The Rolex box was empty. On the black velvet lining, there was nothing but a faint, circular impression—a ghost of the heavy metal that had rested there for decades. Twenty million dollars. It was a legacy piece from my grandfather, one of only three in existence globally. I pulled up the security footage from the living room on my phone. I scrolled through the timeline until I hit yesterday afternoon, 2:17 PM. Madeline opened the safe. She didn’t hesitate. She lifted the watch box, slid the timepiece into a signature Tiffany-blue gift bag, and tucked it under her arm. Just before she stepped out the door, she glanced down at her phone. The notification on her screen caught the light. A name I knew all too well, though I’d spent months trying to convince myself I was being paranoid. Dominic. I took a screenshot of the frame and moved it into my encrypted folder. Then, I pulled up my contacts and tapped the name labeled “James – Legal.” 01 The phone rang twice before he picked up. “Adrian? It’s late.” “James, I need a consultation. If one spouse disposes of the other’s separate pre-marital property without consent, how does the law categorize that?” There was a heavy silence on the other end for three seconds. “What’s the valuation?” “Twenty million.” Another silence, longer this time. “Don’t tip your hand yet,” James said, his voice dropping into a professional, steady register. “Find every shred of documentation you have—titles, purchase receipts, certificates of authenticity. Secure the footage. Don’t delete a thing before you see me.” “It’s all in my home safe.” “Good.” I could hear him scribbling something. “Adrian, listen to me. If she ‘gifted’ it to a third party, we can sue for its return. But if she claims it was a ‘loan,’ things get murky. We need to be surgical about this.” “I understand.” I hung up and sat on the bay window seat in our bedroom, pulling my knees to my chest. I stayed like that for a long time, watching the rain streak against the glass, until the sound of the front door lock clicked. Madeline was home. It was 11:40 PM. She drifted into the room wearing a blush-pink Chanel dress, her heels clicking softly, damp from the street. I smelled the wine first. And then, beneath it, a trace of something cold and sharp. An expensive cologne. It wasn’t mine. “Still up?” she asked, tossing her keys onto the marble vanity. I looked at her, my voice flat. “Where’s the watch from the safe?” She stiffened. It was a micro-expression, gone in less than a second, but I caught the flicker of guilt before it was smoothed over by her usual practiced composure. “Oh, that,” she said, walking to the mini-fridge and pulling out a bottle of Fiji water. “I lent it to Dominic for a few days.” Lent. “Lent?” “He has an investors’ gala the night after tomorrow. He needed to look the part,” she said, twisting the cap and taking a long swallow. “Dominic’s latest real estate venture is worth three hundred million. He specifically asked to partner with us, Adrian. You know what this deal would mean for the firm. It’s a career-maker.” I felt my fingernails bite into the palms of my hands. “That watch belonged to my grandfather. It’s a family heirloom.” “I know that. I’m not giving it away.” She set the water down and finally met my eyes, her expression shifting into one of mild annoyance. “Two days, maybe three. He’ll give it back the moment the gala is over. Why are you being so tense?” She stepped toward me, reaching out to brush a stray hair from my forehead. I took a step back. Her hand froze in mid-air. “Adrian, don’t be small-minded about this. Think of the big picture.” Small-minded. The words felt like a needle being driven into a nerve. “Did you even think to ask me before you touched my things?” “I called you yesterday afternoon. You didn’t pick up.” I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the logs. Between 2:00 PM and 3:00 PM yesterday, there were no missed calls. Not a single one. “Madeline,” I said, turning the screen toward her. “You never called.” She glanced at the screen, her face remaining a mask of cool indifference. “Then I must have misremembered. It’s just two days, Adrian. Stop making a scene out of nothing.” Making a scene. I didn’t say another word. She showered, climbed into bed, and was asleep within three minutes. Her breathing was rhythmic and steady, as if her conscience was as clear as the Manhattan skyline after a storm. I lay beside her, staring at the ceiling. At 1:30 AM, her phone buzzed on the nightstand. The screen illuminated the dark room. I turned my head. Dominic: [Got the watch. It’s stunning. Thank you, babe.] Not “Thank you, Madeline.” Not “Thank you to the firm.” Thank you, babe. Followed by a heart emoji. I didn’t touch her phone. Instead, I picked up mine and went to Dominic’s Instagram. His latest post was from twenty-three minutes ago. A carousel of nine photos. The first was a close-up of a man’s wrist resting against a black velvet tablecloth. The watch was unmistakable. The rose-gold casing, the star-dusted dial. My grandfather had it commissioned by a master watchmaker for his seventieth birthday. One of three. Serial number 003. On the back, I knew there was a line of German text in delicate script: Für meinen einzigen Stern. To my only star. The caption was a single word: [Captivated.] It had 247 likes and 36 comments. I screenshot the post. Then I turned off my phone and closed my eyes. Madeline shifted in her sleep, her arm draping heavily over my waist. It felt like a lead chain. 02 The next morning at 10:00 AM, I was sitting in the appraisal lab at the auction house. I’d been holding a jeweler’s loupe for twenty minutes, but I hadn’t processed a single facet of the diamond in front of me. My colleague, Miles, pushed the door open. “Adrian, man, you have to see this.” He shoved his phone in front of my face. It was a post on a high-end lifestyle blog. The handle was @Dominic_Stone_Official. The image was a high-res macro shot of a watch. My watch. The caption read: [Just received an incredible gift. A custom Rolex, one of only three in the world. Collectors know what this represents. Some gestures can’t be measured in dollars.] Received. Gift. Not a loan. “Whoa, isn’t that piece worth like twenty-five million on the open market?” Miles’s eyes were wide. “Who is this guy’s benefactor?” I set the loupe down. My hands were perfectly still, but inside, I was vibrating with a cold, sharp clarity. “Do me a favor, Miles. Dig into that account. Find out everything he’s been posting for the last six months.” “Wait, for real? Okay, you got it.” Miles was the firm’s social media strategist; he lived for this kind of digital sleuthing. Fifteen minutes later, a folder landed on my desk. Dominic Stone, 31. Managing Director at Obsidian Capital. High social media presence, frequent attendee of charity balls and private equity mixers. The last page was a photograph. At a winter gala three months ago, Dominic was wearing a forest-green Hugo Boss tuxedo. Standing beside him, in a crimson Dior gown, was Madeline. Her hand was tucked firmly into the crook of his arm. The date on the photo was November 14th. That was the night Madeline told me she was pulling an all-nighter at the office to finalize the quarterly reports. She’d told me not to wait up. I opened my calendar and marked that day with a small, red dot. “Adrian? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” “I’m fine, Miles.” At noon, I took a cab back to our apartment. My father was in Florida for the winter, so the place was empty except for the housekeeper. I went into the study, opened the floor safe, and pulled out a manila envelope. Inside was the complete provenance of the watch: the limited-edition certificate from Rolex, the Geneva Seal certification, the original purchase contract from my grandfather, and the notarized deed of gift he’d signed before he passed. Donor: James Alexander Sterling. Donee: Adrian Sterling. Property: Rolex 7130R-001 (Serial 003). The red notary seal was embossed six years ago. The day my grandfather gave me that watch, he held my hand with a grip that was surprisingly strong for his age. “Adrian,” he’d said, “this was the last gift your grandmother gave me. No matter what happens in this life, never let it go. It’s not just a timepiece. It’s the weight of a lifetime of promises.” I scanned the deed into my phone and put the original back in the safe. As I was heading for the door, the housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, stopped me. “Mr. Sterling, your father-in-law stopped by a few days ago. He was asking where your father’s jewelry collection was kept. I didn’t let him into the study, of course.” I froze. “When was this?” “Last Thursday. He kept asking about that jade set your father owns. He was quite insistent.” Last Thursday. Madeline took the watch on Wednesday. My hand tightened on the doorknob until the wood groaned. 03 When I got home that evening, Madeline was in the living room on a call. Seeing me, she lowered her voice, whispered, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up. “Adrian, perfect timing. I wanted to talk to you.” She patted the cushion beside her, gesturing for me to sit. I remained standing. “Dominic is incredibly impressed with the project proposal,” she said, her voice light and airy as she crossed her legs. “We might sign the framework agreement as early as next week. See? I told you it would only be a couple of days—” “He posted on social media calling it a gift, Madeline.” Her legs uncrossed. Her smile faltered. “What?” I handed her my phone. She stared at the screen for five seconds. A small frown appeared between her brows, then vanished as quickly as it had arrived. “He’s just posturing, Adrian. People in his position need to maintain an image. Calling it a gift sounds better for his brand. I have it under control. The moment the contract is signed, I’ll get it back.” “Madeline, it’s a twenty-million-dollar heirloom. You don’t ‘have it under control’ when it’s on another man’s wrist.” She stood up and walked to the kitchen island to pour a glass of wine. “Can you please try to have some perspective? This is a three-hundred-million-dollar deal. What is one watch compared to that? When this closes, I’ll buy you something even better. Whatever you want.” Something better. There were only three in the world. What could possibly be better? The doorbell rang. Madeline went to answer it. “Dad? What are you doing here?” My father-in-law, Arthur, walked in wearing a cashmere overcoat, his hair perfectly coiffed. He was carrying a thermal container. “Madeline told me you were feeling a bit… stressed lately,” he said, setting the container on the dining table and giving me a pointed look. “I had the cook make some sea bass. Good for the nerves. Sit down, let’s eat.” For the nerves. “Arthur,” I said, my voice steady. “Madeline took my grandfather’s watch and gave it to another man.” Arthur opened the container, steam billowing out. “Madeline told me about that. It’s just a loan for business purposes, Adrian. You’ll get it back. Don’t be so sensitive.” “It’s not a two-hundred-dollar trinket.” “I know what it’s worth,” Arthur said, spooning the fish onto a plate and sliding it toward me. “But Madeline is doing this for the family business. She’s worked incredibly hard to get where she is. As her husband, shouldn’t you be her biggest supporter?” “It was my grandfather’s legacy.” “The man is gone, Adrian. Are you really going to tell me a piece of metal is more important than your wife’s future?” My breath hitched for a second. Arthur didn’t seem to notice. He kept talking. “Besides, you’ve been part of this family for five years. We’ve provided everything—the clothes, the cars, the lifestyle. Has Madeline ever mistreated you? It’s one watch. Is it really worth causing this much drama?” Madeline sat at the table, silent, staring into her wine glass. I looked at her, but she refused to meet my gaze. “Arthur,” I said, picking up the plate and setting it back down. “When you went to my father’s house last Thursday and asked where his jade collection was… did Madeline send you?” Arthur’s hand paused for a fraction of a second. Then he shrugged. “I was just checking in on things. Family looks after family.” “That jade belongs to my father. It is not, and will never be, part of our marital assets.” “You see?” Arthur turned to Madeline. “Your husband is interrogating me like I’m a common criminal. Madeline, are you going to let him talk to me like this?” Madeline finally spoke. “Adrian, just drop it. Dad is just looking out for us.” Looking out for us. From the beginning, not one of them had asked for my permission. “Madeline,” I said, standing up. “I’m saying this one last time. Get the watch back. You have three days.” She sighed, a long, weary sound. “Fine, fine. I’ll talk to Dominic. Happy?” As Arthur was leaving, he patted my shoulder with a patronizing heavy hand. “Don’t be so petty, Adrian. Look at your own father—he’s been married to your mother for decades and never started a fight over ‘things.’ Be a bigger man. That’s how a marriage lasts.” The door clicked shut. I stood in the foyer, staring at the cooling sea bass. Three days. I gave myself a deadline. 04 Three days passed. The watch didn’t return. Madeline claimed Dominic was out of town on a business trip and would return it next week. Next week. Always next week. I didn’t argue. Instead, I did something else. On Friday afternoon, I used a burner phone to call Dominic’s assistant. I identified myself as a senior associate from a major auction house and requested a private meeting for Monday at 3:00 PM to discuss a “portfolio expansion.” Monday. Dominic’s office was on the 52nd floor of a glass-and-steel tower in the Financial District. The receptionist, a young woman in a sharp blazer, led me into a sleek conference room. “Mr. Stone will be with you momentarily.” I waited ten minutes. The door opened. Dominic was even more polished in person than in his photos. His hair was jet black, his suit a deep navy, his shoes Italian leather. And on his left wrist sat the Rolex. My eyes lingered there for two seconds. He noticed. “Hello. You’re from the auction house?” He sat down opposite me, crossing his legs with an easy, practiced grace. “Adrian Sterling.” His expression didn’t flicker at first. “And what can I do for you, Adrian?” I slid my business card across the table. He picked it up, glanced at it, and set it down. “Adrian,” he repeated the name, a slow smirk spreading across his face. “That name sounds familiar.” “I imagine Madeline mentioned it.” The air in the room seemed to solidify. “Madeline?” His smile deepened, becoming something sharper, more predatory. “You know her?” “She’s my wife.” The conference room went silent for exactly three seconds. Dominic tapped his fingers twice against the mahogany table. “No wonder the name rang a bell.” He looked down at the watch on his wrist, making no move to hide it or take it off. “Are you here to ask for it back?” “I’m here to reclaim my property.” He leaned back in his chair, studying me with a look of pure, unadulterated condescension. It was almost pity. “Mr. Sterling, let me give you some advice.” He stood up, adjusting his cuffs to reveal even more of the watch face. “In this world, once something is given away, you don’t get it back. That goes for watches. And it goes for people.” I stared at his wrist. The back of the watch was against his skin, but I knew what was etched there. Für meinen einzigen Stern. “Dominic,” I said, standing up to meet his height. “The serial number on that piece is 003. The Geneva Seal certification number is GS-2017-0389. The movement sequence is PP240-81726. All of that is recorded in my deed of ownership.” His eyes shifted. Just for a heartbeat. Then the mask of composure returned. “You’re a fascinating man, Adrian.” He picked up his phone. “But honestly, this is a conversation you should be having with your wife, not me. Are you even sure you understand the state of your own marriage?” He turned and walked out, his leather soles echoing with a steady, arrogant rhythm against the marble floor. I stood in that empty room, listening until the sound of his footsteps vanished. Are you even sure you understand the state of your own marriage? The question felt like a nail being driven into my skull. On the cab ride back, I pulled out my phone and accessed the records for Madeline’s secondary credit card.

