Taking the Fall for Her

I nearly worked myself to death to cure my boyfriend's severe depression, until I discovered he was a billionaire faking it all.

Without health insurance, his private shrinks and heavy-duty prescriptions burned through thousands of dollars every single month. I worked myself to the bone to pay for his treatments. I grinded through endless digital art commissions and hustled delivery gigs day and night until my friends warned me I would drop dead from exhaustion.

That was until the day I snagged a premium courier request up in the ultra-rich gated estates. My frozen fingers trembled as I handed a white truffle and caviar feast worth thousands of dollars to the customer behind the heavy brass doors. I raised my head.

The guy standing in the doorway was Dominic, who was supposed to be miles away at his therapy session.

His eyes blew wide open.

Chapter 1

"Aren't you supposed to be at the clinic, Dominic?" I stared at the sprawling, ultra-modern mansion. The plastic handle of the premium takeout bag bit so hard into my left palm that my skin tore. It was a hundred degrees out in the blistering heat, but violent shivers wrecked my body.

The kind of wealth oozing from these marble pillars was something I had only seen in movies.

"Maeve, I'm sorry, just let me explain. Dr. Simon had an emergency this afternoon" Dominic grabbed the frayed hem of my faded t-shirt. "I'm just hanging out at a friend's place."

The panic bled through his flawless mask. It was his signature movethe gentle tug, the puppy-dog eyes. It always worked.

Not today.

I slapped his hand away.

The fabric of his custom-tailored shirt brushed against my knuckles. I didn't recognize the designer logo, but it fit his broad shoulders perfectlya million times better than the cheap thrift-store hoodies he wore around me. It suited the rich boy underneath.

My eyes dropped to my cracked phone screen. I pulled up the medical booking portal. Dr. Simon's schedule for today still showed three open slots. I didn't even have the energy to shove the screen in his face.

I sucked in a sharp breath, forcing the air past the tight knot in my throat. "Are you having fun, Dominic? Pretending to be a broke loser who couldn't even afford a burger around me when in reality, you're a trust fund prince whose single meal costs three months of my rent!"

My lips trembled. I stared at the stranger standing in front of me, the salty sting of tears blurring my vision before I even realized I was crying.

"You really played me for an absolute fool." My voice cracked.

"Three months of rent. Do you know how many deliveries I have to grind through to make that kind of cash? Two straight months of dodging traffic"

The sickest joke of all was the open text thread on my phone. A message I sent him barely thirty minutes ago. I told him we were having a feast tonight. I was going to make his favorite slow-cooked beef stew.

All because some loaded guy up in the hills dropped a massive fifty-dollar tip.

I just never expected the loaded guy tipping me with pocket change was my own boyfriend.

Dominic used to pull me into his chest in the dead of night, whispering that my love was the only real thing in his life. He swore his own parents didn't care about him the way I did. Those late-night confessions used to make my chest swell. In a city where everyone used each other, I actually thought I was the lucky one who found something pure.

Looking back, I was just the ultimate punchline. Nobody else would be stupid enough to risk a heatstroke for a five-dollar delivery bonus, hustling like a dog just to scrape together enough cash for his fake therapy sessions.

"I haven't slept more than four hours a night in months. I dreamed about the day you would finally get better." A harsh sob ripped through my throat, choking off my words. "You watched me bleed for you, didn't you?"

The arrogant ease on Dominic's face cracked. The muscles in his jaw tightened, and the edges of his eyes turned red as he gave a stiff, jerky nod.

Back in that suffocating, moldy studio apartment, half a mile from the nearest subway stop, he watched me drown. He watched me count pennies at the grocery store. He watched me break my back to fund his twisted little poverty simulation, all to cure a depression he fabricated out of thin air.

He sat back like a god watching an ant burn under a magnifying glass, enjoying every single second of the show.

