The young girl at the front desk of the Starlight Indoor Playground checked her system, looked up, and smiled. “There are two kids registered under this membership card. Should I page both of them to the front?” I froze. I only have one son. “Two?” “Yep,” she said brightly. “A two-and-a-half-year-old boy named Leo Davis, and a three-year-old girl named Chloe Vance.” She swiped the tablet to turn the screen toward me. The registered guardian for the little girl was listed as: Sarah Davis. The emergency contact was: Mark Vance. I had no idea who this Mark guy was. But I absolutely recognized the check-in photo in the top right corner of the screen. It was my wife. She was holding a little girl, and a man with short hair was standing right beside her. All three of them were smiling at the camera. They looked exactly like a happy, picture-perfect family. The timestamp on the photo: Last Saturday. Last Saturday was the day my wife told me Leo went absolutely crazy in the ball pit and was sweating through his clothes. Leo is two and a half. That little girl was three. Which meant that before my wife even gave birth to my son, that girl was already born. My grip on my phone tightened until my knuckles turned completely white. I raised it and took a clear photo of the screen. … “Sir? Sir?” The girl at the front desk was still trying to get my attention. “Which child would you like me to page for you?” I forced the corners of my mouth up into a tight, mechanical smile. “Never mind. I gave you the wrong phone number.” As I turned and walked out the glass doors of the playground, the afternoon sun was so bright it stung my eyes. Behind me, I could hear the muffled sounds of kids playing—screams of joy and laughter all blended together. I didn’t know who Leo was currently playing with in there. And I didn’t know which child Sarah was standing next to right now. On my phone screen, I zoomed in on the photo I had just taken. I zoomed in again and again. The little girl’s facial features… they looked just like Sarah’s. Especially her eyes. Leo has those exact same eyes. I sat in a coffee shop directly across the street from the playground for forty minutes. At the forty-first minute, Sarah walked out the front doors holding Leo’s hand. Just Leo. She buckled him into his car seat and started the engine. I dialed her number. It rang twice before she answered. “Hey honey, we just finished playing. Leo was sweating like crazy, so I’m going to take him to get cleaned up first. We’ll be home a little later.” “Okay.” I hung up the phone. Her SUV didn’t turn north, toward our house. It turned south. I flagged down a taxi and pointed. “Follow that white SUV.” The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror but didn’t ask any questions. The white SUV eventually pulled up to the security gates of a high-end, gated townhouse community on the south side of the city. The Emerald Estates. We lived in a modest suburb on the north side. I watched as Sarah carried Leo, swiped an access card at the pedestrian gate, and walked right in. She did it with the effortless muscle memory of someone walking into her own home. I memorized the name of the community. She finally brought Leo home at 8:00 PM. He had clearly been given a bath, and he was wearing clean clothes. But it wasn’t the spare outfit I had packed in his diaper bag. It was a little blue hoodie with a cartoon race car embroidered on the chest. I had never seen it before in my life. “Where did Leo get this hoodie?” I asked. Sarah kicked off her shoes into the entryway closet. “Oh, I just grabbed it from a boutique next to the playground. His other shirt was completely soaked in sweat.” “How much was it?” “I don’t remember. Like thirty bucks, maybe?” When she walked away, I checked the tag on the collar. Jacadi. A premium European children’s brand. The retail price for their hoodies is usually around $120. I didn’t say a word. I warmed up a bottle of milk for Leo and rocked him to sleep. Later, Sarah was lounging on the living room sofa, scrolling through her phone. I watched her through the crack in the bedroom door. She was smiling. Smiling warmly at whatever was on her screen. When she talked to me these days, she almost never smiled like that. After she finally went to bed and fell asleep, I didn’t try to touch her phone. I knew she had a complex passcode, and if I got locked out, it would only alert her that I was suspicious. Instead, I opened my laptop and logged into the county’s public property tax records database. I typed in Sarah’s Social Security Number. I work as a financial controller; I have all our sensitive information memorized. When the search results loaded, a loud, high-pitched ringing filled my ears. Emerald Estates, Unit 1403. Registered Owner: Sarah Davis. Date of Purchase: Three and a half years ago. Three and a half years ago. We had only been married for six months. Which meant that before the honeymoon phase of our marriage was even over, she had bought a luxury townhouse on the south side of the city. And I knew absolutely nothing about it. Monday morning, I dropped Leo off at daycare, but I didn’t go straight to the office. I drove south to the Emerald Estates. It was a newly developed community, beautifully landscaped. There was an Amazon Hub locker right outside the main gates. I parked across the street and waited for half an hour. At 9:10 AM, a man in a black trench coat pushed a high-end stroller out of the pedestrian gate. Sitting inside was a little girl, maybe three years old. She was eating a banana, smearing it all over her face. The man stopped, leaned down, and gently wiped her mouth with a tissue. His profile was perfectly visible. It was the man from the playground check-in photo. Mark Vance. He walked over to the Amazon Hub and retrieved two packages. One large, one small. The large one was a heavy cardboard box with the logo of an expensive organic toddler formula brand printed on the side. The small one was a padded envelope. He ripped it open, glanced at whatever was inside, frowned slightly, and shoved it into his pocket. I snapped several clear photos from my car, but I didn’t approach him. I put the car in drive and headed to work. During my lunch break that day, I cleared all the search history from my personal phone. Then, I used my secure work computer to access the county’s deed and mortgage registry to look up Emerald Estates, Unit 1403. Paid in cash. $650,000. Three and a half years ago, Sarah and I had a combined total savings of barely $200,000. She grew up in a working-class family; her parents were blue-collar workers with zero generational wealth. That $200,000 was mostly money my parents had given us when we got married as a down payment for our future, plus the savings I had scraped together since I started working. I genuinely believed that money was still sitting safely in our joint high-yield savings account. That afternoon, I logged into our joint bank app. Available Balance: $6,150. I stared at that number until my eyes burned. $200,000. She had drained it down to six grand. Where did the other $450,000 to buy the townhouse come from? I ran a soft credit check on her, looking for credit cards or personal loans. Nothing significant showed up. But with my background in corporate finance, I knew that if someone paid $650,000 in cash for a property, and only $200,000 came from our savings, there were only a few ways to source the remaining $450,000. An untraceable private loan, a massive withdrawal from a retirement account, or— Someone else paid for it. That night, Sarah came home very late. She walked through the door at 11 PM, reeking of alcohol. She collapsed onto the sofa, muttering something about having one too many drinks at a client dinner. I poured a glass of ice water and set it on the coffee table next to her. “Sarah.” “Mhm?” “How’s your mom doing lately?” She rolled over, burying her face in the cushions. “She’s fine. Same old, same old.” “Do you want to take Leo to visit his grandma this weekend?” “We’ll see.” She let out a massive yawn and passed out almost immediately. I picked up her discarded coat and went through the pockets. No secret secondary phone. But my fingers brushed against a thick plastic card. A parking garage access pass for the Emerald Estates. Status: VIP Resident / Auto-Renew. The second Saturday. Sarah stuck to her routine and prepared to take Leo out for the day. “Try to be home a little early today,” I said, wiping down the kitchen counter. “I’m making short ribs.” “Sounds good.” As she bent down to tie Leo’s tiny sneakers, her sleeve hiked up, and I saw a watch on her wrist. It wasn’t the practical Citizen watch I had bought her for our anniversary. It was a Cartier. I had never seen it before. After they left, I drove straight back to the Emerald Estates. This time, I didn’t wait outside on the street. I walked right down the entrance ramp into the underground resident parking garage. I found her white SUV parked on the second subterranean level and snapped a photo of its location. Reserved Spot: B2-073. On the concrete wall next to the spot, a notice from the HOA was taped up: Please ensure all monthly parking and HOA fees are paid by the 15th. I found the elevator bank and rode it up to the 14th floor. Outside unit 1403, there was a small woven welcome mat. Resting on it were two pairs of adult slippers, one pair of toddler sandals, and— I recognized them instantly. A pair of orthopedic walking shoes. They belonged to my mother-in-law, Mary. She always complained about her bad knees and claimed this specific, ugly brand was the only shoe she could comfortably wear. I stood in the quiet, carpeted hallway for exactly three minutes. Through the heavy oak door, I could hear laughter. A little girl’s laughter, Leo’s infectious giggles, and the familiar, grating voice of an older woman: “Chloe, slow down, sweetie! Don’t steal your brother’s snacks.” Brother. She was calling Leo her “brother.” Then came Mark’s voice: “Mom, Leo really loves your baked ziti. You’ll have to teach me the recipe next time.” Mom. He was calling my mother-in-law “Mom.” A wave of icy dread washed over my spine, freezing my blood. I turned around and walked back to the elevator. I didn’t knock. It wasn’t because I was afraid. It was because I couldn’t afford to. I was completely unprepared. If I knocked on that door right now and blew this wide open, all they would do is coordinate their lies, delete digital evidence, and immediately start hiding assets. When the dust settled, I would be left with absolutely nothing, not even the right to cry about it. Driving home, I passed by a sleek, modern law firm. I parked the car and stood on the sidewalk outside for five minutes. In the end, I didn’t walk in. Not because I was hesitating. But because I was still missing the most crucial piece of the puzzle. Where did that $450,000 come from? At 4:00 PM, my mother-in-law, Mary, called me. “Hey, Arthur! Is Sarah home?” “No, Mary. She took Leo to the indoor playground.” “Oh, okay.” She paused for two seconds. “Are you guys free to drive up and visit us in the suburbs this weekend? Your father-in-law’s tomato garden is doing great this year.” “I’ll have to check with Sarah and see what her schedule is like.” “Sure, sure. I know you both work so hard. Don’t exhaust yourselves!” Her voice was so warm. Her tone so caring. Like the perfect, loving mother-in-law. Just thirty minutes ago, she was making baked ziti for another man in a luxury townhouse. Calling another man’s daughter “Chloe,” and calling my son “brother.” When the call ended, my hands were shaking violently against the steering wheel. Not from fear. From pure, unadulterated rage. On Wednesday night, my mother-in-law came over to our house for dinner. She claimed she had taken the commuter train all the way from their house in the suburbs to bring us fresh vegetables. I knew for a fact she didn’t come from the suburbs. She came straight from the Emerald Estates. I could easily prove it by checking her transit card history. Of course, I didn’t say a word. At the dinner table, she bounced Leo on her knee, smiling so hard her eyes crinkled. “Leo is such a good boy. He looks just like his mom did at this age.” “Actually, Mary, I think Leo looks a lot more like me.” “Boys should look like their dads! It’s better that way,” she said smoothly, dropping a piece of short rib into my bowl. “Arthur, you and Sarah really need to start thinking about having a second one.” Here we go again. In the three years we’ve been married, she had brought this up no less than twenty times. “You guys are still young! Have a little girl! Give Leo a sister to play with.” It felt like a golf ball was lodged in my throat. She already had a granddaughter. A three-year-old, chubby, happy little granddaughter. A child who called her “Grandma,” and who called Mark “Daddy.” And here she was, sitting at my dining table, eating the short ribs I spent three hours slow-cooking, pressuring me and Sarah to give her another granddaughter. “We’ll see, Mary. Work has been insanely stressful lately.” “Work isn’t as important as family! A man can be the best CEO in the world, but nothing beats having a sweet little daughter to come home to…” Sarah quietly picked at her food, keeping her eyes glued to her plate. I looked at her. She didn’t look back. That night, after putting my mother-in-law in an Uber, I sat alone on our small apartment balcony. Looking down, I could see the community courtyard. Under the dim, orange glow of a streetlight, a young couple was huddled together on a park bench. The year Sarah and I got married, we sat on that exact same bench. She had looked at me and said: “We’re going to build a beautiful life together. I promise.” That was three years ago. I pulled out my phone and opened our joint banking app again. Every month, Sarah’s $8,000 salary was supposedly deposited here. Our monthly living expenses were roughly $4,000. Logically, over three years, we should have accumulated around $144,000 in savings, just from her income alone. But the balance was $6,150. Where did the money go? I requested a full, itemized three-year transaction history. Every single month, a scheduled transfer of $2,500 went out to an unknown account. Account Holder: Mark Vance. Three years. Thirty-six transactions. Totaling $90,000. Then came the massive, lump-sum withdrawals: Down payment wire to the title company: $200,000. Contractor payments for renovations: $75,000. High-end furniture and appliances: $40,000. Miscellaneous Venmo and Zelle transfers to Mark: $60,000. Combined with the monthly “allowance” she was sending Mark… The grand total: $465,000. Every single dime of the savings we had built since our wedding, plus the $100,000 wedding gift from my parents—completely wiped out. The “salary” Sarah brought home every month was just a smokescreen to cover the basic household bills here. The real money, the serious wealth, was all being funneled directly into her second life. And I was the one who managed the household budget for three years. I cooked the meals, I took care of our son, I worked my stressful corporate job until 8 PM every night. She stole almost half a million dollars to fund a secret family. And I didn’t even know who bought the Cartier watch on her wrist. My temples were throbbing violently. I took a deep, shuddering breath. Enough. I had found everything I needed to find. Now, I needed a ruthless lawyer. During my lunch break the next day, I walked into the law firm I had hesitated outside of last week. The attorney who took my consultation was a woman named Jessica Hayes. She looked to be in her early forties, wore sharp glasses, and had an intimidating wall of legal volumes behind her desk. I laid every single piece of evidence out on her desk. The property tax records. The bank statements. The wire transfer receipts. The photo of the playground membership screen. The 401k early withdrawal penalties I found on our joint tax return. The hidden credit cards I uncovered using a deep-dive credit monitoring service. Jessica flipped through the documents for fifteen solid minutes before pushing her glasses up her nose. “Arthur, you work in corporate finance, don’t you?” “I’m a controller.” “Makes sense. I’ve been practicing family law for fifteen years, and I have never seen a client walk in with a paper trail this airtight.” She closed the heavy manila folder. “What’s your objective?” “Divorce.” “What are we fighting for?” “Full physical and legal custody of my son. And aggressive restitution for the marital assets she fraudulently transferred.” Jessica nodded slowly. “The townhouse in the Emerald Estates was purchased during the marriage. Regardless of whose name is on the deed, it is legally considered marital property in this state. The fact that she used joint marital funds to purchase a home for a paramour is textbook ‘dissipation of marital assets.’ Under the law, we can petition the court to award you the entirety of that equity, or force a sale to recoup your stolen funds.” “How long will the process take?” “If she fights it? Six to eight months. If this evidence is as bulletproof as it looks, and she realizes she’ll be slaughtered in court… three months, if we’re fast.” “I have one non-negotiable condition.” “Name it.” “I do not want her to have a single second of warning to liquidate or hide any remaining assets.” Jessica looked at me, her eyes narrowing in professional respect. “When do you plan on confronting her?” “When the trap is fully set.” For the next two weeks, I acted like absolutely nothing was wrong. I went to work. I cooked dinner. I warmed up Leo’s milk. On Saturday, Sarah took Leo to the playground, just like always. I didn’t follow her. I didn’t need to. I didn’t need any more evidence. I just needed the perfect execution. Jessica drafted a brutal, unyielding divorce petition. She also prepared a massive ex parte motion for a temporary restraining order on all assets. The moment I signed it and she filed it with the clerk, a judge would freeze every single piece of real estate and bank account tied to Sarah’s Social Security Number. Including the townhouse in the Emerald Estates. But I told Jessica to hold the filing. Because I had thought of a much, much better way to play this. I wasn’t just going to take my money back. I was going to make sure they all knew exactly what it felt like to have their lives completely destroyed by a lie.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “399947”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I had this whale of a client who constantly paid top dollar to commission my hand-knit scarves. Until this time, when he tipped me an extra three thousand bucks. “Make this one special. She’s my favorite.” The day after I shipped it out. My gorgeous, brooding, and totally broke boyfriend silently handed me a scarf. I stared at it. “…You knitted this?” He pressed his lips together. “Yeah. Do you like it?” I smiled so hard my teeth ground together. “I love it. Tell you what, why don’t you knit me one every single week?” I gripped the soft fabric of the scarf, gasping in feigned amazement: “These stitches, the cast-off edge… it’s incredible. Silas, you really put so much heart into this!” The more I praised him, the tighter I gripped the scarf. I was squeezing it so hard it was almost losing its shape. His slightly long bangs half-covered his dark eyes. The corners of his thin lips curled up slightly, looking a bit shy. “I’m glad you like it.” I asked, dripping with concern: “It must have taken you forever, right? It’s so detailed. For a beginner, this is honestly amazing.” I stared intently at Silas’s face. He paused for a fraction of a second, barely noticeable, and gave a soft “Mhm.” His voice was cool and clear. “It was a little difficult, but if you like it, it was worth it.” I clenched my fists, threw myself into his arms, and laughed. “I love it to death. Tell you what, why don’t you knit me one every single week?” The air in the room froze for a long moment. He agreed. “Okay.” A few seconds passed. He asked, “Are you… trembling?” Oh, I was trembling alright. Trembling with sheer, unadulterated rage. My smile grew increasingly stiff and twisted. I forced a choked sob into my voice. “I’m just so happy. This is the first time anyone has ever hand-knitted something just for me. I feel so lucky… so incredibly lucky…” By the end of my speech, I was practically grinding my teeth to dust. My eyes were red from the sheer anger. Silas awkwardly patted my back. “If you like them, I’ll just keep making them for you.” After Silas dropped me off at my dorm. I got a new notification on eBay. Z: [Knit me one every week. Can you do it?] I typed back: [Five thousand bucks a pop.] Honestly, the prices I usually listed for my custom scarves ranged from a hundred to a few hundred bucks. I’d occasionally get clients, and the transactions were usually pretty smooth. Until this client named “Z” found my page. I was in the middle of explaining the different knitting patterns and how the material costs varied, when he just randomly Venmo’d me a thousand bucks: [Just use the best of everything.] One look and I knew he was an ignorant rich guy with more money than sense! If I didn’t take his money, I’d be an idiot. After that, he became a regular. I even set up a private, thousand-dollar listing specifically for him to buy. Every time he paid, I shipped it to the address he left on his profile. It was in the same city as me. Unsurprisingly, it was in the most notoriously expensive, gated mansion community in the state. But I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined that he could be my sweet, beautiful, desperately poor, brooding boyfriend. The moment I sent the five-thousand-dollar quote. Z: [?] Me: [I’ve got a lot of commissions lately. Demand is high, so the price went up.] The other side stayed quiet for a long time. Just as I was debating whether I should unsend the message, he bought five quantities of my thousand-dollar listing. I let out a cold laugh. I immediately went on Amazon, bought a bunch of fifty-dollar scarves, had them shipped to my dorm with Prime delivery, and then planned to repackage and ship them to his address. Whatever, I was the one receiving these scarves in the end anyway. After placing the order, I opened iMessage. The only pinned chat at the top of my screen had a new message: [At work. Thinking of you.] I frowned. I immediately hit the FaceTime button. It rang for a long time, no one answered, and it automatically disconnected. Twenty minutes later, Silas texted: [My manager yelled at me for being on my phone. What’s up?] I replied: [Nothing, just thinking of you too.] But during those twenty minutes, I had already hopped on my bike and ridden down to the small diner where he supposedly worked. I walked in and asked the owner, “Hey Sarah, about that student I referred to you earlier—” Before I could even finish my sentence, the owner cut me off, her eyes wide with anger. “Don’t even get me started, Chloe. I only agreed to hire your friend because you were such a hard worker when you were here!” “Who knew he would get into a screaming match with a customer on his very first day!” “He was wearing some fancy watch on his wrist—a Patek Philippe or something? A customer saw it, joked around, and asked him to take it off so he could look at it. And your friend actually snapped back, ‘It’s broken, and if you drop it, you couldn’t afford to replace it!’” “Who knows if it was real or fake? If it’s fake, why couldn’t the guy look at it? And if it was real…” The owner clutched her chest in frustration. “Why the hell did you send his royal highness to work in a diner?! I think you were just trying to mess with me!” My body went cold. My voice trembled slightly. “Is he… is he still here?” “He quit on his first day!” the owner scoffed loudly. “Turned my diner completely upside down and didn’t even ask for his day’s pay.” I stood frozen in the middle of the diner. I didn’t know what to say. The night wind carried a sharp chill. It blew through my thin jacket, making me shiver violently. The owner waved her hand at me, her face full of disgust. “Just get out of here. I bet you two just did this to piss me off. Chloe, ask your conscience, did I ever treat you badly when you worked here? Unbelievable!” “I’m so sorry…” I mumbled awkwardly. On the bike ride back to campus. I scrolled through my text history with Silas. I knew he was poor. I knew he skipped meals to save money. So whenever I made a little extra cash from my scarves, I’d Venmo him a few bucks every couple of days. It wasn’t a lot, maybe twenty or thirty dollars at a time. But that was money I scraped together from my own meager living expenses, after putting every other cent toward paying off my family’s debts. When my deadbeat dad died, he left behind a mountain of loans. My mom and I busted our asses every single day just to make the monthly payments. I honestly thought Silas and I were two pathetic, freezing souls huddling together for warmth in a cruel world. Who knew I was just a toy in his little poverty-simulation game. And he was a CHEATER!!! All those other scarves I knitted for him before… they were all given to other people. As his “absolute favorite,” was I supposed to feel honored? But after the violent wave of rage passed, an icy calm washed over me. After some deep, strategic thinking, I decided this wasn’t the right time to expose him. After all, I was currently scamming five thousand dollars a week out of him. And I didn’t even have to knit the scarves myself. If Silas really just had a sick fetish for pretending to be poor and playing poverty-romance games, and I popped his bubble, he might get embarrassed, the novelty would wear off, and I wouldn’t get another dime! While he was still entertained, I needed to milk him for all he was worth. However. Was there a way to make his life miserable without actually breaking up with him? I racked my brain. Three days later. I called Silas. “Want to go on a date tomorrow?” He agreed immediately. “Sure.” My tone was sickly sweet. “Did you finish knitting my scarf? It’s been a few days, right? We haven’t seen each other because you’ve been so focused on knitting my scarf, haven’t you?” Silas paused for a second. “Yeah.” “Great. See you tomorrow.” The exact second I hung up the phone. I got an eBay notification. Z: [Are they done?] I glanced at my dorm desk. Sitting right there were the cheap scarves I had just picked up from the Amazon locker that afternoon. I left him on read. Z: [Expedite this.] [Can you deliver it tonight? Your shipping is always super fast, we must be in the same city.] Me: [That’s a little difficult.] He Venmo’d me five thousand dollars. Me: […Fine.] [Same address as usual?] Z: [Yes.] He Venmo’d me another hundred bucks: [For the Uber. You can drop it off yourself or hire a courier, I don’t care.] I picked up the Amazon scarf and inspected it. Honestly, the machine-knit quality was a little cleaner than my hand-knit stuff. Then I opened the Uber app to look for a package delivery driver. It was the middle of the night. My campus was miles away from his gated community, on the complete opposite side of the city. The app quoted me forty bucks. I gritted my teeth and hit request. No one accepted. I bumped the tip up to sixty bucks, waited another half hour, and still, no drivers took the bait. Bumping it higher would just be bad business. I threw on a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, and a surgical mask. I shoved the scarf into a fancy gift box and snuck out of my dorm. The gated community was massive. Even though the security guard had been expecting me and gave me directions, I still drove in circles for twenty minutes before I finally found the right mansion. I messaged Z on eBay: [I’m here. At the front door.] I pulled my cap down lower, adjusted my sunglasses, and pinched the wire on my mask. Before leaving my dorm, I had even borrowed my roommate’s perfume and sprayed a cloud over myself. I really didn’t want him to recognize me. But as I stood on his doorstep, my mind started racing. What if he did recognize me? What kind of chaotic, disastrous scene would that be? But very quickly, reality slapped me in the face. I was overthinking. A girl wearing a designer trench coat and carrying a Prada bag walked right past me. She expertly punched a code into the electronic keypad on the front door. The heavy mahogany doors swung open. A blast of heated air hit my face, carrying the heavy bass of thumping rock music. I could see a crowd of people inside. It was wild. They were throwing a massive house party. The girl turned her head and glanced at me. Her eyes dropped to the gift box in my hands. “Delivery? Who bought it? Silas? What’s inside?” She curiously tapped the box, but didn’t dare open it herself. I didn’t answer. I was too busy staring at the scarf wrapped around her neck. She rolled her eyes, bored. “Whatever. Want me to take it inside for you?” Right at that moment. A lazy, deep voice echoed from the foyer. “Why are you standing out there? It’s freezing.” The girl and I turned our heads at the same time. Silas was leaning casually against the doorframe. His slightly long bangs were pushed back, revealing a pair of sharp, untamed, arrogant eyes. The quiet, brooding, poor boy act was completely gone. His gaze briefly flickered from the girl to the gift box in my hands. “I ordered that. Bring it in for me.” The girl let out a small “Oh” and took the box from my hands. The warm, golden light from the mansion spilled out onto the porch. Silas stood up straight, about to close the door. He casually swept his eyes over me one last time, but his gaze suddenly locked onto my sunglasses. In that single, frozen second, my heart slammed against my ribs. I had rushed out of the dorm so fast I forgot to take them off. These were the exact sunglasses Silas and I had won at a carnival game a few months ago. He raised an eyebrow, his thin lips parting slightly. “You’re the seller?” I nodded stiffly. He let out a mocking scoff, offering a casual critique: “Wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night? Take the money I just paid you and buy yourself some designer frames.” I stood frozen. After dropping that line, Silas smoothly turned around and slammed the massive door shut. Cutting off the music, the heat, and the party inside. I slowly trudged back to the streetlight, pulled off the sunglasses, and rubbed the plastic frames. The cheap plastic was fading, the color chipping off unevenly. It looked incredibly weird. When we won them at the carnival, I was so excited. I thought they looked edgy and cool. I put them on and smiled brightly at Silas, asking, “How do I look?” His ears had turned bright red, and he gave a small nod. “You look beautiful.” Because he said that, I cherished these cheap plastic sunglasses. Why did they suddenly look— So tragically pathetic and hilarious? The next morning, I walked out of my dorm building. As I approached the campus dumpsters, my hand reaching into my bag, I locked eyes with Silas. When he saw me, the corners of his mouth immediately curved upward into a sweet smile. My hand froze inside my bag. I had forgotten to throw the sunglasses away last night. I was planning to toss them in the dumpster this morning. Silas walked over and gently wrapped a scarf around my neck. The exact same Amazon scarf I had bought. “Do you like it?” he asked softly. I forced a radiant smile, pulling my empty hand out of my bag. “The stitching is flawless. I absolutely love it.” His thin lips curled into an imperceptible, satisfied smirk. “I’m glad you like it.” I let him take my hand. I couldn’t even be bothered to interrogate him about his “knitting process” or his “diner shifts” anymore. He wouldn’t feel guilty; he’d just calmly and confidently invent another lie. Silas and I went to the amusement park. Right as we lined up for the first roller coaster, we bumped into a slender, very familiar silhouette. It was the girl from last night. She was wearing her designer trench coat, carrying her Prada bag. She was staring intently in our direction. I instinctively glanced at Silas. He locked eyes with the girl and gave a barely noticeable raise of his eyebrow. The girl immediately plastered a bright smile on her face and sauntered over to us. “Silas! Is this your girlfriend?” He gave a noncommittal “Mhm.” I looked at him, my expression perfectly normal. “A friend of yours?” Silas stared at the girl for a few seconds, interlacing his fingers with mine. “Not really.” “Hey.” She pouted. “Don’t act like you don’t know me.” She tapped her chin, pretending to think. “Hmm… Silas’s family is super poor, right? So back in high school, I hired him to tutor me. I guess you could call me his former employer.” As she said this, she looked at Silas, her eyes dancing with amusement. Silas’s eyelids lazily drooped. “Employer?” “Yeah. Shouldn’t you show a little more respect to the person who used to sign your paychecks? Poor. Boy.” The girl smiled brilliantly. If I didn’t already know the truth, I probably would have felt terrible for Silas right now. Having to swallow his pride and get mocked by his arrogant former boss. But hearing it now? I just wanted to laugh in their faces. Were they seriously flirting right in front of me? “What rides are you guys hitting? Let me tag along.” The girl pulled out her phone and waved it at Silas. “I actually need someone to keep me company. I’ll pay you five hundred bucks to hang out with me today. Pretty sweet deal, right?” Silas’s face instantly went cold. He glared at her. “Stop interrupting my date with my girlfriend.” The girl looked at me. “Five hundred bucks. You’re not going to let your boyfriend make some easy money?” “Do you want to make some easy money?” I asked Silas. Silas paused for exactly two seconds. “Sure.” I fell silent. I didn’t say another word. Silas rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand, lowering his voice. “I’ll Venmo you the money later.” I just smiled. Before we got on the drop tower, the attendant reminded us to take off loose items, including scarves.