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After I died. The memorial service arranged by my only friend was smashed to pieces. Haters stood in front of my mourning hall with selfie sticks, livestreaming the wreckage. They kept muttering how “satisfying” it was. The chat rolled by in a synchronized wave of venom: Is the bitch finally dead? Good riddance. Meanwhile, my ex-husband had chartered a luxury yacht off the coast of Cabo. He and his new lover raised their champagne glasses, celebrating for seven days and seven nights. To the world, it seemed my early death was nothing short of poetic justice. Until one day, my diary was made public. Only then did everyone realize. In my entire, miserable life, I had only experienced a fleeting moment of true happiness. 1. On a hit prime-time special, the host suddenly pivoted to a question entirely off-script. “Cole, your ex-wife recently passed away from an illness. How are you feeling about it?” Cole, Hollywood’s newly minted A-lister, let out a cold scoff. “I don’t feel anything. I heard her memorial was trashed. Honestly? Good for them.” The host lowered her gaze, a faint smile playing on her lips. “You wouldn’t mind talking a bit more about your ex-wife, would you? Her passing is generating a massive amount of traction.” If a network tried to capitalize on anyone else’s recent death, they would be crucified. But they were capitalizing on mine. And the entire internet didn’t care. Cole shrugged, adjusting his designer lapel. “Ask whatever you want.” “I’m curious,” the host said. “Everyone says Harper was a toxic, irredeemable woman. So… why did you marry her in the first place?” The leading man fell silent. He probably couldn’t even remember the answer himself. The host gave a light, dangerous laugh. “We actually happen to have Harper’s diary right here. You wouldn’t mind if we shared it with everyone, would you?” Cole’s lips curled into a sneer of pure disdain. “Can someone with a high school diploma even string a sentence together for a diary? Read it. I don’t care.” When the slightly worn, faded notebook was opened on the jumbotron behind them. The entire studio froze. The handwriting was meticulous, elegant. It looked nothing like the frantic scrawls of the lunatic the media had painted me to be. The host smiled. “Then let me read it.” October 3, 2020 I’m getting married today! Who’s the groom? My Cole, of course. Who else would I ever want to marry? And who else would he ever dare to marry? If he dared, I’d chop him into tiny pieces. We’ve walked side by side for six years. Today, I finally get to marry the boy I fell in love with at eighteen. Diary, you have no idea how nervous Cole was when he slipped the ring on my finger. The tips of his ears were burning red, and his eyes welled up in seconds. They say a man’s tears are a woman’s ultimate weakness. It’s true. My smile has been permanently glued to my face all day. But, Diary, I’m not afraid of you laughing at me. When Cole got drunk at the reception and collapsed into my arms, I was the one crying the hardest. He pressed his face into my neck and mumbled, “Harper, I love you. I love you so much. Thank you for being my wife.” But the truth is, I’m the one who should be thanking Cole. Because of him, for the very first time in my life, I belong somewhere. At the wedding, Cole’s mother hugged me. When she wrapped her arms around me, the back of my throat burned. It was the first time in my entire life an elder had ever hugged me. So this is what a mother smells like. Growing up in the foster system, bouncing between group homes, I never knew what a hug was. For kids like us, it didn’t matter how well-behaved we were; nobody was coming to hold us. When we cried, we just lay on the padded linoleum floor. In school, teachers always praised us foster kids for being so quiet. But the truth was, we were quiet because we learned early on that our tears would never be answered. And the “good” kids were the ones nobody loved enough to notice. So, we learned to bury our emotions alive. It wasn’t until I met Cole that I learned I could just be myself. And that someone could still love me. Now, I finally have a home with Cole. We are dead broke. But things will get better. I looked at him today and sighed, telling him this was the happiest moment of my life. He pulled me into his chest, looking so fiercely protective. “What do you mean ‘moment’? We’re going to be happy every single day from now on.” Getting married is wonderful. I have someone by my side. I have a family. I am never going to be alone again. Oh, right! Attaching a wedding photo. It’s small, just a standard print. I’m wearing a thirty-dollar tulle dress I bought off Amazon, and Cole is wearing the only decent suit he owns. We look incredibly plain, but we have the brightest smiles. Cole promised me. Once he makes it big, he’s going to take me to the beaches of Maui to shoot proper wedding photos. The host finished reading and took a deep, audible breath. No one had anticipated that the “vicious” Harper shared memories like this with Cole. The ink on the page practically bled with youthful adoration and playful sweetness. Anyone with eyes could see the profound, unadulterated happiness I felt back then. Sweetness that has already soured is the most lethal kind of heartbreak. Cole stared blankly for three full seconds. These memories had been locked away in the darkest corners of his mind for years. There was a time when marrying me felt like he had conquered the world. Even he had forgotten that. The internet chat was equally bewildered. This was oceans apart from the venomous, calculating Harper they had been fed. “Wait, reading this… she sounds exactly like a sweet, normal girl in love.” “Fake, right? There’s no way someone like Harper wrote that.” “Wow, I didn’t know Harper was a foster kid. Guess that explains why she had no class.” The host turned her sharp gaze to Cole. “When you got married, it sounds like you two were blissfully happy.” Cole snapped out of his trance, suddenly letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “She… she used to be a decent person. It’s a shame you can know a person’s face, but never their heart.” The host smiled, a razor edge beneath her warmth. “Perhaps. Let’s move on to the second page, then.” “To be honest, I’m quite curious myself. What exactly happened to turn Harper into the unforgivable sinner everyone despises?” 2. January 6, 2021 Diary! I’ve been so busy doing background extra work lately, I’ve neglected you. Sorry about that. I’m back to ramble. Tell me, how does a person make big money? What if I take ten bucks a day and buy lottery tickets? The catering truck on set charges ten dollars for a hot meal. If I skip dinner, I save ten bucks. What if I hit the jackpot? Diary, I don’t want to rely on lottery fantasies. But I am just so desperate for money. And I can’t ask Cole. He’s already buckling under the pressure. He’s shooting night scenes every single day, and during the day, he’s editing videos as a freelancer to scrape by. He is so exhausted, yet he always puts on this relaxed face and tells me, “Your husband isn’t tired at all.” It shatters my heart into a million pieces. Never mind. I’ll figure it out myself. (Photo attached: Cole asleep, looking like a tired angel.) Whenever I feel like there’s no hope left, I just look at this picture. The host stopped reading and looked up. “Cole, I have to ask. Did you know Harper was this desperate for money back then?” Cole shook his head defensively. “I was her husband. If she needed money and didn’t tell me, she must have been doing something shady to get it.” “Though, it makes sense why she did all those filthy things later on. For a paycheck, she’d stoop to anything.” The host sighed softly, and continued to read. 3. January 10, 2021 Diary. My best friend passed away. We spent over a decade together in the foster system. And she just left me. All because we couldn’t come up with fifty grand for the experimental surgery. I told her I would find a way. I told her just to hold on a little longer. Even if I had to deliver food twenty-four hours a day, I would save her. But while I was on set doing extra work, she signed a DNR and pulled her own IVs. She left me a voicemail. She said, “Harper, we were thrown away since we were babies. Most of us don’t have good health anyway. Making it to 25? I’m already thrilled.” “Don’t cry for me, Harper. Maybe in heaven, I’ll run into the parents who dumped me.” “I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.” “You and Cole, you have to be happy.” “Oh, and remember to get your checkups. People as poor as us can’t afford to get sick.” I cried until I couldn’t breathe. I was so close. Just a little more time, and maybe I could have earned it. Diary. Tell me, why is the world so cruel? Today on set, I heard the costume department saying the lead actress’s handbag was worth fifty grand. One purse. One purse could have bought my best friend’s life. Writing this, it suddenly made me think of someone else. When I was little, I had another friend in the group home. She had the prettiest name. Madeline. She had a round face and eyes that turned into perfect little crescents when she smiled. Out of all of us ghosts, she was the only one practically bursting with life. She was so bright that when we were eight, a wealthy family adopted her. When we said goodbye, I was so genuinely happy for her. But she came back a year later. She was skin and bones. She never smiled anymore. And the worst part was, she couldn’t speak. She wrote it down for me. For a year, she had lived in absolute hell. Her adoptive father was terrified she would tell people what he did to her at night. He strangled her so brutally she suffered permanent vocal cord damage. She was completely mute. I ran to the facility director, begging for help. He beat me half to death. The director took a massive payoff from the wealthy family and buried the whole thing. Madeline didn’t last long after that. She took her own life. And now, my other friend is dead from an illness. It feels like there are hardly any of us foster kids left. Diary, I want to pour all of this out to Cole so badly. But when I look into his exhausted, smiling eyes… Forget it. I’ll wait until things get better. I won’t add to his burdens. Goodnight, Diary. I hope I wake up tomorrow to news about an audition. The host’s voice trembled slightly as she finished. The chat lit up. “Wait, she needed the money to save a friend’s life?” “Holy shit, what kind of group home is that?! Someone call the FBI.” “Feels like a PR cleanup to me. But you can tell Harper was intensely jealous. Why else would she fixate on a $50k handbag?” The host let out a long breath, turning to Cole. “Cole, did you know your wife was short fifty grand? You were both twenty-five at the time. Did you really not have any savings?” Cole’s pupils contracted. His jaw worked for a moment before he spoke. “In 2020, we had saved up a hundred grand together. I promised her I’d buy her a nice gold necklace…” “But then, toward the end of the year, my mom got seriously ill.” “It drained every single penny we had…” “After that, she never brought it up. So I never bought the necklace.” Cole lowered his eyes, his voice trailing off. The comments flew across the screen. “So Harper drained her entire life savings to save her mother-in-law, and had nothing left for her own friend?” “What are you talking about? They were married. That’s what family does.” “If they still had that money, her friend might have lived.” Actually, Cole didn’t tell the whole truth. Cole’s mother had excellent Medicare and private insurance. Most of the medical bills were fully reimbursed a month later. But when that money came back, I never saw a single dime. When my friend was dying, I debated it for days before finally swallowing my pride and begging my mother-in-law for a loan from the reimbursement money. Instead, I was viciously degraded. “Marrying a worthless stray like you was the greatest charity my son could ever give.” “And you have the audacity to ask me for money?” “You’re just an orphan. You have nobody to back you up anyway.” I had stood frozen in her living room. There was a ringing in my ears. This was the same woman who, at our wedding, had tearfully claimed she saw me as her own daughter. Now, her face was twisted in absolute disgust. I didn’t have a grand wedding with Cole. Just a small dinner with friends. I didn’t get an engagement diamond, nor a dowry. In the end, I didn’t even get basic human respect. It was only later I learned the truth. Once the ring is on the finger, the mask comes off. Especially for a girl like me, who had no family to stand behind her. The grievances omitted from my diary were a hundred times worse than what Cole ever knew. 4. The host offered a bitter, almost mocking smile. “So, the reason Harper had no money… was because she gave it all to save your mother?” The phrasing was surgical. The internet was already spiraling into a heated debate. People were starting to sense the cracks in the narrative. The chat moved too fast to read. Cole’s face stiffened. He instinctively tugged at his collar. “That’s true. And if she… if she hadn’t done all those disgusting things later on, I absolutely would have paid her back.” His voice rose, trying to anchor himself in his own righteousness. The host chuckled dryly. “Is that right?” “Then let’s keep reading.” “Let’s see exactly how Harper ‘changed’.” 5. May 20, 2021 Diary! Great news! I passed the audition! I booked the fourth lead on HBO’s massive new drama, ‘Smoke & Mirrors’. It’s my first time ever being on a prestige set! But when I ran home to share the joy with Cole… I found him sitting on the edge of the bed, looking utterly defeated. When he saw me, his eyes filled with guilt. “Harper, you know how we said we’d put a down payment on a house next month? I don’t think we can.” “I bombed my audition. They don’t even want me for a bit part.” “I think I’m stuck doing background work again.” His eyes were red. He looked entirely lost. In that moment, I suddenly remembered four years ago. When we first moved to Los Angeles. He had stars in his eyes. He was so fiercely passionate about his future. But now, the relentless rejection was grinding his soul into dust. My heart ached so badly. I held him, rocking him, promising him that everything would be okay. I swallowed the news of my own casting. Maybe the condos we were looking at weren’t that great anyway. Maybe my role isn’t as glamorous as I think it is. Maybe something better is waiting. Me? I have never doubted my Cole. He is so incredibly talented. Sooner or later, he is going to be the brightest star in the sky. As the host read this. The screen flooded with question marks. Cole’s expression completely froze. Because everyone knew the truth. The actress who played the fourth lead in Smoke & Mirrors became an overnight sensation. Years ago, a blind item leaked that I was originally cast in the role. But the entire internet mocked me, claiming I paid a PR firm to plant a fake rumor to make myself look relevant. Nobody ever realized. I was one breath away from becoming a star.

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Harrison didn’t realize I had stopped asking for his opinion until the silence had already hollowed out our relationship. When my firm offered me a relocation package, I signed the dotted line before it even occurred to me to mention it to him. When my best friend’s wedding invitation arrived specifying a “plus-one,” I RSVP’d for one and wrote her a massive check myself. Even when it came to my upcoming surgery. I booked the consultation and reserved the hospital bed entirely on my own. When Harrison, a doctor himself, finally found out, his brow furrowed in that familiar, clinical way. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick? Give me your chart. I’ll make the arrangements.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could overthink them: “I can handle it myself. I don’t want to be a burden to you. Thank you, though.” The moment the sentence hung in the air, we both froze. Because barely half a month ago, I was still the woman he dismissively called his “suffocating dependent.” Half a month ago, I would text him relentlessly just to ask which dress I should wear on a date, or what I should order for lunch. 1 “You’re rushing into surgery tomorrow?” My attending physician handed my chart back, a distinct note of confusion in his voice. “I thought Dr. Cole was getting back from his conference soon. You could easily wait a few days so he can be here with you…” “It’s fine,” I interrupted softly. “It’s my own business. I can handle it myself.” The doctor looked utterly bewildered. After all, within these hospital walls, I was famously known as the delicate, high-maintenance girlfriend. Even for a minor headache or a low-grade fever, I used to cling to Harrison, begging for his attention. The moment I stepped out of the clinic doors, I nearly collided with a familiar silhouette. Harrison had one hand wrapped around the handle of a sleek carry-on suitcase, looking like he had marched straight from the airport terminal to the hospital wing. And right behind him, like a permanent shadow, was Mia. Over her white medical resident coat, she was draped in a black cashmere overcoat—the exact coat I had bought for Harrison for our three-year anniversary. Harrison’s eyebrows snapped together the second he saw me. “What are you doing here? …Are you sick again?” Again. The practiced impatience in that single word hit me like a physical blow. He looked at me not like a partner, but like a nuisance desperately awaiting triage. He snatched the medical chart from my hands, his eyes scanning the lines of text before he shifted seamlessly into his commanding tone. “I have obligations tomorrow.” “This procedure isn’t urgent. Push the surgery to next week, and I’ll come sit with you.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could overthink them: “I can handle it myself. I don’t want to be a burden to you. Thank you, though.” The sheer, icy politeness of my response made Harrison falter. After all, the old me used to act like the world was ending if I got a paper cut, running to him for kisses and comfort. The old me would bombard his phone with mirror selfies, demanding he pick my outfit. From what we were having for dinner to the major crossroads of my life. I consulted Harrison for everything. Now, I was facing down a surgical procedure without a flinch, completely alone. If we hadn’t literally bumped into each other in the corridor, my boyfriend wouldn’t have even known I was going under the knife. I reached out and snatched my chart back, my hand accidentally catching the edge of a small pharmacy box he was holding. It clattered to the linoleum floor. The label was glaringly clear. It was a box of birth control pills. “Don’t overthink this, Stella.” Harrison bent down to retrieve the box, his voice dripping with that infuriating, professional detachment. “Mia suffers from severe dysmenorrhea. This is a standard prescription to manage the cramps.” Mia pulled the cashmere coat tighter around her small frame, her voice a reedy, panicked whisper. “I’m so sorry, Stella. Dr. Cole was supposed to go straight home. It’s all my fault for being so useless. The pain was so bad I couldn’t even stand, so I had to bother him to come help me get my meds.” She paused, looking at me with wide, painfully innocent eyes. “I just wish I could be as fiercely independent as you are, Stella. Then I wouldn’t have to make Dr. Cole run around exhausting himself for me.” I remembered a time I was doubled over in abdominal pain, texting Harrison to ask which department I should register for. What did the youngest Deputy Chief of Neurology at Boston General say to me? He said, I don’t know. When I cried about him brushing me off, he had pinched the bridge of his nose, looking at me with the sheer exhaustion of a parent dealing with a destructive toddler. “It’s a basic hospital directory, Stella. Can’t you just Google it?” “You are a grown woman. Can you please act like an adult? Stop relying on me like a helpless dependent.” “I am not your father. It is not my job to teach you basic life survival skills.” It was almost morbidly funny. To his girlfriend, words were a precious currency he refused to spend. But for his junior resident, he was willing to personally escort her to the pharmacy. Anyone walking past would assume Mia was the woman he loved. If this were the past, my temper would have ignited. I would have caused a massive, tearful scene right there in the hallway. But today, I just let out a quiet “Oh.” My voice was a flat, unmoving line. “Pills alone won’t fix it. You should really massage the pressure points on her stomach, hold her while she sleeps tonight, and make sure her hands and feet stay warm.” Mia’s face instantly burned crimson. “Stella, I didn’t mean it like that…” My genuine, albeit deadpan, medical advice was immediately read by Harrison as petty jealousy. His voice dropped to sub-zero. “Are you still throwing a tantrum? Is this just because I didn’t report my business trip to you?” Half a month ago was his birthday. I had worked insane overtime hours to earn a comp day, spent an entire afternoon cooking a massive feast from scratch, and picked up a custom-made gift I’d ordered months in advance. I waited until past midnight. He never came home. It was only when I saw Mia’s Instagram story that I found out Harrison had flown to Europe for an international medical exchange program. When I called him, he brushed it off as if I were overreacting to the weather. “It’s just a work trip, Stella. I didn’t see the need to hold a committee meeting about it.” “Birthdays happen every year. Career-defining grants don’t. I thought you were mature enough to understand priorities.” “Don’t you have your own life to worry about? Why are you always obsessively tracking my schedule?” The suffocating weight of my accumulated disappointment had finally shattered the dam. I remembered screaming into the receiver: “Harrison, in this grand list of your priorities, am I always going to be the absolute last? Am I the easiest thing to discard?” In the face of my hysterical heartbreak, Harrison simply said one sentence before hanging up on me. “You are not thinking rationally right now. We will discuss this when I get back.” 2 Once I was rational, I signed the corporate relocation agreement. My director hesitated, holding the paperwork. “Stella, this transfer means moving halfway across the country. A change this massive… you really should discuss this with your partner. You have a life here. Don’t make a decision this big on an impulse.” I signed my name with a fluid, unbroken stroke. “There’s no need.” The last time I was job hunting, I had brought two competing offers to Harrison, laying out the pros and cons, desperately wanting his input. He had barely glanced at the papers. “It’s your life, Stella. Don’t make me be the one to decide your path.” And yet, when Mia was applying to medical schools, he sat with her for hours, patiently guiding her through the applications until she was admitted to the top program in the country, officially becoming his protégé. Harrison loved to tell me I wasn’t independent enough. He despised how “clingy” I was. When I would excitedly chatter about something funny that happened at work, he would pointedly put on his noise-canceling headphones and turn on a medical podcast, rendering me entirely invisible in our own living room. When I was running late and begged for a ride to the subway, he would flatly refuse, insisting that his morning schedule could not be derailed by my poor time management. When I asked to join him and his friends for drinks, he would lecture me on the importance of building my own social circles. For years, I convinced myself that Harrison was just naturally aloof. That his coldness was a baseline, and that through sheer devotion, I would eventually become the exception. Then Mia walked into his life. She was the daughter of an old family friend, entrusted to Harrison to “look out for.” I thought he would find her irritating. Instead, he took on the role of her protector without a second of hesitation. I never imagined that she would be his exception. When Mia complained about her roommates, Harrison validated every single grievance. When she randomly craved a viral pastry on a Tuesday afternoon, he drove across the city to deliver it to her. When she started her rotations at his hospital, he proudly introduced her to his colleagues: “This is my junior. Look out for her.” Whenever I picked a fight over this glaring double standard, he would look at me with profound disappointment. “She is a child, Stella. Are you a child too?” “I look out for her out of a sense of duty. Are you seriously jealous of a familial obligation?” “Look at her age, then look at yours. Why don’t you start competing with actual infants while you’re at it?” But the “child” he spoke of was only three years younger than me. All the pathetic little excuses I had built for him over the years—it’s just his personality, he’s just stressed at the hospital, he just hates neediness—they all shattered into a million jagged pieces the moment I saw the boundless well of patience he possessed for someone else. It was fine. Once I finished my surgery tomorrow and boarded that flight, Harrison Cole would no longer be my problem. 3 My best friend Tess knew about the surgery and specifically took time off work to come stay with me. “You better have the guest room gleaming! Prepare to welcome your gold-medal caretaker!” she had joked on the phone. I laughed into the receiver. “I deep-cleaned it twice, and I bought that new linen set you liked. I promise you’ll sleep like a—” The moment I pushed open the front door of my apartment, the words died in my throat. The pristine, brand-new bedding I had so carefully arranged was crumpled and shoved onto the floor. The guest room was overflowing with unfamiliar boxes, and a massive, five-foot-tall teddy bear was sprawled across the mattress. It looked exactly like a dog marking its territory. The sound of the front door unlocking clicked behind me. A soft, bubbling laugh drifted into the hallway. “Dr. Cole, thank you so much for taking me to that restaurant. The food was incredible.” “All my bad mood from being isolated by my roommates is totally cured!” Harrison froze when he saw me standing in the hallway. He cleared his throat, his tone instantly shifting back to neutral. “Mia had a falling out with her roommates. She can’t stay in the dorms, so she’s moving out.” “She hasn’t secured an apartment yet, so she’s crashing in the guest room for a few days.” A dark, bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Harrison, I told you a week ago that Tess was coming to stay in that room.” Harrison blinked. The flash of genuine surprise across his face told me everything I needed to know. He had completely forgotten. When I had asked him about it a week ago, his voice had been dripping with annoyance. “Just handle that kind of trivial stuff yourself. Stop asking me for permission for every little thing, it’s exhausting.” Harrison’s jaw tightened. “I’m sorry…” he muttered, his voice dropping. He lifted a sleek, branded paper bag in his hand, his tone softening into the cadence one might use to soothe an irrational toddler. “The restaurant we went to today is exactly your aesthetic. I’ll take you there this weekend.” I glanced at the gold-foiled logo on the bag. It was the exact restaurant I had practically begged him to take me to for months. He had always claimed he was too swamped with surgeries to waste an evening on overhyped food. I took the paper bag from his outstretched hand, turned around, and dropped it straight into the kitchen trash can. The breath Harrison was about to exhale hitched in his chest. Mia instantly squeezed past him, her voice small, trembling with manufactured guilt. “Stella, I’m so, so sorry. It’s my fault. I can just squeeze into the bed with your friend, I don’t mind at all…” I let out a sharp laugh. I walked straight into the guest room, grabbed Mia’s crumpled bedsheets and that absurd teddy bear, and kicked them hard out into the hallway corridor. Mia gasped, her eyes immediately welling up with tears. “Stella, those are my things for tonight… What am I supposed to do now?” I gave her a slow, chilling smile, gesturing toward the master bedroom. “You can go squeeze into bed with Harrison. I don’t mind at all.” Mia’s face flushed a violent, blotchy red. “If you don’t want me here, just say it! Why do you have to humiliate me like this?” Acting as if she had just been dealt a lethal insult, she choked out a sob, turned on her heel, and ran down the hallway. Harrison didn’t chase after her. He just stood there, glaring at me. “Stella, you know she’s clumsy and a bit childish. She didn’t ruin your things on purpose.” “If you didn’t want her staying here, you could have just used your words. I would have booked her a hotel. There was absolutely no need to maliciously target her twice in one day.” The smile fell from my face. “This is our home. You brought an outsider to live here. Didn’t it occur to you that you should discuss that with me?” Harrison’s frown deepened, staring at me like I was a lunatic making unreasonable demands. “Mia is being actively bullied and ostracized at her school. She is going through an emotional crisis. I thought my girlfriend would have at least an ounce of human empathy, but your first instinct is to bicker with me over a lack of communication.” “Furthermore, she was only going to be here for two days. It was a temporary, emergency arrangement. Do we really need to convene a summit for something so trivial?” “Just like how Tess is coming to stay—you didn’t need my explicit permission for that.” The old me would have heard those words and impulsively invited a male friend to crash on our couch that very night, just to see if his progressive, detached logic held up. But the new me just nodded slowly. “You’re entirely right. There really is no need to discuss it.” If we were operating on those rules. Then moving halfway across the country and breaking up with him probably didn’t require a discussion either. 4 “You should go book Mia that hotel room.” I held the front door open for him, a picture of perfect hospitality. Then, I walked into the bedroom, hauled my suitcase onto the bed, and started tossing my clothes inside. He clearly wasn’t satisfied with my lack of an emotional meltdown. He strode in and grabbed my wrist. “She is an adult, Stella. She can book her own hotel.” “More importantly, why are you suddenly packing? Where are you going?” I wrenched my arm out of his grip. “Don’t you have your own life to worry about? Why are you always obsessively tracking my schedule?” Harrison flinched. He recognized his own venom being spat back at him. A heavy silence filled the room. “Not telling you about my trip to Europe… that was my mistake,” he said softly, a rare concession. “From now on, I will keep you updated on my itinerary.” “Tomorrow, I have to go to the university. Mia’s conflict with her roommates escalated, and the dean is demanding a meeting with her family. Her parents can’t fly in time, so I have to go act as her proxy.” “Push your surgery to the day after tomorrow. I will go with you.” It seemed that in the grand hierarchy of Harrison’s life, I was still squarely at the bottom. I looked at him calmly. “I don’t need you there. It makes no difference to me whether you’re present or not.” Harrison genuinely seemed to believe I just didn’t understand the logistical value of his presence. He sighed, explaining it to me like I was slow. “Stella, I can pull strings to get the best specialists. I can interpret the pathology reports for you. At the absolute bare minimum, I can wait in the pharmacy lines so you don’t have to.” Whatever response I was about to give was cut off by his phone ringing. Mia’s tearful, terrified voice pierced the quiet room.

