The Revenge (Part 1)

Note: This story is a work of fiction and part of an alternate universe (AU). The characters, events, relationships, dialogue, and storylines are fictionalized for creative and entertainment purposes only.

Any character inspired by or sharing a name with a real celebrity does not represent the actual person, their real personality, beliefs, actions, relationships, or private life. This work is not intended to make factual claims about any real individual. All portrayals are fictional and should be understood as part of the story’s imagined universe.

Jackson ‘Jack’ Gray stood in front of the full-length gilded mirror in his master bathroom, staring at his own reflection with the kind of reverence most people reserved for religious icons.

He ran a hand through his hair. Messy blonde curls, intentionally tousled. He’d spent twenty minutes in front of the vanity using imported texturizing sea-salt spray to make it look like he’d just rolled out of bed after ten hours of perfect sleep. Six-foot-two. Lean, athletic frame maintained by a high-end gym membership his daddy paid for and an absurd amount of ego. Smooth skin, light stubble along his jawline trimmed to exact millimeter perfection, a tiny silver hoop in his left ear, and the tip of a palm tree tattoo peeking out from beneath his collarbone.

It was the ultimate starter pack: the soft-boy artsy aesthetic paired with the unmistakable posture of a rich, sociopathic fuckboy who knew he could get away with murder.

He checked his outfit one last time. The bright blue Ralph Lauren polo fit snugly across his chest and biceps, practically screaming that he lifted, while his designer denim sat low on his hips. He looked like he was cosplaying a reckless college kid, even though he was twenty-three, lived in a downtown penthouse, and didn't hold down a real job because his father was currently running for mayor of the city.

Jack flashed a quick, smug half-smile at himself in the glass. Those bright blue eyes had seduced dozens of girls. They were innocent-looking enough to make women trust him, and cold enough to let them shatter without feeling a single drop of remorse.

"Untouchable," he muttered to himself, grabbing his gold watch off the marble counter and slapping it onto his wrist.

He strutted out of the bathroom and walked into his massive, glass-walled living room. The penthouse smelled like a trashy mix of Tom Ford cologne, cold grease from leftover high-end takeout, and the stale, musk-heavy residue of whatever girl had been in his bed the night before.

Out on the L-shaped leather sectional, his two best friends and professional leeches, Jared and Brenden, were already sprawled out like they owned the place. Jared had his dirty sneakers resting right on top of the imported glass coffee table next to three empty IPA cans. Brenden was leaned back with his head tilted up, scrolling mindlessly on TikTok while tossing a vape back and forth between his hands.

Dominating the center wall of the apartment was an eighty-five-inch OLED TV. It was currently locked onto a live, high-definition news broadcast covering the latest campaign rally for Alexander Gray—Jack’s father.

"Look at this bullshit," Jared scoffed, taking a long sip from his beer and gesturing toward the screen with the can. "Your old man really pulled out the whole circus today, huh?"

Jack didn't even blink at the dirty shoes on his glass table. He just let out a low, breathless laugh, walking over to his stainless-steel kitchen island to grab a cold beer out of the sub-zero fridge. He popped the top with a sharp clink and sauntered over, collapsing into the center curve of the sectional. He spread his long arms across the back of the couch, holding his beer between two fingers, looking out at the city skyline behind the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"The circus works, bro," Jack said, his voice smooth, casual, and completely devoid of warmth. "Idiots love a circus. Watch and learn."

On the screen, the camera panned across a packed arena. Thousands of people were waving red, white, and blue signs that read RESTORE THE FAMILY and GRAY FOR MAYOR. The camera then zoomed in tight on the podium.

Alexander Gray stood there looking like a million bucks. Tailored navy suit, crisp white shirt, American flag pin gleaming under the harsh stage lights, and silver hair brushed back perfectly. He looked stern, commanding, and righteous—the textbook image of a traditional family man who had never sinned a day in his life.

The crowd’s roar echoed through the high-end speakers of Jack’s sound system as Alexander held up both hands to calm them down.

"My fellow citizens," Alexander began into the microphone. His voice was a deep, rehearsed baritone. It was the exact tone designed to make suburban housewives melt and blue-collar men nod in obedience. "We stand today at a crossroads. A sacred, terrifying crossroads. And I will not lie to you. I will not sugarcoat what is happening in our city and across this nation. The very foundation of our civilization—the traditional family unit—is under violent, coordinated siege."

The arena erupted into agreement. Alexander paused, letting the noise wash over him, his expression dropping into a dark, mournful grave look before leaning closer to the mics.

"Family values are not an option," Alexander thundered, his voice echoing off the auditorium walls. "They are the bedrock! The father as the head! The mother as the heart! Children raised under strict discipline, faith, and order! But open your eyes. Look at what the radical left, the woke mob, and this disgusting cancer they call modern feminism have done to our society. They have taken our women—our daughters, our sisters, our future wives—and turned them into something unrecognizable. Something deeply vile."

In the penthouse, Jared blew a sharp whistle. "Damn. He's really going for the throat today."

"Told you," Jack smirked, taking a heavy swig of his beer. "He’s cooking."

On screen, Alexander jabbed a stiff finger into the air. "Feminism did not liberate women! It corrupted them! It lied to them! It convinced them that opening their legs for any passing stranger was 'empowerment.' It told them that sleeping around was strength. That rejecting marriage, rejecting motherhood, and rejecting the natural order was progress! And what did we get in return? A generation of promiscuous, broken women who spread themselves thinner than the moral fabric of this country! Women who treat their sacred bodies like public playgrounds, and then act shocked and appalled when the natural consequences of their lust arrive!"

The crowd was practically frothing at the mouth now. Men in baseball caps were screaming, and middle-aged men were clapping furiously.

"And when those consequences arrive," Alexander’s voice grew darker, colder, "when these women find themselves pregnant from their own reckless, sinful, whoreish choices... what do they demand? They demand abortion! Abortion as a right! Abortion as basic healthcare! Abortion as the ultimate escape hatch from personal responsibility! The rise in unwanted pregnancies is not a tragedy of circumstance—it is the direct result of women who simply refuse to close their legs! Women who chased temporary, filthy pleasure instead of virtue, became total sluts in the name of freedom, and then expected tax-paying citizens to clean up their disgusting mess!"

Jack threw his head back and laughed out loud, pointing his beer can at the television screen. "Look at him! Absolute unit! He’s putting these bitches in their place. He’s gonna walk all over this election. No fucking question."

Brenden looked up from his phone, a sinister grin spreading across his face. "Even with that black chick from his campaign team trying to MeToo his ass?"

Jack’s face instantly hardened, his lips curling into a vicious, ugly sneer. The smooth soft-boy mask completely slipped, revealing the raw, arrogant elitist beneath.

"That fucking bitch?" Jack spat, his tone thick with pure disgust. "Please. She’s a lying, broke whore who saw a wealthy white man with a massive future and decided she wanted an easy paycheck. Groping? Give me a fucking break. There’s no evidence. No video. No receipts. No witnesses. It’s literally just her word against his. Classic victim playing."

Jack leaned forward, setting his beer down hard enough on the glass table to make it rattle.

"She probably threw her desperate ass at him in his private office, got instantly rejected because my dad has actual standards, and then decided to cry assault because that’s what these worthless women do when they can’t manipulate a powerful man," Jack continued, his eyes cold and dark. "My dad wouldn't touch some thirsty, low-class campaign aide if she was the last woman on earth. She’s just another bitter, talentless loser using fake allegations to ruin a good man’s life because she couldn't get what she wanted. It's pathetic."

Jared nodded hard, cracking open his second beer. "100% facts. Every single one of these chicks is the exact same. One night they’re begging for it, throwing themselves at you at the bar, and the next minute they’re pulling the victim card when things don't go their way. Your dad’s got this shit in the bag. Normal people are sick of that woke victim narrative."

"People want authority," Jack said smoothly, leaning back into the leather couch and stretching his long legs out. "They want someone to tell these females to know their place."

On the screen, Alexander was reaching the climax of his speech, his knuckles white as he gripped the sides of the podium.

"That is precisely why abortion must be banned completely!" Alexander roared over the sound of the crowd. "No exceptions! No loopholes! No 'my body, my choice' nonsense! Because as long as that escape hatch exists, women will never learn the most basic, fundamental lesson of womanhood: close your legs! Stop offering yourselves as constant temptation! Stop treating men like disposable ATMs and then screaming when the biological reality of your actions appears! A woman who knows she cannot simply murder her way out of her sins will think twice before spreading her thighs for every smooth-talking boy who buys her a shot at a club! She will remember that her body is not a amusement park!"

The crowd went wild, standing ovations sweeping through the arena like a wave.

"We will restore order!" Alexander shouted over the deafening noise. "We will make women remember what they were created for—not to destroy men with strategic allegations and fake pregnancies, not to parade their half-naked bodies on the internet like products, but to build homes, raise disciplined children, and stand silently beside strong men who lead! The age of the empowered whore is officially over! The age of the virtuous woman is coming back! And under my leadership, this city will lead the charge!"

The broadcast cut to commercial as the screen filled with political branding and flag imagery.

Jack picked his beer back up, tipping it toward the TV screen in a mock toast. "God, I love politics. The old man knows exactly how to play these sheep."

"Speaking of women who throw themselves at you..." Jared said, leaning in with a sleazy, conspiratorial grin. "What’s the update on your personal rotation? You still running game on those two?"

Jack paused for effect. He took a slow, deliberate sip of his beer, letting the suspense build while his two friends stared at him like dogs waiting for a treat. A slow, deeply arrogant smirk stretched across Jack’s face, turning his handsome features into something completely foul.

"Bro," Jack said, his voice dropping into a low, filthy purr. "I’m hitting both Adaline and Freya. At the exact same time."

Jared almost choked on his drink, his eyes widening. "Holy shit. You’re actually fucking both of them?"

"Both of them," Jack confirmed, leaning his head back against the leather frame, looking like a lord bragging about his estate. "Adaline and Freya. Simultaneous. And neither of those stupid, gullible bitches has a single fucking clue."

Brenden sat straight up, his eyes practically bugging out of his head. "Bro! No way. Give us the details. Right now."

Jack let out a dark, breathless chuckle. He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket, tapped the screen, and flipped it around to show them his lock screen notifications. There were two unread text messages sitting right next to each other.

Adaline: Hope your day is going good baby! Made us dinner for tonight if you want to come over after your dad's speech? ❤️

Freya: Just finished my workout. You coming over later or am I going to have to come kick your door down? 😏

Jared and Brenden burst out laughing, shaking their heads in utter disbelief.

"Look at this shit," Jack laughed, pulling the phone back and swiping through his chats with absolute disrespect. "It's literally too easy. It's not even a challenge anymore."

"Break them down for us," Brenden demanded, leaning forward on his knees. "How are they in bed?"

Jack didn't hesitate for a single second to sell out the intimate privacy of both girls. He spoke about them like they were meat he’d bought at a grocery store.

"Adaline’s the soft, submissive one," Jack said, his tone dripping with patronizing ownership. "Huge tits, soft little waist, and that round ass that jiggles every single time I bend her over the edge of her bed. She’s one of those quiet, innocent girls who wears oversized sweaters and talks about 'mental health' and 'romance.' But you get her behind closed doors? She turns into a complete fucking slut. She’ll do whatever I tell her to do. Anything. Literally last night, I had her on her knees on my bathroom floor, choking on it until her eyes were watering, while I was casually holding my phone behind her back texting Freya to set up lunch for today."

Jared slammed his hand against his thigh, howling with laughter. "No fucking way! You were texting Freya while Adaline was going to work?!"

"On my mother's life," Jack grinned, feeling like the king of the world. "And then there's Freya... man, Freya’s the hilarious one. She’s the athletic, fit chick. Tight little body, rock-hard thighs, those perky tits that bounce like crazy when she’s riding top. She considers herself this hardcore, independent feminist poster child. Always reposting infographics on her Instagram story about 'smashing the patriarchy' and 'men are trash.' But you put that bitch on her back and she melts like butter just like every other whore."

Jack tossed his phone casually onto the couch cushions next to him.

"I swear to God," Jack continued, his eyes full of pure malice and mockery. "These modern females talk all that big 'female empowerment' talk online, and then they spread their legs the absolute second a guy with a nice car, a famous dad, and a fat bank account looks in their general direction."

"You’re a fucking menace, Jack," Jared said, shaking his head in absolute admiration. "An absolute legend. King Jack."

"They really don't suspect a thing?" Brenden asked, genuinely curious. "They don't check your phone? They don't smell each other on you?"

"Bitches are blind when they want to believe a guy is into them," Jack said with supreme confidence. "They’re so fucking stupid it’s almost sad. They think because I buy them flowers once every three weeks and send them a cute 'good morning' text, I'm some special, changed guy. They’re so busy posting their little 'self-love' and 'know your worth' quotes that they don't even realize they're being played like cheap instruments."

Jack leaned forward, tapping his fingers against his knee.

"Get this," Jack said, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret masterclass. "I can literally blow my nut inside Adaline, take a quick five-minute shower, drive twenty minutes across town to Freya’s apartment, and hit her twice in the same night. Different girls. Different holes. Completely different vibes. And both of them go to sleep thinking they’re the only girl in my life. Adaline thinks we're moving in together next year, and Freya thinks she’s 'taming' the bad boy. It’s glorious."

The three of them erupted into a loud, obnoxious fit of laughter that echoed through the high ceilings of the luxury apartment.

"That is insane," Jared said, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. "You’re living every guy's dream while these dumb bitches are running around thinking they're in control. Feminism is the biggest gift to men in history. All it did was make girls easier to sleep with. They opened their legs wider, stripped away their own standards, and called it 'liberation.'"

Brenden raised his beer can high in the air. "To feminism! Making whores out of every girl who used to have self-respect!"

Jack tapped his can against Brenden’s. "Amen. They’re so obsessed with being 'strong, independent women' that they completely forgot how to spot a sociopath who's just using them for flesh. Gullible little idiots. I could literally text Adaline right now and tell her I love her, and she’d probably cry happy tears into her pillow, completely oblivious to the fact that Freya’s perfume is still lingering on my bedsheets."

Jared leaned closer to Jack, his eyes taking on a greedy, desperate, pathetic look. "Bro... whenever you get bored of them... you know. Hook a brother up. Don't just throw them away. Pass them down. Leftovers, man. Especially Adaline. God damn, those tits are insane."

"Second in line!" Brenden chimed in immediately, pointing a finger at Jack. "I want Freya. Those gym thighs? I want those wrapped around my head once you’re done breaking her spirit."

Jack laughed, a loud, condescending sound that put his friends right in their places. He looked down at them like they were street dogs begging for table scraps.

"Calm down, you fucking scavengers," Jack sneered, kicking Jared’s leg off the couch. "You’ll get your turn when I’m done using them. King Jack doesn't share his toys until he’s completely bored of playing with them."

They kept drinking as the afternoon bled into the early evening. The room grew darker, lit only by the ambient glow of the city skyline outside and the pulsating lights of the TV screen. Brenden pulled a small plastic baggie of high-grade weed out of his pocket, along with a pack of raw rolling papers. He expertly rolled a fat joint right on top of Jack’s glass table, flicked a jet-torch lighter, and took a long, deep pull before passing it over.

Jack took the joint, holding it between his thumb and index finger. He dragged heavily, letting the thick, skunky smoke fill his lungs, holding it for three long seconds before blowing a thick cloud straight up toward the ceiling. He felt completely invincible. High on weed, buzzing off alcohol, backed by his father’s massive political power, and pulling off a double life with two stunning women who worshipped the ground he walked on.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three short, soft, deliberate taps echoed from the front door of the penthouse.

Jack’s eyes flicked toward the entryway. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face. He didn't ask who it was. He didn't care. He stood up slowly, rolling his broad shoulders like a monarch stepping out to inspect his peasantry, and walked casually over to the heavy hardwood front door.

He pulled it open.

Standing in the hallway were three young women. They looked like they were barely twenty-one, dressed in tight, impractically short club dresses, wearing heavy makeup, and reeking of cheap, sickly sweet designer perfume. They were already giggling, tipsy, and holding half-empty canned cocktails in their hands—the exact kind of party girls who hung around rich guys’ apartments hoping for free cocaine and a cool photo for their Instagram stories.

Jack stood in the doorway, his arm propped against the frame, staring down at them. He didn't say hello. He didn't welcome them. He just let his eyes travel down their bodies slowly, methodically, and openly ranking them right in front of their faces like livestock at an auction.

His cold blue gaze settled on the girl standing in the middle. She was undoubtedly the prettiest of the trio—long dark hair falling down her back, full glossy lips, and a impossibly tight black dress that pushed her chest up and left almost nothing to the imagination.

"Well, well, well," Jack said, his voice dropping into that slick, patronizing, disgusting purr. "Look what the wind blew in. Come on inside, girls. Don't be shy."

The girls giggled nervously, stepping past him into the warm, scented air of the penthouse. Within less than ten minutes, the apartment had descended into a hazy, chaotic blur of blasting hip-hop music, pouring vodka shots, and wandering hands. Jared and Brenden had already cornered the other two girls on the far end of the sectional, aggressively chatting them up and trying to force drinks into their hands.

But Jack only cared about the dark-haired girl he’d singled out.

He had seated himself in the center of the sectional, forcing her to sit directly in his lap. His left arm was wrapped firmly around her narrow waist, his hand sliding high up her thigh, right under the thin fabric of her dress, while his right hand reached up to grab her chin, tilting her face upward so she was forced to look directly into his eyes.

The girl was flushed, her breath smelling heavily of cheap peach vodka. She was giggling, trying to play along, completely unaware of the absolute malice sitting beneath Jack’s handsome face.

"You know what you're supposed to call me, right?" Jack murmured close to her ear, his thumb pressing hard against her chin. His voice was smooth, toxic, and dripping with authority.

She giggled again, leaning into his touch, thinking it was just playful flirtation. "Um... Prince Jack?"

"That’s right," Jack whispered, his grip on her thigh tightening so hard his knuckles turned white, digging his fingers directly into her soft skin. His eyes narrowed, the spoiled, ruthless little prince coming out in full force. He loved this. He lived for this exact feeling—making another human being degrade themselves just to stay in his good graces.

"Now," Jack commanded softly, his eyes dead and unblinking. "Bark for me."

The girl froze. Her giggle instantly died in her throat. Her eyes blinked, caught completely off guard, her cheeks turning bright red as she looked around the room. Jared and Brenden were watching from the other couch, smirking dirty, expectant grins.

"Wait... what?" she stammered nervously, trying to laugh it off. "Are you serious?"

Jack’s smile vanished completely. His expression turned ice-cold, the posture of a dangerous, wealthy boy who had never once in his entire life been told the word 'no.'

"Did I stutter?" Jack said, his voice dangerously low. He squeezed her thigh even harder, causing her to wince slightly in pain. "Bark. Like a good little dog."

She hesitated for two agonizing seconds, her pride warring with her desperate desire to stay in the luxury penthouse with the handsome, rich politician’s son. The desperation won.

"Woof," she whispered softly, looking down at her lap.

Jack’s jaw clenched. "Louder. Do it properly or get the fuck out of my apartment."

She swallowed hard, her voice trembling slightly as she looked back up at him. "Woof! Woof!"

The sound was utterly pathetic, humiliating, and degrading.

And Jack loved every single millisecond of it.

A massive, ugly, triumphant grin burst across Jack’s face. He threw his head back and laughed, a loud, cruel sound that made Jared and Brenden cheer out loud from the couch.

"Good girl," Jack sneered, grabbing her behind the neck and dragging her lips forcefully against his in a hard, aggressive, possessive kiss.

He could feel himself getting hard against her hip. He felt like a god. High off his mind, drunk on power, holding two unsuspecting women on his leash in the city while degrading a third right in front of his friends.

In Jack Gray’s mind, he was completely untouchable.

He was the unchallenged King of the night.

The undisputed Prince of the city.

He sat there in the warm, weed-scented glow of his downtown penthouse, kissing a girl he didn't give a shit about, surrounded by luxury paid for by corrupt political money, completely convinced that the world existed solely to be consumed and discarded by him.

He was completely, wildly, perfectly blind to the storm that was coming for him.

.

.

The corner coffee shop was tucked away on a quiet street downtown, the kind of place designed for quiet study dates and hushed gossip. Warm overhead Edison bulbs cast a dim, amber glow over mismatched wooden tables, and the heavy air smelled thick of roasted espresso beans, cinnamon, and damp air from outside. The constant low hiss of the steam wand and the clatter of ceramic mugs served as background noise to the handful of patrons scattered across the room.

Freya had arrived ten minutes early. She deliberately chose a small round table in the far corner, tucked against a foggy glass window overlooking the sidewalk. It was far enough from the front counter that their voice wouldn't travel, but offered a clear line of sight to the front entrance.

She sat with her long, athletic legs crossed tightly at the knees, her leather jacket draped over the back of her chair. Her arms were folded so tightly across her chest that her knuckles were turned stark white. Her jaw was clenched, a tiny muscle ticking beneath her bronze skin. Every thirty seconds, her eyes flicked down to her phone resting on the table, then to the heavy wooden door of the cafe, then back to the screen.

Anger sat on Freya like a second skin—sharp, focused, and barely contained beneath a calm surface. She wasn't just mad; she was vibrating with a dangerous, surgical rage.

The brass bell above the front door chimed softly.

Adaline walked in.

The second their eyes met across the dim room, Adaline’s face completely crumpled. She didn’t even attempt to hide it or hold it together. Tears were already spilling over her lower lashes and sliding down her pale cheeks before she had even cleared the entryway. She wore an oversized beige knit sweater that drowned her small frame, her soft dark hair pulled back into a messy, half-hearted clip. She looked tiny, exhausted, and utterly destroyed.

Freya watched her approach, her own expression remaining carefully guarded. But as Adaline reached the table, her knees visibly gave out, and she dropped heavily into the wooden chair opposite Freya like her body simply couldn't hold its own weight anymore.

Freya slowly uncrossed her arms, letting her hands rest flat on the dark wood of the table.

For a long, agonizing moment, neither of them said a word.

The silence between them stretched out—heavy, awkward, and thick with the bizarre reality of two strangers connected by the same betrayal. Every surrounding sound seemed amplified: the metallic scrape of a spoon against a saucer two tables over, the muted laughter of a college couple near the counter, the muffled roar of a passing car outside.

Adaline pulled her long sleeves down over her hands, using the soft fabric to aggressively wipe under her eyes, her shoulders shuddering with a silent, shaky sob. Across from her, Freya’s sneaker began tapping against the wooden leg of her chair in rapid, angry bursts.

Neither of them knew how to launch into the conversation they had both agreed to have over a tense three-minute phone call an hour prior.

Finally, Freya exhaled sharply through her nose, a bitter, disgusted sound.

"What a fucking pig," Freya said, her voice dropping into an octave of pure, unfiltered venom.

