Before she could recover, I shifted into Spanish, my tone sharp as glass. “Pero tranquila. No soy como tú, que usas los idiomas solo para parecer lista.”

(But don’t worry. I’m not like you, who uses languages only to look smart.)

Gasps broke through the circle. A few of the women exchanged startled glances.

And then, for the finishing blow, I delivered the rest in German, my voice calm and cold.

“Ist es lustig, auf andere herabzusehen, nur weil ihr denkt, ich verstehe euch nicht?”

(Is it funny to look down on others, thinking I don’t understand all of you?)

Silence crashed over them.

Yvette’s face had gone pale, her lips pressed tight. The women who had laughed the loudest moments ago now looked down at their shoes.

I smiled faintly and about to turned my back when the host announced a game.

Couples would play a cello and piano duet. The best performance would win a set of rare jewels.

“That set is gorgeous!” Yvette’s eyes sparkled. She tugged at Austin’s sleeve like a spoiled child. “Austin, it’s my birthday soon. Could you and Miss Callaway win it for me?”

The women around her burst out laughing. “Don’t be cruel, Yvette. She might know some languages but you think she can play piano?”

“Why don’t you and Young Master Livingston perform instead?” someone suggested slyly.

Yvette tilted her head, voice soft as silk. “Would that be alright?”

Austin nodded without a second thought. “Yes.”

Her eyes flicked to mine, smug. “Then I’ll borrow him for a little while.”

They walked to the stage.

When the music began, the hall fell silent. Her fingers fluttered over the piano keys, elegant and light, while Austin drew his bow across the cello, each note deep and resonant, wrapping around her melody like a shield. His accompaniment was steady, protective, as though she were his queen. Together, they looked every bit the perfect pair.

The applause came like thunder.

And while the room roared, Yvette’s friends closed in around me.

“See? That’s a perfect couple. Not you. You’re nothing.”

“You grew up in the west slums, didn’t you? How does anyone even live in a place like that? No wonder you still carry the stink of poverty.”

“Trying to become a phoenix when you’re just a sparrow? What a joke.”

Laughter broke through me like shards of glass.

I clutched my skirt and turned to leave, but a foot slid out in front of me. I stumbled, crashing hard onto the floor. Pain tore through my body, but before I could push myself up, a red stiletto heel pressed down on my wrist.

“Oh dear,” the woman cooed, mocking innocence. “I didn’t see you there.” She ground the heel into my hand, cruel and deliberate.

Crack.

The sound sent lightning through my bones.

My vision blurred. Instinctively, I looked toward the piano. Toward him.

Austin’s head lifted. Our eyes met. My lips trembled, shaping his name without sound. My eyes pleaded.

He saw.

For one heartbeat, he saw.

Then his gaze slid away, cold, uninterested, as though I were a stranger on the street. He turned another page for Yvette, his expression softening again for her.

I remembered the boy he used to be—the one who skipped a whole night of work just because I’d sliced my finger in the supermarket.

Now my wrist was being crushed, my bones splintering under someone’s heel, and he couldn’t spare me more than a single glance.

Yvette laughed with him, their smiles gleaming under the lights, like a prince and princess in their fairy tale.

Then the heel pressed harder.

Another crack. The sound of bone shattering filled my ears.

The pain stole my breath, stole the world from me. My vision twisted, collapsing into black. The last thing I heard was the grand finish of the duet and the applause exploding around them.

---

When I woke up, the ward reeked of disinfectant, sharp and cold like a reminder that I was alive but broken.

The doctor stood at the end of my bed, talking to Austin in that detached, clinical tone.

“Mr. Livingston, her wrist is shattered in several places. Even if it heals, it won’t be the same. She won’t be able to carry weight anymore. For the next month she’ll suffer sleepless nights from the pain. Someone needs to care for her around the clock.”

The words settled on me like chains. My face went cold, and when I tried to reach for the water glass on the table, pain shot through my wrist. The glass slipped, crashed, and scattered across the floor.

The doctor sighed, muttered something about rest, and left.

Austin walked over, his polished shoes quiet against the tiles, and poured me another glass as if nothing had happened. He placed it in my hand, his brow furrowed, his Adam’s apple shifting before he finally spoke.

“Sorry. I didn’t see you fall. I was… busy.”

Busy. He meant at the piano. He always played for her. For Yvette.

I stared at him and for a moment all I saw was his gentleness with her, the softness in his eyes that he never gave me. Did he really not notice me fall, or did he just not care enough?

I forced my eyes shut to steady the storm inside me. My voice came out thin but firm.

“I want to call the police.”

He froze. “What did you say?”

I lifted my cast, glaring at the ugly weight of it. My eyes burned but I refused to cry.

“My hand is ruined. They need to pay for this.”

He gave me a look I couldn’t read, half troubled, half impatient. “It isn’t ruined, Dahlia. You just can’t do heavy work. And with me here, you don’t need to. Let it go. They’re all friends of Yvette. If you press charges, it’ll shame the family. Do you really want to push things that far?”

