When my best friend, Sienna Cross, found out I was married to a millionaire genius designer, she decided my life should belong to her.

She wanted my face, my name, and my spot beside him.

I was shaking when she strapped me to the operating table.

Sienna smiled, thinking I was terrified.

In truth, I was just trying to hold back my laughter.

After all, she wasn't the only one anticipating this day. I was even more excited for it than she was.

The Face I Let Her Steal

As I lay on the operating table, I sobbed until I could hardly breathe. "Sienna, please... don't do this. I'm begging you. I can't lose Adrian."

I had always been terrified of being in pain, but what frightened me more was the thought that she might change her mind halfway through.

Sienna lifted my chin with a gloved hand, the back of it cold against my cheek. "I've wanted this face for a long time."

A strange, feverish light flickered in her eyes.

"Sienna, Adrian will lose his mind without me. Please... just let me go." My tears rolled down my face and fell onto her hand.

She leaned closer and slowly licked them away. "Weren't we best friends, Leola? You always gave me everything. Now, I'm only asking for your face... and Adrian."

Her lips curved into a smile. "You should be grateful. You would've been dead long ago if my face hadn't been ruined so suddenly."

I looked at the madness in her eyes and listened to her speak of Adrian as if he were some flawless prize.

I nearly started giggling.

'Perfect? Is she seriously calling him perfect? A violent drunk of a man who breaks me down day by day before waking up with his lips dripping with insincere apologies? Fine. If that is the perfection she wants, then she can have him.'

Sienna glanced aside.

Chester Middleton, who had been waiting nearby, stepped forward and placed the anesthesia mask over my mouth and nose.

The drug robbed me of my senses almost at once.

Sienna swiftly flitted out of the room, already lost in the future she thought she had stolen. I finally released the breath I had been holding and smiled. "Chester, let's begin."

...

When I married Adrian Shaw, everyone called him a washed-up designer who had used up all his talent.

Back in school, one of my professors often spoke of him with genuine regret, praising the brilliance of his early work as if the world had lost something precious.

I became obsessed with those designs.

Then, I met him, completely by chance.

And yes, I fell for his face.

After that, I chased him with everything I had until he finally admitted I was his girlfriend.

I had been foolishly convinced that he was my happily ever after, even when he whispered another woman's name—Wendy Olson—in his sleep.

Even my professor told me I had married above my station.

Our families came from two completely different worlds, and everyone seemed to believe I was the one who should bow.

After the wedding, Adrian began putting his name on every design I created, letting the world believe my talent belonged to him.

He claimed that he was doing it to protect me.

In truth, he was tearing me apart piece by piece.

Only later did I realize something horrifying.

Adrian had never been able to create the work that made him famous.

Sienna had been one of my close friends in design school, and she had watched my relationship with Adrian from the very beginning.

I told her everything—every fight, every heartbreak, and every tiny moment I had foolishly mistaken for happiness.

I thought she would support me.

Instead, her stance changed once Adrian became famous again.

Then, I got her confession.

She liked him.

At one point, she even told me I should divorce him.

Not long after our wedding, Adrian stopped pretending. The humble, considerate man disappeared, leaving behind someone arrogant, obsessive, and cruel.

I once begged Sienna for help.

She only looked at me with disgust, saying in disdain, "Leola, I know exactly what kind of man Adrian is. Stop acting like a spoiled wife who doesn't appreciate what she has."

I smirked. 'Fine. Sienna, you can have every bit of that good fortune. Let's see how long you survive it.'

...

When I woke up, I immediately saw Sienna sitting beside my hospital bed. She was wearing my face and watching me with perfectly rehearsed concern.

Adrian sat on the couch across the room, irritated and busy arguing on the phone. His ignorance shone as he behaved like none of this had anything to do with him.

When he noticed I was awake, he gave me one careless glance before turning his attention back to work.

Sienna seemed deeply pleased by his indifference.

Then, she softened her voice and cooed, "Adrian, Sienna is awake now. You don't have to stay here. Your work is important. Don't worry about me."

He stood, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her with deliberate passion. It was as if he was getting off on me watching their PDA.

Before he left, he tossed a thick stack of cash onto my bed.

Then, he smirked down at me as though I were gum beneath his shoe. "Good. You're awake. Leola isn't well, so hire yourself a caretaker."

I Give Her My Hell

My eyes filled with tears, but Sienna blushed and quickly pushed Adrian out of the room before I could make a sound.

A ragged gasp tore from my throat as I stared at the closed door. Tears soaked into the bandages wrapped around my face, sending sharp stings across my skin.

Only then did Sienna turn back to me, utterly unbothered, and perched herself on my bed.

"Why waste your energy?" she mocked. "Adrian's sharp. If your voice sounds too much like mine, he'll start asking questions."

