abroad, the bad boy was already married to someone else. She firmly believed my jealousy had ruined her epic romance and torn them apart. She used her newfound power to destroy my family, and I was tortured to death in the freezing snow, my eyes wide open in unmerited agony. In this life, facing the bad boy’s request once again, I simply made a hundred photocopies of his love letter and stuffed every single one into her locker. Then, I happily took the elite overseas scholarship for myself. Fine by me. You get your epic, world-shattering romance, and I get the bright, limitless future! 1 Staring at the obnoxious pink envelope Jaxon handed me, a dizzying wave of realization washed over my mind. I had been reborn. The familiar scent of chalk in the classroom, the mundane chatter of teenagers, and the face of the guy standing right in front of me. It all felt like a waking nightmare looping endlessly in my head. I died in the dead of a bitter, unforgiving winter. A group of thugs had laughed like hyenas while stomping my bloodied body into the frozen pavement. My white shirt was stained beyond recognition. Someone had mercilessly dumped a bucket of freezing saltwater over my battered body. The salt seeped into my open wounds, bringing a violent, burning agony that shot through every nerve like high-voltage electricity. The bone-deep pain literally suffocated me. I lay on the ground, groaning in pure torment as crimson blood slowly trickled from the corner of my mouth. That was the exact moment the girl I had always placed on a pedestal walked toward me, her chin raised in absolute arrogance. Her eyes were clouded with a toxic, concentrated hatred, looking at me as if I had slaughtered her entire bloodline. “Arthur, you make me sick! You tore Jaxon and me apart just to satisfy your own twisted, selfish desires. If it weren’t for you, we would have been together years ago!” “Didn’t you claim to love me? How does it feel to be destroyed by the very person you supposedly loved?” “Do you think your death will earn my forgiveness? No! I will never forgive you!” After venting her twisted fury, Lily turned on her designer heels and walked away without a single backward glance. Watching her retreating figure, my heart had shattered into unrecognizable pieces. I never imagined that a girl so fiercely proud could push me into the abyss all for a piece of trash like Jaxon. Even worse, she genuinely believed I was the villain who ruined her life. Lily and I grew up on the same suburban street. We were childhood friends who constantly competed yet pushed each other to be better. Over time, a quiet, tender affection had bloomed in my chest. In high school, Lily was gorgeous, top of her class, and had an endless line of suitors. I was right there with her, always scoring just a fraction of a point lower, forever trapped in second place. Then Jaxon transferred in. He was the school’s rebellious heartthrob, the guy every girl whispered about, while Lily was the untouchable, brilliant ice-queen. One was wild and charismatic, the other cold and beautiful. To everyone else, they were a match made in heaven. That was when Jaxon asked me to pass a love letter to her. Even though I had feelings for Lily, I never actually wanted to sabotage her happiness. But I had personally overheard Jaxon bragging in the locker room, laughing about how he just wanted to mess around with her and see what it felt like to corrupt the perfect straight-A student. Plus, Lily was on the verge of accepting a prestigious scholarship to study in Europe. To protect her, I chose to hide Jaxon’s letter. I never expected them to miss each other for five years. When she finally returned, Jaxon was already married. Lily decided my possessive jealousy was the culprit. Utilizing the wealth and connections she built overseas, she hired people to humiliate and beat me, watching coldly as I froze to death. Even my parents, the kind neighbors who had watched her grow up and invited her over for the holidays, were killed in a staged car accident orchestrated by her. Thinking of all this, the blood in my veins ran ice cold. Since they were so madly in love, why shouldn’t I play the perfect wingman? I carefully took the letter from Jaxon. Just to be absolutely certain it wouldn’t get lost, I went to the library, printed a hundred copies, and crammed every single one into Lily’s locker. This time, there was no way they could miss each other. Let’s see if their true love could actually survive reality. After doing my good deed for the day, I sat down and furiously powered through two advanced placement mock exams. The affection I held for Lily in my past life wasn’t even pure love. It was just the natural admiration you feel for someone brilliant, mixed with a healthy dose of teenage rivalry. Yet my innocent crush became her definitive proof of my “toxic jealousy” and ultimately signed my death warrant. Now, I was totally done with that fruitless, one-sided infatuation. I was going to focus entirely on myself. I would never let blind emotion dictate my choices again, nor would I ever beg for someone’s affection. I finally understood a universal truth. You only get to dictate your own life when you are strong enough to stand alone. 