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On the night I finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress, a troll account leaked a video of me from years ago. In it, I was heavily, undeniably pregnant. The auditorium erupted into pure chaos. Every reporter in the room shoved their microphones in my face, screaming the exact same question: “Ms. Vance, who is the father of the child?!” I turned and looked at Tristan Sterling. His face was frozen in absolute shock. The man who was famous for being coldly composed and utterly unshakable had just lost his composure in public for the very first time. I turned back to the reporters, smiled gracefully, and denied it. “I don’t have a child.” Years ago, when Tristan abandoned me to save his childhood best friend, it sealed our fate. It guaranteed that he and I would never, ever have a future together. Right before I stepped out of the limo to walk the red carpet, my manager, Chloe, gave me one final, stern warning. “If you run into Savannah Hayes, pretend she doesn’t exist. Under no circumstances are you to start drama with her tonight.” I couldn’t exactly blame her. Savannah’s financial backer was Tristan Sterling. Half of the entertainment industry was owned by the Sterling family. There used to be an ugly, unspoken rule in Hollywood: If you want to be famous, you have to sleep with Tristan Sterling. It was crude, but the reality was that any woman remotely connected to Tristan saw her career skyrocket. Except for me. I was the only woman who had publicly dated Tristan Sterling, and I was the only one who almost got blacklisted from the industry because of it. Because I had offended his precious childhood friend. For six grueling years after our breakup, it didn’t matter how hard I worked. It didn’t matter how much the public praised my acting. I never won a single award. Time and time again, I was nominated just to sit in the audience and watch someone else take the trophy. It ground away all my sharp edges. I started actively avoiding Savannah. Any script she showed interest in, I would politely decline, citing “scheduling conflicts.” Maybe my silent submission finally paid off. Or maybe, since she and Tristan were finally getting married, she didn’t want the bad karma of crushing me anymore. Whatever the reason, this year, they decided to be merciful and let a Best Actress trophy slip through their fingers and into my hands. When Chloe got the inside scoop that I was winning, she almost cried. She hugged me and said, “Victoria, the dark days are finally over.” Tristan was finally willing to let me go. Even though the breakup wasn’t my fault, I knew I could never win a war against Tristan Sterling. I had surrendered a long time ago. But less than five minutes after Chloe warned me to avoid Savannah, Savannah herself intentionally invited me to walk the red carpet alongside her. The billionaire heir’s new fiancée and his notorious ex-girlfriend. Just standing next to each other was enough to break the internet with trending hashtags. I knew exactly what she was doing. She wanted to humiliate me from every possible angle. Not just because she was Tristan’s new love, but because tonight, we were wearing gowns from the exact same luxury fashion house. The difference was, she was wearing their unreleased, custom haute couture. I was wearing a piece from last year’s ready-to-wear collection. I could already picture the Twitter threads. Her fans and my haters would tear me apart, mocking me for looking cheap and outdated. But I didn’t care. I never had any intention of competing with her over clothes. And I certainly had no delusions about Tristan ever coming back to me. If she wanted to be the stunning red rose, I was perfectly fine playing the plain green leaf in the background. But my submission didn’t seem to satisfy Savannah. She leaned in, keeping her voice low. “Victoria, do you know Tristan is coming tonight?” I didn’t. From the day we broke up, Tristan and I had cut ties completely. But just hearing his name made my heart skip a painful, erratic beat. Savannah noticed. She let out a mocking little laugh. “Don’t get any ideas. He’s only here for me. It has absolutely nothing to do with you.” “I know.” Even though the Sterling family practically owned the industry, before tonight, Tristan had never attended a single Hollywood award show. Even when we were insanely in love, he had never once shown up to support me. Savannah leaned in closer. “Tristan and I are getting married soon.” I nodded, turned to her, and offered a genuine, polite smile. “Congratulations. I wish you both the best.” My reaction was probably too soft, too boring. It completely killed Savannah’s desire to keep taunting me. Or maybe she was just in a hurry to find Tristan. The second we finished walking the carpet, she ditched me and vanished into the venue. I stayed behind, posing for the photographers and answering a few standard questions. The reporters were surprisingly disciplined. Not a single one mentioned Tristan. Our relationship had been a massive, passionate spectacle, but the ending was incredibly ugly. Tristan, the other half of the relationship, only found out he had been dumped when he saw it trending on Twitter. During a red carpet interview back then, a reporter had casually asked about how things were going with Tristan. I looked straight into the camera and calmly said four words: “We broke up.” There was no warning. No explanation. Tristan called me once after that. He didn’t explain himself. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t even ask why. He just asked one question to confirm: “Are you sure about this?” I softly replied, “Yes.” He was silent for one second, and then he hung up. I had fully expected him to be furious. He had been treated like a god since the day he was born. No one ever defied him. And yet, I dumped him, and he wasn’t even the first person to know. #TristanSterlingDumped trended at number one on Twitter for three straight days. Tristan never ordered his PR team to take it down. My agency, terrified of offending the Sterling family, paid a fortune to have the hashtag removed. But less than a minute after it was scrubbed, it was forced right back to the top of the trending list. That wasn’t Tristan being humiliated. That was Tristan sending me a warning. Sure enough, from that day forward, my career hit a massive, invisible brick wall. Until six years passed. Until Tristan’s anger finally faded. Until he and Savannah were about to tie the knot. The memories rushed back so vividly, making me feel slightly dizzy. The host called my name twice before I finally snapped back to reality. Everyone around me was cheering. Amidst the thunderous applause, I glanced down at the front row. Savannah was sitting there. The seat next to her was empty. There was no name tag on it, but everyone in the room knew it belonged to Tristan. He still wasn’t here. Good, I thought. It saves us both the awkwardness. But when I stepped up to the microphone to give my acceptance speech, I looked out at the audience, and there he was. Tristan was sitting perfectly straight in the front row. I hadn’t seen him in years. His aura had grown even colder, even more intimidating. The moment our eyes met, he looked at me like I was a complete stranger. There was absolutely zero emotion in his gaze. I steadied my nerves and delivered my speech smoothly and confidently. But right as I reached the middle of my speech, a massive commotion broke out in the audience. To call it whispering would be an understatement. People were trying to be discreet, but the gossip was so explosive that their voices instinctively rose in volume. A troll account had just leaked a video of me heavily pregnant. It was from six years ago, right after Tristan and I broke up. I had intended to throw myself into my work to numb the pain, but right before filming was supposed to start, I found out I was pregnant. I dropped out of the project and completely vanished from the public eye for an entire year. The video was security footage from the apartment complex I lived in at the time. I couldn’t remember what I was going outside for that day. But because I wasn’t wearing a mask, my face was captured perfectly on camera. As I practically sprinted off the stage with my Oscar, Chloe and my assistant rushed forward, trying to shield me and get me out of the venue. But it was too late. The press had already swarmed us. Cameras and microphones were shoved aggressively into my face, everyone screaming the exact same question: “Ms. Vance, who is the father of the child?!” I was completely trapped by the mob, unable to move a single inch. Not far away, Tristan sat in his chair. No reporter dared to get within ten feet of him. If Tristan and I were still dating, the press would have treated me with a lot more respect. I looked over at him. His face was a mask of absolute shock, and his fingers, resting on the armrests, were gripping the fabric so tightly his knuckles were white. He knew exactly who the father of the child was. Which was why the man famous for his unshakable composure was losing his mind in public for the first time in his life. I didn’t answer the reporters’ question directly. Instead, I smiled and offered a simple denial. “I don’t have a child.” There has probably never been an Oscar winner who fled the ceremony looking as pathetic as I did. The hem of my gown was trampled and muddy, and I had lost an earring in the chaos. A horde of reporters chased me all the way to the parking garage. It didn’t look like I had just won Best Actress; it looked like I was fleeing a warzone. Chloe and my assistant were terrified. It took them a few minutes in the safety of the SUV before they could finally speak. “Victoria, what the hell is going on? You have a kid? Is it Tristan’s? Where is the child now?” It was a lot of questions. I offered a bitter smile, not knowing which one to answer first. Chloe and my assistant hadn’t been with me from the beginning. Everything they knew about my relationship with Tristan came from internet gossip or industry rumors. When I vanished for a year, everyone assumed Tristan had blacklisted me. When I finally returned to Hollywood… The narrative shifted. People assumed I had been so heartbroken over the breakup that I took a year off to travel and heal. No one in the industry knew what actually happened during that year. Including Chloe and my assistant. Until they saw that video tonight. Just like everyone else, they assumed I had gone away to secretly give birth. One year. The timeline matched up perfectly. Chloe actually looked a little excited. “If Tristan comes looking for you because of the kid, you need to use this opportunity to get back together with him! He’ll guarantee you win every award in town for the rest of your life!” I shook my head. Chloe froze, then practically jumped out of her seat, almost hitting her head on the roof of the SUV. “Are you insane?! Are you trying to piss him off again?!” How could I possibly dare to do that? I shook my head to clarify. “There is no child.” I was pregnant once, yes. But I didn’t keep it. Chloe looked skeptical. The one-year gap was just too perfectly suspicious. She was about to press me further, but my assistant handed her an iPad. “Chloe, look at this.” “Did the negative hashtags explode? Those vulture journalists!” Chloe snatched the iPad, but after glancing at the screen, her expression turned bizarre. “What… what’s going on here?” There wasn’t a single negative trending topic about me. There wasn’t even a single unflattering photo of me fleeing the venue. Even though I had looked like an absolute disaster running out of that auditorium. This was Tristan’s doing. It was incredibly easy for him to destroy someone. It was just as easy for him to protect someone. Chloe rubbed her temples, overwhelmed. “Did you really not keep the baby? Then how are you going to explain this to Tristan?” Why did I have to explain anything to him? He didn’t love me. And he was about to marry Savannah. I knew Tristan would come looking for me. The video dropped like a bomb, and it involved a potential child. He was going to demand answers. I just didn’t expect him to show up this fast. When my SUV pulled up to my apartment building, he was already waiting outside. Standing in the darkness, his tall, imposing silhouette looked exactly the same as it did six years ago. The only difference was, six years ago, when Tristan saw me, he would open his arms and wait for me to run into them. Now, he just stood there, radiating a coldness that made it impossible to approach him. Chloe was nervous. As I got out of the car, she grabbed my arm. I turned back and smiled at her. “It’s fine. If he wanted to murder me or burn my house down, he wouldn’t do it himself.” “Fair point.” Chloe sighed, then urged me to have a calm conversation with him. “You survived the hardest years, Victoria. The future is bright. Please, don’t make your life any harder than it has to be!” I smiled and nodded. I waited until their SUV drove away before I started walking toward Tristan. My pace was calm, like I was walking up to an old friend. But I was the only one who knew that in the final two steps before reaching him, my heart rate spiked uncontrollably. I had loved him so deeply once. Because I loved him so much, when the earthquake hit, and he abandoned me without a second thought to save Savannah, I almost lost the will to live. Tristan knew exactly why I dumped him. But after the fact, he never offered a single word of explanation. Instead, because my public breakup humiliated him, he allowed the entire industry to mock and ostracize me for years. What could I do? He had the power and the money. Even today, knowing exactly who was at fault, I was still the one who had to speak first. “Mr. Sterling.” Tristan frowned, his voice low. “I’m still used to you calling me by my name.” I had called his name so many times in the past. [Tristan, we just wrapped filming! I’m coming to find you for dinner!] [Tristan, you’ve been on a business trip for a week. When are you coming back?] [Tristan, I miss you so much.] Six years had passed, yet the memory of exactly how I used to whine and confess my love to him was still crystal clear in my mind. A wave of inappropriate nostalgia washed over me, and I smiled, shaking my head. “Savannah told me you two are getting married soon. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to call you by your first name anymore. Congratulations, by the way.” “Do you honestly think I can still get married now?” Tristan replied. Even if Savannah was still willing to marry him and immediately become a stepmother… The Hayes family was extremely conscious of their public image. They definitely wouldn’t allow it now. I had ruined his life again. “I’m sorry,” I apologized quickly. “Where is the child?” Tristan finally got to the point of his visit. The child that had suddenly been exposed to the world, but that no one had ever seen. He sounded frustrated, his tone much darker than before. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant back then?” Because I didn’t know at first. By the time I found out, we had already broken up. “I didn’t want the baby to ruin things between you and Savannah.” Tristan let out a harsh, cold laugh. “You hid it for six years, and it got leaked anyway. Did it ruin things any less?” “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say besides those two words. When Tristan and I first started dating, someone warned me that Tristan liked his women obedient. But I couldn’t fake being submissive. I was young, and I thought one passionate romance would last a lifetime. Who could fake a personality for a lifetime? So, around Tristan, I was stubborn. I threw tantrums. He wasn’t great at comforting me, but he never held it against me, either. Usually, once I got the anger out of my system, I was fine. Back then, I was vibrant and passionate. I wasn’t the smooth, enduring, hollowed-out version of myself he was looking at now. He asked me again, “Where is the child?” “There is no child.” From the moment I saw the positive test, I never intended to keep it. A man who didn’t love me wouldn’t love a child I gave birth to. And I never had any desire to be a single mother. So, I had an abortion. A violent spark exploded in Tristan’s eyes, tearing through his usual dark, composed facade, finally letting me see the chaotic emotions raging underneath. He actually cared about the unborn child. That genuinely shocked me. Did he care because it was his flesh and blood? Or was it because, once upon a time, he had actually, genuinely loved me, even just a little bit? Tristan was angry. Even though we had been separated for six years, his habit of closing his eyes when he was furious hadn’t changed. I looked at him, feeling completely lost. I didn’t understand why he was angry. If anyone had the right to be angry, it was me. Right before we broke up, Tristan and I had both managed to squeeze five days out of our schedules for a romantic vacation in Mexico. But because he had casually mentioned our itinerary to Savannah, she showed up at our resort the very next day. I was obviously unhappy about it. But Savannah claimed their families were practically related, that she and Tristan had grown up together, and that they were like brother and sister. And since Tristan didn’t tell her to leave, I had no choice but to tolerate it. Who could have predicted that a massive earthquake would hit the resort the next day? I still remember it clearly. As we were trying to evacuate the hotel, I fell down a flight of concrete stairs. My thigh was severely bruised, and my ankle was badly sprained. Worst of all, I hit my head on the way down, and my vision blurred. Tristan initially tried to pick me up to carry me out, but then he heard Savannah screaming— “Tristan! Tristan, please, come save me!” “Tristan, where are you?! Help me!” Tristan looked at me for one second, then turned and ran toward Savannah’s voice. He left me right where I fell. He didn’t care if I could make it out on my own, and he didn’t seem to care if I died in that stairwell. Even later, when I publicly announced our breakup without telling him first, he never once offered a single word of explanation for why he did what he did. But tonight, Tristan asked me, “Do you want to hear an explanation?” I froze. That earthquake had become my worst nightmare. Every time I thought about it, my chest would physically tighten, and I would struggle to breathe. Two years ago, I starred in a movie that featured a massive earthquake scene. The director praised my performance to the heavens, saying he had never seen anyone act out the sheer, visceral terror of an earthquake so perfectly. I wasn’t acting. I was genuinely terrified. It took me a very long time to shake that feeling after filming wrapped. That night, I had nightmares about the past. I dreamed about being abandoned by Tristan all over again. I woke up drenched in layers of cold sweat. My mind was completely conscious, but my body was paralyzed; I physically couldn’t get out of bed. The next morning, when my assistant noticed I still wasn’t up, she forced her way into my room and found me burning up with a massive fever. She rushed me to the ER. Whether it was before I publicly dumped him or after, I never once asked Tristan for an explanation. Because I believed actions spoke infinitely louder than words. In a life-or-death situation, the person he wanted to save was Savannah. So, no matter how many times he said he loved me, those words were meaningless. But I also wanted to be free from the nightmares. Since he brought it up, I decided to listen. Tristan told me that the Hayes family originally had two children. Savannah had an older brother. He and Tristan had been best friends since childhood. When they were thirteen, the two boys snuck out to hang out in the city. But someone with a grudge against the Sterling family saw an opportunity. They tried to kidnap Tristan.

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My father had just passed away when I received a collection call from the hospital. “Family member of patient William Miller, Neurology Bed 23. You have an outstanding balance of $246,000. Please arrange payment immediately!” I froze. I turned to look at my father, lying peacefully in his casket, and a sudden surge of anger flared in my chest. I suppressed it and said, “You must be mistaken. We’ve already been discharged.” “I knew you people would try to deny it! You think you can just sneak out of the hospital without paying?!” “I’m giving you 24 hours. If you don’t pay up, see what happens!” I lost my temper. “Fine! Let’s see what happens!” …… I hung up and pulled out the itemized medical bills from before the discharge. By yesterday, my dad was already gone. In his final days, he was only receiving basic IV fluids. There were absolutely no expensive medications involved. $246,000? They really had the nerve to demand that. I scoffed and tossed the bills aside, deciding to ignore it. But the phone rang again. It was the same landline number. I didn’t answer. The phone buzzed relentlessly for fifteen minutes, followed by a text message. “William Miller, stop pretending you can’t hear me! You’re too old to be acting like this!” “You owe us money, and you think you can just walk away?!” I took a deep breath and typed out a reply. “William Miller has passed away. I am his son, Ethan Miller. The hospital bills were settled in full upon his discharge. I suggest you check your system carefully.” I only sent that message to leave a paper trail. Besides, the hospital issued the death certificate themselves. Are their systems not linked? Billing a dead man? This was absolute nonsense! To my surprise, my phone rang almost immediately after I hit send. I answered it, and a shrill female voice pierced my ear. “Ethan Miller, do you have no shame?! You’re using a death as an excuse to get out of paying?!” “Let me tell you something. If you don’t pay, we are calling the cops! You want to be a deadbeat? Fine, I’ll make you famous!” I kept my voice dangerously calm. “What is your name?” “None of your business! $246,000. Not a penny less!” She hung up on me. I didn’t hesitate to block the number. According to our family’s tradition, there’s a three-day viewing period before the funeral, where friends and relatives come to pay their respects. Hearing the commotion from my phone calls, a few relatives asked what was going on. I kept it brief, just mentioning that the hospital was calling about a bill. They didn’t press the issue. I assumed the hospital would eventually check their own system, realize the error, and drop it. Plus, I was busy organizing the funeral, so I just blocked their numbers and put my phone on silent. That evening, after all the relatives had arrived and I had settled them into their hotels, I finally returned home. That was when I saw it—over a hundred missed calls and hundreds of text messages. All from the hospital. The texts were littered with profanity. Just reading them, I could picture how rabid the person on the other end must have been. I shoved the abusive messages to the back of my mind and ignored them. But the very next morning, a friend sent me a video link. “Ethan, why aren’t you paying your bills? The hospital put you on blast! They’re calling you a deadbeat and saying they called the cops!” “You need to clear this up ASAP before it ruins your life!” When I watched the video my friend sent, my vision literally went dark. The video was filmed at the billing counter of Memorial Hospital. A woman in her thirties, wearing medical scrubs, was staring at the camera with red, teary eyes. “Ethan Miller! Your father, William Miller, was receiving treatment at our hospital, and you sneaked him out without paying his $246,000 medical bill! If you don’t pay this