Chapter 1

My son, Andy Morrison, gets hit and dragged nearly two miles by a drunk driver. I carry him into the hospital, his whole body drenched in blood.

The emergency room light flicks on. I collapse in the hallway and scrape together enough strength to text my wife, Gwen Dalton.

"Andy's in critical condition. Get here now."

A few seconds later, my phone chimes.

"Stay safe. I'll come when I'm done here."

Chapter 1

Liam's POV

My chest locked up. My wife, Gwen Dalton, had been on assignment for three months, and responses like that played out every single day.

When I got hit by falling debris, I pressed a hand to my bleeding head and texted her about it. She replied instantly, "Get some rest. Drink plenty of water."

When my coworkers cornered me in the parking garage and beat me up, I texted her for help. She replied, "Don't worry. It'll all pass."

Even the night our son, Andy Morrison, went into sudden shock, I knelt in front of the ICU with blood all over my hands, begging her to come home.

Her reply was still instant. "Trust the doctors. He'll be fine."

Now my phone buzzed again with another one of those familiar, cold responses.

I stared at the words on the screen and suddenly started laughing. I laughed until I tasted iron in my mouth.

Every message I sent her from outside the emergency room came back the same way, canned responses that might as well have been AI-generated. She always said she was too busy and couldn't get away.

From the day she left on that assignment, my world had been nothing but those icy auto-replies. They swallowed the bitterness, the fear, and the helplessness—all of it—without leaving a trace.

Andy was wheeled into surgery, and I drifted through the hallway like a ghost. My anxiety peaked, and I wanted to find the surgeon to ask what was happening, but my feet froze just outside the door.

A familiar voice came from inside, one I'd been desperate to hear for months but could never reach. It was my wife, Gwen.

"Gwen, is this really worth it?" The doctor's voice wavered. "He's still your own son. What if your husband finds out?"

My breathing stopped, and my whole body went rigid.

A faint sigh came from the other side. "He won't find out."

Gwen paused, exhaustion bleeding through her voice. "I didn't want it to come to this either. But Pierce broke his hand and lost too much blood. He has a rare blood type, and there isn't a single matching unit in the entire city. Andy's blood is the only option."

"But you're gambling with your child's life. What if something goes wrong during the sur—"

"I said he won't find out." Her voice turned cold, cutting the doctor off.

"Draw the blood now and get it to the other hospital. And on this end, keep my husband under control."

"Keep me under control?"

I shoved the door open. Both women inside froze, the color draining from their faces as they stared at me.

I closed the distance between us, my eyes locked on my wife's face and the panic written all over it. Gwen instinctively tried to hide the blood bag that had just been drawn.

The label clearly read, "Rh-null, Pediatrics, Emergency Transfer."

"What did you just say?" My voice shook so badly that I could barely get the words out. It felt like everything inside me was being ripped apart.

"Say it again. What do you mean Andy's blood is the only option? Did you set this whole thing up yourself?"

Gwen's lips trembled, and she reached for me. "Liam, listen to me. It's not what you think."

"That's our son!" I screamed, every ounce of longing I'd buried over the past months igniting alongside the fury tearing through me.

"He's four years old and lying on an operating table right now, and we don't even know if he'll make it. His own mother hasn't even come to see him. Instead, you've been going behind everyone's back to take his blood? All to save some coworker who went mountain climbing?"

"I didn't have any other choice." She looked cornered too, her eyes bloodshot.

"Pierce only went there because of me. I can't just watch him die."

"So you'll let Andy die instead?" I grabbed the medical chart off the table and hurled it at her. Pages scattered everywhere.

"You're with him, aren't you?"

Gwen looked away, silent as stone. In that moment, as I stared at her, she felt like a complete stranger. The last scrap of hope I had went cold right alongside that bag of blood.

Then the surgical light went dark, and a nurse came stumbling out. "Where's Andy Morrison's family? The patient is in hemorrhagic shock. He needs a transfusion now!"