2 It didn’t take long for the entire school to buzz with the news of Jaxon and Lily’s insanely romantic rooftop confession. This time, they were officially a couple. Watching Lily lean into Jaxon’s chest, giggling softly and acting completely unlike the fiercely ambitious girl I knew, felt surreal. It made me think of the pathetic version of myself from the past. The guy who practically handed her his beating heart on a silver platter. The idiot who would run across town at midnight just because she texted, “I’m craving ice cream.” The fool who buried his favorite jacket at the bottom of the closet just because she once casually mentioned the color was ugly. But all that pathetic behavior evaporated the second I opened my eyes to this second chance. I gave the happy couple one brief, indifferent glance before diving back into my textbooks. Over the next few months, the gossip mill never stopped churning. Lily started skipping classes for Jaxon. She threw him lavish surprise parties, got into screaming matches with other girls over him, and even followed him to sketchy underground clubs to get matching tattoos. Her signature composed, icy demeanor was entirely gone, replaced by a frantic, uncontrollable euphoria. She was drowning in teenage rebellion, entirely forgetting the promises she made to herself about conquering the academic world. Natural talent only gets you so far. The consequences of blowing off school eventually caught up with her. Her grades plummeted, and she shockingly dropped out of the top fifty in our grade. Jaxon knew I used to have a crush on her. He purposely walked up to my desk, draping an arm around Lily, and smirked. “You two used to hang out all the time. Never felt a spark for the boy next door?” Lily scoffed, rolling her eyes in disgust. “Arthur? He’s so rigid and boring. Who would ever like him?” Jaxon laughed out loud, grabbing her waist and pulling her into a messy, aggressive kiss right in front of the whole class. The other students gasped, their faces turning red as they awkwardly looked away. I didn’t even blink at the two clowns performing their little circus act. I just flipped the page of my calculus workbook. My relentless grind paid off immensely. In the final statewide mock exams, I absolutely shattered my previous plateau. I successfully turned the tables and claimed the undisputed number one spot. Even better, the school counselor called me in and told me that the coveted full-ride scholarship for a joint program in London was going to be awarded to me. He patted my shoulder, telling me to keep up the stellar work and make the school proud. In my past life, that golden ticket belonged to Lily. Now, the gears of fate had shifted, and the reward for unwavering dedication belonged to me. With the overseas offer secured, I didn’t even need to take the final SATs, but I didn’t slack off. Instead, I studied harder than ever, devouring college-level material and expanding my horizons. As for Lily, she was rapidly fading into the background of my life. 3 I didn’t hear Lily’s name again until I went to drop off some paperwork at the counselor’s office. Fierce arguments and heavy sighs echoed from behind the partially open door. “Lily, what is going on with you? Ever since you started dating, your grades have completely tanked. If you keep this up, forget about the Ivy League, you’ll be lucky to get into a local community college!” Her parents were sitting on the couch, looking utterly defeated. “Honey, you’re still young. Your main focus right now needs to be your education.” The counselor tried a softer approach. “Lily, you’re standing at a major crossroads. One wrong turn right now can derail your entire future, do you understand? We’re adults, we’ve seen this happen. If you really want to date, you can do it in college.” Lily lifted her chin, her eyes blazing with stubborn defiance. “You all keep saying it’s for my own good, but you just want to control me! You want to mold me into your perfect little trophy to satisfy your own egos! Jaxon showed me what actually matters in life. I’m happy right now. Is it a crime to want to live my own life? You guys just don’t get it!” Her parents were left speechless, their faces twisting in genuine agony. “Sweetheart, how could you say that? We’ve poured everything we have into you for years. Not for our egos, but so you wouldn’t have to struggle later in life.” Lily crossed her arms and sneered. “Stop acting like saints. I know the truth. You talk a big game, but you’re just terrified I’ll embarrass you! Jaxon isn’t the deadbeat you all think he is. He has his own dreams, and he treats me like a queen. I would give up everything for him!” Without waiting for a response, Lily spun on her heel and stormed out, slamming the door. She froze for a split second when she saw me standing in the hallway, but then she aggressively looked away and brushed past me. Standing there, processing the absolute circus I had just witnessed, a wave of complicated emotions hit me. So this was