Introduction

My wedding night was supposed to be the happiest day of my life.

Instead, my fiancée, Chloe Vance, brought a dead man to our bed – Liam, her adored junior developer.

"Kneel," she commanded, her voice chillingly devoid of the warmth I had once foolishly sought.

I knelt on a bed of broken circuits and shattered motherboards, agonizingly sharp against my skin.

She forced me to apologize ten thousand times to a corpse, accusing me of stealing Liam's success and driving him to his death.

But it was all a lie; I had simply won the AI competition, a prize that was meant to be hers and Liam's.

She injected me with a toxic performance-enhancer, amplifying every sensation into agony.

Then, she unleashed a torrent of anonymous hackers, forcing me to watch as they systematically cyber-assaulted and dismantled my entire digital life.

She recorded it all, crafting a narrative of me as a cheating scumbag, a monster who had destroyed an innocent man.

The world believed her, and the public shame, coupled with vicious online attacks, tragically killed my parents.

Chloe moved swiftly, seizing my family's tech empire, the company my father had built from nothing.

I died in that room, a broken man, humiliated to death.

But then, I woke up.

I was back at the beginning, a year before the competition's end, the AI prototype humming softly on my desk.

This time, I wouldn't be a sacrifice for their twisted love.

I would not win; I would let Liam have the victory, and Chloe.

All I wanted was to live.