I looked at the blood bag and lunged for it like a man possessed. Gwen shoved me to the ground, wrenched a belt around my wrists and ankles, and then tore off a strip of tape and pressed it hard over my mouth. I shook my head wildly, desperate whimpers forcing their way out of my throat.

She covered my eyes, her voice trembling. "The whole city is sourcing blood. Ten minutes, tops. Liam, Andy can hold on."

Her brow furrowed, a flicker of reluctance crossing her face. Then the internal line rang. She listened, let go of me, and rushed out.

"Pierce can't wait any longer."

I lay curled on the cold floor, listening to the staff screaming down the hall. "Where's the Morrison family?"

Yet all I could do was wrench my wrists back and forth until they bled raw, blood smearing at the corners of my mouth.

A few minutes later, the announcement came over the PA. "Operating Room 7, pediatric patient Andy Morrison. Resuscitation unsuccessful."

And then the world went silent.

Chapter 2

Liam's POV

Hours passed before footsteps flooded the hallway.

"Liam!" Gwen crouched beside me. There was a thread of relief in her voice.

"The blood came through. They found a compatible donor. Andy's going to be fine."

I couldn't feel my body anymore.

"He's... gone," I mumbled.

Her face tightened, and she started clawing at the belt around my wrists, rough and careless. "How long are you going to keep this up? I don't have time to explain everything right now.

"Pierce just got out of surgery, and he's in bad shape. I need to get back to him. He's a single dad with no one to look after him. What am I supposed to do, just leave him there alone?"

She couldn't get the knot undone and gave up, standing over me. "Stay here and take care of things with Andy. Once Pierce is discharged, I'll come see him."

I stared up at her, barely able to force the words out. "Andy is gone."

"I know you're upset, but you can't take it out on me." She wasn't listening at all. Instead, she just smoothed down her clothes without even looking at me.

"Try to see things from my side. Pierce has always been in poor health and can't take care of himself. Now he's broken his hand on top of it.

"If I don't look after him, who will? We're husband and wife. Whatever you've been through, I can make it up to you later, but right now he genuinely needs someone there."

She pulled out her phone, apparently about to call an orderly in. "Stop throwing a tantrum and stay here with Andy. If something comes up, text me. I'll get back to you whenever I can."

But every time I'd ever been in danger, every message I sent her came back as nothing more than an automated AI reply.

When she saw I still hadn't moved, she sighed, softening her tone just slightly. "Come on, enough with the attitude. Things with Pierce are really critical right now, so I'm heading back over. If you really can't handle it, once this is all over, I'll put in a transfer request and come home. Okay?"

She didn't look at me again. She turned and walked out.

I closed my eyes slowly. The tape over my mouth was soaked through with blood, and the torn skin underneath throbbed with a deep, drilling pain. But all I felt was cold.

So that was how it worked in her world. My life and Andy's put together still didn't measure up to a single cough from Pierce Donovan.

When the nurse pushed the door open, she let out a scream. "Mr. Morrison! What happened to you?"

She fumbled to undo the belt, trying to check my injuries. I shoved her aside and ran all the way to the morgue.

Andy was lying there, his small body draped in a white sheet. My hands trembled as I lifted the corner and saw his ashen little face, tears still clinging to the edges of his eyes.

There was a time when Gwen had been a good mother and a good wife. The memories hit me like a wave.

In the early days of our marriage, she used to come straight home after work to cook dinner. She handed over her paycheck without being asked. She once drove across town just to bring me a bowl of soup from some hole-in-the-wall restaurant I liked.

The day Andy was born, she held that tiny, wrinkled baby in her arms and cried like an idiot. "Liam, this is our baby. We have a real family now."

Back then, we were genuinely happy.

How did it turn into this?

I stroked my son's cold cheek, my chest aching like someone had carved a piece of me out while I was still alive.

I regretted it. I truly regretted it. If I'd seen through her lies sooner, if I'd taken Andy and left that hollow shell of a home earlier, would none of this have happened?

I gathered Andy's belongings, and inside his backpack was a crumpled sheet of paper. I unfolded it and found an essay titled "My Mom".

"My mom is a superhero. She's really busy, but she promised to take me to the amusement park. Dad says Mom is far away fighting monsters, and when she beats them all, she'll come back and blow out candles with me.

