The year Jocelyn hit rock bottom, her first love shattered her collarbone with a knife—all for a thousand bucks. I was the one who pulled her from the river she tried to drown herself in, giving her a second chance at life. It took her five years to claw her way up, transforming into a business prodigy the city’s elite whispered about in awe. And at the absolute peak of her career, she chose to marry me. Everyone said I was the luckiest man alive. Until our wedding day. Ryan, the ex who had abandoned her, crashed the ceremony and forcibly kissed her in front of everyone. He ripped open his collar, revealing a canvas of ugly, purplish marks. His eyes, full of provocation, locked onto mine. “Has Jocelyn ever played like this with you, Ethan? The night before your wedding, she was in my bed, begging me not to leave.” A chilling cold washed over me, plunging me into an icy abyss. I turned to look at Jocelyn. She just stood there, silent. No denial. No explanation. In that single, deafening moment, I understood everything. 1 Under the stunned gaze of every guest, I slowly withdrew the wedding ring I held in my palm. Jocelyn’s hand shot out, grabbing mine. Her voice was as unnervingly calm as ever. “What’s wrong? Aren’t we continuing the ceremony?” She paid no mind to Ryan’s taunts, nor did she deny a single word he’d said. Her reaction seemed to stun Ryan the most. He began to tremble violently, his face a mask of disbelief and rage. “Jocelyn! Have you forgotten what you said to me yesterday?” He swept his hand across a table, shattering a wine glass. Snatching a shard of glass, he pressed it against his own throat. “If you dare marry him today, I’ll die right here.” The wild movement exposed more of the dark marks blooming across his skin. My mind flashed back to the night before. Jocelyn was a lightweight, which is why I always handled the drinking at business functions. But last night, she’d come home completely wasted. The moment she walked through the door, she was on me, her kisses more desperate and passionate than ever before. “Ethan, it’s you I love, it can only be you…” she murmured against my lips. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me like he did.” She repeated it like a mantra, as if trying to convince me, or maybe herself. Then her phone buzzed, shattering the spell. Her face went pale when she saw the caller ID, and she instinctively pushed me away. I caught her hand, my voice hoarse. “Don’t stop.” She’d never pushed me away like that before. Never. “Our wedding is tomorrow. You need to rest,” she said, her voice suddenly distant. “Something came up at the office. I have to take care of it.” She leaned in, giving me a quick, almost chaste kiss on the corner of my mouth before hurrying out. She never came home that night. Now, I clenched my fist around the ring. The diamond bit into my flesh, the sharp sting a brutal confirmation that this was no nightmare. The old Jocelyn would have had anyone who disrupted her wedding dragged out and destroyed. But this Jocelyn simply held out her hand, stubbornly waiting for me to place the ring on her finger. “This is our wedding day. Don’t make a scene,” she whispered, her eyes flashing with a warning. “Ignore him. He doesn’t have the guts to actually do it. Let’s just finish the ceremony.” Her dismissive tone was the final straw for Ryan. He completely lost it, smashing decorations, his voice cracking as he screamed through his tears. “I won’t let you marry him! You promised me! Yesterday, you told me marrying Ethan was just your way of repaying a debt!” Jocelyn’s expression hardened. She finally shot Ryan a look, but only to signal her bodyguards to remove him. “He wants to die,” I said, my voice flat as I stepped forward, blocking the bodyguards’ path. “Why not let him?” I put the ring back in my pocket and turned to Jocelyn. “Does your promise to me still stand?” The day Ryan came back into her life, the day he found out I was her fiancé, he’d ambushed me on the street and stabbed me three times. I nearly bled out on the pavement. Jocelyn had sworn to me then, promised me that if I ever saw him again, I could settle the score myself. This time, I didn’t wait for her answer. I grabbed a steak knife from a nearby table and plunged it into Ryan’s stomach. Blood bloomed from the wound, dripping onto the pristine white floor. Gasps echoed through the hall. Jocelyn, who had been so composed, finally broke. Her face contorted in panic. She rushed to Ryan’s side, frantically checking his injury before whirling on me, her voice a venomous hiss. “Ethan! What the hell are you doing?” Her face was a thundercloud as she announced the wedding was postponed indefinitely. Then, without another glance at me, she helped Ryan out of the hall and rushed him to the hospital. The bride was gone. The wedding was a wreck. The officiant stood awkwardly on the stage. Watching her leave without a moment’s hesitation, a sharp, splintering pain pierced my heart. I let the bloody knife clatter to the floor. Jocelyn could walk away. Fine. But that meant my bride could be replaced, too. 2 Jocelyn’s assistant picked me up and drove me to the hospital. As the city lights blurred past the window, the last five years with her replayed in my mind like a phantom film. Before she met me, Jocelyn had nothing. Ryan had taken her last bit of money, breaking her collarbone in the process, all during the year she needed him most. I was the one who stood by her, who guided her to where she is today. I was the one who drank myself into stomach surgery just to land her a career-making deal. We endured five brutal years together, and she finally became the powerhouse she’d always dreamed of being. And then, Ryan came back. When I arrived at the hospital, I found Jocelyn pacing frantically outside the operating room, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. The moment she saw me, her panic vanished, replaced by a cold mask. She strode toward me, opening her mouth to speak, but then she met my gaze and lowered her voice. “Ethan, that was all in the past. I already punished him. Why can’t you just let it go?” she demanded, her voice tight with suppressed anger. “Don’t you realize that if he dies, you’ll be a murderer?” She was trying so hard to control her fury, her knuckles white as she gripped the fabric of her dress, her eyes darting back to the closed doors of the OR. A bitter smile twisted my lips. I lifted my