Chapter 1

My wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and the specialty medicine that kept her alive was expensive enough to strip my whole family down to nothing.

I worked day and night on less than four hours of sleep, all of it to buy her a little more time.

My father sold one of his kidneys through a black-market broker to raise the money, and died in the hospital of a postoperative infection.

My mother took a job at a factory that cut every corner, breathed in toxic fumes for months, and came away with her lungs destroyed.

My wife cried until she couldn't see straight and said it was her fault, that she was dragging our whole family down with her.

Then, on a delivery run to Havenford's most extravagant private club, I watched her spend a fortune throwing a birthday party for someone else.

"Ms. Calder really doesn't hold back. She bought out the entire club for her boyfriend's birthday. That has to be hundreds of thousands."

"His actual birthday isn't until tomorrow. Tonight is just the appetizer."

My dying wife lay in a strange man's arms, smiling, without a trace of illness on her.

With the whole room egging them on, the two of them kissed long and deep in front of everyone.

The message she'd sent me an hour earlier was still sitting on my phone.

"Julian, I'll be home late. Don't forget to pick up my medicine."

Vivian Calder, I'm done treating your illness.

Chapter 1

"Hey. Delivery guy. What are you staring at? Keep looking in there and I'll take your eyes out for you.

"Do you have any idea what kind of people are inside? You think somebody like you gets to look at them?"

The security guard was built like a loading dock, and he planted himself square in front of me to block my view into the Gilded Ivy Club.

I drew a slow breath. My chest felt like something had punched a hole straight through it and left it bleeding.

I was still dazed when his hand came around and cracked across my face.

"I'm talking to you. Are you deaf? I said stop looking. One of the VIPs in there notices you, they'll bury you and nobody will ever ask where you went."

My cheek swelled fast and tight, and the pain made me suck air through my teeth.

But the pain also told me that what I'd just seen inside was real.

The guard kept his eyes on me, waiting for a reason to hit me again.

The younger man I used to be would have swung back, just to feel like a person again.

But after ten years of pouring every cent my family had into Vivian's treatment, I'd learned how to swallow it.

"Sir, please, just let me through for one minute. Someone inside placed a rush order, and if I don't hand it off now the job times out."

The guard folded his arms, looked me up and down, and laughed through his nose.

"Sure. We check assets at the door. You got eight figures in the bank?"

My face went white. Forget eight figures. These days I thought twice before I spent eight dollars.

But the image of Vivian throwing money around inside that club kept turning over in my head.

So she'd had that kind of money the whole time. A fraction of it would have given my family a completely different life.

And she'd said nothing, year after year, and watched us sink.

My phone flashed red. If I missed the handoff window, the penalty would eat everything I'd earned that day.

Sweat ran down my forehead, and I got desperate enough to call Vivian.

She'd bought out the whole club tonight. One word from her and I'd be through that door.

"Julian, what are you talking about? I'm not at any club. I'm working late at the office.

"Finish your route and remember to pick up my medicine. The pain's starting again."

Every conversation with Vivian circled back to her medicine. I'd gone numb to it.

Right then the club stirred, and guests started filing out.

I heard people complaining that Vivian had ordered the floor cleared so it would be just her and her boyfriend.

Something turned over in my chest. My call had spooked her.

And at that exact moment, Vivian's young boyfriend came out the door and snatched the package out of my hands.

"What took you so long? We almost missed our window."

He tore it open right there in front of everyone, and what was inside made my eyelid jump.

Chapter 2

It was full of contraceptives and other intimate supplies.

The sharper-eyed guests spotted it immediately and started egging him on.

"Looks like Felix has a long night planned with Ms. Calder."

"What can I say? She doesn't get many chances while she's busy playing sick. Tonight I'm going to remind her what she's been missing.

"If we hadn't set up that ten-year fake-illness wager with her, none of this would have been necessary. She's about to dump that useless husband anyway."

Felix Danner wore the smile of a man who'd already won, and the line drew another round of whistles.

I lowered my eyes. Every word of it went into me like a nail.

So Vivian's illness being fake was common knowledge to these people.

Meanwhile my family had burned through everything we owned for a disease that never existed, and it had nearly destroyed us.

Felix looked me over with open disgust.

