1 Ten years later, I never expected to see my ex-wife Victoria again in a hospital. I was hit by an SUV while delivering food. Now a famous surgeon, she looked radiant. But seeing me, she immediately asked why I never found her after my discharge, saying she’d waited all these years. Before she finished, a man in a white coat approached and hugged her—Oliver Belmont, the surgeon who killed my sister on the operating table. I told Victoria she had the wrong person. As I tried to leave, she grabbed my gown, tearing it open and revealing the severe burn scars on my back. Watching her cry at the sight, I felt a deep irony. Years ago, to protect Oliver, she forged my medical records and had me locked in a psychiatric ward. I quietly pulled my gown back up, adjusting the fabric without looking back at her. "Dr. Victoria, if you are incapable of treating me, please transfer me to another hospital." Victoria completely ignored my request. She lost her composure, stepping directly into my path to block my exit. "Andrew, what happened to your back?" She paused, her voice dropping to a trembling whisper. "How... how have you been all these years?" Just as she asked the question, Oliver finally noticed who I was. "Well, look who it is. Long time no see, Andrew." He stepped up right beside me, reclaiming Victoria's hand. He glanced down at the crushed delivery bag on the floor and let out a mocking laugh. "I was wondering why my lunch delivery was taking so long. Turns out you were the driver." "Makes sense. This is exactly the kind of pathetic work you are suited for now. I know making a few bucks is hard for a guy like you, so don't worry, I won't report you to the app for a refund." Victoria frowned, tugging hard on Oliver's sleeve. "Stop it. Don't say things like that here." She turned back to me, opening her mouth a few times before she finally managed to speak. "Andrew, Oliver is still young. Please don't take his words to heart." "As for what happened back then, you have to understand. I had my reasons. I was forced into a corner." Watching this man and woman perform their little routine, the memories of the past ten years stabbed into my brain like rusted needles. Ten years ago, Oliver was fresh out of med school and had absolutely no surgical qualifications. To fast-track his resume, Victoria broke protocol and allowed him to be the lead surgeon on my little sister's operation. My sister, Sophie, had just been accepted into an elite prep school. She died on the operating table over a routine gallstone removal. When my mother heard the news, her heart gave out. She died of a massive cardiac arrest. My father broke down completely and jumped from the hospital roof, dying right in front of my eyes. Overnight, my entire family was wiped out. I had no idea about Victoria and Oliver's secret affair. Frantic and grieving, I tried to go to the police. Instead, I was served with a forged psychiatric diagnosis and dragged away in a straitjacket. In that nightmare facility, I was force-fed heavy antipsychotics every single day. The slightest act of defiance earned me electroshock therapy and hours strapped down in isolation. I endured a decade of absolute hell, biting my own tongue until it bled just to keep my sanity intact. I only escaped because a massive fire broke out in the wing. I clawed my way out through the flames. I survived, but the third-degree burns permanently destroyed my body. And my brilliant mind was gone. I was no longer the fifteen-year-old engineering prodigy who had been accepted into a top-tier university. The memories made my eyes burn. But Oliver just scoffed, entirely unbothered. "Oh, come on, Victoria. Why are you wasting your pity on him?" "He never gave a damn about you. He didn't care that going to the cops would ruin your entire medical career." "Besides, what happened to his parents wasn't our fault. Those two old fossils were just mentally weak." The fragile thread holding my temper snapped. Before he could spit out another word, I spun around and smashed my fist directly into his face. "Shut your mouth!" "You are a murderer! You don't have the right to even breathe their names!" The second the words left my mouth, Oliver shoved me violently backwards. The push was brutal. I was already severely injured from the car crash, and the back of my head slammed directly into the sharp corner of a medical cart. A blinding spike of agony ripped through my skull. My legs gave out entirely. "That is enough!" Victoria shoved Oliver back just as he raised his foot to kick me. She looked down at me, her chest heaving in silence. "What happened ten years ago was my fault. It had nothing to do with Oliver." "You need to calm down. I will find another attending doctor for you." "Don't worry about the medical bills. I will compensate you." With that, she grabbed Oliver by the arm and fled the hospital room like she was escaping a crime scene. 