back, the hospital is going to make me cover the cost!” “I’m begging you! We’re all just trying to make a living. Please don’t do this to me!” She cried beautifully, looking like the ultimate victim. Then, she played an audio recording of our “phone call”: “Stop calling! My dad is dead! I’m not paying a dime, go ask his ghost for the money!” The voice was mine, but I had never said those words. It was blatantly spliced together! But the internet believed it. A tidal wave of vicious, hateful comments crashed down on me from every corner of social media. Following that, my phone practically exploded with calls from unknown numbers. I was completely doxxed. Someone even ordered funeral wreaths and had them delivered to my house. My poor dad never could have imagined that after his death, our house would be flooded with over thirty funeral wreaths—all bearing my name. When my mom saw them, all the color drained from her face. “Ethan, what is this…?” “Mom, I’ll handle it.” I called the police and preserved the evidence. Even though social media platforms often ignore these things, having a police report on file was much better than fighting alone. Especially since this malicious cyberbullying almost gave my grieving mother a heart attack. This meant war. Next, I hired a lawyer. The lawyer had clearly seen the viral video. It wasn’t until I laid out my phone records and my father’s death certificate that he finally broke his long silence. “You really got thrown under the bus here. But don’t worry. The evidence is solid and complete. She is going to lose!” “I don’t just want that billing clerk to lose. I want the hospital to lose! This is a catastrophic error in their internal system, and they’re making an innocent person take the fall. I am not backing down!” My lawyer drafted a strategy. As I walked out of the law firm, my phone buzzed endlessly. Unrecognized numbers. Whenever I picked up, it was a barrage of vile insults. I set my phone to reject all unknown callers and filtered out text messages from non-contacts. I finally got some peace, but the video was still spreading like wildfire. The second I walked into work, I saw the messages in the company Slack channel. Before I could even open my mouth to explain, HR issued a formal termination letter and publicly posted it on the company’s LinkedIn page. The internet cheered when they saw it. “Serves that deadbeat right! Now he doesn’t even have a job!” “Honestly, they shouldn’t have fired him. They should have just garnished his wages and sent it straight to the hospital. Now that he’s broke, he’s definitely not going to pay.” “Right? Where are the cops? Didn’t the hospital press charges? Why isn’t he in jail yet?” I didn’t bother reading any more comments. I marched straight to my boss’s office. When he saw me, he immediately waved his hand dismissively. “What are you still doing here? We don’t employ deadbeats!” I looked him dead in the eye. “I will prove the truth in due time. But you fired me on the spot without cause. I expect my full severance package.” He froze. “Severance? You’re a moral degenerate…” “I don’t care what you think of my morals,” I cut him off. “If I am missing a single cent of my legally mandated severance, I will sue this company into the ground. You claim to hate deadbeats so much—I suggest you don’t become one yourself.” His face turned an ugly shade of purple. I just gave him a calm smile, turned on my heel, and walked out. As I packed up my desk, the boss couldn’t resist getting the last word. “Keep acting tough! You’re never going to find a job this good again!” I scoffed. I didn’t know if I’d find a better job, but I definitely knew working for him wasn’t worth it. I didn’t have the energy to argue. As I carried my box of belongings to my car, my phone rang. It was my mom, her voice panicked and shrill. “Ethan, get back here right now! There’s a mob of reporters outside our house! Your father’s body is still in the living room! What is going on?!” My voice turned to ice. “I’m on my way. Wait for me!” By the time I pulled up to my house, a massive crowd had gathered. There were reporters, bystanders, and even a few police officers. The relatives who were inside looked at me with eyes full of resentment. “Ethan, what the hell is wrong with you? You can’t be doing this kind of shady stuff, especially not now!” “Exactly! If you owe them money, just pay it! Making this huge scene while your father’s body is still here… he won’t be able to rest in peace!” The reporters immediately swarmed me, shoving microphones in my face. “Ethan Miller, when are you going to pay back the hospital?!” “You claim your father passed away, but even if he’s gone, the bills don’t disappear. Paying your debts is a basic moral obligation!” “We’re here representing the hospital and the concerned public. Exactly when are you going to settle this debt?!” “I see you’re using the newest iPhone. You have money for a luxury phone, but no money to pay your dying father’s medical bills?” Facing their aggressive interrogation, I couldn’t help but let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Instead of asking me, why don’t you go ask the hospital? If I actually had an outstanding balance of $246,000, how on earth did the doctors allow me to discharge him?!” “Furthermore, I’d love to know how a man who was already dead managed to rack up $246,000 in medical bills in a single day!” A voice shouted from the crowd, “That’s on you to prove! If you have doubts, why don’t you go confront the hospital face-to-face?” “Yeah! You’re just sitting at home hosting a funeral to collect sympathy donations! You’re greedy and evil!” Hearing that, I was so furious I actually laughed. My mom rushed over, grabbing my arm. “Ethan, what is happening? Just stop fighting it.” “Ma’am, did you know your son is a deadbeat?” a reporter sneered. “Your family sneaked out of the hospital without paying, and now you’re forcing an innocent, working-class clerk to cover your $246,000 bill. How do you sleep at night?” My mom froze, looking at me in shock. “Ethan?” “Mom, don’t worry about it.” But my mom was in a panic. “No! Your father lived an honest life! We cannot owe this money! Just pay the hospital, hurry! This whole mess is because of that bill, isn’t it?” The relatives chimed in, pressuring me. “Ethan, you shouldn’t have delayed it. Just go pay them, otherwise your dad will never rest in peace.” I finally snapped. “My dad is dead! And the day after he died, the hospital somehow charged him $246,000! Who exactly was using those medications?!” My roar silenced the entire crowd. The reporters stared at me, stunned. “What did you just say?” “You don’t believe me? Fine! Let’s go! We’re taking my dad’s casket and his death certificate, and we are going straight to the hospital! We’ll confront them face-to-face! Let’s see who the real shameless scammers are!” My eyes burned. I whipped around to the pallbearers I had hired. “Boys, we’ve got a job to do. Load up the casket. We are going to the hospital right now!” The men immediately jumped up. “You got it!” I had my relatives grab the funeral banners and the floral wreaths. We were taking the whole procession. When we arrived at Memorial Hospital, the Hospital Director was already waiting at the main entrance, trying to block my path. “Mr. Miller, if you’re here to have a rational discussion, we welcome you. But if you’re here to cause a medical disturbance, that’s illegal. And you absolutely cannot bring a corpse inside.” “Exactly! It’s just $246,000! You refuse to pay, and now you’re causing a riot! The cops will be here any minute to drag you all away!” The shrill, screeching voice was instantly recognizable. I knew who she was—she was the mastermind behind the cyberbullying campaign against me. Sarah Jenkins! “Where is the itemized bill for the $246,000? Show it to me. If it’s accurate, I will write a check right now!” Sarah scoffed. “Pay now? Too late! A deadbeat is a deadbeat. You know you’re caught, and now you have to pay the penalty!” “What kind of penalty?” “$246,000, plus a fine for malicious evasion! You owe us $300,000!” I laughed at her sheer, unadulterated audacity. “Fine. Forget $300,000—I’ll pay you half a million! But I demand to see the itemized bill!” Sarah sneered and violently threw a thick stack of papers right at my face! “Read it! Let’s see what kind of excuses you can spin out of this!” She stood there with her arms crossed, looking unbearably arrogant. I picked up the papers, scanned them, and immediately started laughing. I slammed the death certificate and the medical bills down on the counter right in front of them. “My father passed away on the 1st. Your own doctors signed the death certificate on that day, and I transferred his body to the funeral home.” “On the 3rd, I processed the official discharge paperwork. On the 4th, you call me and claim I owe you $246,000. Look at your own itemized bill. On the 2nd and the 3rd, there are charges for ‘Emergency Resuscitation’ and ‘Intensive Care Nursing.’ Please explain to me how a dead man was receiving emergency resuscitation?” “How did a corpse lying in my living room rack up $246,000 in emergency medical fees at your hospital?!”

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To toughen me up, my older brother forced me to hike the Appalachian Trail, completely ignoring the fact that I had severe asthma. It wasn’t long before I suffered an attack. My face turned blue, and I collapsed onto a boulder. Gasping for air, I desperately reached for my backpack to get my inhaler. But Chloe kicked my bag away, her voice dripping with annoyance. “Didn’t you just use a whole can of oxygen? Just because Liam is the expedition leader, you think you can put on a show for us?” She picked up my bag and whined toward my brother, who was walking ahead. “Liam! Maya is throwing another tantrum! I’ll just carry her bag for her, so she doesn’t waste all the effort you put into bringing her out here.” My brother stopped in the distance, looking deeply irritated. “This is embarrassing. You can’t even handle half of what Chloe does!” “You are going to crawl to camp if you have to! From now on, no one gives her any more oxygen!” My breathing grew more and more restricted, until my vision finally went black and I face-planted onto the rock. When I opened my eyes again, I realized I was floating in mid-air. I looked down and saw my own small, frail body, lying face down on the boulder. I’m sorry, Liam. I really can’t walk anymore. “Maya, get your ass up! Stop playing dead and holding everyone up!” One of the hikers, a big guy named Dave, cursed loudly and started jabbing my back hard with his trekking pole. “You are so damn stubborn, you know that? You think if you just lie there, we’re going to carry your useless weight down the mountain?!” “Your brother already gave the order! Don’t push your luck. Get up right now!” With that, he delivered another heavy jab. My corpse shifted slightly under the force of the trekking pole. Losing its balance on the uneven rock, my body tilted to the side, revealing half of my face—bloodless, cyanotic, and turning a dark, bruised purple. The other hikers stood around watching like it was a circus act, their faces full of contempt. “Maya, are you trying to win an Oscar? Because you’re putting on a hell of a performance!” “You really should go to Hollywood. This acting is top-notch!” “Look, even if the leader is your own brother, you can’t play games with everyone’s lives! The weather up here changes by the minute. If you delay the schedule, can you take responsibility for that?!” In the distance, my brother was standing with Chloe. Hearing the commotion, his brows knitted together in a deep frown, the disgust in his eyes practically overflowing. Chloe clung to his arm, her sickly-sweet voice raising in volume. “Liam, why is Maya acting like this?” “All you did was cut off her oxygen for a minute, and now she’s holding a grudge and throwing a fit against the whole team?” “She’s just too spoiled at home. She can’t handle a tiny bit of hardship.” Liam clicked his tongue in annoyance and took long, angry strides toward me. Floating in the air, I saw the rage contorting my brother’s face, and my heart still instinctively clenched in fear. Ever since our parents died in a car crash when we were kids, I had been terrified of seeing that exact expression on his face. Whenever he frowned, I wanted to rip my heart out and prove to him that I wasn’t useless, that I wasn’t inferior to the girl next door, Chloe. But right now, I was already dead. Why do dead people still feel fear? Liam marched up to my corpse, looming over me. He shot me that familiar look—the one reserved for absolute garbage. “Maya, I’m going to count to three. You will stand up immediately!” His tone was ice-cold, leaving absolutely no room for argument. “One!” The mountain wind howled, whipping the hem of my windbreaker. “Two!” Chloe chimed in. “Maya, just stop making Liam angry and get up. We all need to keep moving.” I continued to lie perfectly still on the rock, my eyes tightly shut. “Three!” The word hung in the air. When I still didn’t move a muscle, the hikers exchanged glances, clearly enjoying the drama. Liam’s fury ignited like gasoline. “Fine! Excellent! Maya, you think you’re tough now, huh?!” He grabbed the back collar of my windbreaker and yanked violently. Smack! A sharp, resounding slap landed squarely on my face. My head jerked violently to the side like a broken ragdoll, but my body remained entirely limp. Liam clearly hadn’t expected me to be completely unresponsive. His grip on my collar loosened, and I crashed heavily onto the jagged, rocky ground. The sharp stones instantly sliced my cheek open. “You…!” Liam looked at his own trembling hand, then back at me, lying there like a dead pig. The fire in his eyes burned even hotter. “Maya, you really are something else!” “You’re willing to play dead through gritted teeth just to force my hand, aren’t you?!” He was shaking with rage. “You think this little stunt is going to manipulate me? You think this is going to get you oxygen?!” “Let me tell you right now: Not a chance in hell!” Floating above, watching all of this unfold in silence, I suddenly felt the urge to cry. Liam, I’m really not faking it. And I really can’t feel the pain anymore. Ever since our parents died in that crash, Liam had been my only pillar of support. He never let anyone bully me. But everything changed the day Chloe moved in next door. The brother who used to dote on me suddenly vanished, as if Chloe was his real sister. “Liam, don’t get so worked up over Maya. It’s not good for your health.” Chloe gently blew on his palm, looking at him with exaggerated concern. “Maya, there has to be a limit to your tantrums.” She sighed, looking down at my motionless body with fake exasperation. “Everyone is out here toughing it out in sub-zero temperatures. You can’t make everyone else freeze just because you want to throw a pity party.” The other hikers started chiming in. “Jeez, kids these days really have an attitude!” “Boss, she’s your sister, but you can’t just enable her! She’s an adult, and she’s using cheap tricks to manipulate her own family?!” Liam’s face had turned a furious shade of purple. He pulled his hand away from Chloe, glaring down at me with a cold, terrifying sneer. “Maya, I’m giving you one last warning. Are you getting up or not?!” The wind shrieked. I remained as still as the rocks beneath me, not even an eyelash twitching. “Fine! Have it your way!” Blinded by rage, Liam lunged forward, reared his foot back, and delivered a vicious, brutal kick directly to my shoulder! As luck would have it, I was lying right on the edge of a steep, fifty-foot scree slope. “You want to play dead?! You want to lie down?! Then go roll down there and lie down for as long as you want! Let’s see how long you can keep this act up!” Following his furious roar, my corpse tumbled like a severed marionette, violently bouncing and rolling down the jagged slope. Crack… snap… I watched helplessly as my own body plummeted down the scree. My windbreaker was shredded by the razor-sharp rocks, and I could clearly hear the sickening sound of my ribs snapping as they slammed against the boulders. I couldn’t bear to watch anymore and turned away in the air. It must hurt so much. In the past, if I even slightly bumped my knee, Liam would nervously inspect the scrape. He would carefully blow on it, softly coaxing me: “Don’t be scared, Maya. Liam will blow on it, and the pain will go away.” But now, he just watched with cold, dead eyes as I tumbled down the slope, until my body finally wedged itself into the crevice of two massive boulders. After a brief, stunned silence, Dave leaned over the edge, looked down, and scoffed. “Wow, Maya, you really commit to the bit. I’ll give you that.” The others looked incredibly annoyed. “This is unbelievable! I’m done! We’re all carrying fifty-pound packs out here humoring your little drama. Do you have any conscience at all?” “Seriously, what does she expect? Does she want us to climb down there and formally invite her back up?!” My leg was caught in the crevice, snapped completely in half. The stark white bone had pierced straight through the fabric of my pants. If any of them had bothered to take a slightly closer look, they would have seen that I wasn’t acting. Unfortunately, they didn’t. And neither did Liam. Just then, a violent gust of wind ripped across the mountain. The sky, which had been relatively clear moments ago, rapidly darkened with the threat of an impending blizzard. The temperature plummeted instantly. “Boss, looks like a blizzard is rolling in fast!” Dave pulled the collar of his jacket tight against his neck. “Blizzards up here are no joke. We can’t afford to waste any more time!” The knot between Liam’s eyebrows deepened into a permanent fixture. He stood at the top of the slope, glaring down at my motionless body at the bottom. “Maya!” The temperature of his voice was barely warmer than the approaching storm. “I’m asking you one last time. Are you getting up?!” The only response he received was the shredded, torn fabric of my jacket fluttering in the howling wind. Liam spun around abruptly and barked an order to the team. “Everyone, gear up immediately! We are pushing for camp!” Chloe grabbed his sleeve, looking worried. “Liam, will Maya be in danger down there? It’s getting so cold…” “Danger?! She threw herself down there on purpose, what danger could she possibly be in?!” He waved his hand, cutting her off aggressively. “She’s just banking on the fact that I won’t have the guts to leave her behind! That’s why she thinks she can hold the entire team hostage!” Liam grabbed his trekking poles and marched forward without a single backward glance. “Leave her! Let’s see how long she can keep the act up! Once she realizes we’re actually gone, she’ll come crawling back up on her own!” “She’s been exactly like this since we were kids. If I don’t teach her a lesson now, she’ll never learn how the real world works!” “Move out!” The few hikers who had been hesitating quickly fell into line behind Liam, matching his brisk pace. Floating in the air, I hurried to follow them. Behind me, the snow fell like a white shroud, slowly burying my broken body. The atmosphere at the campsite, however, was a completely different story. Inside the large communal tent, the windproof stoves were roaring. Everyone was zipped into their sleeping bags, laughing, joking, and passing around rations. Liam sat near the tent entrance, his face terrifyingly dark. It had been three hours. The blizzard outside was a total whiteout; visibility was less than six feet. “Liam, eat something first.” Chloe tore open a self-heating MRE and thoughtfully handed it to him. “Maya really is something else. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and she insists on throwing a tantrum over a single can of oxygen. What if she gets frostbite?” The tiny sliver of unease in Liam’s eyes was instantly crushed. He let out a vicious, sarcastic sneer. “Frostbite? How could she possibly get frostbite?” “She has the thickest, zero-degree sleeping bag and a specialized solo tent in her pack. Right now, she’s probably hiding in a snow cave, fully fed and warm, just waiting for me to go back and beg her to join us!” His eyes hardened with absolute resolve. “I’m making this clear right now! When she comes crying back here, absolutely no one is allowed to open the tent for her!” “Only when she knows true fear and learns to behave will she finally drop this toxic, entitled attitude!” Dave swallowed a mouthful of rice and wiped his mouth. “Maya really crossed the line this time! She absolutely deserves a harsh lesson to put her in her place!” Floating near the ceiling of the tent, I didn’t even have the energy to laugh at the irony anymore. Liam. Did you completely forget? My backpack—the one with all my food, my tent, my sleeping bag, and my asthma medication… Chloe took it. Just as Liam finished his speech, and the cheerful mood in the tent was about to resume… Thump. Thump. Thump. A heavy, muffled knocking suddenly struck the outside of the tent. All conversation stopped dead. Every single person instinctively stared at the zippered entrance. Dave was the first to react, letting out a mocking laugh. “Boss, looks like you called it. Look who came crawling back.” Liam visibly relaxed. He leaned back against his pack, raised an eyebrow, and let out a cold smirk. “I told you. She doesn’t have the spine to hold out.” Chloe forced a smile and reached out toward the zipper. “Liam, the wind is so strong out there. I really think we should let Maya in now, otherwise she really will get sick…” “Leave her! Do not open that door!” Liam grabbed Chloe’s hand, pulling it back sharply. His voice suddenly spiked in volume, directed coldly at the other side of the canvas. “Maya, do you finally realize how cold it is? Do you realize you were wrong?!” “Weren’t you acting so tough earlier? Didn’t you prefer rolling down a cliff to walking with us? Why are you suddenly running back now?!” The knocking on the outside of the tent paused. The ice in Liam’s eyes thickened. “You want to come inside? Fine! Get on your knees right now, scream ‘I was wrong’ three times, and apologize to every single member of this team!” “After you scream, you will stay on your knees for another thirty minutes to clear your head! If you haven’t frozen to death after thirty minutes, then I will consider letting you inside!” “Boss, that is brilliant!” The other hikers erupted into laughter. Liam stared at the tent flap with deep satisfaction, waiting for me to drop to my knees and beg for mercy. One second. Two seconds. The outside fell into a dead, horrifying silence, broken only by the shrieking of the blizzard. When no response came, Liam’s brows knitted together again. He opened his mouth, ready to unleash another furious tirade. Riiiiiiip! The heavy-duty, windproof zipper was violently torn open from the outside. A blast of freezing, snow-filled wind roared into the tent, causing everyone inside to shudder violently. “Maya, have you lost your damn mind?! Tearing the tent…” Liam exploded in a blind rage, shooting up to his feet. But when he finally saw who was standing outside the flap, the words died in his throat. It was four or five men wearing bright orange search-and-rescue uniforms. The leader of the team had a face carved from stone. He scanned the people inside the tent, his voice heavy and somber. “Who is the expedition leader?” Liam froze. He instinctively glanced behind the rescue team, swallowed hard, and stammered. “I am… is there a problem?” The rescue leader took a deep breath, his eyes filled with profound tragedy. He spoke slowly, emphasizing every single word. “In the valley directly below the section of the trail you traversed earlier today, we recovered the body of a young woman.”