"Why is the delivery guy still standing here? Get lost. People like you sour the whole room.

"Kessler, get him out of here."

The guard who'd treated me like garbage turned into a lapdog the instant Felix spoke. Then he looked back at me and the viciousness came right back.

"How many times does somebody have to tell a thick-skulled idiot like you that this isn't where you belong? Move."

He started kicking at me, and I scrambled away from the club.

The wealthy guests howled at the sight, and the laughter was loud enough to drown in.

Felix was laughing too, and his smile widened when a woman's voice came from behind him.

"Felix, why are you still out there? I get lonely the second you leave."

At that familiar voice, I couldn't stop myself from turning around.

Vivian Calder, my wife of ten years, had both arms hooked around Felix's neck like it was the most natural place for them.

After a few soft words they went back inside together, Felix still gripping the package I'd just delivered.

I looked one second too long and took another hard kick from Kessler.

I went down on the pavement, and my phone chimed in my pocket.

A message from my wife.

"Julian, don't wait up tonight. I have an important client meeting.

"Remember to buy my medicine. I'll take it when I get home."

I laughed, bitter and quiet, and stayed down on the ground while the tears finally came.

I didn't ask her why she'd lied. I sent Vivian one message and nothing else.

"Vivian, what if we stopped treating your illness?"

She called almost before it delivered.

By then Kessler had run me off into a narrow alley where my only company was moonlight and rats.

Vivian's soft, gentle voice didn't belong anywhere near that place.

"Julian, what happened? Did something go wrong on your route today?"

I looked at the penalty notice on my screen and smiled at nothing.

"My deliveries ran late. They took everything I made today."

"That's all right, Julian.

"I know this strange illness of mine has cost you so much. If you're really this exhausted, we'll stop the treatment and save the money for your mother's lungs instead."

Vivian sounded so gentle, like she was giving something up for our family. It was the most understanding thing a person could say.

The old version of me would have wept and sworn on the spot that I'd find a way to care for both of them.

She could say things like that because she'd never once doubted that I loved her.

Now I understood that our family had never existed inside her at all.

Whatever I'd felt ten years ago had been ground down until there was nothing left of it.

Chapter 3

A self-mocking smile pulled at my mouth, and I answered flatly.

"Fine. I'll put the money toward Mom's lungs instead."

Vivian froze. For a long moment she couldn't get a single word out.

I didn't give her time to recover. I hung up.

From now on, my time and my money were going to the family that had actually bled for me.

Vivian was a bottomless pit, and she'd swallow every one of us if I let her.

Mom and I could still build something better. The thought moved through me like warmth.

Then I opened our front door and found that my mother had taken her own life.

There was a letter still loose in her hand.

I fought the shaking in my whole body and took it from her.

"Son, I don't want to keep standing between you and Vivian. After I'm gone, put the money into her treatment and get her well.

"As long as you two stay together, I'll rest easy."

The handwriting was rough. My mother was a small old woman from the countryside with almost no schooling, and she'd given me every single thing she had.

I held that letter and cried until I couldn't breathe.

If I'd learned even a little sooner that Vivian's illness was a lie from the first day, my mother would still be alive.

The more I thought about it, the more the anger banked and burned in my chest.

That invented disease had killed both my parents and cleaned us out down to the floorboards.

Only after my voice had gone hoarse did I pull myself together enough to call emergency services and the police.

While I was giving my statement at the Havenford Police Department, one of Vivian's posts came up on my feed.

"To love someone is to hold nothing back."

The photo showed her at a candlelit dinner with Felix, the two of them looking at each other in a way that left nothing to guess at.

The comments were all congratulations and teasing about when the two of them would start a family.

Before I could type anything, the post was gone from my feed.

She'd blocked me from seeing it. Of course she had.

It didn't move anything in me. Where Vivian was concerned, I'd gone numb a long time ago.

When I finished my statement, Vivian called, furious.

"Julian, where are you? Nobody's home and my medicine isn't here!

"Are you honestly going to stand there and let me hurt like this? Bring it home. Now."

Every sentence was about her medicine. She hadn't even noticed my mother wasn't there.

Ice went through me. I forced the catch out of my throat and told her my mother was dead.

She rushed to the station soon after and pulled me into a tight embrace the second she saw me.