Chapter 2

"I'll wire some cash to your account as compensation. I really messed up this time." Dominic dropped his gaze. The muscles in his jaw worked, but he swallowed whatever pathetic excuse he had left.

My stiff, frozen fingers dug into my pocket and fished out the crumpled receipt. It was a foot long, listing cuts of Wagyu and bluefin tuna I couldn't even pronounce. I crushed the paper into a tight ball and hurled it hard at his face.

It bounced off his chest. He didn't even flinch, just stood there with his jaw locked tight and a pathetic crease forming between his brows. The icy blast of central AC spilling from the mansion hit my sweat-drenched skin. Footsteps clicked against the marble floors inside, cutting through the heavy hum of the cicadas.

Then came the sweet, sickeningly honeyed voice. "Dominic, babe, is the food not here yet? I'm literally starving!"

The standoff shattered. Dominic's head snapped around, his face draining of color. I followed his gaze.

A young woman sauntered into the foyer, wearing nothing but a sheer silk chemise. She held a crystal flute of expensive champagne in one hand, the custom-cut diamond necklace resting against her collarbones gleaming with a quiet, arrogant kind of wealth.

Dominic's face drained of color. He lunged forward to block her. "Why are you out here? I'm coming right back, baby, just go inside."

But she ignored him. She slipped past his arm and looked at me. A perfectly curated smile stretched across her lips, but her doe eyes flickered with immediate recognitionand cold, unadulterated disgust.

"And this is?"

Dead silence. When neither of us answered, her smirk deepened. She looped her arm through Dominic's, her manicured fingers casually tugging down the neckline of her dusty-pink chemise.

The harsh porch light illuminated the fresh, dark bruises blooming along her neck and the heavy curves spilling over the silk. She melted against his side, molding her body against his.

Dominic shifted his weight, his eyes darting frantically back to me.

I snapped my head away, squeezing my eyes shut. My sweat-soaked hair plastered to my cheeks, and my temples throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse. The stench of their sex was practically suffocating. I didn't need a diagram to figure out what they had been doing.

I thought I was just the punchline to a bored rich boy's poverty-simulation game. Turns out, I was just a pawn in their twisted little trust-fund romance. God, what a literal joke.

My stomach rolled. I grabbed my insulated delivery bag off the porch and spun on my heel, ready to bolt.

But the girl suddenly called out. "Wait a minute. Are you Dominic's little charity case from off-campus? I didn't recognize you in that hideous delivery uniform. You're Maeve from the Liberal Arts college, aren't you?"

I froze, turning around to stare at her. It took me a few seconds to put the face to the name. She was a senior, a grade above me. The untouchable Veronicaold money, flawless genetics, worshipped by the entire campus.

Because she had used her family's Board of Trustees privileges to strip away my full-ride scholarship, I was the only person on campus who refused to lick the dirt off her designer shoes like a dog.

Catching the hardened glint in my eyes, Veronica tightened her grip on Dominic's bicep. She let out a high, artificial laugh.

"Oh my god, Dominic. Last year I casually mentioned how much I hated that stuck-up junior who thought she was better than everyone else. I didn't think you'd actually go after Maeve just to teach her a lesson for me. That is honestly genius"

Veronica tilted her chin, her eyes locking onto mine like sniper sights. "So genius that you played our college's little academic star, Maeve, like a stray dog."

My hands curled into tight fists at my sides, my nails biting hard enough into my palms to draw blood. The AC blasted against my back, but my chest burned like I had swallowed a mouthful of ash. Everything a normal person bled forour futures, our bank accounts, our raw, humiliating sweatwas just a weed growing out of a crack in their driveway.

They didn't just ignore us. They crushed us under their boots and spit on the remains.

Chapter 3

Veronica pressed a kiss against Dominic's cheeka twisted little trophy for successfully playing me. Her eyes dragged over me, dripping with provocation. Then, as if suddenly remembering a hilarious inside joke, her expression twisted into something manic.

"Maeve, didn't Dominic tell you he had clinical depression?"