Adaline looked up, her blue eyes raw and bloodshot. "He... he told me he had a work meeting yesterday morning," she whispered, her voice small, wet, and cracking down the middle. "He said it was super important. Something about a crisis with his dad’s campaign strategy team, and that he’d be completely unreachable off the grid until late afternoon." She swallowed hard, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "But he came straight to your apartment from mine, didn't he?"

Adaline let out a shaky, humorless laugh, shaking her head in disbelief. "And the night before that? Tuesday night? He sent me this long, dramatic text saying he needed to be alone. Said he had to lock himself in his penthouse and focus on writing speech notes for Alexander, that the pressure was crushing him and he couldn’t afford any distractions."

Adaline buried her face in her hands for two seconds before looking back up at Freya, her eyes wide with pathetic realization. "I’m such a fucking idiot, Freya. I actually believed him. I literally door-dashed him a forty-dollar healthy dinner to his place so he wouldn't forget to eat while working, and I sent him a long text telling him how proud I was of him."

Freya’s mouth twisted into a hard, dark line. She didn't interrupt. She just sat there studying Adaline’s face, taking in the delicate features, the soft curve of her jaw, and the genuine, unvarnished heartbreak radiating from her.

"You’re really pretty," Freya said softly, her tone almost reluctant, as if admitting it hurt her pride just a little bit. "When I found out his phone had another girl saved under 'Addy ❤️' and I pieced it together, I spent three hours scrolling Instagram trying to find you. I kept wondering what you looked like. When we spoke on the phone earlier, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought... I don't know. I thought you'd be different."

Adaline offered a tiny, tired, watery smile. "You’re gorgeous, Freya. You look like a model." She shook her head, leaning her elbows on the wooden table. "You know what’s pathetic? Before I walked through that door, I thought I’d be jealous of you. I thought if you were prettier than me, or hotter than me, it would destroy me. But sitting here looking at you... I don't feel a single drop of jealousy. I can see you’re just as gutted and furious as I am."

"Yep," Freya replied, her voice popping flatly on the P.

"I don’t hate you at all," Adaline murmured, her hands trembling slightly as she rested them on the table. "I just feel this overwhelming, suffocating rage toward Jack."

Freya’s tense, rigid shoulders dropped about half an inch. The defensive wall between them started to show its first hairline cracks.

"I feel sad for both of us," Freya admitted, her posture slumping slightly into the back of her chair. "It’s so deeply unfair. And the worst part is... if he did this to the two of us at the exact same time without a single hint of remorse, he’s definitely done it to other girls before. And he’ll keep doing it."

A barista walked over a minute later, breaking the tension briefly to set down their orders. Adaline had ordered a sweet, iced caramel drink loaded with whipped cream that she immediately pushed to the side, completely unable to stomach the thought of food or sugar. Freya had ordered a large black drip coffee, steaming hot. She grabbed the ceramic mug with both hands and took a heavy gulp, swallowing the bitter liquid like it was punishment.

The moment the barista walked back to the counter, the real conversation started.

They began comparing notes.

It started small, like two investigators laying out pieces of a petty crime scene.

"What did he get you for your birthday?" Freya asked, setting her mug down with a sharp clack.

Adaline blinked, her brow furrowing in confusion. "A silver necklace. A super delicate chain with a tiny initial pendant on it. He brought it over in a little velvet box. He sat on my bed, put it around my neck, kissed my shoulder, and told me he saw it in a boutique window downtown and immediately thought of me."

Freya let out a short, bark-like laugh that carried absolutely zero humor. She reached into her leather jacket, pulled out her iPhone, unlocked it with a quick swipe, and slid it across the table toward Adaline.

Adaline leaned in to look at the screen.

It was a photo saved in Freya’s camera roll from two months ago. It was a close-up selfie of Freya wearing a silver necklace—a thin, delicate chain with a tiny initial pendant sitting right above her collarbone.

"He gave me mine three weeks before your birthday," Freya said, her voice dripping with pure disgust. "Same exact store. Same brand. Probably the exact same brainless sales assistant. And he used the same exact line word-for-word: 'I saw it in the window and it reminded me of you the second I saw it.'"

Adaline stared at the image on the screen. Her lower lip began to tremble again, but this time, it wasn't from sadness. It was the initial spark of raw, unadulterated shock.

"No way..." Adaline whispered, her voice dropping. "No fucking way."

"Keep going," Freya urged, her eyes fixed on Adaline’s. "Let's line up the excuses."

"Every single time he canceled on me last month," Freya started, tapping her manicured fingernail against the table, "he used the same three rotation excuses. Number one: campaign emergency with his father’s donors. Number two: an obligatory family dinner with his dad and mom that he 'couldn’t get out of without causing a political scene.' Or number three: he was 'too mentally drained from being his dad's emotional punching bag' and needed to recharge alone."

Adaline’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Stop. Stop it right now."

"Tell me I'm wrong," Freya challenged.

"He told me the exact same things!" Adaline gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in utter disbelief. "Word for fucking word! The 'campaign emergency' was always on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons! The 'family dinners' were always last-minute cancellations on Friday nights! And the 'I need to lock myself in my apartment to recharge' nights..."

Adaline stopped mid-sentence, her breath catching in her throat as the realization landed like a sledgehammer. "...those were the nights he spent in your bed, weren't they?"

"Every single one of them," Freya confirmed coldly.

They pulled out both of their phones, placing them side-by-side in the center of the table. For the next thirty minutes, they went through their text histories, cross-referencing dates, times, and phrasing.

The level of lazy, repetitive deceit was mind-boggling.

They found matching 'good morning beautiful' texts sent at identical times on alternating days. They found identical voice notes. Freya tapped play on a voice memo Jack had sent her three weeks ago after a late-night hookup.

Jack’s oily, raspy, low voice played softly from the speaker: “Hey baby... just thinking about you. Honestly, you're the only girl in this city who actually gets me. Everyone else just wants something from me, but you... you're different.”

Adaline instantly pulled up her own voice memos, tapped a file from a month prior, and pressed play.

Jack’s voice echoed out again: “Hey baby... just thinking about you. Honestly, you're the only girl in this city who actually gets me. Everyone else just wants something from me, but you... you're different.”

It was the exact same script. He hadn't even altered the inflection in his voice. He had recorded the same breathless, pseudo-vulnerable speech and sent it to both of them like a mass marketing email.

Freya physically recoiled, shuddering with genuine nausea. "I'm going to throw up. I am literally going to vomit on this table."

"He told me he was done with his 'player phase,'" Adaline said, her voice shaking as she scrolled through a thread of texts. "He said he was tired of shallow bar girls and wanted something real with me. He told me his last ex-girlfriend broke his heart because she couldn't handle how intense his life was with his father's political career."

"Lie!" Freya shouted, drawing a sharp glance from a guy sitting near the counter. She didn't give a damn. She leaned closer to Adaline, lowering her voice to a fierce whisper. "He told me the exact same story about his ex! Said she was 'too crazy and needy' to understand his schedule. He told me I was the first girl who actually made him want to settle down and be a better man. He said I made him think about the future!"

"He said those exact words to me!" Adaline cried out, her eyes blazing with a mixture of tears and mounting fury. "Verbatim, Freya! 'You make me want to be a better man!' I literally cried happy tears in my car after he said that to me! I thought I was helping him heal!"

The evidence kept piling up, heavier and more absurd by the minute.

They discovered he had taken both of them to the exact same high-end Italian restaurant downtown—Luigi’s. He had reserved the exact same quiet corner booth for both of their 'anniversary' dates. He ordered the exact same $120 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, and gave both of them the exact same speech about how he 'never brought other girls here because this place was sacred to him.'

He had given both of them his oversized, vintage washed-black hoodie to sleep in—telling Adaline it was his absolute favorite shirt that he only let 'someone truly special' wear, while telling Freya the exact same story two weeks later when she stayed over.

He even used the exact same pet names in bed. 'Good girl.' 'Little princess.' 'My baby.'

The picture that formed in the dim lighting of the coffee shop was painfully, agonizingly clear.

Jack Gray wasn't some tortured, complex, mysterious man torn between two deep, soulful connections. He wasn't a criminal mastermind or a brilliant manipulator.

He was a lazy, entitled, low-effort manchild running the same copy-pasted fuckboy script on two different women because he was an insecure narcissist who couldn't function without constant, round-the-clock female validation. He recycled romantic compliments the way normal people recycled empty aluminum cans. He couldn't even be bothered to invent original lies. Every soft moment, every seemingly intimate confession, every late-night reassurance had been copy-pasted from one relationship into the other with all the emotional depth of a spam bot.

Freya leaned back heavily in her wooden chair, running both hands through her dark hair and staring up at the ambient lighting of the ceiling as if trying to force her brain to accept the sheer stupidity of it all.

"He’s not even good at it," Freya said, her voice flat and deadpan. "That’s what’s completely killing me right now. He’s not a master manipulator. He’s not some criminal genius. He’s just a spoiled, lazy little boy who figured out that if he puts on a soft voice, tousles his hair, and pretends to be stressed about his daddy, women will do all the heavy emotional lifting for him. He doesn't plan. He doesn't execute strategy. He just exists, acts pretty, and expects us to build our entire lives around orbiting his pathetic little ego."

Adaline violently wiped the last remaining tear from her cheek, her posture straightening up for the first time all evening. The soft, broken, fragile girl who had walked into the cafe was rapidly dissolving, replaced by an edge that was far sharper and infinitely more dangerous.

"I made so many excuses for him," Adaline confessed, her knuckles turning red as she gripped her untouched cold drink. "Every single time he was distant, I lied to myself and said he was under political pressure. When he canceled on me three times in one week, I told myself his dad’s campaign had to come first. When he went ghost for eight hours on a Saturday night, I told myself he was just an exhausted introvert who was bad at texting. I bent myself into absolute fucking pretzels trying to turn his disgusting inconsistency into 'depth.'"

"Same," Freya scoffed bitterly. "I did the exact same thing. I kept telling myself, 'Freya, you're an independent woman. Don't be needy. Don't get crazy jealous. Communicate maturely. Give him the benefit of the doubt.' Meanwhile, he was using the exact same lines on both of us, driving back and forth across the city, and sitting in his penthouse laughing about it with those two brainless parasitic leeches he calls friends."

Adaline paused, her eyes narrowing as something sparked in her memory. She looked at Freya.

"Speaking of how helpless he is..." Adaline started, a weird, dark irony creeping into her tone. "Can we talk about the fact that he literally cannot function as a basic human being?"

Freya let out a sudden, sharp snort of agreement. "Oh my God. Don't even get me started."

"He has never once put gas in his own car!" Freya declared, leaning forward on her elbows, genuinely animated now as she found solid, rage-filled ground to stand on. "I have literally had to drive us to the Chevron on 4th Street and pump the gas myself while he sat in his luxury passenger seat scrolling through Instagram! Do you know what he said to me? He said, and I quote: 'Babe, can you get it? The smell of gasoline gives me a subtle migraine, it's a sensory thing.'"

Adaline threw her head back, letting out a loud, incredulous laugh that drew stares from across the room.

"He does the exact same fucking thing at my apartment with his laundry!" Adaline shouted, completely abandoning any attempt at keeping her voice down. "He’ll come over, stay for three days, wear the same three designer shirts on rotation, and just drop the filthy clothes right on my bedroom rug! When I finally got sick of stepping over them and asked him to just throw a load into my washing machine, he looked at me like I had asked him to perform open-heart surgery without a license!"

"What did he say?" Freya asked, her eyes wide with dark amusement.

"He said—and I quote verbatim—'I don't really know how the dial works on these residential machines, babe. At my penthouse building, my housekeeper handles all that. It's kind of a whole process, I don't want to ruin the fabric.'" Adaline mimicked Jack’s pompous, whiny tone with terrifying accuracy.

"He’s twenty-three years old!" Freya yelled, slapping her hand onto the table. "He lives in a multi-million-dollar downtown penthouse! And he doesn't know how a washing machine works?!"

"He can't do his own laundry, he can't cook a basic scrambled egg without burning the pan, he doesn't know how gas pumps work, and he’s out here trying to manage two entire full-time relationships like he’s a Fortune 500 CEO!" Adaline said.

There was a sharp, lethal edge in Adaline’s voice now that hadn't been there an hour ago. It was no longer heartbreak. It was pure, unadulterated fury finding its permanent shape.

"He cannot function as an adult human being for five consecutive minutes unless a woman—his mother, a girlfriend, or a hired assistant—is actively cleaning up his shit," Adaline continued, her eyes burning. "But he had the bandwidth, the discipline, and the sheer sociopathic energy to run a secret double life for six months without either of us catching on."

"Because that's the only thing he's actually motivated by," Freya said quietly, her voice dropping into a cold, chilling register. "Managing women. Managing our emotions. That’s his entire skillset. He can't feed himself a nutritious meal, but he can manipulate two women’s hearts at the exact same time without breaking a sweat, and still have six hours a day left over to get high and drink IPAs with Jared and Brenden."

"Ugh, those two," Adaline groaned, shuddering with absolute disgust. "He told me Jared and Brenden were his 'ride or die brothers.' Said they’d 'go to war' for him."

"They're not brothers, they're unpaid staff," Freya spat. "They're two unemployed losers living off his dad's money and eating his takeout scraps."

Freya stared down into her lukewarm black coffee for a long, quiet moment. The frantic energy of comparing notes began to settle, leaving behind a deep, heavy ache in her chest. When she finally spoke again, her voice had lost its sharp, sarcastic edge, picking up a weight that was far more painful.

“I compromised everything for him,” Freya said softly, staring at the dark liquid in her mug. “And I hate myself for it. I fucking hate it.”

Adaline looked at her, her expression softening into genuine empathy. "What do you mean?"

Freya exhaled a long, bitter breath. “I’ve always been the loud one, Adaline. My whole life. I’m the girl who called out guys for their casual sexism in college. I’m the one who called out bullshit instantly. I used to roll my eyes at girls who softened their voices or changed their personalities just to make a guy feel comfortable. I used to say it out loud to my friends—that no man on earth was worth shrinking yourself for. That if a guy needed you to be quieter, sweeter, less opinionated, and less angry, then he was trash who didn't deserve to breathe your air. I built my whole identity around not bending for anyone.”

She let out a hollow, humorless laugh, shaking her head at her own reflection in the window.

“And then Jack happened.”

Adaline stayed quiet, sitting still and giving Freya the space she needed.

“He didn’t even have to work hard to break me down,” Freya continued, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed shame. “That’s the worst part. He just... existed in that soft, slightly pathetic, 'I’m under so much political stress because of my dad' way. And I started making exceptions for him. I stopped posting my usual opinions online. I started softening the way I talked about gender issues when he was in the room. I literally stopped correcting him when he made subtle, trashy jokes about women."

She tightened her hands around her ceramic mug until her knuckles turned yellow.

"I told myself it was 'maturity,'" Freya whispered, disgust dripping from every word. "I told myself I was learning how to 'pick my battles in a relationship.' That maybe I had been too rigid and angry in the past. Jack would look at me with those fake blue eyes and say things like, 'Not all men are the enemy, Freya, you don't have to be so aggressive,' in that gentle, patronizing voice... and suddenly I was the one sitting there wondering if I was the problem. If I was 'too much.' Too loud. Too opinionated."

She looked straight into Adaline’s eyes, her gaze raw and agonizingly honest.

“He made me rethink principles I had spent my entire life building. He made me feel like my feminism was an embarrassing flaw I needed to tone down so I wouldn’t 'scare him away.' And the most fucked-up part? I let him do it. I rewrote my own moral code in real-time just to keep a spoiled rich boy comfortable in my bed. Every single time I swallowed my pride or laughed off something disgusting he said 'as a joke,' I told myself it was compromise. I told myself it was 'growth.'”

Freya’s jaw clenched tight.

“It wasn’t growth, Adaline. It was me slowly abandoning myself so a sociopathic manchild could get his dick wet and his ego stroked. And the second I found out about you... every single one of those compromises felt like a violent slap in the face. I didn’t just get cheated on. I got played into betraying who I am for a guy who was laughing at me behind my back.”

The small corner of the coffee shop went dead silent. The heavy emotional weight of Freya's confession hung between them, thick and palpable.

Adaline reached across the wooden table, laying her hand gently over Freya’s clenched fist. "You didn't betray yourself, Freya. He exploited your good intentions. He weaponized your capacity to love someone."

Freya looked down at Adaline’s hand, then up into her eyes. A slow, dark, humorless curve began to form at the corner of Freya’s mouth.

“We should cut his dick off,” Freya said completely straight-faced.

Adaline froze.

For half a second, the air in the room stood completely still.

And then, the explosion hit.

A sudden, loud, startled burst of laughter erupted from Adaline’s chest. A second later, Freya joined in—a raw, frantic, chaotic laugh that came from deep down in their chests. It was the kind of hysterical laughter that only born out of absolute exhaustion, absurd betrayal, and shared fury.

They laughed so hard their shoulders shook, drawing sharp, concerned looks from the barista and two customers near the front door. Neither of them cared. The sound was wild, unhinged, and therapeutic, washing away the lingering traces of sadness and replacing it with something unbreakable.

Adaline wiped tears of laughter from her eyes, her face bright red. "God, I wish! Sadly, it’s extremely illegal. Though honestly? It should be a legal right to cut a cheater’s dick off and shove it down his throat!"

"It’s a public service, frankly!" Freya snorted, wiping her own eye. "We’d be saving the women of this city thousands of dollars in therapy bills!"

Adaline leaned in over the table, her eyes glinting with a dangerous, infectious light. "Okay, but we can definitely kick him in the balls, right? Like... hard. With steel-toed boots."

That set them off all over again.

They dissolved into another wave of hysterical laughter, this time louder and completely unbothered by their surroundings. The brutal, vivid image formed instantly in both of their minds without either of them needing to describe it out loud:

Jack Gray—the untouchable prince, the arrogant politician’s son with his styled hair and smug half-smile—his handsome face twisting in sudden, blinding shock. That cocky posture completely collapsing as a heavy shoe connected with his groin. The high-pitched, pathetic gasp he would make. The way all that carefully curated, golden-boy confidence would instantly evaporate into tears, gasping for air on the floor while holding himself.

They pictured him folding like a cheap lawn chair, weeping, his blue eyes wide with pathetic disbelief that anyone had dared to touch him.

"God... the fucking look on his face," Freya gasped between laughs, holding her stomach. "I would pay my entire life savings to watch that happen."

"He’d probably still try to talk his way out of it while rolling on the floor!" Adaline added, mimicking Jack’s voice while clutching her own chest. "'Baby, wait! Let me explain! It’s my dad’s fault! The campaign stress made me do it!'"

Both of them lost it again, snorting and wiping their eyes until their ribs ached.

Slowly, gradually, the laughter began to taper off, settling into a quiet, heavy, and infinitely more dangerous atmosphere. The manic energy faded, leaving behind a cold, crystal-clear focus.

Freya wiped the corner of her eye, letting out a long, slow breath as she shook her head.

"It’s tempting," Freya admitted, her voice dropping into a low, smooth tone. "It is so fucking tempting to just walk into his penthouse right now, kick his balls into his throat, and break his nose. But..."

Adaline’s smile faded into something sharp, calculated, and icy. She leaned in closer. "But what?"

Freya leaned forward, resting her elbows on the wooden table, her dark eyes locking onto Adaline's with absolute, unwavering intensity. The bond between them was forged now—sealed in the ashes of their heartbreak and tempered by shared rage.

"A physical kick hurts for a week," Freya whispered, a slow, chilling smile spreading across her lips. "We need to play a much, much longer game than that. We don't just ruin his night, Addy. We ruin his life. We ruin his father's campaign. We strip away everything that makes him think he's untouchable."

Adaline didn't flinch. She didn't hesitate. She looked directly back at Freya, her soft features completely transformed into stone.

"Tell me," Adaline said softly.

Freya’s smile turned lethal. "I have an idea."

 

The front door of Jack’s luxury penthouse clicked shut with a sharp, soft snap that echoed through the quiet entryway.

Adaline was gone.

She had left only twenty minutes earlier, her skin still warm from his bed, her lips soft and red, wearing that gentle, trusting smile he loved exploiting. Jack hadn’t even bothered walking her to the front door properly. He’d given her a lazy, half-hearted kiss on the cheek, a sharp slap on her ass as she put her shoes on, and a quick "Text me when you get home, baby"—a text he already fully intended to ignore for at least the next three hours while he chilled.

Now he was completely alone in his kingdom.

Jack sauntered into his massive, glass-walled living room, trailing his fingers over the edge of his quartz kitchen counter. He dropped into the exact center curve of his big L-shaped sectional sofa with an entitled, heavy flop. He spread his long legs wide across the leather cushions, still wearing the bright blue Ralph Lauren polo and crisp designer jeans he’d had on all day. His posture was pure, unadulterated, king-of-the-castle sprawl. One long arm stretched out along the back of the couch, while his other hand casually reached down for the stainless-steel remote sitting on the glass coffee table.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights glittered like a sea of diamonds, but Jack didn't give a damn about the view. He only had eyes for the eighty-five-inch OLED television dominating the front wall.

He clicked the power button, flipping mindlessly through channels until he landed on an old, high-definition rerun of Charlie’s Angels.

"Perfect," Jack muttered to himself, tossing the remote onto the cushion next to his thigh.

It was prime background noise. He reached down, grabbed a cold, canned hard seltzer he’d brought over from the kitchen, popped the top with a sharp crack, and took a long, heavy gulp. The icy liquid hit his throat, sweet and sharp. He leaned his head back, half-watching the screen, half-scrolling through his Instagram direct messages to see if any other girls had replied to his late-night stories.

On the screen, the three Angels were in the middle of a chaotic, over-the-top fight scene inside a villain’s high-tech lair. High kicks in leather boots, sharp one-liners, dramatic explosions, and ridiculous choreography—the whole classic campy package. Jack smirked, taking another slow sip of his drink, feeling completely relaxed and untouchable.

Then the camera zoomed in tight on the lead male henchman the Angels were currently dismantling.

The henchman was a cocky guy in a leather vest, tossing his hair back with a smug grin right before stepping into the fray. Another henchman yelled out to him across the room:

"Watch out, Jack!"

Jack’s eyebrows lifted slightly. He paused his scrolling, looking up at the TV screen.

"Coincidence," Jack chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "Cute."

The Angels on screen didn't care about coincidences.

The blonde Angel feinted left, drawing the henchman’s guard up. The brunette dropped low to the floor, sweeping his legs out from under him. And the third Angel—sharp, furious, with absolute zero hesitation—drove her heavy leather boot’s knee straight up between the on-screen Jack’s legs with brutal, cartoonish precision.

THWACK.

The sound effect injected into the show’s audio was outrageously loud. It was a deep, wet, meaty thud mixed with a high-pitched, wheezing male yelp that the penthouse’s surround-sound speakers blasted through the entire room.