"I'm so sorry, Julian. I should've been here. I didn't know your mother had died, and I said those awful things to you. Please don't hold them against me."

I could feel her trembling, and I could smell her perfume.

Underneath it was Felix Danner's cologne.

It took everything I had to bury the revulsion and not shove her off me.

"Mom's funeral is tomorrow. What are your plans?"

The grief on Vivian's face turned into something evasive.

"Julian, I have something extremely important tomorrow. I don't think I can go with you."

I closed my eyes and felt the wound tear open again.

Tomorrow was Felix's real birthday. Naturally Vivian was going to be there.

Between Felix and me, she picked Felix and left me standing.

So I was done choosing her too.

"Julian, I know you're grieving, but please don't forget my medicine. We're out at home."

My mother wasn't even in the ground yet, and Vivian was already scrambling for her pills like she couldn't wait another hour.

"And now that your mother's gone, the money you were spending on her can go toward my—"

I turned and looked at her before she could finish.

Something in my eyes startled her. She gave a small, sheepish smile and said nothing more.

Chapter 4

Even so, I kept it in mind. The day after my mother's funeral, I went back to the same pharmacy I'd been going to for years and bought Vivian's medicine one last time.

Years ago I'd been a poor kid from a mountain town, and it was Vivian's money that put me through school and got my family down out of those hills and into a real city.

Even knowing what she'd done, I intended to buy this final bottle. Call it repayment for what she'd once given me.

I pay my debts and I settle my scores. Once the debt was clear, I'd walk and never look back.

There had always been something odd about Vivian's specialty medicine. Only Havenford Specialty Pharmacy ever carried it.

I used to think that meant it was rare and precious. Now I understood it was just another moving part in the lie.

What I didn't expect was to run into Vivian's boyfriend, Felix Danner, standing right there at the counter.

He didn't recognize me at first, but the moment he heard the name of what I was picking up, he gave me a strange, measuring look.

"You're Vivian's husband."

I made myself nod. Something tightened in my stomach.

Felix laughed at me, and there was nothing in it but contempt.

"So I finally get to meet the idiot in person. You really did buy her fake medicine for ten straight years.

"Why don't you find out what those miracle pills actually taste like?"

I tried to walk past him. He stepped into my path.

"You know what I'm here for? Something to get me through tonight. Your wife keeps me busy."

I'd learned to eat a lot of humiliation, but my face went hot at that, and I glared at him.

Felix just grinned and hooked an arm around my neck.

I tried to pull free. He was stronger.

Before I could stop him, he shook a pill out of Vivian's bottle and shoved it into my mouth.

I went completely still and stopped fighting. It was sweet on my tongue, and everything under it turned to acid.

Felix roared with laughter.

"That's right. The expensive miracle drug you've been buying for ten years is candy."

Watching the despair land on my face only gave him a better idea. He had his men take me to his birthday party so he could humiliate me in front of an audience.

I didn't resist any of it. By then I was hollowed out.

At the party he announced to the whole room that I was the fool Vivian had strung along for a decade.

Face after amused face turned toward me. I was the entertainment.

"There are actually people who fall for that? I thought it was just a story."

"He has to be the dumbest man alive. Ms. Calder tells him one thing and he hands over everything he's got."

I scanned the room. Vivian wasn't there.

Felix decided the ridicule still wasn't enough, and he came up with something worse.

He set three capsules down in front of me, blindfolded me, and shuffled them so I couldn't tell one from another.

Everyone in the room could hear how much he was enjoying himself.

"One of these is the candy pill Vivian eats. The other two are packed with something lethal. Swallow the wrong one and you'll be dead inside a month.

"Now pick."

While he was saying it, he quietly took the candy pill away, leaving only the two he claimed were deadly.

Whichever one I reached for, he wanted me to believe I was choosing how I died.

I refused to play, and I shouted as loud as I could.

"I'm Vivian Calder's husband. You do this to me and she will not let it go."

Felix sneered.

"You're a pawn in somebody else's bet, nothing more. Vivian doesn't care about you. I'm the one she loves."

When I still wouldn't choose, he pinched up both capsules and tried to force them into my mouth.

Before he could, every head in the room turned toward the door.

Vivian had finally arrived. "Felix. What exactly do you think you're doing?"