One Hundred Pranks, One True End

For two years, I lived a fairy tale with Liam Hayes, the tech mogul. He' d lost his memory in a terrible accident, but he remembered me, or so he said. I, a struggling artist, bought into his relentless passion. We were building a life, a family even. I held a positive pregnancy test, ready to share our news. Then, I heard my college rival, Chloe Jenkins, speak from his office, her voice like sugar-coated poison. "Two whole years. Ninety-nine times. You promised." My blood ran cold as Liam's sharp, cynical laugh filled the room. This wasn't the gentle man I knew. He confirmed it. My entire relationship had been a cruel game, a "prank" designed to make me look like a fool. They mocked my ruined artworks, my canceled shows, every humiliation I' d endured. Liam had been there each time, comforting me with fake sympathy, while secretly logging his "pranks." Chloe purred, "One hundred pranks, one hundred proofs of your love for me." Liam' s reply, dripping with adoration, shattered me: "She was just a means to an end. A pawn." The pregnancy test in my pocket felt like a block of ice. My love, our life, our future baby-all a sick joke. My fairy tale was a cage, my prince a monster. He wanted one hundred pranks, a century of my pain. When I found his hidden sketchbook, full of intimate drawings of me and a receipt for an engagement ring, a dangerous hope flickered. Had he felt something real? But that hope died when I called a women's clinic. This child was conceived in deceit, an extension of his game. I refused to bring a child into this twisted world. At a yacht party, after my procedure, Liam's friends, at Chloe's urging, forced me to eat poisoned oysters, designed to induce a miscarriage. They knew. "He didn't want a child with her tying him down," Chloe hissed. "He was just waiting for the right moment for the problem to go away. I just provided the opportunity." I bled, the pain excruciating, as Liam, seeing me, yelled for a helicopter. Chloe, cold and final, drilled into my fading consciousness: "Don't you dare forget who you're doing all this for. You love me. Remember?" Liam' s strained reply: "I know, Chloe. I... I know." How could he? How could the man who held me at night, whispering endearments, be the same man who orchestrated my destruction? Why him? Why me? Ava Miller died that day. But Elise Vance was born, and she was coming for them.