Before I married Grant Covington, his mother put me through a pre-nuptial obedience test. She made me kneel and serve champagne to the entire family. I knelt. She made me walk barefoot across the estate’s jagged gravel driveway to prove I had “grit.” I walked. She made me sign an iron-clad prenuptial agreement, stating that in the event of a divorce, I would leave with nothing. I signed. Grant stood by and watched it all, his face a mask of indifference. “It’s not a big deal, Chloe,” he’d said, his voice low. “Just get through it. These are just family traditions.” I smiled and nodded, a single tear betraying me as it traced a path down my cheek. The final part of the test came without warning: a sharp, stinging slap across my face from his mother, Eleanor. “If you want to marry into this family,” she hissed, “you need to learn your place.” I didn’t move. But upstairs, in his home office in the middle of a video conference with his board, Grant Covington suddenly coughed, spraying a fine mist of blood across his monitor. He clutched his own cheek, his eyes wide with a terror he didn’t understand, staring at me through the open doorway. [SYSTEM INITIATED: Empathic Link with Grant Covington is now active. All physical and emotional trauma inflicted upon the host will be experienced by the target at 100% intensity.] 1 The sting on my face hadn’t even begun to fade when Grant’s body went rigid, and he collapsed backward like a marionette with its strings cut. His handsome face, a face that had always been a canvas for arrogance and cool dismissal, was now twisted in a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. “Grant!” “Mr. Covington!” The Covington living room erupted. The symphony of chaos was immediate—screams, the frantic scrape of chairs, a table overturning with a crash. I stood frozen in the center of it all, watching as they scrambled to get Grant onto a stretcher, his body limp. The one who had started it all, his mother, Eleanor, stared for a single, stunned moment before her eyes found me. She pointed a trembling finger. “You!” she shrieked, her voice cracking. “You’re a curse! A goddamn black widow! My son is perfectly healthy, and the moment you’re in this house, he collapses!” I said nothing. I just lifted a hand to my own face, gently touching the raised, swollen flesh of my left cheek. It burned with a heat that felt strangely similar to the dying fire in my heart. The diagnosis from the hospital came back quickly: acute concussion with associated soft tissue damage to the face. Cause unknown. When Grant woke up, I was the only one in the room. He saw the perfect, five-fingered print blooming on my cheek—an exact mirror of the phantom impact he remembered—and the confusion in his eyes hardened into a familiar, chilling resentment. “Chloe, what did you do to me?” His voice was a raw rasp, thick with accusation. I looked at him, my expression unreadable. “I didn’t do anything. Your mother slapped me, and you collapsed.” “Absurd,” he scoffed, the sound sharp with contempt. “My mother hits you, and I start bleeding? Chloe, I knew you were desperate for my sympathy, but this is a new low. Are you really making up this kind of garbage now?” “It’s not garbage,” I said, my voice steady, each word a carefully placed stone. “A moment ago, we were bound by something called an Empathic Link. From now on, any pain I feel—physical or emotional—you will feel it, too. Perfectly.” Grant stared at me, his disgust a palpable thing in the sterile room. “Is this your new gimmick? I have to hand it to you, Chloe. The lengths you’ll go to just to get my attention… it’s almost impressive.” “You don’t believe me?” I asked. “I believe you’re insane,” he bit out. A small, broken laugh escaped my lips, followed by another traitorous tear. I wiped it away angrily. I looked at this man—the man I had loved with a fierce, unwavering devotion for ten years, a man whose heart remained a fortress of ice—and spoke in a tone so cold it startled even me. “Let’s make a bet, Grant.” “A bet about what?” He arched an eyebrow, looking at me like I was a particularly pathetic insect. “I bet,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper, “that I’m going to make you understand, in every nerve of your body, exactly how much this last decade has hurt.” He didn’t answer. He just turned his head away and buzzed for the nurse, his dismissal more eloquent than any insult. He found my very presence nauseating. I looked out the window at the inky black sky. “You’ll believe me,” I whispered to the glass. “You will.” 2 When I returned to the Covington estate, Eleanor was waiting for me, her face a mask of rage. “You have the nerve to show your face here? You gold-digging witch! My Grant has never had so much as a paper cut his entire life, and the day he marries you, he ends up in the hospital! You’re bad luck!” As she screamed, she ordered a maid to take down the decorative riding crop that hung on the wall