shirt, revealing the three jagged, ugly scars that marred my abdomen. “So this is just ‘the past’ to you?” I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. “Do you have any idea how close I was to dying when he gave me these? You were the one who knelt by my hospital bed, swearing to me that if I ever saw him again, I could get my own justice.” Her promise was the only reason I’d signed the settlement, the only reason I’d agreed not to press charges. After that, Ryan had disappeared. I thought he was gone for good, but it turned out Jocelyn had been in contact with him all along. “I stabbed him once,” I said, my voice hollow. “And you’re already falling apart.” Jocelyn rubbed her temples, her frustration boiling over. “What do you want from me? I’ve finally secured my position in this city. Do you expect me to just stand by and watch you go to prison for murder?” She sighed, a long, weary sound, as if my actions today were nothing more than an inconvenience. “We’ve come so far. Can you please just stop making trouble?” “Good,” I said, my voice cold. “Since the wedding’s off anyway, this makes things simpler. If you want to rekindle things with your first love, I won’t stand in your way.” Her eyes turned to ice. The disappointment in them was a physical blow. “Is the wedding all you can think about right now? Is it that hard for you to admit you were wrong? There’s nothing going on between me and Ryan. Can’t you trust me for once? I just don’t want to see you resort to violence. If you actually killed him, what would I do?” Her words were so absurd I almost laughed. Before I could respond, the doors to the operating room swung open. A doctor pushed Ryan out on a gurney. “The wound wasn’t too deep. You got him here just in time. He’s out of danger now.” Jocelyn stared at Ryan’s pale face, her brow furrowed with worry. She reached out, her fingers gently tracing his cheek. Then, she took the knife—the same one I’d used at the wedding—from her assistant. Before I could process what was happening, she raised it to her own collarbone and slashed. Twice. Droplets of her blood spattered onto my face. I stood frozen, watching the color drain from her cheeks as crimson bloomed across the pristine white of her wedding dress. “Are you satisfied now?” she hissed, her voice trembling with pain and fury. “I’ve paid his debt with these two cuts. Now, you will leave him alone.” I closed my eyes, a dry, burning sensation behind them. “Fine,” I said, my voice devoid of all emotion. “We’re getting a divorce. From now on, we’re strangers.” 3 Jocelyn never came home after that. She stayed at the hospital, by Ryan’s side, for as long as he was there. I didn’t try to contact her. Instead, I had my lawyer deliver the divorce papers to her office. I also called the wedding planner and told them to change the bride’s name on the invitations. It was about time for my new bride to arrive, anyway. I glanced at the calendar on the wall, at the date circled in red. Today was also the anniversary of my sister’s death. “Lily,” I whispered, my fingers tracing the glass of the picture frame. “Jocelyn has changed. The person you saved… she doesn’t want me anymore.” My sister, Lily, had been Jocelyn’s best friend. When Jocelyn’s career was just taking off, a rival sabotaged them. They planted a bomb in their car. In the split second before the explosion, Lily shoved Jocelyn out of the vehicle. Lily was blown to pieces. There was nothing left to bury. After that, Jocelyn and I never spoke of her death. With the first money she ever made, Jocelyn bought her a plot in the city’s most beautiful cemetery. Every year, on this day, we would visit her together. But this year, I was alone. I held a bouquet of lavender, Lily’s favorite, and headed to the cemetery, a strange sense of dread coiling in my stomach. When I arrived, the place was swarming with men in black suits. Jocelyn’s bodyguards. My heart hammered against my ribs. I shoved my way through them, my blood running cold. The sight that greeted me almost drove me insane. “Dig faster. Get the urn out,” Jocelyn commanded her men. She stood over my sister’s grave, watching as they unearthed it with shovels. Once the urn was out, one of her men handed it to Ryan. The next second, with a triumphant, vicious smirk, Ryan smashed the urn on the ground. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” “Jocelyn, have you lost your mind?! THIS IS LILY’S GRAVE!” My legs gave out, and I collapsed to my knees. I scrambled forward, my hands trembling as I tried to scoop up my sister’s ashes from the mud. Jocelyn hadn’t expected me. She shot an irritated glare at her assistant. “I told you to keep him away.” She reached down to help me up, but I slapped her hand away. “Lily DIED for you! How could you do this? Aren’t you afraid of the consequences?!” I roared, fighting back tears, trying desperately not to let them fall and mix with the ashes. The wind was cruel, scattering what little remained. In the end, all I had was a handful of gray dust. Beside her, Ryan draped an arm around Jocelyn’s shoulders, his expression oozing with smug satisfaction. “Joce, you promised you’d grant my wish, remember?” A tremor ran through me. I slowly, stiffly, raised my head to look at her. A year ago, she had chosen this very spot for Lily, posting guards to ensure she would never be disturbed. And now, because of a single sentence from Ryan, she had dug up her grave. Jocelyn didn’t seem to think she’d done anything wrong. She knelt in front of me, her voice soft, almost gentle. “Lily’s been gone for so long, Ethan. She’s probably been reincarnated by now.” “I’ll build her a new, better memorial later.” “Ryan promised me,” she continued, her voice pleading, “that if I did this one thing for him, he would leave me alone for good. Then I can finally be with you, with no distractions.” The veins in my temples throbbed. I stared at her, my voice a low, guttural snarl. “You are pathetic, Jocelyn. Ryan would break your bones for a thousand dollars, and you’re still obsessed with him.” “I should have let you die in that river.” My voice was raw. I pushed myself to my feet, ready to lunge at Ryan, ready to kill them both right here. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to see them both dead. But the next sound wasn’t my own scream of rage. It was the deafening crack of a gunshot echoing through the cemetery.
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