My brow furrowed. I didn't deny it.

Seeing my reaction, the woman standing in front of me doubled over in a fit of giggles. But the words that spilled from her glossy lips turned the blood in my veins to pure ice.

"That's because I told him all about Asher. I told Dominic that your little brother killed himself because of severe depression, and if he played the exact same card, your stupid, pathetic ass would fall right into the trap."

"And what do you know? It worked perfectly."

The heavy summer air flatlined. Only the deafening screech of the cicadas remained.

A sickening snap echoed inside my skull. My last shred of sanity vaporized. I bit down on my lower lip hard enough to taste copper, ripped the heavy delivery helmet off my head, and swung it at Dominic like a goddamn madwoman.

If I swallowed this disrespect, I might as well roll over and die right now.

My chest heaved violently. "Depression, huh?! Playing the poor little broken boy?! You like ripping open my dead brother's wounds?!"

"You deserve the fact that your cold-blooded billionaire daddy treats you like garbage! You deserve that your mother would rather die than look at your pathetic face!"

During the year I spent with Dominicwhether it was all a sick act or notwe had traded secrets in the dark. I knew exactly where it hurt. I knew his deepest, rotting insecurity was the fact that his parents never gave a single damn about his existence.

And right now, I weaponized every single word of it.

Before either of them could spew another word, I hoisted up the massive, reinforced delivery cooler.

Channeling months of agonizing sleep deprivation and pure, unadulterated hatred, I slammed it directly into Dominic's face.

The sharp, sickening crunch of his perfect, aristocratic nose breaking echoed through the freezing blast of the AC.

My lungs dragged in ragged, starving breaths. The adrenaline spike crashed against months of chronic exhaustion, making my vision swim with dark spots. The second Veronica dragged Asher's name into this twisted game, the dam broke. He was the one line nobody got to cross.

Even as Veronica screamed and clawed at me to pull me back, Dominic didn't raise a single finger to defend himself. He covered his face, thick red blood pouring through his fingers and ruining his custom shirt.

"Dominic, oh my god, are you okay?! I'm calling the cops right now!"

"This crazy bitch has a death wish! She actually hit you?! I'm calling my dad"

Veronica's hysterical shrieks echoed off the marble, but Dominic reached out and grabbed her wrist. He shook his head slowly.

"Don't. Stop. I I owe her this."

He dragged a bloodstained hand through his ruined hair, stumbled to his feet, and walked over to me. He pulled a sleek, heavy gold card from his pocket and held it out.

"The PIN is your birthday. I know there's nothing I can do to fix this, but just take it. I'm sorry."

A hollow, freezing laugh slipped past my lips. The gaze I locked onto him held nothing but absolute, arctic hatred.

"Drop dead."

I snatched the gold card right out of his bloody fingers, spun on my heel, and walked away.

The card held over a hundred grand. I texted the delivery dispatch manager for my final paycheck payout, quit on the spot, and went back to my claustrophobic, two-hundred-square-foot studio apartment.

Chapter 4

I only moved out of the dorms with Dominic because he claimed his physical depression symptoms were spiraling out of control. He begged me to stay by his side every single day.

I wasn't an idiot when this guy bulldozed his way into my life. But seeing him exhibit the exact same symptoms as Asher broke my defenses. It made me stupid. Looking back, I couldn't even tell if I actually loved him, or if I was just drowning in endless guilt, desperate to fix someone else to make up for failing my brother.

I became obsessed with curing Dominic's depression. I convinced myself that if I could just save him, the nightmares choking me every night would finally stop.

A year of living together leaves a lot of junk. The matching couple mugs and stupid souvenirs burned my eyes, so I swept every single trace of him straight into the trash can. The window AC unit rattled like a dying engine. I stared at the ceiling until months of sleep deprivation finally dragged me under.

I lost count of how many times I've walked into that bathroom to find Asher in my dreams.