of the study. It was braided black leather, oiled to a dark sheen. My heart seized as I looked at it. I remembered when I first met Grant. He was just like that crop—proud, wild, and untamable. I’d spent years chasing after him, believing that if I just ran fast enough, loved hard enough, one day I’d be able to stand beside him. Now, I was just another object in his house he permitted to be beaten. The large television in the living room was on, tuned to an entertainment news channel. “Tech mogul Grant Covington was rushed to the hospital today,” the polished anchorwoman said. “His high school sweetheart, beloved pop star Isabelle Vance, was seen rushing to his side. Sources say she hasn’t left him for a moment, fueling speculation that rumors of his recent marriage to a mysterious nobody were greatly exaggerated…” On the screen, Isabelle was tenderly tucking the corner of a blanket around Grant’s shoulder. And the way Grant looked at her… it was with a softness, a warmth, I had never once seen directed at me. So he wasn’t a man made of stone. He was just reserving all his warmth for someone else. And I couldn’t even earn a shred of his trust. A wave of grief so profound it felt like drowning washed over me. Crack. The first lash of the riding crop across my back was electric. The pain was so sharp, so immediate, that my knees buckled. It felt like my skin had split open. “I’ll teach you to seduce my son, you little tramp! I’ll beat the ambition out of you!” Eleanor was in a frenzy, bringing the crop down again and again. Just then, my phone rang. It was Grant. With a trembling hand, I managed to answer it. “Chloe!” His voice was a furious, pained roar through the phone. “What is this, some kind of self-harm stunt to get my attention now? I’m telling you, stop it! Whatever you’re doing, it’s pathetic, and it’s only making me hate you more!” His voice was loud enough for Eleanor to hear. She thought I was tattling on her. Her expression curdled into something even more monstrous. “You dare call him? You think he’ll save you?” She raised her arm high, putting the full force of her body into one final, brutal swing. “Aaargh!” The sound that ripped through the phone was not Grant’s angry shout, but a raw, piercing scream of agony. It was a sound of unimaginable pain, a sound that bypassed the ears and shot straight into the spine. Eleanor froze. On the other end of the line, Grant’s screams dissolved into tortured groans, each one more desperate than the last. Panic finally broke through her rage. She dropped the riding crop and snatched the phone from my hand. “Grant? Grant, honey, what’s wrong? Talk to Mommy, what’s happening?” His voice came back, choked and ragged. “Mom… my back… It feels like it’s on fire… God, it hurts…” “Your back?” Eleanor’s face was a canvas of confusion. She glanced down at me, collapsed on the floor, my back a mess of bleeding welts. “Don’t you worry, baby, I’m coming right now!” she said into the phone. “It must be that witch. She’s putting a curse on you!” She hung up and ran out of the house. At the hospital, Grant was drenched in a cold sweat, the pain in his back so intense he could barely breathe. He grabbed his mother’s hand the moment she rushed in. “Mom,” he gasped, his eyes filled with a terrifying new suspicion. “Did you… did you just hit Chloe?” Eleanor’s eyes darted away for a second. “No! Of course not! Why would I do that? She was throwing a fit at the house, crying and screaming. I just scolded her a bit, that’s all.” Isabelle, who had been sitting quietly by his side, immediately chimed in, her voice dripping with counterfeit concern. “That’s right, Grant. Eleanor has been so worried about Chloe. But Chloe… she was saying some very strange things on the phone. I think she really upset your mother.” She gently rubbed Eleanor’s arm as if to comfort her. Grant looked at his “wronged” mother and the “kind-hearted” Isabelle. Then he thought of my dead silence on the phone. The flicker of suspicion was extinguished, replaced by a wave of disgust. Even if this Empathic Link thing was real, he thought, she was clearly hurting herself just to manipulate him. The woman’s deviousness knew no bounds. 3 Grant was discharged the next day. Isabelle came back to the estate with him, under the guise of “taking care of him.” Eleanor was, of course, delighted. While Grant was in his office taking calls, Eleanor and Isabelle summoned me downstairs. A pile of shattered porcelain—what looked like an antique vase—was swept into the middle of the floor. “The floor is dirty,” Eleanor said, her arms crossed. “Kneel and clean it up.” Isabelle stood beside her, feigning sympathy. “Chloe, just do as she says. Eleanor is just trying to teach you how things are done here. Grant doesn’t like women who don’t know their place.” My knees were already a canvas of deep purple bruises from the riding crop. Kneeling on the sharp, jagged pieces of porcelain sent spears of agony shooting