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After three years in wedding planning, I finally secured the perfect venue for my own upcoming nuptials: The Legacy Ballroom at the Grand Regency. It took months of exhausting negotiation, countless late-night pitch revisions, and draining my entire savings account just to make the non-refundable deposit. My fiancée, Chloe, had even taken a high-stress corporate job across the country just so we could save faster to build our life together. Then came Mr. Vance. He was a difficult client who had rejected five distinct wedding concepts I’d drafted for him. Suddenly, he laid eyes on my personal booking at the Legacy Ballroom and decided it was the only option. “How about you assign the venue booking to me?” he suggested nonchalantly. “I’ll pay you five times your deposit amount.” He gave me a smarmy smile. “My wife and I decided on a date that fits perfectly. I really want to surprise her.” I didn’t even have to think about it. I politely declined. The very next day, Mr. Vance showed up outside my apartment building, and he brought his wife. “That planner is utterly unreasonable, baby,” Vance grumbled, leaning against his luxury SUV. “You have to put him in his place for me!” The woman watched him dote on him with an indulgent smile. “If it’s that important to you, I’ll offer him a hundred times the deposit,” she said smoothly. “Whatever makes you happy. I’ll handle him.” She laughed softly as she stepped forward, looking up at me. Then, her smile instantly vanished. We both froze, staring at each other in total disbelief. This was Chloe. My Chloe. The woman I was supposed to marry, the one who claimed she was working 3,000 miles away because we were broke. … The panic in Chloe’s eyes lasted only a fraction of a second before she masked it perfectly. Instead of explaining, she shot me a warning look—a silent command to stay quiet. Vance, completely oblivious to the agonizing tension, pulled out a checkbook and tapped it against his palm. “Let’s be blunt,” Vance said, sliding a pen from his breast pocket. “Write down whatever number you want. I want the Legacy Ballroom.” He slipped his arm around Chloe’s waist. “My wife is picking up the tab.” I looked up, desperately searching Chloe’s eyes for a hint of guilt, remissness, anything. There was nothing. Just cold calculation. To get this booking, I had camped out outside the reservation office for three days in freezing rain. My face had actually developed mild frostbite. By some miracle, another couple had canceled, and I had grabbed the slot. I had been so ecstatic I couldn’t sleep. I spent the entire night on a video call with Chloe, dreaming together about our future wedding. Looking at her now, it was obvious she had never even opened the wedding planning shared document I sent her. She didn’t realize I chose the Legacy Ballroom because that was where we had our very first date five years ago. I didn’t take the checkbook. Chloe broke the silence, her voice devoid of emotion, framing her words with terrifying significance. “Are you in a rush to get married?” I didn’t know who was asking that question. Chloe Vance, the wealthy wife? Or Chloe, my fiancée? But she, of all people, should know the answer. My family had been pressuring me to get married for five years. Every single time, I had offered a strained smile and told them, “There’s no rush. We’ll get married when we save enough money.” But the anxiety kept me awake at night. I hid my desperation from her because I didn’t want to add stress to her high-powered job. And now… I let out a self-deprecating chuckle. “Actually, there’s no rush at all.” Chloe’s expression flickered, becoming complicated. Vance, however, beamed and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Good,” Vance said, scrawling a number on the check that I had never imagined seeing on a single piece of paper: One Million Dollars. “Take it,” he said, ripping the check out and shoving it toward me. “Don’t worry about it. I spend more than this on a business dinner.” “My wife and I spent millions on our reception, but after seeing the venue options, we decided the Legacy Ballroom is the only place suitable for us.” Vance looked me up and down, a sneer forming. “Listen, buddy, if you don’t have the cash, don’t pretend you do. Find a nice little diner for your wedding. That seems more your speed.” I was wearing a suit jacket from three years ago. It clashed violently with the luxury designer brands covering both of them. But Chloe had given me this jacket. It was the only “expensive” birthday gift she had ever bought me. Chloe lightly pulled Vance’s arm, and he snapped out of his arrogance. “Right. I’m pretty direct, don’t take it personally.” “Here,” he said, handing me a heavy, gold-embossed business card. “This is my wife’s card. We still need to discuss the details for the bride’s gown revisions.” The card read: [CEO, Sterling Group: Chloe Vance.] The Chloe I knew would wear the same T-shirt until it faded to white and cut her own hair to save twenty bucks. I realized now that every time I excitedly showed her the hundred-dollar gift cards clients gave me as bonuses, she must have been secretly laughing at me. I watched them walk away, their bodies close, their intimacy natural. I closed my eyes. Five years of long-distance. working night and day, sacrificing everything to save money… only to find out I was planning her wedding to someone else. Suddenly, my phone buzzed. A message from Chloe: [Meet my assistant at the villa later. We need to talk.] The bitter resentment bottled in my chest exploded. I started typing furiously, sending message after message. [Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you ever tell me you were married?] [What am I to you?] But my messages vanished into a void. They remained “Delivered,” but never “Read.” Chloe’s assistant ushered me into a luxury sedan, driving us to a remote, gated community on the outskirts of the city. “This is a property the Sterling family owns, Mr. Vance doesn’t know about it,” the assistant said coldly. “Wait for Ms. Sterling here.” Sterling. Her maiden name. The servants surrounding the estate shot me looks of open amusement and disdain. As if the word “Mistress” was tattooed across my forehead. Except, I was a man. I walked into the massive villa, feeling utterly lost. Everything here was alien. Chloe had told me she lived in a small, rented apartment. In reality, just one of her spare properties was a palace. Meanwhile, I had spent five years living in a leaky, drafty basement apartment just to save an extra $300 a month on rent for our future. Seeing Chloe Sterling’s marriage certificate to Mr. Vance displayed prominently on the nightstand crushed my final defensive line. The date they signed the license… was the day my father passed away. I had called her that day, helpless and broken, needing her support. She had told me, “Work is insane, I can’t leave right now.” That lie had stripped away my last source of strength. In reality, that day was her joyous wedding day. Chloe pushed the door open, linking her arm through mine just as she always used to. “Ethan, he’s my childhood friend. It was an arranged marriage. I had no choice.” “I know you’re understanding. Can you forgive me?” I couldn’t take it anymore. I violently pushed her away, my eyes burning with rage and betrayal. “Then what was our five years together? What am I to you?” “I’m a bitch,” Chloe answered instantly, her voice decisive. “That’s why I want to make it up to you. You can live here. Vance never comes here, as long as you keep a low profile.” I looked around the room, staring at everything that didn’t belong to me, and laughed. I had waited for her faithfully for five years. And the only position she had for me in her life now was “Side Piece.” Suddenly, there was a commotion outside the door. “Sir…” Vance stood in the doorway, his face twisted in utter shock. He marched forward and, before I could react, planted a brutal punch squarely on my jaw. “I knew that perfume on her smelled familiar!” he roared. “I didn’t expect it to be the Side Piece trying to screw my wife!” Chloe panicked, stepping in front of me to shield me. “Let me explain…” Vance pushed her aside with brute force. He grabbed the collar of my jacket and started violently dragging me toward the hallway. “Get out! Get the hell out!” I struggled desperately, but my foot slipped on the polished marble floor. I tumbled headfirst down the massive spiral staircase. My blood-curdling screams echoed through the entire villa. As Chloe scrambled to run down the stairs after me, Vance suddenly clutched his head in apparent agony. “Chloe, my head… it hurts…” With just that one sentence, Chloe completely forgot about me. She linked her arm through Vance’s to support him and stepped directly over my broken body. I felt like every bone in my body was shattered. I lay in a pool of my own blood, consumed by utter despair. No matter how hard I yelled, how loud I screamed her name, Chloe never looked back. Not once. I begged the servants for help, but they twisted their heads away in disgust, muttering words like “homewrecker” and “Side Piece.” The fantasy I had cherished for five long years collapsed completely in that moment. My mouth was covered in blood. I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to crawl up. I dialed a dusty, forgotten international number. “You said you’d always have a position for me. Does that still stand?” The second I hung up the phone, I received a notification from the hospital. Chapter 2 When I rushed to the hospital, my mother was lying in the intensive care unit, breathing her last breaths. “Ethan Miller, why would you become a homewrecker…?” I was paralyzed with shock. “Mom, listen to me…” But before I could even start to explain, my mother turned her head away in absolute disappointment, refusing to listen to another word. As she was wheeled into the operating room for emergency surgery, I finally realized what was happening. Her phone was in the basket of her belongings, publicly broadcasting a news alert. Vance had posted their marriage certificate online, publicly accusing me of being the Side Piece who destroyed his family. Countless hateful terms like “trash man” and “homewrecker” flashed across the screen. The violent rage and heartbreak overwhelmed my system, and I collapsed into a sea of pain. When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed myself. Chloe was sitting by my bedside. She had massive dark circles under her eyes, looking utterly exhausted. But her eyes held no sympathy. They held threats. “Post an apology to Vance on social media.” “Vance said that if you’re willing to swallow your pride, he’ll turn a blind eye to us in the future.” I froze. Every drop of blood in my body felt like it was flowing backward. She had deceived me for five years, and now I was the one who had to take the responsibility for her mess? Tears exploded from my eyes. Rage ground out three words from between my gritted teeth: “In your dreams!” Before the words even finished leaving my lips, she silently pulled out a thick stack of my mother’s medical bills from over the years. “You’ve probably figured it out by now. I’m the one who has been paying for your mother’s treatments all this time.” “If you don’t agree, I can always choose to stop paying.” I looked up at her, utterly broken. Once, Chloe Sterling had sworn to me that no matter how hard life got, as long as she was around, I would never have to worry about money. She said she would do everything in her power to give me the best life possible. But that was before. Staring at the mountain of bills on the nightstand, I gave a numb nod. The moment I posted the statement online, a tidal wave of abuse flooded my phone. I didn’t dare open the notifications. I didn’t dare leave my apartment. People actually mailed razor blades and dead rats to my address. Until my wedding planning business app started blasting an emergency alert. When I rushed to the shop, a bucket of red paint hit me squarely in the face. “You shameless bitch! A Side Piece is all you’ll ever be!” “Mr. Vance had a severe depression episode and almost overdosed on sleeping pills because of you!” “You used your wedding planning job to seduce another woman’s wife!” In the blink of an eye, the business I had dedicated my life to building was completely annihilated. “Stop! Stop it!” Just as the crowd was about to get even more violent, Vance appeared. His hair was messy, and his eyes were bloodshot. “You knew our wedding was coming up, and you deliberately threw my custom tux into the sewer.” “You can punish me, but you can’t punish my wedding…” As he spoke, he carelessly rolled up his sleeve to reveal a few fresh, self-inflicted scars on his forearm. Under the crowd’s pitying gaze, he turned to Chloe to demand justice. “Chloe, if you want to protect him, then we should just cancel the wedding. I’ll give him my spot.” My heart clenched, and I waited for her answer. At the very least, I was her boyfriend of five years who had stuck with her through thick and thin. I was the lover she had promised the rest of her life to. But the next second, Chloe Sterling turned a terrifyingly dark gaze toward me: “So your apology was just a lie, and you were still retaliating against him behind my back!” “Since you refuse to listen, I guess I have no choice but to punish you.” A horrific feeling of dread flooded my chest. Before I could react, three massive bodyguards slammed me into the ground. I felt a violent, blinding pain as they brutally snapped my fingers back. The last image of her gentle smile that I held in my mind shattered along with my bones. My guttural screams did nothing to evoke a single ounce of sympathy from her. “You’re a monster! A monster!” The bodyguards stopped their assault, only for Chloe to turn around and order: “Snap three of his fingers every single day. Do not let him leave this shop until he sincerely begs for forgiveness.” Vance smiled triumphantly as he followed her out. Right before leaving, he turned back to shoot me a look full of gloating and pure hatred. Chloe Sterling locked me inside my ruined shop. Every single day, I lived in agonizing dread, waiting for the torture to begin again. Until finally, all my fingers were broken and twisted, and both my legs had been brutally snapped. They tossed me aside like a rag doll, covered in blood and scars. I don’t know when Vance walked in. He stood over me, sneering down at my pathetic state. “How does it feel to be the Side Piece? Do you finally accept that Chloe loves me?” My heart felt like it was being pierced by a thousand sewing needles. It was exactly because Chloe loved him that she was willing to make me take the fall for being a “homewrecker” just to save him from crying. Even though I had faced reality, my heart still cracked open in sharp, exquisite pain. He mocked: “Do you honestly think that if Chloe removes your vas deferens, I’ll allow you to survive?” I whipped my head up, my expression filled with confusion. Vance’s eyes danced with immense satisfaction. He let out a condescending, arrogant laugh. “Oh, you didn’t know? While you were unconscious, Chloe Sterling had your vas deferens surgically removed.” “You’re never going to be a father, you worthless piece of trash.” The man got more and more energized as he spoke, unable to hide his gloating triumph. “The Sterling family will only have one heir.” “Because Chloe Sterling said you were just a toy she used to satisfy her sexual urges. Why on earth would you be worthy of having her children?” My mind went completely blank. I couldn’t process the words. The truth was a thousand times more brutal than anything I had imagined. Every beautiful memory of her love for me that I cherished instantly became ugly, twisted, and grotesque. Next, the man slapped a piece of paper directly onto my face: “Ethan Miller, look! You actually shocked your mother to death!” Catastrophic tinnitus exploded in my ears. Choked-off sobs began to leak from the corners of my mouth. My eyes burned with blood-red rage. I violently spat in his face. “Karma will come for you!” The man ground his teeth in fury. “You honestly think you still have a chance? I will never let that happen.” With that, a sickening, pungent scent of natural gas filled the room. By the time I realized the danger and tried to escape, Vance had already slipped out of the room and locked the heavy door from the outside. I clawed at the door until my fingernails ripped off, leaving ten horrifying streaks of blood on the wood. The next second, with a deafening BOOM, a violent tidal wave of intense heat engulfed me. My vision slowly began to blur. I felt like I was seeing that gentle memory of me wearing a suit, dropping to one knee to propose to Chloe Sterling. But that wedding… would never, ever happen. By the time Chloe Sterling received the call from the emergency responders and rushed to the scene, the horrific image before her eyes caused her to freeze in absolute terror…