"Mom, I already learned how to tie my shoes. When are you coming back to teach me how to ride a bike?"

Three stick figures held hands at the bottom of the page. I clenched that piece of paper so hard that my knuckles went white.

Every time Andy needed Gwen the most, she never showed up—not for the fevers that landed him in the hospital, not for his first time performing on stage, and not even the night he was hit by that car and lay dying.

And I couldn't keep waiting around for a love that was never coming back.

…

The next day, as I was turning in my resignation, Gwen sent me a message. It was in that same familiar AI tone as always. "Take care of yourself. Don't overwork."

I hurled my phone into the trash.

In that moment, I was finally, completely awake. In her mind, I would always be the fool who swallowed his pride for the sake of the family, the idiot who would stand in the same spot waiting for her no matter what she did.

The overseas posting I'd given up, the position of regional director of the international projects division, was something I'd thought about for five years.

Five years ago, she'd just gotten pregnant. Gwen told me the family needed me at home, so I stepped aside.

Four years ago, Andy had just been born. She said a child couldn't grow up without his father, so I stepped aside again.

Three years ago, she said Pierce had just started at the company and needed her guidance, so once again, I chose to stay behind.

Every single time I gave in, it became another chip she used to hurt me without consequence.

This time, I didn't ask her, and I wouldn't wait around for her permission.

Chapter 3

Liam's POV

The next day, I went to the cemetery and picked out a plot. Then I pulled out my debit card.

The machine beeped. "Transaction declined."

Insufficient funds?

I froze, my fingers trembling as I swiped it again.

"We're sorry. Your account has been frozen."

It felt like an invisible hand had closed around my heart. I called Gwen on instinct.

"The number you have dialed is currently busy."

"The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable."

I dialed again and again until there was nothing left but a flat, mechanical tone.

In desperation, I texted her. "Gwen, the card's been frozen. That money is for Andy's burial plot. Please unfreeze it."

A few seconds later, my phone buzzed. I opened it, full of hope, only to find that same familiar AI reply. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

The blood rushed to my head. I looked at Andy's framed photo nearby, that innocent smile on his face, and something inside me gave way completely.

I scrolled through my contacts, found Pierce's number, and hit call. The phone was answered almost immediately.

Gwen's voice came through, low and soft. "Hello. I'm Pierce's partner. He's not feeling well, and he's resting right now. Whatever it is, you can tell me."

I could hear the gentle sound of ocean waves in the background.

"Gwen, is that you? You froze the card, didn't you? Unfreeze it. That money is for Andy's funeral!"

I was screaming, my voice echoing across the cemetery, drawing stares from everyone around me.

The other end of the line went silent for two seconds before she let out an impatient scoff. "Liam, what is it now? I put a spending limit on the card because I was worried you'd blow through the money."

I felt like I'd fallen through ice. "That's my savings. It's to bury our son."

"Liam, can you stop making a scene?" Her voice dripped with undisguised contempt.

"Pierce is in a bad place emotionally, so I'm taking him to the Azurine Islands for a few days to clear his head. Because of your interference, he's been guilt-ridden and can barely sleep at night. The spending limit is to keep you from wasting money. I'm doing this for the family."

My throat burned with something bitter, and the words tore out of me. "Gwen, Andy is dead. He's lying in the morgue without so much as a burial plot. Are you trying to destroy what's left of us?"

"Enough!" She cut me off, her voice sharp and full of scorn.

"Liam, I never thought you were this kind of person. You'd curse your own child over money? I sent the blood over on time. It was a little delayed on the way, sure, but the doctor said as long as he got the transfusion, he'd be fine. You keep insisting he's dead. What are you really after?"

"I'm not lying to you. Andy is really gone. He died last night." I was on my knees, clutching the phone with everything I had.

On the other end, Gwen's voice hesitated.

Then I heard Pierce's voice drifting closer. "Gwen? What's wrong? Who's on the phone?"

"Nobody. Just some lunatic." Gwen's voice turned warm in an instant.