how Lily had viewed things all along. Right then, I felt a deep pang of pity for her parents. They had poured every ounce of love and every dime they had into her, never denying her anything. Yet their unconditional devotion was twisted into “toxic control” in her eyes. I let out a breath, walked into the office, and handed the papers to the counselor. “Sir, here are the forms you needed.” He took them, rubbing his temples in exhaustion. “Great, just leave them on the desk.” I put them down and turned to leave. “Hold on, Arthur!” he called out. I stopped and looked back. The counselor hesitated for a moment before speaking softly. “Whatever you just heard in here, keep it to yourself, alright?” I nodded calmly. “Understood.” Stepping out of the building, the crisp air filled my lungs. Lily’s path and mine had officially split into two parallel lines that would never intersect again. She could walk her tightrope, and I would walk my solid bridge. We were destined to become strangers. I buried myself in my work, shutting out the noise of the world. Finally, the day of my departure arrived. Friends and family threw a lively farewell dinner. Lily’s parents came to see me off too, though their smiles were incredibly strained. “Congratulations, Arthur. Make sure you keep in touch when you’re in Europe. If only our Lily could have been more like you…” The sudden blare of the airport boarding announcement drowned out the rest of their sentence. I politely said my goodbyes and hurried toward the gate. I felt bad for how much they were suffering, but it simply wasn’t my problem anymore. The moment the plane’s wheels left the tarmac, I knew my life was about to transform in ways I couldn’t even imagine. Living abroad, I pushed myself to the absolute limit. I practically lived in the university library. The grind paid off, and I graduated with a prestigious dual degree, top of my cohort. My old high school friends had also gotten into solid universities back in the States, and we kept in touch through group chats. Every now and then, a piece of news about Lily would filter through. Because of her obsessive romance, she bombed her SATs and barely scraped into a no-name state college. Her parents were heartbroken and tried every desperate tactic to break them up. Naturally, this only fueled Lily’s rebellious fire. She packed her bags and ran away from home to move in with Jaxon. One of the girls from our old class quietly mentioned in the chat that she had spotted Lily at a free women’s clinic. She said Lily looked sickly, exhausted, and had lost a frightening amount of weight. I read the message and felt absolutely nothing. A hopeless romantic like Lily, as long as she stayed tethered to Jaxon, would always worship at the altar of love while letting her actual life burn to the ground. 4 The next time I saw Lily in person was at our five-year high school reunion back in the States. Everyone had changed so much, eagerly swapping stories about frat parties, college finals, and corporate grind. “Arthur, man, I read your latest paper in that journal! Absolute genius!” “Isn’t your mentor some legendary professor? I saw a picture of you two in an article. Makes us all look good having a celebrity in the group!” “I literally brag to my coworkers that I went to school with you. You’re like a mythical creature to them.” I sat at the table, offering polite and humble replies, enjoying the warm atmosphere. Everything was perfect until someone nervously piped up and asked the golden question. “Hey, Lily. Are you and Jaxon still together?” The loud chatter in the room instantly died. Every single pair of eyes darted toward the girl sitting quietly in the corner. Lily looked nothing like the radiant prom queen she used to be. She was wearing heavy, expensive-looking makeup, but it couldn’t hide the deep exhaustion etched into her features. There was a rough, cynical edge to her that hadn’t been there before. She forced a tight smile, her tone unnervingly flat. “Oh, we broke up a while ago.” A collective murmur of shock rippled through the room. The legendary rebel and the ice-queen, the couple that practically demanded the spotlight, had crashed and burned. Back in the day, their contrasting dynamic was thrilling. But once they were stripped of the high school bubble and the halo of good grades, reality hit hard. There was nothing charming about their differences anymore. After ruining her college prospects, Lily had followed Jaxon to a mediocre city. Desperate to reclaim her lost glory, she tried to completely isolate herself and focus on studying to prove everyone wrong. By doing so, she ended up ignoring her beloved bad boy. Jaxon might have stopped getting into fistfights, but a leopard doesn’t change its spots. His wandering eye and charismatic smile drew a lot of attention in the real world. His most persistent admirer turned out to be a wealthy older woman, a literal sugar mama who was beautiful and thrilled to throw cash at him. Jaxon got hooked on the easy money and luxury cars. He grew increasingly irritated with Lily, who had lost her sparkling charm and was always