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In the chaotic emergency room, the doctor looked at us with frantic urgency. “What kind of venomous snake bit her?! I need an exact species right now so we can locate the correct antivenom!” I opened my mouth to speak, but my roommate cut me off, her voice panicked and shaky. “It was a coral snake! It… it was definitely a coral snake!” The blood drained from everyone’s faces. We had just returned to our dorms after winter break. Without telling anyone, she had smuggled a highly venomous reptile into our room. The snake had escaped its enclosure and bitten our roommate, who slept on the bottom bunk. We had sprinted all the way to the hospital carrying her. A few minutes later, and she might not have made it this far. Now, the doctor desperately needed the species to administer the life-saving antivenom. But my roommate, Chloe, had always possessed a twisted sense of humor. While we were terrified and hyperventilating, she kept changing her story. She absolutely refused to tell the truth. Watching her dramatically massage her temples, pretending she couldn’t remember, my entire body shook with rage. Chloe was notorious on campus for her “pranks.” No matter the situation, she loved messing with people. She wasn’t satisfied until she pushed someone to the point of tears. When people inevitably got angry, she would just brush it off with a breezy, “I’m just messing with you. Don’t be so sensitive.” But this was life or death. This was not a joke. Mia had fallen into a deep coma after the bite. The doctors needed to confirm the snake’s species to administer the antivenom. Every passing second was a step closer to death. Sure enough, when the doctor heard Chloe’s answer, his expression turned grim. “Are you absolutely certain? I need you to confirm one more time. What kind of snake bit her?” Chloe furrowed her brows in exaggerated concentration, then slowly shook her head and crouched down on the floor. I was losing my mind. I lunged forward and grabbed her by the collar of her hoodie. “Stop messing around! Tell the doctor what kind of snake it is right now! Are you trying to kill Mia?!” Her eyes welled up with fake tears. She bit her lip and said, “It’s a cobra! It’s definitely a cobra!” My other roommates and I exchanged a look, collectively letting out a massive sigh of relief. The doctor visibly relaxed and immediately turned to the nurse, ordering her to prep the cobra antivenom. Just as the nurse was about to sprint out of the room, Chloe suddenly spoke up again. “Wait!” “I think I might be remembering it wrong… Was it actually a cobra…?” We stood there, holding the unconscious Mia, our faces turning a ghostly white. “Chloe! Stop playing games! This is a medical emergency!” “The doctor needs the exact species to give her the right medication! If you keep stalling, it’s going to be too late!” Hearing our panic, Chloe actually let out a nonchalant little laugh. “Who’s playing games? I’m just worried that if I give them the wrong name, it might actually hurt her!” “Let me think… Nope, I was right. It’s a cobra!” The commotion was drawing the attention of everyone in the ER waiting area. Whispers broke out around us. “She secretly kept a venomous snake and now she’s playing guessing games? Is she trying to commit murder?” “Joking around at a time like this… that is psychopathic.” My fingertips were trembling. Not from fear, but from an overwhelming, blinding rage. Chloe was flipping her story back and forth, casually playing Russian roulette with Mia’s life. If she stalled any longer, the neurotoxins would completely shut down Mia’s system. It would be too late. Seeing the doctor preparing to administer the medication based on her “cobra” claim, I caught a sick flash of excitement in Chloe’s eyes. A cold chill shot down my spine. I shoved my way past the gurney and blocked the doctor. “Doctor, she is intentionally messing with you! Everything she just said is a lie!” “Please, I’m begging you, ask her one more time! Make her tell the truth!” My eyes were stinging with unshed tears. Mia, lying in my arms, was ice cold. Her breathing was so shallow I could barely feel it against my skin. The doctor frowned deeply, his sharp gaze darting between me and Chloe. The triage nurse immediately sensed the bizarre dynamic. She turned to Chloe, her voice hardening into a sharp command. “I am going to ask you one last time. What is the exact species of the snake? If you are obstructing a medical emergency with a prank, I will call the police immediately!” For years, we had tolerated Chloe’s twisted pranks. We had complained to our Resident Advisor several times, but he was a spineless guy who just wanted to keep the peace. “She just likes to goof off. She doesn’t mean any harm,” he would always say. For the sake of dorm harmony, I bit my tongue and let it slide, time and time again. Until winter break ended, and she secretly smuggled a highly venomous exotic pet into our room. The snake escaped and bit Mia. By the time we found her, she was already slipping into unconsciousness. We didn’t even have time to be angry; we just picked her up and ran like maniacs to the campus hospital. And now, after barely making it to the ER, Chloe was still treating this like a game. My eyes were bloodshot, and my voice shook violently. “Please, Chloe. Mia is fading fast. Can you please just stop this?” “If you just help us save her right now, I swear I will never complain about any of your pranks ever again.” The bystanders in the ER started chiming in. “Young lady, a life is on the line. Stop playing around.” “Save the girl first! If you keep stalling, she’s not going to make it!” Listening to the chorus of criticism, Chloe just rolled her eyes, completely unfazed. “It’s not that big of a deal. I was just pulling a little prank. Why is everyone overreacting?” Seeing that the doctor’s face had turned livid and he was reaching for the phone to call campus security and the police, Chloe finally dropped the smirk. She relented, sounding deeply annoyed. “Fine, fine! I’ll stop joking!” I let out a massive sigh of relief. But then, Chloe looked around at the crowd, her eyes finally settling on us, and she slowly, casually added: “It was a coral snake. Highly venomous. I just remembered.” The doctor’s face went completely pale. Before I could even process what was happening, he shouted at the nurse to stop, physically grabbing her arm to prevent the injection of the cobra antivenom. Seeing Mia’s lips turning a bruised shade of purple, Chloe spoke up again, her tone agonizingly slow. “Jeez, why do you guys look so stressed?” “I mean, the lights were out in the dorm, it was pitch black… I didn’t get a great look at it. I was just worried that if I gave you the wrong name, it would cause a problem!” “I’m just being cautious. I need to really think about it…” “Wait, no, no. It wasn’t a coral snake. It definitely was a cobra.” After delivering that completely contradictory statement, she clutched her chest and let out a dramatic sigh, as if she had just solved a complex math problem. I thought I was going to have a stroke. Holding the dying Mia, my last shred of self-control snapped. I screamed at the top of my lungs: “Chloe! IS THIS A FUCKING GAME TO YOU?! IF YOU STALL ANY LONGER, MIA IS GOING TO DIE!” But hearing my scream, Chloe didn’t look guilty. She looked offended. “How can you talk to me like that? Aren’t we roommates? It’s not like I did it on purpose!” “Oh, so you only care about her? My feelings don’t matter at all, right?” “I knew it! You guys are always ganging up on me! You’re bullying me!” “I can’t believe you’re treating me like this! If I knew you were going to be this mean, I wouldn’t have even come!” With that, she spun around and started storming toward the ER exit. My face went white. I shoved Mia into the arms of our other roommate and sprinted after Chloe, grabbing her arm in a vice grip. “Chloe! That’s not what I meant! Mia is literally dying, I’m just panicking! I didn’t mean to yell at you.” “The hospital has every antivenom in stock. As long as you tell the doctor exactly what kind of snake it is, we can save her right now, okay?” Chloe yanked her arm away and pointed a finger aggressively in my face. “This is your fault!” “If you hadn’t been screaming and making a huge scene in the dorm, maybe I wouldn’t have been so startled and I would have seen clearly what kind of snake bit her!” “It’s just a snake bite! My snakes are usually so well-behaved…” “You know what? I bet you’re targeting me! I bet you secretly let the snake out to bite her just so you could frame me for it!” My eyes went wide. I stared at Chloe, completely incapable of comprehending the sheer delusion coming out of her mouth. When the semester first started, I saw her sitting alone in the dining hall and went out of my way to befriend her and make her feel included. But ever since she got obsessed with exotic reptiles, everything changed. She spent every day in the dorm messing with various venomous snakes, completely ignoring our unified protests and genuine fear. She would bang around with their glass enclosures in the middle of the night, totally oblivious to anyone else’s existence. For the sake of dorm peace, I tolerated it. Until a few days ago, when she smuggled a new, highly venomous snake into the room in a locked box, calling it her “newest baby.” We had gone to the RA multiple times, but he was a coward who just wanted to avoid paperwork. He did absolutely nothing. Left with no choice, we lived in constant terror, reminding her every single day to make sure the latches were secured. But she always brushed us off. Until tonight. Just after lights out, a blood-curdling scream erupted from the bottom bunk. Mia was crying hysterically, saying something had bitten her. Chloe didn’t panic. Instead, she stood by her bed, clapping her hands and laughing. “See? Isn’t my little baby so pretty?” Mia was trembling violently in agony, her face turning a ghastly white. Ultimately, it was the rest of us who practically carried Mia all the way to the campus hospital. Mia had always been frail; her immune system couldn’t handle a massive dose of neurotoxin. She lost consciousness halfway to the ER. When we arrived, my first instinct was to call 911. But the other roommates begged me not to, saying we should contact the school administration first to avoid a massive scandal. Because we desperately needed to get in touch with Mia’s parents, I swallowed my anger and called the RA instead. But I never imagined that our constant appeasement would only embolden Chloe’s psychotic behavior. Even now, with a girl dying in front of her, she was still trying to prank us, refusing to name the snake. Watching Mia’s breathing grow shallower and shallower, the tears poured down my face. The triage nurse looked heartbroken, but medical protocol dictated they had to know the exact venom type before administering the serum. A mistake could be instantly fatal. I clutched Mia, sobbing as I begged Chloe. “Chloe, please, I am begging you, stop the prank. If we wait any longer, Mia is going to die. She’s your roommate!” The other roommate, her eyes red, chimed in softly. “Please. We’re begging you.” But Chloe just flashed her signature, infuriating smirk. “Ugh, relax! Stop rushing me. The more you rush me, the more nervous I get, and the harder it is to remember…” She turned and looked me right in the eye. “Victoria, I know you’re stressed, but you need to chill.” Saying that seemed to genuinely amuse her, and she let out a loud, bubbly giggle. I stared at her, suppressing a volcanic rage. “Chloe, if you intentionally give the doctor the wrong species, you are actively delaying life-saving treatment. You will be legally responsible.” Hearing that, Chloe finally shut her mouth. But her eyes were full of spiteful resentment at being called out. The ER doctor, finally understanding the twisted dynamic at play, spoke with cold authority. “Since the species is unconfirmed, we will proceed with broad-spectrum emergency stabilization. Please clear the doorway…” I let out a massive sigh of relief and nodded gratefully at the doctor, preparing to help wheel Mia’s gurney into the trauma bay. Just as the wheels started moving, Chloe suddenly shouted: “Wait! I remember!” “It’s the new snake I got today! It must have slipped out of the transport box!” She held up her phone, her eyes darting nervously but her posture projecting absolute confidence. “I’ll just pull up my order history right now! The receipt will say exactly what species it is!” Outside the trauma bay doors. Chloe stood frozen in place, holding her phone up, swiping aimlessly at the screen, putting on a highly theatrical show of searching for an email. First she claimed her phone was lagging. Then she claimed the hospital Wi-Fi was blocking the site. She dragged this agonizing performance out for nearly ten minutes before finally shoving the screen in our direction. “See? Found it… I told you guys to stop rushing me…” The screen did indeed show an exotic pet retailer’s confirmation page. The people standing nearby naturally leaned in to look, and their faces instantly contorted in shock. “Oh my god! That is an incredibly lethal species! This is insane!” “And we were actually feeling sorry for her earlier! She literally caused this entire nightmare herself!” Chloe’s face twisted into an ugly scowl. “I’m an exotic pet enthusiast. What’s the big deal if I keep a venomous snake? How does that affect any of you?” “Doctor, look, the receipt is right here! Now you know exactly what it is!” The doctor’s face darkened into a furious scowl. “Nobody move! Let me see that receipt clearly so I can authorize the correct antivenom!” I stared at the glowing screen. Something felt deeply, instinctively wrong. Sure enough, the very next second, she yanked the phone away and locked the screen. I reached out to grab the phone from her hand, but Chloe suddenly slapped her own forehead, looking incredibly annoyed. “Oh, shoot! I totally forgot! I ordered three different snakes in that shipment. Which one was the one that got out?” I was shaking with a rage so intense it felt like my blood was boiling. The dam finally broke. “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?!” I screamed. “There is a limit to these sick jokes! Would it kill you to just shut your mouth and tell the truth?!” “You’re intentionally dragging this out! Why do you have to cause chaos right now?!” “If Mia dies because you stalled, I swear to God, I will never, ever let you get away with this!” Chloe seemed to finally realize that I was genuinely, dangerously furious. A flicker of panic crossed her face. “No… Victoria… I was just messing around with you guys. Why are you getting so mad?” At that moment, my other roommate finally snapped and screamed at Chloe. “Chloe! If you don’t have anything helpful to say, then shut the fuck up!” “Is this a time for jokes?! Mia was envenomated! If you delay this any longer, she is going to die!” “I… I didn’t mean to…” Chloe muttered, lowering her head under the verbal assault. But I could clearly see the defiant, unrepentant glare in her eyes. She truly, genuinely didn’t believe she had done anything wrong. But Mia’s body was growing colder by the second. I didn’t have time to entertain Chloe’s psychotic games anymore. I turned to the ER doctor, my voice hoarse and pleading. “I know your protocols require exact confirmation. I’m not trying to make your job harder.” “But if there is absolutely no way to confirm the species, is there anything else you can do? Please, just try to save her. Her breathing is almost gone. She can’t hold on much longer.” I bowed deeply at the waist, a gesture of absolute desperation. The doctor and the charge nurse exchanged a heavy look, and finally, the doctor nodded. As the nurses began rolling the gurney into the trauma bay, Chloe was still muttering in the background. “Why is everyone being so dramatic… it’s just a snake bite. Give her a shot and she’ll be fine. It’s not like people don’t get bit by snakes all the time…” I pretended she didn’t exist. I just held onto Mia’s cold hand, praying silently over and over again that she would pull through. Chloe mumbled a few more complaints, and when she realized no one was paying attention to her, she finally shut up. But right at that exact moment, the heart monitor hooked up to Mia flatlined. I watched in horror as the medical team swarmed the gurney, launching into a frantic, desperate resuscitation protocol. I was pulled to the side, forced to repeatedly review a binder of snake profiles with a toxicologist in a blind attempt to identify the species visually. As I waited for news from the trauma bay, my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. A suffocating wave of dread washed over me. I stared unblinking at the red “IN USE” light above the trauma bay doors, terrified of what it meant when it turned off. In a daze, Chloe’s voice echoed in my memory. Right before they wheeled Mia in, she had muttered: “I just couldn’t remember clearly, it’s not like I did it on purpose.” A violent shudder racked my body. Did she truly not understand that intentionally being vague in a life-or-death medical emergency was the exact same thing as murder? No! She knew exactly what she was doing. Just like she knew that keeping highly venomous reptiles in a tiny college dorm was strictly prohibited, yet she hid them under her bed anyway, completely disregarding our safety. She also knew that the moment Mia was bitten, she was racing against the clock. Yet she intentionally lied, stalled, and played games with the doctor. The realization made my chest physically ache. And then, from down the hall, I heard Chloe’s shrill, complaining voice again. “Stop trying to scare me! You hospitals just love to exaggerate everything!” “It’s just a tiny snake bite! Why are you making it sound like she has terminal cancer?!” “We’re not doing this! Wheel her back out here right now!” My stomach plummeted. I shoved through a pair of double doors and saw Chloe—who had “volunteered” to go to the billing department—throwing a massive tantrum at the payment counter. The young billing clerk looked completely overwhelmed and distressed. I sprinted over and grabbed the clerk’s arm. “Excuse me! I’m her roommate! What’s happening? Are they not working on her?!” The clerk recognized me from the ER and quickly explained: “Miss, the venom is spreading through your roommate’s system incredibly fast. The doctors ordered an immediate dose of a specialized, broad-spectrum anti-venom cocktail. But this young woman refused to authorize the charge or provide insurance info, and it caused a massive delay in the pharmacy…” Before she even finished her sentence, I felt my knees almost buckle. The months of accumulated frustration and rage detonated inside me. I spun around, my eyes blazing, and screamed at Chloe: “Chloe! If Mia dies in there, are you prepared to carry that charge for the rest of your life?!” Without waiting for her to spout another delusional excuse, I slammed my own debit card onto the counter. But when I checked my banking app, I was hundreds of dollars short. Seeing me panic, Chloe strutted over, looking incredibly smug and self-righteous. “I told you guys you were overreacting. There’s no need for all this expensive medical drama.” “Just listen to me. We’ll take her back to the dorm, let her sleep it off, and she’ll be fine. There’s no reason to throw away money on this scam.” I was shaking so hard I could barely stand. I opened my mouth to scream at her again. But then, the heavy doors of the trauma bay swung open. The lead ER physician walked out, his face utterly grim. “I am so sorry. We did everything we could.” My legs instantly gave out, and I collapsed onto the cold linoleum floor. At that exact moment, our Resident Advisor, Mr. Harris, came sprinting down the hallway, looking frantic. He saw the white sheet pulled over the gurney and let out a trembling, horrified yell: “What happened?! You said you were getting the antivenom! How is she dead?!”