Then, she leaned in, her voice dropping lower. "Leola, thank you so, so much. Also, don't even think about going near Adrian. Next time, you won't get off with just a surgery."

I covered my mouth in disbelief before forcing myself to nod.

And so, it was a satisfied Sienna who hummed cheerfully to herself as she walked out.

A cold laugh echoed in my mind. 'You want Adrian that badly? Fine. Just don't come crawling back and beg me to take him off your hands later. Let's see whether you're still this obsessed when his fists start landing on you.'

I dragged myself to the window and looked down.

Adrian stood beside the car in his black suit, polished and flawless as ever. He drew admiring glances from every woman who passed by, even though he was doing nothing but standing outside the hospital.

I used to be one of them.

I fell for that face.

Then, I fell for the illusion behind it.

By the time I knew his true nature, I had already lost myself entirely. I became someone reliant on him for everything—someone he could manipulate with a simple gesture.

Perhaps he felt my gaze as he suddenly looked up.

Our eyes met.

I stared straight at him, hatred burning openly in mine.

He responded with one of those smug little smiles I had once mistaken for charm.

Then, he opened his arms.

Sienna rushed into them immediately, clinging to him as though she belonged there.

A second later, she turned toward my window and gave me a triumphant little wave.

The hatred in my chest deepened.

Only after their car disappeared from the hospital grounds did I return to bed and press the call button.

…

A long time passed before the door finally opened.

It wasn't a nurse; it was my surgeon, Chester.

I forced my heavy eyes open. "Chester... Did the surgery go well?"

He raised my bed, sat beside me, and took my hand, pressing it dramatically against his chest.

"Don't worry. Everything went perfectly." His expression softened with carefully arranged concern. "I hated seeing you in pain. I promise your new face will be even more beautiful than the old one."

I nodded. "Good."

Then, I leaned against his chest, listening as his heartbeat quickened.

How boring.

I pulled away almost immediately, making a show of swaying into my bed as I closed my eyes. "Chester, I'm tired."

Reluctance flashed across his face.

He tucked the blanket around me, lingering longer than necessary. I made sure to keep my eyes closed even when I could tell that he was looking back as he left.

I could hear him stop by the door to remind the nurses how to take care of me after he stepped outside.

I could barely keep my shoulders from shaking with amusement as I listened to Chester play his role so seriously. I could tell that the lie he was feeding himself was becoming real to him.

Still, I had to thank Sienna for this.

She was the one who handed me this weapon.

She used the credit card I had given her to pay Chester and his assistant a generous sum to sabotage my surgery. Her original plan had been simple. She wanted to leave me with a horrific scar and destroy my face beyond repair.

What she failed to understand was Adrian.

For all his polished manners and modest exterior, he was vain to the core.

He had to have the best of everything. He had chosen me, which meant that I was the best.

It didn't matter to him whether his wife was no longer the real Leola Howell. It certainly didn't matter that I was damaged goods who was no longer worth keeping.

To him, the only woman who could ever be his wife was Leola Howell; whether or not she was the real deal or a fraud didn't matter to him.

Sienna truly was ruthless.

She still wasn't satisfied even after she'd stolen my face.

She needed to make sure Adrian would never look at me again.

After all, even stolen goods would start to look authentic with time.

Alas, she forgot about one key detail.

The credit card she used belonged to me.

The bank manager called me when she made the payment.

Soon after, the private investigator I hired traced her visit to this hospital. That was when he uncovered Chester and every detail of the arrangement she had made.

As it happened, Chester had once chased after me back in high school.

When I saw him again, all I had to do was show him the healing wound behind my ear, roll up my sleeve to reveal the bruises on my pale skin, and let the tears come naturally.

After all, what man refused his first love when she came asking for protection, especially when she offered far more money than the other woman?

Once I woke up from the nightmare I had mistaken for marriage, I quietly took over several design projects Adrian had dismissed as beneath him.

They were minor projects, but the profits were surprisingly large.

Before long, the money I had hidden away was worth several times more than anything I could touch as Adrian's decorative wife.

Sienna visited every day under the excuse of caring for me.

In reality, she was watching and waiting.

She was terrified Adrian might notice something strange, so she forced me to write down every memory between him and me.

So, I did.

I went through every single memory, taking great pains to portray Adrian as sounding gentler than he had ever been. I made this version of Adrian more attentive, more loving, and more perfect. Basically, I gave Sienna her fantasy.

I wanted her obsession to grow, and it did.

Every story of Adrian's supposed devotion drove her crazier with jealousy.

So, she wasn't fazed when rope marks and bruises began appearing on her body. Instead, she accepted them like treasured proof of love.

…

One day, Adrian suddenly paid me a visit.

He sat silently next to my bed, his piercing eyes roving over my figure as if attempting to see through my skin.

Then, his cold and venomous voice slithered into my ear. "Why do you seem so familiar?"