He looked like a broken doll soaking in a blood-red bathtub. The deep slashes across his wrists were still bleeding out, and the scattered antidepressant pills dissolved in the water. He would never open his eyes to call me his sister again.

He wiped his phone clean. The only thing left was a single text message to me.

[I'm sorry.]

Right below it was a bank transfer for exactly $512.43. Every last cent he had to his name.

The spring flowers were in full bloom when Asher, the golden boy with his whole life ahead of him, decided to leave. And I was trapped in that freezing spring forever.

A sharp rustle of plastic near the front door ripped me out of the nightmare. I jolted awake. A guy in a black dress shirt crouched by the trash can, digging through the garbage like a rat.

"Who's there?"

The man froze. He turned around slowly. It was Dominic. He wore a black surgical mask, white gauze taped heavily over the bridge of his broken nose.

I dug the heels of my hands into my throbbing temples. I forgot he still had a key to this dump.

He dug out the cheap silver couple rings, the custom mugs, the watches, and every other stupid souvenir I trashed earlier. They were lined up neatly on the floor.

"What are you doing?"

Dominic dropped his gaze to the linoleum. "Just grabbing my stuff before I leave."

"It's all cheap garbage. Didn't realize a trust fund prince collected trash." I pushed myself up off the mattress, scanning the room for anything I actually needed.

I was moving back into the campus dorms tomorrow. The lease on this place was getting canceled first thing in the morning.

Dominic clamped his fingers around that worthless silver band. His thumb rubbed obsessively over the metal.

"Maeve, I know you don't believe me, but I meant every word You're the only person I trust." His voice cracked, desperate and pathetic. "Nobody has ever loved me like you did. I can't lose you."

A harsh, ugly laugh clawed its way up my throat. The image of the half-naked Veronica draped over him burned right back behind my eyelids.

"Meant every word? Oh, right. You love me so much you ordered me to hand-deliver your post-sex meal. Should I get on my knees and thank you for the generous tip?"

"I can explain Veronica! We never slept together, I swear! I just agreed to date her because she asked! And I've been trying to end it with her for months!"

"I finally realized the only person I actually love is"

Chapter 5

"There's no point in talking about this anymore." I cut him off, my face completely blank.

A drop of water echoed from the bathroom. The leaky faucet always dripped into the cheap plastic bucket I kept underneath to save a few pennies on the water bill. Pennies saved on water, pennies saved on a fake love. It was all a sick joke.

The second his lies broke open, any truth he had left didn't matter. The bridge was burned.

"Did you ever think, Dominic, when you used my dead brother's memory to get into my bed, that karma was going to come back and rip your throat out?"

"What do you mean?"

I didn't answer. I just pulled the front door wide open and pointed at the hallway.

His shoulders slumped. He shoved the pile of trash back into his duffel bag and stood up.

"Stop pretending to be depressed." I stared right through him. "Every time a rich kid like you plays sick for fun, it makes it a million times harder for the people actually drowning to get a lifeline. It makes it harder for people like Asher."

A long second passed before he gave a stiff nod. He reached behind the door and held up a plastic grocery bag filled with short ribs and lotus roots. He had seen my text about dinner.

"Can you make the stew for me? Just one last time?"

"No. The private chef at your mansion makes it better."

"I only want yours." His voice cracked, thick with unshed tears. "Maeve, why can't you just trust me this once? Give me one more chance."

I never expected the untouchable crown prince to look like a beggar. This wasn't part of his little poverty simulation anymore. But whether he was acting or bleeding, I didn't care. I stood there, dead silent.

He got the message. His hand twitched toward me, then dropped to his side. He stepped out into the hall, his eyes completely bloodshot as he looked back over his shoulder.

"Do you still love me?"

"No."

"Could you ever love me again?"

"Never."

The heavy door clicked shut.

I started tossing the rest of the junk into boxes, getting ready to move back into the dorms next week.

