1 The night we broke up, Victoria Mercer got scratched by a feral stray. By the following morning, she woke up trapped inside the body of that very same black cat, scooped up from the rain-slicked pavement and brought straight into my apartment. For days, she was forced to watch my life unfold from two feet off the ground. She watched me make coffee, sleep alone, and FaceTime a girl I’d recently met. She tried to swat the screen whenever that girl laughed, but her claws couldn't reach; she tried to scream her usual cutting commands, but all that came out was a high, frantic mewl. Yesterday, while we were sitting on the couch with some mindless reality show humming in the background, I held her up, looked into her golden, slit-pupil eyes, and smiled faintly. "You know something? The way you're glaring at me right now—it looks exactly like my ex." The animal froze, every muscle in its spine turning to stone. I lifted her higher, level with my gaze. "If you really are Victoria, blink three times." Her eyes blinked rapidly, over and over, her tail locked in a rigid, trembling line. I set her back down on the rug and smoothed out my shirt, my voice completely flat. "Just kidding. As if a cat could understand English." I turned and walked toward the kitchen to rinse a bowl of strawberries. Behind me, the cat remained rooted to the spot, staring at my back with unblinking terror and confusion. Does he know? Or has he genuinely stopped caring? "So it's really over?" On the other end of the line, Marcus’s voice carried a thick layer of disbelief over the speakerphone. "Yeah. It's done." I wedged my phone between my shoulder and ear, shaking open a heavy-duty black trash bag with a sharp snap. At my feet, the stray black cat sat crouched on the edge of the woven rug. Those striking amber eyes were locked onto my hands, the tip of her tail thumping a tense, erratic rhythm against the floorboards. "And Victoria actually let you walk?" Marcus let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "She spent five years keeping you on a three-foot leash. You couldn't cross the street without clearing it with her calendar first." "Whether she agrees or not isn't my problem anymore." I knelt by the coffee table and slid open the bottom drawer. Tucked inside a velvet box was a set of custom platinum wedding bands. Victoria had slipped the men's band onto my finger on my birthday last year. She’d shown up three hours late, straight from a private welcome-home dinner she had thrown for Preston Hayes. She had smelled distinctly of Preston’s signature bespoke sandalwood cologne. Running her fingers through my hair with that practiced, indulgent exhaustion, she had sighed softly. “Preston just got back from London, Austin. His anxiety has been terrible, so I stayed until his panic subsided. You’re too secure and mature to hold that against him, right?” I hadn't said a word. She took my silence as effortless compliance, and the very next morning, she transferred the ten percent stake in her firm—the partnership shares she had promised me for three years—straight into Preston’s portfolio. Her justification had been immaculate: Preston needs a safety net to feel confident in the city. I took the velvet box, opened it, and tossed the engagement rings into the bottom of the black trash bag. They hit the plastic with a hollow, metallic clatter. The black cat jerked as if struck by an electric current. With a low, feral screech, she threw herself forward, her front paws clawing desperately at the rim of the bag. "Mroww!" I looked down at her. The expression in those animal eyes was an uncanny mirror of Victoria Mercer’s. That unshakeable entitlement. That absolute, unyielding certainty that I belonged to her, that I would never possess the spine to walk away. I nudged her gently aside with the toe of my sneaker. "Back off. It's dirty." She lunged again, baring tiny needle-sharp teeth, trying to sink them into the heavy plastic to drag the rings back out. I ignored her, methodically emptying the rest of the drawer. The spare brass key to her penthouse. Tossed. The matching ceramic mugs she bought for our anniversary. Tossed. The tailored silk dress shirt she had commissioned for me because she liked how it complemented her evening gowns. Tossed. "Sounds like you're performing an exorcism," Marcus noted through the receiver. "Just taking out the trash." My tone didn't waver as I shoved one of her leftover silk blouses into the bag. A faint, dried smudge of dark roast coffee still stained the right cuff. Last week, when a clumsy waiter had tripped near our table, Victoria had instinctively shielded Preston’s cashmere sweater with her own body. The scalding liquid had soaked her sleeve. Afterward, she had turned to me, her