"Bound By The Wrong Brother"

Tristan is the real young master in the drama. His father said, whoever between him and his brother first has a grandson, will be able to inherit billions of assets from the family. Three years after getting married, he was honest and sincere: "If you can't get pregnant, but she is pregnant, I can only choose her. You know how important a child is to me, right?" I twitched at the corner of my eye, but still didn't tell him the truth. Later, I married his brother and went to his house for dinner while pregnant. He said, "How is this possible? You clearly can't give birth!" Everyone looked at each other, and finally I broke the silence: "Tristan, why don't you go check it out?"

For seven years, I poured my family's fortune into my husband Chris's company, Bell Dynamics. Then, his lover, Dr. Kimberli Luna, intentionally botched my father's routine surgery, leaving him on life support. They locked me in the hospital room, a gilded cage, while Chris ignored my frantic calls. Kimberli appeared, a cruel smile on her lips, revealing a horrifying truth: every crisis in my life-my mother's death, a near-fatal car accident, even the miscarriage of what I thought was our baby-was orchestrated by them. "He was with me every time," she sneered. "You were just an inconvenience." They murdered my father by shutting off his life support right before my eyes, all because I refused to sign a waiver absolving Kimberli of her crime. Chris then had me committed, drained my blood for their future surrogacy plans, and annulled our marriage to marry her. He thought he had erased me, broken me completely. But he forgot about the prenuptial agreement my father insisted on. An agreement that left me with 25% of Bell Dynamics. Now, armed with my father's final gift, I will not mourn. I will avenge.

The cool metal of the gurney is the last thing I'll remember. One more session, the doctor said, and the past ten years of my life will be wiped clean. It all comes back to that night. I walked in to find my fiancé, Alex, kissing my half-sister, Kalie-the girl I raised since she was fifteen. When I confronted them, Kalie shoved me. I hit my head on a steel model, bleeding on the floor of the studio we designed together. But Alex didn't rush to me. He rushed to comfort her. She lied, painting me as the attacker. My best friend, my entire world, turned against me. Alex, my Alex, had me committed, signing the papers that subjected me to brutal, punitive electroshock treatments. He wasn't just erasing my memory; he was erasing me, punishing me for a crime I didn't commit, all to protect her. Now, waking from the final, consensual treatment, I find a note I left for myself. It's a plan. Sell the firm. Sell the house. Disappear to Montana. And this time, I won't just be erasing the memories. I'll be erasing them.

I' m already dead. My spirit floated, watching my own fiancé, Ryan Sterling, marry my adoptive sister, Olivia Reed. It was a perfect wedding, the kind every girl dreams of, but it should have been mine. Then, a delivery man walked in, holding a simple, unadorned box. "A delivery for Mr. Sterling," he said. "A wedding gift from Ava Miller." My name hung in the air, a foul smell. The room went silent. Whispers started. "Ava Miller? That shameless girl? I heard she went wild overseas, sleeping around with anyone. Ryan was smart to dump her. She' s nothing but a slut." My adoptive parents put on a show of sadness, saying I' d chosen the wrong path and they no longer considered me their daughter. Olivia, my rival, suggested throwing the box away. But Ryan, his face a cold mask, stopped her. He had worn that mask for months, ever since "those photos" were sent to him. He never asked for an explanation. He just publicly broke our engagement and announced his marriage to Olivia. Now, he looked at the box, with intense focus. "No," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "I want to see it." The whole room held its breath. I thought he hated me, that he had betrayed me. But something in his eyes, something in his words, sparked a strange, cold hope in my ghostly heart. What would he find inside? What truth would be uncovered?

The heavy iron gate groaned open, releasing me after seven long years. Dr. Evelyn Reed. Once a brilliant surgeon, now just an ex-con. My husband, David, and our son, Ethan, were there, a beacon of hope in the sharp sunlight. "Evelyn, you' re finally out. Welcome home," David whispered, holding me tight. I thought their love was my lifeline, the one thing that kept me alive. But in a dusty closet, an old voice recorder shattered that illusion. "Dad, didn' t you set her up? Why didn' t you let her stay in jail longer? Seeing her makes Aunt Sarah unhappy." Ethan' s voice, then David' s, stern and unfamiliar. "She deserves everything she got!" My blood ran cold. The evidence against me-medical malpractice, illegal human trials, organ trafficking-it had all been fabricated. David, my own husband, had actively participated. My son, Ethan, had testified against me. My adopted grandfather, dead. My biological parents, publicly disowning me for Sarah, the girl they raised in my place. My career, ruined. My life, a stepping stone for her. The house, once a sanctuary, was a shrine to Sarah, filled with portraits of her painted by David and Ethan – a love and adoration they never showed me. All their affections, all their promises, were a monstrous lie. Overwhelmed, I stumbled upon a forgotten phone number-a promise made in the depths of my despair. My hands shook as I dialed, a quiet whisper sealing my fate. "The time has come to fulfill that promise."

The last thing I remembered was the hospice ceiling, stark and cracked, as I lay paralyzed, trapped, regretting forty years wasted on a woman who betrayed me and a daughter who wasn't even mine. My wife, Nicole, was probably with Matthew, as she always had been. Then, a sudden, jarring jolt. My eyes snapped open, and I was eighteen again, back in my Cleveland bedroom, the phone buzzing with Nicole's vivacious voice inviting me to a party. This was the night it all began-the night I intervened, thinking I was saving her, only to become the consolation prize she resented for a lifetime. A life where I' d put her first, sacrificed my dreams, and eventually died alone, a fool betrayed by the very person I' d sworn to protect. The pain of that forty-year sentence, the revelation that Gabrielle, the child I loved more than anything, was Matthew's, flooded me. How could I have been so blind, so stupid? How could she have built our entire relationship on such a cruel, intricate lie? The humiliation, the rage, and the profound sorrow felt like a physical blow. Not this time. This time, I hung up the phone, the sound a chime of liberation. I was alive, I was free, and Nicole Anderson would be nothing but a stranger.