2 I laid on the freezing linoleum floor for what felt like hours. The doctor Victoria promised never arrived. I tried to force myself up several times, but my muscles completely refused to obey. Blood pooled beneath my head, expanding across the white tiles as my vision grew dark and blurry. Just as I was about to slip into unconsciousness, the door was thrown open. Several panicked nurses rushed in and hoisted me onto a stretcher. "Dr. Victoria is unbelievable," one of the nurses complained bitterly. "We had an incoming trauma, and she forced us to drop everything to check Dr. Belmont for a headache!" "What could possibly be wrong with him? Meanwhile, this poor guy is bleeding out on the floor. Does she not understand triage?" The resident doctor wrapping a tight gauze bandage around my head immediately cut her off. "Shut up! You know exactly who his family is. If you want to keep your job, keep your mouth shut." The nurse rolled her eyes in disgust but didn't say another word. I laid on the hospital bed, closing my eyes as a wave of bitter grief washed over me. Victoria hadn't noticed. Aside from my burned back, I also had ten severely deformed fingers. In the asylum, the orderlies had systematically broken my knuckles with a heavy flashlight, let them heal improperly, and then broken them again. When I was first committed, Oliver and Victoria played the ultimate victims on the evening news. They cried for the cameras, claiming that I had ignored explicit medical instructions and fed my sister prohibited solid food before her surgery, directly causing the fatal complication. Overnight, the public branded me a "murderer" and a "violent lunatic." Everyone pitied Oliver and praised Victoria for doing the right thing by locking away her deranged husband. But behind the cameras, Oliver had leaned close to my ear, whispering with a sickening smile. "Give it up, Andrew. My family is loaded. Victoria needs me to get everything she wants in this world." He even pulled out his phone, shoving a picture of Victoria sleeping peacefully naked against his chest right in my face. "You have no idea. She was so needy last night, she nearly broke me." I lost my mind. I screamed and lunged at him, tearing at his clothes. And of course, the camera crews he had stationed perfectly caught my "psychotic breakdown" on film, solidifying his entire lie. That very night, because I refused to swallow my medication, an orderly shattered my index finger. That was how I survived a decade in hell. It wasn't that I didn't hate them. But I knew I couldn't fight them. They had money, status, and power. Right now, my only goal was basic survival. I didn't know when I passed out, but the next morning, I opened my eyes to see Victoria sitting in the chair beside my bed. There were heavy, dark bags under her eyes, and the whites of her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like she had stayed awake all night. "Andrew, I stayed here and watched over you." She reached out, wanting to touch my arm, but her hand hovered awkwardly in the air before retreating to her lap. "I know you hate me. But you still have to find a way to live." "You obviously can't go back to engineering. But I can arrange a job for you here at the hospital." She paused, avoiding my eyes. "A janitor position in the maternity ward. Fifteen dollars an hour, with full medical benefits. It is infinitely better than delivering food, and at least you won't get hit by cars." I stared at her for a long time. Then, I genuinely laughed out loud. "You and I both know exactly what happened ten years ago. Do you really want me to spell out your filthy, treacherous little secrets right here?" "Get out." Her face darkened instantly, the mask of pity dropping entirely. "Andrew, do not push your luck!" I ignored her, closing my eyes and turning my head to the window. I could feel her standing over my bed for a long, heavy moment. Finally, she let out an exasperated sigh and walked out. For the next two weeks of my recovery, she covered all my medical expenses but never showed her face again. I was grateful for the peace and quiet. I foolishly believed the nightmare was over. Until the day of my discharge. I walked out of the hospital sliding doors and pulled up my delivery app to check my shifts. A bright red banner popped up. My account had been permanently banned. Panic setting in, I immediately called my dispatch manager. He answered the phone screaming. "Andrew, do you have no shame? You belong in an asylum, and you dare pretend to be normal to get a job here?" "Corporate sent down an explicit directive to terminate you. Do yourself a favor and lock yourself back up in the loony bin!" He hung up before I could reply. When I tried calling back, the automated voice told me I was blocked. My stomach plummeted. I knew exactly whose doing this was. Victoria. 