On-screen Jack’s eyes instantly bulged out of his head. His whole body folded violently in half like a rusty lawn chair. Both of his hands flew down to his groin as he crumpled straight onto the concrete floor in pure, undignified agony, his mouth open in a silent, bug-eyed scream while the three Angels stood over his twitching body looking extremely pleased with themselves.

Real-life Jack winced.

Hard.

His own athletic legs twitched inward on pure, involuntary male instinct. His knees slammed together so fast his drink nearly sloshed over the rim of the can. One of his hands instantly left the remote and hovered protectively over his own crotch for two full seconds before he caught himself, took a breath, and forced his hand back down onto the couch cushion.

A short, high, uncomfortable laugh slipped out of his throat.

"Jesus Christ," Jack muttered at the screen, rubbing the back of his neck. "Same name and everything. Fucking brutal."

He tried to shake it off, shifting his weight on the leather sectional and spreading his legs wide again like he needed to aggressively reclaim his space and prove he wasn't rattled. But the scene kept going. The TV Angels weren’t done with on-screen Jack.

One of the female leads casually stepped her high heel directly onto the downed henchman's shoulder to keep him pinned to the floor, while the second Angel delivered a second, sharper kick right between his thighs that made the fictional man curl into a tight, shivering fetal position, his face turning an impressive shade of bright purple.

Real Jack sucked air sharply through his teeth. This time, he didn't just hover—he literally cupped himself through his jeans, a full, genuine grimace twisting his handsome face.

"Okay, damn. I actually felt that one," he grunted out loud, letting out another uneasy, breathless chuckle as he shook his head. "Who the fuck writes this shit? Who names the punchable guy Jack? That’s just plain rude."

He took another long, desperate drink from his can, trying to wash down the weird, phantom ache settling into his lower belly. The cold alcohol helped a little, cooling his throat. He kept watching, half-amused, half-unsettled, as the Angels finished the scene, dusted off their leather jackets, and walked away from the whimpering heap on the floor without a single backward glance.

Jack snorted, his right hand still resting a little too carefully over his lap.

"Remind me never to piss off a girl in heels," he muttered to the empty, quiet apartment, flashing a quick grin like the comment made him sound clever and funny.

He drank again. Deeper this time. Finishing off the can until the bottom rattled.

The television episode continued into the next scene, but Jack’s eyelids were suddenly growing heavier than they had any right to be. The edges of the living room began to blur and soften into a warm, hazy glow. His head tipped back heavily against the leather couch cushion. The empty metal drink can slipped slightly between his limp fingers, tapping against the glass table.

He blinked hard, his brow furrowing in mild confusion.

Weird, he thought, his internal voice sounding thick and distant. I never get sleepy this fast. I've only had like... two drinks all night.

Another slow, heavy blink. The bright colors of the television screen started to melt into a single streak of light. His spread legs remained sprawled across the sectional, his body feeling like it was made of solid lead. That lingering phantom ache between his thighs was already fading away under a much thicker, warmer, irresistible drowsiness that kept pulling him down into darkness.

What Jack didn't know—what his arrogant, drug-hazed brain couldn't possibly comprehend—was that the sweet, fruity drink Adaline had lovingly handed him twenty minutes before leaving had been heavily laced with a double dose of liquid muscle relaxants and sleep drops.

And while Jack lay passed out cold on his designer sectional, snoring softly into the leather, the real show was just beginning.

The Morning After.

Jack woke up like he was surfacing from the bottom of a deep swimming pool filled with wet concrete and static.

His mouth tasted like he had chewed on a dirty gym sock. His head was pounding in a way that didn't feel like his usual light hangover—this was deeper, thicker, like his skull had been packed tight with damp cotton and set on fire.

He blinked his eyes open, staring up at the white ceiling of his own master bedroom. He was completely disoriented, his brain struggling to piece together the tail end of the previous night. He remembered being alone on the couch. He remembered watching Charlie's Angels. He remembered feeling sleepy.

Did I drink too much? he thought vaguely, his vision slowly coming into focus. How did I get into bed?

He checked his clothes. He was still wearing the blue Ralph Lauren polo. Still in his designer jeans. He must have stumbled off the couch in his sleep-drugged state, dragged himself down the hallway, and collapsed onto his mattress without even bother to unbutton his pants.

He let out a heavy sigh, preparing to do his usual morning routine—the long, luxurious, king-of-the-world stretch that he used to kick off every single day of his effortless life. He raised his long arms above his head, arched his back against the sheets, and began to extend his legs.

And that was the exact second the pain hit him.

It wasn't a normal pain. It wasn't a stub-your-toe pain, or an I-worked-out-too-hard-at-the-gym pain.

It was a hot, blinding, pulsing, catastrophic pain, radiating directly from the most sensitive, vital area of his body. Jack's entire frame went instantly rigid, his eyes flying wide open before his sluggish brain had even fully processed what his nerve endings were screaming at him.

"What the—"

Panicking, Jack reached down with trembling hands and yanked his metal belt buckle open, frantically unzipping his jeans.

He pulled the denim back and looked down.

Jack gasped. The air completely left his lungs.

He was hard. Painfully, catastrophically, unnaturally, terrifyingly hard—in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with sexual attraction, and everything to do with something being deeply, mechanically, biologically wrong.

And around the very base of his manhood, digging ruthlessly into skin that had already gone an alarming, dark shade of purple-red, was a thick, seamless, solid steel ring. It was locked tight against his pelvic bone, squeezing the blood vessels like a vice grip.

For three agonizing seconds, Jack's brain simply refused to accept the reality of what his eyes were seeing.

"No," Jack whispered out loud to the silent bedroom, his voice trembling like a little boy's. "No, no, no, no, no—"

He reached down and grabbed at the metal ring with both hands, trying to hook his fingers beneath it. The very second his skin made contact with the steel, the pain flared so violently white behind his eyes that he actually let out a loud, strangled yelp—a sharp, pathetic, high-pitched noise that did not belong to the cool "King Jack," but belonged to a terrified twenty-three-year-old having the absolute worst morning of his life.

"Okay," he gasped, cold sweat instantly bursting out across his forehead, his hands hovering uselessly an inch away from his groin like the metal ring was laced with deadly radiation. "Okay, okay, think. Think, Jack! It's just a ring. Rings come off. Jewelry always comes off!"

He tried pulling it forward. He tried twisting it. He scrambled out of bed, his legs shaking violently, and stumbled into his master bathroom.

In a moment of pure, unadulterated, desperate stupidity, he turned the brass sink faucet on full blast and tried running cold water directly over himself, operating on the brainless logic that cold water was somehow going to negotiate with solid, engineered steel.

The freezing water hit his throbbing, purple skin.

"AAAAHH! FUUUUCK!" Jack shrieked, hopping up and down on one foot in front of the vanity mirror, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw clicked, making a series of squealing noises no human being had ever heard him make before.

Nothing worked.

If anything, the more he touched it, the more he panicked, the worse it got. The trapped blood had nowhere to go. His body was trapped in a nightmare priapism loop, and the steel ring wasn't yielding a single millimeter.

Jack stared into his bathroom mirror. His face was pale, his blonde curls were matted with sweat, his blue eyes were wide with wild, frantic horror.

He didn't remember making the conscious decision to scream for help. It just happened—an animalistic, desperate instinct overriding twenty-three years of carefully cultivated prestige, sending him stumbling out of his master bathroom, through his bedroom, and out into the main hallway of the penthouse.

He was bent over at a ninety-degree angle, one hand cupped protectively in front of his ruined groin like he was holding a delicate glass ornament, bellowing at the top of his lungs calling his buddies.

"JARED! BRENDEN! GET THE FUCK UP! GET UP RIGHT NOW, THIS IS A FUCKING EMERGENCY!"

Jared appeared first. He stumbled out of the guest bedroom wearing nothing but gray boxer shorts, his hair sticking up in nine different directions, blinking against the morning light like the universe had personally offended him.

"Bro, what the fuck?" Jared grumbled, rubbing his eyes. "It's not even eight in the morning, why are you screaming like—"

Then Jared looked down.

Jared’s entire face went through four distinct, dramatic stages of human emotion in under two seconds: complete confusion, utter disbelief, the sudden beginning of a hilarious smirk, and then—mercifully for Jack’s completely shattered dignity—pure, unadulterated horror, because the smirk died the exact millisecond Jared clocked the actual, horrifying color Jack’s dick had turned.

"Oh my God," Jared breathed out, backing up a full step into the hallway, his hands flying up into the air like he was being asked to disarm an active explosive device. "Oh my fucking God, dude! What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" Jack screamed, his voice cracking violently on the last word. "Someone did this to me! Someone put this on me last night while I was passed out and it won't come off and it's currently the single worst thing that has ever happened to a human body!"

Brenden emerged from the second guest room next, took one quick glance at Jack's situation, muttered a sharp, "Nope!" and instantly turned right back around toward his bedroom like he intended to simply un-see the last five seconds of his life and go back to sleep.

"BRENDEN, I SWEAR TO GOD!" Jack roared, his voice hitting an octave usually reserved for soprano singers.

"I am NOT touching that!" Brenden shouted back over his shoulder, already halfway through his bedroom door. "I don't care what's happening! I did not sign up to look at your dick before nine in the morning! That is not in the bro code, man! There is no clause for this!"

"IT'S A MEDICAL EMERGENCY!" Jack shrieked, hopping frantically from foot to foot on the hardwood floor to try and distract himself from the throbbing agony. "I NEED HELP! I NEED SOMEONE TO GET THIS OFF ME BEFORE MY DICK FALLS OFF, WHICH—JARED, LOOK AT ME—WHICH I AM STARTING TO THINK IS AN ACTUAL REALITY RIGHT NOW!"

Jared, to his absolute credit, did not run away. But he stood completely frozen in the middle of the hallway, staring resolutely at a tiny spot on the wall roughly four feet above where Jack was standing, his jaw working frantically as he tried to construct an argument for a situation he desperately wanted no part of.

"I'm not—Jack, I'm not touching another guy's junk," Jared stammered, his voice climbing an octave higher than usual. "That's—there's rules, man! That's fucking gay! Fuck that!"

"I WILL CUT YOU OFF!" Jack howled.

Both Jared and Brenden froze dead in their tracks at that exact sentence.

"I will cut both of you off!" Jack screamed, sweat pouring down his forehead, tears of pure rage and pain welling up in his blue eyes. "No more living in this penthouse for free! No more using my dad's credit card at the clubs! No more free booze! No more anything! I will kick your broke, unemployed asses out on the street today, and you'll be back to sharing a roach-infested studio in Bushwick and taking the public bus like the trash you are! I SWEAR TO GOD, JARED, GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME!"

There was a long, agonizing silence in the hallway.

Jared and Brenden made intense, silent, desperate eye contact across the space—the specific, tragic eye contact of two parasitic men doing very fast, very complex mental math on exactly how much free luxury rent and bottle service was worth compared to their remaining human dignity.

"...Okay," Jared said finally, his voice sounding like a man walking up the steps to his own execution. "Okay. Okay, fine. But we are never speaking of this again. Ever. This never happened."

"FINE! FINE, JUST FIX IT!" Jack sobbed.

What followed over the next fifteen minutes was, by unanimous and permanent agreement, the single worst, most humiliating ordeal in the recorded history of their friendship.

They tried bottle after bottle of lotion from Jack’s bathroom first. Jared squeezed half a bottle of expensive cocoa butter onto his hands, closed his eyes, and tried to lube up the steel ring to slide it off.

It did absolutely nothing except make Jack's lower half extremely slippery, and Jack's high-pitched screaming echoing off the tall ceilings sounds even more pathetic.

"It's too tight!" Jared yelled, his hands slipping off the metal. "I can't get a grip! It's like it's welded onto you!"

"Ow, ow, ow! Don't pull it like that, you fucking idiot!" Jack shrieked, slapping Jared’s hands away. "You're tearing the skin!"

Next, Brenden brought out an ice pack from the freezer, pressing it directly against the metal ring to try and reduce the swelling.

The moment the frozen gel pack touched Jack’s inflamed, hypersensitive skin, Jack let out a banshee-like shriek that literally rattled the glass light fixtures in the hallway ceiling.

"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! IT BURNS! IT BURNS SO MUCH WORSE!" Jack screamed, kicking Brenden in the shin so hard Brenden dropped the ice pack and fell backward onto his ass.

"Well, what the fuck do you want us to do then?!" Brenden yelled, rubbing his leg. "You want me to get a tub of butter from the fridge?!"

"We are NOT using butter!" Jared shouted, wiping lotion off his hands onto his boxers. "We are not doing that! Find something else!"

And that was when Jared’s desperate eyes landed on the utility closet near the kitchen, where Jack’s cleaning lady kept the household appliances.

A light bulb went off behind Jared’s eyes—the specific, catastrophic light of a stupid man who has just had an idea he is one hundred percent convinced is pure genius, but is actually one hundred percent terrible.

"Suction," Jared said, his eyes widening.

Brenden blinked, sitting up from the floor. "What?"

"Suction, dude! Reverse air pressure!" Jared said frantically, pointing at the closet. "If the ring is stuck, we don't pull it off! We create negative suction pressure around the tip and the ring will just slide right off! It's basic physics!"

"That is NOT basic physics!" Brenden shouted, but he was already standing up and following Jared toward the closet anyway, because at this point neither of them had a better idea, and Jack was making a noise like a dying microwave from the floor.

Jared emerged from the utility closet a second later, wielding a high-powered, industrial cordless vacuum cleaner like a knight holding a sword. He aggressively ripped the long floor-cleaning tube off the front, leaving only the open, round plastic intake nozzle attached to the motor unit.

"Absolutely not," Jack whimpered from the hallway floor, his face pale as a sheet, some lingering shred of human self-preservation kicking in. "Absolutely, one hundred percent, fucking NO. You are NOT putting that thing near me!"

"Do you have a better idea?!" Jared yelled back, thumbing the rubber power switch on the handle.

The vacuum's high-powered motor whined to life with a fierce, roaring, high-pitched mechanical shriek that echoed violently through the penthouse.

"Trust me, bro!" Jared yelled over the noise of the motor, stepping toward Jack on the floor. "It's just suction! It'll draw the fluid out and pull the ring off! It'll be over in like two seconds!"

"JARED, DON'T YOU DARE—AAAAHHHHHH!"

It was not over in two seconds.

The exact millisecond the plastic vacuum nozzle made seal contact with Jack’s swollen, ring-trapped organ, Jack made a sound that neither Jared nor Brenden would ever be able to properly describe to another human being for the rest of their natural lives.

It was a sound that defied human vocal mechanics. It was somewhere between a blood-curdling scream, a desperate sob, and the final, wheezing honk of a dying goose.

The noise bounced violently off every single hard quartz, glass, and marble surface in the open-concept penthouse—which, given the apartment's aggressively minimalist aesthetic, meant it echoed loudly enough to alert the entire floor.

"TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT THE FUCK OFF!" Jack shrieked, his legs flailing wildly against the hardwood, his fingernails clawing at the floorboards.

"I'M TRYING! IT'S STUCK!" Jared screamed back, panicking as he tugged on the handle.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S STUCK?!"

"THE SUCTION IS TOO STRONG! IT CREATED A VACUUM SEAL! I CAN'T GET THE ANGLE TO BREAK IT!"

Brenden, in a moment of pure, blind panic that he too would deeply regret for the rest of his life, stepped in, grabbed the plastic body of the vacuum cleaner with both hands, and yanked it backward with all his strength.

Yanking it did not disengage the vacuum seal.

It simply pulled Jack's entire body forward three feet across the floor while tightening the suction seal tenfold.

Jack’s voice hit an octave so shockingly high, so horrifyingly sharp, that a framed piece of abstract modern art hanging on the hallway wall actually rattled against its nail.

"OFF! OFF! GET IT OFF ME! IT'S SUCTIONING MY ENTIRE BODY INSIDE! IT'S WORSE! IT'S SO MUCH WORSE!" Jack wept, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks.

"UNPLUG THE BATTERY! PULL THE BATTERY OUT!" Brenden screamed at Jared.

Jared slammed his thumb onto the battery release latch, ripping the lithium pack out of the base. The roaring motor finally sputtered and died, releasing the suction with a horrifying, wet POP sound.

Silence fell over the penthouse.

All three of them were drenched in sweat. None of them were capable of speaking in full sentences.

And the metal ring—if anything—looked angrier, tighter, and more permanently attached than it had twenty minutes ago. The skin around it was now a dark, deeply concerning shade of bruised plum that didn't look like it belonged on a living human being.

Jack lay on his knees and elbows on his own kitchen floor, both of his hands hovering uselessly an inch away from his ruined crotch. He was panting, sobbing softly, his blonde curls stuck to his sweaty forehead. He lifted his head slowly, looking up at his two best friends with the absolute, profound betrayal of a man who had trusted the wrong people with the absolute worst morning of his life.

"Get... the car," Jack croaked out, his voice weak and broken. "We're going... to the hospital."

"Which hospital?" Brenden asked immediately, grabbing his car keys off the counter with shaking hands. "Because we need to go to one far as fuck away from downtown where nobody knows your dad's name—"

"I DON'T CARE! JUST FUCKING DRIVE!" Jack bellowed, his voice breaking again.

Getting Jack out of the penthouse turned into another logistical nightmare. There was no way Jack could pull his tight designer jeans up over the swollen mass without triggering another wave of ear-splitting screams.

Desperate, Jared grabbed a pair of heavy-duty kitchen shears from the drawer and literally cut a massive, jagged, six-inch hole straight through the front crotch of Jack's three-hundred-dollar denim jeans.

Five minutes later, the elevator doors on the top floor opened.

The sight inside the elevator was pure, unadulterated comedy. Jack was being half-carried, half-dragged by Jared and Brenden. He was hunched forward at a ridiculous forty-five-degree angle, one arm slung heavily over Jared’s shoulder, the other over Brenden’s. He was wearing his bright blue Ralph Lauren polo, sweat-soaked and rumpled, paired with jeans that had a giant, jagged hole chopped into the crotch, revealing a bright purple, highly swollen catastrophe beneath.

All three of them looked like shell-shocked extras stepping off the set of a grueling war movie.

As the elevator doors closed, Jack caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirrored wall of the cab.

He looked wrecked. Sweat-drenched, tear-stained, red-faced, completely disgraced, and still—infuriatingly, painfully, unavoidably—trapped in the most embarrassing medical emergency known to mankind.

"If anyone sees me like this," Jack whimpered quietly as the elevator descended, "I'm going to kill both of you."

"Bro, look at yourself," Jared muttered, staring straight ahead at the elevator door numbers. "If anyone sees you like this, you're not going to have to kill us. You're going to have to move to another continent."

The Emergency Room at St. Jude's Memorial Hospital was packed for a Friday morning.

Triage nurses were moving between desks, elderly patients were sitting in wheelchairs, and several local citizens were waiting with minor injuries.

Suddenly, the automatic glass doors slid open with a loud whoosh.

In stumbled Jack Gray, flanked by his two sweating, frantic sidekicks. Jack was let out a low, pathetic whining sound with every single step he took, his knees knocked together, his posture completely collapsed as he tried to protect his exposed, holey jeans.

"HELP!" Jared yelled at the top of his lungs, dragging Jack toward the front intake desk. "WE NEED A DOCTOR! WE HAVE A CLASS-ONE CODE RED MEDICAL DISASTER HERE!"

Every single head in the waiting room turned.

An elderly woman in the front row put her reading glasses on, staring directly at Jack’s cut-open jeans. A young mother quickly covered her teenage daughter’s eyes. Two paramedic drivers sitting near the coffee machine stopped mid-sip, their eyes widening in absolute, stunned amusement.

The head triage nurse—a stern, no-nonsense woman in her thirties named Nurse Brenda—looked over her reading glasses at the three disheveled young men approaching her desk.

"Sir, calm down," Nurse Brenda said, her voice flat and unimpressed. "What seems to be the issue?"

Jack looked like he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole. His cheeks burned with a blush so intense it reached the tips of his ears.

"I... I have an issue," Jack squeaked, his voice dropping into a tiny, pathetic register.

"You're going to need to be specific, honey," Nurse Brenda said, tapping her pen against her clipboard. "Is it an illness? An injury?"

"It's... it's a ring," Jared blurted out loudly, completely destroying whatever micro-gram of dignity Jack was trying to hold onto. "He's got a solid steel cock ring stuck on his dick and it's turning dark purple and we tried using a vacuum cleaner on it and now it's ten times worse!"

The entire waiting room went dead, stone silent.

You could have heard a pin drop on the linoleum floor.

The two paramedic drivers by the coffee machine instantly burst into loud, uncontrollable snorts of laughter, covering their mouths. A guy with a sprained wrist in the corner pulled out his phone, pretending to check a text while subtly angling his camera toward the trio.

Nurse Brenda didn't even blink. She simply looked down at Jack’s cut-open jeans, took in the swollen, dark purple disaster peeking through the frayed denim threads, and let out a long, exhausted sigh.

"Right," Nurse Brenda said calmly, reaching over to press an intercom button on her desk. "Dr. Evans, we have another one in Triage Room 3. Bring the heavy-duty bolt cutters and the ice lubricant. Yeah. Another one."

Jack closed his eyes, leaning his sweaty forehead against the cold edge of the intake desk, tears of pure, unadulterated humiliation slipping down his face.

He was no longer the King of the Night.

He was no longer the Untouchable Prince of the City.

He was just a pathetic, crying twenty-three-year-old boy in ruined designer clothes, standing in a public emergency room with a vacuum-damaged priapism, while two bored paramedics laughed at him and an elderly woman shook her head in utter disgust.

And miles across the city, sitting together in the quiet corner of a dimly lit coffee shop, Adaline and Freya raised their ceramic mugs in a silent, victorious toast.

.

.

It had been a full seven days since the emergency room disaster, and Jack Gray still couldn't look at a cordless vacuum cleaner without his entire body flinching in violent, involuntary PTSD.

Every single time he walked past the utility closet near his luxury kitchen, his eye would twitch. If he heard the high-pitched whine of a neighbor’s appliance through the walls, a cold, phantom ache would immediately shoot through his lower belly.

The emergency room doctor—a hardened woman in her late thirties named Dr. Evans, who possessed zero sympathy and a jawline carved out of solid judgment—had spent forty-five agonizing minutes cutting the seamless steel ring off his organ with a high-speed miniature rotary saw and heavy-duty jewelry bolt cutters. The whole time, she had muttered under her breath about "spoiled young men and their brilliant life choices," while Jared and Brenden sat out in the hallway, completely banned from the treatment room because their tearful vacuum cleaner confession had made two junior nurses laugh so hard they had to be excused from duty.

Physically, Jack had healed after a couple of days. The deep purple bruising had faded back to his normal skin tone, and the swelling had receded.

Mentally, however, he was a completely ruined man.

