Chapter 1

The hum of the servers was the constant, low-grade soundtrack of Ethan Miller's life.

For five years, this sound had replaced the noise of city traffic, the clinking glasses at rooftop bars, the life he once knew.

He was in Havenwood, a town so small it felt more like a forgotten whisper.

His world was now a tech support call center, a beige box filled with beige cubicles, where he was "exiled" after a spectacular fall from grace.

His colleagues were good people, quiet and resigned to their own small-town fates.

They treated him with a gentle respect, seeing him as a strange bird with clipped wings, a man from a world they only saw on TV.

Ethan had found a strange peace here.

It was a quiet, unassuming life, one he had built for himself out of the wreckage of his old one.

He was content.

Then, the past walked in through the front door.

Sophia Davis and Mark Thompson stood there, their expensive city clothes and polished shoes a stark violation of the call center' s worn-out linoleum.

Sophia, the woman who had orchestrated his exile, looked around the room with a disgusted curl of her lip.

Mark, her new fiancé, smirked beside her, his gaze sweeping over Ethan as if he were an insect.

"Ethan, darling," Sophia began, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "Look at this place. It's even more pathetic than I imagined."

Ethan didn't respond, his hands resting on his keyboard.

"My father's return party is next week," she continued, moving closer to his desk. "I've decided to be generous. I'm giving you a chance to come back to the city."

She leaned in, her perfume cloying and aggressive.

"Apologize for what you did, for the embarrassment you caused me. After Mark and I are married, if you're good, I might even consider taking you back. You can be my little project."

The open-plan office fell silent.

His colleagues stared, their faces a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity.

They saw this as his one and only escape route from Havenwood.

Ethan finally looked up from his computer screen, his expression calm, almost placid.

He let the silence stretch for a moment, letting her words hang in the air like a bad smell.

"Thank you for the offer, Sophia," he said, his voice even. "But I have to decline."

He paused, then delivered the final blow.

"I'm married."

Sophia froze.

Her perfectly made-up face contorted, first in disbelief, then in rage.

"Married?" she shrieked, her voice suddenly shrill. "You're lying! Who would you marry in this... this wasteland?"

Her eyes scanned the room, dismissing every woman there with a flick of her gaze.

"There's nobody here for you. You're just saying that to spite me, to hurt me because I'm happy with Mark."

Mark chuckled, a low, nasty sound.

"Don't be so hard on him, Soph," he said, stepping forward. "Maybe he found a local single mom desperate enough to take him in. Someone with a couple of kids already, looking for a handout."

The insult was clear, a deliberate jab at Ethan's pride and supposed desperation.

Ethan' s jaw tightened, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

He stood up slowly, his height making Mark take an involuntary step back.

"You don't get to talk about my wife," Ethan said, his voice quiet but laced with steel. "You don't know her, and you're not worthy of even saying her name."

His defiance only fueled Sophia's fury.

Her eyes darted around his desk, searching for something to validate her own narrative, her own sense of control.

They landed on a small cardboard box filled with colorful, clumsily made friendship bracelets.

"What are these?" she asked, a sneer in her voice. "Are these for me? A pathetic little gift to try and win me back?"

Ethan' s heart gave a small, painful lurch.

Those bracelets were not for her.

They were made by the children of his colleagues, a sweet, innocent gift for his wife, a woman they had never met but had heard so much about. They were a symbol of the simple, genuine kindness he had found in this town, a stark contrast to the venom standing in front of him.

He remembered the day five years ago, the false accusations of corporate espionage Mark had engineered, the way Sophia had looked at him with cold disappointment, choosing to believe the lie rather than the man she claimed to love. She had cast him out without a second thought.

"Sophia," Ethan said, his voice flat and final. "Get out."

"You don't tell me what to do!" she screamed.

Her rage, finding no other outlet, focused on the box.

With a sweep of her arm, she knocked the bracelets off the desk. They scattered across the floor like fallen leaves.

Then, deliberately, she stomped on them.

She ground the colorful threads and cheap plastic beads into the dirty floor with the heel of her expensive shoe, a look of vicious satisfaction on her face.

"Pathetic," she spat, a final insult before turning on her heel.

Mark gave Ethan one last triumphant smirk and followed her out the door.

Ethan stared down at the crushed bracelets.

The pure, innocent affection they represented had been trampled underfoot by the casual cruelty of his past.

For the first time in five years, the quiet peace of Havenwood was shattered, and a cold, hard anger began to burn in its place.