3 Without the delivery job, I spent the entire week dragging myself across Boston, begging for work. But everywhere I went, people treated me like a walking plague. Some managers were incredibly hostile, literally chasing me out of their stores with broomsticks, screaming that a psycho had no business infecting normal society. Out of options, I decided to head back to the tiny, damp basement apartment I had been renting. But when I reached the front steps, I found all my meager belongings packed into trash bags and thrown onto the curb. My landlord was storming out of my unit holding the last few items of my clothing. When he saw me, he threw my shirts onto the wet pavement, spat violently at my feet, and slammed the heavy metal door shut with a deafening bang. I stepped forward to demand an explanation, but Mrs. Higgins, the sweet older lady who lived next door, grabbed my arm. Her eyes were red and watery. "Andrew, please. Have some mercy on us. Important people made it very clear that if you stay here, our entire block is going to suffer." I froze in absolute silence. When the neighbors finally dispersed, I gathered my trash bags. Standing on the sidewalk, I realized that in this massive, sprawling city, I had absolutely nowhere left to go. Then, the rain started. It was a torrential downpour. I huddled under the narrow awning of a closed convenience store, staring blankly at the wet, neon-lit streets of a city that felt entirely alien to me. Maybe ending it all right here was the best outcome I could hope for. Just as the dark thought settled into my mind, a wave of muddy water splashed against my boots. I looked up. A sleek, black Porsche Cayenne had pulled up right in front of me. The door swung open, and Victoria stepped out, holding an expensive black umbrella. Seeing me shivering like a drowned rat, she frowned in distaste. But her voice carried a distinct note of arrogant triumph. "Why are you doing this to yourself, Andrew?" "I told you. If you just come back to the hospital with me, even as a janitor, you wouldn't have to live like a stray dog." I stood up straight, meeting her gaze. I didn't offer her a single ounce of the desperate begging she was so clearly craving. My voice was dead. "And I told you to go to hell." Victoria's expression turned rigid. Before she could snap back, Oliver stepped out from the passenger side, wrapping his arms possessively around her waist from behind. "Victoria, why are you wasting your breath on trash like this? Let him starve. He will come crawling back to you begging on his knees when he is desperate enough." Victoria didn't correct him. She simply reached into her designer purse, pulled out a sleek business card, and tossed it onto the wet pavement at my feet. "Call me when you finally understand reality." Without another word, she let Oliver lead her back into the luxury SUV. I watched the taillights fade into the rain. I left the card to dissolve in the puddle, picked up my soaked bags, and walked away. I knew exactly how Victoria operated. The moment you refused to bow to her, she would systematically destroy every avenue of survival until you had no choice but to surrender to her control. In that regard, she and Oliver truly were a match made in hell. I had nowhere to sleep. I walked aimlessly through the blinding storm. I didn't know how far I walked. I walked until the black night slowly faded into a cold, gray dawn. When I finally stopped and looked around, I realized I had wandered all the way to the city's outskirts. I was standing at the iron gates of the municipal cemetery. Looking at the distant hills where my parents and my sister were buried, a bitter smile cracked my frozen lips. This city wasn't my home anymore. Everyone I ever loved was buried under this dirt. I used the last ten dollars in my pocket to buy a cheap bouquet of white chrysanthemums from a vendor. But when I approached my family's plots, I froze. Incense was already burning. A middle-aged man was kneeling on the wet grass in front of their headstones, burning paper money and bowing his head. When he heard my footsteps, he jumped, his eyes wide with shock. Then, he cautiously spoke. "Mr. Andrew?" The moment he said my name, tears flooded his eyes. He literally crawled across the muddy grass toward me, violently shoving a bank card and a small black flash drive into my frozen hands. "Andrew, I was the surgical assistant during your sister's operation. She died because Dr. Belmont administered a lethal dose of a contraindicated drug." "He gave me a massive amount of hush money. My kid needed a heart transplant... I was desperate, so I took it. The rest of the blood money is on this card. And the flash drive... it has the unedited security footage of the OR and their text logs." I gripped the flash drive, my hands shaking so violently I couldn't stop. I couldn't tell if it was the permanent nerve damage from my shattered knuckles, or the