"A ritual marriage to ward off bad luck? In the last five years, the only case like that was the Sanchez heir—comatose after his car accident, needed a bride for the ceremony."

"Oh my God! Then 'Lucy' must be Lucinda Vance! They were childhood sweethearts, and she turns out to be a fake heiress!"

"Am I the only one who thinks the real bombshell is that the Sanchez heir is already MARRIED?"

That last comment wrapped around my throat like a fist.

Because he didn't love me, even something as simple as being acknowledged was too much to ask.

I wanted to laugh, but the tears came instead—rolling down my face like a broken string of pearls, impossible to stop.

The moment the anonymous account was exposed, the screen flickered and the post vanished.

In its place: a cease-and-desist letter from a law firm.

"This thread shall not be linked to any real individuals. Any comments defaming Miss Vance's reputation will be pursued to the fullest extent by Sanchez Group Legal."

Miss Vance.

No need to guess which Miss Vance they meant. That shield was for Lucinda, and Lucinda alone.

In the ten minutes I'd spent scrolling, a crowd had already gathered at the base of the building.

Nathan ignored the firefighters trying to hold him back and climbed onto the rooftop.

He hadn't even caught his breath before he was moving toward me, face tight with panic, voice trembling as though he were terrified.

"Tilly, please—don't do anything rash. This is all my fault, every bit of it. I can't live without you."

That desperate, guilt-ridden tone—

a completely different man from the one who'd just had that post scrubbed clean.

For a moment, I genuinely couldn't tell which version of him was real.

Ever since I arrived in this world and accepted the mission to win his heart, my entire life had revolved around him.

Nathan had been a minor branch member of the Sanchez family. Under my careful devotion he woke from his coma, and with me holding the script of future events, he rose through the ranks and inherited the Sanchez empire without a single obstacle.

During the years when I loved him most, Nathan used to hold me and whisper promises.

"Tilly, without you, being alive means nothing. We'll never be separated—only death could part us."

I believed him.

When I was "violated" by kidnappers, I locked myself in the bathroom and scrubbed my skin raw until the bathwater turned red with blood.

When I found out the child I carried was supposedly another man's, the revulsion was so unbearable I grabbed a pair of scissors and tried to cut the baby out of my own body.

When my contracts and my position were stolen from me, he said I wasn't capable enough to command respect—better to stay home and rest. I obeyed. I waited through thousands of cold, empty nights for him to come home.

It was during that stretch of darkness that the System appeared.

[Host, your heart is breaking. I'm not going to ask you to complete the mission anymore. Let me take you home...]

The System said that even though the mission was unfinished, it could still grant my wish—

A pair of parents who truly loved me.

A partner who would never betray me.

Back then, I hadn't seen through the filth hiding beneath Nathan's and my parents' so-called care.

I only told the System, "Isn't that exactly the life I'm already living?"

Now the lies and the masks had been ripped away by that single post.

I couldn't keep lying to myself anymore.

When I came back to my senses, the System's voice echoed in my mind again.

[Host, Nathan is here. You're definitely going to go soft again. It's windy up here—if you're not going to jump, at least go back inside.]

Ten trips to the ICU. Nine of those times, I'd been on my knees begging the System to let me live.

Every word out of my mouth had been about Nathan and my parents.

I'd made them my entire world.

And what had they made me?

"No, System. This time I'm really going home."

The words slipped out in a murmur, my voice cracking.

Nathan heard me and let out a quiet scoff. A flash of contempt darted through his eyes—

Ten ICU visits, and when had she ever actually died?

But the loving-husband act still had to be maintained. He forced his eyes to redden and stepped closer again.

"Tilly, if you jump, I jump. I'll die right alongside you—"

I didn't hear him. Didn't want to.

I closed my eyes and spread my arms wide.

In the chorus of screams rising from below—

I stepped off the edge.

Nathan Sanchez, I'm done.

Mom, Dad—I don't need you either.

