When I was eighteen, Faye Ellison burst into my house and stabbed my mother eighteen times.

The police dragged her away, but she turned to the camera and smiled.

“Why should I feel sorry? No one should ever get to control someone just because they call it family. From now on, Chester will finally be free.”

Years later, when she walked out of prison, she found me broke, my résumé tossed aside, a cigarette hanging from my mouth. She snatched it away, threw herself into the Upper Circle, and fought her way up until she was the hard-edged chairman of Ellison Group.

After we married, every one of her passwords was set to my birthday.

And yet, when I opened her photo album, all I found were strangers, over eighteen hundred pictures, not a single one of me.

It was only then that Faye seemed to remember.

Expressionless, she wiped every photo from her phone right in front of me, tossed it onto the table, and said, “It’s all behind us. Just act like you never saw any of it.”

I pushed the divorce papers toward her. “I told you. Sign it.”

Faye slammed the pen down. “I already told you. There’s no divorce between us. We’re stuck together till one of us is dead.”

——

Faye didn’t sign.

She said it herself. There would be no divorce between us. Only death could separate us, just like we promised on our wedding day.

She didn’t even look at the papers before slamming the door and walking out. Not long after, my phone lit up with a message from an unknown number.

“You’re Chester Hastings, right? You must’ve seen it by now. She was saving my photos back when I was still in school. Faye loves me, not you. If you don’t step aside, she’ll make you suffer.”

Untouched by the world, or perhaps shielded too well by Faye, the boy's voice held a naïve kind of bravado.

Before I could even reply, he sent over a dozen pictures.

Faye’s waist-to-hip curve was perfect, her collarbone chain draped just so across her waist. The large hand resting on her hip often forgot to wear the wedding ring she and I shared.

Not until her belly began to swell was that chain finally removed.

“Chester,” the boy taunted, “in three years of marriage, she never bore you a child, but she let me get her pregnant. Don’t you get it? What’s the point of clinging on? Listen, if you don’t back off, I’ll move right into your house. Let’s see then who Faye will stand beside, you or me?”

I thought back over the last year, the months she spent away from home. A bitter smile tugged at my lips.

When Faye returned and saw the chat logs, she saw the shards of shattered glass and jade littering the floor, and she only arched a brow slightly.

“You have nothing you want to explain?” I asked, my voice ragged, mixing with the acrid smoke of her cigarette.

She gave a soft laugh, exhaled a ring of smoke, and sighed. “He’s just a kid. Why bother stooping to his level?”

Faye's tone was airy, like all those years of bloodshed and power struggles in the capital’s ruthless circles hadn’t fallen on us but on her and that boy instead.

“Yes, a boy like him doesn’t understand.”

I tossed a pathology report onto the table—genital organ, surgically removed.

She straightened instantly.

My words fell softly, almost carelessly. “So I taught your lover how to be a man.”

“Chester!”

Her sharp, manicured nails bit into my shoulders, leaving marks. I leaned against the wall, my back against it, as I slowly curved my lips into a satisfied smile, taking in the sight of her eyes, now red with anger.

She had only wept twice in her life.

One time, in our third year of high school, when she saw my skin split open, my mom pulled me by the hair to the side of the road, ready to throw me into the Yellow River. She stabbed my mom eighteen times.

And now, with this boy’s manhood crushed, her fingers gripped my shoulders, demanding answers for my cruelty.

“How rare,” I murmured, “to see the great Faye Ellison panic.”

I laughed without the slightest hint of remorse.

“You’re a man too, Chester! How could you do something like that to him?” Faye demanded, her voice slicing through the tension in the room.

“You said it yourself, Faye. There’s no divorce between us. Only death can separate us,” I said.

I closed the distance between us and then taunted, “If you can’t kill me, then I’ll have to kill both of you.”

For a moment, the only sound was the soft drip of blood.

It hit the floor, sharp and steady, echoing in the stillness.

Only then did she notice my hand, cut from when I had been smashing things.

She loosened her grip on my shoulders slowly.

“Good cut,” Faye said. “I was going to teach him a lesson anyway.”

She moved with that practiced precision I knew so well.

Faye carefully lifted my hand and dabbed at the wound. When she applied iodine, she blew on it the same way she always did. She’d been in the habit of tending my injuries like that for a long time. Back when my mother beat me until my body was a raw bruise, she could only find rubbing alcohol to disinfect my wounds. Even though she doesn’t use alcohol anymore, she’s still careful not to hurt me more.

Her palm, streaked with blood, left a print across her face.

“Stop it. It’s filthy,” Faye said, tilting her head away.

She didn’t even bother to ask whether I meant the blood or her.

Instead, she called for the butler, Mr. Blackwell, and handed him the first-aid kit.

There was a pause while the room reorganized itself.

The boy’s name was Harvey Robinson. When I tried to investigate further, all traces disappeared. I realized then that Faye was protecting him.

If I hadn’t acted quickly, I might never have found out his name.

With that, I confronted Faye. “You like him that much that you’ve cut off my access to all his messages?”

She let out a slow, measured sigh. “Chester, what’s the point of clinging to her?”

I flung the divorce papers at her again and demanded, “Sign them, and I’ll let you be. I won’t go after your baby boy.”

Faye made the decision that settled everything. The agreement didn’t last two seconds in her hands before she tore it into pieces and scattered the confetti across the floor.

“I told you that between us there is no divorce, and only death can separate us.”