stressed about exams. Eventually, he dumped her and moved into the rich woman’s penthouse. The betrayal broke Lily. She spiraled into a deep depression for months. Eventually, she clawed her way back to reality and tried to finish her degree. But her desperate, frantic need for instant success led to burnout. She graduated with mediocre grades and ended up in a mind-numbing, entry-level corporate job. Jaxon, just like in my past life, ended up marrying a well-off woman, and rumor had it they were living a comfortable, happy life. After briefly gossiping about the drama, the classmates smoothly changed the subject, losing interest. In my previous life, Lily had gone to Europe, networked with the elite, and returned as a high-powered investment banker with a massive net worth. People at the reunion had practically tripped over themselves trying to compliment her and kiss her feet. But now? She was just another exhausted office drone. No one wanted to waste their breath on her. Watching the scene unfold, a heavy sigh escaped my lips. The visceral memory of what Lily had done to me for Jaxon’s sake still echoed in the back of my mind. Yet it was wild to realize that one tiny decision of mine to deliver those letters had fundamentally rewritten her entire existence. But honestly? Who cares. I had my own brilliant life and a future to build. I didn’t have to live in her shadow anymore, nor did I have to look over my shoulder constantly, fearing she would murder me. I was untouchable now. To me, Lily Mercer was nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust in the grand scheme of my life. 5 I genuinely thought that after the reunion, my path would be entirely wiped clean of Lily. Our parents were technically still neighbors, but Lily hadn’t returned home since the day she ran away. Her parents had spent years crying behind closed doors, gradually pulling away from the neighborhood social scene. Then, one evening, while I was casually reviewing an academic journal on my couch, my phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. When I answered, Lily’s heavily slurred voice leaked through the speaker. “Hey, is this Arthur? It’s Lily. Can you… can you come pick me up? My head is killing me.” “Sorry, I’m busy. I can call your parents for you,” I replied coldly. “No!” she shrieked, the sudden volume piercing my ear. “They don’t want me anymore. Please, Arthur, I’m begging you. Just for old time’s sake, we grew up together.” I massaged my temples, feeling a headache coming on. My instinct was to hang up, but I figured it would be better to drive over and permanently shut this down face-to-face to avoid future harassment. So, I grabbed my keys. I found her slouched outside a dingy dive bar downtown. Apparently, her corporate firm had just done a massive round of layoffs, and she had been given the axe. Looking at her now, there was zero trace of the arrogant girl I used to know. Her mascara was smeared down her cheeks, and she reeked of cheap tequila and stale smoke. When she saw me, her eyes immediately welled up. She weakly raised a half-empty glass she had smuggled out and let out a pathetic laugh. “Arthur. If I hadn’t dated Jaxon, do you think… do you think things would have been different?” Her eyes were swimming with raw regret and desperation, like a lost child asking for a lifeline. I didn’t offer her an ounce of comfort. I just stood under the flickering neon sign, staring at her with eyes as cold as ice. Seeing my blank reaction, she just kept rambling. “I regret it. God, I regret it so much. If only I hadn’t let some stupid teenage romance ruin my brain. I didn’t know I would end up like this! Why didn’t the counselor or my parents try harder to stop me? Maybe if they had just dragged me out of there, I wouldn’t be sitting in this gutter.” “You know what? I’m so incredibly jealous of you. You have everything, Arthur. And I… I literally have nothing left.” Tears streamed down her messy face, her voice cracking with genuine sorrow. Yet, looking at the sobbing mess in front of me, my heart was a stone. Not a single drop of pity materialized. I stopped myself from turning away, taking one step closer. “You’re right,” I said, a cruel smirk touching my lips. “Your life is a tragedy. But you absolutely deserve every second of it.” Lily froze, the glass slipping from her hand and shattering on the concrete. She stared at me, utterly blindsided. “W-What did you say?” I leaned in, pronouncing every word with crystal clarity. “I said you deserve it, Lily. Even sitting in the dirt, you’re still pointing fingers. Everyone tried to save you. They practically begged you to stop, but you plugged your ears and screamed at them. And now you have the nerve to blame them for not trying hard enough? You are an insanely selfish person. You aren’t crying over the great romance you lost. You’re crying because you threw away the money, the status, and the vanity you think you were owed. That’s why you’re a failure.” “How… how dare you speak to me like that!” Lily’s whole body shook with rage. She pointed a trembling finger at my chest. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?! If you had just taken Jaxon’s love letter and thrown it away back then, none of this would have happened!” I looked at her delusion, a wave of profound disgust washing over me. “Get a grip on reality, Lily. If I had destroyed that letter, you would have just spent the rest of your life resenting me for sabotaging your epic, star-crossed destiny.” I looked down at her one last time, my eyes filled with nothing but contempt. “You and Jaxon. Honestly? You two were made for each other.” Without another word, I turned my back on her and walked away into the night, officially cutting the dead weight from my life.

