ughts to a crawl. I was dying. I knew it with a certainty that was as clear as the ice forming on the

ught I saw, and locked the door. He cut the phone line. He took the keys to the only car. He l

roject. For

t in cold, hard text. Mark, the ambitious star of the real estate firm, was going to present my groundbreaking eco-city designs as his own. And Chloe, my own sister, was helping him. Sh

ed him the printouts of their messages. He didn't even

had said, his voice flat. "It's yo

t." Like a fool, I agreed. I still held a sliver of hope

. We were so happy. But the eco-city project was in its infancy, demanding all my time. Mark pushed me, telling me

xcuse. A week later, I lost the baby. He didn't come to the hospital. He was in a "critical meeting" with a potential investor, a meeting Chloe had arranged. When he finally showed up that night, he smelled of Chloe's perfume and told me we could "al

ent. It contained everything: the original design files with metadata proving my authorship, recordings of Mark and Chloe discussing their plan, a copy of the secret clause in my family's trust. The clause was my grandfather'

Chloe would have everything. My career, my family's money, their freedom. And I would be just a tragic story

flutte

kne

udden, vi

and paper. I was sitting at my desk in the firm' s office. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, panicked rhy

s dancing in the air. Across from me, my assistant, a young intern nam

You just blanked out

y monitor. It was a date from two weeks ago. Two weeks before t

dream? A hallucinat

palms, the low hum of the office computers, the pou

ack. I had been gi

ile. It was a promise. This time, there would be no confronting

uld be the one

about to find out how wrong they were. This wasn't just about getting my d

s for r