Shame the family. No—shame Yvette. Everything always circled back to her.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. My voice shook, but I didn’t back down.

“I must call the police.”

He went silent for a long beat, then suddenly pulled out his checkbook. The sound of his pen scratched across the page, slicing through me more cruelly than words.

He tore the first slip and handed it over. I didn’t move.

He thought it wasn’t enough. Another slip. Then another. The numbers climbed. His hand didn’t tremble once.

When he pushed a check for three hundred million across the blanket, I couldn’t hold the memory back…

One rainy night. We were still poor, huddled in a tiny rented room. He had come home at three in the morning, drenched, exhausted, but smiling as he held me.

“Dahlia,” he whispered against my hair, “I’ll make a billion someday, so you’ll never suffer again.”

That promise… it was supposed to be love. It was supposed to be salvation.

Now here he was, easily scrawling numbers he once swore would save me, only to buy my silence. To protect the people who trampled me.

“One billion. Is that enough?” he slided it forward as if I were some beggar on the street.

I stared at it. I stared at him.

My hands trembled when I took the check. It was light, just a slip of paper, yet it felt heavier than iron. Suddenly, I laughed. I couldn’t stop it. The sound broke out of me, sharp and ugly, until tears spilled down my cheeks and splattered across the numbers, smearing the ink.

“Austin, the promise you made back then… it’s finally come true.”

He looked at me, stunned. His brows pulled tight as if he couldn’t understand what I meant. Of course he couldn’t.

The man who once wrapped his arms around me in a leaking rented room, vowing to earn a billion so I would never suffer again… that man had died long ago. Died clean, without leaving even a shadow behind.

--

After that day, Austin never stepped foot in the hospital again.

But every morning, right at ten, his assistant would arrive, respectful but cold, carrying another glossy box of supplements.

“Mr. Livingston asked me to say he’s been too busy,” the assistant said each time, “Please, take care of yourself.”

I only nodded. After the assistant left, I unlocked my phone. Yvette’s new post popped up on my screen.

She leaned on his shoulder, the sea and sky of the Maldives stretching endless behind them. Her caption?

“Thank you to someone for making time to accompany me, even when so busy! ”

I stared until my eyes burned.

So this was what “too busy” meant. He wasn’t tied up with work. He was busy spoiling her.

I was about to shut the phone off when a new message buzzed across the screen.

“Dear Ms. Callaway, your visa has been approved. Please collect your passport tomorrow during working hours.”

I read it once. Twice. A third time. Then I laughed again, shaking so hard that my tears blurred the word approved until it swam on the screen.

Finally. An ending.

No more waiting for footsteps that never came home. No more eating cold food at midnight, alone. No more bowing my head under Mrs and Mr. Livingston’s eyes, sharp and full of contempt.

Most of all no more clinging to a past version of myself who begged, endured, and broke in silence.

The next day, I signed the discharge papers. At noon, passport and ticket in hand, I came back to the villa one last time.

The moment I walked in, I saw them. Austin and Yvette standing together in the living room, his men carrying her luggage upstairs.

They both looked my way.

Austin narrowed his eyes, as if preparing to soothe me. “Yvette’s parents are abroad. She didn’t want to stay alone, so she’ll be living here for a while. The McKinsey family and ours go way back. It’s only right I take care of her.”

He didn’t owe me an explanation anymore. And I didn’t care. From today on, whatever tied us was already cut.

I nodded and turned for the stairs.

“Miss Callaway,” Yvette’s voice stopped me, “Austin and I are going to a concert later. Would you like to join us?”

I hadn’t even answered when Austin cut in. “She can’t. Her hand’s injured, and she wouldn’t understand music anyway. She will rest at home.”

My lips curled. Pale, fragile, bitter. “He’s right. I don’t understand.”

Later, after they left, I packed in silence.

I stood in the bedroom that once held every dream I had built around him, staring at the emptiness it left behind. On the coffee table, a photo frame caught my eye. In it, his eyes were soft, fixed only on me, as if the world ended there.

My fingers traced the glass for the last time before I turned it face-down.

At the door, I left the house key on the cabinet. With one quiet click, I shut the door behind me.

In my past life, I picked up a man bleeding under the bridge—and now I'm reborn, I walked away with nothing but my suitcase.

--

At the airport I was half-asleep, waiting for boarding, when my phone buzzed.

Austin: We can’t go home tonight. You can handle yourself. Me and Yvette will go to Paris after this, she wants to watch her favorite singer’s concert.

I typed back one word.

"Okay."

Seconds later he replied again.

Austin: Don’t be jealous. Yvette is my fiancée chosen by my grandparents. But it’s you I love.

I just smirked, popped the SIM out, and tossed it straight into the trash.

“Flight PR 862 now boarding,” the speaker called.

I grabbed my bag, stood up, and walked toward the gate. No hesitation. No looking back.