All of Silicon Valley knew that the so-called business overlord, Ethan Blake, was madly in love with me.

At a multi-billion-dollar project launch, he once dropped to one knee to tie my shoelaces. He once flooded half the city with roses just to celebrate my birthday.

To outsiders, we were the most dazzling couple in the tech world.

But they didn’t know—

For him to secure a critical patent, I had forced our rival into bankruptcy, driving its CEO to jump to his death. To protect a core algorithm, I had eliminated more than one threat.

He once told me that we were destined for each other, meant to be together for life.

Yet when his little protégé shed tears before him, he allowed her to steal the glory I had spent half my life fighting for.

“Rachel, I love you. But Lily is pure. She’s not like you—she’s clean, she’s beautiful, and her future should remain so. Please, understand me?”

I smiled and nodded right there, but the next day I splashed etching acid across that protégé’s once-perfect face, the one the industry never stopped praising.

“So now, tell me, what’s her future supposed to look like?”

On the other end of the line, Ethan roared my name like a madman.

I stroked the Chief Security Officer’s badge pinned to my chest as I tapped into his corporation’s central control system.

My tone was light and mocking:

“Don’t panic, Mr. Blake. Your business empire is about to end up just like her face—”

“Rotten to the core.”

…

His furious roar nearly shattered the receiver.

“Rachel Adams! What did you do to Lily?!”

“What did I do?” I laughed softly, my eyes sweeping over Lily curled on the floor nearby, whimpering in agony.

The high-concentration etching acid worked instantly. The flawless face once hailed by countless in the industry now sizzled with a faint crackle.

“I just wanted to test if the delicate flower you put on a pedestal could withstand even the slightest wind and rain of reality.”

“Rachel! Don’t touch her! I warn you—if you dare lay another hand on her—”

“Mr. Blake.”

“Instead of worrying about her, maybe you should worry about yourself. If the Aegis System’s unpublished plans, along with your unexplainable financial dealings, all landed in your competitors’ inboxes… tell me, what do you think would happen?”

On the other end, there was a stunned silence, followed by rage and disbelief:

“You… how dare you?! Rachel, that’s ten years of our work!”

“Our work?” I sneered.

“The moment you let her parade around with my research to claim that award, the word ‘our’ ceased to exist. Ethan Blake, you were the one who taught me that once something gets dirty, you throw it away.”

Perhaps hearing Ethan’s voice, Lily let out another sharp, pitiful cry:

“Brother… my face… it hurts… kill her…”

Ethan’s voice trembled with panic and heartbreak.

“Lily! Don’t be afraid, I’m coming right now!”

“Rachel, if you want to punish someone, punish me. Lily is innocent—she doesn’t deserve your cruelty!”

“What do I want?”

I glanced at the computer screen as the prompt [Transmission Complete] flashed. My lips curved into a cold smile.

“I want you to watch with your own eyes how the empire you’re so proud of crumbles, just like her so-called perfect future—”

I paused, then pronounced each word with chilling clarity:

“Completely shattered. Nothing left.”

With that, I hung up, cutting off his enraged screams.

Leaning back in my chair, I couldn’t stop the echo of his words in my mind: ten years of work.

Ten years.

I remembered when he had just started his company, crammed into a tiny office, the two of us sharing one cup of instant noodles. His eyes sparkled as he told me:

“Rachel, we’re going to change the world.”

As the company grew, we made countless enemies.

To win that critical patent, I used every trick, pushing our rival to the edge until its leader leapt to his death.

Ethan held me tight afterward:

“Don’t be afraid, Rachel. We’re partners in crime. For life, we’re bound together.”

On the eve of the Aegis System’s debut, we faced our most vicious hacker attack. The servers were on the verge of collapse.

I locked myself in the server room for seventy-two hours, fighting back wave after wave of intrusions until exhaustion knocked me out in his arms.

He kept vigil all night, red-eyed, whispering:

“Rachel, you’re my armor, and my weakness. Without you, what would I do?”

Those bloody, hidden battles—he once called them our shared medals, proof of our inseparable bond.

And yet now, he claimed Lily was pure and clean, that her future shouldn’t be stained by blood like mine.

How laughable.

He fell in love with the very purity he had stripped away from himself, forgetting who bore all the shadows so he could bask in the light.

He wanted my dirty hands to shield him while he sought comfort in his white-moonlight angel.

Everything, always in his favor.

But I hadn’t expected Ethan to move so fast, so ruthlessly.

