Seven years into my life in The Underground, I crossed paths with Serena Harding again.

She'd become Harbor City's uncrowned queen—untouchable.

Famous. Powerful. Ready to scrub her past clean and step into the light.

And I was the stain she needed to wash away.

Beneath the glare of neon signs, Serena looked down at me.

"Alex Simmons. After all these years... do you ever regret it?"

Her gaze churned with something old—love and hate, tangled together from seven years ago.

As if I only had to bow my head, just slightly, and we could slip back through time to when we were happy.

But I just smiled, cold and faint.

"Never."

I'd made my choice that night seven years ago.

Even if heaven gave me a hundred do-overs. Even if I had to face every storm alone.

I wouldn't hesitate. I'd choose the same thing every time.

——

Mongkok Tower was Harbor City's most notorious slum—home to everyone this city wanted to forget.

I'd hidden here to put as much distance between myself and Serena as possible.

Funny how seven years of running in circles led me right back to her.

And in the most humiliating way imaginable.

Serena had brought an entourage to inspect the building. They were discussing demolition plans—tearing down Mongkok Tower, replacing it with a gleaming commercial high-rise.

Meanwhile, I was chasing down a customer who owed me five hundred bucks.

One careless step, and I landed face-first at Serena Harding's feet.

Our eyes met.

Hers held shock. Disgust. And something else—a flicker of pain she probably didn't even notice—gone in an instant.

Then her face went cold again. She stared down at me.

"Alex Simmons. You left me no matter what I said."

A pause.

"So this is what you wanted."

The lackey behind her caught the contempt in her voice and ran with it. He crouched down, making a show of wiping the dirt I'd gotten on her shoes, his voice pitched loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Well, well—if it isn't Mongkok's number-one pretty boy!"

"Back when Serena hit rock bottom, you grabbed all her money and ran off with that little tramp."

"Seven years later, look at you now. What happened? She dump you too? Left you out here selling yourself?"

He snorted. "Figures. What else would you expect from a homewrecker?"

"You think every woman's gonna be like Serena? Selling her own blood just to keep you fed?"

He ranted on, righteous and oblivious.

Completely missing the way Serena's expression had shifted behind him.

These past years, Serena's rise had been meteoric.

She'd inherited the entire Harding empire. Built on it with her own ruthlessness—that desperate, all-or-nothing edge she'd always had.

Now she stood at the peak.

Happy. Dazzling. Untouchable.

Why would she want to remember that miserable chapter of her life? The one that belonged to me?

But our history wasn't exactly a secret.

The executives noticed the change in her face and scrambled to smooth things over. They brought up Ethan Pruitt—her fiancé—assured her trash like me wasn't worth her anger.

Surrounded by flattery, Serena's expression softened. She stepped past me without another glance.

But at the last moment, she stopped. Turned.

"Alex Simmons. Why?"

The others looked confused.

But I knew exactly what she was asking.

Why did I leave without saying goodbye back then.

Why did I choose a person like that.

Why, after ending up with such an outcome, was I still unwilling to bow my head to her.

I looked at the trace of coldness in Serena's eyes that she couldn't let go of.

With a light laugh, I gave the same answer as seven years ago.

"Because of love."

I love Serena Harding.

From the moment I first came to Harbor City, when she pulled me out of the mud, I had already fallen in love with her.

I remember that day—the evening wind brushing my face, the sky ablaze with sunset.

Serena lifted me onto her motorcycle and told me to hold her waist and not be afraid.

"Remember this—your sister here is the boss of this whole block."

"From now on, stick with me, and you won't have to be afraid of anything."

What boss—Serena was a big liar.

All her belongings added together amounted to one clueless little underling who couldn't read the room, and a beat-up motorcycle that had been patched up more times than I could count.

But we made it work. Day after day, we got by on that motorcycle.

Using the skills I'd learned on the mainland, I opened a flower shop. Serena rode that broken bike to make deliveries.

The day we made it official, we agreed to save up and take over a storefront. When the shop opened, we'd get married.

Serena was so happy she almost didn't know where she was. She hugged me and kissed me again and again, giddy like a little kid.

"This is amazing—me, Serena Harding, I'm finally going to have a home!"

"My future husband, I'll work so hard for us, I swear!"

From then on, she put those words into action.

Rain or shine, freezing cold or scorching heat—Serena didn't slack off a single day.

She already had a head for business. Once she shed that careless, good-for-nothing disguise, she became unstoppable.