Then she turned cold again, speaking to me. "Liam, if you're that strapped for cash, I'll have Pierce wire you 20 thousand dollars when I get a chance. Make do with that for now. And stop calling this number. Pierce needs his rest."

"No! You can't tell me you've forgotten what happened to Andy. Call the hospital and ask!"

I was practically begging.

Pierce sounded surprised. "Gwen, I just remembered, a friend of mine is the PTA president at Andy's preschool. I'm pretty sure she said they had class today like normal, and Andy even got a gold star. How could he be dead?"

My mind went completely blank.

"Did you hear that, Liam?" Gwen's voice turned ice-cold.

"How long are you going to keep up this act? You'd go this far over a little money? You're out of your mind. You can't even make up a convincing lie."

"I'm not… That was last week… Andy was in a car accident yesterday!" I tried to explain, but I could barely get the words out.

"Shut up!" Gwen snarled. "Liam, you genuinely disgust me. Don't bother us again. Just stay home and take care of Andy."

The line went dead. I called back over and over, but all I got was a flat tone and a recording. "The number you have dialed is currently switched off."

She'd blocked me.

I sat slumped against a headstone while the wind swept through the overgrown grass with a sound like weeping.

Chapter 4

Liam's POV

I didn't stand up until dusk had settled in and the cold cut straight through me. Andy couldn't go without a proper resting place.

I wiped my face, staggered out of the cemetery, and kept moving. I didn't have money, but I had a marriage certificate. And if there was one thing Gwen cared about more than anything, it was her reputation.

I took a cab straight to her office. The receptionist couldn't even stop me as I walked right through to the main floor.

"Does anyone know where Gwen Dalton is?"

My voice wasn't loud, but it was enough to silence the entire room.

Someone recognized me and called out, "Ms. Dalton is on a training assignment."

I nodded, forcing a hollow smile. "Right. Gwen's busy, so busy taking care of Pierce Donovan that she couldn't even come home when her own son died in a car accident.

"You all might not know this, but Mr. Donovan is a single father going through a really tough time, and my wife has been glued to his side around the clock out of the goodness of her heart. She's been pouring money into him hand over fist, too."

The entire floor, which had been buzzing a second ago, went dead silent. The way everyone looked at me changed, and I could feel all of it—the pity, the contempt, and the shock—hitting me like needles from every direction.

An older employee couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Morrison, is that… is that true?"

"Every word." I clenched my jaw, every breath searing.

"My son didn't make it. He's gone. When I went to Gwen for our savings so I could buy him a burial plot, she put a spending limit on the account.

"That money went to watches and cars for Mr. Donovan. They even went on vacation in the Azurine Islands."

The door to the director's office banged open. The HR manager walked out, his face dark as stone. He'd heard every word.

He probably never imagined that the sharp and ambitious Gwen had been hiding something like this beneath her polished surface.

"Mr. Morrison, let's take a breath." He steered me into a conference room, away from prying eyes, his expression conflicted.

"Here's what I can do. The company was planning to issue quarterly bonuses next month. I'll authorize an early release of hers to you."

He tapped a few things on his phone. A moment later, my phone pinged with a text notification. I glanced at the screen and felt the ground drop out from under me.

"Bank Deposit Notification: 100,000.00."

100 thousand dollars.

I stared at that number and tasted something sharp and metallic rising in my throat.

I remembered it perfectly. At the end of last year, Gwen had come home with three thousand dollars and a pained look on her face.

"Honey, the company had a terrible year. Bonuses were barely anything, and they might even be laying people off next year. You need to watch every penny."

That winter, I collapsed from exhaustion more than once while trying to save every penny I could. I rode the bus for three and a half hours to a follow-up appointment instead of spending 20 dollars on a cab and passed out on the way.

I camped out in the public library during the day for the free air conditioning, then worked on client presentations at home in the dark to reduce the electric bill, and kept at it until my retina detached.

On top of all that, I juggled three jobs at once, delivering food, tutoring, and picking up freelance work, grinding myself down into a bitter, hollowed-out wreck.

