A Wife, A Placeholder, A Lie

A Wife, A Placeholder, A Lie

Wo Ruo

5.0
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The frantic beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound as my son, Leo, struggled for every breath. Anaphylactic shock, the doctors said. A severe, unexpected allergic reaction. My world reeled as the nurse cried, "We need O-negative blood, now! The blood bank is running low." Just as despair threatened to swallow me, my friend Chloe stepped forward. "I'm O-negative. Take my blood. Take as much as you need." Relief washed over me, a gratitude so immense it felt like pain. Hours later, with Leo sleeping peacefully thanks to Chloe' s heroic act, Liam, my husband, praised her as a "selfless hero." But then, I overheard Chloe's voice, cold and sharp, "I had to prick the little brat with that bee stinger. And I had to make sure he ate the crushed nuts. It was a mess, Liam." My hand froze on the faucet. Liam' s voice, low and intimate, soothed her. "Now everyone sees you as a hero. The perfect, caring woman. We just need to wait a little longer." Chloe whined, "I'm tired of watching her play mother to my son. I want my life back. I want our life back." My son. The words slammed into me, shattering my reality. He said it again: "Our son." My entire marriage was a meticulously crafted lie, a cage adorned to look like a home. Every loving glance, every tender touch, every shared laugh – a performance. I wasn't a wife; I was a placeholder. I wasn't a mother; I was a nanny. My sweet Leo, a prop in their cruel play. Liam was building a family, a life, not with me, but with her. I was just the convenient, naive stepping stone. My blood ran cold. I wasn't just heartbroken; I was a pawn in an elaborate, sinister game. With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone and pressed record. I needed proof. I needed a record of this monstrosity.

Introduction

The frantic beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound as my son, Leo, struggled for every breath. Anaphylactic shock, the doctors said. A severe, unexpected allergic reaction. My world reeled as the nurse cried, "We need O-negative blood, now! The blood bank is running low." Just as despair threatened to swallow me, my friend Chloe stepped forward. "I'm O-negative. Take my blood. Take as much as you need."

Relief washed over me, a gratitude so immense it felt like pain. Hours later, with Leo sleeping peacefully thanks to Chloe' s heroic act, Liam, my husband, praised her as a "selfless hero." But then, I overheard Chloe's voice, cold and sharp, "I had to prick the little brat with that bee stinger. And I had to make sure he ate the crushed nuts. It was a mess, Liam." My hand froze on the faucet.

Liam' s voice, low and intimate, soothed her. "Now everyone sees you as a hero. The perfect, caring woman. We just need to wait a little longer." Chloe whined, "I'm tired of watching her play mother to my son. I want my life back. I want our life back." My son. The words slammed into me, shattering my reality.

He said it again: "Our son." My entire marriage was a meticulously crafted lie, a cage adorned to look like a home. Every loving glance, every tender touch, every shared laugh – a performance. I wasn't a wife; I was a placeholder. I wasn't a mother; I was a nanny. My sweet Leo, a prop in their cruel play. Liam was building a family, a life, not with me, but with her. I was just the convenient, naive stepping stone.

My blood ran cold. I wasn't just heartbroken; I was a pawn in an elaborate, sinister game. With trembling hands, I pulled out my phone and pressed record. I needed proof. I needed a record of this monstrosity.

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My deadbeat cousin Andrew, always one gig away from stardom and a thousand dollars away from a loan shark' s wrath, begged me to save his skin. He needed a meeting with Mr. Hughes, a ghost in the Nashville music scene. Against my better judgment, leveraging years of hard-won respect, I pulled strings and secured him a miracle: a 10-minute slot with the industry giant. Moments before this life-changing meeting, Andrew' s mother, my aunt Maria, stormed into my apartment. She snatched a stack of my jobless cousin' s demo CDs he'd given me "for free" and shrieked they were collector' s items, each worth a thousand dollars-demanding $10,000 from me. My parents, true to form, urged me to just "keep the peace." Then, Andrew himself called. He didn't deny anything. Instead, he smugly claimed he' d given me the CDs out of pity and that he and Mr. Hughes were "tight," betraying every ounce of trust. Before I could even breathe, Maria lunged, smashing my phone and shoving me down the concrete stairs, leaving me bruised and humiliated, while my parents stood by, silent. Why did they always put their spineless desire for "peace" above my dignity, my safety, my career? Why did I always have to be the one to pay, to suffer for their toxic family? Lying on the cold floor, seeing the shattered screen of my phone with three missed calls from Mr. Hughes's assistant, something inside me finally snapped. I slowly stood up. I wasn't just pulling out of the deal. I was about to unleash a reckoning.

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Too Late: The Spare Daughter Escapes Him

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SHANA GRAY
4.3

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

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