Chapter 1

The air in my penthouse apartment felt heavy, thick with the unspoken dread of tomorrow. SAT scores were due. My future, meticulously planned, hinged on those numbers. A score above 1550, Columbia University, then the world. That was the Winston way.

A notification pinged on my phone. A link. From an unknown number.

My stomach twisted.

I clicked.

A website I'd never seen. A sleek, dark interface. An auction.

And then I saw it. My face.

Hundreds of photos. Me in my bedroom, at the pool, laughing with friends. Private moments. Some were real, snatched from my life. Others... others were twisted, faked. Deepfakes. My face on bodies, in situations I couldn't comprehend.

The auction title: "Isabella Winston – 365 Days of Intimacy."

My blood ran cold.

The seller: "CB_Blackwood."

Caleb.

Caleb Blackwood. The boy next door, the one my father had practically saved from ruin, taken in, treated like a son. The one who'd always looked at me with something unreadable in his eyes.

My hands shook. I had to get them back.

I logged into my trust fund account. My fingers flew across the keypad, bidding.

But every time, a new bid appeared, just one dollar higher.

The bidder: "Ash_J."

Ashley Jenkins. Caleb's vapid, social-climbing girlfriend.

He was feeding her the money.

Then Caleb himself messaged me through the auction platform. "Having trouble, Izzy? Money not enough? How about something you actually earned? That SAT score you're so proud of. The one that gets you into Columbia. Bet that."

Desperation clawed at me. My reputation, my family's name.

"Fine," I typed back. "My SAT score. 1550 points. And all my liquid assets."

The auctioneer, a faceless avatar, declared me the winner.

A wave of sick relief washed over me. It was over.

The next morning, the relief curdled into horror.

My bank accounts were empty. Wiped clean. Transferred, legally, to a shell corporation owned by Caleb.

My SAT scores posted. Zero. A blank submission.

Ashley Jenkins? 1550. A full scholarship to Columbia.

And the photos? They were everywhere. Every gossip site, every social media feed. My carefully constructed world shattered.

The shame was a physical weight, crushing me.

I walked to the edge of my balcony, the city lights a blur through my tears.

As I fell, a final, chilling realization hit me. Caleb hadn't just outsmarted me. He'd used something else. A system.

He had a "Contract Auction System." Whatever was bid, whatever was won, the system forced the transaction. Legally. Irrevocably.

His goal wasn't just money. It was my future. My score for Ashley. My family's wealth for himself.

My life for his sick revenge.

Then, darkness.

A gasp.

I sat bolt upright in my bed. My heart hammered against my ribs.

Sunlight streamed through my window. My phone calendar glowed: April 15th.

Weeks before the SATs. Weeks before the auction.

I was back.

The horror was still fresh, a raw wound.

But beneath it, something new. Cold. Hard.

Revenge.