My hands were shaking as I looked up. "How much does Gwen actually make every month?"

The HR manager sighed, apparently done with covering for her. "Her base salary is 10 thousand dollars. With project commissions and quarterly bonuses on top of that, she takes home at least half a million a year."

Half a million dollars a year.

And the total household allowance I'd received from her over the entire past year didn't even come to 20 thousand dollars.

Chapter 5

Liam's POV

I started laughing until it broke into a hacking, lung-shredding cough. My chest felt like it was being crushed under a boulder, the pain spreading through me with every heartbeat. I doubled over, choking back a sob that got stuck in my throat.

So it wasn't that she didn't have the money. She'd been funneling it all to Pierce, the man who was supposedly struggling to get by.

I sat there staring at that deposit notification for 100 thousand dollars, and the pain was enough to hollow me out from the inside. If Gwen had given me even a tenth of that, could Andy have gone to the best private hospital? Could he have had a fighting chance?

I stood up and shook the HR manager's hand. "Thank you."

When I walked out of the office, the whispers from Gwen's coworkers washed over me like a tide.

"Look, that's Gwen Dalton's husband."

"I heard she's so wrapped up in that Pierce guy she didn't even care that her own son died?"

"I always wondered how that single dad pulled it off, cruising up to the office in a luxury car every day. Turns out he's our dear Ms. Dalton's little charity case."

One coworker took pity on me and lowered her voice. "Mr. Morrison, you have no idea, but Pierce is a joke around here. He blows more money in a month than our director makes. Just yesterday he bought himself a new watch and said it was a 'consolation prize' from Gwen."

Another coworker let out a bitter laugh. "Single dad with a hard life? That man lives more lavishly than anyone I know. He goes out for thousand-dollar prix fixe lunches every day and gets chauffeured around in luxury cars. He's not here to work. He's here to enjoy the lifestyle Gwen bankrolls for him."

My heart seized, and I nearly lost my footing.

"The most disgusting part," the first woman continued, getting angrier as she went, "is that every time monthly reviews come around, Pierce's proposals are either ripped off the internet or ghostwritten by interns.

"Gwen forces people on our team to list their names under his on the proposal so it looks like 'team collaboration'. The performance bonuses that should've gone to us end up in his pocket."

"Exactly. Last month's big project? Murray pulled three all-nighters on it, and Pierce's name ended up first on the credits. Gwen even warned us not to say anything because Pierce was going through a rough patch and said we should cut him some slack."

Every word landed like a slap across my face.

I thought about last winter and how I'd held Andy through a 104-degree fever in our cramped rental, the two of us shivering under two layers of blankets because I was trying to save on heating.

I thought about how I'd eaten nothing but plain bread for three days straight to stretch what little Gwen gave us, until I collapsed at the entrance to the subway station.

I braced myself against the wall, my knuckles white.

"Excuse me," I said quietly and pushed through the crowd blocking my path.

I walked out of the building into blinding sunlight, but none of it touched me. Then I went straight to the cab line and headed for the courthouse.

The filing hall was packed, but my mind had never been clearer.

"Sir, I'm filing for divorce." I handed over the paperwork, my voice steady.

"This is evidence of asset transfers. These are chat logs proving my wife is cheating. And these are records of marital assets being gifted to a third party."

I laid the evidence out piece by piece, from screenshots of the AI-generated replies to luxury purchases Pierce had posted on social media, testimonies from Gwen's coworkers, and the full ledger of her so-called charity spending.

"Under family law, one spouse can't unilaterally give away shared marital assets to a third party. Those transfers are recoverable." I looked the clerk in the eye.

"Over the past three years, Gwen has transferred and spent over two million dollars on Pierce Donovan. I'm requesting full recovery of every cent."

The clerk flipped through the documents, frowning. "Mr. Morrison, are you sure you want to add Mr. Donovan as a co-defendant? This could get very difficult."

"Absolutely." I gritted my teeth, my eyes rimmed with red.

"Every gift she bought him, every meal, every trip, all of it came from money that belonged to me and my son. If she won't let go of that man, then I'll make sure she walks away with nothing."

