After my cousin Lexi stole eight of my boyfriends in a row, I decided it was time for a little revenge. I took her photos and used them to catfish an obsessively possessive guy online. His name was Silas. He was over six feet tall with a face sculpted like a fallen angel and a perfectly shredded core. More importantly, he had obscene amounts of money. Once we started talking, I never had to buy my own food, clothes, or necessities ever again. He would randomly wire five figures to my account just because he felt like it. On our one hundred day anniversary, he sent me a picture of a heavy metal chain. "Baby, if you ever dare to leave me, I am going to lock you up." That was exactly what I was counting on. That very same day, I texted him a breakup message, blocked his number, and deleted his contact entirely. Half a month later, Lexi was right in the middle of flirting with boyfriend number nine when the front door of the cafe swung open. Silas walked in. 1 I always knew Silas would come hunting for me. I just never expected him to track me down this fast. We lived across the country from each other. Aside from giving him Lexi's real name and face, every single piece of information I fed him was a complete lie. But looking at him now, I had to admit the photos did not do him justice. Seeing that impossibly gorgeous face appear right in front of me caused my traitorous heart to skip a heavy beat. He did not even glance my way. His eyes swept over the room with cold indifference before he walked straight toward Lexi. At that exact moment, Lexi was proudly clinging to the arm of the guy I was supposed to be dating. Silas seamlessly wedged himself between them, his gaze fixed purely on Lexi. "Is this guy your boyfriend?" Standing next to a physical masterpiece like Silas made my slightly above average boyfriend look like an absolute nobody. Lexi's eyes practically sparkled with greed. She shoved the guy she had just spent weeks stealing right out of her way without a second thought. "No way. He belongs to my cousin over there. They got into a fight, and I was just trying to play peacemaker." She flashed me a sickly sweet smile. "Avey, come on. You two need to make up already." Just as expected, the dark hostility swirling in Silas's eyes faded the second she said those words. The corner of his mouth curved upward into a breathtaking smile. He stared at Lexi without blinking. Watching them together felt like staring directly into the sun. I lowered my head and dug my fingernails into my palms. I kept repeating the same thought in my head. Was this not exactly what I wanted? With Silas in the picture, Lexi would never try to steal my boyfriends again. I could finally date like a normal person. I was supposed to be thrilled. But my mind kept dragging me back to all the memories I shared with Silas. During those three months together, I experienced what it felt like to be loved with absolute, undivided devotion. Whenever work got too chaotic and I skipped meals, my stomach would twist into agonizing knots. Silas would wire me money for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, demanding proof that I was eating properly. He shared every mundane detail of his day with me. It felt like he was standing right beside me, holding my hand through life. When he found out I had a thing for muscular guys, he started practically living at the gym. Every single night, he sent me videos of his progress. He would even dim the lights, take off his shirt, and dance just to make me smile through the screen. Even through a phone, the raw burning affection in his eyes was impossible to ignore. Thinking about how all of that devotion now belonged to Lexi made my chest ache. It felt like my heart was soaking in a glass of freezing, bitter lemonade. 2 Silas had not noticed my existence at all. He kept his focus entirely on Lexi. His voice was velvet soft, yet laced with a dangerous undertone. "Since he is not your boyfriend, do I have the honor of claiming that spot?" Lexi tilted her chin up and shot me a look of pure, unrestrained triumph. Her expression was screaming at me. Look at this. Everyone wants me, and absolutely no one wants you. She let the silence stretch out just long enough to look dignified before giving Silas a slow nod. "That depends entirely on how you treat me." Silas chuckled softly. "I promise you will be more than satisfied." My knuckles turned white. I did not even have the courage to look up and see how sickeningly sweet they looked together. My brain decided to torture me by replaying all the obsessive, whispered promises Silas used to tell me late at night. "Baby, do not ever leave me. I cannot breathe in a world where you do not exist." "If you ever abandon me, I will hunt you down and we can leave this earth together." I fully admit that I fell for him. No one had ever made me feel like I was the center of their universe before. But that exact overwhelming affection was why I