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1. Three years ago, on my wedding day, my husband’s ex-girlfriend took her own life. When he heard the news, my husband merely shook his head, a somber regret etched on his face. “I’m truly sorry, but Lilith and I are ancient history. Seraphina is the one I choose to spend my life with, I can’t let her down.” I was so touched I wept. After we were married, I even offered to go with him to visit Lilith’s grave. That was until just before this year’s All Souls’ Day, when I scrolled past a post online: “After three years as his little ghost, I’m finally stepping into the light.” “No choice, his wife’s family is loaded. He told me to fake my death, marry her first, to throw off her parents’ suspicions. Once her old lady’s cards are maxed out, he’ll come back for me.” “Heh heh, the bitch even visits my grave, cries there too. So funny.” She attached a photo of herself holding a man’s hand in a Porsche. That Porsche? It was the one I’d bought for my husband. Oh, playing dead, are we? Fine. If that’s the game, I’ll give you a send-off the whole town will remember. … I put down my phone and saw Alaric arranging paper money. “Honey,” I began, “we’re going to visit Lilith’s grave in a few days. What do you think we should bring?” “I’m thinking of buying her a few sets of the latest designer dresses. How does that sound?” Alaric’s hands stilled. “Why bring clothes? She can’t wear them.” “No need to make it so complicated. She’s been gone for three years. A bouquet of white chrysanthemums would be enough to show our respect.” I tilted my head, looking at him. “What about some food? Like those little green mochi cakes?” He shook his head. “Really, it’s not necessary. Just flowers. She wasn’t one for bothering people.” I gazed up at him. He avoided my eyes, turning to grab his jacket. “I’m heading out tonight. There’s a work dinner.” Another work dinner. For three years, Alaric had been gentle, considerate, and hardworking—practically a perfect husband. Except for his frequent business trips and ‘work dinners’. Last Valentine’s Day, he said he was at a company party and sent me a huge bouquet of roses. On my birthday, he claimed he was in Havenport signing a contract. He’d sent me a photo of a rainy cityscape from his hotel window, saying he missed me. For our wedding anniversary, we’d already booked a luxurious overseas resort. But a call came in at midnight. He said a client insisted on meeting him, and asked for my understanding. Thinking back, it seems he hasn’t been by my side for a single important day since we got married. Was he truly busy with work, or was it something else? A strange impulse led me to the poster’s profile, and from her bio, I found her video account. The profile picture was a woman’s side profile, with the username ‘Lilith’. The account was filled with video clips and meticulously composed photos. “Today marks our five-year anniversary (also that bitch’s birthday), he flew over to spend it with me, tee hee.” The accompanying image was a Cartier bracelet. “He came to celebrate Valentine’s Day with me! Too bad it rained, so we stayed in the hotel for two days. But being with him, even doing nothing, makes me so happy.” The image showed two glasses of red wine and a nighttime view outside a window. It was the exact rainy cityscape Alaric had sent me that night. The most recent post was from this year’s Valentine’s Day. “Waaah, he spent the holidays with that bitch’s family, but it’s okay, I know he’s just putting on a show. When I finally step into the light, he’ll make it up to me every single day.” The accompanying image was a transfer screenshot: $52,000. Yet, I distinctly remembered Alaric telling me that day he wanted us to act like high school sweethearts for Valentine’s Day, and he transferred me five dollars and two cents. Someone in the comments asked her: “No offense, but aren’t you a homewrecker?” She immediately shot back: “We’ve known each other for seven years; that woman was obsessed with him, that’s why he married her. In love, the unloved one is the homewrecker.” Me, obsessed with Alaric? I am the sole heiress of the Sterling Group. Since childhood, the sons of prominent families vying for an arranged marriage with me lined up from the school gates to the airport. But Alaric and I met at an art exhibition. We clicked instantly and our feelings grew. Lilith tried to cause trouble a few times, but he always gently talked her down. I truly believed his heart was only for me. My parents disapproved of him, finding his humble background unacceptable, and firmly opposed our marriage. For his sake, I had my first major fallout with my parents. To save his pride, I even suggested we skip a lavish wedding. And what did he do? He put on a dramatic show at our wedding, his ‘first love’ supposedly taking her own life. Now, I’m the one who was obsessed with him? I immediately called my lawyer. “Please investigate Alaric’s bank accounts and print out all transactions for the past three years.” “Also, revoke that property transfer agreement.” Hanging up, I looked at the exquisite gift box on the table, containing the deed to a property. It was a luxury penthouse with breathtaking river views, located in the city’s most prime area, valued at fifty million dollars. I had thought Alaric worked hard building his business and deserved a home of his own. Now, it seems he’d be more at home in a grave. 2. The lawyer’s report landed on my desk first thing the next morning. Alaric’s various bank accounts showed cumulative transfers exceeding $23 million to a single account over the past three years. The largest transaction, a hefty $8 million, was made last December, marked as “art investment.” I recalled Alaric mentioning around that time he’d met a promising young artist and wanted to invest in a painting. Knowing his passion for art, I encouraged him to pursue it, telling him to come to me if he needed more funds. I traced the recipient of that sum to a cultural media company. The company’s legal representative was Edward Vance. Lilith’s father. My stomach churned, and I felt a wave of nausea. He used my money to dig a grave for my marriage. He used my resources to build a nest for his first love. Just as I was about to investigate the company further, my food delivery arrived. It wasn’t the iced coffee I’d ordered; it was a steamer of dumplings and a bowl of porridge, courtesy of Alaric. His voice came through gently on the phone, “Honey, are you awake? I canceled your order. Don’t always drink cold stuff, something warm is better for your stomach.” If I hadn’t seen that post, I would truly have believed he was the man who loved me most in this world. Before I could reply, he continued, “Oh, and about that apartment, could you transfer the title to me first?” “Because the client here—” I cut him off. “Actually, I was just about to tell you, I’m planning to sell that apartment.” He paused. “Sell it? Why?” I replied casually, “I think that kind of place has bad energy, not suitable for the living.” “Don’t you think it’d be more fitting as a shrine for the dead?” He clearly didn’t grasp my meaning. He let out a dry chuckle, then gently tried to coax me. “What’s wrong? Are you upset because I haven’t been with you?” “I’ll be back tonight, be a good girl, okay?” “Is it bad feng shui for the apartment? It’s okay, I don’t mind. You forgot, your husband has the strongest destiny.” I didn’t respond, just hung up the phone. I checked Lilith’s account again. She’d posted another update: “This weekend, my first solo exhibition is opening in the Southside Arts District!” The accompanying image showed a gallery, and her back to the camera. Her right hand was raised high, forming a V-sign. This photo was clearly taken by Alaric. He was never good at composition; every photo he took always captured a large patch of ground. I’d joked with him about it many times, but he never seemed to remember to change. I picked up my phone and dialed a number I hadn’t called in a long time. It was Mrs. Vance on the other end, a renowned spiritual medium in our town, famous for her elaborate supernatural rituals. Especially with All Souls’ Day approaching, her schedule was packed. I didn’t tell her the full story, only that a young woman had passed away prematurely, and I wanted to give her a grand send-off. Mrs. Vance readily agreed. “Since it’s Miss Sterling’s friend, then this old woman will certainly pull out all the stops.” “Will it be a proper ceremony? Incantations? Burning paper houses, cars, mountains of gold and silver?” I smiled. “All of it.” “She loved beauty when she was alive, so burn a hundred sets of clothes for each season. Also, replicas of famous paintings, and all four treasures of the study.” “She also loved to travel, so prepare planes, cruise ships, passports, and visas too.” “Hold it on Saturday, right outside her gallery’s first exhibition in the Southside Arts District. Make sure the whole city knows she’s gone.” Mrs. Vance, already eager for elaborate events, was thrilled at the prospect of a grand send-off, excitedly assuring me it was no problem. After hanging up, I sent Alaric a usual message. We were having dinner with both our families tomorrow, and I asked him to check in with the restaurant manager about the menu. But he didn’t know that the so-called restaurant manager was a hacker friend of mine. 3. He’d infected Alaric’s phone with a virus, allowing me to see all his messages. “My little ghost is finally stepping into the light, aren’t you excited?” “Seraphina is acting crazy today, saying she wants to sell the apartment. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her. She loves me so much, she won’t deny it to me.” “Love you, I’ll kiss you senseless when we meet.” Lilith replied: “Oh, actually, I really enjoy her visiting my grave.” “She was crying her eyes out, and I was in the car dying of laughter. Why didn’t you record it? I want to watch it every day.” I looked at the conversation, took a deep breath, and set my phone aside. Laughing, are you? You won’t be laughing for long. The next day, I arrived on time for the dinner. Alaric had suggested this gathering. His father’s kidney disease had flared up again, and he urgently needed a transplant. In Havenport, securing a specialist’s surgery slot at a top hospital without my father’s influence would mean his family waiting until the next lifetime. When he’d brought it up to me, I had, of course, readily agreed. But things were different now. At the dinner table, Alaric’s behavior was almost obsequious. He sat beside me, subtly turning towards me, picking out a piece of boneless grouper and placing it on my small plate. “Try this, it’s very fresh. You haven’t been looking well lately; eat more fish.” I didn’t touch my chopsticks, just watched him. He then spooned a small bowl of chicken soup, gently blew on it, and placed it next to my hand. “This soup was slow-cooked for four hours. You have a delicate stomach, some soup will make you feel better.” I observed him through the rising steam. The man before me was impeccably dressed in a suit, refined and scholarly. Who would have thought that just a few hours earlier, he’d sent Lilith a message saying: “Be good, just a few more days. Once Seraphina sorts out my dad’s surgery, I’ll come be with you.” I just found it incredible. This man, for another woman, could meticulously plan a fake death, weaving lies for three years, siphoning resources from me to fuel his love affair. Now, for his father’s illness, he could so naturally humble himself before me. Every morsel of food he offered, every tender word he spoke, came with a price tag attached. It was my family’s resources, my parents’ connections, my assets that he hadn’t fully plundered yet. Alaric noticed my distraction and gripped my hand, a hint of nervousness in his eyes. “Seraphina? What’s wrong? Is the soup not to your liking?” I met his gaze and smiled. “You eat too, don’t just fuss over me.” He smiled back, his eyes visibly relaxing. I stirred the chicken soup, but before I could bring it to my lips, my assistant called. “Ms. Sterling, I apologize for bothering you, but there’s been a situation at the Riverbend Hotel.” The Riverbend Hotel was one my father had gifted to me. My assistant continued, “Right now, several girls have checked into your presidential suite, taking photos and videos in the private areas. When the hotel manager tried to intervene, they claimed they were friends of the owner…” My assistant sent me photos, asking if I wanted to call the police. I opened the photos and recognized the girls from Lilith’s account. They were all her closest friends; one of them often appeared in the comment section. It seemed she was in a hurry to usurp my place. I glanced at Alaric, who was completely oblivious behind me, still diligently trying to appease my parents. I told my assistant, “It’s fine, let them be.” Let Lilith gloat for a bit. After all, she wouldn’t be making trouble for much longer.

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My twin sister and I both suffered from congenital heart disease, but there was only one suitable heart available. My parents remained silent, then locked me in a dark room. When I emerged, four of my teeth were broken, and I was covered in bruises. Finally, I relented, signing the agreement to transfer the heart. But what they didn’t know was that I didn’t give in because I was beaten into submission. It was because the silver crucifix I wore on my left wrist had cracked without warning. That silver crucifix was a gift from my grandmother, meant only for me. A cracked crucifix, a sign of impending doom. 1 “Sign it.” My father sat on the sofa, taking a deep drag from his cigarette, filling the living room with swirling smoke. I couldn’t quite make out his expression. My eyelids were swollen and bruised from the beating, forcing me to squint. “Mhm.” My hand trembled as I picked up the pen, signing my name. Due to my shaking hand, my signature was shaky and childish, almost comical. My mother stood by the balcony, wiping away tears, then timidly looked back at me. “Rowan, don’t blame your father for being so harsh. There’s only one heart. If your sister doesn’t get the surgery now, who knows when her turn will come again…” Would I get another turn? Wasn’t I your daughter too? Did I deserve to be beaten like this? These words, laced with the metallic taste of blood, were swallowed down with my saliva. In that dark room, I had already cried and screamed these questions over and over again. Meeting my mother’s gaze, she saw only coldness and blankness in my eyes. “Rowan, don’t look at me like that, it makes my heart ache… I know we’ve failed you, but your sister truly can’t wait. If she doesn’t get the surgery soon, she really will…” “Enough,” my father interjected. He glanced at me, a flicker of guilt in his eyes, but his authoritative tone remained unchanged. “Your sister needs this heart more than you do! You’re old enough to be a big sister, you should be more understanding of us as parents.” “Mhm, understood.” I gathered my belongings and limped out the door. My quiet acceptance made them even more uneasy. With my old temper, I would have put up a fight for three days and three nights before giving in. But now, I was calm, not arguing, accepting the reality. Outside, I pulled the cracked silver crucifix from my pocket. This was a gift my grandmother had left specifically for me. And without my parents even touching it, it had cracked on its own, without any warning. I still remembered that summer, years ago. Grandma called me into her room, just me, and carefully pulled out this silver crucifix from her pocket. “Rowan, your parents’ favoritism, I’ve seen it, and I remember it. Take this silver crucifix; wear it always. If it ever cracks, remember, abandon everything at that moment.” “Your parents… sigh, Rowan, your grandma isn’t powerful enough to do more, but this is all I can do for you. Remember, abandon everything, don’t fight, something terrible will happen.” After Grandma spoke, there was only the endless chirping of cicadas and croaking of frogs. Grandma was actually very capable. She was a fortune-teller, a feng shui master, a well-known enchantress, and she’d raised my father with her craft. On her deathbed, she saw no one else, only me. Because of this, my sister, who had always been our parents’ precious darling, stared at me with cold eyes. I knew exactly what she was jealous of—that Grandma’s final favoritism wasn’t for her, but for me. After I came out, Grandma passed away. My parents and sister gathered around me, demanding to know what Grandma had said. I smiled. “Grandma said for our family to live well, for Mom and Dad to set their hearts straight, and to stop favoring my sister.” At my words, my parents’ faces darkened. They took my sister and left, muttering that I was talking nonsense. I chuckled. Actually, that wasn’t what Grandma had said at all. 2. “Sis, your face was already big, but after Mom and Dad beat you, it looks even more like a flatbread.” My sister sat on the hospital bed, laughing, her body shaking. Her skin was like snow, her teeth bright and even, making her look like a beautiful princess. Even mocking me, she was pretty. And I sat there, like an extra, utterly unremarkable. My parents waited anxiously beside her. My mother tugged at my sleeve several times, repeatedly warning me. “When the doctor comes later, you know what to say and what not to say, right?” I nodded, watching my sister, also suffering from congenital heart disease, sitting on the bed eating fruit neatly cut by our father, while our mother massaged her shoulders. A picture of a loving, harmonious family. When the doctor arrived, my mother immediately handed over the prepared agreement to relinquish the heart, but the doctor didn’t even spare her a glance. The doctor stared at the wounds on my exposed skin, pushed up his black-rimmed glasses, his expression grave. “Young lady, are you truly doing this voluntarily? If there are any issues, we can talk outside alone. I’d be happy to discuss your thoughts in depth. You’ve been waiting for this heart for a long time…” I forced a smile, which looked strained with all the bruises on my face. “I am doing this voluntarily, Doctor.” “If you give up now, it might be another three to five years before a suitable heart becomes available again. I think you should consider this carefully. If necessary, we can offer you other services…” I glanced at my parents, whose eyes were shadowed behind the doctor, and my sister, who rolled her eyes. I ignored the doctor’s subtle hints. I lowered my head. “No need, thank you. This is truly my voluntary decision.” The doctor didn’t try to persuade me further. He sighed, then finally took the agreement and left. A triumphant smile finally bloomed on my sister’s face. Even malicious thoughts looked pretty on her. “Sis, you’re so obedient.” There’s a character archetype online called a ‘femme fatale.’ My sister, Lena, fit those four words perfectly. Lena, my sister, first tested my boundaries in first grade. She hit me first, then blamed me, claiming I started it. The reason was simple: her older sister was jealous of her. My parents and teachers, without hesitation, chose to believe her. From then on, my sister successfully established a hierarchy in her mind: she was first, my parents second, and I was third. She stood out among the crowd of runny-nosed elementary school children in puffy clothes, dressed in various princess dresses prepared by our parents, garnering a host of little fans in class. And I, a year older than my sister, could only ever wear her hand-me-downs. Clothes that were one size too small always felt constricting on me, making me look like a freak in the eyes of my peers. I didn’t know why my parents could be so biased. I knew my sister was beautiful and smart, never dropping out of the top five in her grade since childhood. But I was just ordinary. I hadn’t done anything wrong. From beginning to end, I hadn’t done anything terrible; I was just ordinary. “Sis, after my heart surgery, I’m going to be healthy and go to college! Thank you for your heart. I’ll carry your dreams with me, okay?” Lena smiled sweetly at me. My heart stung, a mix of sourness and bitterness, intertwined with an indescribable complex of other emotions. My dream was that university I’d gotten into through an extraordinary effort. It was the same university Lena would attend, having performed consistently well. I also forced a smile. “Alright, you absolutely must be safe, sound, and a-live.” The tone of ‘alive’ was stretched out, sounding somewhat eerie. Lena, your words erased the last shred of guilt in my heart. 3. I carefully wrapped the cracked silver crucifix, bought a train ticket home, and brought it to Grandma’s grave. I looked at the overgrown tombstone, saying nothing. Alone, I hoed away the weeds, then laid out a pile of offerings. When the red candles had burned down a quarter of the way, a voice spoke behind me. “Young lady, has that silver crucifix cracked?” I turned around. It was a tall, spry old man. I didn’t recognize him, and casually replied, “Mhm.” The old man’s eyes were shadowed. He looked me up and down. “You… you’re old Mrs. Sterling’s granddaughter, aren’t you? So she gave you that silver crucifix. This item has quite a history; it can ward off evil and prevent great calamities. Your grandma told you that, didn’t she?” I packed my things and walked away, not saying a word. “A silver crucifix isn’t something you can just wear casually. If the one your grandma gave you really cracked, forget about a bloody disaster, something even worse might happen…” I snapped, “Get lost!” The old man seemed flustered. “You rude young lady! Hey! Did you tell your family about this broken item? It’s a sign of impending doom! I’m not joking with you!” I stopped, turning back with a wary look. I was actually considering whether to make him shut up. The best way to silence someone is to make them someone who can never speak again. Perhaps my gaze was too terrifying. The old man awkwardly shut his mouth. “Alright, alright, these young people nowadays are so angry, they won’t even listen to an old man like me…” I was about to leave, but his words made me turn back immediately. My eyes fixed on the old man’s weathered face. “You… you’re a Miller?” Old Miller nodded, raising his head with a somewhat triumphant look, squinting as he smiled. “That’s right, I’m known far and wide. Everyone in these ten villages knows me, Miller, the Elder!” Miller, the Elder, a witch of my grandma’s generation. He was very famous in the village, perhaps even more so than my grandma. But few knew they were actually fellow apprentices, a senior and junior from the same master. I smiled, revealing my stark white teeth. This graveyard was far from the village. Few people ever came here, which was why it was overgrown. Children in the village were taught from a young age never to go to this graveyard without good reason, because it was wild and remote, perfect for murder and hiding bodies. Although I had heart disease, killing an old man with limited mobility wasn’t difficult. I bludgeoned Miller to death with a stone, dragged him to a secluded dirt pit in a grove of trees, covered him with branches and weeds. If I was lucky, wild animals would find him and eat him. To buy time, I smashed Miller’s face beyond recognition. I did it without a blush or a racing heart, as calmly as if I were gutting a fish. I didn’t return to my hometown just to pay respects to my grandma. It was also for her dying words. “Rowan, after the silver crucifix cracks, if you want to live, kill three people: Miller, Evelyn, and Rose.” “Miller’s tongue, Evelyn’s eyes, Rose’s heart. Otherwise, once they’re gone, they’ll betray you.” “Rowan, Grandma wouldn’t harm you. Go, now.” I pulled a knife from my pocket, pried open his mouth, and cut out his tongue. These three people had one thing in common. They were all fellow apprentices of my grandma.