By the time I left the courthouse, I already had the case acceptance notice in hand. I was going to collect on every last cent of this debt and then some.

Chapter 6

Liam's POV

The next morning, I received two emails.

The first was an offer letter from the international projects division. The position I'd wanted for years, the one I'd given up three times for the sake of my family, had finally opened its door to me.

This time, I was going to put myself first.

The second was a threatening message from Gwen.

A moment later, my phone rang.

"Liam, have you lost your mind?" The second I picked up, she was screaming.

"You went to my office and made a scene, telling everyone our son is dead? Now the whole company is calling me shameless and calling Pierce a homewrecker. Do you have any idea how much this is hurting him?"

My fingers trembled, and my stomach turned. I felt something close to a physical revulsion toward her.

"Gwen," I said quietly, cutting her off. "Andy is really dead. It happened the night you took his blood."

"Shut up!" she screamed. "I know you're putting on an act. You used to pull this same thing back in college, didn't you? Faking sick and playing the victim—anything to get my attention.

"And now you're trotting out this 'my son is dead' routine? You think that's going to make me feel guilty enough to come running back? Not a chance."

My mind blurred for a second, and the memories came flooding back. She was right about one thing. I had been like that.

Back in college, I'd chased after her like a lovesick idiot who couldn't take a hint. If she mentioned her stomach hurt, I'd run through the rain across the entire city to buy her soup from that one place that was impossible to get into.

When she bombed an exam, I stayed up all night putting together her study materials and then told her it was all her own hard work.

Back then, I thought that was love. Now I understood that in her eyes, I was never anything more than a desperate, clingy doormat who didn't know his place. That kind of lopsided devotion had sealed my fate from the very start.

"I don't need your sympathy." My voice was calm. "And I'm not backing down. Gwen, I mean it this time."

The other end of the line went quiet for a beat. She clearly hadn't expected me to push back this hard. Then she let out a laugh so sharp that it could cut glass.

"Fine. You want a divorce? I'll sign right now. Let's see who ends up regretting it. And you'd better go back to my office and set the record straight, or I'll fly home and report you to the police for slander.

"You're saying Andy's dead? Please. I have proof he's fine. You're the one fabricating stories for sympathy, you lunatic."

When she said she'd go to the police and prove Andy was alive, my heart clenched so hard that it hurt.

I wished more than anything that this really was just a nightmare and that any second now, Andy would come bouncing up to me with that big grin on his face. But there were no miracles.

"Do whatever you want." I hung up and tossed the phone aside.

…

Third-Person POV

Gwen flew back from the Azurine Islands in a fury and stormed straight into her office. She stood in front of her coworkers and launched into her defense.

"Don't listen to a word Liam says. He's not right in the head. He'll make up any lie he has to if it gets me to come home. There's also nothing going on between me and Pierce. He just hit a rough patch at work, and I helped him out as his supervisor. What's wrong with that?"

The whispering didn't stop. If anything, the looks got more contemptuous.

Gwen's face twisted with humiliation and rage. She yanked out her phone and dialed 911.

"Yes, I'd like to file a report. My husband, Liam Morrison, has been fabricating allegations, claiming I'm having an affair and that our son is dead. I want to press charges for defamation."

Two officers arrived shortly after. Gwen rushed up to them, talking a mile a minute and pointing at the people around her. "Officers, perfect timing. My husband came in here and turned the entire staff against me with his lies.

"My son is perfectly fine. He's not dead. My husband is out of his mind. He'll say anything for money. Go ahead and check. Run his name through the system and pull up the hospital records. My son, Andy Morrison, is alive and well."

One of the officers frowned and took out a tablet, typing in Andy's name and date of birth.

Gwen folded her arms, staring at the crowd around her with a look of absolute confidence. A cold smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, like she was already picturing them hauling Liam off in handcuffs.

But a few seconds later, the young officer's expression changed. She glanced down at the screen, then turned to Gwen with a strange look in her eyes.

Her voice was heavy. "According to our records, Andy Morrison, male, age four, passed away three days ago."

The entire room went dead silent.