voice reasonable, perfectly measured, and utterly dismissive: “Go down to the valet and grab my spare trench coat from the trunk, Austin. Don't make Preston feel guilty about this.” That was always her specialty. Inflicting the deepest cuts with the softest, most rational voice in the room. The cat was pacing around my shins in frantic, tight circles. Seeing that I wouldn't engage, she suddenly leapt onto the coffee table, planting a paw squarely across the illuminated screen of my iPhone. The display lit up with an incoming banner notification. Natalie: Are you still free tomorrow night? That omakase spot you’ve been dying to try finally had a cancellation, and I grabbed the table. The cat froze mid-motion. Her gaze drilled into the name Natalie, a low, guttural growl vibrating deep inside her throat. "Natalie asking you out?" Marcus guessed from the silence. "Yeah." "Take the reservation, man. If Victoria can spend every waking hour coddling her surrogate little brother, you’re entitled to a life of your own." I picked up the phone, angling it away from the cat's unsheathed claws, and typed with my thumb. Sounds great. See you tomorrow at seven. I hit send. The moment the screen registered the sent message, the cat lost her mind. She launched herself directly at my hands. I pulled the phone up out of reach in a clean, swift arc. Her paws caught empty air, and she tumbled hard onto the living room rug. I stood over her, looking down with detached indifference. "Act out again, and you're sleeping on the street." The cat went entirely rigid. She craned her neck up at me, her amber eyes widening with an expression that bordered on sheer, uncomprehending horror. She couldn't grasp it. She couldn't fathom that Austin Miller—the man who had kept the porch light on for five years, who had kept dinner warm through every broken promise—was speaking to her as if she were nothing more than an inconvenient stray. I pulled the drawstrings of the heavy trash bag, tied them into an unyielding double knot, hoisted it up, and walked out the front door to dump it straight down the building’s trash chute. 2 Early the next morning, I took the cat to the vet. She hadn't slept a wink. She had spent the entire night pacing the perimeter of the empty living room, occasionally scratching at the bottom drawer of the coffee table where the velvet box used to live. When I tried to ease her into the carrier at dawn, she fought with savage desperation, raking her claws across the back of my hand until four bright beads of blood welled to the surface. I hadn't raised my voice. I hadn't even cursed. I simply pulled an alcohol wipe from the first-aid kit and dabbed the scratch clean, watching the antiseptic foam against the skin. The cat had retreated into the far corner of the plastic crate, her chest heaving, letting out small, broken whimpers as she watched my bloody knuckles. It looked almost like remorse. The clinic in Midtown was crowded. When the veterinarian lifted her onto the stainless-steel exam table, she didn't hiss or scratch. She stayed uncharacteristically docile, her amber eyes tracking my every shift in posture, terrified that I might walk out the door. "She's running on pure adrenaline," the vet remarked, sliding a thermometer under her tail. "Her vitals are through the roof. Severe acute stress." "She's still adjusting to a new environment," I replied evenly. I leaned against the counter, scrolling through my phone. Victoria's private number was still silent. Not a call, not a text. The only message had arrived thirty minutes prior from Harrison, her senior executive assistant. Harrison: Mr. Miller, Ms. Mercer was involved in an incident late last night and is currently admitted at Mount Sinai. When she regained consciousness this morning and realized you weren't there, she became visibly agitated. Could you please come by? Mr. Hayes is present, and he is extremely concerned about her condition. I stared at the preview text, a dry smirk touching my lips. Preston was already at her bedside playing the devoted dependent. Why did she need me there? To applaud their domestic drama from the corner chair? I swiped left on Harrison’s thread and tapped Delete. On the steel table, the cat began thrashing wildly, trying to scramble across the cold metal toward me before the technician firmly pinned her shoulders. "Easy, little girl. Almost done." The examination room door clicked open. Harper walked in carrying an expensive, pristine ragdoll cat in a designer carrier. Harper had been Victoria’s closest friend since their days at Columbia—and Preston’s loudest cheerleader. The ragdoll, I recognized, was the five-thousand-dollar gift Victoria had purchased for Preston's loft just last month. Harper stopped