He hadn't told a single soul the true story of how that ring ended up on him. He had spun a vague, elaborate, god-like story about a "wild, multi-partner night" that simply "got a little too extreme," letting Jared and Brenden construct a whole mythology around his endurance. He let them believe it because their absurd, heroic mythology was infinitely less humiliating than the terrifying, cold-hard truth: somebody had snuck into his penthouse, drugged his drink, slipped a solid steel vice grip onto his manhood, and left him to suffer.

Somebody had done this to him on purpose.

He had no idea who. He had no idea why. And the sheer, unknowable mystery of it sat in the pit of his stomach like a lead weight that wouldn't dissolve. For the first time in his twenty-three years of effortless, golden-boy existence, Jack Gray had felt truly, hopelessly powerless—and the psychological bruise was infinitely deeper than the physical one.

Which was precisely why, exactly seven days later, Jack found himself standing on the carpeted top-floor hallway outside Adaline’s apartment building.

He had a bouquet of expensive pink peonies—her favorite flowers—held tightly in his right hand. He was wearing a fresh bright blue Ralph Lauren polo shirt, a pair of dark designer jeans he’d bought to replace the pair Jared had chopped up with kitchen shears, and his blonde hair was carefully, artfully tousled. His jaw was clenched tight, his shoulders squared, doing his absolute level best to fake the swagger of a king reclaiming his throne.

She's soft, Jack reminded himself repeatedly as he stood before her wooden door, taking a deep, steadying breath. Adaline is soft. She's easy. She's submissive. She'll fix this.

He desperately needed an easy win. He needed a woman who looked at him like he was a god, because right now, his god status felt like it was slipping through his fingers. He needed to hear her gentle voice, feel her soft body beneath him, and reassure his bruised ego that he was still the undisputed Prince of the City.

He reached out to knock, but before his knuckles could even touch the wood, the front door clicked open.

Adaline was standing there.

Jack’s hand froze mid-air. Something about her face instantly stopped him on the threshold.

She wasn't smiling her usual soft, blushing, grateful smile—the little, nervous smile that always made Jack feel ten feet tall and completely in control. She looked unusually pale. Her expression was solemn, heavy, and unreadable. Her hands were clasped tightly together in front of her stomach, her long fingers twisting her oversized knit sweater's hem.

"Hey, baby," Jack started, forcing his trademark slick, handsome smirk back onto his face as he held out the flowers. "Brought you these. Thought we could—"

"Jack."

Her voice wasn't loud, but it was flat and sharp enough to cut clean through his sentence like a straight razor.

Jack blinked. "Yeah? What's up?"

Adaline looked straight into his bright blue eyes, her own blue eyes wide, glassy, and completely unblinking.

"We're going to have a baby."

Silence instantly swallowed the entire hallway.

The bouquet of pink peonies hung suspended in the air between them for two full seconds before Jack’s fingers simply forgot how to hold them. The flowers tumbled out of his grip, crashing onto the dirty welcome mat, pink petals scattering across the floor like blood drops at a crime scene.

Jack’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

Every single muscle in his handsome face seemed to lose connection with his brain, sliding around independently into an expression of pure, bug-eyed, uncomprehending horror. The color completely drained out of his cheeks, leaving him as pale as the hallway wall.

"...What?" he croaked.

"I'm pregnant," Adaline said softly.

Jack swallowed, but his throat was bone dry. He felt a sudden, violent ringing in his ears, like a flashbang grenade had just detonated inside his skull.

"But—" His voice came out high, strangled, and thin. "But... you're on the pill! You told me you were on birth control! You literally told me three months ago that you were on the pill!"

"Things happen, Jack," Adaline said quietly. There was something sitting right beneath her soft tone—something cold, steady, and terrifyingly watchful that he was far too panicked to notice. "No birth control is one hundred percent effective. You know that. Mistakes happen."

"That's not—that's not how—" Jack stammered, stepping across the threshold into her apartment without being invited, his hands flying to his head. "I need you to be sure! Are you actually sure?! Did you take one of those cheap dollar-store tests?! Because those give false positives all the time, Adaline! You probably just had a hormonal spike or something!"

"I took three home tests, Jack," Adaline replied calmly, closing the front door behind him with a soft, decisive click. "And then I went to the downtown health clinic yesterday afternoon for an official blood test. The nurse called me this morning. It's real, Jack. I'm pregnant."

Jack stood completely frozen in the center of her small living room. The afternoon sunlight streaming through the window did absolutely nothing to warm the arctic ice rapidly spreading from his chest down to his feet.

Deep down in the darkest, most terrifying recesses of his brain, a single word was screaming on a continuous, frantic loop: NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

"You don't seem very excited," Adaline murmured, stepping closer to him. She looked up into his pale, sweat-sheened face with an expression he couldn't quite decipher—it looked like hurt, but underneath it lay something patient and calculated, like a chess player watching their opponent walk directly into a checkmate they had set up ten moves ago.

"I'm—I'm just processing," Jack managed to choke out, his eyes darting frantically around her room like he was looking for a fire escape. "This is a lot. This is... this is really fucking fast, Adaline."

"Maybe it's a sign," Adaline said gently, reaching out and wrapping both of her small, warm hands around his ice-cold fingers. "Maybe it's the universe telling us that things need to move forward. Faster. Honestly... I've been wanting to talk to you about our future anyway, Jack. I don't want to just be your secret girlfriend anymore. I want more. I want real commitment. And now..."

She lifted his limp, trembling hand and pressed his palm directly against her flat stomach.

Jack flinched violently, his whole arm jerking back like her sweater was made of red-hot iron. Cold sweat broke out across his forehead, soaking into his blonde hair.

"...now we don't really have a choice, do we?" Adaline continued softly, her voice dripping with sweet, suffocating poison. "I think I should move into your penthouse. This weekend, even. We should be together for this. We need to start building our home."

"Move... in?" Jack repeated. The words barely made it out of his throat, sounding like they belonged to a dying man.

"It only makes sense, baby," Adaline smiled warmly. "You have that huge three-bedroom place. I can turn one of the guest rooms into a nursery."

Jack didn't remember the next thirty seconds. He stood in the middle of her apartment while his brain did frantic, useless, mathematical gymnastics—nine months. Nine months. A baby. A nursery. A stroller in my penthouse. A crying kid.

His entire life—his party lifestyle, his freedom, his luxury, his status as the city's most desirable bachelor—was flashing before his eyes, burning to ash in real-time.

And then, the only exit his desperate, selfish brain could possibly construct presented itself. It was clear, obvious, and in his mind, completely reasonable.

"Look," Jack said, his voice climbing an octave higher than normal, completely abandoning his smooth, masculine purr. "Look, Adaline... I think—I think we really need to talk about not keeping it."

Adaline blinked at him. For just a fraction of a second, something flickered behind her blue eyes—a sharp, lethal spark of pure triumph—before she smoothed her face back into an expression of deeply wounded confusion.

"You want me to get an abortion?" she asked flatly.

"I'm not saying forever!" Jack lied frantically, waving his hands in the air. "I'm just saying right now isn't—the timing is fucking insane, Adaline! My dad is literally in the middle of a mayoral campaign! There's so much media attention on my family right now! We can't have a scandal like this!"

"Scandal?" Adaline repeated, tilting her head. Her voice suddenly sounded devastatingly, terrifyingly innocent. "Why would our baby be a scandal, Jack? Isn't your family pro-life?"

Jack froze. His breath caught in his lungs.

"Your dad literally gave a massive speech about this exact thing last week," Adaline said softly, pulling her phone out of her sweater pocket. "It was on live television. Thousands of people were cheering for him. Remember?"

Jack watched in mounting, paralyzing horror as Adaline scrolled through her phone, tapped a video file, and hit play.

The penthouse-quality audio speaker on her phone blared out the crystal-clear, deep baritone voice of Alexander Gray—Jack's father—echoing through the small apartment:

"...A woman who knows she cannot simply murder her way out of her sins will think twice before spreading her thighs for every smooth-talking boy who buys her a shot at a club! Abortion is not healthcare! It is the ultimate escape hatch for reckless, sinful, whoreish behavior! We must ban it completely! No exceptions! No loopholes!"

"Okay! Turn it off! Turn it the fuck off!" Jack shrieked, lunging forward to swipe at her phone.

Adaline casually pulled her phone back out of his reach, pausing the video with a light tap of her thumb. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and curious.

"Well... yeah, but..." Jack started.

And then he had absolutely nothing to follow it with.

His mouth hung open, suspended in the air. He was completely, utterly trapped. There was not a single sentence in the English language that could come out of his mouth next that wouldn't make him an absolute hypocrite, a coward, and a monster in front of the woman holding his entire future in her hands. He had cheered for his father's speech. He had called women who got abortions "sluts cleaning up their disgusting messes."

And now, faced with the exact same reality, he was begging for the exact same "escape hatch."

"I'm keeping the baby, Jack," Adaline said simply, tucking her phone back into her pocket like a high-powered prosecutor who had just delivered the final closing argument in a murder trial. Which, in a very real way, she had.

"I'm not—I'm not ready to be a dad!" Jack wept, his voice actually cracking on the word. Genuine, unvarnished, pathetic panic bled through his polish for the first time in his life. "I'm twenty-three! I don't—Adaline, I don't even know how a residential washing machine works! How the fuck am I supposed to take care of a human infant?!"

"You have nine months to learn," Adaline replied with a sweet, immovable smile that sent a shiver of absolute terror straight down Jack's spine.

Jack began to pace frantically across her small rug. He ran both hands through his blonde hair, tearing at his curls until they stood up in chaotic, messy spikes that his twenty-minute morning routine had never intended. He was experiencing the violent, dizzying vertigo of a man watching the solid ground disintegrate beneath his feet in real-time.

"Also," Adaline added casually, watching him spiral with an expression of pure, gentle sympathy, "I think we should get married before I start showing."

Jack stopped dead in his tracks. He slowly turned his head to look at her, his eyes bulging out of his head.

"What?" he squeaked.

"A wedding," Adaline said, clapping her hands together softly. "We need to get married quickly. I want a real ring, Jack. Solid diamond. Not something cheap. And I've always dreamed of a huge wedding—tents, string lights, expensive catering, a country club venue. Your dad is rich. He can easily afford it. Plus, a wholesome shotgun wedding looks amazing for his political campaign, doesn't it? 'Young couple choosing traditional family values.' His voters will love it!"

Jack simply stood there, his mouth opening and closing without sound, looking like a fish that had been yanked out of the ocean and thrown onto hot asphalt.

Fifteen minutes later, Jack stumbled back down the stairs to the street level, his mind retreating into a dark, cold, calculating space. The blinding panic was beginning to curdle into something that felt—to his delusional brain—almost like a survival strategy.

Okay, he thought, his hands shaking violently as he fumbled to light a cigarette he didn't even remember pulling from his pocket. Okay. Think, Jack. Think. This doesn't have to be the end of your life. You play along. You marry her quietly. You ride out the campaign. You keep dad happy. You play the doting father-to-be for the cameras if you have to. And the second the election is over and the media spotlight moves on... you get out. Divorce. Quiet financial settlement. A non-disclosure agreement. Nobody ever has to know it was real.

It was, in the specific, unhinged logic of a spoiled twenty-three-year-old who had never once faced a consequence he couldn't buy or lie his way out of, a plan. It was a terrible, delusional plan, but it gave his drowning brain something to hold onto.

There was just one massive, glaring, immediate problem standing in his way.

Freya.

He needed to end things with Freya. Immediately. Tonight. Before this toxic web got any messier than it already was. He couldn't risk Freya finding out about Adaline's pregnancy or the wedding plans.

Jack threw himself into his luxury sports car, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached, rehearsing the breakup speech in his head the entire drive across town. Something clean. Something firm. 'Freya, you're amazing, but I'm just not in a place for commitment right now. I need space.'

He was so consumed by his own internal rehearsal that he didn't even notice the bouquet of pink peonies sitting on his passenger seat—crushed, wilted, and missing half their petals—until he was already walking up the steps to Freya's apartment building.

He knocked hard on Freya's door. Three sharp, decisive taps.

The door swung open almost instantly.

Freya was standing there wearing his old washed-black oversized college hoodie. The second her eyes landed on Jack, a massive, radiant, breathless smile split her face. Before he could even open his mouth to deliver the first word of his carefully rehearsed breakup speech, Freya threw her arms around his neck and hugged him so fiercely he nearly lost his balance.

"I was literally about to call you!" Freya squealed into his shoulder, practically vibrating with excitement. "I have news, Jack! I have huge fucking news!"

"Freya, wait—" Jack stammered, trying to gently push her back by her shoulders. "Freya, I actually really need to talk to you first—"

"Me too, but mine is way bigger, trust me!" She pulled back, beaming up at him, her dark eyes bright and glossy. She grabbed both of his cold hands, squeezing them tight. "I've felt so sick this entire past week—like, genuinely nauseous and exhausted—and I finally took a test this morning because my roommate forced me to..."

Jack's heart instantly stopped beating. The blood in his veins turned to liquid nitrogen.

"...and Jack," Freya whispered, her smile stretching wider. "I'm pregnant."

The entire universe tilted on its axis. The ceiling seemed to drop six feet.

"No," Jack blurted out instantly. The word flew out of his throat before his brain could filter it—raw, hideous, and unfiltered. "No. No, you can't—you cannot do this—"

Freya's radiant smile faltered slightly, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Do what? Jack, this isn't something I 'did,' it's—"

"NO!" Jack roared, tearing his hands out of her grip and backing away from her doorway into the carpeted hallway, pressing both palms against the sides of his head like he was physically trying to hold his skull together. "This is not happening! This cannot be happening twice in one fucking week! This is insane! This is actually fucking insane!"

Freya froze. Her expression shifted instantly, her eyes narrowing into two sharp, lethal slits as the joy drained out of her face in real-time.

"Twice?" Freya's voice dropped an octave, going deathly quiet. "What do you mean 'twice,' Jack?"

Jack was too far gone to register the bear trap snapping shut around his leg. He was spiraling out of control, pacing in tight, frantic circles on her welcome mat, hyperventilating, the unfiltered, ugly truth pouring out of his mouth in a frantic torrent he couldn't stop.

"You need to get rid of it!" Jack screamed, pointing a shaking finger directly at her stomach like it was a loaded weapon pointed at his face. "Both of you—I mean—you just need to take care of it, okay?! I'll pay for everything! I'll give you cash! Whatever clinic you want, whatever doctor, I'll write the check right now! Just—you cannot do this to me right now! You stupid—this cannot be fucking real!"

"Excuse me?" Freya said. Her voice was terrifyingly still. It was the kind of quiet that should have triggered every survival instinct Jack possessed, but his brain was completely fried.

"I need you to get an abortion!" Jack shrieked, his voice cracking violently on the last word, hysteria bleeding through every syllable. "I need you to do it fast! Quietly! Before anyone finds out! Because I cannot have two different women pregnant with my—"

"TWO?!" Freya's scream echoed through the entire apartment hallway like a thunderclap, making Jack jump two feet into the air. "There's another one?! Who?! WHO IS SHE, JACK?!"

"Nothing! I just slipped!" Jack lied frantically, waving his hands wildly. "There's no other girl! I just meant—I meant getting pregnant twice is crazy! You're the only one!"

His silence after that was answer enough. The lie was so pathetic, so poorly executed, that it practically screamed the truth.

Freya stared at him. The soft, dreamy girl in his old hoodie vanished completely. Her jaw set into a hard, stone-cold line that looked like it could cut through bulletproof glass.

"Get out," she said softly.

Jack took a half-step back, sighing in relief. "Okay, look, Freya, let's just calm down and—"

"No," Freya interrupted, stepping out into the hallway, her dark eyes locking onto his with absolute, unyielding malice. "Actually... no. You know what, Jack? If you don't marry me, I'm going public."

Jack stopped breathing. "...What?"

"If you do not marry me before I start showing," Freya said, her voice slow, smooth, and steady, "I will personally go to every single television news outlet, newspaper, and political blog covering your father's campaign. I will give them full interviews. I will show them our text messages, our voice notes, and the pregnancy test. I will tell the entire city that the son of the 'Family Values' candidate knocked me up and tried to pay me off for a secret abortion. I will make sure it airs the week right before the primary election."

Jack stared at her. His chest heaved up and down. He felt the very last piece of solid ground beneath his feet crumble away into a bottomless abyss.

"...Okay," Jack heard himself say. It was a tiny, defeated, completely pathetic squeak. "Okay. I'll... I'll marry you."

Jack didn't remember the drive back to his penthouse either.

He sat on the edge of his massive, expensive bed for twenty full minutes, holding his iPhone in his hand, his eyes staring blankly at the wall while cold sweat dripped off his jawline.

Finally, with his hands shaking so violently he could barely tap the screen, he dialed Jared.

"Bro," Jared answered on the second ring, his voice sounding muffled through what was clearly a massive mouthful of cereal. "What's up? You coming over to watch the game?"

"I need help," Jack whispered. His voice was thin, raspy, and cracking. "I need actual help, Jared. Right fucking now."

"Uh... okay?" Jared said, still chewing. "What happened?"

Jack explained it in broken, panicked fragments. The words tumbled out of his mouth in a frantic, out-of-order mess—Adaline... the baby... the wedding... moving in... Freya... the other baby... the other wedding... the media threat... going public...

On the other end of the line, the sound of Jared chewing slowly, visibly came to a complete halt.

Silence stretched across the phone line for five agonizing seconds.

"...Bro," Jared said finally, his tone devoid of its usual arrogant laughter. "I don't—I genuinely don't know what to tell you, man. You're fucked."

"THAT'S NOT HELPFUL!" Jack roared into the speaker, tears of pure rage springing into his eyes. "YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A SOLUTION!"

Brenden, who was apparently sitting right next to Jared on speakerphone, chimed in with all the intellectual problem-solving skill of a goldfish.

"Could you, like... just marry both of them secretly and hope nobody finds out?" Brenden asked earnestly.

"THAT'S BIGAMY, BRENDEN!" Jack screamed, his voice hitting a screeching octave. "THAT IS AN ACTUAL FEDERAL FELONY! I WOULD GO TO ACTUAL PRISON!"

"Hey, man, I'm just spitballing ideas—" Brenden muttered defensively.

Jack slammed the red end-call button on his screen, throwing the phone onto the mattress. He sat alone in the silent, glass-walled luxury of his master bedroom, staring at his reflection in the gilded bathroom mirror across the room. He looked like a ghost. Sweat-stained, wide-eyed, completely unravelling.

And then, because there was genuinely nowhere else left to turn—because he had spent his entire life outsourcing every mistake, every crime, and every consequence to someone with more money and power than him—he did the only thing he knew how to do when his life slipped out of his control.

He called his father.

Alexander Gray answered on the second ring. His voice was sharp, distracted, and echoing with the sound of a bustling campaign office in the background.

"Jackson," Alexander barked into the receiver. "Make it quick. I have a meeting with the police union donors in five minutes."

"Dad," Jack choked out. "Dad... I made a mistake. A really bad mistake."

"What did you do?" Alexander asked, his tone dropping instantly into irritation. "Did you get another speeding ticket? Did you break something in the car?"

"I... I got a girl pregnant," Jack confessed, his voice trembling like a frightened child's. "Actually... dad... I got two girls pregnant."

There was a long, terrible, suffocating silence on the line.

The background noise of the campaign office on Alexander's end seemed to fade away completely.

"What did you just say?" Alexander asked. His voice had dropped into a register Jack had never heard directed at him before in his entire life. It wasn't the loud, booming, moral baritone from the campaign podium. It was low, ice-cold, controlled, and utterly lethal.

"Two girls," Jack sobbed softly, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Adaline and Freya. They're both pregnant, dad. And they both want to get married before they start showing, or Freya is going to go to the news outlets right before the primary—"

"You absolute, worthless piece of shit," Alexander whispered into the phone.

Jack flinched as if he had been slapped across the face. "Dad, please—"

"Two women?!" Alexander’s voice rose into a cold, terrifying hiss. "Ten days before the primary election?! Are you understanding the words coming out of your mouth right now, Jackson?! Do you have any concept—any concept at all—of what this does to my campaign if a single word of this leaks to the press?!"

"I didn't mean for it to happen—"

"I don't give a damn about what you meant!" Alexander snapped, the sound of his fist slamming hard onto a wooden desk echoing through the phone line. "I have spent eighteen months building a political campaign on the exact moral platform that you have spent the same eighteen months personally torching! I am out here telling voters that modern youth are degenerates who need traditional family discipline, and my own son is out here knocking up two women at the same time like a common street dog!"

"Dad, you have to help me buy them off!" Jack pleaded, tears slipping down his face. "Give me money! I can offer them cash settlements—"

"Listen to me very carefully, Jackson," Alexander commanded, his tone so cold it froze Jack's blood solid. "You will fix this. Quietly. I do not care how you do it. I do not care what promises you make. But if a single whisper of this touches my campaign—if my opponents get a hold of this story—I swear on my life, I will cut you off from every single cent of this family's money so fast your head will spin."

"Dad, no—"

"No more penthouse," Alexander listed coldly. "No more credit cards. No more luxury cars. No trust fund. I will disown you publicly, label you a rogue addict, and throw your broke ass onto the street. Do you understand me, Jackson? Fix it. Or you don't exist to me anymore."

The line went dead with a sharp click.

Jack sat on his bed, holding the silent phone to his ear, his whole body shaking with uncontrollable tremors.

Over the next three days, Jack tried to use the one tool that had never failed him a single time in his twenty-three years of life: money.

On Tuesday afternoon, he arranged to meet Adaline at a quiet coffee shop downtown.

He sat across from her in a dark wooden booth, his face pale, his eyes surrounded by dark purple circles from three nights of zero sleep. He didn't look at her face. He kept his eyes glued to the dark wood of the table as he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a folded personal check, and slid it across the surface toward her.

"This should cover everything," Jack said, his voice flat, exhausted, and businesslike. "The private clinic downtown. The procedure. Recovery. Everything. I'll even drive you there and wait in the parking lot if you want. We just... we forget this ever happened, Adaline. And I'll still take care of you financially after. I'm not trying to be a bad guy here. Just take the check."

Adaline looked down at the paper check resting near her ceramic mug. The number written on it was $50,000.

She looked back up at Jack's haggard face. Then, she smiled—a soft, sad, sweet, and utterly immovable smile.

She slowly slid the check right back across the table to his side.

"I don't want your money, Jack," Adaline said softly. "I want a wedding."

On Thursday evening, Jack tried the exact same strategy with Freya.

He met her in the secluded back corner of a dimly lit grocery store parking lot, standing near his sports car while the cool evening air whipped through his hair. His voice was low, raspy, and desperate in a way King Jack had never been forced to be with anyone in his entire life.