Around 2 AM, I collapsed onto the lumpy sofa. My eyes landed on a locked metal lockbox shoved into the darkest corner of the closet.

Asher's belongings.

We were twins. After our parents' messy divorce, they both started shiny new families. Asher and I were just the expensive, embarrassing mistakes from their reckless youth. Nobody wanted to pay the bill.

Nobody wanted to look back. Since middle school, we only had each other, surviving on the absolute bare minimum child support checks.

A sharp ache seized my chest. My fingers closed tightly around a small velvet jewelry box. It was the birthday gift Asher gave me the year he lefta hexagram necklace covered in crushed diamonds.

He smiled so bright when he gave it to me, fastening the clasp around the back of my neck himself.

"I bought this with my own paycheck, Maeve. Do you like it? It looks so good on you, way better than those models on TV! It's not super expensive right now, but I'm gonna hustle until I can drape you in the most beautiful diamonds in the world!"

His eyes were so fiercely genuine. I poked the single dimple on his cheek and nodded.

I believe you, Asher.

I'm still waiting.

Chapter 6

Something rattled under the foam insert of the jewelry box. I popped it loose and found a small brass key.

When Asher gave me this box two years ago, the key wasn't there. He must have slipped it in later. I pulled it out, my eyes drifting to the chipped metal lockbox shoved in the dark corner of the closet.

The lock clicked open.

There were exactly four things inside. An oil painting of withered sunflowers, a vinyl record from his favorite indie rock band, a black leather diary, and a slip of paper scrawled with an account username and password.

My gaze locked onto the diary. I pulled it out and rested it on my knees. Flipping through the first few pages, it was just routine stuffdaily rants and running tallies of which girls confessed their crushes to him on campus. It made sense.

Asher had this effortlessly striking, pale aesthetic, with deep-set eyes that always looked a little too soulful, paired with an untouchable, quiet vibe.

But maybe because we were both discarded like trash as kids, no matter how much attention he got, he stayed hyper-sensitive and guarded. That was why he wrote everything down in the dark. When we started at the university, his naturally raw, raspy vocals quickly landed him the spot as the lead singer for the campus rock band. Every single gig had girls screaming his name.

I let myself sink into the memories, but my fingers suddenly froze on a page.

Veronica's name was right there in the ink. And as I turned the pages, it started appearing over and over again.

I fully expected a massive target on my back the second I moved back into the dorms. There was no way Veronica was going to let me walk away unpunished after I smashed her boyfriend's face in. I just didn't expect the retaliation to hit this fast.

My mattress was buried under a mountain of rotting takeout containers and ripped delivery boxes. Someone had spray-painted words across my desk in dripping red paint.

[HOMEWRECKING WHORE]

Megan, one of the few girls in my major who actually talked to me, stood next to me, shifting her weight awkwardly.

"Maeve, I tried to stop the seniors from doing this, but they wouldn't listen. They said you messed with the wrong people."

Megan grabbed a trash bag from my hand, refusing to meet my eyes.

I gave her a tight, forced smile and kept scraping dried food off my bed frame.

"And Maeve, have you seen the campus forum yet?" Megan bit her lip. "There's a massive thread accusing you of coming between Veronica and Dominic. It already has hundreds of replies dragging you."

"And the receipts they posted look really solid. Is any of it true?"

My rag stopped moving against the wood. I furrowed my brow, took her phone, and swiped through the thread.

It was mostly stalker-style photos of Dominic and me walking around campus, paired with a bunch of conveniently cropped text screenshots claiming he and Veronica had been dating since freshman summer. Even though they never went public.

A cold scoff left my lips. Veronica was just trying to destroy me, desperately retrofitting a fake relationship timeline just to smear dirt on my name. She framed it perfectly so the entire campus would look at the timeline and see me as the undeniable homewrecker.

I didn't bother answering Megan's question. I just pulled out my own phone and dialed Veronica's number. She picked up on the third ring.

