Smithen woke to cold sheets and an ache that had nothing to do with his body.
The bed was vast—a kingdom of silk and memory foam, the kind of luxury that still felt foreign to his fingers. Pale morning light bled through the floor-to-ceiling curtains of Viran's penthouse, slicing golden bars across the tangled mess of sheets wrapped around his bare legs. When had they even come here? His memories of the night before were a fever dream—desperate kisses that tasted of salt and want, trembling hands that mapped every inch of his skin, the weight of Viran's body pressing him into mattress after mattress after mattress.
Seven times. Maybe ten.
He'd lost count after Viran had whispered his name like a broken prayer, voice wrecked, lips against his throat: "Smithen… Smithen… I can't…"
But now, the space beside him was empty.
Cold.
Wrinkled.
He left.
Smithen sat up slowly, his body screaming in protest—a sweet, aching soreness that should have made him smile, should have made him curl into the sheets and relive every gasp, every bite, every time Viran had shuddered above him. Instead, his chest tightened into a knot of ice. He was alone. Truly alone.
The bathroom door was shut. Through the frosted glass, he could see the shadow of water cascading down—shower pouring, steam curling. A silhouette moved inside: Viran's broad shoulders, the tilt of his head as he poured shampoo into his palm, the slow, lazy motion of his hands massaging his scalp. Domestic. Intimate. Careless.
Smithen's lips twitched into a small, fragile smile.
Buzzzzz
His phone buzzed on the nightstand.
1 New Message
His heart lurched—maybe Kiren or his mom? But no. Just a string of digits he didn't recognize. He frowned. There was already an unread message from the same number, sent sometime before months, while he'd been otherwise occupied. He'd forgotten to check.
He opened the chat.
And the world stopped.
His eyes widened—so wide they burned.
The image loaded in cruel, high-resolution detail. Viran—his Viran, the man who had kissed him like he was oxygen, who had held him like he was something precious—lying naked on silk sheets. The same silk sheets Smithen was sitting on. And beside him, equally bare, her dark hair fanned across his chest like a possessive brand, was Akanya. Her red lips curled into a satisfied, venomous smile. Viran's eyes were closed. Peaceful. Sated.
The timestamp was months ago. Smithen didn't care to know the exact date. It didn't matter. What mattered was the truth bleeding through the pixels.
Below it, a second message—unread, sent just now:
"He never left me. You were just a warm body for the blood moon. Don't fool yourself. If it wasn't for his family forcing him into this marriage, you could never have gotten him. And getting him is secondary—with your status, you couldn't even see him from a distance."
Smithen's hand trembled. The phone slipped from his fingers and thudded onto the plush carpet like a dead thing.
While I was starving for scraps of his attention. While I cried into my pillow at night, convincing myself that maybe—just maybe—he was finally seeing me. He was in her bed. Naked. Intimate. Lying.
Then what am I?
Who am I to him?
Is there another reason he had sex with me last night-not because of our first wedding anniversary? Is it because of the blood moon that he was intimate with me last night? He was the one who asked me for a divorce with promised compensation and alimony. He was the one who kept those papers ready.
The bathroom water stopped.
Smithen moved on autopilot, his hands shaking as thoughts flickered through his mind like broken static—unable to order them, unable to breathe past the pressure in his chest. He pulled on his clothes: the same white shirt from last night, still faintly damp, now wrinkled and stained with red wine and his own dried blood from the cut on his hand. The cut Viran had kissed better. Liar.
From his pocket, he pulled out the divorce paper—the one he'd carried with him everywhere for three months, just in case Smithen finally found the courage to hand it to him. But Smithen hadn't given them to Viran.
It was already signed. By both of them.
Viran was waiting for this letter, Smithen murmured to himself, his voice hollow. And I'm giving it to you as a gift for our first—and last—night together.
His hands didn't shake as he walked to the desk in the corner of the penthouse. His hand didn't waver as he placed the papers on the polished mahogany surface. He found a heavy crystal paperweight—a gift from some foreign dignitary, probably—and set it on top of the documents. To make sure Viran wouldn't miss them.
He wrote only ten words on a sticky note, his handwriting eerily calm:
"I have given what you wanted. Lead a happy life."
He paused. Looked at the words. Then, softly, he whispered to the empty room:
"I don't know the exact reason you would agree to a nobody like me. But I'm not interested in knowing anymore. Now all I want is a peaceful life with my mom and brother. I'll tell them everything once I leave this room."
His gaze drifted to the bathroom door. The shower had stopped. Through the frosted glass, he could see Viran's shadow drying himself, oblivious.
"I guess we'll never see each other again."
Without shedding another tear—his eyes were already dry, scraped hollow—he moved out of the main bedroom. Walked across the bigger luxurious hall with its marble floors and priceless art. Pressed the elevator button. Stepped inside. The doors closed with a soft, final ding.
Outside the building, he caught a taxi and gave the driver one instruction: "The hotel where I parked my car last night."
The driver nodded. Smithen leaned back, closed his eyes, and let the city blur past.
His mind churned—one thought crashing into another without a break. His head began to throb. His eyes burned. He pressed his palms against them, trying to push the pain back inside.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, concerned. "You okay, bro? You sure you need to go to the hotel and not a hospital?"
"No," Smithen said, his voice flat. "Straight to the hotel."
Silence. Tense. Heavy.
Now I understand, Smithen thought. The papers weren't for my protection. They were for Viran's convenience. A quick exit when he got whatever he needed from me.
