On Valentine’s Day, my fiancé told me he was suffocating under work stress and needed to clear his head, so he dragged me on a wilderness hike. Halfway up the trail, we ran into armed muggers.

But the woman they grabbed and held at knife point wasn’t a stranger. She was Sienna Cross—the high school golden girl Marcus had pined over for years, the phantom ex he could never quite get over. Marcus didn’t hesitate for a single second.

He shoved me into the muggers' arms and dragged Sienna to safety. To save myself from something far worse, I was forced to leap off the edge of a cliff.

I lay broken at the bottom of the ravine for three agonizing days before a search party spotted me and rushed me to the ICU. I ended up with a shattered leg and a fractured arm.

Yet when Marcus finally showed up at my bedside, arm around Sienna, his eyes weren't filled with relief—they were filled with exasperation. "If you’d just given them your money, none of this would have happened," he scolded, his voice dripping with condescension. "Why did you have to throw such a dramatic fit and do this to yourself?" In the days that followed, the social chatter was merciless.

Everyone whispered that I was nothing more than a placeholder, a discount substitute. Three years of absolute devotion couldn't compete with a single tearful glance from his high school sweetheart. That was the moment the fog finally cleared.

I realized I had never been his partner; I was just a secondbest option he settled for when his first choice walked away.

Lying in that sterile hospital bed, staring at the white ceiling, I pulled out my phone and typed a message to my parents overseas: I’ll do it. I’ll accept the family match.

"They just wanted cash, Paige! If you had handed over your wallet, you’d be fine right now. How could you let yourself get beat up like this?" Marcus stood by my bed, holding Sienna’s small, delicate hand in his.

He stared at the traction frame holding my crushed leg in place, his face twisted in what looked like pity, but every word out of his mouth was an accusation. "When did you become so ridiculously cheap?

Your life is worth more than a few hundred dollars!" I stared up at him, a cold shiver running down my spine.

The man I had loved for three years looked like an absolute stranger. "If it were Sienna lying in this bed with a shattered femur, would you be saying the same thing?" I swallowed the bitter lump in my throat, trying to suppress the hollow ache in my chest. "No... of course you wouldn't.

You’d never let her get hurt in the first place." Three days ago, when he shoved me toward those men, his eyes had been entirely consumed by Sienna’s safety. And now, standing here, he couldn't even bring himself to ask me if I was in pain.

Sienna leaned against his side, playing the part of a fragile, traumatized victim, but I didn't miss the faint, triumphant smirk gleaming in her eyes.

Marcus let out a long, weary sigh and sat down on the edge of my mattress. "Pai, Sienna has a frail constitution. She isn't tough like you. Look at you—you fell off a cliff and survived three days out in the elements.

If that had been Sienna, she wouldn't have made it through the night." "So I deserved to have my bones crushed?" My voice cracked, rising an octave. "Do you honestly think those men were going to take a couple hundred bucks and politely walk away?

If cash was all it took, why didn't you hand over your wallet to buy Sienna's freedom? Why did you swap me for her?" He hadn't even come looking for me.

I had laid in the dirt beneath that cliff for seventytwo hours, shivering, bleeding, waiting for him.

If a group of local trail surveyors hadn't stumbled upon me, I would have rotted down there. "Marcus, we're done," I said quietly, turning my head toward the window.

Tears welled up and spilled over my temples, soaking into the thin hospital pillow. "I want a breakup." Marcus’s face drained of color.

He turned quickly, murmuring something soft to Sienna, gently guiding her out into the hallway and closing the door behind her. "Baby, please don't say that," he whispered, sinking to his knees beside my bed.

He grabbed my uninjured hand, his eyes instantly turning bloodshot and glassy. "I was wrong. I shouldn't have left you behind. But you know how much damage she caused me when she left all those years ago... I just... I had unresolved closure.

It was an instinct." I bit my lip until I tasted copper, refusing to look at him. My mind flashed back three years ago—to the night Sienna dumped him to go abroad. Marcus had spiraled into a selfdestructive wreck.

