Chapter 3

The cash scattered around Nana's collapsed body pierced my brain like needles.

Even in death, some memories are branded deep into the soul.

When Liam's startup finally began to take off, I gave everything I had to support him. I even cashed out part of the life insurance my parents left me just to keep the company afloat.

Things seemed to be looking up. A major tech conglomerate offered to buy his core algorithm for a lucrative price. Liam was tempted.

Then, the world caved in. Lawsuits. Patent infringement. Allegations of stolen tech. It was a meticulously orchestrated attack, corporate sabotage designed to cripple us.

Up against a corporate behemoth, Liam was like a minnow. He had neither the legal funds nor the ironclad evidence needed to win. The lawsuit eventually drained the company dry.

Legal notices piled up like death warrants. We were walking on thin ice, every day feeling like a year. At our lowest point, we squeezed into a damp basement apartment in Oakland, surviving on instant noodles and stale bread.

Under the stress, my hair fell out in clumps.

He held me tightly, his voice hoarse from exhaustion. "Don't worry. We'll get through this. We'll bounce back. I promise. I'll give you the life you've always dreamed of."

He'd talk about our future, painting vivid pictures: a cozy house, a dog named Pixel, two kids with my eyes and his stubborn jawline. "Chloe, you won't ever have to work again. I'll take care of everything."

Whenever he thought I was asleep, he'd slip out of bed and code until dawn.

I watched helplessly as he wasted away day by day.

The stress was going to destroy him. Our love, our future-it had all turned into a crushing weight on his shoulders.

He was working himself into an early grave.

He was going to die because of his sense of responsibility, because he loved me.

I couldn't bear to watch him destroy himself. I knocked on the doors of every venture capitalist I could find, but no one wanted to touch a startup mired in litigation.

Just when we were pushed to the absolute brink, Sebastian Cole stepped in.

He said he could solve all of Liam's problems. He could make the lawsuits disappear and inject the necessary capital.

But he had one condition: I had to marry him.

On a muggy, suffocating summer night, I broke up with Liam. He stood outside his dilapidated office building, drenched in sweat, begging me not to go.

"Chloe, please don't give up on us," his voice cracked. "I'm figuring it out, I swear I'll turn things around. Just give me a little more time, please."

I pulled my hand from his grasp, forcing my voice to sound icy. "Let go of me, Liam. I'm dead tired."

"What kind of future will I have with you? Can you give me stability? Can you even make rent?"

"I'm sick of struggling. I'm sick of being poor. Sebastian can give me what you can't."

I let Sebastian pull me into his arms, intentionally avoiding Liam's shattered eyes.

I knew that if I looked, my resolve would crumble, and Liam would end up in jail for debts he could never repay.

I thought my harsh words would make him leave in anger. Instead, he stumbled forward, grabbed my hand, and pressed it against his wet cheek.

"Chloe," he pleaded, his voice so low it was barely a whisper. "Please don't abandon me."

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper, fighting back tears. My hand trembled against his face.

Sebastian sneered. He swatted Liam's hand away, then intertwined his fingers with mine.

Sebastian had despised Liam since college, infuriated that Liam had beaten him to winning my heart.

"Kiss me, Chloe," Sebastian demanded. I knew he was doing this purely to humiliate Liam. He had waited years for this very moment.

"No," Liam shook his head, his eyes wide with horror. "Don't do this, Chloe. Please."

But I moved anyway. I wrapped my arms around Sebastian's neck and kissed him, forcing myself to look passionate.

It was a kiss born of pure self-loathing.

Sebastian gripped my waist so tightly it knocked the wind out of me.

When I finally pulled away, the light in Liam's eyes had vanished completely. It was dead.

"Do you see now, Liam? I don't love you anymore."

"I love money. I love power. Sebastian can give me those things, and you can't."

Sebastian smiled triumphantly. As he led me away, Liam remained frozen on the sidewalk, completely motionless. The sweltering heat of the night seemed to swallow him whole.

Liam stood there for a long time, like a statue of despair, even long after we had gone.

I sat in the backseat of Sebastian's car, watching him until the building disappeared from sight.

After that, he vanished-from our city, from our lives.

Later, I heard he had gone overseas to start over.

Three years. It had been three years since I last saw him. It had been three years since I was last truly alive.

And now, I was a ghost, a silent spectator trapped in this cruel farce of a life.