Chapter 1 - The Bloodline Of Betrayal
The blinding glare of the living room television cast a sickly blue glow across the bloodstained Persian rug. I could not move my fingers. Cold, metallic sweat dripped down the hollows of my temples, pooling into my collarbones while my ribs contracted like crushed birdcages. Seven years. Two thousand five hundred and fifty-five days of bleeding in shadowed alleyways, enduring broken knuckles, drinking myself into bleeding stomach ulcers at corporate banquets, and trading my own marrow just to keep Willow Vance breathing.
Yet on the forty-foot screen broadcasting the international film gala, Willow wore a custom wine-red dress that clung to her silhouette like fresh velvet spilled across polished marble. Beside her stood Makoto Wang, the nation’s golden-boy actor, his jawline sharp, his smile practiced and gleaming under thousands of flashing strobes. When the microphone was turned to her, her lips curved into that rare, angelic warmth she had never once offered me in private.
""I have made it this far only because of Mr. Wang’s devotion,"" her voice carried across the auditorium, crystal clear, resonant, and entirely hollow to my ears. ""He is my light. He has shown me what it means to be truly cherished.""
The crowd erupted in rapturous applause. Standing right beside her, Makoto lowered his head with an air of modest humility. The cruelest part was the name. My legal name was George Wang. For seven years, the tabloids had gossiped about an elusive shadow investor named Mr. Wang who funded her film academy tuition, paid off her father’s lethal loan sharks, and cleaned up her brother's fatal hit-and-run accidents. Tonight, with three syllables, she handed my entire seven-year existence over to a pretty boy who had stepped onto her film set three weeks ago.
Above my head, the translucent system interface blinked in a blinding, crimson alert: [Target: Willow Vance. Affection Rating: 0.00%. Conquest Failure Protocol Activated. Commencing Soul Dissolution in Ten Seconds.]
My lungs burned. Blood bubbled up from the back of my throat, spilling past my lips as my phone clattered against the hardwood floor. I had dialed her personal private line sixteen times during the last hour. Every call had been forwarded straight into an automated abyss: ""The number you have dialed is currently unavailable."" She had blacklisted me five minutes before walking onto the red carpet because I had sent a text saying I was vomiting blood and needed her home. She probably thought it was another pathetic manipulation.
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""Do you really feel nothing?"" I whispered to the empty room, my vision fading into static. ""Not even pity?""
The clock struck midnight. The countdown hit zero. A tear ripped through my metaphysical core, tearing my consciousness from flesh with the violence of a rusted blade. I let go. If seven years of self-sacrifice could not warm a glacier, then she was welcome to freeze in her own darkness forever.