had to cut ties and run. People always say that men with his kind of dark obsession never change their minds once they lock onto a target. But the face he locked onto was Lexi. There were countless nights we spent on the phone where I could hear the dangerous, heavy rhythm of his breathing. When his mind went to those dark places, the face he was picturing belonged to my cousin. If I kept the game going, the only person who would end up shattered was me. So when our one hundred day anniversary rolled around, Silas demanded we meet in person. "Baby, I have my ID and passport ready. The second I see you, we are going straight to the courthouse." He told me he had lawyers drawing up the paperwork to transfer all his properties and shares into my name before we even signed the marriage certificate. He said he wanted it to be my personal safety net. He even promised to fly us to Europe to plan the wedding of my dreams. He was fully prepared to give me the world. The more he talked, the more my heart shattered into pieces. None of those beautiful promises actually belonged to me. So I cut him off, typed out a brutal breakup text, and blocked his number before he could even process what happened. Lexi suddenly called my name, ripping me out of my downward spiral. "Avey, Silas is taking me out for an amazing dinner. You should totally tag along!" I knew exactly what she was doing. She wanted a front row audience to show off her incredibly rich, impossibly handsome new prize. The smart move was to walk away. Going would only inflate her ego and make me feel infinitely worse. But somehow, I still found myself following them to the restaurant. Once we sat down, Lexi started ordering platters of exotic seafood. Silas paused, giving her a very strange look. "Baby, I thought you absolutely hated seafood. You always told me the smell made you sick." Lexi froze with the menu in her hands. She shot me a highly calculating look. She recovered instantly, batting her eyelashes. "Well, do you not like it?" She gambled, and she won. The dark clouds in Silas's eyes instantly cleared up. "I knew my girl would remember my favorite foods." I sat with my head bowed the entire time, feeling like an absolute ghost haunting their date. I managed to keep my mouth shut until Lexi confidently ordered a massive slice of mango cake for dessert. My chair scraped loudly against the floor. Silas was deathly allergic to mangoes. But knowing his twisted, obsessive personality, if Lexi ordered it for him, he would view it as a punishment from his girl and eat the whole thing with a smile on his face. It could literally kill him! The words exploded out of my mouth before I could stop them. "You cannot order that!" Silas snapped his head toward me. His gaze cut through me like a frozen blade. He looked annoyed by the interruption, but there was a heavy layer of deep, penetrating suspicion in his eyes. I scrambled to find an excuse. "You guys already ordered all the entrees you wanted. I want to swap the dessert for strawberry shortcake." I absolutely despised strawberry shortcake, just like I despised watching the two of them sit together. I made a silent vow to myself right then and there. This was the absolute last time I would ever interfere. Whatever happened between them from now on was none of my business. I tried to convince myself that they were perfect for each other. With Silas keeping her busy, Lexi would leave my love life alone. This was a massive win for me. But the only thing answering my logic was the suffocating, bitter ache spreading through my chest. 3 After that agonizing dinner, I threw my entire soul into my job. I worked myself to the bone, desperate to treat my online romance with Silas like a fever dream I could just sweat out. Just when I thought I was finally moving on, I walked out of my apartment building and saw Silas leaning against a car, waiting in the shadows. I genuinely thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I checked my phone. It was past ten at night. Silas pushed off the car and started walking slowly toward me. Panic rooted my feet to the pavement. I started twisting the hem of my shirt, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Silas. What are you doing here?" His next words sent a violent shiver crawling all the way down my spine. "Does Lexi have any close friends? The kind of friends who might have total access to her phone?" "She does not feel like the girl I have been looking for." A massive wave of pure, terrifying joy crashed over me, only to be violently shoved back down by reality. He figured out Lexi was not the girl he fell for. But did that even matter? The only reason he loved me was because he thought I looked like her. Since he arrived in town, he had not shown a single shred of interest in the real me. Rather than dragging the messy truth into the light and ruining everything, it was safer to just let the misunderstanding continue. I put on my best