Consider this my gift. Now you and Lucinda can have your perfect family reunion.

When I came to, the sharp sting of antiseptic flooded my nostrils.

For one breathless moment, I thought I'd made it back.

But before the hope could even take shape, a familiar voice shattered it.

I hadn't died after all.

"Tilly, you're finally awake. Do you have any idea—if you'd jumped even a little more to the side, you would've missed the safety cushion entirely. And if you hadn't woken up soon, I was about to call an emergency shareholders' meeting just so I could follow you."

Nathan's eyes were rimmed red, his voice trembling and choked with emotion. He gripped my hand so tightly it hurt, like he was clutching something precious he'd nearly lost forever.

But the moment he leaned down to press a kiss to my forehead—

I saw the marks on his neck. Fresh, unmistakable hickeys that hadn't been there before. And clinging to his clothes was the scent of magnolia—Lucinda's signature perfume.

Details I'd never noticed before.

My stomach lurched. I dry-heaved right there in the bed.

Nathan's face went white. He called in every doctor in the hospital.

He stood to the side, eyes locked on the medical team, looking for all the world like a man who'd rip the pain out of my body and bear it himself if he could.

The doctor checked my thready pulse, his expression grave.

"Mrs. Sanchez's body is severely depleted. There's significant emotional distress compounding her condition. She needs careful, sustained care—and absolutely no further agitation."

He paused, then continued more quietly. "The day of her incident, I was called to the Sanchez residence. I don't know what happened, but by the time I arrived, she was in full respiratory alkalosis—convulsing, barely breathing. Ten more minutes and she would have been gone." He glanced at Nathan. "Mr. Sanchez, I'd strongly recommend paying attention to your wife's mental health."

The memory hit me without warning—Biscuit's glassy eyes staring up at me, wide open, unseeing. Blood seeping along the grout lines between the tiles, creeping up the soles of my shoes.

My hollow gaze trembled.

Biscuit had been my longest companion in this world. My most faithful friend since I'd arrived.

And Lucinda had poisoned him with a cup of drugged milk, then butchered him into hot pot.

Nathan must have felt me shaking. Something raw flickered behind his eyes, and he pulled me into his arms.

His voice dropped low, dangerous, as he turned to his assistant. "Find out exactly what happened that day. Whoever's responsible—I want them begging Tilly for forgiveness on their knees. With their life."

The words had barely left his mouth when the door slammed open.

Lucinda swept in wearing a white couture dress, her makeup immaculate, two perfect tears glistening on her cheeks. She looked like a delicate flower—pure, fragile, innocent.

But the instant her gaze landed on me, something venomous flashed through her eyes. Gone in a blink.

She dropped to her knees in front of me. In her pale, slender hands, she held a leather riding crop.

"Nathan, this is all my fault. If I'd known my sister would react this way, I would have let Biscuit bite me to death before I ever hurt him. It's all because of me." She lifted the crop toward me, her voice breaking. "Please, hit me. I deserve it."

Nathan froze. But beneath the shock, that telltale softness crept into his eyes.

My parents filed in behind her. When they saw Lucinda kneeling there, their fingers twisted into the hems of their clothes, knuckles white—barely holding together the performance of parents who loved me.

Nathan reached out to pull her up. "What is this about?"

But Lucinda refused to move. She stayed rooted to the floor, stubborn and trembling, tilting her tear-streaked face up at him.

"Nathan, if my sister can't bring herself to do it, then you do it for her. If she doesn't get this anger out, her depression will only get worse. It's just a few lashes." Her voice quavered with rehearsed courage. "Hit me as hard as you can. Even if it tears the skin off my back—as long as it makes her feel better, I'll take it willingly."

She pressed the riding crop into Nathan's hand, closing his fingers around it.

That look on her face—wounded, selfless, enduring—made it seem like I was the one bullying her from my sickbed.

Even the doctor standing nearby softened toward her. The look he turned on me was one of barely concealed disgust.