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Back in Harbor City, I never expected to run into Alexey Volkov at the Christie’s auction house. For a moment, we both froze, just a subtle twitch. Then, with unspoken agreement, we plastered on professional smiles, nodding to each other – a formal exchange utterly unlike what you’d expect from a couple who’d once torn each other apart. His eyebrows were sharp, his eyes keen. Beside him stood the same demure and pretty nanny, Vera. Behind me, my handsome and capable male secretary, Liam, was at attention. Everyone in the room held their breath, waiting. They were anticipating that I’d, as always, rush over to confront his mistress. Even Alexey’s gaze held a covert flicker of eagerness. But this time, I simply tightened my shawl, curled my lips into a faint smile, and turned away. Leaving all the love and hatred tied to my ex-husband far behind. … My heels clicked sharply on the marble floor. I hadn’t even made it out of the main hall when Alexey called out, “Ariel!” People in scattered groups began to whisper: “Mr. Volkov truly is Harbor City’s number one. One moment, he’s showering his ‘little wife’ with affection, the next he’s chasing after his ex-wife. He’s certainly got his hands full!” Alexey frowned, his gaze instinctively darting to me. I paused, turned, and spoke with a smile, “Oh, everyone’s joking. I’m merely Mr. Volkov’s ex. His current wife is standing right over there.” I gestured towards Vera’s position in the hall. Ignoring their reactions, I lifted the hem of my gown, preparing to leave. But Alexey caught up to me in a few strides, grabbing my arm. “Five years, Ariel… Can we talk?” I took a step back, widening the distance between us. “Mr. Volkov, let’s discuss it at the summit.” I pulled my hand free, turned, and didn’t spare him another glance. His eager calls continued, but my pace never faltered. In that moment, my relationship with Alexey seemed to have completely reversed. After five years, he was no longer the man I’d once loved with such fervent passion, the one who’d kept my heart in constant turmoil. My secretary, Liam, was perceptive. The moment we got into the car, he handed me a lit cigarette. I raised an eyebrow. He smiled obediently. “You always like one when you’re troubled, Ms. Summers.” I lost myself in the curling wisps of smoke. In all those countless nights I’d waited for Alexey, I’d gotten through it one cigarette after another. Eventually, I broke free from the man, but the habit of smoking remained. Now, he mattered less to me than this single cigarette. I said nothing, letting the Pagani drive us all the way to the hillside hotel. Liam didn’t intend to let me relax, though. He brought over a stack of files and spread them before me. “Ms. Summers, this is the proposal for Volkov Group’s bidding conference the day after tomorrow…” Opening the folder, I saw reports on the Volkov Group’s projects and financial statements. Whap! I slammed it shut, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Them.” “Volkov Financial is indeed the top firm in Harbor City. I hear Mr. Volkov made it to the Top 3 of international wealth lists at a young age – a true business prodigy. But, he was almost ‘kidnapped’ by his ex-wife later on.” Liam took the folder, his eyes lingering on me hesitantly. “You… were you really… that…” I nodded, my eyelids unmoving, my voice as calm as still water: “Yes, I am that ex-wife. The one who nearly took him down with dynamite.” A long time ago, even the mere thought of Alexey Volkov’s name would leave me gasping for air. But now, I could hold a glass of wine and recount it all as if it were someone else’s story. The Summers and Volkov families were old friends, and Alexey and I had practically grown up together. To call us childhood sweethearts wouldn’t be an exaggeration. The young boy, usually so serious with others, would flash his adorable fangs just for me. If I faked a sore foot, he’d bend down and carry me for miles, never complaining, even when his heels blistered. But the Volkov family was a viper’s nest of intrigue. After his parents died in a car accident, Alexey, being too young, was cut out of the line of succession. His older siblings even tried to orchestrate his demise, nearly leaving him dead on the streets. The Summers family initially wanted no part in the mess. It was I who knelt and begged my parents to intervene, to send Alexey abroad. Just before he boarded the plane, his eyes red, he clung to me, weeping, refusing to let go. “Ariel, you’re destined to be my bride, this lifetime and forever!” “Call me shameless, call me despicable, but you’re not allowed to like anyone else these next few years. I’ll come back, and I’ll marry you!” I choked back tears, nodding. My nails bit deep into my palms as I fought the urge to follow him. While he was abroad, I wasn’t idle. I collected reports on the Volkov empire and tirelessly built connections for him. Five years later, after Alexey had become a top trader on Wall Street, He returned home, laden with honors. In less than three years, he systematically exposed the crimes of his siblings and the old guard who had once scorned him, rooting them out completely. I was so naive, so foolish back then. I’d tugged on his hand and playfully asked, “Alexey, will you ever be so ruthless with me?” That night, the moon hung high. His eyes, it seemed, held an entire galaxy. “Silly girl! How could they ever compare to you?” “Thank you for never giving up on me, for always being there. You are my treasure, my everything, for the rest of my life!” “Whether I’m Alexey Volkov or the CEO of Volkov Group, you will always be my only one!” His sweet words, hot like his touch, seared themselves into my heart, leaving me utterly disoriented. In the end, it was my personal assistant who even told me about his affair. Liam’s wine glass slipped from his grasp and shattered, the crimson liquid staining the entire carpet. He didn’t bother to clean up the spilled wine, his expression urgent as he pressed, “Ms. Summers, you’re the Summers family heir, rich and beautiful. Marrying you meant inheriting the Summers fortune. The news reports back then said you brought hundreds of millions in dowry to your wedding! Alexey must have lost his mind to cheat on you!” I exhaled a smoke ring, smiling dismissively. Perhaps, that was why I was so unwilling to let go back then. I was raised as an heir from childhood. My suitors lined up from across the country to abroad, some for my wealth, some for my beauty. But I poured my heart out only to Alexey. In our circles, having mistresses was commonplace. Some dallied with young models, others with celebrities, and some were even open to both. But they were all fresh, beautiful faces, and none of those men were Alexey. Yet, I took a deep drag. The suffocating bitterness filling my lungs was exhaled along with the smoke. No one could have guessed. The CEO who swore I was his only one, was having an affair with his housekeeper. A demure, voluptuous woman, completely under his control. Liam’s eyes widened in disbelief. “How is that possible? Ms. Summers, wasn’t there some misunderstanding?” I scoffed. See? Another unbeliever. Just like I was back then. How could I, the esteemed Summers heiress, the CEO of a thriving corporation, lose to a housekeeper? I searched through all of Alexey’s properties, but found no sign of her. It wasn’t until I arrived at the Sunshine Mountain Villa—a Volkov family ancestral estate that Alexey had refused to let me use as our marital home. Yet now, it had become a private love nest for his mistress. The moment I smashed open the front door, Alexey happened to be returning from an overseas business trip. He blocked my path, his face etched with a pained expression. “Ariel, let me explain.” Seeing my cold demeanor, he dropped to his knees at my feet, eyes rimmed red, grabbing at the hem of my dress as he began to explain. That year he went to the States, he couldn’t stomach the salads and sandwiches. His stomach had gone bad, bleeding constantly. He was interning and studying at the same time, stretched thin. It was Victoria, the housekeeper who had cared for him since childhood, who quit her well-paying job at the ancestral home. She traveled across the ocean, acting like a mother hen, taking care of him. When he was at his lowest, she was there. When he got his first commission and desperately wanted to share it with someone, she was there too. “I consider Victoria family… Really, you have to believe me!” “Then why didn’t you ever mention her during our video calls?” I pouted, though deep down, I’d started to believe him a little. He sprang to his feet and pulled me into an embrace. His fractured gaze held the sorrow of being doubted. “You were studying and gathering intel for me on the Volkov Group back then. How could I bear to burden you further?” “Victoria has looked after me for over a decade in the old house; she’s like an older sister to me. That’s why I let her live in this house…” Perhaps it was Victoria’s gentle nature. Perhaps it was my inherent self-confidence. Alexey’s few words completely dispelled my doubts. From then on, I treated her like an older sister too. Luxury jewelry sets flowed into her wardrobe as if they cost nothing. Each time, she’d politely refuse, saying she wasn’t worthy. Then she’d express profound gratitude, telling me I was a kind and beautiful wife, and that Alexey was incredibly fortunate to have married me. Pleased, I’d often bring her along, hoping she’d gain some worldly experience. She’d blush with excitement, saying she’d lovingly care for my future children. Later, she kept her word. Except her dedicated care was entirely focused on the marital bed between Alexey and me. The stark, crimson sheets, the dull thud as their bodies separated. Like a bomb, it detonated all my reason. All thoughts of being a socialite. All pretense of composure. Forgotten. I charged at Alexey like a madwoman, scratching and clawing. He stood there, pale-faced, letting me strike and curse him. Until I slapped Victoria several times. He couldn’t take it anymore. Shielding the woman behind him, he glared at me with clenched fists for the first time. “Have you had enough?! If you have a problem, come at me, don’t bully Victoria!” Victoria’s tearful whimpers from behind him completely turned Alexey’s eyes red. He threw caution to the wind, sneering at me, “Since you’ve found out, I have nothing to say. You can either continue to be Mrs. Volkov…” “Or you can leave with your shares. I’ll compensate you!” In that moment. All vows, all those years of childhood friendship. They were all a joke. My eyes red, I grabbed his collar, desperately demanding an answer. He pried my fingers off, one by one, sighing softly: “Ariel, you need to be more understanding.” “Victoria isn’t a threat to you… and I, I can’t live without her.” I had loved him for over a decade. I poured the entire Summers family fortune into helping him reclaim the Volkov Group, only to be met with “I can’t live without her.” I couldn’t swallow that insult. I began to hound them, spreading their sordid affair throughout our social circles. Alexey, heartbroken that Victoria was being branded a “mistress,” secretly stripped me of 10% of my Volkov Group shares. He also colluded with the Summers family elders to remove me from the board. And froze all my bank accounts. I went from being the esteemed CEO of Summers Inc. to a discarded Volkov wife, deemed inept and wasteful. Alexey didn’t stop there. He coldly sent a message: “If you don’t quiet down, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life!” Having lived a life of smooth sailing for over two decades. Neither my feelings nor my dignity could tolerate his betrayal. I became frantic, hiring paparazzi to track them. My former close friends turned around and advised me. “She’s just a housekeeper, he’s just playing around!” But the next day, all my shares, assets, and positions were transferred to Victoria’s name. He even arranged for the hospital to release a false diagnosis, claiming I had contracted a venereal disease due to promiscuity. Countless high-definition videos and photos flooded the internet. Everyone called me a debauched hussy, a rotten slut who only pretended to be a lady. I finally broke down. Crying, I called my parents, who were abroad. Until their private jet crashed into the sea, killing them both. For a long time after my voice faded, the room remained in dead silence. Liam’s lips were tightly pressed, his eyes burning with anger. “Ms. Summers, how… how did you get through it?” His hands trembled so much he couldn’t light the cigarette. I just held it tightly between my fingers. As soon as the news of my parents’ deaths broke, Alexey’s demeanor completely changed. He played the dutiful son-in-law, helping me arrange their funerals. Everyone in Harbor City praised him. They called him a virtuous man, a wonderful husband and son-in-law, a true rarity. Meanwhile, I was utterly cast as the immoral madwoman in everyone’s eyes. It was then that Alexey, holding a pregnancy test report, softened his stance towards me. “Ariel, we’re having a baby. Let’s stop this… okay?” “This child will take your surname, Summers, to carry on the family name.” After my parents’ accident, I lived with daily guilt. If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t have chartered a private jet home. I was the one who killed them. The arrival of this child felt like a lifeline. It pulled me out of the despair of losing my parents. I became silent, but day by day, my anticipation for this child grew. And Alexey seemed to have broken off contact with Victoria. He canceled all his social engagements, and after work, he’d stay by my side, smiling as he watched me do prenatal exercises. My smiles seemed to grow more frequent. Our relationship also appeared to be improving. Until three months later, Victoria walked into the Volkov mansion, her hand on her belly. She slammed that pregnancy test report onto my face with a smack. Gone was her former facade of gentle obedience, replaced by a twisted, sharp smile: “Ariel Summers, you truly are a fool! Three months, and you still haven’t realized you’re not really pregnant!” My first reaction was to retort, “Impossible!” She grabbed my hair, rubbing the pregnancy report viciously across my face. The sharp edges poked my eyes, and I trembled in pain, but she laughed maliciously: “Look closely! This pregnancy report is mine! It just has your name written on it!” “You’re lying!” My face was pale, my voice shaking uncontrollably. “I have a child! He’s my parents’ continuation, and he’ll take the Summers name!” I screamed, my voice raw, tears streaming down my face. “Don’t be stupid! Alexey just used my child to trick you!” She pulled out videos, flipping through them one by one for me to see. It turned out Alexey accompanied her to prenatal check-ups every weekend. The humble street food stalls he once deemed beneath him, he now visited hand-in-hand with Victoria. He was no longer the high and mighty CEO of Volkov Group; he’d even roll up his sleeves to massage Victoria’s legs and feet. True love, perhaps. All the experiences I’d missed out on for over a decade, he had given to Victoria. My gaze fell upon my still-flat belly. It felt as if my very core had been shattered. Suppressing the heartache, I laughed through my tears. But it wasn’t over. Victoria suddenly pulled a family tree from her bag, spreading it before me. She pointed to a name with a smile, reminding me: “See this Alexander Volkov? My son! Alexey’s eldest son, whom I bore him overseas!” Then she pointed to her belly: “And this one is the second.” Her laughter was soft and gentle. Yet it struck me like an executioner’s axe. Chopping down from above. My heartstrings snapped. I glared at her, then tilted my head back, spewing a mouthful of dark blood. And softly collapsed. When I next awoke, I was back in my bedroom. Alexey’s eyes were bloodshot, staring intently at me. His lips moved several times, but nothing came out. Ignoring him, I reached for the drawer. I pulled out the tiny bomb I’d hidden for so long, tugged the detonator, and rasped, “Alexey, let’s get a divorce.”

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