"I'll set you up, Freya," Jack pleaded, his hands trembling as he reached into his car and pulled out a signed legal agreement his dad's corrupt paralegal had secretly drafted for him. "A luxury condo downtown. A brand new SUV. A monthly allowance of ten grand for the next five years. You'll never have to worry about rent or money ever again, I swear to God! Just... please, Freya, we don't have to do the wedding thing! Just sign the non-disclosure and take the condo!"

Freya crossed her athletic arms over her chest, leaning back against her car door. She looked at him with an expression of perfect, patient, terrifying calm.

She didn't even touch the legal paper.

"I want a wedding, Jack," Freya said, her voice dropping into an icy register. "And I want it before I start showing. You have four days to set a date, or I call the local news station."

She got into her car, slammed the door, and drove away, leaving Jack standing alone in the dark, empty parking lot.

Jack drove back to his penthouse in absolute, deafening silence, both of his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned stark white.

When he finally unlocked his front door and stepped into the quiet entryway of his apartment, he didn't even make it to the couch.

His knees simply gave out.

Jack Gray collapsed right there on the cold, polished marble floor of his entryway. He dragged his knees up to his chest, leaned his back against the heavy front door, buried his face in his hands, and began to weep.

He cried like a terrified, helpless child. Loud, shuddering, pathetic sobs echoed off the tall quartz and glass walls of his multi-million-dollar kingdom.

Two weddings. Two women claiming to carry his children. A father ready to strip him of his wealth and erase him from existence with a single phone call. No money, no charm, no smooth fuckboy line was going to save him this time. For the first time in his entire gilded, untouchable life, Jack Gray had hit a brick wall. He was trapped, broken, and completely out of options.

And then, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

Jack flinched, wiping his tear-stained face with the back of his hand, and pulled the device out.

It was a text message from Adaline.

Adaline: Hey Jack... I've been thinking a lot about what you said at the coffee shop. I think I reacted too fast. I'm scared, and I realize a wedding might be a mistake for both of us right now.

Jack’s breath caught in his throat. He sat straight up on the cold floor, his eyes widening as he read the words over and over again.

Adaline: My mom has an old abandoned ranch out in the country—about forty minutes outside the city. Nobody goes out there. It's completely private. If you come meet me there tonight, just the two of us, we can talk about going to the clinic quietly. I think I'm ready to agree to the procedure.

A massive, overwhelming wave of pure, unfiltered euphoria washed over Jack’s battered chest.

"Yes..." Jack gasped out loud to the empty apartment, tears of relief flooding his eyes. "Yes! Oh my God, yes!"

It was a miracle. The universe had delivered his escape hatch. Adaline had broken down. She was going to take the check, get the abortion, and save his life. Once Adaline was taken care of, he could focus all his energy and money on handling Freya.

Jack scrambled up from the marble floor, wiping his eyes, a wild, breathless, ecstatic smile spreading across his face. He grabbed his car keys off the kitchen island, adjusting his Ralph Lauren polo shirt in the hallway mirror.

He felt like King Jack again. The Prince had survived.

He ran out of his penthouse, sprinted to the elevator, and drove his luxury sports car out of the parking garage, speeding down the highway toward the dark, isolated countryside.

He was happy. He was relieved.

And he was completely, wildly, perfectly blind to the brutal nightmare waiting for him in the dark. 

 

Jackson ‘Jack’ Gray stood in front of the full-length gilded mirror in his master bathroom, staring at his own reflection with the kind of reverence most people reserved for religious icons.

He ran a hand through his hair. Messy blonde curls, intentionally tousled. He’d spent twenty minutes in front of the vanity using imported texturizing sea-salt spray to make it look like he’d just rolled out of bed after ten hours of perfect sleep. Six-foot-two. Lean, athletic frame maintained by a high-end gym membership his daddy paid for and an absurd amount of ego. Smooth skin, light stubble along his jawline trimmed to exact millimeter perfection, a tiny silver hoop in his left ear, and the tip of a palm tree tattoo peeking out from beneath his collarbone.

It was the ultimate starter pack: the soft-boy artsy aesthetic paired with the unmistakable posture of a rich, sociopathic fuckboy who knew he could get away with murder.

He checked his outfit one last time. The bright blue Ralph Lauren polo fit snugly across his chest and biceps, practically screaming that he lifted, while his designer denim sat low on his hips. He looked like he was cosplaying a reckless college kid, even though he was twenty-three, lived in a downtown penthouse, and didn't hold down a real job because his father was currently running for mayor of the city.

Jack flashed a quick, smug half-smile at himself in the glass. Those bright blue eyes had seduced dozens of girls. They were innocent-looking enough to make women trust him, and cold enough to let them shatter without feeling a single drop of remorse.

"Untouchable," he muttered to himself, grabbing his gold watch off the marble counter and slapping it onto his wrist.

He strutted out of the bathroom and walked into his massive, glass-walled living room. The penthouse smelled like a trashy mix of Tom Ford cologne, cold grease from leftover high-end takeout, and the stale, musk-heavy residue of whatever girl had been in his bed the night before.

Out on the L-shaped leather sectional, his two best friends and professional leeches, Jared and Brenden, were already sprawled out like they owned the place. Jared had his dirty sneakers resting right on top of the imported glass coffee table next to three empty IPA cans. Brenden was leaned back with his head tilted up, scrolling mindlessly on TikTok while tossing a vape back and forth between his hands.

Dominating the center wall of the apartment was an eighty-five-inch OLED TV. It was currently locked onto a live, high-definition news broadcast covering the latest campaign rally for Alexander Gray—Jack’s father.

"Look at this bullshit," Jared scoffed, taking a long sip from his beer and gesturing toward the screen with the can. "Your old man really pulled out the whole circus today, huh?"

Jack didn't even blink at the dirty shoes on his glass table. He just let out a low, breathless laugh, walking over to his stainless-steel kitchen island to grab a cold beer out of the sub-zero fridge. He popped the top with a sharp clink and sauntered over, collapsing into the center curve of the sectional. He spread his long arms across the back of the couch, holding his beer between two fingers, looking out at the city skyline behind the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"The circus works, bro," Jack said, his voice smooth, casual, and completely devoid of warmth. "Idiots love a circus. Watch and learn."

On the screen, the camera panned across a packed arena. Thousands of people were waving red, white, and blue signs that read RESTORE THE FAMILY and GRAY FOR MAYOR. The camera then zoomed in tight on the podium.

Alexander Gray stood there looking like a million bucks. Tailored navy suit, crisp white shirt, American flag pin gleaming under the harsh stage lights, and silver hair brushed back perfectly. He looked stern, commanding, and righteous—the textbook image of a traditional family man who had never sinned a day in his life.

The crowd’s roar echoed through the high-end speakers of Jack’s sound system as Alexander held up both hands to calm them down.

"My fellow citizens," Alexander began into the microphone. His voice was a deep, rehearsed baritone. It was the exact tone designed to make suburban housewives melt and blue-collar men nod in obedience. "We stand today at a crossroads. A sacred, terrifying crossroads. And I will not lie to you. I will not sugarcoat what is happening in our city and across this nation. The very foundation of our civilization—the traditional family unit—is under violent, coordinated siege."

The arena erupted into agreement. Alexander paused, letting the noise wash over him, his expression dropping into a dark, mournful grave look before leaning closer to the mics.

"Family values are not an option," Alexander thundered, his voice echoing off the auditorium walls. "They are the bedrock! The father as the head! The mother as the heart! Children raised under strict discipline, faith, and order! But open your eyes. Look at what the radical left, the woke mob, and this disgusting cancer they call modern feminism have done to our society. They have taken our women—our daughters, our sisters, our future wives—and turned them into something unrecognizable. Something deeply vile."

In the penthouse, Jared blew a sharp whistle. "Damn. He's really going for the throat today."

"Told you," Jack smirked, taking a heavy swig of his beer. "He’s cooking."

On screen, Alexander jabbed a stiff finger into the air. "Feminism did not liberate women! It corrupted them! It lied to them! It convinced them that opening their legs for any passing stranger was 'empowerment.' It told them that sleeping around was strength. That rejecting marriage, rejecting motherhood, and rejecting the natural order was progress! And what did we get in return? A generation of promiscuous, broken women who spread themselves thinner than the moral fabric of this country! Women who treat their sacred bodies like public playgrounds, and then act shocked and appalled when the natural consequences of their lust arrive!"

The crowd was practically frothing at the mouth now. Men in baseball caps were screaming, and middle-aged men were clapping furiously.

"And when those consequences arrive," Alexander’s voice grew darker, colder, "when these women find themselves pregnant from their own reckless, sinful, whoreish choices... what do they demand? They demand abortion! Abortion as a right! Abortion as basic healthcare! Abortion as the ultimate escape hatch from personal responsibility! The rise in unwanted pregnancies is not a tragedy of circumstance—it is the direct result of women who simply refuse to close their legs! Women who chased temporary, filthy pleasure instead of virtue, became total sluts in the name of freedom, and then expected tax-paying citizens to clean up their disgusting mess!"

Jack threw his head back and laughed out loud, pointing his beer can at the television screen. "Look at him! Absolute unit! He’s putting these bitches in their place. He’s gonna walk all over this election. No fucking question."

Brenden looked up from his phone, a sinister grin spreading across his face. "Even with that black chick from his campaign team trying to MeToo his ass?"

Jack’s face instantly hardened, his lips curling into a vicious, ugly sneer. The smooth soft-boy mask completely slipped, revealing the raw, arrogant elitist beneath.

"That fucking bitch?" Jack spat, his tone thick with pure disgust. "Please. She’s a lying, broke whore who saw a wealthy white man with a massive future and decided she wanted an easy paycheck. Groping? Give me a fucking break. There’s no evidence. No video. No receipts. No witnesses. It’s literally just her word against his. Classic victim playing."

Jack leaned forward, setting his beer down hard enough on the glass table to make it rattle.

"She probably threw her desperate ass at him in his private office, got instantly rejected because my dad has actual standards, and then decided to cry assault because that’s what these worthless women do when they can’t manipulate a powerful man," Jack continued, his eyes cold and dark. "My dad wouldn't touch some thirsty, low-class campaign aide if she was the last woman on earth. She’s just another bitter, talentless loser using fake allegations to ruin a good man’s life because she couldn't get what she wanted. It's pathetic."

Jared nodded hard, cracking open his second beer. "100% facts. Every single one of these chicks is the exact same. One night they’re begging for it, throwing themselves at you at the bar, and the next minute they’re pulling the victim card when things don't go their way. Your dad’s got this shit in the bag. Normal people are sick of that woke victim narrative."

"People want authority," Jack said smoothly, leaning back into the leather couch and stretching his long legs out. "They want someone to tell these females to know their place."

On the screen, Alexander was reaching the climax of his speech, his knuckles white as he gripped the sides of the podium.

"That is precisely why abortion must be banned completely!" Alexander roared over the sound of the crowd. "No exceptions! No loopholes! No 'my body, my choice' nonsense! Because as long as that escape hatch exists, women will never learn the most basic, fundamental lesson of womanhood: close your legs! Stop offering yourselves as constant temptation! Stop treating men like disposable ATMs and then screaming when the biological reality of your actions appears! A woman who knows she cannot simply murder her way out of her sins will think twice before spreading her thighs for every smooth-talking boy who buys her a shot at a club! She will remember that her body is not a amusement park!"

The crowd went wild, standing ovations sweeping through the arena like a wave.

"We will restore order!" Alexander shouted over the deafening noise. "We will make women remember what they were created for—not to destroy men with strategic allegations and fake pregnancies, not to parade their half-naked bodies on the internet like products, but to build homes, raise disciplined children, and stand silently beside strong men who lead! The age of the empowered whore is officially over! The age of the virtuous woman is coming back! And under my leadership, this city will lead the charge!"

The broadcast cut to commercial as the screen filled with political branding and flag imagery.

Jack picked his beer back up, tipping it toward the TV screen in a mock toast. "God, I love politics. The old man knows exactly how to play these sheep."

"Speaking of women who throw themselves at you..." Jared said, leaning in with a sleazy, conspiratorial grin. "What’s the update on your personal rotation? You still running game on those two?"

Jack paused for effect. He took a slow, deliberate sip of his beer, letting the suspense build while his two friends stared at him like dogs waiting for a treat. A slow, deeply arrogant smirk stretched across Jack’s face, turning his handsome features into something completely foul.

"Bro," Jack said, his voice dropping into a low, filthy purr. "I’m hitting both Adaline and Freya. At the exact same time."

Jared almost choked on his drink, his eyes widening. "Holy shit. You’re actually fucking both of them?"

"Both of them," Jack confirmed, leaning his head back against the leather frame, looking like a lord bragging about his estate. "Adaline and Freya. Simultaneous. And neither of those stupid, gullible bitches has a single fucking clue."

Brenden sat straight up, his eyes practically bugging out of his head. "Bro! No way. Give us the details. Right now."

Jack let out a dark, breathless chuckle. He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket, tapped the screen, and flipped it around to show them his lock screen notifications. There were two unread text messages sitting right next to each other.

Adaline: Hope your day is going good baby! Made us dinner for tonight if you want to come over after your dad's speech? ❤️

Freya: Just finished my workout. You coming over later or am I going to have to come kick your door down? 😏

Jared and Brenden burst out laughing, shaking their heads in utter disbelief.

"Look at this shit," Jack laughed, pulling the phone back and swiping through his chats with absolute disrespect. "It's literally too easy. It's not even a challenge anymore."

"Break them down for us," Brenden demanded, leaning forward on his knees. "How are they in bed?"

Jack didn't hesitate for a single second to sell out the intimate privacy of both girls. He spoke about them like they were meat he’d bought at a grocery store.

"Adaline’s the soft, submissive one," Jack said, his tone dripping with patronizing ownership. "Huge tits, soft little waist, and that round ass that jiggles every single time I bend her over the edge of her bed. She’s one of those quiet, innocent girls who wears oversized sweaters and talks about 'mental health' and 'romance.' But you get her behind closed doors? She turns into a complete fucking slut. She’ll do whatever I tell her to do. Anything. Literally last night, I had her on her knees on my bathroom floor, choking on it until her eyes were watering, while I was casually holding my phone behind her back texting Freya to set up lunch for today."

Jared slammed his hand against his thigh, howling with laughter. "No fucking way! You were texting Freya while Adaline was going to work?!"

"On my mother's life," Jack grinned, feeling like the king of the world. "And then there's Freya... man, Freya’s the hilarious one. She’s the athletic, fit chick. Tight little body, rock-hard thighs, those perky tits that bounce like crazy when she’s riding top. She considers herself this hardcore, independent feminist poster child. Always reposting infographics on her Instagram story about 'smashing the patriarchy' and 'men are trash.' But you put that bitch on her back and she melts like butter just like every other whore."

Jack tossed his phone casually onto the couch cushions next to him.

"I swear to God," Jack continued, his eyes full of pure malice and mockery. "These modern females talk all that big 'female empowerment' talk online, and then they spread their legs the absolute second a guy with a nice car, a famous dad, and a fat bank account looks in their general direction."

"You’re a fucking menace, Jack," Jared said, shaking his head in absolute admiration. "An absolute legend. King Jack."

"They really don't suspect a thing?" Brenden asked, genuinely curious. "They don't check your phone? They don't smell each other on you?"

"Bitches are blind when they want to believe a guy is into them," Jack said with supreme confidence. "They’re so fucking stupid it’s almost sad. They think because I buy them flowers once every three weeks and send them a cute 'good morning' text, I'm some special, changed guy. They’re so busy posting their little 'self-love' and 'know your worth' quotes that they don't even realize they're being played like cheap instruments."

Jack leaned forward, tapping his fingers against his knee.

"Get this," Jack said, lowering his voice like he was sharing a secret masterclass. "I can literally blow my nut inside Adaline, take a quick five-minute shower, drive twenty minutes across town to Freya’s apartment, and hit her twice in the same night. Different girls. Different holes. Completely different vibes. And both of them go to sleep thinking they’re the only girl in my life. Adaline thinks we're moving in together next year, and Freya thinks she’s 'taming' the bad boy. It’s glorious."

The three of them erupted into a loud, obnoxious fit of laughter that echoed through the high ceilings of the luxury apartment.

"That is insane," Jared said, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. "You’re living every guy's dream while these dumb bitches are running around thinking they're in control. Feminism is the biggest gift to men in history. All it did was make girls easier to sleep with. They opened their legs wider, stripped away their own standards, and called it 'liberation.'"

Brenden raised his beer can high in the air. "To feminism! Making whores out of every girl who used to have self-respect!"

Jack tapped his can against Brenden’s. "Amen. They’re so obsessed with being 'strong, independent women' that they completely forgot how to spot a sociopath who's just using them for flesh. Gullible little idiots. I could literally text Adaline right now and tell her I love her, and she’d probably cry happy tears into her pillow, completely oblivious to the fact that Freya’s perfume is still lingering on my bedsheets."

Jared leaned closer to Jack, his eyes taking on a greedy, desperate, pathetic look. "Bro... whenever you get bored of them... you know. Hook a brother up. Don't just throw them away. Pass them down. Leftovers, man. Especially Adaline. God damn, those tits are insane."

"Second in line!" Brenden chimed in immediately, pointing a finger at Jack. "I want Freya. Those gym thighs? I want those wrapped around my head once you’re done breaking her spirit."

Jack laughed, a loud, condescending sound that put his friends right in their places. He looked down at them like they were street dogs begging for table scraps.

"Calm down, you fucking scavengers," Jack sneered, kicking Jared’s leg off the couch. "You’ll get your turn when I’m done using them. King Jack doesn't share his toys until he’s completely bored of playing with them."

They kept drinking as the afternoon bled into the early evening. The room grew darker, lit only by the ambient glow of the city skyline outside and the pulsating lights of the TV screen. Brenden pulled a small plastic baggie of high-grade weed out of his pocket, along with a pack of raw rolling papers. He expertly rolled a fat joint right on top of Jack’s glass table, flicked a jet-torch lighter, and took a long, deep pull before passing it over.

Jack took the joint, holding it between his thumb and index finger. He dragged heavily, letting the thick, skunky smoke fill his lungs, holding it for three long seconds before blowing a thick cloud straight up toward the ceiling. He felt completely invincible. High on weed, buzzing off alcohol, backed by his father’s massive political power, and pulling off a double life with two stunning women who worshipped the ground he walked on.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Three short, soft, deliberate taps echoed from the front door of the penthouse.

Jack’s eyes flicked toward the entryway. A slow, predatory smile spread across his face. He didn't ask who it was. He didn't care. He stood up slowly, rolling his broad shoulders like a monarch stepping out to inspect his peasantry, and walked casually over to the heavy hardwood front door.

He pulled it open.

Standing in the hallway were three young women. They looked like they were barely twenty-one, dressed in tight, impractically short club dresses, wearing heavy makeup, and reeking of cheap, sickly sweet designer perfume. They were already giggling, tipsy, and holding half-empty canned cocktails in their hands—the exact kind of party girls who hung around rich guys’ apartments hoping for free cocaine and a cool photo for their Instagram stories.

Jack stood in the doorway, his arm propped against the frame, staring down at them. He didn't say hello. He didn't welcome them. He just let his eyes travel down their bodies slowly, methodically, and openly ranking them right in front of their faces like livestock at an auction.

His cold blue gaze settled on the girl standing in the middle. She was undoubtedly the prettiest of the trio—long dark hair falling down her back, full glossy lips, and a impossibly tight black dress that pushed her chest up and left almost nothing to the imagination.

"Well, well, well," Jack said, his voice dropping into that slick, patronizing, disgusting purr. "Look what the wind blew in. Come on inside, girls. Don't be shy."

The girls giggled nervously, stepping past him into the warm, scented air of the penthouse. Within less than ten minutes, the apartment had descended into a hazy, chaotic blur of blasting hip-hop music, pouring vodka shots, and wandering hands. Jared and Brenden had already cornered the other two girls on the far end of the sectional, aggressively chatting them up and trying to force drinks into their hands.

But Jack only cared about the dark-haired girl he’d singled out.

He had seated himself in the center of the sectional, forcing her to sit directly in his lap. His left arm was wrapped firmly around her narrow waist, his hand sliding high up her thigh, right under the thin fabric of her dress, while his right hand reached up to grab her chin, tilting her face upward so she was forced to look directly into his eyes.

The girl was flushed, her breath smelling heavily of cheap peach vodka. She was giggling, trying to play along, completely unaware of the absolute malice sitting beneath Jack’s handsome face.

"You know what you're supposed to call me, right?" Jack murmured close to her ear, his thumb pressing hard against her chin. His voice was smooth, toxic, and dripping with authority.

She giggled again, leaning into his touch, thinking it was just playful flirtation. "Um... Prince Jack?"

"That’s right," Jack whispered, his grip on her thigh tightening so hard his knuckles turned white, digging his fingers directly into her soft skin. His eyes narrowed, the spoiled, ruthless little prince coming out in full force. He loved this. He lived for this exact feeling—making another human being degrade themselves just to stay in his good graces.

"Now," Jack commanded softly, his eyes dead and unblinking. "Bark for me."

The girl froze. Her giggle instantly died in her throat. Her eyes blinked, caught completely off guard, her cheeks turning bright red as she looked around the room. Jared and Brenden were watching from the other couch, smirking dirty, expectant grins.

"Wait... what?" she stammered nervously, trying to laugh it off. "Are you serious?"

Jack’s smile vanished completely. His expression turned ice-cold, the posture of a dangerous, wealthy boy who had never once in his entire life been told the word 'no.'

"Did I stutter?" Jack said, his voice dangerously low. He squeezed her thigh even harder, causing her to wince slightly in pain. "Bark. Like a good little dog."

She hesitated for two agonizing seconds, her pride warring with her desperate desire to stay in the luxury penthouse with the handsome, rich politician’s son. The desperation won.

"Woof," she whispered softly, looking down at her lap.

Jack’s jaw clenched. "Louder. Do it properly or get the fuck out of my apartment."

She swallowed hard, her voice trembling slightly as she looked back up at him. "Woof! Woof!"

The sound was utterly pathetic, humiliating, and degrading.

And Jack loved every single millisecond of it.

A massive, ugly, triumphant grin burst across Jack’s face. He threw his head back and laughed, a loud, cruel sound that made Jared and Brenden cheer out loud from the couch.

"Good girl," Jack sneered, grabbing her behind the neck and dragging her lips forcefully against his in a hard, aggressive, possessive kiss.

He could feel himself getting hard against her hip. He felt like a god. High off his mind, drunk on power, holding two unsuspecting women on his leash in the city while degrading a third right in front of his friends.

In Jack Gray’s mind, he was completely untouchable.

He was the unchallenged King of the night.

The undisputed Prince of the city.

He sat there in the warm, weed-scented glow of his downtown penthouse, kissing a girl he didn't give a shit about, surrounded by luxury paid for by corrupt political money, completely convinced that the world existed solely to be consumed and discarded by him.

He was completely, wildly, perfectly blind to the storm that was coming for him.

