Daddy's Expiration Date

Dad, are you just community goods? That bastard outside whos barely six months younger than me hes yours, isn't he?

Franklins face didn't just darken. It convulsed. A vein popped in his forehead, throbbing like a second heartbeat.

My chest felt light. Airy. I wanted to laugh.

He was pushing Simone to the edge. Forcing her to walk away with absolutely nothinga clean breakjust to clear the throne for his illegitimate son.

Simone was shaking, the pen trembling in her hand as she hovered over the divorce papers. Tears hit the paper, blurring the legal jargon.

I slammed my hand down over hers. "Mom. Don't do it. Hes going to die soon."

Ive been here before.

In my past life, this trash manipulated my mother into a divorce, married his mistress immediately, and died two months later. He left the entire fortune to that woman and her son. Mom and I died in the streets like stray dogs.

But Im back.

And I know his medical chart.

Terminal.

Divorce? Not a chance in hell.

Im going to outlast him. Im going to watch the life drain out of him. And when hes gone, the inheritance belongs to us.

Chapter 1

"Fallon, if Dad and I separate do you want to live with me?"

Simone asked the question again. Last time, I hesitated. This time, the answer was a weapon.

"Mom. Do not divorce him."

Her rims were red, the skin beneath them puffy and raw. "You know what he did, Fallon. That boy is practically your age. How am I supposed to swallow that? If we leave, I don't have to look at him. I don't have to hurt. Its just you and me. Please?"

"Mom. No."

"Why?" Her voice broke.

Because Ive seen the end of this movie.

In the last life, Franklin used me as leverage. He knew Simone would burn the world down to keep me. So he made her choose: the money or the daughter.

She chose me. She walked away with nothing. No alimony. No assets.

The house, the cash, the company they built together it all went to Felicity and Gunner.

Two months after the papers were signed, Franklin died. Stage four stomach cancer. That was the only reason he confessed about Felicity and Gunner. He wasn't guilty. He was dying.

He needed to pave the road for his son. He couldn't let Simone take half the empire. So he bit down hard on my custody rights. He forced her hand.

The second he got that divorce decree, he married Felicity. When he died, Felicity and Gunner were the legal heirs. They took everything.

And us? We were erased.

Every time Simone tried to start a business, they crushed it. Every job she got, they sabotaged. Even when she tried selling trinkets on the street, thugs came to kick over her stall.

It got desperate. Simone had to sell herself. She let strangers touch her just so I wouldn't starve.

Felicity tortured her for ten years.

On my eighteenth birthday, Simone broke. She jumped from the twenty-first floor.

But death didn't stop Felicity. She paid kids at school to wreck me. They gaslit the whole campus. They told everyone I was the bastard. That my mother was the homewrecker.

Chapter 2

No parents. No lifeline. Just me, crushed onto the asphalt by a speeding semi-truck on a delirious, blood-soaked night.

The weapon used to hunt us down? Franklins money. The fortune Felicity inherited and weaponized against us.

Not this life.

I am the wall. That piece of trash isn't winning this round.

"Mom, do you believe in dreams?"

I poured it all out. Every gritty detail of the hellscape we lived through in the future.

Simone stared at her hands, whispering, "I wouldn't degrade myself like that, Fallon. I would never leave you alone."

I know, Mom. But desperation changes your chemistry. When you're drowning, you don't check if the life raft is clean. You grab it. Even if its covered in shit, you hold your nose and you grip it.

Franklin had been counting on her depression. He knew the affair had shattered her. He used that. He feigned remorse to keep her docile, all while quietly transferring assets, locking her out of the company.

My story was crazy. A nightmare.

But Simone trusts my instincts more than her own reality. Even if she thought I was hallucinating, she checked it out. She went back to the office.

When they came home that evening, the air was toxic. Franklins jaw was set so tight I thought his teeth would crack. He looked like a man whose plan just hit a brick wall.

I skipped up to him, wide-eyed. "Dad, are you community goods?"

His chest heaved. He literally couldn't breathe. A vein throbbed in his neck.