Less than half an hour after I cut the call, just as I drove out of the lab’s range, the car radio blared a breaking news report:

“Urgent! LR Corporation announces a major malicious cyberattack. Portions of core technical data may have leaked. Emergency measures have been activated, and authorities have been notified…”

My expression darkened. He had reacted faster than I imagined—redefining everything as a hostile attack, casting himself as the victim, seizing control of public opinion.

The next second, every one of my bank cards and digital payment accounts was frozen.

My face hardened. To mobilize such financial resources with such precision, he had clearly prepared for this long ago.

Perhaps he had always planned to drive me into this very corner.

Using a disposable phone, I connected to public Wi-Fi and tried to access the hidden backdoors I had buried deep in LR’s system.

Just as I caught a signal, an encrypted message popped up from one of my embedded contacts in LR’s tech department:

“Ms. Rachel! Run! Mr. Blake has uncovered every hidden access! He planted reverse tracking traps! He’s been waiting for you to log in again! He’s lost it—he swore he’d stop at nothing to find you!”

The message cut off. The line was dead when I called back.

Cold sweat drenched my back. He knew my habits too well—he had predicted every move I’d make.

The man with whom I once shared every secret and every line of code was now weaving a net to capture me.

A crushing sense of betrayal and fury overwhelmed me.

That night, LR held a press conference.

Ethan appeared before the cameras, exhausted yet projecting steady determination. He blamed the incident entirely on a disgruntled former employee hired by competitors to commit corporate espionage and sabotage.

He denounced such behavior as shameless and harmful to the industry.

Not once did he mention Lily—yet he masterfully painted himself as the victimized leader of the sector.

The cameras turned to Lily.

Her face was swathed in heavy bandages, only a pair of tear-swollen, pitiful eyes showing through.

She leaned weakly against Ethan, her voice trembling through the microphone:

“I… I’ll be fine. Even if my face is ruined, it doesn’t matter. I just don’t understand—why would my sister do this to LR? Those codes and data… they’re the work of so many people!”

She sobbed as she spoke, nearly collapsing from breathlessness at the end. Ethan immediately caught her in his arms, frantic with worry.

“Poor Miss Evans! That vile woman must’ve been jealous of her beauty!”

“That ex-employee is heartless—she deserves prison for life!”

The live comments exploded with sympathy and outrage.

Soon, someone dug up a photo of that “former employee.”

Who else could it be but me?

The internet erupted in disbelief. No one could fathom that I, Ethan’s so-called perfect partner, would betray his company.

And with each “kindly provided” leak, all our shadowy deeds were reframed as my personal crimes.

Every detail lined up seamlessly—it had all been prearranged.

Ethan, you guarded against me this thoroughly.

Just then, screeching tires and heavy footsteps sounded outside the motel.

“Room check! Open up!”

My heart stopped.

Had they already tracked me down?

I was dragged back into the very place I had once cherished, now one that made me sick.

When we met again, Ethan’s face was drawn with fatigue, his eyes once full of love now burning only with disappointment and fury.

“Rachel Adams. Do you even realize what you’ve done? What you’ve done to LR? To our ten years together?”

Hearing his hypocrisy, I almost laughed through my tears.

“Our ten years? Ethan Blake, the moment you let Lily replace me, those ‘ten years’ were already dead.”

“That doesn’t justify such extreme actions!”

He raised his voice and seized my wrist so hard I thought my bones might snap.

“Look at you! Vicious, unhinged—what’s the difference between you and those enemies we once fought?”

His eyes scanned my face—anger, disappointment… and a fleeting trace of something dangerously close to longing.

“Lily’s face… the doctor says with the latest biotech repair, there’s still a chance of recovery.”

He paused, his tone softening with weary compromise:

“Rachel, stop this. Hand over the leaked source data. Publicly apologize to Lily and LR. Admit you were confused for a moment… and I can try to forgive you.”

“Forgive me?”

I fixed my gaze on him, my words deliberate and sharp.

“Ethan, if my face had been destroyed, would you be using every resource, sparing no expense to save me like you’re doing for Lily?”

He froze, his eyes flickering. He didn’t answer right away.

“Rachel, you’ve always been strong. A face isn’t essential to you.”

Ha. Not essential.

“In that case…”

“I won’t apologize. I won’t hand over anything. Do whatever you want—kill me if you must.”

His face turned to stone.

“If you insist on being stubborn, then don’t blame me. Until you come to your senses, you’re staying right here.”

And so, I was placed under house arrest.

Ethan would sometimes come, always late at night, reeking of alcohol and exhaustion, his gaze heavy with conflicted affection.

He stood at the doorway, never stepping inside, repeating the same hollow words again and again.