I had secretly loved him for two years back then, and when I saw him drowning, I stepped in, pulling him back to the surface until he finally accepted me into his life. "Baby, everyone has a past they can't quite shake," Marcus pleaded, his voice trembling like a chastised child. "She’s going back overseas in a week.

Just give me seven days. Let me settle things with her properly so I can put the past to rest once and for all. Please?" Looking at his tearstreaked face, the foolish, soft part of my heart gave an involuntary twitch.

Against my better judgment, I gave a faint, exhausted nod. A flash of relief washed over his features, and he leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to my forehead.

Then came the blow that shattered whatever was left of me. "Rest up, baby," he said, pulling away and smoothing down his jacket. "I'm going to step outside to check on Sienna." The repentant, heartbroken fiancé vanished in an instant.

He spun on his heel and practically sprinted toward the door, so fast and careless that his shoulder slammed heavily against the metal pole supporting my IV line and leg traction setup.

The sudden, brutal jolt sent a wave of agony screaming through my shattered leg. I bit down on my lip so hard I broke the skin, clutching the bedsheets as silent tears flooded my vision. I wanted to scream, but my throat was entirely constricted.

That's your idea of an unresolved past, Marcus? A past that gives you permission to throw me away anytime, anywhere? Wiping the wet tears from my cheeks, I signaled to the nurse across the room to hand me my phone. I opened the messaging app.

The last text from my parents was from three months ago, when they had urged me to move abroad and accept a strategic match with a prominent family friend. I tapped the microphone icon and recorded a brief voice note: I agree to the arrangement.

I’ll come home. 2 On the day I was discharged, Marcus didn't come. I had prepared myself for his absence, but when the hospital taxi dropped me off and I stood alone in front of our apartment building, my heart still ached with a deep, dull throb.

Three years of quiet devotion, and I had lost completely to a woman who didn't even have to try. I limped up the stairs, using my crutches to balance myself, and pushed open the front door.

The moment the door swung inward, a suffocating wave of heavy, unfamiliar perfume knocked the breath out of me. The entryway was a disaster.

On the floor lay my favorite glass perfume bottles—fragrances I had carefully collected over the years—shattered into sharp, glistening shards, their liquids pooling on the hardwood.

Drawers were pulled open, clothes tore off hangers, papers scattered everywhere. It looked as though a burglar had methodically ransacked the place. My hands shook violently as I dialed Marcus’s number. He didn't answer.

I quickly typed out a text: Marcus, what happened to the apartment? Did someone break in? Holding my breath, I dragged my bandaged body toward the bedroom, frantically checking the hidden spots where we kept our emergency cash and documents.

The small cash stash was untouched, but the highyield savings card—the account containing our joint house deposit—was gone. A sudden spell of dizziness hit me. My knees buckled, and I barely caught myself on the edge of the dresser.

My phone buzzed in my hand. A notification from Marcus. Sienna’s stomach issues are acting up again. I’m temporarily moving into her place to stay with her and cook her meals. I’ll be back in a week. Be a good girl and wait for me at home, okay?

I stared at the screen, my mind going completely blank. I replied with a single punctuation mark: ? Sienna had a sensitive stomach, so my fiancé was moving into her apartment to play private chef for a week.

Meanwhile, I was standing in a ruined hallway with a broken arm and a leg held together by steel pins, and he couldn't care less. His reply came seconds later: Don't be difficult, baby. I'll be back in seven days.

I promise you, nothing physical is going to happen between us. A harsh, hysterical laugh escaped my throat. I felt like the punchline of an agonizing joke.

In a fit of sudden, overwhelming rage, I swept my good arm across the vanity, sending makeup bottles, picture frames, and glass jars crashing to the floor.

The loud, sharp noises shattered the silence, then died away, leaving an eerie, suffocating quiet behind. I sat on the edge of the bare mattress for a long time, numb, before grabbing my phone again to ask if he had taken the savings card.

It took him fifteen minutes to send back a succinct reply: Yes.

That card held over two hundred thousand dollars—savings we had scraped together over eighteen months, denying ourselves small luxuries so we could put a down payment on a place of our own. He had wiped out our entire future without so much as a word.

And it didn't take long for me to figure out where that money went. In the mountains just outside the city, there was an exclusive resort built around a centuriesold "Lover’s Tree." Over the years, influencers had turned it into a viral phenomenon.