.

.

The corner coffee shop was tucked away on a quiet street downtown, the kind of place designed for quiet study dates and hushed gossip. Warm overhead Edison bulbs cast a dim, amber glow over mismatched wooden tables, and the heavy air smelled thick of roasted espresso beans, cinnamon, and damp air from outside. The constant low hiss of the steam wand and the clatter of ceramic mugs served as background noise to the handful of patrons scattered across the room.

Freya had arrived ten minutes early. She deliberately chose a small round table in the far corner, tucked against a foggy glass window overlooking the sidewalk. It was far enough from the front counter that their voice wouldn't travel, but offered a clear line of sight to the front entrance.

She sat with her long, athletic legs crossed tightly at the knees, her leather jacket draped over the back of her chair. Her arms were folded so tightly across her chest that her knuckles were turned stark white. Her jaw was clenched, a tiny muscle ticking beneath her bronze skin. Every thirty seconds, her eyes flicked down to her phone resting on the table, then to the heavy wooden door of the cafe, then back to the screen.

Anger sat on Freya like a second skin—sharp, focused, and barely contained beneath a calm surface. She wasn't just mad; she was vibrating with a dangerous, surgical rage.

The brass bell above the front door chimed softly.

Adaline walked in.

The second their eyes met across the dim room, Adaline’s face completely crumpled. She didn’t even attempt to hide it or hold it together. Tears were already spilling over her lower lashes and sliding down her pale cheeks before she had even cleared the entryway. She wore an oversized beige knit sweater that drowned her small frame, her soft dark hair pulled back into a messy, half-hearted clip. She looked tiny, exhausted, and utterly destroyed.

Freya watched her approach, her own expression remaining carefully guarded. But as Adaline reached the table, her knees visibly gave out, and she dropped heavily into the wooden chair opposite Freya like her body simply couldn't hold its own weight anymore.

Freya slowly uncrossed her arms, letting her hands rest flat on the dark wood of the table.

For a long, agonizing moment, neither of them said a word.

The silence between them stretched out—heavy, awkward, and thick with the bizarre reality of two strangers connected by the same betrayal. Every surrounding sound seemed amplified: the metallic scrape of a spoon against a saucer two tables over, the muted laughter of a college couple near the counter, the muffled roar of a passing car outside.

Adaline pulled her long sleeves down over her hands, using the soft fabric to aggressively wipe under her eyes, her shoulders shuddering with a silent, shaky sob. Across from her, Freya’s sneaker began tapping against the wooden leg of her chair in rapid, angry bursts.

Neither of them knew how to launch into the conversation they had both agreed to have over a tense three-minute phone call an hour prior.

Finally, Freya exhaled sharply through her nose, a bitter, disgusted sound.

"What a fucking pig," Freya said, her voice dropping into an octave of pure, unfiltered venom.

Adaline looked up, her blue eyes raw and bloodshot. "He... he told me he had a work meeting yesterday morning," she whispered, her voice small, wet, and cracking down the middle. "He said it was super important. Something about a crisis with his dad’s campaign strategy team, and that he’d be completely unreachable off the grid until late afternoon." She swallowed hard, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "But he came straight to your apartment from mine, didn't he?"

Adaline let out a shaky, humorless laugh, shaking her head in disbelief. "And the night before that? Tuesday night? He sent me this long, dramatic text saying he needed to be alone. Said he had to lock himself in his penthouse and focus on writing speech notes for Alexander, that the pressure was crushing him and he couldn’t afford any distractions."

Adaline buried her face in her hands for two seconds before looking back up at Freya, her eyes wide with pathetic realization. "I’m such a fucking idiot, Freya. I actually believed him. I literally door-dashed him a forty-dollar healthy dinner to his place so he wouldn't forget to eat while working, and I sent him a long text telling him how proud I was of him."

Freya’s mouth twisted into a hard, dark line. She didn't interrupt. She just sat there studying Adaline’s face, taking in the delicate features, the soft curve of her jaw, and the genuine, unvarnished heartbreak radiating from her.

"You’re really pretty," Freya said softly, her tone almost reluctant, as if admitting it hurt her pride just a little bit. "When I found out his phone had another girl saved under 'Addy ❤️' and I pieced it together, I spent three hours scrolling Instagram trying to find you. I kept wondering what you looked like. When we spoke on the phone earlier, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought... I don't know. I thought you'd be different."

Adaline offered a tiny, tired, watery smile. "You’re gorgeous, Freya. You look like a model." She shook her head, leaning her elbows on the wooden table. "You know what’s pathetic? Before I walked through that door, I thought I’d be jealous of you. I thought if you were prettier than me, or hotter than me, it would destroy me. But sitting here looking at you... I don't feel a single drop of jealousy. I can see you’re just as gutted and furious as I am."

"Yep," Freya replied, her voice popping flatly on the P.

"I don’t hate you at all," Adaline murmured, her hands trembling slightly as she rested them on the table. "I just feel this overwhelming, suffocating rage toward Jack."

Freya’s tense, rigid shoulders dropped about half an inch. The defensive wall between them started to show its first hairline cracks.

"I feel sad for both of us," Freya admitted, her posture slumping slightly into the back of her chair. "It’s so deeply unfair. And the worst part is... if he did this to the two of us at the exact same time without a single hint of remorse, he’s definitely done it to other girls before. And he’ll keep doing it."

A barista walked over a minute later, breaking the tension briefly to set down their orders. Adaline had ordered a sweet, iced caramel drink loaded with whipped cream that she immediately pushed to the side, completely unable to stomach the thought of food or sugar. Freya had ordered a large black drip coffee, steaming hot. She grabbed the ceramic mug with both hands and took a heavy gulp, swallowing the bitter liquid like it was punishment.

The moment the barista walked back to the counter, the real conversation started.

They began comparing notes.

It started small, like two investigators laying out pieces of a petty crime scene.

"What did he get you for your birthday?" Freya asked, setting her mug down with a sharp clack.

Adaline blinked, her brow furrowing in confusion. "A silver necklace. A super delicate chain with a tiny initial pendant on it. He brought it over in a little velvet box. He sat on my bed, put it around my neck, kissed my shoulder, and told me he saw it in a boutique window downtown and immediately thought of me."

Freya let out a short, bark-like laugh that carried absolutely zero humor. She reached into her leather jacket, pulled out her iPhone, unlocked it with a quick swipe, and slid it across the table toward Adaline.

Adaline leaned in to look at the screen.

It was a photo saved in Freya’s camera roll from two months ago. It was a close-up selfie of Freya wearing a silver necklace—a thin, delicate chain with a tiny initial pendant sitting right above her collarbone.

"He gave me mine three weeks before your birthday," Freya said, her voice dripping with pure disgust. "Same exact store. Same brand. Probably the exact same brainless sales assistant. And he used the same exact line word-for-word: 'I saw it in the window and it reminded me of you the second I saw it.'"

Adaline stared at the image on the screen. Her lower lip began to tremble again, but this time, it wasn't from sadness. It was the initial spark of raw, unadulterated shock.

"No way..." Adaline whispered, her voice dropping. "No fucking way."

"Keep going," Freya urged, her eyes fixed on Adaline’s. "Let's line up the excuses."

"Every single time he canceled on me last month," Freya started, tapping her manicured fingernail against the table, "he used the same three rotation excuses. Number one: campaign emergency with his father’s donors. Number two: an obligatory family dinner with his dad and mom that he 'couldn’t get out of without causing a political scene.' Or number three: he was 'too mentally drained from being his dad's emotional punching bag' and needed to recharge alone."

Adaline’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Stop. Stop it right now."

"Tell me I'm wrong," Freya challenged.

"He told me the exact same things!" Adaline gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in utter disbelief. "Word for fucking word! The 'campaign emergency' was always on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons! The 'family dinners' were always last-minute cancellations on Friday nights! And the 'I need to lock myself in my apartment to recharge' nights..."

Adaline stopped mid-sentence, her breath catching in her throat as the realization landed like a sledgehammer. "...those were the nights he spent in your bed, weren't they?"

"Every single one of them," Freya confirmed coldly.

They pulled out both of their phones, placing them side-by-side in the center of the table. For the next thirty minutes, they went through their text histories, cross-referencing dates, times, and phrasing.

The level of lazy, repetitive deceit was mind-boggling.

They found matching 'good morning beautiful' texts sent at identical times on alternating days. They found identical voice notes. Freya tapped play on a voice memo Jack had sent her three weeks ago after a late-night hookup.

Jack’s oily, raspy, low voice played softly from the speaker: “Hey baby... just thinking about you. Honestly, you're the only girl in this city who actually gets me. Everyone else just wants something from me, but you... you're different.”

Adaline instantly pulled up her own voice memos, tapped a file from a month prior, and pressed play.

Jack’s voice echoed out again: “Hey baby... just thinking about you. Honestly, you're the only girl in this city who actually gets me. Everyone else just wants something from me, but you... you're different.”

It was the exact same script. He hadn't even altered the inflection in his voice. He had recorded the same breathless, pseudo-vulnerable speech and sent it to both of them like a mass marketing email.

Freya physically recoiled, shuddering with genuine nausea. "I'm going to throw up. I am literally going to vomit on this table."

"He told me he was done with his 'player phase,'" Adaline said, her voice shaking as she scrolled through a thread of texts. "He said he was tired of shallow bar girls and wanted something real with me. He told me his last ex-girlfriend broke his heart because she couldn't handle how intense his life was with his father's political career."

"Lie!" Freya shouted, drawing a sharp glance from a guy sitting near the counter. She didn't give a damn. She leaned closer to Adaline, lowering her voice to a fierce whisper. "He told me the exact same story about his ex! Said she was 'too crazy and needy' to understand his schedule. He told me I was the first girl who actually made him want to settle down and be a better man. He said I made him think about the future!"

"He said those exact words to me!" Adaline cried out, her eyes blazing with a mixture of tears and mounting fury. "Verbatim, Freya! 'You make me want to be a better man!' I literally cried happy tears in my car after he said that to me! I thought I was helping him heal!"

The evidence kept piling up, heavier and more absurd by the minute.

They discovered he had taken both of them to the exact same high-end Italian restaurant downtown—Luigi’s. He had reserved the exact same quiet corner booth for both of their 'anniversary' dates. He ordered the exact same $120 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, and gave both of them the exact same speech about how he 'never brought other girls here because this place was sacred to him.'

He had given both of them his oversized, vintage washed-black hoodie to sleep in—telling Adaline it was his absolute favorite shirt that he only let 'someone truly special' wear, while telling Freya the exact same story two weeks later when she stayed over.

He even used the exact same pet names in bed. 'Good girl.' 'Little princess.' 'My baby.'

The picture that formed in the dim lighting of the coffee shop was painfully, agonizingly clear.

Jack Gray wasn't some tortured, complex, mysterious man torn between two deep, soulful connections. He wasn't a criminal mastermind or a brilliant manipulator.

He was a lazy, entitled, low-effort manchild running the same copy-pasted fuckboy script on two different women because he was an insecure narcissist who couldn't function without constant, round-the-clock female validation. He recycled romantic compliments the way normal people recycled empty aluminum cans. He couldn't even be bothered to invent original lies. Every soft moment, every seemingly intimate confession, every late-night reassurance had been copy-pasted from one relationship into the other with all the emotional depth of a spam bot.

Freya leaned back heavily in her wooden chair, running both hands through her dark hair and staring up at the ambient lighting of the ceiling as if trying to force her brain to accept the sheer stupidity of it all.

"He’s not even good at it," Freya said, her voice flat and deadpan. "That’s what’s completely killing me right now. He’s not a master manipulator. He’s not some criminal genius. He’s just a spoiled, lazy little boy who figured out that if he puts on a soft voice, tousles his hair, and pretends to be stressed about his daddy, women will do all the heavy emotional lifting for him. He doesn't plan. He doesn't execute strategy. He just exists, acts pretty, and expects us to build our entire lives around orbiting his pathetic little ego."

Adaline violently wiped the last remaining tear from her cheek, her posture straightening up for the first time all evening. The soft, broken, fragile girl who had walked into the cafe was rapidly dissolving, replaced by an edge that was far sharper and infinitely more dangerous.

"I made so many excuses for him," Adaline confessed, her knuckles turning red as she gripped her untouched cold drink. "Every single time he was distant, I lied to myself and said he was under political pressure. When he canceled on me three times in one week, I told myself his dad’s campaign had to come first. When he went ghost for eight hours on a Saturday night, I told myself he was just an exhausted introvert who was bad at texting. I bent myself into absolute fucking pretzels trying to turn his disgusting inconsistency into 'depth.'"

"Same," Freya scoffed bitterly. "I did the exact same thing. I kept telling myself, 'Freya, you're an independent woman. Don't be needy. Don't get crazy jealous. Communicate maturely. Give him the benefit of the doubt.' Meanwhile, he was using the exact same lines on both of us, driving back and forth across the city, and sitting in his penthouse laughing about it with those two brainless parasitic leeches he calls friends."

Adaline paused, her eyes narrowing as something sparked in her memory. She looked at Freya.

"Speaking of how helpless he is..." Adaline started, a weird, dark irony creeping into her tone. "Can we talk about the fact that he literally cannot function as a basic human being?"

Freya let out a sudden, sharp snort of agreement. "Oh my God. Don't even get me started."

"He has never once put gas in his own car!" Freya declared, leaning forward on her elbows, genuinely animated now as she found solid, rage-filled ground to stand on. "I have literally had to drive us to the Chevron on 4th Street and pump the gas myself while he sat in his luxury passenger seat scrolling through Instagram! Do you know what he said to me? He said, and I quote: 'Babe, can you get it? The smell of gasoline gives me a subtle migraine, it's a sensory thing.'"

Adaline threw her head back, letting out a loud, incredulous laugh that drew stares from across the room.

"He does the exact same fucking thing at my apartment with his laundry!" Adaline shouted, completely abandoning any attempt at keeping her voice down. "He’ll come over, stay for three days, wear the same three designer shirts on rotation, and just drop the filthy clothes right on my bedroom rug! When I finally got sick of stepping over them and asked him to just throw a load into my washing machine, he looked at me like I had asked him to perform open-heart surgery without a license!"

"What did he say?" Freya asked, her eyes wide with dark amusement.

"He said—and I quote verbatim—'I don't really know how the dial works on these residential machines, babe. At my penthouse building, my housekeeper handles all that. It's kind of a whole process, I don't want to ruin the fabric.'" Adaline mimicked Jack’s pompous, whiny tone with terrifying accuracy.

"He’s twenty-three years old!" Freya yelled, slapping her hand onto the table. "He lives in a multi-million-dollar downtown penthouse! And he doesn't know how a washing machine works?!"

"He can't do his own laundry, he can't cook a basic scrambled egg without burning the pan, he doesn't know how gas pumps work, and he’s out here trying to manage two entire full-time relationships like he’s a Fortune 500 CEO!" Adaline said.

There was a sharp, lethal edge in Adaline’s voice now that hadn't been there an hour ago. It was no longer heartbreak. It was pure, unadulterated fury finding its permanent shape.

"He cannot function as an adult human being for five consecutive minutes unless a woman—his mother, a girlfriend, or a hired assistant—is actively cleaning up his shit," Adaline continued, her eyes burning. "But he had the bandwidth, the discipline, and the sheer sociopathic energy to run a secret double life for six months without either of us catching on."

"Because that's the only thing he's actually motivated by," Freya said quietly, her voice dropping into a cold, chilling register. "Managing women. Managing our emotions. That’s his entire skillset. He can't feed himself a nutritious meal, but he can manipulate two women’s hearts at the exact same time without breaking a sweat, and still have six hours a day left over to get high and drink IPAs with Jared and Brenden."

"Ugh, those two," Adaline groaned, shuddering with absolute disgust. "He told me Jared and Brenden were his 'ride or die brothers.' Said they’d 'go to war' for him."

"They're not brothers, they're unpaid staff," Freya spat. "They're two unemployed losers living off his dad's money and eating his takeout scraps."

Freya stared down into her lukewarm black coffee for a long, quiet moment. The frantic energy of comparing notes began to settle, leaving behind a deep, heavy ache in her chest. When she finally spoke again, her voice had lost its sharp, sarcastic edge, picking up a weight that was far more painful.

“I compromised everything for him,” Freya said softly, staring at the dark liquid in her mug. “And I hate myself for it. I fucking hate it.”

Adaline looked at her, her expression softening into genuine empathy. "What do you mean?"

Freya exhaled a long, bitter breath. “I’ve always been the loud one, Adaline. My whole life. I’m the girl who called out guys for their casual sexism in college. I’m the one who called out bullshit instantly. I used to roll my eyes at girls who softened their voices or changed their personalities just to make a guy feel comfortable. I used to say it out loud to my friends—that no man on earth was worth shrinking yourself for. That if a guy needed you to be quieter, sweeter, less opinionated, and less angry, then he was trash who didn't deserve to breathe your air. I built my whole identity around not bending for anyone.”

She let out a hollow, humorless laugh, shaking her head at her own reflection in the window.

“And then Jack happened.”

Adaline stayed quiet, sitting still and giving Freya the space she needed.

“He didn’t even have to work hard to break me down,” Freya continued, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed shame. “That’s the worst part. He just... existed in that soft, slightly pathetic, 'I’m under so much political stress because of my dad' way. And I started making exceptions for him. I stopped posting my usual opinions online. I started softening the way I talked about gender issues when he was in the room. I literally stopped correcting him when he made subtle, trashy jokes about women."

She tightened her hands around her ceramic mug until her knuckles turned yellow.

"I told myself it was 'maturity,'" Freya whispered, disgust dripping from every word. "I told myself I was learning how to 'pick my battles in a relationship.' That maybe I had been too rigid and angry in the past. Jack would look at me with those fake blue eyes and say things like, 'Not all men are the enemy, Freya, you don't have to be so aggressive,' in that gentle, patronizing voice... and suddenly I was the one sitting there wondering if I was the problem. If I was 'too much.' Too loud. Too opinionated."

She looked straight into Adaline’s eyes, her gaze raw and agonizingly honest.

“He made me rethink principles I had spent my entire life building. He made me feel like my feminism was an embarrassing flaw I needed to tone down so I wouldn’t 'scare him away.' And the most fucked-up part? I let him do it. I rewrote my own moral code in real-time just to keep a spoiled rich boy comfortable in my bed. Every single time I swallowed my pride or laughed off something disgusting he said 'as a joke,' I told myself it was compromise. I told myself it was 'growth.'”

Freya’s jaw clenched tight.

“It wasn’t growth, Adaline. It was me slowly abandoning myself so a sociopathic manchild could get his dick wet and his ego stroked. And the second I found out about you... every single one of those compromises felt like a violent slap in the face. I didn’t just get cheated on. I got played into betraying who I am for a guy who was laughing at me behind my back.”

The small corner of the coffee shop went dead silent. The heavy emotional weight of Freya's confession hung between them, thick and palpable.

Adaline reached across the wooden table, laying her hand gently over Freya’s clenched fist. "You didn't betray yourself, Freya. He exploited your good intentions. He weaponized your capacity to love someone."

Freya looked down at Adaline’s hand, then up into her eyes. A slow, dark, humorless curve began to form at the corner of Freya’s mouth.

“We should cut his dick off,” Freya said completely straight-faced.

Adaline froze.

For half a second, the air in the room stood completely still.

And then, the explosion hit.

A sudden, loud, startled burst of laughter erupted from Adaline’s chest. A second later, Freya joined in—a raw, frantic, chaotic laugh that came from deep down in their chests. It was the kind of hysterical laughter that only born out of absolute exhaustion, absurd betrayal, and shared fury.

They laughed so hard their shoulders shook, drawing sharp, concerned looks from the barista and two customers near the front door. Neither of them cared. The sound was wild, unhinged, and therapeutic, washing away the lingering traces of sadness and replacing it with something unbreakable.

Adaline wiped tears of laughter from her eyes, her face bright red. "God, I wish! Sadly, it’s extremely illegal. Though honestly? It should be a legal right to cut a cheater’s dick off and shove it down his throat!"

"It’s a public service, frankly!" Freya snorted, wiping her own eye. "We’d be saving the women of this city thousands of dollars in therapy bills!"

Adaline leaned in over the table, her eyes glinting with a dangerous, infectious light. "Okay, but we can definitely kick him in the balls, right? Like... hard. With steel-toed boots."

That set them off all over again.

They dissolved into another wave of hysterical laughter, this time louder and completely unbothered by their surroundings. The brutal, vivid image formed instantly in both of their minds without either of them needing to describe it out loud:

Jack Gray—the untouchable prince, the arrogant politician’s son with his styled hair and smug half-smile—his handsome face twisting in sudden, blinding shock. That cocky posture completely collapsing as a heavy shoe connected with his groin. The high-pitched, pathetic gasp he would make. The way all that carefully curated, golden-boy confidence would instantly evaporate into tears, gasping for air on the floor while holding himself.

They pictured him folding like a cheap lawn chair, weeping, his blue eyes wide with pathetic disbelief that anyone had dared to touch him.

"God... the fucking look on his face," Freya gasped between laughs, holding her stomach. "I would pay my entire life savings to watch that happen."

"He’d probably still try to talk his way out of it while rolling on the floor!" Adaline added, mimicking Jack’s voice while clutching her own chest. "'Baby, wait! Let me explain! It’s my dad’s fault! The campaign stress made me do it!'"

Both of them lost it again, snorting and wiping their eyes until their ribs ached.

Slowly, gradually, the laughter began to taper off, settling into a quiet, heavy, and infinitely more dangerous atmosphere. The manic energy faded, leaving behind a cold, crystal-clear focus.

Freya wiped the corner of her eye, letting out a long, slow breath as she shook her head.

"It’s tempting," Freya admitted, her voice dropping into a low, smooth tone. "It is so fucking tempting to just walk into his penthouse right now, kick his balls into his throat, and break his nose. But..."

Adaline’s smile faded into something sharp, calculated, and icy. She leaned in closer. "But what?"

Freya leaned forward, resting her elbows on the wooden table, her dark eyes locking onto Adaline's with absolute, unwavering intensity. The bond between them was forged now—sealed in the ashes of their heartbreak and tempered by shared rage.

"A physical kick hurts for a week," Freya whispered, a slow, chilling smile spreading across her lips. "We need to play a much, much longer game than that. We don't just ruin his night, Addy. We ruin his life. We ruin his father's campaign. We strip away everything that makes him think he's untouchable."

Adaline didn't flinch. She didn't hesitate. She looked directly back at Freya, her soft features completely transformed into stone.

"Tell me," Adaline said softly.

Freya’s smile turned lethal. "I have an idea."

 

The front door of Jack’s luxury penthouse clicked shut with a sharp, soft snap that echoed through the quiet entryway.

Adaline was gone.