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During the weekly wrap-up, the new intern suddenly switched the projector to my attendance record. The eyes of the CEO and the entire company locked onto me in an instant. The intern, Madison, tilted her chin up with a smug grin and slammed a stack of photos onto the mahogany conference table. “Nate, I’m reporting her. She’s been using the company’s luxury vehicle to pick up her kid every single day. It’s a blatant misuse of company assets for personal gain. I move for immediate termination!” Nate’s face turned as dark as a thundercloud. I looked at this ambitious intern with a flicker of genuine pity. She was so desperate to climb the ladder she hadn’t noticed the rungs were made of glass. The “company car” she was referring to? That was my Rolls-Royce Cullinan. A three-hundred-thousand-dollar piece of machinery. For the sake of closing deals and keeping the firm’s image afloat, I had let the company use it for free for two whole years. 1 The silence in the room was absolute, the kind of heavy quiet that precedes a storm. The central AC was humming at a steady sixty-eight degrees, but a chill crept into my bones that had nothing to do with the temperature. It was the coldness of human nature. In the photos, the black Cullinan gleamed under the streetlights, parked in front of an elite private preschool. The angles were sharp, intentional—capturing me leaning down to lift my daughter, her small arms around my neck, with the last four digits of the license plate clearly visible. Madison leaned her hands on the table. Her face, young and flush with the misplaced zeal of a “corporate crusader,” burned with a self-righteous fire. She looked at me as if I were a common thief caught with my hand in the vault. “Nate, according to the Employee Handbook, company vehicles are strictly for business use. As a senior executive, Ms. Mercer shouldn’t just be setting an example—she should be the standard. Instead, she’s turned our most expensive client-facing asset into her personal nanny-cam on wheels. School runs, grocery trips, weekend getaways. It’s all here.” Her voice was crisp, echoing off the glass walls. She clicked to the next slide, revealing a detailed Excel spreadsheet. “I’ve done the math. Between the commute and the school runs, she’s putting an extra twenty-five miles on the odometer daily. Between the fuel consumption of a V12 and the depreciation, we’re looking at thousands in hidden costs every month. And that’s not even counting the billable hours she’s stealing from the company driver.” She turned to the head of the table, Nathaniel Cross. Nate. Nate was my college classmate. He was the founder of this firm. In the early days, when he couldn’t even cover payroll, I was the one who dipped into my savings to keep the lights on. Later, when we needed to project an image of success to land the big fish, my five-year-old BMW didn’t cut it. Without a second thought, I brought in the Cullinan I’d bought myself as a thirty-fifth birthday present—a car I’d owned for less than a month. I told him back then, “Take it. Use it. We need the clients to see we’re already in their league.” That “temporary” favor had lasted two years. I paid for the gas. I paid the insurance premiums. I covered the maintenance. Sometimes, when the driver was overwhelmed, I even drove to JFK myself to pick up VIPs. Everyone in this building knew that car was mine. Or at least, they should have. But looking at Nate now, there was no defense in his eyes. His brow was furrowed, his fingers drumming rhythmically on the table—a nervous habit he had whenever he was weighing his own interests against someone else’s. “Diana.” Nate finally spoke. His voice was low, coated in a professional coldness that felt like a slap. “The evidence Madison provided… is it true?” I stared at him, my heart skipping a beat. Is it true? Two years ago, when he begged me for the car to save face, he said, “Diana, I’m so sorry to ask this of you. As soon as we’re in the black, I’ll buy you a brand-new one.” One year ago, when the cash flow dried up, I used that car as collateral for a bridge loan so he could pay his staff. He told me then, “Diana, this car is the company’s lifeline. It’s your badge of honor.” And now, he was asking me if it was true? I scanned the room. George, the sales manager, had used that very car last week to pick up his mother-in-law from the hospital, bragging on Instagram about “company perks.” Now, he kept his head down, intently studying his legal pad. Sarah from HR, who asked for the keys every other month “for supplies” but really just wanted to cruise with her boyfriend, was looking at me with a sneer, as if I were a white-collar criminal. It turns out that in the face of profit, kindness isn’t just cheap—it’s invisible. “What do you think, Nate?” I asked. My voice was calmer than I expected. Nate avoided my gaze. “The photos speak for themselves. Diana, you’ve been with us since the beginning, and we’re friends, but a policy is a policy. We have to separate the personal from the professional. That’s a fundamental principle.” He paused, a look of grim determination settling over his features. “Here’s how we’ll handle this. You’ll hand over the keys immediately. From now on, the vehicle will be managed strictly by the administration department. Additionally, the finance team will calculate the fuel and depreciation costs Madison outlined and deduct them from your next paycheck.” Madison’s lips curled into a triumphant smirk. She looked like a cat that had finally caught the prize canary. “Thank you, Nate. That’s very fair. Also, I think a formal apology in front of the whole staff is necessary. This kind of behavior rots company culture.” Nate hesitated, glancing at me briefly before nodding. “We’ll skip the speech. A company-wide memo detailing the disciplinary action will suffice.” A company-wide memo. A docked pay. Confiscation of my own keys. I looked at Nate’s familiar face and realized I didn’t recognize him at all. It was my car. But I didn’t argue. I didn’t scream. I didn’t reach into my bag, pull out the title, and throw it in his face. Because I saw the naked ambition in Madison’s eyes, and I saw the calculated greed in Nate’s. She wanted to use me as a stepping stone; he wanted to seize the chance to finally claim the “company limo” as his own, permanently turning my generosity into his asset. Two years is a long time. Long enough for people to develop the delusion that what they’ve been allowed to use actually belongs to them. “Fine,” I said. I stood up, reached into my bag, and pulled out the heavy, leather-bound key fob. I placed it gently on the conference table. The thud it made was small, but it felt like a gavel coming down. “There are the keys. I accept the memo.” I looked at Nate, a slight, knowing smile touching my lips. “I hope this car brings the company all the luck it deserves.” Nate clearly hadn’t expected me to fold so easily. He blinked, a flash of relief—and then greed—crossing his face. “I’m glad you understand, Diana. It’s for the good of the firm.” Madison snatched the keys off the table, gripping them tight as if they were a golden ticket to the C-suite. “See, Diana? If you’d just been honest from the start, it wouldn’t have come to this.” I looked at her with pure pity. She didn’t realize what she was holding. She thought she’d snatched power. In reality, she had just grabbed a live grenade. One that was about to blow this company to pieces. 2 The memo hit everyone’s inbox thirty minutes later. The subject line was a serrated blade: Disciplinary Notice Regarding Misuse of Corporate Assets: Operations Director Diana Mercer. It detailed my “crimes” with surgical precision: the long-term unauthorized use of the firm’s flagship Cullinan for personal errands, picking up children, and shopping trips. It cited a “severe breach of asset management protocols” and “conduct unbecoming of leadership.” I sat in my office, listening to the murmurs drifting over the cubicle walls. “Unbelievable. She always acted so high and mighty, but she’s just another cheapskate skimming off the top.” “Right? A Cullinan? That’s a four-hundred-thousand-dollar car. Using it as a minivan? Some people have no shame.” “Do you think she actually thought Nate wouldn’t notice? Even he doesn’t drive it that often.” “Madison really did us a favor. It’s about time someone cleaned house.” I took a sip of my coffee. The bitterness coated my tongue, but it couldn’t touch the coldness in my chest. The door swung open without a knock. Madison walked in, clutching a clipboard. She didn’t just walk—she marched. “Diana, Finance finished the audit. Based on the mileage logs over the last twenty-four months, you owe the company one hundred twenty-eight thousand dollars in fuel, maintenance, and depreciation.” She slammed the paper onto my desk, looming over me. “Nate already signed off on it. You have three days to settle the balance, or it’ll be liquidated from your year-end bonus and equity dividends.” I picked up the sheet and scanned the numbers. They were incredibly thorough. They had even counted the miles I drove to the dealership for the car’s scheduled maintenance as “personal use.” “One hundred twenty-eight thousand,” I mused. “You’re quite the mathematician, Madison.” “I’m efficient,” she snapped. “I know you’re bitter, Diana. But these are the rules. You enjoyed a lifestyle you didn’t pay for. Now, the bill is due.” “Enjoyed?” I leaned back in my chair, looking her dead in the eye. “Do you have any idea what the insurance on that car costs annually?” Madison hesitated. “The company pays it, obviously.” “No. I do. Fifty thousand a year.” “And the maintenance?” “Also me. Over ten grand a service.” “Well… that was your choice! You’re the one who drove it!” Madison stammered, her logic beginning to fray. “Do you even know who brought that car into this office two years ago?” “Who cares? It belongs to the company now,” Madison said, waving her hand dismissively. “Don’t try to deflect. Pay the money. The keys are in my possession now. If you need a car for work, you’ll have to submit a formal request form. I’ll be the one approving it.” She would be approving it. An intern who had been here less than ninety days was going to approve the Operations Director’s travel. The sheer absurdity of it was almost cinematic. “Understood.” I picked up a pen and signed the confirmation slip with a flourish. “I’ll settle the debt.” Madison snatched the paper back, a look of pure, unadulterated triumph on her face. “Smart move. Oh, and Nate told me to tell you: we have a massive client coming in next Monday. He specifically requested the Cullinan for his transport. Make sure you clear out all your personal junk. I don’t want the client seeing car seats or teething toys. It’s embarrassing for the firm.” “Will do.” I agreed so quickly it almost startled her. Madison turned and walked out, her heels clicking against the floor like a victory drum. I watched her go, then pulled out my phone. I checked my bank balance—more than enough—and then dialed a number I had saved under “Legal.” “Hey, Robert? It’s Diana Mercer.” “Yes, I need to consult on a few things. Illegal seizure of private property, back-payment of unauthorized expenses, and potential fraud.” “Evidence? I have everything. Every wire transfer, every service receipt, every insurance binder from the last two years. All in my name.” I hung up and opened my bottom desk drawer. I pulled out a thick manila folder. Inside were the original documents for the Rolls-Royce. The sales contract. The title. The tax certification. And there, in bold ink under Registered Owner, were two words: Diana Mercer. Two years ago, I had “loaned” the car to Nate to help him look the part of a successful CEO. He’d offered to sign a lease agreement—twenty thousand a month. I had said, “Don’t worry about it, Nate. We’re partners. Keep the cash in the business until we’re stable.” We never put it in writing. I thought it was a gesture of loyalty. Now I realized it was just a weapon I’d handed him to use against me. If they wanted to play by the book, if they wanted to “settle accounts,” then we were going to count every single penny. I stood up and walked down to the executive garage. The Cullinan was sitting in the CEO’s reserved spot. Madison was there, directing two junior assistants as they swarmed the car. “Throw these floor mats out, they’re hideous,” she barked. “And this charm hanging from the mirror? Toss it. It looks like a kindergarten project.” “Check the trunk. Clear out any personal boxes. We don’t want their private clutter in here.” Those “hideous” mats were custom-ordered leather, worth eight hundred dollars. The charm was a lucky tassel my daughter had made me with her own hands. The boxes in the trunk contained high-end gift sets I’d bought with my own money for our upcoming client gala. I stood behind a concrete pillar, watching them like scavengers, throwing my belongings onto the dirty garage floor and stepping over them. Madison even climbed into the driver’s seat, gripped the steering wheel, and took a selfie. I saw her post it to her Instagram story a second later. Caption: New whip. Hard work pays off. Keep grinding! #CEOEnergy #GrowthMindset I looked at the post and tapped the heart icon. Keep grinding, Madison. I hope you enjoy the ride. Because this car is temperamental—she only listens to her real owner. 3 The next morning, the HR Manager called me in. “Diana, given the severity of the policy violation, the firm has decided to temporarily suspend your operational authority.” The HR manager, Brenda, was in her late forties and we’d always been on good terms. Now, she wouldn’t even meet my eyes. “Nate feels it’s best if you step back from active accounts this week to… reflect. You’ll be handing over your current projects for the transition.” “Handing them over to whom?” “Madison.” I arched an eyebrow. “To an intern?” “Nate says Madison has shown ‘extraordinary integrity’ and a ‘keen eye for oversight.’ The board—well, Nate—is fast-tracking her to Operations Manager to help shoulder your workload.” Fast-tracked. I see. She used my “corpse” as a ladder to a management title. A hell of a trade for ninety days of work. “Understood.” I went back to my office. Madison was already there, sitting at a makeshift desk they’d squeezed in next to mine. She was wearing a sharp power suit, her hair slicked back into a tight bun. She looked the part, I’ll give her that. “Diana,” she said, dropping the ‘Ms. Mercer.’ Her tone held zero respect. “Nate wants me to take over the client files. Specifically the Beaumont account. He’s coming in Monday, and I need to be lead on the prep.” Arthur Beaumont. Our biggest client. The man who provided sixty percent of our annual revenue. I had landed him two years ago, specifically because I showed up to our first meeting in that Cullinan. Beaumont was a man of old-school tastes. He cared about presentation. He’d run his hand over the leather seats and said, “Ms. Mercer, a car tells you everything about a person’s attention to detail. I think we’ll do great things together.” Now, Madison wanted him. “The files are on the shared drive. Help yourself,” I said flatly. “I’m sure there are details not in the files,” Madison said, leaning in. “What are his preferences? What tea does he drink? Any allergies? Golf handicap?” I looked at her hungry, desperate face. “He drinks Da Hong Pao tea. He’s allergic to shellfish. And he loves golf—usually plays at the club in Westchester.” I told her the truth. Mostly. He did love that tea. He was allergic to shellfish. But what I didn’t mention was that Arthur Beaumont absolutely loathed young people who pretended to know more than they did. He despised “performative excellence.” “Got it,” Madison scribbled in her notebook. “Thanks. Oh, and I’ve given the car keys to Old Joe, the driver. Nate said from now on, that car is strictly for VIPs like Beaumont. It stays locked in the garage otherwise.” “Sounds like a plan.” That afternoon, I drove to the Rolls-Royce dealership. “Ms. Mercer! Good to see you,” the service manager greeted me warmly. “Everything okay with the Cullinan?” “It’s fine,” I said, pulling a spare key from my purse. “I need a full diagnostic run remotely, and I want to upgrade the GPS and anti-theft software. Specifically the remote-kill switch.” “Of course. Did you bring the vehicle in?” “No,” I smiled. “But someone will be bringing it in soon. Very soon.” The manager looked confused but nodded professionally. “Whatever you need. The car is in your name, Ms. Mercer. We only take orders from you.” I walked out of the dealership into a gray, overcast afternoon. I took an Uber back to the office. As we pulled up to the curb, I saw the Cullinan gliding out of the garage. Old Joe was driving. Madison was in the passenger seat, chatting animatedly. In the back, Nate was leaning against the headrest with his eyes closed, looking every bit the high-powered executive. They were off to a lunch meeting with a new prospect. The window rolled down as they got stuck at the red light next to me. Madison saw me standing on the sidewalk, waiting for my ride. She leaned out, a smirk plastered on her face. “Hey, Diana! Waiting for a bus?” She gave a mock-sympathetic pout. “Sorry about this, but Nate has a big meeting and we needed the ‘company’ car. It’s a scorcher out here—maybe you should just head home early and play with your kid.” Nate opened his eyes and looked at me. His expression was a messy cocktail of guilt and arrogance. “Just expense the Uber, Diana,” he said, before rolling up the tinted glass. The black beast roared away, splashing a puddle of dirty rainwater onto the hem of my skirt. I stood there, watching the taillights disappear into traffic. Expense the Uber? Nate, you forgot one very important detail. The gas card for that car is linked to my personal Amex. Right on cue, my phone buzzed. A notification popped up: Spent $185.50 at Shell Station #402. Using my car, burning my gas, to go to their meetings, all while mocking me for being on foot. The audacity of these parasites was truly breathtaking. I took a deep breath and called my bank. “Yes, hello. I’d like to report a stolen gas card.” “That’s right. Freeze it immediately. No more transactions.” Then, I opened the Rolls-Royce remote-access app on my phone. The screen showed the car moving East at 45 mph. My finger hovered over the Remote Engine Lock button. I hesitated for a second. No. Locking it now was too easy. I wanted to lock it at a moment they would never, ever forget. I closed the app and hailed another taxi. “Driver, take me to the best commercial real estate office in the city.” “You got it, ma’am.” If we were settling accounts, we were going to talk about the building, too. The office we were currently in? It was a floor in a boutique building downtown that my father had left me. When Nate started the company, he couldn’t afford a prestigious address. I let him have the space at half the market rate. The lease was a “gentleman’s agreement,” renewed annually. And it just so happened to expire this coming Monday. Madison wanted “efficiency”? Let’s see how efficient they are when they’re working out of a Starbucks. 