The full custom ritual—engraved golden locks, silk ribbons, private ceremony packages—cost upwards of two hundred thousand dollars. Sienna posted a screenshot on her social media feed.

It was a crosspost of a picture Marcus had put up on his own private page: the two of them kneeling side by side beneath the majestic canopy of the ancient tree, surrounded by floating red ribbons. Marcus's caption read: No regrets in the next life.

Sienna’s repost caption was short and sweet: May nothing stand in our way next time. The message was crystal clear. I was the obstacle. I was the "this life" mistake standing in their way. Credit where credit was due—Marcus wasn't entirely braindead.

He had remembered to block me from viewing his post. But Sienna had made sure the privacy settings on her own profile were open to the public, just so I would see it. I looked around the cavernous, halfempty apartment.

It felt hollow, not just because Marcus had packed up his personal belongings, but because we had deliberately avoided buying proper furniture to save money for the wedding.

We couldn't afford a comfortable couch for our living room, but he had two hundred thousand dollars readily available to buy a fairytale promise for another woman's next lifetime.

I pulled my legs up to my chest, wrapped my good arm around my knees, and wept quietly in the dark. The sharp ring of my phone broke the quiet.

Expecting it to be Marcus coming up with another weak excuse, I snatched it up, only to see an unfamiliar, international number on the caller ID. "Hello?" I rasped, wiping my face.

A deep, smooth voice answered on the line, calm and composed. "Paige Miller? Hello. I’m Logan Mercer—your fiancé." 3 My bags were packed. I was leaving tomorrow.

In the thirtysix hours since that phone call, Marcus hadn't sent a single text to ask how I was doing, whether I had eaten, or if my leg was healing.

Dragging my heavy cast across the wooden floor, I limped over to the closet and pulled out a large, black industrial trash bag. Then, I began clearing out every gift Marcus had ever given me over the last three years.

Simple silver necklaces, delicate bracelets, synthetic designer dupes, small bottles of drugstore perfume. Because we were supposed to be saving every penny for a house, he had rarely spent more than fifty dollars on any gift.

I used to treasure every single piece like it was made of solid gold, keeping them neatly arranged in velvet pouches. Now, looking at them, they felt like a series of cruel, humiliating slaps across the face.

I dumped them all into the heavy plastic bag, tied a tight double knot at the top, and prepared to carry it down to the dumpster behind the building. The night air was crisp and chilly, the streetlights casting long, amber shadows across the pavement.

I stood in front of the large green trash bins, took a long, stabilizing breath, and tossed the heavy bag inside. Hearing the thud as it hit the bottom felt like severing an infected limb. I turned around to head back inside.

Before I could take a step, a thick, coarse burlap sack was slammed violently over my head. A foul stench of dried sweat, metallic blood, and a sharp chemical odor instantly filled my lungs.

I panicked, flailing desperately to fight back, but my pinned leg gave out under the weight, and my casted arm was completely useless. A heavy, chemicalsoaked rag was pressed hard against my nose and mouth.

My vision spun, the world went dark, and I lost consciousness.

When I finally drifted back to reality, my head was throbbing with an intense, sickening ache. My wrists were tied tightly behind my back with rough hemp rope, biting into my skin.

A stale rag was stuffed into my mouth, making every breath taste like dust and mildew. "Hey, Sienna, the substitute's awake," a raspy male voice sneered nearby. Footsteps approached, and a rough hand yanked the gag from my mouth.

I gasped, drawing in lungfuls of damp air, my eyes adjusting to the dim, flickering light overhead. We were in an abandoned, cavernous industrial warehouse.

Two men stood over me—one bald with a jagged scar across his cheek, the other with greasy, bleachedblonde hair. Behind them, the sharp clickclack of high heels echoed against the concrete floor.

Sienna stepped into the light, wearing a tailored cream trench coat, her freshly manicured nails glistening under the fluorescent bulbs. "Sienna?" I coughed, my voice raspy. "You kidnapped me?" "Tsk, tsk.