confused face. "Really? I thought you two looked amazing together. You are literally a match made in heaven." Silas stared at me with razor sharp intensity. He let the silence stretch for an agonizing minute before finally speaking. "I am thirsty. Take me up to your place so I can get a glass of water." He did not even wait for me to agree. He simply walked past me and headed straight for the lobby doors. I knew Silas well enough to know that once he decided to do something, trying to stop him was completely useless. I hurried to catch up with him. But the exact second I unlocked my front door, absolute dread washed over me. The blood froze in my veins. Right there on the entryway table, nestled between expensive little decorative pieces, sat an old, scuffed up smartphone. It was the exact device I used to catfish him. After the breakup, I could not bring myself to wipe the memory out completely. Whenever the loneliness got too loud, I would turn it on and read our old messages. More importantly, it held all the videos of his workouts and dances. I was so hopelessly addicted to looking at him that his shirtless photo was still set as the lock screen. I lunged forward, desperate to grab the phone and shove it in my bag. But Silas had much longer legs and a much faster reaction time. He clicked his tongue. "Keeping a piece of trash like this out in the open? There must be some heavy secrets hidden in here. Does this belong to you, or does it belong to Lexi?" Using his massive height advantage, he snatched the phone right off the table. His thumb hovered dangerously over the power button. It was completely over. In a matter of seconds, he was going to realize the girl he had been pouring his soul into was not Lexi. It was me. I heard the distinct mechanical click as he pressed the button. 4 Right before Silas could look down at the screen, pure survival instinct took over my entire body. I let out a desperate shout and literally launched myself at him, stretching my arms as far as they could go to snatch the device. I did not care how crazy I looked. Before I even realized what was happening, his arms instinctively wrapped around my waist to catch me. We both froze completely still. I could clearly see the violent struggle flashing through his dark eyes. His first instinct was definitely to drop me straight onto the hardwood floor. But after a tense second, he let out a heavy breath and gently lowered my feet to the ground. He still kept the phone completely out of my reach. My panic about the phone vanished for a split second, replaced by pure shock that he actually caught me. I remembered a time we were on a voice call and I heard a girl screaming, followed by a loud crash on his end. Silas had coldly explained that some girl tried to fake a trip and fall to land in his arms. Because he was distracted talking to me, she managed to brush her hand against his sleeve before he violently shoved her to the floor. He threw that expensive dress shirt directly into the trash the second he got back to his office. He swore to me that he would never let another woman touch him, and he would never touch anyone else. But just now, he caught me. Did that mean I was somehow different in his eyes? Before I could unravel that thought, his dark, teasing voice echoed from above me. "Why are you panicking? Now I really need to see what kind of secrets you are hiding." He lifted the phone high above his head and pressed the power button again. I was nowhere near his height. I could not reach it even on my tiptoes. Despair swallowed me whole. I shut my eyes tight, waiting for the explosion. Until I heard Silas mutter, "Why will it not turn on?" I cracked an eye open. The screen was completely black. The battery was dead. Then I remembered. I had stayed up until two in the morning watching his old dance videos and completely forgot to plug it into the charger. Silas leaned down, bringing his face dangerously close to mine. "Avery, what exactly are you hiding?" I found my voice and snapped back at him. "What does it matter? I am not Lexi, so my business has absolutely nothing to do with you!" The corner of his mouth twitched. "Fair point. You have nothing to do with me. I am leaving." When the heavy door clicked shut behind him, my knees finally gave out. I slid down the wall and hit the floor. The air in my apartment was still thick with the scent of sandalwood. It was the exact cologne I had picked out for him online. Before me, he hated wearing scents. Afterward, he wore it every single day just to prove he was listening. He used to tell me that one day, he would wrap me up so tightly in his arms that the scent would sink into my skin permanently. But none of that mattered anymore. I made a silent promise to myself right there on the floor. I needed to stay as far away from him as possible. We belonged to two completely different worlds now. It was over.
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