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1 After eye surgery, I saw emotional auras. True care glowed warm orange—like the neighbor’s reunion or the old woman’s chestnuts. But my wife Stacey’s aura stayed a dull, suffocating gray. By my hospital bed, feeding me soup. On our anniversary, clasping my necklace. Even at night, tangled together, her gray never wavered. I told myself her love was just deeply buried. Until Finn’s welcome banquet. Lights died. Finn gasped, terrified of the dark. Stacey lunged, slamming me to the floor. From the ground, I watched her pull him into a fierce embrace. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you.” In the blackness, a blinding orange erupted from her—so bright it scalded. “Finn, are you hurt?” Lights flickered back. Everyone saw Stacey shielding Finn. I slumped against a table two meters away, elbow bleeding, knees throbbing on marble. She finally glanced at me, still glowing that violent orange. In seven years, it was the first time I’d seen that color on her. It burned my eyes. But it was never for me. … Finn gently stepped out of her embrace and smoothed his hair. “I’m fine, Stacey.” He looked over at me, his tone entirely too casual. “You should check on Neil. It looks like he took a pretty hard fall.” Stacey stood up and walked toward me. I gripped the edge of the table and slowly pulled myself up. I didn’t yell. I didn’t cause a scene, nor did I demand to know why she had shoved her own husband aside. I simply looked at the fading orange glow around her, turned my back, and walked toward the exit. “Neil.” Stacey caught up to me at the hotel entrance, grabbing my wrist. She frowned at the blood dripping from my elbow. “The blackout happened too fast. You know Finn is terrified of the dark.” Her voice was steady, carrying a tone of absolute justification. She didn’t bother explaining who she cared about more. She just used the phrase “you know” to force me back into the role of the understanding, compliant husband. I stared at her aura. It had completely returned to that lifeless gray. “So when you shoved me out of the way, did you know it was me?” Stacey froze for a fraction of a second. “It was chaos. I couldn’t see anything.” She let go of my wrist and reached into her purse for her car keys. “Neil, the three of us have known each other for years. Don’t make this ugly over a stupid accident.” I didn’t say a word. I just got into the passenger seat. She insisted on driving me to a nearby urgent care clinic. When the ER doctor scrubbed my open wound with iodine, a piercing sting shot through my nerves. Stacey was standing right next to me when her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and answered immediately. “Stacey, I think I dropped my car keys in the banquet hall. Could you come back and help me look?” Finn’s voice filtered through the speaker. It wasn’t loud, but it was just clear enough for me to hear every word. Stacey looked down at me. My elbow was still bleeding. The doctor hadn’t even applied the bandages yet. “Let the doctor finish up,” she said, tossing her credit card onto the metal counter. “I will be right back.” The clinic door swung open and clicked shut. I watched her silhouette disappear into the night. I didn’t ask her to stay. Half an hour later, my arm was fully bandaged. The clinic door swung open again. But it wasn’t Stacey. Finn walked in, holding a steaming cup of coffee and a pharmacy bag. He stopped right in front of me. “Don’t be mad at Stacey, Neil. She just panicked.” He offered me the coffee, his expression perfectly open and guiltless. “You know how it is. I got trapped in an elevator as a kid. The dark really messes with my head.” I didn’t take the cup. “She definitely panicked,” I replied flatly. Finn smiled and took a seat next to me. “We’ve all been in each other’s lives for so long. Don’t let my coming back create a wedge between you two.” He wasn’t fighting me. He wasn’t overtly stealing her. He just effortlessly inserted himself into the concept of “the three of us” as if it were his birthright. It was past midnight when Stacey finally came home after dropping Finn off. I had already showered and was sitting quietly on the living room sofa. She tossed a small pharmacy bag onto the coffee table. “I got you some scar cream. Stop giving me the cold shoulder.” She slipped off her coat, sounding deeply exhausted. “Finn just got back to the States. The welcome party turned into a disaster. He feels terrible about