"TikTok says cheating men are like community goods. It doesn't matter how much you want them, you don't bring them home because they've been everywhere."

Simone clamped a hand over my mouth instantly. "Fallon! Get off the internet. Stop saying such filth."

I nodded, blinking innocently. She let go.

I didn't stop. "So are you guys getting divorced?"

Simone smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. It was a shark's smile. "Of course not. I've forgiven your father. We are going to be a happy, intact family of three."

Franklins face cycled through shades of purple and grey. He sputtered a few reprimands at me, unable to form a coherent argument, then skipped dinner and slammed his bedroom door.

The ping was soft, but in the silence of the house, it sounded like a gunshot.

Simone was in the shower. I swiped her phone open. Muscle memory.

Felicity.

She was spiraling. Taunting Simone. The screen filled with photos. Her and Franklin. Skin on skin. Sweaty. Intimate.

Felicity: Just let him go. You're a barren hen. You can't satisfy him like I can.

Felicity: We are soulmates. He only married you because your father held a gun to his head. We are the real family. You're just in the way.

I didn't delete them. I typed back.

Me (as Simone): I don't believe it. Looks like AI generated trash. Franklin has a massive mole on his left ass cheek. I don't see it in these pics.

The response was immediate. A video file.

She took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker.

It was a 360-degree, high-definition pan of the action. And there it was. The mole on the left glute. Undeniable proof.

I almost threw up.

Chapter 3

I fought back the bile rising in my throat. Right click. Save.

I logged into Simones account, forwarded the raw footage to myself, and scrubbed the history.

Dinner was a blur. I raced to my laptop. I imported the video and the photos. I wasn't an amateur; I pixelated the explicit partsjust enough to bypass the immediate ban filters but leaving nothing to the imagination regarding who it was.

Then, I hit 'Post' on my social feed, tagging every mutual friend, family member, and business associate Franklin had.

Caption: "Auntie Felicity says she has better technique and Mom is too boring in bed. Now Dad hates Mom and wants a divorce. What do I do? I dont want to be a fatherless child. ??????"

I sat back. Im nine years old. You can't send a nine-year-old to juvie for a Facebook post, right?

Franklin was playing the emotional long game with Simone. Felicity was playing the pressure game. They thought they were the only ones calculating.

I knew Franklin would be mad. I didn't expect him to go nuclear.

The door slammed open. He didn't speak. He swung.

The back of his hand connected with my cheekbone like a sledgehammer.

Crack.

My head snapped back. Two small, white objects hit the hardwood floor with a hollow click-click.

God, it burned. But compared to the memory of tires crushing my ribcage? Compared to the cold steel of a semi-truck grille? This was a mosquito bite.

Simone screamed. It was a primal, animal sound. She launched herself at him. Her nailsusually perfectly manicuredbecame talons. She shredded his face.

Red lines bloomed across his cheeks. He looked hideous.

"Delete it!" he roared, shoving Simone off. "Delete it now!"

I obeyed. I wiped the post. But the internet is forever.

Id left it up for a full night. The neighborhood gossip networkthe bored housewives and the country club momshad already screenshotted, saved, and forwarded it. Their efficiency was terrifying. I counted on it.

"Look at what you've raised!" Franklin spat, touching his bleeding face. "A little monster!"

He stormed out.

I tasted copper. My mouth was filling up fast.

"Baby, oh my god," Simone sobbed, trying to scoop me up. "We need a hospital. Now."

I dug my heels in. I swallowed a mouthful of blood. "No hospital, Mom. Teacher says if we're in trouble, we should find the police."

"Fallon, your face"

"Police. Now."

I dragged her. She was a mess of tears and panic, but I steered us straight to the precinct. I held the blood in my mouth the entire ride. My cheeks bulged with it.

We walked through the double doors. I saw her. Officer Bennett.

I marched up to the desk, opened my mouth, and let it go.

A mixture of saliva and bright red blood splattered onto the linoleum floor. Splat.

I opened my hand. I had been clutching them the entire ride. Two small, bloody teeth lay in my palm. My hand tremblednot from fear, but from the adrenaline of the performance.