Wrong word, Paige," Sienna sat down on a folding chair brought over by the blonde guy, leaning forward until her perfectly manicured hand was inches from my eyes. "You didn't get kidnapped.

You hired these men to kidnap me." I looked around the shadowy space, my pulse racing. "What are you talking about?

What do you want?" "I want you to know your place," Sienna’s voice dropped, turning icecold. "A placeholder is supposed to fade into the background the moment the main act comes back. I’m back now, Paige.

You should have packed your trash and scurried away like a good little girl." She suddenly reached out, her fingers locking tightly around the bandaged forearm of my broken arm, and gave it a brutal, vicious twist.

A sharp, unbearable spike of pain shot straight through my shoulder.

I let out a choked scream, my body contorting away from the pressure, which only ended up twisting my broken leg against the hard floor. "Look at you," Sienna hissed, her face contorting with ugly pleasure. "Isn't it pathetic?

He swears up and down that he cares about you, yet all it took was one fake phone call from me saying I had a stomachache, and he abandoned you without a second thought. If you had an ounce of selfrespect left, you’d have walked away.

But no—you had to stay, forcing me to handle this myself." "I was already leaving!" I panted, tears of intense physical agony streaming down my face. "Take him! Take Marcus!

I don't want him anymore!" "The problem is, he won't leave with me!" Sienna shrieked, her voice suddenly spiking into a sharp, unhinged pitch.

She jumped up, her high heel stomping directly onto my casted knee, grinding her weight down with deliberate malice.

I cried out, the pain so intense my vision flickered to total white. "He refuses to sign the marriage papers!" Sienna roared, her face twisted in rage. "He keeps blabbering about how he owes you, how he can't abandon you, how you're the only one he loves now!

To hell with his sudden conscience!

If it weren't for his promotion and his massive stock options coming up, do you really think I’d waste my time playing sweet and helpless for a middlemanagement loser?" I curled into a ball on the cold concrete, gasping for breath, unable to move a muscle. "So here's how this is going to play out," Sienna continued, smoothing down her coat and regaining her composure. "In a few minutes, he’s going to walk through that door and see you holding a knife over me.

He’ll think you were so consumed by jealousy that you tried to have me killed. Once he sees me as the innocent victim again, his guilt will eat him alive.

And he’ll marry me." I stared at her, dazed through the pain. "Sienna... why did you really come back from abroad?" I knew the rumors. Three years ago, her wealthy stepfather had funded her move to Europe to study art.

By all accounts, she should have been living a glamorous life. Why come back to claw at Marcus?

Sienna’s face darkened, a flick of dark, bitter anger crossing her features, but before she could answer, the blonde man sprinted in from the loading dock door. "Sienna, he's here! Marcus’s car just pulled up to the trail base!" Sienna smirked. "Good.

Tie me up." 4 When Marcus burst through the heavy metal doors of the warehouse, his eyes wildly searching the dark space, he froze.

Near the back of the building, hanging over the edge of an opening that led to a steep cliff drop, two ropes were suspended from a high steel beam. I was tied to one; Sienna was tied to the other.

The bandages wrapped around my leg were already soaked in fresh, deep crimson blood. "Paige!" Marcus gasped, his eyes widening in horror.

He took a desperate step forward, but before he could move any closer, his gaze shifted to Sienna, who was hanging beside me, sobbing hysterically. "How much money do you want?" Marcus called out, his voice shaking as he edged toward the platform. "I brought cash!

Just don't hurt them!" The bald man stepped out from the shadows, twirling a long hunting knife in his hand. He gestured casually between Sienna and me. "Well now, Mr. Hayes.

The cash you brought in that little duffel bag is only enough to buy freedom for one of these pretty ladies. You’re gonna have to pick." Marcus stopped dead in his tracks.

His eyes darted nervously between us, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. Sienna looked at him with tearfilled eyes, shaking her head violently, muffled wails escaping from behind her gag. I didn't make a sound.

I just stared at him, a tiny, foolish spark of hope lingering deep in my chest. "I..." Marcus squeezed his hands into tight fists, his voice trembling as he took a slow, agonizing step toward my side of the beam. "I choose..." Snap!

Without warning, the pulley mechanism holding my rope slipped. My body dropped abruptly by two feet, swinging wildly over the dark abyss behind the warehouse floor.