it.” I looked at the suffocating, ashen gray radiating from her body. “Stacey,” I said softly. “If Finn had been the one bleeding on the floor tonight, would you have told him to stop making things ugly?” Stacey’s brow furrowed in instant annoyance. “But that didn’t happen, did it?” She turned and walked toward the master bathroom. “Go to sleep, Neil. Stop overthinking.” The sound of the shower running echoed through the quiet apartment. I picked up my phone and opened an email I had received two weeks ago. The subject line read: [London Restoration Center Fellowship Offer Confirmed]. My thumb hovered over the screen. Without a single second of hesitation, I tapped accept. The next morning, I walked into the dining room. Stacey was already up and had prepared breakfast. She slid a bowl of sweet pumpkin oatmeal across the table. “You lost blood last night. Eat something warm.” She pulled out a chair and sat down, her tone surprisingly gentle. I stared at the steaming bowl of sweet oatmeal. I didn’t touch my spoon. I hate pumpkin. Even the smell of it makes my stomach turn. The person who is obsessed with sweet pumpkin oatmeal is Finn. I have always preferred a savory breakfast sandwich. Three years of marriage, and she couldn’t even remember my most basic preferences. “Why aren’t you eating?” she asked. “It’s too hot.” I pushed the bowl away. Her phone buzzed on the table. Finn had just sent a message to our group chat. “Thanks again for last night, Stacey. How is Neil’s arm? Do you want me to drop off some antibiotics?” I glanced at the screen. It was our trio group chat, dead and silent for three years. The name was still a stupid joke from college: “The Golden Trio.” Stacey picked up her phone, typing back immediately. “No need. You’re still jetlagged. Get some sleep.” I watched her fingers move across the screen. My bandages hadn’t even been changed today, yet her first priority was Finn’s jetlag. “Let’s go out for dinner tonight,” Stacey said, putting her phone face down. “Finn doesn’t know his way around the city anymore. We can eat together, make up for the dinner we missed last night.” I looked up at her. “Do you know what today is?” Today was my birthday. Stacey paused. Not a single ripple of emotion crossed her face. “We can celebrate your birthday another day.” She took a sip of her black coffee. “A welcome home dinner only happens once.” I stared quietly at the dead gray light surrounding her. She was like a freezing stone I could never warm up. “Okay,” I nodded, standing up from the table. That afternoon, on my way to the restaurant, I opened that pinned group chat. I changed the group name to: “Stacey and Her Friend.” The chat went dead silent for a few seconds. Finn replied first with a smiling emoji. “Wow, Neil. That sounds so formal. We used to be a lot closer than that.” A private message from Stacey popped up immediately after. “Why did you change the group name?” “Finn just got back. Why are you purposely trying to make him uncomfortable?” I typed a single reply. “I’m just making the relationship titles accurate.” She didn’t text back. Dinner was at an upscale French restaurant. Finn, wearing a loud designer shirt, sat right next to Stacey. The waiter handed out the wine menus. Finn smiled and looked across the table at me. “Stacey used to outdrink all of us in college. Do you keep her on a tight leash, Neil?” I picked up my water glass and took a sip. “She has a weak stomach. She can’t do hard liquor.” Finn raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?” He turned his head to look at Stacey. “Back in the day, she would take shots with me until three in the morning and still make it to her morning lectures.” Stacey didn’t correct him. She gracefully sliced her steak, a very faint, nostalgic smile touching the corners of her lips. “That was when we were young and stupid.” The exact moment those words left her mouth, a soft, warm orange glow bloomed around her. It was faint, but it was undeniably real. Looking at that light, the very last shred of struggle in my heart completely flatlined. Halfway through the meal, I stood up. “I have some restoration files to organize. I’m heading out early.” Stacey frowned. “Finish your food. I will drive you home.” “No need.” I grabbed my jacket and walked out of the restaurant without looking back. As I reached the parking lot, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. “Neil.” Finn leaned against the hood of a nearby car, his voice perfectly calm. “I know you hate that I am back.” He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, pinching it between his fingers. “But Stacey and I knew each other long before you came into the picture. There is a lot of history between us. You don’t just erase that overnight.” I looked at him. “And your point is?” Finn chuckled, blowing a cloud of smoke into the cool air. “My point is, if you can’t handle it, you should just bow out.” “Stop suffering in silence while making everyone else miserable.” I looked at his smug, open face and didn’t bother arguing. When I got home, I opened my laptop. I pulled up the email from the London Restoration