dead when she saw me. Her eyes flicked from my face to the battered plastic carrier on the floor, and her mouth twisted into a sharp, judgmental sneer. "Well, look who finally showed up in public," she said, setting her carrier down on the adjacent counter. "Victoria is hooked up to an IV downtown, and you couldn't even be bothered to send flowers. Instead, you're out playing savior to a mangy sewer cat?" I didn't meet her eyes. "She has Preston. She doesn't need an audience." Harper let out an irritated scoff. "Are you seriously still throwing a tantrum over that? Preston is like family to her, Austin. Is she supposed to abandon him just to coddle your insecurities?" She stepped closer, crossing her arms. "Do you even know why she ended up in the hospital? She drove thirty miles in the pouring rain out to that artisanal bakery in Westchester just to pick up that specialty pastry you supposedly love. She got attacked by a feral cat in the alley behind the shop and collapsed from the shock. Have a little damn decency." Hearing Harper’s words, the black cat on the exam table went completely still. She turned her head toward me, her wide amber eyes filled with a raw, desperate urgency, waiting for the crack in my armor. She expected me to crumble. She thought that hearing about this grand, sacrificial gesture would reduce me to the same guilt-ridden doormat I had been for five years, sending me rushing to her hospital room with apologies on my lips. I looked down, adjusting the adhesive strip over the cut on my hand. "Westchester?" I raised my eyes to meet Harper’s furious stare. "I have an anaphylactic peanut allergy, Harper. That bakery’s entire line of tarts is made with cold-pressed peanut flour and almond paste." Harper’s mouth fell slightly open. The words died in her throat. "Those pastries were for Preston," I said, my voice as calm as still water. "He's the one who obsesses over them." I picked up the strap of the empty carrier. "Do me a favor and tell Victoria when you see her: if she wants to shower her golden boy with gifts, she should own it. Stop putting my name on the receipts." The black cat suddenly convulsed on the table. With a frantic, violent kick, she knocked over an aluminum tray of surgical instruments. Scalpels and sterile gauze clattered across the linoleum floor. She stared at me, a strangled, agonizing sound clawing its way up her throat. She tried to lunge off the table, scrambling to reach my sleeve, desperate to claw the truth into my skin. I didn't blink. I gave her one cool, passing glance. "Doc, when you're done with the rabies panel, just put her back in the box," I said, turning my back and pushing through the door. "I'll be waiting in the lobby." When we got back to the apartment, I started pulling my duffel bags out of the closet. There wasn't much to pack. Victoria had purchased this loft in Tribeca under her corporate LLC, and almost every piece of Scandinavian furniture, every piece of modern art, had been curated by her private decorator. My entire life here fit neatly into two rolling suitcases. The cat trailed my heels like a shadow. Wherever I stepped, she was an inch behind. I pulled several designer cashmere sweaters—gifts Victoria had bought to ensure I looked the part at her charity galas—out of the armoire and began photographing them for an online luxury consignment portal. The cat leaped onto the mattress, planting both front paws firmly over a charcoal knit cardigan. She refused to let me fold it. "Move," I commanded quietly. She flattened her ears and dug her claws into the weave, letting out a stubborn, pleading rumble. I simply abandoned the sweater, turned around, and opened the bottom drawer of the executive desk. Tucked beneath a stack of tax documents was a leather-bound folder: the equity transfer agreement for Mercer Capital’s tech subsidiary. When Victoria had handed Preston ten percent of her parent company's stock, she had offered me a minority non-voting share in this shell subsidiary as a pacifier. I still remembered the way her fingers had gently cupped the back of my neck, her voice dripping with the benevolent condescension of a monarch placating a peasant. “Austin, this company will be your personal safety net. Be a good partner, darling. Don't fight with Preston over board seats.” I had accepted the envelope without an argument. Now, I pulled the agreement out, slid my pre-signed relinquishment declaration alongside it, and slipped both into a manila mailing envelope. Seeing the legal papers, the cat lost her mind again. She scrambled off the bed, hit the hardwood floor, and sank her teeth into the corner of the envelope, trying to rip it to shreds. "Victoria," I said.
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