Her Sacrifice, His Blind Hatred

“My boss, August Ortega, forced me to donate bone marrow to his fiancée. She was afraid of getting a scar. For seven years, I'd been the assistant to the boy I grew up with, the man who now despised me. But his fiancée, Harlow, wanted more than my marrow; she wanted me gone. She framed me for shattering a five-million-dollar gift, and August made me kneel on the broken crystal until my knees bled. She framed me for assault at a gala, and he had me arrested, where I was beaten bloody in a holding cell. Then, to punish me for a sex tape I never leaked, he kidnapped my parents. He made me watch as he dangled them from a crane on an unfinished skyscraper, hundreds of feet in the air. He called my phone, his voice cold and smug. "Have you learned your lesson yet, Cora? Are you ready to apologize?" As he spoke, the rope snapped. My parents plummeted into the darkness. A terrifying calm washed over me. The taste of blood filled my mouth, a symptom of the illness he never knew I had. He laughed on the other end of the line, a cruel, ugly sound. "Feel free to jump off that roof if it hurts so much. It would be a fitting end for you." "Okay," I whispered. And then, I stepped off the edge of the building and into the empty air.”