Center and began filling out the detailed visa application. For the next few days, I stayed quiet. I gathered my passport, my certificates, and my portfolio. The floor of my study was covered with delicate restoration tools and ancient texts. When Stacey pushed the door open, I was carefully sealing a few rare books my grandfather had left me into moisture proof bags. Her eyes swept over the open suitcase on the floor. Her brow furrowed. “Are you going on a business trip?” I sealed the bag shut. “Something like that.” She walked closer, opening her mouth to ask more, but her phone suddenly rang in her pocket. She answered it, her tone instantly softening. “You looked at the venue? Okay, I will be right there.” Hanging up, she grabbed her coat draped over the back of the chair. “Finn is putting together a small photography exhibition. There is an issue with the venue.” She looked at me. “I need to go help him sort this out. We can talk about your trip when I get back.” I didn’t even look up. “Sure.” The second the front door clicked shut, I shoved the final stack of paperwork into my suitcase. She didn’t even have the time to ask where I was going. That afternoon, I went to the bank to print out six months of financial statements for my visa application. When the teller handed me the printed receipt, I stared at the numbers and completely froze. More than half of the money in our joint savings account, the money we had been saving for our trip to Iceland, was gone. The transfer memo simply read: “Deposit for Finn’s Exhibition Venue.” Two years ago, when I was recovering from my eye surgery and my vision first started coming back, I told her I wanted to see the Northern Lights. Stacey had held my hand, her voice solemn and full of promise. “As soon as your eyes are fully healed, I will take you.” We had saved that money for two years. Now, the Northern Lights had been traded for Finn’s spotlight. I folded the bank statement, slid it into my bag, and hailed a cab straight to the exhibition venue. The gallery was a mess. Construction workers were busy setting up display frames. I walked in and immediately spotted the item sitting inside the central glass display case. It was a vintage film camera. My grandfather’s camera. The last thing he ever left me. Next to it sat a sleek placard printed in elegant cursive. “The Source of Finn’s Early Inspiration.” I stood in front of the glass, the blood running cold in my veins. “Neil, what are you doing here?” Stacey walked over holding a roll of blueprints, looking completely unfazed. “Finn is just borrowing it.” She pointed at the camera. “Your grandfather kept it in pristine condition. It fits the aesthetic of the exhibition perfectly.” I turned my head to look at her. “Did you ask me?” Stacey went quiet for a second before rolling up the blueprints. “Do we really need to draw such strict lines between us?” Her tone carried a hint of irritation. She was looking at me as if I were a child throwing an unreasonable tantrum. Finn climbed down from a nearby ladder and dusted off his hands. “Neil, perfect timing.” He walked over to the glass case, his smile bright and totally shameless. “I meant to call you. Your grandfather’s camera has so much character. It’s the perfect centerpiece for my show.” I stared at him. “That belongs to me.” Finn blinked, feigning surprise, before his smile grew wider. “Of course it does. I didn’t say I was keeping it.” He looked at Stacey. “Stacey told me you wouldn’t mind, so I went ahead and used it.” Stacey stepped forward, deliberately positioning herself between Finn and me. “It’s just a camera, Neil. He will give it back when the show is over.” She lowered her voice. “This exhibition is crucial for Finn’s comeback. Do not embarrass him right now.” I looked at the suffocating, dead gray aura surrounding her. “Stacey,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “We are done. Let’s get a divorce.” Stacey’s face drained of color. Her eyes darkened with absolute disbelief. “Over a camera?” She thought I was losing my mind. “Leave Finn out of this. He just got back, and putting this show together has been stressful enough. We’ve been friends for years. Stop being so overly sensitive and ruining everything.” I didn’t argue. I reached out, slid open the unlocked glass pane, took out my grandfather’s vintage camera, and walked out of the gallery. It was raining lightly on the opening day of Finn’s exhibition. I had no intention of going, but I realized I was missing a crucial document for my visa. Two days ago, Stacey had carelessly stuffed it into her briefcase. I had no choice but to go to the gallery to find her. As I walked into the grand lobby, I saw Stacey standing by the sign in desk. She looked surprised to see me, instinctively reaching out to touch my shoulder. I stepped sideways, avoiding her touch entirely. Her hand froze in midair before she slowly pulled it back. “Since you are here, do you want to walk around with me?” She was still radiating that pale, lifeless gray. I shook my head, turning away to look for her briefcase. That was when I noticed the massive projector