Married to My Monster

Adrian's gaze clung to my bandaged face, heavy and suffocating like a web I couldn't escape.

Beneath the blanket, my hands curled into tight fists. I felt my nails digging into my palms as cold sweat dampened the back of my hospital gown.

His fingers brushed along my bandaged cheek before slipping behind my ear, searching for the raised scar that had once been there.

But it was gone.

Just as I was deciding how I was supposed to react, Sienna burst into the room.

The moment she saw how close we were, she rushed over, pulled Adrian away, and practically threw herself into his arms before lifting her face to kiss him with reckless hunger.

I had to fight my muscles to stop myself from laughing.

All those carefully crafted stories I had fed her about my so-called life with Adrian had paid off.

This had always been one of the little things I used to do when I wanted to draw him in.

As expected, Adrian's body stiffened for the briefest moment when it happened.

I immediately recognized his reaction—desire.

His expression shifted, and he dragged Sienna into the bathroom with barely concealed urgency.

…

A few moments later, I heard muffled sounds drift through the room, followed by Sienna's deliberately breathy noises. It was obvious that she wanted me to overhear. She wanted to rub it in my face.

And I did listen, but with satisfaction.

Thankfully, Adrian was never reckless in public.

He was not a man easily ruled by lust, but he knew my body well enough that I had worried he might sense something was different.

Instead, everything happening behind that closed door told me exactly what I needed to know.

All those spa appointments I had dragged Sienna to, every skincare treatment, every routine meant to make her skin as soft and familiar as mine, had not been wasted.

Adrian probably believed "I" had simply become bolder after reflecting on our marriage.

After all, men only ever see what they want to see.

When it was over, Adrian left the hospital looking thoroughly satisfied without sparing my bed a single glance.

Sienna adjusted her rumpled clothes at an unhurried pace, her eyes gleaming with triumph. "Leola, Adrian and I are meant for each other. We're perfect for each other in bed. Unlike you, you were stiff as a corpse. I'm the only one who can keep him wanting more."

She stepped closer and grabbed my arm, her nails biting hard into my skin.

"Don't do anything stupid, understand? Stay where you belong, be Sienna, and maybe I'll keep you around like a well-trained little pet. Just do as you're told."

I nodded through the pain.

Before she left, she interrogated Chester about my condition and insisted he keep me confined.

Naturally, Chester seized the opportunity to squeeze another fortune out of her before offering reassuring promises.

The foolish woman left with a skip in her step.

…

A few days later, Chester told me it was time to remove the bandages.

As the final layer came away, he stared at my face with open pride. "Leola, I told you. This would be my masterpiece."

I gazed into the mirror and smiled, seeing a woman who looked nothing like my former self. This woman in the mirror was even more beautiful than I ever was.

Before I fully settled into my expensive new identity, I anonymously sent the police evidence proving Chester and his assistant had been practicing illegally and extorting patients.

On the day he was taken into custody, I was in the crowd. When he saw me, he yelled at me to help him. Silently, I mouthed, "My thank-you gift."

In another life, Sienna had used medication Chester supplied to slowly destroy me, slipping it into my food until my emotions spiraled out of control and Adrian's abuse became even worse.

Chester might not have held the knife himself, but he had always been a willing accomplice.

When Sienna learned he had been arrested, panic consumed her. She hired people to search for me, only to discover I had never actually been disfigured.

She became terrified I might return to Adrian, so she clung to him with even greater desperation. Her obsession with Adrian made her blind to the irritation growing in his eyes.

Soon, the house was filled with the sounds of crashing objects and a woman crying out in pain, the incidents becoming more frequent by the day.

She was worrying for nothing.

I had no intention of running back to Adrian, not even for a day.

Instead, I returned to the design industry and started my own company.

Even my former professors were stunned.

The industry sat up and took notice after I launched my first designs.

I was positively showered with praise as contracts came one after another.

Soon, I became the designer everyone was talking about, some even whispering that I might surpass Adrian himself.

Eventually, Adrian's company approached mine.

As for whether he would recognize my work?

I was never worried about that.

After we married, he constantly looked down on my designs. He would tear them apart and mock them as if they were truly inferior. However, he secretly depended on my talent to safeguard his reputation.

Still, I suppose I owed him something.

If it weren't for him, my skills wouldn't have improved by leaps and bounds.

Yet, I knew one thing for certain. Sienna would recognize my work, and honestly? I had been waiting for that day.

…

When she finally arrived, she was wearing long sleeves and pants despite the warm weather, hiding behind oversized sunglasses and a face mask.

I understood what had happened.

I thought absentmindedly, 'So Adrian would've become a drunk even without Sienna goading him into it.'

She looked exhausted.

There were obvious dark circles shadowing her eyes.

The moment she stepped into my office, she dropped to her knees in front of my desk. "Leola... please. Please help me."