I cut straight to the chase. "It's Maeve. North Gate coffee shop. Three o'clock."

The loud, obnoxious giggling in the background cut off. Veronica let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

"Well, well. If it isn't our little academic star. If you're calling to beg for mercy, you're way too late. I don't have the free time to sit around with a little gutter rat who"

"It's about Asher."

Chapter 7

Veronica swallowed whatever filthy insult she was about to spit out. A heavy silence hung on the line before she finally snapped.

"Fine."

The three o'clock sun wasn't as blinding as high noon, but it still baked the pavement outside. I stirred my iced latte, taking a slow sip. My brain chewed on the scattered entries about Veronica I had found in that black leather diary.

The brass bell above the cafe door chimed. The sharp click of designer heels cut across the floorboards and stopped right at my table.

Veronica was wearing a blue-and-white sundress. It was the first time I really looked at her face dead-on. She had this curated, innocent, doll-like bone structure, but her eyes were swimming with a toxic, vicious hostility that completely ruined the aesthetic.

I dropped my gaze, my stomach rolling. Just looking at her made me want to throw up.

She slid into the booth across from me and slammed her designer bag onto the table. "What about Asher?"

I didn't waste my breath on small talk. "You were obsessed with Asher, weren't you?"

Her hand froze over the laminated menu. Her manicured, pastel-purple nails dug into the plastic edge until her knuckles turned white. A raw flash of grief ripped through her eyes, but she suffocated it a second later.

"Where the hell did you hear that? Like I would ever look twice at a broke loser like him. Hilarious." She kept up the arrogant routine, but the smirk on her lips twitched violently.

"Your name is all over his diary." I stared right through her. "He wrote down that you confessed your feelings to him twenty-seven times."

I dropped my metal stirring spoon onto a napkin. The sharp clink echoed in the empty cafe. The heavy scent of roasted espresso beans hung in the air. The barista was still busy clattering dishes in the back room.

Veronica's pupils dilated. Her jaw opened and closed, but the lie died in her throat. She pressed the heel of her right hand against her forehead, hiding her eyes behind her lashes, refusing to look at me.

That pathetic, cowardly silence tripped every single wire in my brain. I grabbed the framed canvas resting on the seat next to me and slammed it face-up onto the table.

It was Asher's final piecethe oil painting of the dead, rotting sunflowers.

"So why did you do it? If you were so obsessed with him, why the hell did you steal his painting?!" I leaned across the table. "Why did you use your family to get him blacklisted from the national showcase?"

"Do you have any idea what that competition meant to him? Art and music were the only things keeping him breathing"

Ten days after his masterpiece, The Lost Sunflowers, was stolen and copyrighted under someone else's name, Asher killed himself. And the thief who ripped it off was sitting right in front of me.

She snapped her head up. Her eyes locked onto the framed painting, and suddenly, pure, unadulterated venom boiled over in her face.

"And even after he died, you still had to play your sick little games with his family." I gritted my teeth. "Your love is a goddamn disease, Veronica."

Her chest started heaving violently. The polished mask completely shattered. The word 'love' seemed to stab right through her ribs.

Chapter 8

Veronica grabbed the iced latte and smashed it against the floorboards. She shot out of the booth. The veins in her neck bulged, her eyes completely bloodshot.

"What the hell do you know?! You call yourself his sister, but what did you actually know about him?! Who gave you the right to question how much I loved him?!"

"Yeah, I was obsessed with him! For the first time in my entire goddamn life, I wanted someone so badly I gave him absolutely everything! I bought ten copies of every single indie vinyl he mentioned. I didn't know which sneakers he liked, so I bought the entire designer drop just to give to him."

"Watching him play those stupid first-person shooters made me physically nauseous, but I forced myself to learn the controls just so we could have something to talk about. My money, my heart, my prideI got on my goddamn knees and offered it all on a silver platter!"

"What do you know? I have never begged for anything in my life! He rejected me twenty-seven times, and I didn't care. I really didn't."