screen by the entrance playing a video montage. The title read: “Reunion: The Ten Years We Walked Together.” I froze in my tracks. The screen showed rolling lavender fields in Provence. Finn was running ahead, turning back to smile brightly at the camera. Stacey was walking right beside him, carrying his heavy camera bag. The warm sunlight stretched their shadows together on the grass. The next shot was on the banks of the Seine. It was dusk. The two of them were leaning against the stone railing, Finn resting his head comfortably on her shoulder to watch the sunset. Stacey whispered something, he laughed and playfully shoved her, and she smiled brightly in return. The next clip was outside a small street cafe. Finn was rubbing his hands together in the freezing cold. Stacey took off her trench coat and draped it over his shoulders. It was the coat I had bought for her birthday last year. In the bottom right corner of the video, the dates were watermarked. October 15, October 17, October 20. I remembered those days vividly. I had been bedridden with a severe fever. “The fifteenth,” I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “You told me you were on a business trip to New York.” Stacey went dead silent. “Finn was stranded in Europe alone,” she finally said. “He didn’t speak the language. I just flew out to help him.” Still gray. Always gray. The gallery lights suddenly dimmed, signaling the start of the opening ceremony. Finn stood on the small stage in a crisp white shirt, smiling effortlessly into the microphone. “Before we begin, I want to invite someone very special up here with me.” His gaze cut through the crowd and landed squarely on Stacey. “Stacey, come up here.” Stacey walked up the steps. The spotlight hit them both simultaneously. And then I saw it. The moment she stood next to Finn, the gray aura around her cracked. A warm, vibrant orange light began bleeding through the cracks, inch by inch. Just standing beside him was enough to light her up on fire. Finn turned his head to look at her before addressing the audience, his voice dripping with affection. “This exhibition wouldn’t have been possible without her.” “From picking the theme to booking the venue, from the equipment to the layout. She was there every single step of the way.” “When a massive storm derailed my shoot in Paris, she walked the streets with me in the freezing rain to find new locations.” He paused, his voice dropping to a soft whisper. “When I broke down crying at four in the morning, I made one phone call, and she was there twenty minutes later.” “Without Stacey, this reunion wouldn’t exist.” The gallery erupted in applause. The orange light around her flared even brighter. A journalist raised his hand. “Finn, care to elaborate on your relationship with Stacey? If you told us you two were married, we’d believe it!” The crowd cheered. Stacey turned slightly and lifted her microphone. “Actually, we are just…” Finn suddenly leaned in close, whispering something in her ear. I could read his lips perfectly. He was saying, “Stacey, just this once. All the media is here, I need the publicity. Neil won’t get jealous.” He looked up at her, his eyes curving into a perfect smile. Stacey stopped talking. She didn’t nod, but she didn’t finish her explanation either. Finn turned back to the crowd and offered a dashing smile. “Since you are all so curious… Stacey is definitely much more than just a friend to me!” The audience went wild. Flashbulbs went off like a strobe light. Finn turned slightly and reached out. His fingertips brushed against the back of her hand. She looked down at his hand. One second. Two seconds. She didn’t pull away. He slid his fingers through hers, interlocking them tightly. The warm orange aura surrounding her violently erupted, burning so bright and so hot it looked like it was going to consume the entire room. The applause was deafening. “They look so perfect together!” “Is this their official announcement?” I stood in the sea of people, looking up at the stage, watching their two brilliant orange auras merge perfectly into one. They really did look perfect together. My phone buzzed in my pocket. “Sir, your car to the airport has arrived.” I turned around, slipping through the cheering crowd. I found her briefcase behind the desk, pulled out my missing document, and walked away. That radiant orange light burned brighter and brighter behind me, but it had absolutely nothing to do with me anymore. When I stepped out of the gallery, the rain was coming down much harder. “Let’s go.” As the car merged onto the highway, I leaned my head against the cold window, watching the raindrops trace down the glass like tears. My phone screen lit up. A text from Stacey. “Where did you go?” I stared at it for a few seconds before locking the screen. The airport was incredibly quiet. I printed my boarding pass, checked my luggage, and walked through security. The overhead speaker chimed. “Flight to London is now boarding.” I stood up, pulling my carry on behind me, and walked down the jet bridge. Goodbye, Stacey.

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