4 The next few days were remarkably quiet for me. Madison, on the other hand, was frantic. She was trying to manage my entire department while simultaneously planning the “Grand Welcome” for Arthur Beaumont. She treated the Cullinan like her personal trophy. She had Old Joe wash it three times a day. She flooded her social media with selfies from the backseat, her captions dripping with smugness: “Status isn’t just a title, it’s an environment.” “Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but the leather seats help.” Dozens of coworkers liked her posts, calling her a “rising star” and “the future of the firm.” They had no idea she was playing with matches in a room full of gasoline. Friday evening, while I was home helping my daughter build a Lego castle, my phone rang. It was Nate. “Diana, where are you?” He sounded stressed. “At home. Why?” “The gas card isn’t working. Joe went to fill up for the weekend, and it said ‘Card Frozen.’” “Oh, that,” I said casually. “That card is in my name. I thought I lost my wallet earlier, so I reported it stolen and canceled all the cards.” “You…” Nate choked back a frustrated sound. “Well, un-cancel it! We need the car for the Beaumont pickup on Monday morning!” “I can’t do that over the phone, Nate. I have to go to the branch in person with my ID. They’re closed for the weekend, and honestly, I’m pretty booked with ‘reflecting’ on my behavior.” “Diana! Are you doing this on purpose?” Nate’s voice rose an octave. “Just because of that fine? Are you really being this petty? If we lose Beaumont, the whole company is in jeopardy. Do you want that on your conscience?” “Nate.” I cut him off, my voice like ice. “First, it’s my personal card. I manage it how I see fit. Second, why is the company using my personal card for fuel anyway? Doesn’t the ‘administration department’ provide the driver with a corporate card?” Silence on the other end. The company did provide a fuel allowance. But I knew exactly where that money went—it went into Nate’s pocket to cover his country club dues, and Joe just used my card because I never complained. Until now. “Fine, Diana. Fine,” Nate spat. “The company will cover the gas. Don’t expect to use a single company resource moving forward.” “Understood, Nate.” I hung up and looked out at the city skyline. This was only the beginning. Sunday night, I made copies of all my receipts. I pulled out the lease for the office space. It was black and white: Lease expires October 31st. That was tomorrow. If they didn’t sign a renewal—which they couldn’t, because I hadn’t sent them one—they would be trespassing by noon. I sent a quick text to my real estate agent: “Bring the new prospective tenants by tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM sharp.” “You got it, Diana. That floor is hot. I have a hedge fund willing to pay double the current rent.” “Perfect. Anyone but the current tenant is fine by me.” I poured myself a glass of red wine. Tomorrow was going to be a masterpiece. Beaumont was coming for an inspection. The real estate agent was coming for an eviction. Madison was coming for her “big break.” And I was coming for everything they owed me. I took a piece of paper and began to list the numbers. Cullinan Purchase Price: $320,000. Sales Tax & Registration: $28,000. Two years of Insurance: $100,000. Maintenance & Repairs: $80,000. Two years of Fuel: $60,000. Office Rent Deficit: $1,200,000. Unpaid Loans to Nate: $500,000. Total: $2,288,000. And that was just the money I could prove. It didn’t count my blood, my sweat, or the connections I’d handed Nate on a silver platter. I looked at the number and laughed. I had spent over two million dollars to raise a pack of wolves. They didn’t just forget to thank me—they tried to eat me. One hundred twenty-eight thousand dollar “fine”? Tomorrow, I was going to make them vomit up every cent they’d ever taken from me, with interest. 5 Monday morning, 9:00 AM. The office was buzzing with an electric, nervous energy. Madison was dressed in a pristine white power suit, her makeup flawless. She stood by the entrance like a soldier awaiting inspection. Old Joe had the Cullinan idling at the curb, the paint polished so bright it hurt to look at. Nate was in his best charcoal suit, obsessively checking his Rolex. “How far out is Beaumont?” “He just landed,” Madison replied, her voice trembling slightly with excitement. “Joe is heading to the park entrance now to escort his motorcade in.” It was a matter of etiquette. Beaumont’s security detail would park at the main gate, and our “corporate” car would bring him to the door. “Joe! Go!” Madison shouted. Joe nodded, climbed into the driver’s seat, and pressed the Start button. Nothing happened.

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The moment my adopted sister pushed me from the ledge of that ninety-ninth-floor penthouse, I watched my parents rush to shield her from the sight of my fall. In that split second of terminal velocity, everything became blindingly clear. All the love I’d craved, all the expectations I’d carried—they were nothing but a self-imposed cage. As the cage shattered against the pavement, I didn’t find darkness. Instead, I woke up in a pool of sunlight, fifteen years old again. This time, as I watched my parents bring Serena home for the first time, I didn’t scream. I didn’t beg for my place at the table. My parents’ blatant favoritism, my brother’s protective streak, my childhood sweetheart’s “gentle” affection—they could have it all. I simply didn’t care anymore. But why, this time, are they the ones on their knees, begging me to look at them? 1 I stood at the top of the grand staircase, my fingers trailing over the cool, polished mahogany of the railing. Down in the foyer, my parents were ushering in a girl who looked like she’d been pulled from a Victorian tragedy. She wore a faded, oversized denim jacket and shifted her weight uneasily, her eyes darting around our limestone-and-marble entryway. “Don’t be afraid, Serena. This is your home now.” My mother’s voice was a whisper of silk and honey. She reached out, tucking a stray strand of hair behind the girl’s ear with a tenderness that used to make my blood boil with jealousy. Now? I felt hollow. A vast, echoing nothingness. “And this is your brother, Sebastian,” my father introduced with a beaming smile. “He took the train down from prep school just to meet you.” Sebastian, usually the stoic, distant athlete, pulled a beautifully wrapped Tiffany-blue box from his bag. “Welcome to the family. A little something to start things off.” His eyes, usually as cold as a winter Atlantic, were brimming with a protective warmth I’d spent years trying to earn. I watched the scene unfold like a play I’d already seen a thousand times. No anger. No envy. Just the cold recognition of a historical fact. Serena took the gift with trembling hands, her face still carrying a touch of childhood softness, her expression a perfect mask of gratitude and grit. She was a masterful actress. If I didn’t know that ten years from now, those same hands would shove me into the clouds, I might have been moved. Even the memory of the wind whistling past my ears as I fell didn’t spike my heart rate. Did I hate her? I wasn’t even sure. Hate requires energy. “Maddie, honey, come down and say hi to your sister.” My mother finally noticed me lurking in the shadows of the landing. I walked down the stairs, my footsteps silent on the runner. Four pairs of eyes fixed on me. “Hi,” I said. My voice was flat, a stagnant pool. I didn’t offer the hysterical “Why is she here?” or the shrill “This is my house!” of my previous life. Those emotions had been cauterized. Serena seemed startled by my lack of heat. She shrunk back into the shadow of my mother’s designer coat. “Maddie,” my mother sighed, her disappointment already surfacing. “Serena’s had a long journey. Can’t you be a bit more welcoming?” “There isn’t much to say.” I turned and headed back up. Behind me, I heard my mother’s embarrassed stage-whisper: “Don’t mind her, Serena. Maddie’s just… sensitive. She’s always been a bit difficult with strangers.” I didn’t bother looking back. Their explanations, their narratives—they were no longer my burden to carry. I pushed into my room and shut the door, the sounds of the “happy” family muffled by the heavy oak. Everything was as it was that summer I turned fifteen. The room was a sanctuary of high-end teen decor, but it felt like a hotel suite. School started in a week. I decided right then: I was going to boarding school. “Knock, knock.” It was Sebastian. 2 He saw my open suitcase on the bed and his brow furrowed in confusion. “Maddie? What are you doing?” “Packing for St. Jude’s,” I said, not looking up as I folded a sweater. “I’m requesting a dorm.” My brother stepped into the room, his voice dropping an octave. “Because of Serena?” I tucked the last of my shirts into the corner of the trunk. “Sophomore year is critical for the Ivy track. I need to focus.” I paused, then added, “Serena can have this room. It’s closer to the master suite anyway.” In my last life, Serena had played a long game to get this room. First, she claimed she was afraid of the dark in the guest wing. Then she said she needed to be near Mom and Dad to “feel like a real daughter.” Finally, she’d cried, saying my room had the best morning light for her seasonal depression. Back then, every time I refused, I was labeled “petty,” “immature,” or “selfish.” The outcome was always the same, so why fight the inevitable? A bed is just a place to sleep. Sebastian was silent for a long moment. “Maddie, look, I get it. It’s a lot, having someone new move in. But you have to trust us. Even with a new sister, nothing changes. Mom, Dad, and I… we love you just the same.” Nothing changes. I felt a ghost of a smile touch my lips. In my previous life, when I topped the state rankings, my father gave me a distracted “Good job, keep it up.” When Serena moved from the bottom of her class to the middle, the house was filled with flowers and a celebratory dinner, with my parents praising her “miraculous resilience.” When I was hospitalized after a car accident, they sent a private nurse because they were “too busy with a charity gala.” When Serena had a mild flu, they took shifts at her bedside, my mother weeping about how “Serena has suffered so much, we have to make up for all the lost years.” I snapped back to the present. “Sure, Sebastian. I know.” After he left, I reached into the back of my closet and pulled out a small, handcrafted wooden box. It was a music box my grandfather had carved for me before he died. In my past life, Serena had “accidentally” smashed it to splinters. I had slapped her in a fit of grief. She had run to our parents, sobbing. “I… I just thought it was so pretty, I wanted to see it. But Maddie screamed at me, she looked so scary, and I dropped it. I’m so sorry, Mommy! I didn’t mean to!” My mother hadn’t even asked for my side before the lecture began. “Maddie, how could you lay a hand on her? It’s just a box. Can’t you be the bigger person for once?” Just a box. But it was the last thing I had of the only person who had truly seen me. I closed the lid, felt the weight of it, and tucked it into the deepest part of my suitcase. This was the only “home” I was taking with me. 3 At six o’clock, my mother knocked on my door. “Maddie, dinner’s ready.” Her voice had that forced, manic cheerfulness people use when they’re trying to build a facade of domestic bliss. “It’s Serena’s first night. We’re having a proper family welcome.” I set my book down and followed her. The dining table was a spread of expensive catering and fine wine. But as I approached, I stopped. My seat—the one between my mother and my brother, the one I’d sat in for ten years—was occupied. Serena sat there in a new floral dress, looking like a delicate porcelain doll. The table was centered around her. My father was leaning in, showing her how to crack a lobster claw; Sebastian was pouring her sparkling cider; my mother was hovering, piling greens onto her plate. “Eat up, honey. You’re far too thin.” “We had the chef prepare the sea bass specifically because you mentioned you liked it.” “Careful, it’s hot.” Under the warm glow of the chandelier, they looked like a perfect portrait of a family of four. And I was the intruder, the glitch in the image. My mother caught sight of me and faltered. “Maddie, there you are! Sit down, don’t just stand there.” I didn’t move. I just looked at my chair. Serena caught my gaze, gave me a shy, flickering look of feigned guilt, and then ducked her head, staying exactly where she was. She knew whose seat that was. She just didn’t care. I let out a short, dry laugh. I walked to the table, grabbed a small plate, piled a few rolls and some salad on it, and turned back toward the stairs. “Maddie!” my father barked, his face darkening. “Where do you think you’re going?” “The table is full,” I said. “There’s no need to squeeze in an extra setting.” “Don’t be dramatic,” my mother snapped, her brow furrowing. “It’s Serena’s first day. Can’t you just be a little accommodating?” “I am being accommodating. I’m leaving so you can enjoy your dinner.” Serena’s eyes instantly welled up. She bit her lip, her voice trembling. “I’m so sorry… should I not have come? I’ve made Maddie upset…” “It’s not your fault, Serena!” my mother cried, pulling her into a half-hug. “Your sister is just being difficult. Don’t let it ruin your night.” Sebastian put down his fork, looking at me with a heavy, disappointed sigh. “Maddie, seriously? What is wrong with you today?” I didn’t answer. I just kept walking up the stairs, the sound of my own footsteps the only thing I cared to hear. 4 An hour later, my mother brought a tray to my room. “Maddie, you barely ate. I had the kitchen save some of the bisque for you.” She set the bowl on my desk, her voice softening into that manipulative, “gentle” tone she used whenever she wanted something. It was my favorite soup. But looking at it, I felt nothing. I could see the hesitation in her eyes, the way she was rehearsing her next lines. “Mom, just say it,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “Let’s skip the preamble.” She blinked, caught off guard. She cleared her throat. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the school year. I know you’re set on the Honors track, but…” She paused, choosing her words like she was walking through a minefield. “I was thinking… would you consider dropping down to the General track this semester?” I looked at the soup. The steam was blurring my vision. “Serena is coming from a very different educational background,” she continued, her voice gaining a pleading edge. “She’s going to be so lost. If you were in the same classes, you could look after her. You’re so smart, Maddie. You could sleep through those classes and still get an A. It wouldn’t hurt you, but it would mean the world to her.” I put down my spoon and looked her dead in the eye. “No.” Her face fell. “Just this once, for me? She’s so shy. If she doesn’t have anyone, she’ll be completely isolated.” “So I should sacrifice my GPA for her comfort?” My voice was calm, but every word was a stone. “I’m aiming for Harvard, Mom. I’m not throwing away my record to act as a full-time tutor.” “Serena is different,” she argued, getting frustrated. “She doesn’t have your advantages. She needs help adjusting—” “Then hire a tutor,” I interrupted. “I’m not paying for her future with mine.” I stood up and walked to the door, opening it. “I’m tired. Please leave.” In my last life, I had agreed. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I moved to the General track, and Serena used that proximity to play the victim, making it look like I was bullying her in the halls. My grades plummeted as I spent all my time fixing her “mistakes,” and I became known as the “mean, jealous sister” of the Sinclair family. Never again. 5 Monday morning, I stepped into the Honors wing of the high school. The walls were lined with the plaques of Ivy-bound alumni. Everything was exactly as I remembered. Only this time, I wasn’t leaving. “Maddie?” The voice was like a ghost from a past I’d tried to bury. I looked up and saw Nate standing there, a wide, relieved grin on his face. “You’re actually here! I heard a rumor you were switching to General.” He pulled out the chair next to him, assuming I’d sit there, just like we had since we were kids. In my first life, my heart would have done a frantic little dance at his smile. But now, all I could hear was his voice in that hospital hallway years later: “Maddie, Serena needs me more than you do. You’ve always been so strong, but she’s fragile. Please, just let me go. I love her.” The memory was a cold blade in my chest. I pushed the feeling down and gave him a polite, professional nod. “Just a rumor. How was your summer, Nate?” He faltered, noticing the distance in my voice. “It was… fine. Maddie, is everything okay? You seem different.” I began organizing my notebooks, not looking up. “Class is starting. You should get to your seat.” “I…” The bell cut him off. The morning was a blur of high-level calculus and literature. During the lunch break, a roar of laughter erupted from the hallway. “Oh my god, did you see her?” “She literally walked right into the glass! Does she not know how a sensor door works?” I felt a prickle of recognition. I walked to the classroom door and looked out. Serena was standing near the lockers, her face a bright, burning red, a visible mark on her forehead. Her bag had burst open, spilling her things across the floor. It wasn’t the designer gear my parents had bought her. It was a collection of tattered notebooks, a half-used pen, and a pencil case that looked like it had been salvaged from a dumpster. The students around her were whispering. “I heard she’s a charity case from the South.” “Look at her clothes. Is that vintage or just… old?” Serena scrambled to pick up her things, tears brimming in her eyes. It was a perfect scene of a girl broken by the cruelty of the elite. Right on cue, Nate appeared. He knelt down, helping her gather the weathered notebooks. “It’s okay,” he said, his voice a warm, comforting balm. “I did the same thing when I was a freshman. The sensors are tricky.” Serena looked up, and a single tear traced a perfect path down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t know.” Nate handed her a tissue, his expression full of that knight-in-shining-armor protectiveness I knew so well. “Don’t cry. Everyone has a first day.” He turned and glared at the crowd. “Get lost, all of you!” But the crowd didn’t move. They gasped instead. As Serena took the tissue, her hand “clumsily” knocked Nate’s wrist, sending his watch flying. It hit the floor with a sickening metallic crack. It was a limited-edition Patek Philippe, a gift from his father for his sixteenth birthday. Six figures, easily. The hallway went silent. Serena froze, her face turning white as a sheet. “Oh no! I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t mean to!” She looked like she was about to collapse. Nate hesitated, but then his “gentleman” persona took over. “It’s fine. It’s just a watch.” But the vultures were already circling. “That was a custom piece! There are only three in the country!” “Can she even pay for the repair? Probably costs more than her life.” I watched from the doorway, my expression cold. I remembered everything now. 6 I knew for a fact that my mother had spent five thousand dollars on a full set of Montblanc pens and leather-bound notebooks for Serena the day before. Serena had hidden them. She chose the trashy notebooks on purpose. She wanted to look “pathetic” on day one. She’d timed her arrival to catch Nate, the most popular boy in school, for this exact “heroic rescue” moment. She caught my eye in the crowd, and for a fraction of a second, the “scared orphan” mask slipped. A glint of pure, jagged triumph shone in her eyes. Her revenge against me for the dinner incident was coming faster than I expected. That afternoon, I was called to the Principal’s office. My parents were already there, their faces thunderous. Serena sat in a corner, her eyes red and swollen. The moment I stepped in, before I could say a word, my mother lashed out. “Maddie, how could you be so cruel?” Her voice was thick with shame. “The school told us what happened. You stood there and watched Serena be humiliated. You didn’t say a word to help your own sister?” My father shook his head. “She’s the only family you have in this school, and you treated her like a stranger. You let those kids tear her apart. Do you have any heart at all?” I looked at them, and all I felt was exhaustion. They were wasting my study time. In my last life, this was the pattern. No matter what Serena did, it was my job to fix it, to protect her, to be her shield. “Mom, Dad, please don’t be mad at Maddie…” Serena chimed in, her voice small. “It’s my fault. I’m just stupid. I don’t belong here.” The more “understanding” she was, the more my parents’ faces hardened against me. My father looked at the Principal. “Dr. Vance, I think we need to discuss moving Maddie to—” My heart skipped a beat. In my previous life, this was where he forced the transfer. I’d spent three years as a social pariah, while Serena took over my spot in the Honors track and built her empire on my ruin. “I am so sorry!” My voice rang out, sharp and sudden, cutting my father off. Everyone froze. I turned toward Serena and gave a deep, ninety-degree bow. My voice was loud, clear, and dripping with “remorse.” “I have been a terrible sister. I completely failed you.”