She could do this every single time. A few carefully chosen words, and suddenly I was the villain.

Before, I would have scrambled to defend myself. Argued. Explained.

But not anymore.

While Nathan hesitated, I grabbed the riding crop. But before I could hurl it away, his hand clamped around my wrist.

"Enough! Tilly, stay out of this. I'll deal with what happened with Lucinda myself."

His grip was crushing. My thin wrist throbbed under his fingers, the skin already flushing an angry red.

I looked up into his eyes and found something that stopped me cold—wariness. The kind of guarded vigilance reserved for someone he considered a threat.

I laughed.

Something stirred in the dead hollow of my chest. Not sorrow. Not resignation. Anger.

What gave him the right to assume I was the one capable of hurting someone?

Just because she was Lucinda Vance?

My heart clenched like a fist. I tightened my grip on the whip and swung it straight at Nathan—

"No!"

A slender figure threw herself forward, shielding him with her body.

The whip cracked through the air, sharp and shrill.

"Ah!"

Lucinda cried out, her delicate frame swaying once before she crumpled.

Nathan caught her. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes were glacial.

"Tilly, you've gone too far this time!"

He turned on his heel, Lucinda limp in his arms, and the door slammed behind him hard enough to rattle the walls.

I stood there, alone. The whip trembled in my hand until my fingers gave out and it clattered to the floor.

That night, after the nurse finished her rounds, someone lunged from the darkness and clamped a cloth over my mouth and nose.

A sharp, chemical smell flooded my sinuses. I thrashed twice before the world dissolved.

When I woke, everything was black.

A blindfold pressed tight against my eyes. My wrists were bound to a chair, every muscle locked in place.

Crack.

The first lash struck my chest. Pain tore from my collarbone down to my stomach, and my spine arched involuntarily.

"This is what happens when you cross someone you shouldn't have crossed. Consider it punishment."

The voice came from directly in front of me.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

The lashes fell like a downpour, each one splitting the air before splitting my skin. I could feel myself coming apart—wet, raw, burning.

"Is this because of Lucinda?"

I bit down on my lip until I tasted iron, forcing the words out through clenched teeth.

The whip paused. Ten seconds. Twenty.

Then it came down harder. Faster.

It went on and on, until my thoughts blurred at the edges and my body stopped registering individual strikes. Only when I was barely conscious did it finally stop.

Then—the sound of a phone being dialed.

"Sir, ma'am, it's done." The man's voice was deferential. Polished.

From the other end of the line, a woman's voice. Familiar.

"Good. I'll pass the word along to Mr. Sanchez. Take her back."

Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice.

That was my mother's voice.

One accidental lash on Lucinda—and they'd repaid me with ninety-nine.

Agony and cold devoured me whole. Inside my mind, the System's voice flickered to life.

[Host, hold on. I'll bring you home soon.]

I didn't expect to open my eyes again.

The doctor told me I'd been unconscious for half a month.

My parents and Nathan had kept vigil at my bedside every single day—donating blood, flying in the best specialists money could buy, doing everything in their power to pull me back from the edge.

When Nathan reached over to press the nurse call button, his sleeve rode up. The skin of his wrist was striped with welts.

His eyes were heavy with guilt. "Tilly, I failed you. I let someone take you, let them hurt you like this. However many lashes you took, I gave myself the same. I wanted to carve your pain into my bones—so I'd remember. So I'd never let it happen again."

I laughed. Tears spilled down my cheeks.

He was the one who'd ordered it.

I turned my face away. I didn't want to waste another word on him.

Nathan took my silence for sulking. Every day after that, a fresh bouquet of Juliet roses arrived—flown in from halfway across the world.

My parents, too, showered me with gifts. Couture gowns. Diamond jewelry. One extravagant offering after another.

But every time they left, like clockwork, a text would light up my phone.

Lucinda, lounging in a sea of Juliet roses worth a fortune,