My heart lodged in my throat, a wave of dizziness washing over me as cold sweat drenched my back. "Paige!" Marcus yelled, his face turning pale as he instinctively lunged toward me.

Behind the beam, the bald man shoved the blonde guy, muttering under his breath in a low voice: "Careful, idiot! Don't actually drop the boss's girl, or we won't get paid the rest of the fee!

Loosen the other bitch's rope instead!" The warehouse had an echo. The low murmur, though quiet, traveled across the high ceilings and landed straight in Marcus’s ears. Marcus stopped in his tracks.

The terror on his face melted away, replaced instantly by an expression of cold, bitter disgust.

He slowly pulled his leg back, looking at me as if I were something vile he had stepped on. "Paige... is this entire thing just a pathetic stunt you staged?" He let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "Yesterday Sienna told me you were acting paranoid and jealous.

I didn't want to believe her.

But today, you actually hired actors to fake a kidnapping?" My heart plummeted straight into an icy void. "Nno..." I struggled against the gag, trying to shake my head, but all that came out were muffled, desperate grunts.

Right on cue, Sienna began writhing frantically against her ropes. The pulley above her creaked loudly, making her let out a sharp, terrified squeal as she swayed over the edge.

Marcus’s attention snapped back to her instantly. "I choose Sienna!" he blurted out, without a second of hesitation. The bald man let out a boisterous laugh. "A true romantic! Splendid choice, Mr.

Hayes!" He motioned for the blonde guy to lower Sienna to safety, while deliberately releasing the tension on my line, letting my rope drop another harrowing foot.

I was hanging by a thread, supported only by a frayed cord cutting into my bruised shoulders. Marcus didn't look at me once.

He rushed forward, gathering Sienna into his arms the second her feet hit the ground, gently working to untie the knots around her wrists. "It’s okay, Sienna. You're safe now," he murmured softly.

He didn't turn around as he addressed me, his voice dismissive and annoyed. "Enough with the theatrics, Paige. Stop making a fool of yourself. When I get home, we’ll talk about how childish you've been." Snap.

The main knot above my head creaked under the strain, a few fibers tearing apart. Sienna collapsed against Marcus’s chest like a delicate glass doll, wrapping her arms around his neck.

As he turned her toward the exit, she looked over his shoulder at me. The tears were gone. Her lips curved into a cold, victorious smile. "Let’s go, baby," Marcus said gently, guiding her toward the doors. "Paige, untie yourself and walk home.

Stop playing the victim before someone actually gets hurt." I lowered my head, staring down at the dark, jagged rocks far below. The very last thread of hope inside my heart snapped cleanly in two. Three years of quiet, devoted love.

And he believed a stranger over me without a second thought.

The bald man watched them leave, letting out a loud, mocking snort. "Man, your boyfriend really doesn't give a damn about you, does he?" The blonde guy walked over, grabbing my shoulder with a rough, heavy hand and dragging me back onto the solid concrete floor before slicing the rope with his knife.

I hit the floor hard, my knees smashing against the sharp edge of a steel beam. The pain was excruciating, blinding me for a moment. "What do we do with her now?" the blonde guy asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.

The bald man squatted down, grabbing my chin forcefully and turning my face toward the flickering overhead light, a sinister grin spreading across his face. "She's got a pretty face. We can turn a massive profit on her.

My contacts over the southern border are always looking for fresh stock." A cold dread flooded through my veins. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Looking past them toward the open warehouse door, I could still see Marcus’s tall frame walking away into the moonlight, his arm wrapped tightly around Sienna's waist. My mind suddenly drifted back to a rainy night three years ago.

I had found Marcus slouched in a dark alley, plastered out of his mind, sobbing into my shoulder as he clung to me: "Please... don't leave me too..." I took a deep, agonizing breath.

Then, using every ounce of strength left in my broken body, I threw myself backward, rolling straight off the edge of the cliff platform. When the bald man’s terrified scream echoed out over the ravine, Marcus froze and turned around.

All he saw were the two men leaning frantically over the edge, staring down into the darkness. I was gone. "PAIGE!"