up my legs. Every tiny movement was like having needles driven into my bones. Upstairs, Grant leaned back in his leather chair, his eyes closed. Suddenly, a searing, drilling pain exploded in his knees. It was so intense he cried out, his eyes flying open. That feeling… it was exactly like the pain in his back. His heart hammered in his chest. He shoved his chair back and ran from the room, taking the stairs two at a time. He reached the landing just in time to see Isabelle holding a bucket of water. “Oh my!” she cried, pretending to trip. The entire bucket of ice-cold water sluiced down over my head. The shock of the cold made me gasp, and the water stung the open cuts on my knees, making me dizzy with pain. Seeing Grant, Isabelle immediately ran to him, burying her face in his chest, her body trembling with sobs. “Grant, darling, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! Chloe just stood up so suddenly, I lost my balance… Do you think she was going to use a piece of the porcelain to… to hurt herself and blame us?” Eleanor jumped in immediately. “That’s exactly what she was doing! This woman is poison, Grant! You can’t let her stay here, she’ll destroy our family!” Grant looked at my drenched, pathetic form, then at Isabelle, sobbing in his arms. The doubt in his eyes vanished, replaced once again by that familiar wall of contempt. “Tie her to a chair,” he commanded to the maids in a voice of ice. “Let’s see her try to hurt herself now.” Two maids grabbed me roughly, dragged me to a dining chair, and bound my arms and legs with thick rope, pulling it so tight it bit into my skin. I couldn’t move an inch. Grant shot me one last, cold look before turning and leading Isabelle upstairs. Back in his office, as soon as he sat down, a strange, suffocating pressure enveloped his entire body. His bones, his muscles, every joint felt as if it were being crushed by invisible ropes, making it hard to breathe. He understood instantly. Chloe was tied up, so he felt tied up. That ridiculous “Empathic Link”… could it actually be real? A terrifying thought began to form in his mind. He stood up abruptly. “Isabelle,” he said to her as she peeled an apple for him, “why don’t you and Mom go on a shopping trip? Get out of the house for a bit. I need some time alone.” To his mother, he added, “Go relax, Mom. Use my card.” They were thrilled at the prospect and left almost immediately. The moment the front door clicked shut, the suffocating pressure around Grant’s body vanished. He stood motionless, his face a storm of conflicting emotions. After a long moment, he walked slowly down the stairs and stood before me, still bound to the chair. I was soaked to the bone, water dripping from my hair and tracing paths down my face. It was impossible to tell if they were from the bucket or from my own eyes. He watched me in silence. For the first time, his gaze was free of that cold, cutting disgust. He crouched down in front of me, his voice rough with a vulnerability he himself didn't recognize. “Did they… did someone actually hurt you?” 4 My lips parted. The words, a tidal wave of every injustice, every heartbreak, every shard of despair, were about to pour out of me. But at that exact moment, the front door clicked open. Eleanor and Isabelle were back. “Oh, we forgot the new limited-edition handbag that just came in!” Isabelle chirped as she walked in. She saw Grant crouched in front of me, and her smile froze. “Grant… what are you doing?” Eleanor saw it too. Her face hardened. She strode over and yanked Grant away from me. “What could you possibly have to say to this curse?” she spat, pointing at me. “Look at her, playing the victim! It’s all an act to manipulate you, my son. Don’t you fall for it! A woman like that has a heart as black as tar.” Grant stood up. The flicker of doubt that had been in his eyes was extinguished by their words, crushed under the weight of his lifelong loyalties. His gaze, when it met mine again, was as cold and impatient as ever. Without another word, he turned and went back upstairs. The tiny ember of hope that had sparked within me was doused with ice water. I watched his retreating back, and my heart, piece by piece, turned to stone. That evening, Grant had to leave for an emergency at the office. The moment his car was gone, the jealousy and hatred in Isabelle’s eyes were finally unleashed. She sidled up to Eleanor. “Eleanor, the way Grant was looking at her today… he’s going soft. We can’t let this go on. We have to teach her a lesson she will never, ever forget.” Eleanor nodded grimly. They exchanged a look, a silent, vicious agreement, and then they came for me. They untied the ropes, and before I could even process what was happening, they each grabbed an arm and dragged me up the stairs and into the second-floor bathroom. “You want to seduce my son? I’ll give you a taste of what you deserve!” Eleanor’s face was a grotesque mask of fury. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and, with all her strength, shoved my head into the toilet bowl. The icy, foul water filled my nose and mouth instantly. I thrashed, my hands clawing wildly, but Isabelle pinned them behind my back. The feeling of suffocation was absolute. My lungs burned, screaming for air. My mind went fuzzy as black spots danced in my vision. Just as I thought I was going to die, Eleanor yanked my head back up. I gasped greedily for air, coughing and sputtering, tears and snot and filth covering my face. “Please…” I begged, my voice a weak croak. “Please stop…” “Begging?” Isabelle sneered. She picked up the toilet brush and scraped its filthy bristles against my cheek. “Maybe a good scrub with toilet water will wash away your delusions. You think you’re worthy of a man like Grant?” Eleanor gave me no time to recover. She grabbed my hair again and plunged my head back into the water. The world dissolved into a maelstrom of cold, darkness, and pain. My lungs felt like they were ripping apart. My consciousness began to fray, the edges of my vision dissolving into a black tunnel. My struggles grew weaker. The shadow of death felt cold and real. As the last flicker of my consciousness was about to be extinguished, the bathroom door exploded inward, kicked off its hinges with a tremendous crash. I was yanked out of the water and dropped onto the floor, where I lay heaving and retching like a dying fish, coughing up water until my throat was raw. Through my blurred vision, I saw Grant. He stood in the doorway, his face a mask of a terror and fury I had never seen before. He shoved his mother so hard she stumbled and fell, then pulled me away from the toilet. His eyes were bloodshot, and when he spoke, his voice trembled with an uncontrollable rage, the voice of a demon clawing its way out of hell. “Mom! Isabelle! What the hell are you doing?! Were you trying to drown her?!” 5 Eleanor, sprawled on the floor, looked up at her son in disbelief. “Grant, you pushed me? For her?” Isabelle, snapping out of her shock, ran to him, bursting into theatrical tears. “Grant, you don’t understand! It was Chloe! She went crazy, screaming that she didn’t want to live anymore! She was trying to drown herself in the toilet, we were trying to save her!” “Yes! She was trying to kill herself!” Eleanor scrambled to her feet, latching onto the lie. “We were trying to stop her, and then you came in and…” She clutched her chest, pretending she was about to faint. Grant looked at the absurd scene, a migraine pounding behind his eyes. On one side, his hysterical mother and his sobbing first love. On the other, me, half-dead on the bathroom floor. He made his choice. He scooped me into his arms, carried me quickly into the master bedroom, and laid me on the floor. Then he walked out, and I heard the click of the lock from the outside. “Chloe, you stay in here,” his voice came through the door, exhausted and commanding. “Don’t go anywhere.” It wasn’t protection. It was imprisonment. I lay on the cold floor, listening to the muffled sounds of his family’s arguments and reconciliations, listening to Grant’s gentle voice as he soothed his mother and Isabelle. My heart died. It didn’t break; it simply ceased to beat with any warmth. I had thought he might apologize, that he might finally protect me. It was all a fantasy. In this house, I would always be the one who could be sacrificed. Despair, cold and absolute, washed over me. But this time, I didn’t cry. I pulled myself up from the floor and walked to the large mahogany desk. I opened a drawer. Inside was the pen Grant always used, a German-made Montblanc with a custom iridium nib, incredibly sharp. I gripped the pen. I looked at the pale, soft skin of my own left forearm. And without a moment’s hesitation, I dragged the nib across my flesh. I didn’t need a protector anymore. From this day forward, I would be my own weapon. A sharp, wet sound sliced through the silence of the room. Blood, dark and rich, welled up instantly, eager to escape. At that exact moment, in the top-floor boardroom of Covington Corp. Grant, having just placated his mother, was now attempting to salvage an important international video conference he had abruptly abandoned. He was addressing the foreign directors, his voice smooth and confident, when a sudden, razor-sharp pain shot through his left arm. He glanced down. A dark red stain was blooming on the sleeve of his expensive bespoke suit, spreading with impossible speed. The blood was pouring out of him as if from an invisible wound. “Ah!” In front of dozens of his top executives and the stunned faces of the international board members on the screen, their CEO let out a guttural, animalistic scream of pain. I looked at the deep, gaping wound on my arm, at the blood that flowed freely from it, and I smiled. Our bet, Grant, I thought. It’s just getting started. And now, I make the rules.
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