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After I was officially recognized as the biological heir to the Sterling family, my father insisted I perform the opening dance at the charity gala. It was supposed to be my “first show” to the elite circles of the city. But when I looked toward the three men I grew up with—the men who had promised to be my partners—they all looked right past me. Simultaneously, they reached out their hands to Chloe. Silas spoke first, his voice dripping with a practiced, condescending pity. “Look, you’ve just been brought back into the fold. You’re the ‘real’ daughter; your status is secure. But Chloe’s in a delicate spot right now. It would be too humiliating for her if no one chose her.” Julian gave a half-shrug, a playful smirk dancing on his lips. “Chloe’s an inch shorter than you, Tess. Makes for better photos. I’m skipping you this time.” Then there was Oliver. We had survived the same foster care system together before I was adopted. He looked at me, his eyes cold. “Don’t make a scene about this. Not tonight.” I stood there, paralyzed, as the room’s whispers began to swell. Then, Sebastian—my fiancé, the man I was supposed to marry to consolidate two empires—stepped toward me. For a fleeting second, I thought he was finally going to announce our engagement to the world. Instead, he brushed past my shoulder, his hand finding Chloe’s waist. “You’re the biological Sterling heir,” he murmured, loud enough for those nearby to hear. “You’re calculating, Tess. You have teeth. You don’t need me to protect you. Chloe isn’t like you.” The room tilted. Faces blurred into a sea of judgment. Facing their unanimous rejection, I simply nodded and forced a smile. “Fine,” I whispered to the empty space they left behind. “If you won’t dance with me, I’ll find someone else.” … This dance was everything. It was my face, my reputation. I had been lost to the world for twenty-two years, only rediscovered three years ago. This was the first major event hosted by the Sterling family where I was meant to take the lead—a public validation of my bloodline. Sebastian knew exactly how much this meant to me. He knew the stakes. And yet, he didn’t even look back as he led Chloe toward the center of the ballroom. The atmosphere turned toxic. I stood rooted to the spot, my throat tightening. Watching Sebastian take Chloe’s hand, the mockery from the crowd began to close in like a physical weight. “I heard the Vanguard and Sterling families were planning a merger through marriage,” a woman whispered nearby. “I guess we were wrong about which daughter was getting the ring…” “Looks like Sebastian is making a statement about who really holds his heart,” another chimed in. The music swelled—a sweeping, romantic orchestral piece. Sebastian leaned down, listening to Chloe whisper something in his ear. His expression was soft, a look of genuine tenderness that I had never seen directed at me. It’s funny how a man’s entire silhouette softens when he’s looking at someone he actually wants to protect. With me, he was always “The Executioner of Wall Street”—cold, hard, and unyielding. In his eyes, the daughter who crawled her way back into high society was too “shrewd” and “ambitious” to deserve a soft touch. To him, even my grief was a calculated performance. My aunt, holding a champagne flute, drifted toward me. Half the room followed her gaze. “Oh, look at our ‘rightful’ heiress, standing all alone,” she cooed, her voice laced with venom. “I’ve always said, some people just aren’t born with the right spark. You come back, and your grandfather tries to hand you the world, but Chloe? She has that natural grace. You can take her title, dear, but you can’t take her light.” Her words felt like a serrated blade across my skin. I gripped my glass until my knuckles turned white. Before the gala, Sebastian had warned me that his every move was a signal to the markets. He said he couldn’t publicly dance with me unless his parents gave their explicit blessing. I was anxious, but I told myself I understood. The balance of power between the Vanguard Group and the Sterlings was delicate. So, I had prepared backups. I had asked Silas, Julian, and Oliver. They had all promised, quite readily, to be there for me. I had predicted the beginning—that Sebastian might hesitate. I just hadn’t predicted the end—that they would all defect to Chloe at once. Sebastian wasn’t worried about “family signals.” He just didn’t care about my dignity. He was too busy ensuring someone else felt safe. The applause broke out as the first dance ended. Chloe was blushing, leaning into Sebastian’s shoulder. My three “childhood friends” were already surrounding them with champagne and praise. Sebastian finally broke away and walked toward me. He didn’t offer an apology. He just leaned in, his voice low. “Chloe’s had a hard time lately. You came back and stepped right into the line of succession. She lost everything just because of a DNA test. It’s just one dance, Tess. You’ve always been the bigger person—” “If word of this gets out,” I interrupted, my voice trembling with suppressed rage, “what will they say? That the Sterling heir is a joke who can’t even command respect in her own house?” He frowned. “You’re overthinking it. Who would dare laugh at a Sterling?” When I didn’t respond, his voice dropped an octave. “Tess, you’re strong. You can stand on your own two feet. Chloe can’t. If I didn’t choose her tonight, if I didn’t show the world she still matters to me, she’d be discarded by this family.” I looked down. He had no idea. The war for the Sterling succession had reached a breaking point. My father had made his terms clear: either I married into a family like the Vanguards—allowing my grandfather to gracefully push me out of the business—or he would “arrange” a marriage for me with some backwater tycoon to neutralize me forever. I wanted to stay on the board. I wanted my seat. But this one dance had shattered my leverage. Chloe hurried over, looking up at Sebastian with wide, watery eyes. “Sebastian, could you introduce me to the board members? I’m not as… capable as my sister.” She paused, biting her lip. “Tess has her little notebook. She tracks every executive’s influence, every scarce resource in the city… Oh! I didn’t mean she’s mercenary. She’s just… very thorough.” The smiles of the nearby socialites faltered. “Tracking everyone’s value? How charmingly cold,” one whispered. The blood in my veins turned to ice. That notebook was an assignment from my grandfather. He told me to study the players, to learn the strengths of our peers. Sebastian had even helped me with it. Yet, he didn’t say a word to defend me now. He let me become the villain of the ballroom. Chloe tugged at his sleeve. “Did I say something wrong again? I’m just so clumsy compared to her…” Sebastian patted her head. “It’s fine. Your sister has a ‘grand vision.’ She won’t be petty enough to get angry at you.” He led her away to mingle. “Sebastian—” I started, but the whispers drowned me out. “And here I was feeling sorry for her. She’s a shark.” I stood in the center of the hall, shivering despite the heat. I remembered the day I returned to the Sterling estate three years ago. It was pouring rain. My grandfather had left me standing outside the iron gates for hours—a test of my resolve. That was the day I met Sebastian. He had walked out with an umbrella, held it over my head, and said, “Welcome home, kid. I’ll look out for you.” Now, his umbrella was over someone else. I set my glass down and walked toward the terrace. The night air was freezing, and the composure I had spent years building began to crack. My grandfather was returning to the country in seven days. If tonight’s humiliation reached him, it would be a devastating strike against my standing. … I stood there for a long time before heading back in. Oliver suddenly intercepted me. “Tess, don’t go over there.” I followed his gaze. Sebastian and Chloe were still dancing. Oliver thought I was going to cause a scene to win him back. He was the only one who had known me before the Sterlings. We were in the trenches of the Southside Orphanage together. Back then, whenever they handed out apples, I’d fight to get the biggest, reddest one—just so I could give it to him. I was afraid he’d starve because he was too slow to fight for himself. Later, after I was adopted, I saved every penny of my allowance and begged my parents to help him. I paid for his tuition at the most prestigious arts academy. I lifted him up until he became the renowned appraiser he is today. But apparently, a weed from the mud can provide all the nutrients in the world, and it still won’t be as precious as a “Golden Girl” like Chloe. I tried to walk past him. He grabbed my wrist. “Listen to me. Sebastian made his choice. If you go up there now, you’ll only embarrass yourself more.” “Let go!” I tried to wrench my arm away, but he held on tighter. In the struggle, my heel caught on the marble, and I lost my balance. I fell backward, my back hitting a stone pillar before I landed hard on my knees. A sharp, white-hot pain exploded in my leg. Oliver froze. “Was that necessary? You’ve had everything these last three years. What does Chloe have left?” Julian and Silas walked over. “What now?” Julian asked, his eyes landing on my bruising knees. “Tess, self-harming for sympathy? That’s low, even for you.” Silas gave a bored yawn. “Is there anything our Great Heiress won’t do for attention? We’re probably all in that little notebook of hers, just rungs on her ladder.” Julian rubbed his temples. “Tess, you’ve already taken Chloe’s life. She’s finally happy tonight. Can’t you just stop being so dramatic? If you want the spotlight that badly,” he said flatly, “fine. I’ll give you one dance. Will that satisfy your ego?” I scrambled to my feet, leaning against the pillar. “Get out of my way.” “Tess!” Julian lost his patience and grabbed my arm. “If it weren’t for Silas and me protecting you when you first got here, you would have been eaten alive. Stop being ungrateful!” I jerked my arm back instinctively, but he twisted my wrist with more force than he realized— Snap. A sickening pop echoed in the quiet hallway. Agony flared from my wrist to my shoulder. I doubled over, gasping for air. Julian flinched, looking at his own hands. “God, Tess! Why did you pull away so hard? Just to go chase after a man who doesn’t want you?” I gritted my teeth, clutching my right wrist with my left hand. Cold sweat broke out on my forehead. Silas let out a cold laugh. “It’s not a big deal. Our dear Tess has survived worse. A little scratch like that? It’s nothing compared to the emotional trauma Chloe’s been through because of you.” The world was blurring, but I looked at him and laughed. “You’re right. It’s not painful enough yet.” I let go of my wrist. The joint was already swelling, glowing a bruised purple. My forearm hung at a grotesque, unnatural angle. Like a snapped branch. The smirk finally died on Silas’s face. He looked away, his stomach turning. Julian’s voice was tight. “Stay there. I’ll call a doctor.” “Don’t bother,” I croaked. “It would upset my grandfather if word got out.” “You’re insane!” Julian hissed. “You and your ‘dignity.’ You’re always calculating, always putting your ‘big picture’ over people’s feelings. Just like the time Chloe had that fever and you locked her in the attic because you had guests to entertain. You’re cold, Tess. You’re a machine.” He turned and stormed off. Silas shook his head. “Was it worth it, Tess? All this because no one wanted to dance with you? Or is this another bet to see who flinches first?” I didn’t answer. I walked toward the back corridor, leaning against the cold wall. I slid down until I was sitting on the floor. My left hand touched the swollen joint, and I screamed silently into my shoulder. But I didn’t let go. The pain was real. It was the only thing in this house that wasn’t a lie. … At 9:00 PM, I returned to the villa. My father was waiting in his study, a cigar in hand. “You saw what happened tonight,” he said, not looking up. “Sebastian has no intention of marrying you.” I remained silent. “Your grandfather is old. We need to settle your marriage immediately.” “I just went through a public breakup,” I said, my voice hollow. “I’m not in the right headspace for a wedding.” He looked up, his eyes sharp. “And what do you propose?” “Send me to the Chicago office,” I said. “Three years. After that, I’ll marry whoever you want.” “Seven days,” he countered. “Your grandfather returns in seven days. By then, I want to see you married to a ‘suitable’ partner.” The way he said “suitable” sent a chill down my spine. It didn’t mean someone powerful or kind. It meant someone who would ensure my grandfather lost all hope in me—someone who would prove I was willing to throw my future away on a whim. Either a top-tier family that could swallow the Sterlings whole, or someone so beneath me that it would be a scandal. But who would take Sebastian’s “reject” without his permission? … 10:30 PM. Outside the Sterling private hospital. I had just finished getting my wrist reset when two familiar cars pulled up. Sebastian was helping Chloe out of the first car. She had a tiny band-aid on her finger and was wincing with every step. Julian and Silas stepped out of the second car. “Tess?” Chloe blinked, her eyes landing on the heavy cast on my right arm. “What happened to you?” Sebastian looked up. When he saw the cast, his brow furrowed for a fraction of a second. Julian stood by Chloe, his face a mask of indifference. Silas leaned against his car, enjoying the show. “Dislocated wrist,” I said shortly, trying to walk past them. “Tess,” Chloe called out softly. “Dad said your wedding is set for seven days from now? Is that true?” The air went still. Sebastian’s face hardened. “Seven days?” His voice was ice. “Tess, what kind of game are you playing? I never agreed to a date.” I stood in the shadows. It had been barely an hour since I left my father’s study. Chloe already knew, and she had “accidentally” leaked it to exactly the right person. “Sebastian, I…” Chloe’s eyes welled with tears. “If you and Tess are really getting married… I’ll be happy for you. I just didn’t think it would be so soon…” Sebastian’s frustration boiled over. He turned to Julian and Silas. “Take Chloe inside. Make sure that scratch doesn’t get infected.” Julian nodded and stepped forward. Silas let out a slow, mocking whistle. “We’ll take care of Chloe. As for you, Sebastian…” He glanced at me. “Be careful. Someone who waits until after the party to go to the hospital for a broken bone is definitely plotting something.” Sebastian waited until they were inside before approaching me. He stared at my cast for two seconds, then spoke. “Don’t use these tactics, Tess. Your father wouldn’t leak a date unless he was sure. Stop playing games.” I looked down at my arm. The pain had been worth it. It showed the difference between us. Chloe gets a scratch, and three men mobilize. I break a bone, and it’s a “tactic.” “Does it matter to you?” I asked, looking him in the eye. “Does it matter?” He laughed, grabbing my chin and forcing me to look at him. “Everyone in this city knows you’re mine. Now you’re unilaterally announcing a wedding date? What do you think that makes me look like? Cancel it.” “And if it’s not a rumor?” His grip tightened. “Tess, don’t test me. I am not a pawn you can trap with a marriage license. If you don’t want to break up, stop being so difficult.” “Then let’s break up,” I said. The silence was deafening. He looked at me like I was a stranger. He knew me too well—or so he thought. He had taught me how to move in this world. He taught me when to hide my hand, when to endure, when to sacrifice pride for the win. He once told me, “In this circle, a soft heart is a sin.” I had learned well. Too well. “Tess, I taught you these methods so you could protect yourself. Not so you could become like the very people you hate.” I wanted to laugh. Like the people I hate? The difference was they knew they were sharks. I actually thought he was teaching me so I could stand beside him. The ache in my wrist was dull now. The last wave of emotion for him finally died. “Whatever I am now has nothing to do with you. Please, let go.” “Tess.” His voice was calm, certain. “You can walk away now. But when you come crawling back, remember what I taught you: the most beautiful way to bow is to press your own head into the dirt.” I didn’t stop. I got into my car and watched the hospital lights fade. My phone buzzed. It was a text from my father. Wedding announcement sent to the press. He was burning the bridges for me. I looked out the window toward the Sterling estate. I had already chosen a groom. And his name wasn’t Sebastian.