If so… I don't care.
Yes, I loved you desperately. But that doesn't mean you get to treat me like trash.
"Here we are," the driver announced.
Smithen paid online, stepped out, and walked to the parking area. His car was exactly where he'd left it—a modest sedan among luxury vehicles. He started the engine. The radio crackled to life.
He drove.
No destination. Just away.
His phone buzzed again and again. Kiren calling. Kiren messaging. Kiren calling again. Three messages. Four. Then five.
He ignored them all.
His chest was on fire. Not the longing fire from last night—the one that had melted his bones and made him gasp Viran's name into the dark, the one that had felt like redemption. This was different. This was the fire of betrayal. Of years of longing finally answered, only to be revealed as a lie. A lie he didn't even fully understand.
What is a blood moon? Why is it linked to us having sex?
"He never left me, because he never truly had me."
The words played on a loop, grinding his heart into dust.
His vision blurred. He wiped his eyes—when had he started crying?—and that's when his phone buzzed one last time.
Kiren: "Smithen, your mom's plane is missing. News says severe turbulence. They've lost contact. Don't worry—we can go to the airport. I have a contact who can get us information—"
The radio announced it simultaneously: "We interrupt this program with breaking news. Flight 819, carrying 250 passengers including elderly and infants, has lost contact with air traffic control. The plane was scheduled to land twenty minutes ago. Search and rescue operations are underway—"
Smithen stared at the screen. His lips moved, but no sound came out. He didn't even know what he was trying to say.
The last thread holding him together snapped.
A sudden crash.
His car glass exploded inward—shards like diamonds raining across his face. The world spun. Once. Twice. Seven times. His car rolled like a toy crushed by a giant's fist. A truck. He hadn't seen it. Hadn't heard the brakes. Hadn't felt the impact—not at first.
Blood seeped from his forehead, his arm, his chest. His vision swam, going dizzy at the edges. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear distant voices—people gathering, someone shouting for an ambulance. The wail of a siren, growing closer.
Then nothing at all.
The ICU was white. Too white. The fluorescent lights hummed a monotonous hymn, and the machines beeped in rhythm with what was left of Smithen's heart.
Beeeeep. Beeeeep. Beeeep.
Viran burst through the doors with his PA trailing behind—shirt tucked perfectly, hair immaculate, every inch the cold billionaire. But his eyes were wild. His composure, cracked.
"Where is he?" His voice was raw, scraped clean of its usual steel.
The doctor stepped forward, face grim. "Mr. Viran, your husband suffered severe trauma from a high-speed collision. We've done everything we can, but his vital signs are—"
"I don't want statistics. I want him alive." Viran's voice rose. "Call your chairman. Bring the best doctors in the country. I don't care about the cost."
Behind him, a commotion. Running footsteps. A woman's sob.
Smithen's mother—disheveled, tear-streaked, very much alive—rushed into the room, followed by his brother. Their plane had landed ten minutes ago. The accident had happened an hour ago. The lost contact had been a combination of freak turbulence and a network failure. They'd circled, unable to communicate, but never in danger.
Viran turned. His face went pale.
"Mom?" he whispered. Confusion flickered across his features. "You're—"
"Alive?" She slapped him. Hard. The sound cracked through the ICU like a gunshot, echoing off the sterile white walls. "Yes, we're alive. But my son is dying because of YOU."
Viran didn't flinch. He stood there, cheek reddening, and took it.
She pointed a shaking finger at his chest, her voice breaking into splinters. "You want the truth? Fine. I agreed to marry my younger son to you because he loved you. Purely. Not for your wealth. Not for your power. He loved you because he saw something in you that no one else did."
Her voice dropped, trembling.
"Your mother came to me two years ago—begging. She said your family has a curse. And to escape that curse, she needed someone with a unique birth chart. A 'mysterious circumstance.' She said Smithen—my Smithen—has a rare aura. That if he married you, your life calamity would be avoided. That you would escape the misery."
Viran's face drained of all color.
"And he doesn't even know that was the reason you married him," she continued, her tears falling freely now. "He just agreed. Happily. The moment I told him about the marriage—a year before it happened—he said yes without hesitation. Because he already loved you. He'd loved you from afar for a whole two years before that."
The heart monitor stuttered.
Beeeeep... beeeep... beee—
"No," Viran whispered. He pushed past the doctors, past the nurses, and grabbed Smithen's cold, limp hand. "No, no, no—Smithen, wake up. WAKE UP."
His voice cracked wide open.
"I didn't know. I swear to God, I didn't know about that picture. It must be AI—or a setup. I never crossed the line with her. I never—"
The words tumbled out, desperate, useless. Smithen's eyes remained closed. Pale. Peaceful. The oxygen mask fogged with each shallow, machine-assisted breath.
"I came to you last night because I found out the anonymous letters were from you. The ones that kept me sane. The ones that said 'I see you.' And you didn't divorce me—even when I offered you money, property, anything—when any ordinary person would have taken the deal and run."
He pressed his forehead to Smithen's.
"Seeing you bleed yesterday… it broke something in me. I realized I couldn't take the chance of losing you. Please. Please don't leave me now."
He pressed his lips to Smithen's forehead.
Cold.
Already too cold.
The machine flatlined.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
A single, endless note—the sound of a universe ending.
Viran screamed. A raw, animal sound that tore through the ICU. His mother collapsed into his brother's arms, sobbing. The doctors rushed in, shouting for paddles, for epinephrine, for a miracle.
But Smithen was already gone.