In just a few years, she'd built up her own network and saved a decent amount of money.

Every time Serena came back after finishing her rounds, her favorite thing was counting money at home. She liked to divide it into little stacks, one after another, muttering with conviction.

"This portion's for buying a house."

"This portion's for marrying Alex."

"This portion's for buying him new clothes."

I felt sorry for how hard she worked.

But Serena always said that as long as I was happy, everything she endured had meaning.

Just like that, we finally saved enough to buy a house.

But it was also that year that Serena was diagnosed with heart failure.

The surgery fee was astronomical.

Even if I gave up everything I had. Even if her underling friends emptied their savings, running around everywhere to borrow money.

We were still three hundred thousand short.

I went to loan sharks. Relatives and friends dodged me the moment they saw me coming.

I had no other choice. So I sold myself.

I went to find Third Master—the man who had tricked me into The Underground all those years ago.

I promised that if he'd give me three hundred thousand, I would follow him wholeheartedly and work for him for the rest of my life.

After hearing my offer, Third Master laughed so hard he couldn't straighten his back. He looked at me with contempt.

"With that plain face of yours, you think you're worth three hundred thousand?"

He sized me up from top to bottom, his eyes calculating.

"Three hundred thousand to buy a person isn't worth it. But to buy some face—now that's worth it."

"I just don't know if you're willing."

To me back then, as long as I could save Serena's life, I would agree to anything.

Even if it meant hurting her.

To satisfy Third Master's twisted sense of entertainment, I lied to Serena and told her I'd fallen in love with another woman.

I made Serena kneel to me in public.

I posted her humble, helpless image online.

I used every vicious method I could think of to hurt her.

During that time, Serena really humbled herself to the extreme.

She cut her wrists. Banged her head against walls. Countless times, she looked at me with red-rimmed eyes and asked me why.

And I just kept telling her, cold as ice: "Because I don't love you anymore."

A woman who had never feared anything in her life cried for the first time. Like a child, she sobbed and begged me not to leave. She said she'd get proper treatment, work properly. She'd give me every cent she earned. She just begged me not to go.

"Alex, I won't live much longer. I won't live much longer!"

"Just think of it as charity—lie to me, okay?"

"I still have a little stash in the bank. The password is your birthday."

"I'll give you everything I have. Just stay with me two more days. Just two days—is that still too much to ask?"

Serena trampled her own dignity into the dirt. She humbled herself to nothing. She wasn't even asking me to come back to her. She only asked that in the final days of her life, I would look at her one more time.

I lied to her.

I pretended to agree to get back together. And the moment hope flickered back into her eyes, I stole all her money.

I remember exactly how much was in that account. $35,800.

It was what Serena had saved up for a bride price—for me.

She knew I had no parents, no relatives who could arrange these things. She didn't want me to lose face at our wedding. So she asked around everywhere, learned the customs of my hometown, and saved up every penny.

$35,800. I took it all. I didn't even leave her that beat-up motorcycle.

When she found out, Serena vomited blood in the hospital and collapsed on the spot.

Her boys went crazy searching for me, north and south. Someone even put out a bounty. They swore they'd cut me into a thousand pieces for what I did to her.

But neither Serena nor anyone else ever found me.

Because I was lying in a hospital bed. Preparing for heart surgery.

I broke Serena's heart completely. I sold myself. But I used the money to extend her life.

I never told her our match was perfect. Just like I never told her the real reason I left.

Fate finally showed mercy to that pitiful woman.

Serena's surgery went smoothly. She recovered fast—and through it, she found the family she'd been separated from for years. That's when everyone discovered the truth: the gifted little delinquent from the streets was actually the lost bloodline of the wealthy Harding family.

Serena returned to her roots. After all that bitterness, sweetness finally came. She moved out of Mongkok Tower and got the best medical care money could buy. She inherited the family business. Got engaged to some rich heir.

Her life kept getting better. Her name started appearing on financial news channels.

And me? I replaced my heart with the cheapest artificial one on the market. Curled up in the Underground, silently waiting to wither away.

Seven years passed in the blink of an eye.

Even I didn't expect that at the end of my life, I'd see Serena again.

……

The roar of the sports car cut through my memories.

When I looked up, her figure had already vanished into the dust.

I patted myself off, picked up the loose change from the ground, and walked back to that shabby little rental.

Maybe Serena had already forgotten. That we once lived here together, happy, for a very long time.