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Every single year, my birthday wish was the same: I hope the real son comes home soon. When I smiled at my sister, she’d sneer and call me a sycophant. When I finally won the gold medal at the national piano competition, my parents didn’t celebrate; they smashed the piano to pieces, claiming I was “drinking the blood” of the son who was actually theirs. The entire family lived in a state of constant vigilance. They were terrified of being too kind to me, afraid they’d whet my appetite for a life that wasn’t mine. They didn’t want me to grow bold enough to challenge the “real” boy for his place in their hearts once he returned. So, when the true heir finally came back, I wasn’t jealous. I was ecstatic. That joy lasted until the first mock exam. The “real” son failed, sobbing that no matter how hard he tried, he could never measure up to me. He made a grand spectacle of a suicide attempt, nicking his wrist just enough to bleed. To “repay” me for stealing his life, my parents reported me for cheating during the SATs, weaving a web of lies that landed me in a juvenile detention center, and eventually, prison. They called it the price for living in a nest that didn’t belong to me. But the joke was on me. It turns out, I am their biological son. They had kept it a secret because they were afraid that if their lost, adopted son ever returned, seeing a “replacement” child would break his heart. Now that the eldest has finally “accepted” me, they’ve come to fetch me for a happy family reunion. I look down at the jagged, centipede-like scars crawling up my arms and lower my eyes. The prison doctor said my psychological damage is too severe—that perhaps only the warmth of my “real” family could save me now. But it was all a lie. Every bit of it. And I think it’s finally time for me to go. 1. The day I was released, the sky was a bruised grey, and a brutal wind whipped through the city, biting deep into the marrow of my bones. The guard handed me a tattered old coat. “Nate, you’re free. From today on… don’t be stupid. Don’t come back here.” His eyes flickered to my tightly clenched sleeves, and his voice softened. “And tell your family to… take you to see someone. A professional.” My eyes remained vacant. I nodded, pulling my sleeves down further. Right. My penance was served. I could go find my real family now. I hadn’t walked ten paces before a black Rolls-Royce, hazard lights blinking, pulled to the curb. The window slid down, revealing a face as familiar as it was beautiful. Becca. The “real” son’s older sister. Her gaze was exactly as I remembered: cold, devoid of even a flicker of warmth. “Nate. Get in the car. We’re going home.” I didn’t look at her. I walked straight toward the bus stop. Just as I was about to step onto the bus, a violent force yanked me backward. My spine slammed against the cold, metal frame of the car. Becca towered over me, her eyes filled with that practiced, familiar disdain. “What is this? Are you trying to pull the same stunt Jordan did? Trying to make us feel guilty?” She scoffed. “Two years in a cell and this is the only trick you’ve learned?” Since I went inside, my brain had felt like it was rusting. It turned slowly, laboriously. I stared at her blankly, taking a long time to process her words. Finally, I shook my head. I pulled a crumpled, softened scrap of paper from my pocket—something I had smoothed out a thousand times in the dark—and held it out to her. “No,” I said, my voice sounding like dry leaves. “Jordan came to see me last time. He said he found my real parents. Look. The address is here. I’m going to my own home.” She froze. Then, her face went deathly pale. She snatched the paper, tore it into a dozen pieces, and threw them into the rushing traffic of the boulevard. “Stop acting crazy.” She grabbed my arm, her grip bruising. “Mom and Dad are waiting. Get in the—” Before she could finish, a short, sharp scream escaped my throat. I tore myself away from her and, ignoring the screech of tires, lunged into the street. “Home… I have to go home…” I dropped to my knees on the freezing asphalt, frantically clawing at the scraps of white paper. The world exploded into a cacophony of blaring horns and muffled curses. “Jesus! You want to die?! Get out of the road!” Becca turned white as a sheet. She lunged forward, using her body to shield me from the oncoming cars, shouting apologies to the angry drivers as she practically dragged me back to the curb. “Nate!” Her chest heaved, fear flickering in her eyes, but it was quickly replaced by that suffocating annoyance. “If you really want to die, do it somewhere I don’t have to watch! Using these pathetic tactics to get attention… the Beaumonts really wasted their years raising you.” Her shouting left me dazed. My sluggish mind churned for a moment before I looked up at her, my expression one of genuine, quiet confusion. “So… when Jordan cut his wrists,” I asked softly, “was he just… doing it for attention too?” “That doesn’t seem right…” Becca’s entire body went rigid. Her voice died in her throat. For the first time in my life, she looked away, unable to meet my eyes. See? Even she knew it. “Jordan.” Since the day I could remember, that name was a curse etched into my skin. I was the fake. I was the parasite. I was the usurper. That was why my father fired the nanny who dared to serve me dessert first. That was why my mother smashed the piano I won the gold with. That was why Becca stood by and watched as they took the stray puppy I’d found and abandoned it in the woods. With every choice, they proved it: they would never allow the boy who grew up in their home to take even a fraction of the love meant for their “lost pearl.” Their hearts were tilted toward him long before he ever stepped foot back in the house. But I still didn’t understand. If he had all the love—if the world was his for the taking—why? Why, just because I beat him on one stupid test, did he have to open his veins? Jordan. What were you so afraid of? 2. Becca rubbed her temples, her frustration radiating off her in waves. “You know it’s not the same! Jordan is different from you!” “Do you have any idea how much he suffered out there? He didn’t even get to finish school! And you? You were brought into this family and given everything—the best tutors, the best life!” “You just had to be number one every single time, didn’t you? You did it to hurt him. To make him feel hopeless!” I didn’t really hear her. I was too busy with my shaking hands, trying to piece together the sodden scraps of paper. When I finished, three pieces were missing. “It’s gone,” I whispered, my voice trembling uncontrollably. “It’s gone… my home is gone!” I started to lunge for the road again. Slap! The blow was sharp and stinging, ringing in my ears. Becca dragged me by the collar to the edge of a dirty, half-frozen drainage ditch filled with stagnant water. “You want to die so bad, Nate?” She let go, pointing at the dark, frigid sludge. Her voice was like shards of ice. “Go ahead. Jump! Stop the theatrics!” With a violent flick of her wrist, she knocked the remaining scraps of paper out of my hand. They fluttered like dying leaves, landing on the grey, frozen surface of the puddle. I looked up at her. Her eyes held nothing but that familiar, condescending contempt. I remembered Jordan’s first birthday back with us. He had cried, saying the watch Becca gave him was missing, and that he’d seen me sneaking into his room. At first, I tried to fight. “I didn’t steal it! There are cameras in the hallway—” Before I could finish, Becca took a baseball bat and smashed the camera right in front of me. I went silent instantly. She was teaching me a lesson: my truth meant nothing compared to Jordan’s tears. The watch wasn’t in my room. It had been cut into pieces, the strap scattered at the bottom of the deep end of the swimming pool. Everyone in the family knew I had nearly drowned as a child. I had a crippling phobia of water; even drinking from a full glass could make me feel like I was suffocating. But that winter, Becca had me thrown into the icy pool. “Get it,” she had said. “Every single piece.” My parents watched as Jordan sobbed into their shoulders, their silence a blessing for my torment. I passed out in that water more than once, only to be revived by even colder means until my frozen, numb fingers found the last bit of the watch. Since then, my phobia was so bad that even a reflection on a wet surface could trigger a panic attack. So Becca was certain. I was terrified of water. I was terrified of death. She didn’t know that in prison, when I used a sharpened piece of plastic to open my skin over and over, all I felt was… relief. The prison doctor had shaken his head at the guards. He has a profound desire for self-destruction. If he has a family to love and support him, maybe there’s hope… Becca looked at my empty, hollow eyes and smirked, her voice dripping with mockery. “Can’t do it, can you? You don’t even have the courage to look at it. Think about how much pain Jordan must have been in to actually—” She didn’t finish the sentence. I threw myself forward, plunging headfirst into the foul, freezing water of the ditch. The slush filled my nose and mouth instantly. Getting back to my real family… that was my last reason to live. And if that was gone, I was done. But a second later, a pair of arms hooked around my waist and hauled me out, slamming me onto the muddy grass. I coughed violently, retching up the filthy water. Through blurred vision, I saw Becca, drenched and shivering. She was kneeling in the mud, her hands still reaching for me. Her pupils were blown wide, fixed on me with a look I’d never seen before. It wasn’t coldness. It wasn’t disdain. It was pure, unadulterated terror. I didn’t understand. What was she afraid of? The “fake” was finally gone. Isn’t that what she… what everyone wanted? 3. I stared at the pulp in my hands—the ink-smeared, waterlogged mess that used to be my hope. A sense of crushing weight, a weariness that seeped from my bones, drowned me again. I was so tired. If I had a blade right now, could I just sleep forever? Becca, having seen the absolute lack of hesitation in my eyes when I dove into that water, spoke for the first time with a voice that was… soft. “Nate… how could you…?” Her voice cracked. “You weren’t like this when we were kids. Since when do you take my words so seriously?” She was right. Since I could remember, she told me: Nate, you’re just a placeholder. Know your place. Jordan is my only brother. Back then, I’d just smile and hold out my arms for a hug. Later, I worked until my hands were blistered to bake her favorite desserts, only for her to sneer: Nate, why are you so pathetic? Jordan would never beg for a scrap of attention like you do. I’d still smile, holding the plate out to her. No matter how cruel she was, the little version of me followed her like a shadow. I was convinced she was just moody, not that she actually hated me. Until Jordan came back. Then I saw what she was like when she actually loved someone. She was tender. She was protective. When Jordan and I were cornered by older kids at school, she charged in and pulled him behind her. She didn’t even look at me. She just turned and walked away with him. Her friend had pointed at me, bruised in the dirt. “Becca? What about the other brother?” “He isn’t my brother.” I watched her walk away, shielding Jordan, leaving me to face the insults and the shoves alone. I struggled to sit up, my mind trying to piece together the half-remembered words from the paper, but they were fading. “Nate, come home with me. Stop this,” Becca said, her voice carrying that sickening, patronizing tone of comfort. “Mom, Dad, and Jordan are all waiting for New Year’s dinner.” She reached for my wrist. Her fingers brushed the tender skin over my scars, and a bolt of lightning-fast pain shot through me. The dam finally broke. Slap! I swung with everything I had, my palm connecting with her cheek. “Becca! You aren’t my sister! You don’t get to tell me what to do!” I screamed, my voice raw and hysterical. “I just want to go home! To my real family! To people who actually want me!” Becca’s head snapped to the side. She froze. But her eyes weren’t on my face; they were on my wrist, where the sleeve had ridden up to reveal a roadmap of old and new scars, crisscrossing in a jagged mess. Her pupils shrank. Her eyes brimmed with tears instantly. “Nate… your arm…” Her voice was a ghostly tremble. “Did… did someone hurt you in there? I thought… I told them to make sure you were looked after…” For the first time, she looked at me with grief. With heartbreak. It was absurd. I had finally stopped calling her “sister.” I had finally stopped clinging to her. Why was she the one who looked devastated? A wave of nausea rolled over me. “Becca,” I said, my voice as cold as the wind. “What kind of sick game are you playing now?” She didn’t seem to hear me. She grabbed my arm and shoved me into the car, clicking the seatbelt shut with trembling fingers. “We’re going to the hospital,” she said, her voice tight as she gunned the engine. “I’m not going to a hospital! I’m going home! Let me out!” I threw myself at her, clawing at her coat, my nails leaving long, bloody furrows across her face. Blood leaked down her cheek, but she just gritted her teeth, knuckles white on the steering wheel, and didn’t say a word. That silence—that suffocating, unresponsive wall—dragged me right back to the solitary confinement cell. My head throbbed. The last memory of the address on that paper vanished. I let go. I went limp. She glanced at me, misinterpreting my silence. She forced a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Nate… you… you still care about me, don’t you? You stopped.” I smiled back at her. Then, with every ounce of strength I had left, I lunged for the steering wheel and jerked it hard to the right. If I can’t go home… then we can both just go to hell. Screeeech! The tires screamed against the pavement. The car spun out of control, slamming into the guardrail with a deafening metallic crunch. The airbags exploded. Becca sat there, gasping for air, blood trickling from her forehead, her eyes wide with the shock of being alive. She turned to me, seeing the pure, unadulterated disappointment on my face, and her voice shook. “Nate… you… you really want to die that badly?” “How did you become this…?” I raised my dead, hollow eyes to hers. She flinched, then tried to soften her voice, using a tone you’d use to coax a stray dog. “Okay. Okay… no hospital. We’ll go home. Please. Just… come home.” I lowered my eyes and gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. Seeing me return to this “obedient” state, Becca’s shoulders finally slumped. She let out a long, shuddering breath. She thought I was finally “listening.” She didn’t know. I just remembered something. Jordan knows where my real home is. I’m going to go ask him myself. 4. The house was draped in festive lights, glowing with a warmth that felt like a mockery. Inside, Jordan was dressed in a pristine new sweater, his cheeks rosy, leaning against his mother’s shoulder. “Mom, Dad, I’m only back for a few days for break. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.” Mr. Beaumont sat nearby, patiently peeling shrimp for him, his eyes full of fatherly pride. “Your advisor called, Jordan. Another award? We have to celebrate. Our boy is doing so well.” It was a picture of domestic bliss. A perfect family. Becca tightened her jaw and cleared her throat. “Mom, Dad. I brought Nate back.” The laughter died instantly. Three sets of eyes swung toward us. First to me, then to Becca’s soaked clothes and the bloody scratches on her face. My parents’ brows furrowed in unison. Jordan was the first to stand. He walked toward me, his voice laced with the practiced authority of a golden child lecturing a wayward sibling. “Nate, Becca went out in a blizzard to get you, and this is how you treat her?” He sighed, sounding disappointed. “You’re college-aged now. Can’t you be a little more mature? Stop making everyone worry about you.” My father’s face darkened. “Nate, you’re getting out of hand. Your sister just recovered from a cold.” My mother sneered, falling into her old rhythm. “He was always a troublemaker. Fighting in high school, coming home covered in bruises. I suppose you spent your time inside with the same kind of lowlifes—” “That’s enough.” Becca’s voice wasn’t loud, but it had a sharp, metallic edge that cut her mother off. She frowned. “I was clumsy. It had nothing to do with Nate.” She paused, then looked at Jordan, her voice uncharacteristically stern. “And Jordan, Nate didn’t go to college. Maybe think before you speak next time?” The silence in the room was absolute. They stared at her, stunned. No one expected Becca to snap at her “precious” brother for the sake of the “fake” one. Jordan’s eyes welled up instantly. His lip trembled, and his voice took on that pathetic, wounded quality. “Fine! He’s the brother you grew up with, I get it! I’m the outsider! I don’t deserve to speak to him! Is that it?” Becca’s expression flickered with guilt, and she looked away. My mother, heartbroken for her darling, rushed to pull Jordan into her arms. “Becca! How could you talk to your brother like that?!” Then she turned her venom on me. “And you, Nate! You walk in the door and immediately cause trouble. Why can’t you just be grateful?” I looked at this woman—this elegant, bejeweled stranger who looked at me with nothing but exhaustion and hate. The word “Mom” died in my throat. She wasn’t my mother. This was just how the world worked. “Let’s just eat,” my father sighed, trying to diffuse the tension. “Becca made us wait for you, Nate. Jordan is starving.” I looked up. “Did I ask him to wait?” My voice was dry and flat. “Becca made that choice. What does it have to do with me?” Jordan gasped. “Nate! Have you lost your mind? How can you speak to Becca like that?” “She isn’t my sister,” I said, each word clear and cold. “She’s yours.” In the middle of their shocked silence, I continued. “And I didn’t come here to eat.” I turned to Jordan, locking my eyes onto his. “I came for the address.” “Give it to me, and I’ll leave. I won’t ruin your little family reunion.” The color drained from his face. His mouth opened and closed like a fish. My father frowned. “What are you talking about? This is your home.” “I’m talking about my real home. My biological parents.” I kept my eyes on Jordan. “In prison, you told me you found them. You gave me an address. I lost it. Write it down again.” The air in the room turned to lead. My parents looked at Jordan, their expressions shifting to something dark and unreadable. Jordan stammered, “Isn’t… isn’t this family good enough? Why do you have to look for—” “I have to!” I was shaking now, my voice rising to a raw howl. “I want my home! I want my parents! I want to go back!” Becca, watching me unravel, finally snapped. She turned to her parents, her voice vibrating with suppressed rage. “Just tell him! The truth! Didn’t we agree? We were going to give him the ‘surprise’ when he got out!” I looked at her, confused. She wouldn’t meet my gaze; she just stared them down. The eldest daughter’s word still held weight in this house. My parents exchanged a look. Finally, my father sighed. He looked at me, his voice suddenly artificial, coated in a layer of forced “warmth.” “Nate… the truth is… you are our biological son.”

