Chapter 1

The paper in my hand felt flimsy, a death sentence written on a thin sheet. Glioblastoma. An aggressive, rare brain tumor. The doctor' s words echoed in the sterile room, a flat, final sound that swallowed all the air.

That same afternoon, the world decided to twist the knife.

A celebrity gossip site flashed a picture on my laptop screen. It was Chloe Davis, my estranged wife, leaving a prenatal clinic. Her hand rested on her swollen belly, a picture of maternal glow. Beside her, holding her other hand, was Mark Jensen. His smile was wide, proprietary.

The caption was a gut punch: "Chloe Davis, wife of struggling architect Ethan Miller, finds new happiness with business tycoon Mark Jensen. Is a baby on the way for the new couple?"

My world narrowed to the screen, to the image of my life being publicly dismantled.

A sharp crash from the living room broke my trance. I rushed out. My five-year-old son, Liam, stood over the shattered remains of my phone, his little face a mask of defiance.

He didn' t look at me with fear or regret. He looked at me with Chloe' s eyes.

"I hate you!" he screamed, his voice high and piercing.

He ran to Chloe, who had just walked in, and buried his face in her legs. She stroked his hair, her eyes landing on me with a cold, dismissive glare.

"Liam, what did you do?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Chloe answered for him, her tone dripping with scorn. "He did what he had to. We' re tired of you, Ethan."

Liam peeked out from behind her legs. "I' ve married Mark, and you won' t drive him away like you did Uncle Ben," he declared, his voice filled with a childish, rehearsed pride.

He then held up a piece of paper, a crude drawing of a family register. There was a stick figure of Chloe, one of Mark, and a smaller one of himself. He had proudly written their names above the figures.

"I' ve taken Uncle Mark' s last name," Liam announced, his voice loud and clear. "We' re the real family now! The Jensens!"

The word 'Jensens' hit me harder than the diagnosis. Every sacrifice, every late night working to provide for them, every gentle moment I thought we' d shared-it all turned to ash in my mouth.

I looked back at the crumpled diagnosis in my hand. It was the only real thing I had left. With a final shred of dignity, I straightened up.

"Then let' s get a divorce," I said, the words tasting like poison.

Chloe laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "Divorce? Don' t be ridiculous, Ethan. We were never legally married. I was never stupid enough to tie myself to you officially."

Her words didn' t make sense. The ceremony, the rings, the life we built... was it all a lie?

"So just get out if you' re leaving," she finished, her face a mask of contempt.

Liam took his cue. He ran forward and started pushing me toward the door with all his might. His small hands on my legs were surprisingly strong.

"Get out! Get out!" he yelled, his voice a furious chant.

The front door slammed shut behind me. The click of the lock was a definitive, final sound. I stood on the porch of the house I had designed, the house I had paid for, and felt like a stranger. A ghost.

I pulled out my spare, older phone and dialed a number I knew by heart. My ex-mother-in-law.

"You heard it all, didn' t you?" I asked, my voice hollow. I knew she was visiting, probably listening from the top of the stairs.

There was a long sigh on the other end of the line. "Ethan," she said, her voice heavy with a sorrow that felt years too late. "Our family wronged you. We wronged you terribly."

Just as she said it, I felt something drop onto my face. It was light, ticklish. I instinctively swatted it away. A flash of pain, sharp and venomous, pierced the skin on my cheek.

I looked down. A small, black spider lay on the ground, its legs curled.

From the upstairs window, Liam' s face appeared. He was cheering, his little fists pumping in the air.

"Good job, Spidey! That' ll teach you for bothering Uncle Mark! Bite him dead! I hope he bites you dead!"

I touched my cheek. It was already starting to swell. Two black, angry-looking fang marks were visible. My heart hammered against my ribs. I knew some of the spiders in this region were highly venomous.

Panic seized me. I stumbled toward my car, my vision starting to blur at the edges. My head was swimming, a combination of the venom, the shock, and the tumor I had forgotten about for a full five minutes.

I managed to get into the driver' s seat, fumbling with the keys. The engine roared to life. I had to get to a hospital.

As I shifted the car into reverse, a black SUV, which had been parked across the street, suddenly accelerated. It shot forward with terrifying speed, its engine a deep roar.

It rammed directly into the driver' s side of my car.

The world exploded in a symphony of shattering glass and screeching metal. My car was lifted, flipped, and sent rolling across the pavement. My head slammed against the window, then the roof. Pain flared through every part of my body.

The SUV screeched to a halt a few feet away. The tinted window rolled down.

Chloe was behind the wheel. Her eyes were not frantic or scared. They were cold, calculating, and filled with a chilling hatred.

"Trying to fake a deadly illness to get my sympathy?" she said, her voice carrying clearly in the sudden silence. "Let' s see if you really die this time."

The window rolled up. The SUV' s engine revved once more, and it sped off down the street, leaving me hanging upside down in the wreckage, my cries for help lost to the wind.