"I could take it. I could keep trying. Because I really, truly loved Asher"

The tears ripped through her perfect makeup. Her voice cracked into a hoarse, ugly rasp. Her knees buckled. She collapsed back into the leather booth, staring at me with hollow, bleeding eyes as the tears poured down her cheeks.

The icy control I had over my nerves completely snapped. The blood pounded in my ears. None of this sick, twisted logic made any sense. I leaned forward, my nails biting into the tabletop.

"So why did you do it? Why did you steal his painting?! Did you know he killed himself exactly ten days after that showcase ended? Do you have any idea how deep he slashed his wrists?"

"Do you know how desperate he was to bleed out? Look me in the eye, Veronica, and tell me you didn't help put him in that bathtub!"

My lungs seized. I dragged in a ragged, starving breath. The copper stench of the blood-soaked bathroom exploded behind my eyelids all over again.

Veronica's jaw trembled. No words came out. The pupils of her eyes darted around, completely unfocused. Her entire body shook violently.

She dug a slim cigarette out of her designer bag. A barista immediately rushed over to stop her before she could strike the lighter. Her manicured nails pinched the cigarette, crushing the tobacco into messy flakes over the table. She finally forced the words out.

"That weekend he went to a high-profile industry gig I set up for him. When he came back, he looked like a hollowed-out shell. I just went to ask how the show went. Asher looked at me like he wanted to rip my throat out."

"He said I was the most disgusting, repulsive thing he had ever met. He called me a filthy whore."

"Every time I close my eyes, I see him pointing his finger right at my face, screaming at me. It felt like my ribs were caving in! I didn't know what happened! My dad told me there would be massive record executives at that gig."

"It was the ultimate networking opportunity. I pulled strings to get Asher on the list. But the second it was over, he completely cut me off like I was a dead animal"

"I have my own damn pride! If he didn't want me, fine but why did he have to drag me through the dirt like that? After that night, I stopped trying. I just wanted"

I just wanted to destroy him.

The sob choked off the rest of her sentence. But she didn't need to finish it.

When an obsession gets starved, it rots into pure, unadulterated venom. Just like Veronica said. A girl who grew up worshiped by everyone around her always got exactly what she pointed at.

If she couldn't own him, she was going to burn his life to the ground. That twisted hatred didn't die when Asher stopped breathing. It just transferred directly onto me.

Ripping away my full-ride scholarship, feeding Dominic the perfect ammunition to break meit was all just the toxic fallout of her shattered ego.

Chapter 9

"How do you even know what happened between me and Asher?" Veronica asked.

"He protected you like a goddamn treasure, didn't he? He hid every piece of dirt from you just so you wouldn't worry. Honestly, I'm jealous. I wish anyone cared about me that much."

The ice cubes in my cup had completely melted, a few drops of watered-down latte bleeding over the rim. I rubbed my thumb over the thick calluses on my palms, the image of Asher's neat, elegant handwriting flashing through my mind.

"I read the diary he left behind."

The artificial defiance drained from Veronica's face. Even the toxic hatred vaporized. "Did he did he always hate me? Or did he ever even just a little bit like me?"

"I can't answer that for him."

In that black leather book, the timeline where Asher started hurling insults at Veronica perfectly aligned with that industry showcase. But after that night, his entries violently shifted. The mundane daily rants vanished. Instead, page after page was filled with three violently carved words.

Drop dead, Winston.

The pen strokes were gouged so deep they physically tore through the paper, like he was trying to slaughter the man right through the ink. It was a kind of pure, suffocating hatred that words couldn't even process. But he didn't write down a single explanation. No context.

Nothing.

I lifted my gaze to the hollowed-out girl sitting across from me. "One last question. Winston. That's your father, right? The guy on the Board of Trustees."

Veronica blinked, visibly thrown by the sudden whiplash of the question. She gave a slow nod.

"Yeah. He's my dad