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I’ve been the Admiral’s secret husband for six years, yet everyone at the Naval Base treats me like a desperate charity case—a military doctor who couldn’t take a hint and spent years pathetically chasing a woman out of his league. She let them believe it. She never offered a single word of clarification. It wasn’t until the gala following the joint maritime exercises that the whispers turned into a public execution. Someone raised a glass, their voice dripping with mock pity: “Dr. Miller, the Admiral’s fiancé is a world-renowned diplomat. Maybe it’s time to stop living in a fantasy world.” Even she was there, swirling her scotch, her eyes as cold and distant as the North Atlantic. “Neil,” she said, her voice a flat line. “Don’t waste any more of your time on me.” In my last life, I would have been blinded by fury. I would have slammed our marriage certificate onto the table, only for her to look me in the eye and call it a forgery. My father-in-law, desperate to save the diplomat’s face, would have had me thrown into the brig for a week of “reflection.” Later, when I was deployed and our ship was ambushed by pirates, I sent out a distress signal with my dying breath. She missed the window for the rescue mission because she was at the Metropolitan Opera, draped in pearls next to her diplomat. That was when I finally understood: I was never her husband. I was just a pawn she used until the wood began to splinter. In this life, I looked at her frozen, indifferent face and simply smiled. “You’re right,” I said. “I wish you both a very long, very happy life together.” I set my glass down. “By the way, my transfer to the National Naval Medical Center was approved this morning. Goodbye, Diana.” 1. The laughter died in their throats. Everyone froze, including Diana Montgomery. Diana was the Navy’s golden girl—the only daughter of Admiral Richard Montgomery and the youngest destroyer captain in the fleet. And me? I was just a staff surgeon in her shadow, an “unremarkable” medic who supposedly harbored delusions of grandeur. Dominic West, the diplomat standing at her side, let his smug grin falter. I didn’t give them a second to recover. I turned and walked straight for the exit. “Neil Miller!” Diana caught up to me in the deserted hallway, her fingers bruising my wrist as she spun me around. I stopped, but I didn’t look at her. “What is this?” she hissed, her voice vibrating with suppressed rage. “A transfer? Who authorized that? What kind of game are you playing now?” In my previous life, when I had miraculously crawled back from the pirates and asked why she hadn’t come for me, she had used that exact same tone. Neil, what kind of drama are you stirring up now? I wrenched my arm back. The force of it made her stumble. I pulled the transfer papers—stamped with the heavy red seal of the Bureau of Medicine—from my jacket and held them inches from her face. “Look closely, Captain. It came from the Surgeon General’s office. Even your father can’t touch this.” Her pupils contracted. I had earned this transfer by saving the life of a high-ranking Senator’s grandson a year ago. In my last life, I had asked for nothing, and the Senator told me he owed me a debt beyond measure. In this life, I called in the favor early. “Cancel it,” she commanded instinctively. “I don’t permit this.” I let out a dry, jagged laugh. I stepped into her space, staring directly into those beautiful, ruthless eyes. “On what grounds, Diana?” I lifted my hand, my finger nearly touching the tip of her nose. “On the grounds of our secret, shameful marriage license? Or on the grounds that you’ve stood by and watched people humiliate me for six years?” Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. The color drained from her cheeks until she looked like a ghost. I stepped closer still, until I could feel the heat of her frantic breathing. “You mean nothing to me anymore, Diana. Not a single thing.” At the end of the hall, Dominic West appeared. He stepped between us, his brow furrowed in a performance of noble concern. “Dr. Miller, how can you speak to Diana like that? She’s been more than patient with you over the years, considering you’ve never been quite… up to her standard.” “Move,” I said. “Listen, Neil—” “I said, move.” My voice was quiet, but it carried a weight that made Dominic take an involuntary step back. He looked shaken, his polished exterior cracking. “Dr. Miller,” he stammered, trying to regain his footing. “I never wanted to be your enemy. I just love Diana. Is that a crime?” “Not at all,” I nodded. “But standing in my way is.” I brushed past him. Behind me, his voice rose in a desperate warning. “Neil, you’re just a common medic. Without the Montgomery name protecting you, you are absolutely nothing!” I stopped and looked back over my shoulder. “Is that so? Then I’m doing you a favor, aren’t I? I’m finally vacating the seat you’ve been dying to sit in.” Dominic’s face twisted. He looked like he wanted to swing at me, but a hand caught his arm. Diana had stepped forward, her expression unreadable as she held him back. “Dominic, let it go.” “Diana, did you hear him? He has no respect for you. I’m the only one who truly—” Diana didn’t answer him. She was staring at me as if she were seeing me for the first time. “Admiral Montgomery,” I said, giving her a mocking, formal tilt of my head. “I hope you and Mr. West have a wonderful life.” I walked away and didn’t look back. 2. My transfer was flagged the next morning. I received the notification from HR at dawn. The reason was written in that classic, bureaucratic jargon: The base is launching a high-level classified medical research initiative. As a key surgical specialist, Dr. Miller is a mandatory core member. No transfers permitted until project completion. I sat at my desk, looking at the rejection. I slowly tore it into pieces and let them flutter into the trash. I didn’t even know what the project was. It didn’t matter. This was the Montgomery family doing what they did best: controlling the board. They were used to people being orbiting planets around their sun. My sudden bid for independence was an insult they couldn’t ignore. My phone buzzed. An unknown number. I picked up but stayed silent. After a few seconds, Diana’s mother spoke. A woman who lived in a world of silk scarves and casual cruelty. “Neil, don’t be difficult.” Her voice was thick with the condescension one might use for a disobedient golden retriever. “The Montgomery family isn’t something a man of your background can simply discard when he feels slighted. But it’s also not something you can just walk away from. Come home, apologize to Richard and Diana, and we will pretend this little tantrum never happened.” I listened to her lecture, feeling a strange sense of amusement. “Ma’am,” I said, my voice flat. “Keep the ‘blessing’ of your family name. I’m done with it.” I hung up. I knew that quiet defiance would infuriate them more than screaming ever could. The retaliation was swifter than I expected. Within forty-eight hours, rumors began to poison the base. There were different versions, but the core was the same: Dr. Miller had compromised his medical ethics. He had used his position to harass the Admiral’s daughter. He was a social climber who had tried to force his way into the elite through stalking and manipulation. I couldn’t walk into the cafeteria without hearing the jagged edges of whispers behind my back. I knew this was Dominic’s handiwork. As a diplomat, he dealt in the currency of reputation. He wanted to destroy my name in the one place I had given my youth and blood. He wanted to make me radioactive. The funny thing is, when you’ve already died once, you stop caring about what people say at your funeral. Three days later, the base hosted a foreign delegation—several high-ranking naval attachés from the UK and France. Dominic was there as the lead liaison. I was the only attending surgeon on call for the event. During the afternoon break, the nightmare started. A large British attaché suddenly collapsed, his face turning a terrifying shade of purple, clutching his throat. I was on him in seconds. “Severe anaphylaxis,” I shouted. “He’s in shock! Get me the crash kit and the EpiPen! Now!” A corpsman scrambled for the emergency kit, flipped it open, and went pale. “Doctor… there’s no epinephrine. The auto-injectors are gone.” My heart hammered against my ribs. Impossible. I had personally checked and restocked those kits yesterday. The room devolved into chaos. Accusations flew instantly. “How is this possible? Who was in charge of this kit?” “If he dies, this is an international incident!” I looked past the crowd and saw Dominic standing by the door. There was a faint, jagged smile on his lips, a flash of pure triumph in his eyes. This was the trap. A medical “accident” that would not only end my career but likely land me in front of a court-martial. They weren’t just trying to stop my transfer; they were trying to bury me. 3. They threw me into the brig. I was facing a military tribunal for dereliction of duty. Endangering the life of a foreign dignitary through gross negligence—a charge heavy enough to strip me of every medal I’d ever earned. The cell had no windows, just a single, humming yellow light. I sat on the cot, remembering the night I died in my previous life. It had been just like this: dark, cold, and lonely. But that time, I hadn’t seen the blade coming. On the third day, Diana appeared. She stood against the light of the corridor, her face a mask of disappointment. “If you sign a confession admitting to oversight, my father will intervene,” she said. “You’ll be reprimanded and demoted, but you’ll stay in the Navy. You’ll stay under our protection.” She paused. “It’s your only way out, Neil.” I leaned my head against the cold stone wall and looked at her. It was almost funny. This was exactly how she had led me into the abyss before. Always with that tone of “generous” mercy, telling me what was best for me while she tightened the noose. Back then, I was stupid enough to think it was love. “Are you dreaming?” I asked, my voice rasping. “We both know Dominic took those injectors.” Her brow furrowed, a flash of annoyance crossing her face. “Neil, stop being hysterical. Don’t drag innocent people into your mess. Dominic isn’t capable of that.” Dominic isn’t that kind of person. Always that sentence. In her mind, Dominic was the polished, perfect gentleman. I was the small-minded, paranoid liar. Even in my last life, when I sent the distress signal, she had said: I trust Dominic’s assessment. He said it was just a pirate lure, not a real emergency. I was bleeding out while she was watching a soprano hit a high C. I stopped smiling and stood up, walking slowly to the bars. I looked deep into her eyes—eyes I used to drown in, eyes that now felt like glass. “Diana,” I whispered. “You’re going to come back here and beg me.” “Remember that. You will be the one begging.” She blinked, then let out a sharp, mocking breath. “I think three more days in here isn’t enough,” she said, turning to leave. “Keep dreaming, Neil.”

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The end of the world had arrived, and once again, I was making a scene, demanding my boyfriend use his precious hydro-kinesis to give me a shower. That’s when the text scrolled across my vision. The Stream. [OMG lady, it’s the apocalypse. Who cares about hygiene right now?!] [This high-maintenance diva is useless. The male lead needs a woman as strong as he is.] [Don’t worry, just wait for the Zombie Tide. Once the male lead sees her selfishness, he’ll dump her.] [Without the male lead’s protection, the canon fodder ex-girlfriend dies at the hands of the Zombie King. Brutally.] A shiver racked my entire body. I shoved Roman away hard. “No. I… I don’t want to wash anymore.” 01 Roman paused, water hovering in the air. He gauged the distance between us, looking baffled by my sudden burst of strength. I felt a pang of guilt. Of course, that guilt might have been overshadowed by the sheer terror of the “Zombie King” mentioned in the floating text. Roman frowned slightly, his brow furrowing. “You really don’t want to?” I nodded frantically, my voice trembling with residual fear. “It’s fine, Roman. Really. You’re the captain. You need to save your energy for the Turned.” Perhaps because it was the first time I’d ever said anything remotely sensible or considerate, Roman didn’t speak immediately. After a long pause, he slowly lowered his hand. “Okay.” Even though I refused the full shower, Roman dampened a towel and gently cupped my face, wiping away the grime with careful, deliberate strokes. I stared at his handsome face, inches from mine. My throat tightened. But before I could lose myself in his eyes, The Stream started scrolling again. [Blair is such a manipulative brat. She’s just lusting after him.] [The male lead is such a stoic engineer type; it’s his first time being chased so aggressively. Of course he fell for the diva’s trap.] [Is no one talking about his ability? Hydro-kinesis. That’s top tier.] [For real. The human body is 70% water. If he wanted to, he could burst your blood vessels or drain you dry in a second.] [No wonder the villainess clings to him. He’s the ultimate safety net.] Me: “…” Seeing the text, my instinct was to snatch the towel and wipe my own face. But the large hand on my waist tightened. Roman’s tone was gentle, but the command beneath it was undeniable. “We’ve been on the road all day. Let me clean you up so you can sleep, okay?” I nodded silently. It wasn’t until Roman left to take the first watch that I opened my eyes again. The words from The Stream were still dancing in my mind. According to them, I was the selfish villainess. The “ex-girlfriend” archetype. Roman was going to dump me. And I was going to die at the hands of something called the Zombie King. I curled into a ball, shivering in the cold night air. 02 Six months ago, Earth was hit by an unknown cosmic event. Global temperatures spiked violently. Ancient glaciers melted, releasing a dormant virus. The dead began to walk. But the virus didn’t just reanimate corpses; it shattered the genetic threshold of humanity. Most turned. But a small percentage didn’t mutate into zombies. Instead, they awakened abilities. Roman was one of them. Ever since he saved me from a horde of the Turned, I had latched onto him like a limpet. Maybe it was the crushing insecurity of the apocalypse. Maybe it was just that Roman was ridiculously attractive, shattering every stereotype I had about stoic engineering types. I fell for him. Hard. I chased him shamelessly for three months until I finally wore him down. Maybe the chase exhausted me, because once we were together, I became insufferable. A true diva. I was a parasite in the squad, contributing nothing but demands. Because Roman was the captain, the others swallowed their complaints, but I knew they hated it. But now. Now I could see The Stream. I knew that all my affectations and tantrums were leading to a karmic reckoning. Even Roman, who currently doted on me, was destined to fall for a heroine who was his equal—someone with power. Fear took root in my chest. Fear of dying in this virus-ridden hellscape. Fear of the unknown Zombie King. I thought about it, but I couldn’t really blame anyone. Who told me to be a powerless, ordinary human in a world of monsters? 03 The next morning. I didn’t wait for Roman to wake me. I was already up, dressed, and packed. Aside from Roman and me, our squad had two others. Coach, a normal human like me, though far more useful. And Jax, a straggler we picked up who possessed electro-kinesis. Seeing me up so early, helping organize supplies, Coach’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. I didn’t need telepathy to know what he was thinking. I ignored his shock and helped him load the gear. My peripheral vision, however, kept drifting to Roman. He was discussing the route with Jax. His profile was cold, sharp. He didn’t look at me. The Stream floated by on cue: [Oh? Is the villainess trying the ‘independent woman’ arc?] [LMAO, does she think this changes the ending?] [In the original book, she starts acting sensible around now, but the male lead is already sick of her.] [Just wait. Once he realizes she’s stopped clinging to him, he’ll be relieved.] I lowered my eyes, my chest aching with a dull throb. Would Roman… be relieved? I didn’t know. But every time I looked at him, the text reminded me of my gruesome fate. So, I avoided him. Throughout the day, I could feel the confusion radiating from Jax and Coach. I smiled bitterly to myself. Can you blame them? Usually, on the road, I’d be demanding snacks, water, complaining that my butt hurt from the car seat. I was a constant source of noise. But today, we drove for hours. I didn’t make a sound. I even offered to drive. Roman rejected the offer. So I sat obediently in the back, shrinking myself down, lowering my presence. If I stop being a burden… maybe I won’t be hated. If I’m quiet, maybe when the danger comes… Maybe they won’t just watch me die. 04 We set up camp at an abandoned gas station. I volunteered to help Coach pitch the tents and start the fire. We worked non-stop. Roman looked at me several times, but I pretended not to see. Once the chores were done, I had a feeling. Roman was going to come for me. I grabbed Coach’s arm. “Hey, can you teach me some self-defense? Just the basics?” Coach was an ordinary human, but he used to be an MMA instructor. He was miles ahead of me in survival skills. I’d thought about it all night. Relying on others is a gamble. Relying on yourself is survival. Coach looked surprised. But, likely out of respect for Roman, he agreed. I trained for three hours until my arms were shaking jelly. After promising Coach I’d continue tomorrow, I headed to my tent. Roman materialized out of the shadows, blocking my path. His tall frame eclipsed the moonlight. His tone was flat. “Blair, what is wrong with you today?” I was a terrible liar. So I kept my head down, avoiding his eyes, my voice airy. “Nothing’s wrong.” “Nothing?” Roman paused, letting the silence stretch. “You haven’t said a single word to me today. And you didn’t…” I bit my lip. I knew what he left unsaid. He wanted to say I didn’t give him his kiss. Usually, no matter how dangerous the situation, I’d sneak a kiss when the others weren’t looking. I knew the pressure he was under as captain. I wanted him to feel a moment of lightness. But today. Forget kissing. I hadn’t even made eye contact. My brain scrambled for an excuse. “You… you were busy.” “…” Roman was silent, seemingly processing this. “Is this because I didn’t wash you yesterday?” My head snapped up, meeting his handsome, expressionless face. “It’s not that. I’m not mad. I just… realized you work so hard. I don’t want to be trouble.” Hearing the word trouble, Roman’s frown deepened. After a moment, he reached out and ruffled my hair. “Don’t be polite with me.” Then, without warning, he yanked me into the tent. Before I could react, he was kissing me—overwhelming, all-consuming. Just as I was gasping for air, a sharp pain nipped at my lip. Roman pulled back slightly, his voice raspy. “Don’t smile at Coach.” He planted two more soothing kisses on my lips, then turned and left to take the night watch. The Stream exploded: [Is it just me, or is the male lead holding back some serious urge?] [Tsk tsk. The beast has awakened.] [Don’t get excited. The male lead’s first time belongs to the heroine.] [Honestly, the villainess is really pretty. Shame she’s just a powerless normie.] [Who said she’s powerless? She’s a metahuman too, okay?] Me: !? I forgot the pain in my lip instantly. What? I’m a metahuman? My eyes widened, staring into the void, praying for the text to explain. [Abilities are just a projection of the inner self. The villainess cares most about her appearance, so she just gets more beautiful. No one realizes it. They think she’s a zero.] Me: Fuck… Never mind the trolls. I wanted to call myself useless. 05 I woke up the next morning in Roman’s arms. He must have switched shifts with Jax in the second half of the night. I stared at his sleeping face, unable to resist tracing his features. My finger had just grazed the tip of his nose when his hand shot up, gripping mine. He opened his eyes slowly and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “We picked up a distress signal last night. About two hundred kilometers out. We need to pass through your old university.” I hadn’t even processed the words before The Stream went nuclear. [Holy crap! The Heroine is coming.] [Oh my god, the male lead is three years older than the heroine, right? Age gap supremacy!!] [Finally! She’s a Healer. Now the male lead won’t have to tank all the damage alone.] [Later on, the heroine undergoes a secondary evolution and becomes the first Dual-Class user. I live for this power couple!] [Two alphas! So delicious!!] I lowered my eyelids, hiding the misery in my gaze. Seeing my flat reaction, Roman asked, “You always said you missed your school. Why aren’t you happy?” I forced a smile, pulling myself out of his embrace and dodging his touch. “I am happy. Let’s pack up.” Behind me. In the blind spot I couldn’t see. Roman’s face went rigid, his eyes darkening dangerously. But his tone remained gentle. “Alright.” 06 Two hundred kilometers took most of the day. My alma mater, the Teachers College in City C, sat on the edge of the university district. The once lively campus was now a desolate ruin. I stared out the window at the lecture halls. The Stream was spamming the chat: [Here we go! Heroine countdown!] [Healing ability. The male lead’s fated wife!] [Wait, what was the heroine’s name in the book? Shen… Iris?] [Yes! Iris! Third-year med student. Cool, rational, gorgeous!] I gripped the hem of my shirt. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. I was already trying so hard to suppress my feelings for Roman. Why did seeing the text make it hurt so much more? The car stopped. Cold wind rushed in. Roman glanced back at me, extending a hand. Normally, I would have launched myself at him. But this time, I jumped down myself, pretending I didn’t see his hand. I jogged over to Coach. “Hey Coach, what are we learning today?” Roman’s hand hung in mid-air for two seconds before he casually retracted it. He seemed… fine. I looked away and followed them into the building. 07 We thought the survivor was just Iris. We didn’t expect her to have a boy standing next to her, looking vaguely similar. Her brother, Ezra. An ordinary human, like me. Roman didn’t say much. Jax, on the other hand, practically vibrated when he heard Iris was a Healer. “Holy shit!” Jax’s eyes went wide. “A Healer?!” I stood by the window, looking out at the familiar campus, but my ears were tuned to their conversation. A Healer was a rare treasure. No wonder Roman changed the plan to come here. I looked at him instinctively. But he was looking at Iris. His gaze was focused. I knew that look. He used to look at me like that. Back when my face was covered in blood and I looked like a stray dog. Now, Iris stood there, calm, commanding, full of potential. My chest felt tight, like someone was crushing my lungs. I lowered my head, forcing my voice to remain steady. I walked over to Coach. “Coach, let’s help move the supplies.” Halfway through moving boxes, someone blocked my path. It was the brother, Ezra. “You were staring at the school earlier. Did you go here?” I nodded. “Graduated two years ago.” Ezra nodded thoughtfully. “What’s your name, sister?” “Blair.” He repeated it, complimenting it. We chatted idly while moving boxes. The Stream floated by: [Ooh, is the puppy crushing on her?] [Was this guy in the book?] [Yes! He awakens a Strength ability later! He always had a secret crush on the villainess!] [What?! He liked the villainess? How did I miss that?] [Because she dies so early in the book, idiot. He never got the chance to confess.] Me: “…?” Well, that was new. Ezra seemed the complete opposite of his icy sister. Warm, open. After we finished, he pulled a packet of compressed biscuits from his pocket and shoved it into my hand. “You’re too thin,” he said earnestly. “Eat up.” I stared at the biscuit, at a loss for words. Then, I felt a gaze burning into me. I looked up. Not far away, Roman was staring right at us. His expression was blank. But the water bottle in his hand was crumpling, collapsing in on itself at a visible speed.