She had left only twenty minutes earlier, her skin still warm from his bed, her lips soft and red, wearing that gentle, trusting smile he loved exploiting. Jack hadn’t even bothered walking her to the front door properly. He’d given her a lazy, half-hearted kiss on the cheek, a sharp slap on her ass as she put her shoes on, and a quick "Text me when you get home, baby"—a text he already fully intended to ignore for at least the next three hours while he chilled.

Now he was completely alone in his kingdom.

Jack sauntered into his massive, glass-walled living room, trailing his fingers over the edge of his quartz kitchen counter. He dropped into the exact center curve of his big L-shaped sectional sofa with an entitled, heavy flop. He spread his long legs wide across the leather cushions, still wearing the bright blue Ralph Lauren polo and crisp designer jeans he’d had on all day. His posture was pure, unadulterated, king-of-the-castle sprawl. One long arm stretched out along the back of the couch, while his other hand casually reached down for the stainless-steel remote sitting on the glass coffee table.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights glittered like a sea of diamonds, but Jack didn't give a damn about the view. He only had eyes for the eighty-five-inch OLED television dominating the front wall.

He clicked the power button, flipping mindlessly through channels until he landed on an old, high-definition rerun of Charlie’s Angels.

"Perfect," Jack muttered to himself, tossing the remote onto the cushion next to his thigh.

It was prime background noise. He reached down, grabbed a cold, canned hard seltzer he’d brought over from the kitchen, popped the top with a sharp crack, and took a long, heavy gulp. The icy liquid hit his throat, sweet and sharp. He leaned his head back, half-watching the screen, half-scrolling through his Instagram direct messages to see if any other girls had replied to his late-night stories.

On the screen, the three Angels were in the middle of a chaotic, over-the-top fight scene inside a villain’s high-tech lair. High kicks in leather boots, sharp one-liners, dramatic explosions, and ridiculous choreography—the whole classic campy package. Jack smirked, taking another slow sip of his drink, feeling completely relaxed and untouchable.

Then the camera zoomed in tight on the lead male henchman the Angels were currently dismantling.

The henchman was a cocky guy in a leather vest, tossing his hair back with a smug grin right before stepping into the fray. Another henchman yelled out to him across the room:

"Watch out, Jack!"

Jack’s eyebrows lifted slightly. He paused his scrolling, looking up at the TV screen.

"Coincidence," Jack chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "Cute."

The Angels on screen didn't care about coincidences.

The blonde Angel feinted left, drawing the henchman’s guard up. The brunette dropped low to the floor, sweeping his legs out from under him. And the third Angel—sharp, furious, with absolute zero hesitation—drove her heavy leather boot’s knee straight up between the on-screen Jack’s legs with brutal, cartoonish precision.

THWACK.

The sound effect injected into the show’s audio was outrageously loud. It was a deep, wet, meaty thud mixed with a high-pitched, wheezing male yelp that the penthouse’s surround-sound speakers blasted through the entire room.

On-screen Jack’s eyes instantly bulged out of his head. His whole body folded violently in half like a rusty lawn chair. Both of his hands flew down to his groin as he crumpled straight onto the concrete floor in pure, undignified agony, his mouth open in a silent, bug-eyed scream while the three Angels stood over his twitching body looking extremely pleased with themselves.

Real-life Jack winced.

Hard.

His own athletic legs twitched inward on pure, involuntary male instinct. His knees slammed together so fast his drink nearly sloshed over the rim of the can. One of his hands instantly left the remote and hovered protectively over his own crotch for two full seconds before he caught himself, took a breath, and forced his hand back down onto the couch cushion.

A short, high, uncomfortable laugh slipped out of his throat.

"Jesus Christ," Jack muttered at the screen, rubbing the back of his neck. "Same name and everything. Fucking brutal."

He tried to shake it off, shifting his weight on the leather sectional and spreading his legs wide again like he needed to aggressively reclaim his space and prove he wasn't rattled. But the scene kept going. The TV Angels weren’t done with on-screen Jack.

One of the female leads casually stepped her high heel directly onto the downed henchman's shoulder to keep him pinned to the floor, while the second Angel delivered a second, sharper kick right between his thighs that made the fictional man curl into a tight, shivering fetal position, his face turning an impressive shade of bright purple.

Real Jack sucked air sharply through his teeth. This time, he didn't just hover—he literally cupped himself through his jeans, a full, genuine grimace twisting his handsome face.

"Okay, damn. I actually felt that one," he grunted out loud, letting out another uneasy, breathless chuckle as he shook his head. "Who the fuck writes this shit? Who names the punchable guy Jack? That’s just plain rude."

He took another long, desperate drink from his can, trying to wash down the weird, phantom ache settling into his lower belly. The cold alcohol helped a little, cooling his throat. He kept watching, half-amused, half-unsettled, as the Angels finished the scene, dusted off their leather jackets, and walked away from the whimpering heap on the floor without a single backward glance.

Jack snorted, his right hand still resting a little too carefully over his lap.

"Remind me never to piss off a girl in heels," he muttered to the empty, quiet apartment, flashing a quick grin like the comment made him sound clever and funny.

He drank again. Deeper this time. Finishing off the can until the bottom rattled.

The television episode continued into the next scene, but Jack’s eyelids were suddenly growing heavier than they had any right to be. The edges of the living room began to blur and soften into a warm, hazy glow. His head tipped back heavily against the leather couch cushion. The empty metal drink can slipped slightly between his limp fingers, tapping against the glass table.

He blinked hard, his brow furrowing in mild confusion.

Weird, he thought, his internal voice sounding thick and distant. I never get sleepy this fast. I've only had like... two drinks all night.

Another slow, heavy blink. The bright colors of the television screen started to melt into a single streak of light. His spread legs remained sprawled across the sectional, his body feeling like it was made of solid lead. That lingering phantom ache between his thighs was already fading away under a much thicker, warmer, irresistible drowsiness that kept pulling him down into darkness.

What Jack didn't know—what his arrogant, drug-hazed brain couldn't possibly comprehend—was that the sweet, fruity drink Adaline had lovingly handed him twenty minutes before leaving had been heavily laced with a double dose of liquid muscle relaxants and sleep drops.

And while Jack lay passed out cold on his designer sectional, snoring softly into the leather, the real show was just beginning.

The Morning After.

Jack woke up like he was surfacing from the bottom of a deep swimming pool filled with wet concrete and static.

His mouth tasted like he had chewed on a dirty gym sock. His head was pounding in a way that didn't feel like his usual light hangover—this was deeper, thicker, like his skull had been packed tight with damp cotton and set on fire.

He blinked his eyes open, staring up at the white ceiling of his own master bedroom. He was completely disoriented, his brain struggling to piece together the tail end of the previous night. He remembered being alone on the couch. He remembered watching Charlie's Angels. He remembered feeling sleepy.

Did I drink too much? he thought vaguely, his vision slowly coming into focus. How did I get into bed?

He checked his clothes. He was still wearing the blue Ralph Lauren polo. Still in his designer jeans. He must have stumbled off the couch in his sleep-drugged state, dragged himself down the hallway, and collapsed onto his mattress without even bother to unbutton his pants.

He let out a heavy sigh, preparing to do his usual morning routine—the long, luxurious, king-of-the-world stretch that he used to kick off every single day of his effortless life. He raised his long arms above his head, arched his back against the sheets, and began to extend his legs.

And that was the exact second the pain hit him.

It wasn't a normal pain. It wasn't a stub-your-toe pain, or an I-worked-out-too-hard-at-the-gym pain.

It was a hot, blinding, pulsing, catastrophic pain, radiating directly from the most sensitive, vital area of his body. Jack's entire frame went instantly rigid, his eyes flying wide open before his sluggish brain had even fully processed what his nerve endings were screaming at him.

"What the—"

Panicking, Jack reached down with trembling hands and yanked his metal belt buckle open, frantically unzipping his jeans.

He pulled the denim back and looked down.

Jack gasped. The air completely left his lungs.

He was hard. Painfully, catastrophically, unnaturally, terrifyingly hard—in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with sexual attraction, and everything to do with something being deeply, mechanically, biologically wrong.

And around the very base of his manhood, digging ruthlessly into skin that had already gone an alarming, dark shade of purple-red, was a thick, seamless, solid steel ring. It was locked tight against his pelvic bone, squeezing the blood vessels like a vice grip.

For three agonizing seconds, Jack's brain simply refused to accept the reality of what his eyes were seeing.

"No," Jack whispered out loud to the silent bedroom, his voice trembling like a little boy's. "No, no, no, no, no—"

He reached down and grabbed at the metal ring with both hands, trying to hook his fingers beneath it. The very second his skin made contact with the steel, the pain flared so violently white behind his eyes that he actually let out a loud, strangled yelp—a sharp, pathetic, high-pitched noise that did not belong to the cool "King Jack," but belonged to a terrified twenty-three-year-old having the absolute worst morning of his life.

"Okay," he gasped, cold sweat instantly bursting out across his forehead, his hands hovering uselessly an inch away from his groin like the metal ring was laced with deadly radiation. "Okay, okay, think. Think, Jack! It's just a ring. Rings come off. Jewelry always comes off!"

He tried pulling it forward. He tried twisting it. He scrambled out of bed, his legs shaking violently, and stumbled into his master bathroom.

In a moment of pure, unadulterated, desperate stupidity, he turned the brass sink faucet on full blast and tried running cold water directly over himself, operating on the brainless logic that cold water was somehow going to negotiate with solid, engineered steel.

The freezing water hit his throbbing, purple skin.

"AAAAHH! FUUUUCK!" Jack shrieked, hopping up and down on one foot in front of the vanity mirror, his teeth gritted so hard his jaw clicked, making a series of squealing noises no human being had ever heard him make before.

Nothing worked.

If anything, the more he touched it, the more he panicked, the worse it got. The trapped blood had nowhere to go. His body was trapped in a nightmare priapism loop, and the steel ring wasn't yielding a single millimeter.

Jack stared into his bathroom mirror. His face was pale, his blonde curls were matted with sweat, his blue eyes were wide with wild, frantic horror.

He didn't remember making the conscious decision to scream for help. It just happened—an animalistic, desperate instinct overriding twenty-three years of carefully cultivated prestige, sending him stumbling out of his master bathroom, through his bedroom, and out into the main hallway of the penthouse.

He was bent over at a ninety-degree angle, one hand cupped protectively in front of his ruined groin like he was holding a delicate glass ornament, bellowing at the top of his lungs calling his buddies.

"JARED! BRENDEN! GET THE FUCK UP! GET UP RIGHT NOW, THIS IS A FUCKING EMERGENCY!"

Jared appeared first. He stumbled out of the guest bedroom wearing nothing but gray boxer shorts, his hair sticking up in nine different directions, blinking against the morning light like the universe had personally offended him.

"Bro, what the fuck?" Jared grumbled, rubbing his eyes. "It's not even eight in the morning, why are you screaming like—"

Then Jared looked down.

Jared’s entire face went through four distinct, dramatic stages of human emotion in under two seconds: complete confusion, utter disbelief, the sudden beginning of a hilarious smirk, and then—mercifully for Jack’s completely shattered dignity—pure, unadulterated horror, because the smirk died the exact millisecond Jared clocked the actual, horrifying color Jack’s dick had turned.

"Oh my God," Jared breathed out, backing up a full step into the hallway, his hands flying up into the air like he was being asked to disarm an active explosive device. "Oh my fucking God, dude! What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" Jack screamed, his voice cracking violently on the last word. "Someone did this to me! Someone put this on me last night while I was passed out and it won't come off and it's currently the single worst thing that has ever happened to a human body!"

Brenden emerged from the second guest room next, took one quick glance at Jack's situation, muttered a sharp, "Nope!" and instantly turned right back around toward his bedroom like he intended to simply un-see the last five seconds of his life and go back to sleep.

"BRENDEN, I SWEAR TO GOD!" Jack roared, his voice hitting an octave usually reserved for soprano singers.

"I am NOT touching that!" Brenden shouted back over his shoulder, already halfway through his bedroom door. "I don't care what's happening! I did not sign up to look at your dick before nine in the morning! That is not in the bro code, man! There is no clause for this!"

"IT'S A MEDICAL EMERGENCY!" Jack shrieked, hopping frantically from foot to foot on the hardwood floor to try and distract himself from the throbbing agony. "I NEED HELP! I NEED SOMEONE TO GET THIS OFF ME BEFORE MY DICK FALLS OFF, WHICH—JARED, LOOK AT ME—WHICH I AM STARTING TO THINK IS AN ACTUAL REALITY RIGHT NOW!"

Jared, to his absolute credit, did not run away. But he stood completely frozen in the middle of the hallway, staring resolutely at a tiny spot on the wall roughly four feet above where Jack was standing, his jaw working frantically as he tried to construct an argument for a situation he desperately wanted no part of.

"I'm not—Jack, I'm not touching another guy's junk," Jared stammered, his voice climbing an octave higher than usual. "That's—there's rules, man! That's fucking gay! Fuck that!"

"I WILL CUT YOU OFF!" Jack howled.

Both Jared and Brenden froze dead in their tracks at that exact sentence.

"I will cut both of you off!" Jack screamed, sweat pouring down his forehead, tears of pure rage and pain welling up in his blue eyes. "No more living in this penthouse for free! No more using my dad's credit card at the clubs! No more free booze! No more anything! I will kick your broke, unemployed asses out on the street today, and you'll be back to sharing a roach-infested studio in Bushwick and taking the public bus like the trash you are! I SWEAR TO GOD, JARED, GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME!"

There was a long, agonizing silence in the hallway.

Jared and Brenden made intense, silent, desperate eye contact across the space—the specific, tragic eye contact of two parasitic men doing very fast, very complex mental math on exactly how much free luxury rent and bottle service was worth compared to their remaining human dignity.

"...Okay," Jared said finally, his voice sounding like a man walking up the steps to his own execution. "Okay. Okay, fine. But we are never speaking of this again. Ever. This never happened."

"FINE! FINE, JUST FIX IT!" Jack sobbed.

What followed over the next fifteen minutes was, by unanimous and permanent agreement, the single worst, most humiliating ordeal in the recorded history of their friendship.

They tried bottle after bottle of lotion from Jack’s bathroom first. Jared squeezed half a bottle of expensive cocoa butter onto his hands, closed his eyes, and tried to lube up the steel ring to slide it off.

It did absolutely nothing except make Jack's lower half extremely slippery, and Jack's high-pitched screaming echoing off the tall ceilings sounds even more pathetic.

"It's too tight!" Jared yelled, his hands slipping off the metal. "I can't get a grip! It's like it's welded onto you!"

"Ow, ow, ow! Don't pull it like that, you fucking idiot!" Jack shrieked, slapping Jared’s hands away. "You're tearing the skin!"

Next, Brenden brought out an ice pack from the freezer, pressing it directly against the metal ring to try and reduce the swelling.

The moment the frozen gel pack touched Jack’s inflamed, hypersensitive skin, Jack let out a banshee-like shriek that literally rattled the glass light fixtures in the hallway ceiling.

"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! IT BURNS! IT BURNS SO MUCH WORSE!" Jack screamed, kicking Brenden in the shin so hard Brenden dropped the ice pack and fell backward onto his ass.

"Well, what the fuck do you want us to do then?!" Brenden yelled, rubbing his leg. "You want me to get a tub of butter from the fridge?!"

"We are NOT using butter!" Jared shouted, wiping lotion off his hands onto his boxers. "We are not doing that! Find something else!"

And that was when Jared’s desperate eyes landed on the utility closet near the kitchen, where Jack’s cleaning lady kept the household appliances.

A light bulb went off behind Jared’s eyes—the specific, catastrophic light of a stupid man who has just had an idea he is one hundred percent convinced is pure genius, but is actually one hundred percent terrible.

"Suction," Jared said, his eyes widening.

Brenden blinked, sitting up from the floor. "What?"

"Suction, dude! Reverse air pressure!" Jared said frantically, pointing at the closet. "If the ring is stuck, we don't pull it off! We create negative suction pressure around the tip and the ring will just slide right off! It's basic physics!"

"That is NOT basic physics!" Brenden shouted, but he was already standing up and following Jared toward the closet anyway, because at this point neither of them had a better idea, and Jack was making a noise like a dying microwave from the floor.

Jared emerged from the utility closet a second later, wielding a high-powered, industrial cordless vacuum cleaner like a knight holding a sword. He aggressively ripped the long floor-cleaning tube off the front, leaving only the open, round plastic intake nozzle attached to the motor unit.

"Absolutely not," Jack whimpered from the hallway floor, his face pale as a sheet, some lingering shred of human self-preservation kicking in. "Absolutely, one hundred percent, fucking NO. You are NOT putting that thing near me!"

"Do you have a better idea?!" Jared yelled back, thumbing the rubber power switch on the handle.

The vacuum's high-powered motor whined to life with a fierce, roaring, high-pitched mechanical shriek that echoed violently through the penthouse.

"Trust me, bro!" Jared yelled over the noise of the motor, stepping toward Jack on the floor. "It's just suction! It'll draw the fluid out and pull the ring off! It'll be over in like two seconds!"

"JARED, DON'T YOU DARE—AAAAHHHHHH!"

It was not over in two seconds.

The exact millisecond the plastic vacuum nozzle made seal contact with Jack’s swollen, ring-trapped organ, Jack made a sound that neither Jared nor Brenden would ever be able to properly describe to another human being for the rest of their natural lives.

It was a sound that defied human vocal mechanics. It was somewhere between a blood-curdling scream, a desperate sob, and the final, wheezing honk of a dying goose.

The noise bounced violently off every single hard quartz, glass, and marble surface in the open-concept penthouse—which, given the apartment's aggressively minimalist aesthetic, meant it echoed loudly enough to alert the entire floor.

"TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT THE FUCK OFF!" Jack shrieked, his legs flailing wildly against the hardwood, his fingernails clawing at the floorboards.

"I'M TRYING! IT'S STUCK!" Jared screamed back, panicking as he tugged on the handle.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S STUCK?!"

"THE SUCTION IS TOO STRONG! IT CREATED A VACUUM SEAL! I CAN'T GET THE ANGLE TO BREAK IT!"

Brenden, in a moment of pure, blind panic that he too would deeply regret for the rest of his life, stepped in, grabbed the plastic body of the vacuum cleaner with both hands, and yanked it backward with all his strength.

Yanking it did not disengage the vacuum seal.

It simply pulled Jack's entire body forward three feet across the floor while tightening the suction seal tenfold.

Jack’s voice hit an octave so shockingly high, so horrifyingly sharp, that a framed piece of abstract modern art hanging on the hallway wall actually rattled against its nail.

"OFF! OFF! GET IT OFF ME! IT'S SUCTIONING MY ENTIRE BODY INSIDE! IT'S WORSE! IT'S SO MUCH WORSE!" Jack wept, tears streaming down his flushed cheeks.

"UNPLUG THE BATTERY! PULL THE BATTERY OUT!" Brenden screamed at Jared.

Jared slammed his thumb onto the battery release latch, ripping the lithium pack out of the base. The roaring motor finally sputtered and died, releasing the suction with a horrifying, wet POP sound.

Silence fell over the penthouse.

All three of them were drenched in sweat. None of them were capable of speaking in full sentences.

And the metal ring—if anything—looked angrier, tighter, and more permanently attached than it had twenty minutes ago. The skin around it was now a dark, deeply concerning shade of bruised plum that didn't look like it belonged on a living human being.

Jack lay on his knees and elbows on his own kitchen floor, both of his hands hovering uselessly an inch away from his ruined crotch. He was panting, sobbing softly, his blonde curls stuck to his sweaty forehead. He lifted his head slowly, looking up at his two best friends with the absolute, profound betrayal of a man who had trusted the wrong people with the absolute worst morning of his life.

"Get... the car," Jack croaked out, his voice weak and broken. "We're going... to the hospital."

"Which hospital?" Brenden asked immediately, grabbing his car keys off the counter with shaking hands. "Because we need to go to one far as fuck away from downtown where nobody knows your dad's name—"

"I DON'T CARE! JUST FUCKING DRIVE!" Jack bellowed, his voice breaking again.

Getting Jack out of the penthouse turned into another logistical nightmare. There was no way Jack could pull his tight designer jeans up over the swollen mass without triggering another wave of ear-splitting screams.

Desperate, Jared grabbed a pair of heavy-duty kitchen shears from the drawer and literally cut a massive, jagged, six-inch hole straight through the front crotch of Jack's three-hundred-dollar denim jeans.

Five minutes later, the elevator doors on the top floor opened.

The sight inside the elevator was pure, unadulterated comedy. Jack was being half-carried, half-dragged by Jared and Brenden. He was hunched forward at a ridiculous forty-five-degree angle, one arm slung heavily over Jared’s shoulder, the other over Brenden’s. He was wearing his bright blue Ralph Lauren polo, sweat-soaked and rumpled, paired with jeans that had a giant, jagged hole chopped into the crotch, revealing a bright purple, highly swollen catastrophe beneath.

All three of them looked like shell-shocked extras stepping off the set of a grueling war movie.

As the elevator doors closed, Jack caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirrored wall of the cab.

He looked wrecked. Sweat-drenched, tear-stained, red-faced, completely disgraced, and still—infuriatingly, painfully, unavoidably—trapped in the most embarrassing medical emergency known to mankind.

"If anyone sees me like this," Jack whimpered quietly as the elevator descended, "I'm going to kill both of you."

"Bro, look at yourself," Jared muttered, staring straight ahead at the elevator door numbers. "If anyone sees you like this, you're not going to have to kill us. You're going to have to move to another continent."

The Emergency Room at St. Jude's Memorial Hospital was packed for a Friday morning.

Triage nurses were moving between desks, elderly patients were sitting in wheelchairs, and several local citizens were waiting with minor injuries.

Suddenly, the automatic glass doors slid open with a loud whoosh.

In stumbled Jack Gray, flanked by his two sweating, frantic sidekicks. Jack was let out a low, pathetic whining sound with every single step he took, his knees knocked together, his posture completely collapsed as he tried to protect his exposed, holey jeans.

"HELP!" Jared yelled at the top of his lungs, dragging Jack toward the front intake desk. "WE NEED A DOCTOR! WE HAVE A CLASS-ONE CODE RED MEDICAL DISASTER HERE!"

Every single head in the waiting room turned.

An elderly woman in the front row put her reading glasses on, staring directly at Jack’s cut-open jeans. A young mother quickly covered her teenage daughter’s eyes. Two paramedic drivers sitting near the coffee machine stopped mid-sip, their eyes widening in absolute, stunned amusement.

The head triage nurse—a stern, no-nonsense woman in her thirties named Nurse Brenda—looked over her reading glasses at the three disheveled young men approaching her desk.

"Sir, calm down," Nurse Brenda said, her voice flat and unimpressed. "What seems to be the issue?"

Jack looked like he wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole. His cheeks burned with a blush so intense it reached the tips of his ears.

"I... I have an issue," Jack squeaked, his voice dropping into a tiny, pathetic register.

