Goodbye Chips

On the day of the crash, I called Enzo Vitale ninety-nine times on the emergency channel. On the hundredth call, his Consigliere finally picked up. "Don Enzo has already used family resources to escort Miss Moretti to a private hospital," he said. "Her condition…isn’t good. Don asked me to tell you not to disturb him again." But that was not the worst part. When I woke up, my baby was gone. The doctor said the accident was too severe and they could not save the child. Then I heard the truth. “Chiara is carrying my child,” Enzo said. “Her last wish is to have a child before she goes. I gave her that. But this must stay between us. Alessia cannot know.” “We had no choice,” my mother Rosalina said, her voice flat. “Chiara doesn't have long. We want her last days to be peaceful.” “Alessia will understand,” my father Alberto said. “She's always been reasonable. She'll see this is about giving a dying woman her final wish.” They were comforting a dying woman. My child was dead. But all they cared about was Chiara's baby. I stumbled away. Chiara stood at the end of the hallway and smiled at me. “I am not dying,” she whispered. “I just want everything you have.” I picked up my phone and dialed a number. “Professor Luciano,” I said quietly. “I've changed my mind. I am ready to join your closed medical research program.” The woman who once begged for love had died with her child.

Susie Chance always claimed to value fairness above all else. Because of that, she ordered a specially designed chip implanted into my body. Whenever her childhood sweetheart suffered bouts of stomach cancer, all his suffering would be transferred onto me. On the day he underwent tumor-removal surgery, I collapsed in agony in the hospital corridor. Meanwhile, Susie gently comforted him in the ward. “So? It didn’t hurt at all, right?” Later, she said she wanted to hold a wedding with her childhood sweetheart, so he could experience being a groom as well. “Even though the one marrying me is Mark, the one I’ll register with in the future will still be you. I told you… I’ve always treated you both equally.” I said nothing, simply returning the wedding ring she had once placed in my hands. However, when the wedding march finally began to play, I boarded a one-way flight far away.

After my fiancée returned from six months of traveling with her childhood friend, she realized I had changed. For his sake, she broke protocol and promoted him to be the CEO's personal assistant. I obediently stepped aside and gave up my position. When he took over the project I had spent three sleepless months completing, I handed it over without a fight. My fiancée found my sudden compliance strange. Her childhood friend, on the other hand, was smug about it. He said with a grin, "Looks like your cold treatment finally worked. If you want him to behave, you just have to train him like a dog." My heart was calm and unmoved as I listened to their conversation. No one knew that I had been reborn. No one knew that I had finally accepted the truth: she never loved me from the start. No matter how reluctant I felt, from this moment on, I would cut ties with her completely. One clean break, free of all entanglements.

“Cassie Vaughn. Failed to crawl into my bed, so you started stealing from my casino?” The giant screen lit up. Every inch of it was covered with my nude photos. “Holy shit. A janitor actually thought she could seduce Lucien Moretti?” “She wanted to climb the ladder so badly she started stealing dirty casino money?” I was shaking with rage. The moment I said, “Those are AI-generated,” the entire room burst into laughter. “You think Lucien Moretti would fake photos for trash like you?” The next second, Lucien slid a phone across the poker table toward me. “Thirty million dollars from my casino.” “How exactly are you planning to pay that back?” But only I knew the truth. Lucien himself had stolen that money. I had simply seen it happen. On the screen, my parents hung from chains inside a warehouse, blood covering their faces. A document titled Organ Valuation Agreement was pushed in front of me. “Sign it.” “Or your parents die.” I fought with everything I had. Still, they dragged me toward the crocodile pit. Then I opened my eyes again. I was back at the poker table. Across from me, the butcher himself lazily rolled casino chips between his fingers. And on the giant screen behind him, my AI-generated nudes were still playing. He smirked. “Still trying to seduce me?” I lowered my eyes and checked the time. Forty-three minutes remained before I would be thrown into the crocodile pit. But I smiled. Lucien Moretti. This time—we’re gambling with your life.

I was working overtime at the mall on New Year's Eve, only to witness my boyfriend proposing to the broke student, whose scholarship was funded by my family, on the biggest screen in the place. I was about to step forward and confront him when she, with tears in her eyes, accepted the proposal. "Being confessed to in my family’s own estate… is so romantic and meaningful. Thank you for loving me so wholeheartedly for five years." As soon as those words left her mouth, the two embraced, sharing a deep kiss amidst the cheering crowd. They even won the "Best Couple" award for the night. I didn’t cry or make a scene. Instead, I volunteered to present them with their prize. I couldn’t wait to see what fate had in store for two pieces of trash standing together.

Eight years ago, a night of drunken recklessness left me carrying Grayson Ulrich's child. But from that moment on, he began to hate both me and our daughter. He never allowed her to call him "Dad." He wouldn't let me step into his study, either. Because inside that study, every inch of space was filled with traces of another woman—Sandra Wright, the ex-fiancée who had once left him for freedom and happiness, who had gone abroad to marry a rich man. She was the one Grayson could never forget. The one he still loved. On our eighth anniversary, Sandra returned. That night, Grayson got drunk for the first time in years. He held our daughter in his arms and wept until his eyes were red. My daughter looked at me, bewildered. "Mom, why is Uncle crying?" I held back my tears and told her softly, "Because he is very happy. The person he loves has finally come back." Then I said, "So, Mommy's taking you away—so we won't disturb him and the woman he loves, okay?"