I held them out to Officer Bennett. "Officer? I want to report a crime."

Franklin had lived a charmed life. Money, status, reputation. He had never seen the inside of an interrogation room. Especially not for beating his nine-year-old daughter.

For a man who prided himself on control, the humiliation was suffocating. He sat there, his face a map of Simones rage and his own shame, shifting colors under the fluorescent buzz.

My face was no better. It had swollen up like leavened dough. One eye was practically shut.

Officer Bennett looked from me to Franklin. Her expression was stone. "The injuries meet the criteria for domestic battery and child endangerment," she said, her voice clipped. "If you press charges, Mrs. Yuan, we can hold him. Five days detention, minimum, pending a hearing."

Five days.

I almost smiled through the pain.

Five days where he couldn't manipulate Simone. Five days where he couldn't liquidate assets.

"He hit me because I posted a video," I mumbled, playing the confused victim.

Franklin jumped up, handcuffs rattling against the table. "She posted a private video! She violated my privacy!"

Chapter 4

I fumbled for my phonea childs model in a bright pink, shock-proof case covered in unicorn stickers. My thumb tapped the gallery. I cranked the brightness to 100%.

I turned the screen toward the room of officers and the shocked civilians in the waiting area.

"This is the video Dad was talking about," I sniffled, my voice trembling. "Auntie Felicity sent it. She said Dad likes her technique better. She said she gave him the son he really wanted and that Mom needs to leave."

I held the screen up high, making sure the pixelated-but-obvious footage was visible.

"Dad is he's a cheater. But I didn't want them to divorce. I don't want to be a fatherless kid. I just posted it because I wanted advice from my friends"

The tears came then. Real ones. They burned the raw, swollen skin of my cheeks like acid.

Franklin looked like he wanted to implode. His face was gray. The shame in the room was palpable, thick enough to choke on.

Officer Bennett cleared her throat, breaking the heavy silence. She gently lowered my hand. "Sweetheart, posting that kind of material is technically illegal," she said softly. "But given your age and the circumstances we're going to call this a very serious warning."

The verdict on Franklin was less forgiving. The evidence of abuse was painted across my face. The motivehis affairwas on my phone.

Five days. He was being held for five days pending the domestic violence hearing.

Two teeth for five days of tactical freedom.

A bargain.

We walked out of the station. I didn't let Simone fuss over me.

"Mom. The company. You have to go. Now."

She looked at me, confused. "Fallon, we need to get you to a doctor"

"I'm fine. Listen to me." I gripped her wrist. "Felicity has relatives in the company. Key positions. HR. Finance. Theyre like termites. You have to smoke them out before Dad gets out."

Simones eyes hardened. The tears dried up. The businesswoman was waking up.

She didn't waste time. She made a call. Within an hour, two women arrived. They were built like linebackers in blazers.

"This is Cleo," Simone said, introducing the lead bodyguard. "She stays with you. No matter what."

Simone kissed my forehead, her lips trembling slightly, then turned and marched toward her car. She was going to war.

Franklin was a climber. A classic case. He came from nothinga single mother who worked herself to the bone to put him through school. He had the ambition, but no capital.

Simone wasn't exactly royalty, but my grandfather had owned a prime piece of real estate in the city center. When Simone and Franklin graduated, Grandpa sold that apartment. He liquidated his biggest asset to fund their dream.

That seed money turned a two-person workshop into a manufacturing empire worth nearly a billion.

Simone was the brain. She could run that company in her sleep. But she had a fatal flaw: Loyalty.

In my past life, Franklin played her like a fiddle. He used her love for him, and then her desperation to keep me, to strip her of everything. He knew she would trade her equity for her daughter.

She thought she could start over. But the world doesn't work like that. Not when you have a vindictive ex and his mistress hunting you down. Not when they blacklist you from the industry and hire thugs to kick over your street stall.

Children are the ultimate leverage. If it weren't for me, Simone would have fought him to the death the first time around. She surrendered solely to protect me.

Not this time.

I touched the gap where my teeth used to be.

Enjoy your five days in the cage, Dad. By the time you get out, the locks will be changed.

Chapter 5