I only laughed.

Everything changed in an instant. A wine bottle came crashing down on Faye's head. Red liquid streamed down her cheek, and it was impossible to tell if it was wine or blood.

I snatched the dagger from the table and charged.

She clamped onto my wrist, bracing herself against the downward force.

“Faye.” I was within a centimeter of her face. “Do you really think I won't?”

We held each other in that tense breath. Our hands trembled, neither yielding.

“Sign the divorce, or one of us dies," I growled.

But the standoff didn’t last.

Faye let out a soft, almost amused laugh and shifted the pressure inward. My hand, still clasped in hers, plunged the dagger deep into her shoulder. Blood splattered across my face.

She made a promise I could not accept. “I told you, I won’t let you die before me.”

“Faye!” I snarled, my teeth baring.

She loosened her hold and, with a single resigned breath, said, “Go ahead, then. Do it, Chester."

Everything blurred. I forcefully wrenched the dagger free. She muffled a groan; blood smeared my face. The metallic smell pulled my thoughts back to that rain-soaked night in senior year.

I could barely stand. I staggered, turned, and stumbled toward the door, numb and dazed.

Then she was there. With a single loud thud—the sound of one knee hitting the floor—she was suddenly by my side, moving quickly and steadily, catching me.

“Don’t be afraid. It’s okay. I’m here,” Faye whispered, stroking my cheek.

I watched the beads of blood trickle from her brow, each drop landing on my face.

Even with her own wound, her eyes were on me.

No worries for herself and only concern for me.

I saw it all again. During the countless nights my mother beat me until my skin split, she held me like this. She took the blows meant for me—bottles, stools, even a cleaver—using her back as a shield.

Amid my mother’s angry shouts, Faye would grin at me and say, “Don’t be afraid. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m with you.”

The memory hit me hard. We had once embraced in blood and kissed in a downpour.

When love reaches its limit, betrayal becomes even more grotesque.

I shoved him back. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

I stepped away, the house still thick with the stench of blood.

For a while, we kept our distance.

Harvey remained hidden under Faye’s careful protection, leaving no trace behind.

But a young man like him was always restless, always impatient. He couldn't stay away forever.

Eventually, he came looking for me.

“You've been trying to find her lately? I’ll tell you right now that she’s with me,” Harvey said, his voice brimming with smug confidence.

He was dressed head-to-toe in custom clothes, every detail sharp, every gesture proud.

Then, the bastard even added, “You think castrating me would fix everything?”

He leaned closer with a triumphant grin plastered on his face. “As long as her love is with me, the more you hurt me, the more she’ll love me. They reattached my parts perfectly—no damage at all. If anything, it makes me perform even better. I should be thanking you for the assist.”

With that, Harvey pulled his shirt open, showing off a flawless neck and the edge of his chest. Countless kiss marks repeated across his skin, declaring how completely Faye had demanded and taken from him.

“Too bad, though. I got your wife pregnant again.” His pride spilled out in every word.

Unruffled, I set my coffee down and drank it slowly, expressionless.

Meanwhile, Harvey flopped onto the custom sofa I had commissioned, propping his chin on his hands.

“I heard that after marriage, you didn’t manage to get her pregnant for three years. Finally, she’s with child.”

He laughed at his own joke, leaning back casually. “Ha! Didn’t keep it! Sometimes, you really can’t blame the woman.”

The coffee cup clinked sharply against the table.

Then Harvey screamed.

The room froze.

Bodyguards stood silent as Harvey doubled over on the floor, blood dripping from his groin.

“Chester! You’re gonna die a horrible death!” he howled.

The bodyguards dragged him toward the door, but he kept shouting, “Chester! If you do this, aren’t you afraid Faye will take revenge?”

I tapped my fingers on the marble table deliberately.

“You need to understand something,” I said, my voice low and controlled. “Just because my wife cares about you doesn’t mean you’ve earned a place in her life.”

...

That night, Faye returned home with dozens of people—an entire floor taken up by her entourage. She would not make such a spectacle unless she had a difficult opponent.

We faced each other across a table that felt more like a battlefield than furniture.

For the first time, she came at me with a blade drawn. We sat at opposite ends of the negotiation table, each backed by dozens of people.

“Twice now.” Her long, knuckled fingers rapped lightly against the marble. “Chester, you should apologize to him.”

But I replied, “That bastard brought it on himself. A fool who barges in has to take responsibility for his recklessness.”

Half of Faye’s face was swallowed by shadow; I couldn’t read her expression.

She folded her hands and studied me.

Still, I continued, my voice steady. “Does the great Faye Ellison really think her husband is so patient that he’d just sit there while another man shows up at his door?”

I flicked my lighter, igniting my cigar, the flame winking in the dim light. “Ms. Ellison, you need to understand this—after all these years of scraping and clawing through the Upper Circle, I bled right there beside you. And now, putting some pretty nobody up against me? Either you’re out of your mind, or he is.”

I slid another copy of the papers across the table, smoke curling behind my words.

“This is your last chance.”

The moon cast a cold light on the marble, but it didn't soften anything. We looked at each other in the dim glow; the moon reflected off my prosthetic limb, cold and shiny.

I spoke plainly, laying it all out. “From the start, you helped me take down my stepmother and storm the Smiths’ house for me. I lost a leg for you and bled for you. Faye, let’s part clean. No debts. No claims. That is the best way for both of us.”