Introduction

The hospital air was cold, too clean, smelling like death trying to hide.

I was running, lungs burning, clutching the $50,000 I'd scraped together-every cent Dad and I had, plus loans and extra shifts-desperate to save my father.

He'd helped me raise the money for Izzy' s "crippling debt," a desperate plea from the woman I loved and planned to marry.

I believed her, truly.

Then the doctor delivered the blow: "Your father, Michael... he passed away an hour ago. He collapsed because he hadn' t been taking his prescribed medication. The expensive ones for his condition."

My blood ran cold, the words echoing in the sterile hallway.

He did this for Izzy.

He killed himself to help my girlfriend.

Numb, I found Izzy at her "struggling artist" apartment, her eyes feigning perfect concern.

"It's for your debt," I rasped, handing her the thick envelope.

Days later, working a catering gig, my father' s cheap cardboard urn tucked under my arm, I overheard her at a lavish party.

Izzy, laughing with Liam Astor, her smug "childhood friend."

"He actually passed the hardship test, Liam. Impressive, for a line cook."

My blood turned to ice.

Then Liam' s cruel reply: "The old man croaking was a nice touch. Really sold the desperation."

They knew.

They knew my father died.

My father' s life, his sacrifice, was a game. A test.

The love I felt for Izzy, the future I imagined with her, crumbled into ashes, just like the ones I carried.

This wasn' t just betrayal; it was a grotesque, sadistic mockery.

My selfless father, reduced to a pawn in her twisted elite games, his death a mere footnote in their cruel charade.

The world tilted, reeling from the sheer, mind-numbing horror of it all.

No.

I wouldn't be their punchline.

I quit my job, scattered Dad' s ashes, and left.

Vanished.

But when, years later, she' d desperately beg me to "come clean" and "come home" on national television, her pleas would ring hollow.

I had found my peace, far from her toxic world, leaving her to the echoing silence of her monumental lies.