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My name is Dutch. I haul freight for a living. But you won’t see my rig parked at a Walmart loading dock, and I don’t move consumer goods. I specialize in the kind of “shadow contracts” that most drivers wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Word around the depots is that I’m hard to kill—that I was born under a dark star and have enough grit to stare down whatever crawls out of the roadside ditches. But this last job? The cargo was a truckload of “live fish,” and it damn near buried me. These weren’t your average catch. They were massive, housed in custom-built black timber crates that looked more like caskets than shipping containers. The creepiest part was the sealing protocol. Each lid had to be hammered shut with seven iron spikes, black as sin and thick as a finger. Curiosity is a dangerous thing on the road, but it got the better of me. I pried a corner open for a peek. Just one look. That’s all it took to make sure that for the rest of my life, the mere sight of open water makes my hands shake. Because what was swimming in that box wasn’t a fish. It was… 1 It was an open secret in the underground logistics circuit that the heir to the Vanderwalt fortune had a taste for fish. Rumor had it the young patriarch consumed a dozen massive sturgeons every month—creatures bigger than a grown man. Hauling for the Vanderwalts used to be the golden ticket—high pay, premium routes. But in the last three months alone, seven veteran drivers had vanished or washed out. When Russo, the owner of the logistics company, cornered me, he looked like he’d been drinking swamp water. His face was a sickly shade of green. “Dutch, I’m telling you, this is wrong. It’s unnatural,” Russo hissed, wiping sweat from his forehead. “We watched them load the crates. They looked like fish. They moved like fish.” “The Vanderwalts have money to burn,” I said, scrolling through the video file Russo had sent to my phone. “Why are they importing monster river monsters when they could be eating lobster on a yacht?” On the screen, a driver I vaguely recognized was curled up on the asphalt, sobbing. His skin was pale as chalk. “It’s not a fish!” he screamed at the person recording. “It’s people! I saw legs!” The camera panned to the overturned cargo. Sliding out of the splintered wood was a massive, glistening creature. It had scales, fins, and a tail. “That thing has to be five feet long,” I muttered, zooming in. “Growth hormones? Genetic splicing?” “Rich people and their sick hobbies, who knows?” Russo looked miserable. “Supposedly it’s some rare import. Young Mr. Vanderwalt craves the… freshness.” I lit a cigarette and watched the driver on the screen breakdown, swearing he’d never touch a steering wheel again. I knew then why Russo was begging me. “Dutch, I need you to bail me out. Just two more runs. If you don’t take this, the breach of contract fees will leave me without a pot to piss in.” Russo looked like he was about to get on his knees. The Vanderwalts weren’t just rich; they were powerful in ways that made the local police look the other way. I didn’t want their karma rubbing off on me. “You’ve been pulling too many cursed tickets lately, Russo,” I said, exhaling smoke. “I drive for a paycheck, not a death wish. The Vanderwalt water is too deep. People drown in it.” Russo sighed, the lines on his face deepening. “It’s the holidays, Dutch. The boys need the bonus. I warned them about the risks, but the Vanderwalt money… it made them blind. We would have folded three months ago without it.” Russo and I went way back. When I was at rock bottom, he was the one who fronted me the cash for repairs. “Look,” Russo pressed, seeing me hesitate. “Miller just got diagnosed with kidney failure. Lewis’s wife is expecting their second kid. They’re desperate.” He leaned in, voice dropping. “I’m all in on this. You do this run, I don’t take a cut. Every cent goes to you. If something happens… that’s on me. I won’t hold you to it.” He had me cornered. I couldn’t walk away when he put it like that. “Fine,” I crushed the cigarette under my boot. “Tell them I’m coming. But don’t start loading until I get there.” 2 The pickup point was a secluded hatchery deep in the marshlands, a private facility leased entirely by the Vanderwalts. It was a twenty-hour haul. When I rolled into the yard the next day, the massive crates were already staged. Because it was a “short” run relative to cross-country, the creatures were packed in thick, transparent industrial bags pumped full of oxygen before being crated. The size of them was unsettling. It took three burly dockworkers heaving in unison just to lift one bag into a box. And the boxes… why black timber? Why not fiberglass tanks or insulated coolers? lined up on the gravel, the vertical crates looked exactly like rows of coffins waiting for a mass burial. “Dutch.” Russo had saddled me with a rookie named Mikey. The kid looked like he’d been drafted for war. “Dutch, stay back,” Mikey whispered, scrunching his nose. “The smell… it burns your eyes even through the plastic.” He wasn’t wrong. As I got closer, a stench hit me—pungent, metallic, and rotting. Live fish smell like algae and river mud. They don’t smell like a week-old corpse. My gut tightened, but I walked up to the line. Before the workers could nail the lid shut, I leaned in. The creature inside hovered in the water, suspended. Its mouth gaped open and shut rhythmically. Its belly was a sickly, translucent white, contrasting with scales that shimmered a bruised grey-blue. The meat beneath looked dense. I checked the manifest. They were alive. Then the hammering started. The workers weren’t just sealing the crates; they were driving those seven black spikes in with a violence that made the wood groan. Clang. Clang. At the sound, the fish in the bags went berserk, thrashing against the plastic. That’s when I saw it. A detail that sent a cold spike of adrenaline down my spine. The fish were blinking. Fish don’t have eyelids. They live in the water; they don’t need to moisten their eyes. But I saw it clear as day. A thin, membranous layer of skin slid down over those milky, bulbous eyes and then retracted. Blink. Blink. 3 “Well, look at that. Russo actually found someone stupid enough to drive the hearse. I heard the last guy pissed his pants for three days straight.” The voice was oily and mocking. “Shut your mouth!” Mikey snapped. He was young and full of nervous energy. “We handle our business. Worry about your own.” “Easy there, pup. The grown-ups are talking.” “Slick,” I acknowledged without turning around. “Ah, Dutch. I should have known.” The bald man grinned, his scalp gleaming in the harsh sunlight. “I figured Russo brought in a heavy hitter.” I ignored him and looked past his shoulder. Standing behind Slick was his brother—a man known in the circuit as Twitch. Slick and Twitch were the bottom feeders of our industry. If I was the guy you called for a tough job, they were the guys you called to bury the evidence. 4 We have a term in the trade: “Pathfinding.” When a new route opens up, or an abandoned logging road needs to be run again, you send a veteran driver to test the waters. We call it “clearing the mines.” If the pathfinder makes it through without vanishing or crashing, the fleet follows. It pays double, sometimes triple. But you’re basically being paid to see if the road ghosts are hungry. Slick and Twitch made their living doing this. But they were dirty. They’d run you off the road to beat you to a contract. They’d sabotage your rig at a rest stop. I’d had run-ins with them before. My mentor used to tell me, “Don’t wrestle with pigs; you both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” Twitch, the younger brother, was the one who really turned my stomach. He didn’t talk much. He was short but had disturbingly long arms that hung past his knees, giving him the silhouette of a gibbon. People said I looked scary—I’m six-four, built like a linebacker, with a face that stops bar fights before they start. But if I looked like a bouncer, Twitch looked like a demon that had clawed its way out of a basement. It wasn’t just his looks. Twitch had a history. He’d done time for stalking and assault. He liked to hurt women. 5 “What are you doing here?” I lit a cigarette, stepping between them and Mikey. “Russo has the contract. You trying to poach?” Slick flashed a grin full of yellow teeth. “Relax, Dutch. We aren’t poaching. We’re the overflow. The client said the volume was too high for one truck. We’re splitting the load. Everybody eats.” I glanced back at the loading dock. There were at least thirty of those coffin-crates. Too many for my flatbed. “Fine,” I said. “Stay out of my lane, I’ll stay out of yours.” Honestly, I was relieved. If they wanted to share the curse of the Vanderwalt job, they were welcome to it. 6 We loaded up and rolled out first. Mikey was fuming. Slick had spat on the ground near his boots before we left. “Garbage humans,” Mikey muttered, gripping the dash. “Slick and Twitch have been rotting in this business for twenty years,” I said calmly. “They’re dangerous. Keep your distance. Don’t engage.” Mikey grumbled but quieted down. I wasn’t just lecturing him. There was a darkness around those brothers that went beyond just being jerks. 7 Over a decade ago, back when I was still riding shotgun with my mentor, there was an old-timer who took on a young apprentice. The kid was barely seventeen, pretty in a way that made you look twice. Soft features, bright eyes. We called him Jamie. We were all stuck at a rest stop during a blizzard. Jamie had the bad luck of running into the brothers in the bathroom. We heard the shouting through the walls. Jamie was crying, screaming that Twitch had cornered him in a stall. My mentor and the old-timer kicked the door in. Twitch was on the kid. It turned into a brawl. I was the only one big enough to pin Twitch down. I held his face against the dirty tile floor, and when I looked into his eyes, I didn’t see fear. I saw red, frantic arousal. It wasn’t human. The cops were called, but without physical evidence, nothing stuck. But the bad luck started immediately for the old-timer. Tires blowing out on straight roads. Engines catching fire. Jamie blamed himself. He went to confront the brothers alone. No one knows exactly what happened. We just know that Jamie jumped off a bridge the next night. When they fished him out, he was bloated beyond recognition. The old-timer quit the life, heartbroken. He told my mentor one thing before he vanished: “You can dodge a bullet, but you can’t dodge a curse. Those two aren’t men; they’re devils.” 8 I shook the memory off. We were on the access road now, heading for the highway. It was desolate country. The dirt road was riddled with potholes. The truck bounced violently. Maybe it was the suspension, or maybe it was the load, but I kept hearing sloshing sounds from the back. Mikey was curled up in the passenger seat, looking pale. “Take a nap,” I said. “We’ll switch in a few hours.” “I’m not tired,” Mikey said quickly. Too quickly. He looked like a cornered animal. “I slept great last night.” I wanted to ask what he’d seen on the manifest, but I didn’t want to spook him further. Suddenly, a rhythmic thumping started from the cargo hold. Thump… Thump… It was heavy. Deliberate. Mikey’s face went grey. He stared at his knees, twisting his hands together until his knuckles turned white. “Just the water displacement,” I lied. “Road’s rough.” Mikey didn’t answer. The noise got louder. Faster. It didn’t sound like fish tails slapping water. It sounded like wet, heavy palms slamming against the wood. I pressed down on the accelerator. “We’ll be on the interstate soon. It’ll smooth out.” 9 Once we hit the pavement, the thumping stopped. “See?” I told Mikey. “Physics.” He nodded, but the color didn’t come back to his cheeks. Around noon, we pulled over at a gravel lot where a guy was selling hot meals out of a converted trailer. “Get out, get some air,” I ordered. The cab smelled like a fish market that had lost power three days ago. Mikey stumbled out, breathing in the cold air. He ordered the braised pork over rice and a chicken leg. I chatted with the food vendor while I ate. He mentioned traffic was thin; drivers were avoiding this route. Behind me, Mikey let out a strangled scream and hurled his lunch container across the lot. “What is that?! What the hell is that?!” He fell to his knees, clawing at his mouth, trying to dig the food out of his throat. The vendor looked terrified. “Hey! That meat is fresh! Bought it this morning!” “No! No!” Mikey was gagging, tears streaming down his face. I grabbed a water bottle from the truck and flushed his mouth out. He retched violently, vomiting a pile of half-chewed pork onto the gravel. And there, glistening in the mess, were several scales. They were the size of thumbnails. Grey-blue. 10 The vendor poked at the mess with a stick. “I didn’t cook any fish today. Where did those come from?” He tried to refund us, but I waved him off. It wasn’t his fault. Just then, the screech of air brakes announced the arrival of the brothers. Slick hopped out of their rig. “Look at that. Kid’s got a weak stomach. Typical.” Twitch stood by the fender. His face was flushed a deep, unnatural red, like he’d downed a bottle of vodka. He was vibrating with energy. I recognized that look. It was the look he got when things were about to go wrong. He was hunting. Mikey was still dry heaving. I hauled him back into the cab. As I pulled away, I checked the mirror. Twitch was staring at our truck, a twisted, predatory smile stretching his face. 11 I drove the afternoon shift. Mikey was a wreck, shaking too hard to hold a cigarette. I kept the windows down, letting the freezing wind blast through the cab to scrub out the smell. We stopped for the night at a motel in a small, forgotten town at the base of the mountains. The next leg was a treacherous climb, icy and narrow. I wasn’t risking it in the dark. The motel was a dive—peeling paint, neon sign buzzing—but it had a big lot for rigs. The lobby doubled as a diner. Mikey picked at two hard-boiled eggs and nursed a beer, trying to drown the memory of lunch. The bell above the door chimed. Ding, ding… It was a sharp, piercing sound. Mikey didn’t even flinch, seemingly deaf to it. I looked up. A girl walked in. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. She wore a faded white down coat and tapped the floor with a white cane. 12 What was a blind girl doing alone in a place like this? The diner was full of truckers—rough men, smoke, grease. The owner, a portly woman, hurried over. “Honey, are you lost?” The girl turned her head slightly, guided by the sound. “I need a room. A single.” Her voice was soft but clear. “We… we aren’t really set up for… look, there’s a chain hotel two streets over. Much safer,” the owner stammered. She didn’t want the liability. “I want to stay here,” the girl insisted. “It’s what I can afford.” Before the owner could argue, the door opened again. A gust of snow blew in. Slick and Twitch. Twitch looked even worse than before. His eyes were bloodshot, bulging. As soon as he saw the girl, he froze. His gaze crawled over her, disgusting and palpable. The girl sensed the new presence. She shrank back, fumbling to hand her ID and cash to the owner. The owner, sensing the tension, quickly ushered the girl toward the stairs. Twitch watched them go, his Adam’s apple bobbing. 13 “Mikey.” I shoved five hundred bucks into the kid’s hand. “Go to the owner. Tell her to move that girl to the hotel down the street. I’m paying.” Mikey blinked, confused, but saw the look on my face and scrambled off. Twitch whipped his head around, staring at me with those dead, frantic eyes. I slammed my hand on the table. “What are you looking at? Sit down. We’re drinking.” Slick glanced between me and his brother. He knew I wouldn’t let them leave that room until the girl was gone. Mikey came back, nodding to indicate the girl was safe. I kept the brothers at the table until midnight. Slick talked shop, trying to fish for details about the payout. Twitch just drank. He poured cheap whiskey down his throat until the veins in his neck looked like they were going to burst. Finally, Slick dragged his brother to their room next door. I helped Mikey upstairs. The kid passed out the second he hit the mattress. 14 That night, the nightmare found me. I wasn’t in the motel. I was back in the truck, parked in pitch blackness. A figure, dripping wet, approached the window. The voice sounded like sandpaper on bone. “Driver… when do we leave?” I tried to open my eyes, but they were glued shut. “Driver… it’s so stuffy in the bag. I can’t breathe.” Panic set in. I could smell the cargo. The brine. The rot. Then, something cold and slimy wrapped around my throat. Wet hair. But it wasn’t just hair—it was matted with scales and chunks of raw meat. It tightened. Ding, ding… The bell. Was the girl back? My heart hammered against my ribs. She shouldn’t be here. Twitch was a powder keg. I thrashed in the dream, finally tearing the wet hair from my neck. I woke up gasping. 15 The room was silent. Gray morning light filtered through the dirty curtains. No bell. Just a nightmare. Mikey was curled in a fetal ball, shivering. I shook him awake. “Wash up. We move in ten.” We walked out into the hallway just as Slick opened his door. “Morning, Dutch.” I grunted, intending to walk past. But my eyes caught the inside of their room. Two beds. One was a mess of tangled sheets. The other was pristine. Unslept in. Where was Twitch? Slick saw me looking. He smirked, a lewd, knowing expression. “He found his own way back. Guess the little lady has a thing for bad boys. Don’t be a prude, Dutch.” 16 “What did you say?” I grabbed Slick by the collar and slammed him against the wall. “Hey! Easy! They’re consenting adults!” Slick yelped. “I swear to god…” Mikey grabbed my arm, holding me back. The commotion brought the motel owner running up the stairs. “What is going on?!” I spun on her. “The blind girl. Did she come back? Which room?” She looked terrified. “The… the utility room at the end of the hall. She said she forgot something…” I threw Slick aside and sprinted down the hallway. I knew what Twitch was capable of. I knew about Jamie. Slick chased after me. “He hasn’t had a woman in years! Don’t ruin this for him—” Before he could finish, a scream tore through the building.

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