overwhelming adrenaline of finally, finally securing the truth. I stood in the silent graveyard for a long time. So this was it. After ten excruciating years, I was finally going to clear my name. I was finally going to get justice for the family I lost. 4 Clutching the flash drive to my chest, I sprinted out of the cemetery, heading straight for the nearest police precinct. But I hadn't even made it three blocks down the deserted road when a blinding, agonizing strike hit the back of my skull. The world went entirely black. When I slowly regained consciousness, the smell of rust and mold filled my lungs. I was tied to a chair inside a massive, abandoned warehouse. A hulking man in a black jacket stood beside me, casually tapping a solid iron pipe against the concrete floor. His face was pure malice. Victoria stood a few feet away, looking down at me with profound disappointment. "Andrew, did you really have to push things this far?" "I am more terrified of seeing you get hurt than anyone else in the world. Why can't you just be obedient?" I ignored her completely, thrashing wildly against the thick ropes binding me to the chair, desperate to feel my pockets to see if the flash drive was still there. Oliver finally stepped out of the shadows. He crouched down directly in front of me, pulling a small black object from his expensive slacks. He sneered. "Looking for this?" My entire body went rigid. It was the flash drive. The only piece of hope I had left in this miserable world. The blood in my veins turned to ice. I roared like a caged animal, violently jerking my body forward, trying to bite, to headbutt, to do anything to get it back. The force of my struggle snapped the rotted wood of the chair. I crashed heavily onto the concrete floor, still bound by the ropes. Oliver let out a dark, booming laugh. He casually tossed the small plastic drive onto the floor right in front of my face. "You want it so bad?" He lifted his heavy leather boot and brought it down with crushing force, grinding his heel until the plastic and the microchip completely shattered into useless fragments. "Too bad. There wasn't anything on it anyway." He turned to look up at Victoria, utterly victorious. "See, Victoria? I told you. He is a treacherous rat. You try to show him mercy, and not only does he spit in your face, he tries to drag you down to prison with him." "It's a good thing I paid some actors to stage that little confession at the graveyard. I can't believe that after a decade in the loony bin, he is still this incredibly stupid." My heart plummeted straight into the abyss. The very last shred of light in my soul was instantly extinguished. It was a setup. The confession, the evidence, the hope. It was all a psychotic illusion engineered by monsters. From the very beginning, they never intended to let me survive. I looked up at Victoria. Her eyes were red. She stared at me, playing the part of a wounded victim flawlessly. "Andrew, I didn't want it to come to this. But why did you force my hand?" "Why couldn't you just show a little empathy for my situation? Why do you have to be so horribly selfish?" Looking at the woman I used to love unconditionally, the woman I would have died for, I felt like I was looking at an alien creature. Empathy? Selfish? Because I wanted justice for my slaughtered parents and my dead little sister? Because I wanted the people who tortured me in a psychiatric ward for ten years to pay for their crimes? She didn't give me a chance to answer. Having delivered her twisted moral lecture, she turned on her heel and headed for the heavy steel doors. "Oliver, do what you have to do." "Just scare him. Don't actually kill him." With that, she disappeared into the light outside, the heavy doors slamming shut behind her. Oliver turned back to me, his face twisting into a sadistic, ugly grin. "Genius engineer? Prodigy?" He spat. "In my hands, you are nothing but a dying dog." He flicked his wrist. The thug in the black jacket stepped forward and buried the toe of his steel-capped boot deep into my stomach. I screamed in agony, my body curling involuntarily into a tight ball. But that was just the beginning. The next second, the heavy iron pipe came crashing down on my ribs. I blacked out from the pain, only to be jolted awake by buckets of freezing water. Every time the pipe fell, I could hear and feel another bone splintering inside my body. My consciousness was fading fast. Right when I accepted that I was going to bleed to death on this filthy concrete floor, the piercing wail of heavy police sirens ripped through the air. Before Oliver could even react, the heavy steel doors of the warehouse were violently kicked off their hinges. A furious, booming voice echoed through the cavernous space. "Stop right there! You dare lay a finger on the bloodline of the Sinclair family?!"
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