"You're going to need to be specific, honey," Nurse Brenda said, tapping her pen against her clipboard. "Is it an illness? An injury?"

"It's... it's a ring," Jared blurted out loudly, completely destroying whatever micro-gram of dignity Jack was trying to hold onto. "He's got a solid steel cock ring stuck on his dick and it's turning dark purple and we tried using a vacuum cleaner on it and now it's ten times worse!"

The entire waiting room went dead, stone silent.

You could have heard a pin drop on the linoleum floor.

The two paramedic drivers by the coffee machine instantly burst into loud, uncontrollable snorts of laughter, covering their mouths. A guy with a sprained wrist in the corner pulled out his phone, pretending to check a text while subtly angling his camera toward the trio.

Nurse Brenda didn't even blink. She simply looked down at Jack’s cut-open jeans, took in the swollen, dark purple disaster peeking through the frayed denim threads, and let out a long, exhausted sigh.

"Right," Nurse Brenda said calmly, reaching over to press an intercom button on her desk. "Dr. Evans, we have another one in Triage Room 3. Bring the heavy-duty bolt cutters and the ice lubricant. Yeah. Another one."

Jack closed his eyes, leaning his sweaty forehead against the cold edge of the intake desk, tears of pure, unadulterated humiliation slipping down his face.

He was no longer the King of the Night.

He was no longer the Untouchable Prince of the City.

He was just a pathetic, crying twenty-three-year-old boy in ruined designer clothes, standing in a public emergency room with a vacuum-damaged priapism, while two bored paramedics laughed at him and an elderly woman shook her head in utter disgust.

And miles across the city, sitting together in the quiet corner of a dimly lit coffee shop, Adaline and Freya raised their ceramic mugs in a silent, victorious toast.

.

.

It had been a full seven days since the emergency room disaster, and Jack Gray still couldn't look at a cordless vacuum cleaner without his entire body flinching in violent, involuntary PTSD.

Every single time he walked past the utility closet near his luxury kitchen, his eye would twitch. If he heard the high-pitched whine of a neighbor’s appliance through the walls, a cold, phantom ache would immediately shoot through his lower belly.

The emergency room doctor—a hardened woman in her late thirties named Dr. Evans, who possessed zero sympathy and a jawline carved out of solid judgment—had spent forty-five agonizing minutes cutting the seamless steel ring off his organ with a high-speed miniature rotary saw and heavy-duty jewelry bolt cutters. The whole time, she had muttered under her breath about "spoiled young men and their brilliant life choices," while Jared and Brenden sat out in the hallway, completely banned from the treatment room because their tearful vacuum cleaner confession had made two junior nurses laugh so hard they had to be excused from duty.

Physically, Jack had healed after a couple of days. The deep purple bruising had faded back to his normal skin tone, and the swelling had receded.

Mentally, however, he was a completely ruined man.

He hadn't told a single soul the true story of how that ring ended up on him. He had spun a vague, elaborate, god-like story about a "wild, multi-partner night" that simply "got a little too extreme," letting Jared and Brenden construct a whole mythology around his endurance. He let them believe it because their absurd, heroic mythology was infinitely less humiliating than the terrifying, cold-hard truth: somebody had snuck into his penthouse, drugged his drink, slipped a solid steel vice grip onto his manhood, and left him to suffer.

Somebody had done this to him on purpose.

He had no idea who. He had no idea why. And the sheer, unknowable mystery of it sat in the pit of his stomach like a lead weight that wouldn't dissolve. For the first time in his twenty-three years of effortless, golden-boy existence, Jack Gray had felt truly, hopelessly powerless—and the psychological bruise was infinitely deeper than the physical one.

Which was precisely why, exactly seven days later, Jack found himself standing on the carpeted top-floor hallway outside Adaline’s apartment building.

He had a bouquet of expensive pink peonies—her favorite flowers—held tightly in his right hand. He was wearing a fresh bright blue Ralph Lauren polo shirt, a pair of dark designer jeans he’d bought to replace the pair Jared had chopped up with kitchen shears, and his blonde hair was carefully, artfully tousled. His jaw was clenched tight, his shoulders squared, doing his absolute level best to fake the swagger of a king reclaiming his throne.

She's soft, Jack reminded himself repeatedly as he stood before her wooden door, taking a deep, steadying breath. Adaline is soft. She's easy. She's submissive. She'll fix this.

He desperately needed an easy win. He needed a woman who looked at him like he was a god, because right now, his god status felt like it was slipping through his fingers. He needed to hear her gentle voice, feel her soft body beneath him, and reassure his bruised ego that he was still the undisputed Prince of the City.

He reached out to knock, but before his knuckles could even touch the wood, the front door clicked open.

Adaline was standing there.

Jack’s hand froze mid-air. Something about her face instantly stopped him on the threshold.

She wasn't smiling her usual soft, blushing, grateful smile—the little, nervous smile that always made Jack feel ten feet tall and completely in control. She looked unusually pale. Her expression was solemn, heavy, and unreadable. Her hands were clasped tightly together in front of her stomach, her long fingers twisting her oversized knit sweater's hem.

"Hey, baby," Jack started, forcing his trademark slick, handsome smirk back onto his face as he held out the flowers. "Brought you these. Thought we could—"

"Jack."

Her voice wasn't loud, but it was flat and sharp enough to cut clean through his sentence like a straight razor.

Jack blinked. "Yeah? What's up?"

Adaline looked straight into his bright blue eyes, her own blue eyes wide, glassy, and completely unblinking.

"We're going to have a baby."

Silence instantly swallowed the entire hallway.

The bouquet of pink peonies hung suspended in the air between them for two full seconds before Jack’s fingers simply forgot how to hold them. The flowers tumbled out of his grip, crashing onto the dirty welcome mat, pink petals scattering across the floor like blood drops at a crime scene.

Jack’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

Every single muscle in his handsome face seemed to lose connection with his brain, sliding around independently into an expression of pure, bug-eyed, uncomprehending horror. The color completely drained out of his cheeks, leaving him as pale as the hallway wall.

"...What?" he croaked.

"I'm pregnant," Adaline said softly.

Jack swallowed, but his throat was bone dry. He felt a sudden, violent ringing in his ears, like a flashbang grenade had just detonated inside his skull.

"But—" His voice came out high, strangled, and thin. "But... you're on the pill! You told me you were on birth control! You literally told me three months ago that you were on the pill!"

"Things happen, Jack," Adaline said quietly. There was something sitting right beneath her soft tone—something cold, steady, and terrifyingly watchful that he was far too panicked to notice. "No birth control is one hundred percent effective. You know that. Mistakes happen."

"That's not—that's not how—" Jack stammered, stepping across the threshold into her apartment without being invited, his hands flying to his head. "I need you to be sure! Are you actually sure?! Did you take one of those cheap dollar-store tests?! Because those give false positives all the time, Adaline! You probably just had a hormonal spike or something!"

"I took three home tests, Jack," Adaline replied calmly, closing the front door behind him with a soft, decisive click. "And then I went to the downtown health clinic yesterday afternoon for an official blood test. The nurse called me this morning. It's real, Jack. I'm pregnant."

Jack stood completely frozen in the center of her small living room. The afternoon sunlight streaming through the window did absolutely nothing to warm the arctic ice rapidly spreading from his chest down to his feet.

Deep down in the darkest, most terrifying recesses of his brain, a single word was screaming on a continuous, frantic loop: NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

"You don't seem very excited," Adaline murmured, stepping closer to him. She looked up into his pale, sweat-sheened face with an expression he couldn't quite decipher—it looked like hurt, but underneath it lay something patient and calculated, like a chess player watching their opponent walk directly into a checkmate they had set up ten moves ago.

"I'm—I'm just processing," Jack managed to choke out, his eyes darting frantically around her room like he was looking for a fire escape. "This is a lot. This is... this is really fucking fast, Adaline."

"Maybe it's a sign," Adaline said gently, reaching out and wrapping both of her small, warm hands around his ice-cold fingers. "Maybe it's the universe telling us that things need to move forward. Faster. Honestly... I've been wanting to talk to you about our future anyway, Jack. I don't want to just be your secret girlfriend anymore. I want more. I want real commitment. And now..."

She lifted his limp, trembling hand and pressed his palm directly against her flat stomach.

Jack flinched violently, his whole arm jerking back like her sweater was made of red-hot iron. Cold sweat broke out across his forehead, soaking into his blonde hair.

"...now we don't really have a choice, do we?" Adaline continued softly, her voice dripping with sweet, suffocating poison. "I think I should move into your penthouse. This weekend, even. We should be together for this. We need to start building our home."

"Move... in?" Jack repeated. The words barely made it out of his throat, sounding like they belonged to a dying man.

"It only makes sense, baby," Adaline smiled warmly. "You have that huge three-bedroom place. I can turn one of the guest rooms into a nursery."

Jack didn't remember the next thirty seconds. He stood in the middle of her apartment while his brain did frantic, useless, mathematical gymnastics—nine months. Nine months. A baby. A nursery. A stroller in my penthouse. A crying kid.

His entire life—his party lifestyle, his freedom, his luxury, his status as the city's most desirable bachelor—was flashing before his eyes, burning to ash in real-time.

And then, the only exit his desperate, selfish brain could possibly construct presented itself. It was clear, obvious, and in his mind, completely reasonable.

"Look," Jack said, his voice climbing an octave higher than normal, completely abandoning his smooth, masculine purr. "Look, Adaline... I think—I think we really need to talk about not keeping it."

Adaline blinked at him. For just a fraction of a second, something flickered behind her blue eyes—a sharp, lethal spark of pure triumph—before she smoothed her face back into an expression of deeply wounded confusion.

"You want me to get an abortion?" she asked flatly.

"I'm not saying forever!" Jack lied frantically, waving his hands in the air. "I'm just saying right now isn't—the timing is fucking insane, Adaline! My dad is literally in the middle of a mayoral campaign! There's so much media attention on my family right now! We can't have a scandal like this!"

"Scandal?" Adaline repeated, tilting her head. Her voice suddenly sounded devastatingly, terrifyingly innocent. "Why would our baby be a scandal, Jack? Isn't your family pro-life?"

Jack froze. His breath caught in his lungs.

"Your dad literally gave a massive speech about this exact thing last week," Adaline said softly, pulling her phone out of her sweater pocket. "It was on live television. Thousands of people were cheering for him. Remember?"

Jack watched in mounting, paralyzing horror as Adaline scrolled through her phone, tapped a video file, and hit play.

The penthouse-quality audio speaker on her phone blared out the crystal-clear, deep baritone voice of Alexander Gray—Jack's father—echoing through the small apartment:

"...A woman who knows she cannot simply murder her way out of her sins will think twice before spreading her thighs for every smooth-talking boy who buys her a shot at a club! Abortion is not healthcare! It is the ultimate escape hatch for reckless, sinful, whoreish behavior! We must ban it completely! No exceptions! No loopholes!"

"Okay! Turn it off! Turn it the fuck off!" Jack shrieked, lunging forward to swipe at her phone.

Adaline casually pulled her phone back out of his reach, pausing the video with a light tap of her thumb. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and curious.

"Well... yeah, but..." Jack started.

And then he had absolutely nothing to follow it with.

His mouth hung open, suspended in the air. He was completely, utterly trapped. There was not a single sentence in the English language that could come out of his mouth next that wouldn't make him an absolute hypocrite, a coward, and a monster in front of the woman holding his entire future in her hands. He had cheered for his father's speech. He had called women who got abortions "sluts cleaning up their disgusting messes."

And now, faced with the exact same reality, he was begging for the exact same "escape hatch."

"I'm keeping the baby, Jack," Adaline said simply, tucking her phone back into her pocket like a high-powered prosecutor who had just delivered the final closing argument in a murder trial. Which, in a very real way, she had.

"I'm not—I'm not ready to be a dad!" Jack wept, his voice actually cracking on the word. Genuine, unvarnished, pathetic panic bled through his polish for the first time in his life. "I'm twenty-three! I don't—Adaline, I don't even know how a residential washing machine works! How the fuck am I supposed to take care of a human infant?!"

"You have nine months to learn," Adaline replied with a sweet, immovable smile that sent a shiver of absolute terror straight down Jack's spine.

Jack began to pace frantically across her small rug. He ran both hands through his blonde hair, tearing at his curls until they stood up in chaotic, messy spikes that his twenty-minute morning routine had never intended. He was experiencing the violent, dizzying vertigo of a man watching the solid ground disintegrate beneath his feet in real-time.

"Also," Adaline added casually, watching him spiral with an expression of pure, gentle sympathy, "I think we should get married before I start showing."

Jack stopped dead in his tracks. He slowly turned his head to look at her, his eyes bulging out of his head.

"What?" he squeaked.

"A wedding," Adaline said, clapping her hands together softly. "We need to get married quickly. I want a real ring, Jack. Solid diamond. Not something cheap. And I've always dreamed of a huge wedding—tents, string lights, expensive catering, a country club venue. Your dad is rich. He can easily afford it. Plus, a wholesome shotgun wedding looks amazing for his political campaign, doesn't it? 'Young couple choosing traditional family values.' His voters will love it!"

Jack simply stood there, his mouth opening and closing without sound, looking like a fish that had been yanked out of the ocean and thrown onto hot asphalt.

Fifteen minutes later, Jack stumbled back down the stairs to the street level, his mind retreating into a dark, cold, calculating space. The blinding panic was beginning to curdle into something that felt—to his delusional brain—almost like a survival strategy.

Okay, he thought, his hands shaking violently as he fumbled to light a cigarette he didn't even remember pulling from his pocket. Okay. Think, Jack. Think. This doesn't have to be the end of your life. You play along. You marry her quietly. You ride out the campaign. You keep dad happy. You play the doting father-to-be for the cameras if you have to. And the second the election is over and the media spotlight moves on... you get out. Divorce. Quiet financial settlement. A non-disclosure agreement. Nobody ever has to know it was real.

It was, in the specific, unhinged logic of a spoiled twenty-three-year-old who had never once faced a consequence he couldn't buy or lie his way out of, a plan. It was a terrible, delusional plan, but it gave his drowning brain something to hold onto.

There was just one massive, glaring, immediate problem standing in his way.

Freya.

He needed to end things with Freya. Immediately. Tonight. Before this toxic web got any messier than it already was. He couldn't risk Freya finding out about Adaline's pregnancy or the wedding plans.

Jack threw himself into his luxury sports car, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached, rehearsing the breakup speech in his head the entire drive across town. Something clean. Something firm. 'Freya, you're amazing, but I'm just not in a place for commitment right now. I need space.'

He was so consumed by his own internal rehearsal that he didn't even notice the bouquet of pink peonies sitting on his passenger seat—crushed, wilted, and missing half their petals—until he was already walking up the steps to Freya's apartment building.

He knocked hard on Freya's door. Three sharp, decisive taps.

The door swung open almost instantly.

Freya was standing there wearing his old washed-black oversized college hoodie. The second her eyes landed on Jack, a massive, radiant, breathless smile split her face. Before he could even open his mouth to deliver the first word of his carefully rehearsed breakup speech, Freya threw her arms around his neck and hugged him so fiercely he nearly lost his balance.

"I was literally about to call you!" Freya squealed into his shoulder, practically vibrating with excitement. "I have news, Jack! I have huge fucking news!"

"Freya, wait—" Jack stammered, trying to gently push her back by her shoulders. "Freya, I actually really need to talk to you first—"

"Me too, but mine is way bigger, trust me!" She pulled back, beaming up at him, her dark eyes bright and glossy. She grabbed both of his cold hands, squeezing them tight. "I've felt so sick this entire past week—like, genuinely nauseous and exhausted—and I finally took a test this morning because my roommate forced me to..."

Jack's heart instantly stopped beating. The blood in his veins turned to liquid nitrogen.

"...and Jack," Freya whispered, her smile stretching wider. "I'm pregnant."

The entire universe tilted on its axis. The ceiling seemed to drop six feet.

"No," Jack blurted out instantly. The word flew out of his throat before his brain could filter it—raw, hideous, and unfiltered. "No. No, you can't—you cannot do this—"

Freya's radiant smile faltered slightly, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Do what? Jack, this isn't something I 'did,' it's—"

"NO!" Jack roared, tearing his hands out of her grip and backing away from her doorway into the carpeted hallway, pressing both palms against the sides of his head like he was physically trying to hold his skull together. "This is not happening! This cannot be happening twice in one fucking week! This is insane! This is actually fucking insane!"

Freya froze. Her expression shifted instantly, her eyes narrowing into two sharp, lethal slits as the joy drained out of her face in real-time.

"Twice?" Freya's voice dropped an octave, going deathly quiet. "What do you mean 'twice,' Jack?"

Jack was too far gone to register the bear trap snapping shut around his leg. He was spiraling out of control, pacing in tight, frantic circles on her welcome mat, hyperventilating, the unfiltered, ugly truth pouring out of his mouth in a frantic torrent he couldn't stop.

"You need to get rid of it!" Jack screamed, pointing a shaking finger directly at her stomach like it was a loaded weapon pointed at his face. "Both of you—I mean—you just need to take care of it, okay?! I'll pay for everything! I'll give you cash! Whatever clinic you want, whatever doctor, I'll write the check right now! Just—you cannot do this to me right now! You stupid—this cannot be fucking real!"

"Excuse me?" Freya said. Her voice was terrifyingly still. It was the kind of quiet that should have triggered every survival instinct Jack possessed, but his brain was completely fried.

"I need you to get an abortion!" Jack shrieked, his voice cracking violently on the last word, hysteria bleeding through every syllable. "I need you to do it fast! Quietly! Before anyone finds out! Because I cannot have two different women pregnant with my—"

"TWO?!" Freya's scream echoed through the entire apartment hallway like a thunderclap, making Jack jump two feet into the air. "There's another one?! Who?! WHO IS SHE, JACK?!"

"Nothing! I just slipped!" Jack lied frantically, waving his hands wildly. "There's no other girl! I just meant—I meant getting pregnant twice is crazy! You're the only one!"

His silence after that was answer enough. The lie was so pathetic, so poorly executed, that it practically screamed the truth.

Freya stared at him. The soft, dreamy girl in his old hoodie vanished completely. Her jaw set into a hard, stone-cold line that looked like it could cut through bulletproof glass.

"Get out," she said softly.

Jack took a half-step back, sighing in relief. "Okay, look, Freya, let's just calm down and—"

"No," Freya interrupted, stepping out into the hallway, her dark eyes locking onto his with absolute, unyielding malice. "Actually... no. You know what, Jack? If you don't marry me, I'm going public."

Jack stopped breathing. "...What?"

"If you do not marry me before I start showing," Freya said, her voice slow, smooth, and steady, "I will personally go to every single television news outlet, newspaper, and political blog covering your father's campaign. I will give them full interviews. I will show them our text messages, our voice notes, and the pregnancy test. I will tell the entire city that the son of the 'Family Values' candidate knocked me up and tried to pay me off for a secret abortion. I will make sure it airs the week right before the primary election."

Jack stared at her. His chest heaved up and down. He felt the very last piece of solid ground beneath his feet crumble away into a bottomless abyss.

"...Okay," Jack heard himself say. It was a tiny, defeated, completely pathetic squeak. "Okay. I'll... I'll marry you."

Jack didn't remember the drive back to his penthouse either.

He sat on the edge of his massive, expensive bed for twenty full minutes, holding his iPhone in his hand, his eyes staring blankly at the wall while cold sweat dripped off his jawline.

Finally, with his hands shaking so violently he could barely tap the screen, he dialed Jared.

"Bro," Jared answered on the second ring, his voice sounding muffled through what was clearly a massive mouthful of cereal. "What's up? You coming over to watch the game?"

"I need help," Jack whispered. His voice was thin, raspy, and cracking. "I need actual help, Jared. Right fucking now."

"Uh... okay?" Jared said, still chewing. "What happened?"

Jack explained it in broken, panicked fragments. The words tumbled out of his mouth in a frantic, out-of-order mess—Adaline... the baby... the wedding... moving in... Freya... the other baby... the other wedding... the media threat... going public...

On the other end of the line, the sound of Jared chewing slowly, visibly came to a complete halt.

Silence stretched across the phone line for five agonizing seconds.

"...Bro," Jared said finally, his tone devoid of its usual arrogant laughter. "I don't—I genuinely don't know what to tell you, man. You're fucked."

"THAT'S NOT HELPFUL!" Jack roared into the speaker, tears of pure rage springing into his eyes. "YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A SOLUTION!"

Brenden, who was apparently sitting right next to Jared on speakerphone, chimed in with all the intellectual problem-solving skill of a goldfish.

"Could you, like... just marry both of them secretly and hope nobody finds out?" Brenden asked earnestly.

"THAT'S BIGAMY, BRENDEN!" Jack screamed, his voice hitting a screeching octave. "THAT IS AN ACTUAL FEDERAL FELONY! I WOULD GO TO ACTUAL PRISON!"

"Hey, man, I'm just spitballing ideas—" Brenden muttered defensively.

Jack slammed the red end-call button on his screen, throwing the phone onto the mattress. He sat alone in the silent, glass-walled luxury of his master bedroom, staring at his reflection in the gilded bathroom mirror across the room. He looked like a ghost. Sweat-stained, wide-eyed, completely unravelling.

And then, because there was genuinely nowhere else left to turn—because he had spent his entire life outsourcing every mistake, every crime, and every consequence to someone with more money and power than him—he did the only thing he knew how to do when his life slipped out of his control.

He called his father.

Alexander Gray answered on the second ring. His voice was sharp, distracted, and echoing with the sound of a bustling campaign office in the background.

"Jackson," Alexander barked into the receiver. "Make it quick. I have a meeting with the police union donors in five minutes."

"Dad," Jack choked out. "Dad... I made a mistake. A really bad mistake."

"What did you do?" Alexander asked, his tone dropping instantly into irritation. "Did you get another speeding ticket? Did you break something in the car?"

"I... I got a girl pregnant," Jack confessed, his voice trembling like a frightened child's. "Actually... dad... I got two girls pregnant."

There was a long, terrible, suffocating silence on the line.

The background noise of the campaign office on Alexander's end seemed to fade away completely.

"What did you just say?" Alexander asked. His voice had dropped into a register Jack had never heard directed at him before in his entire life. It wasn't the loud, booming, moral baritone from the campaign podium. It was low, ice-cold, controlled, and utterly lethal.

"Two girls," Jack sobbed softly, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Adaline and Freya. They're both pregnant, dad. And they both want to get married before they start showing, or Freya is going to go to the news outlets right before the primary—"

"You absolute, worthless piece of shit," Alexander whispered into the phone.

Jack flinched as if he had been slapped across the face. "Dad, please—"

"Two women?!" Alexander’s voice rose into a cold, terrifying hiss. "Ten days before the primary election?! Are you understanding the words coming out of your mouth right now, Jackson?! Do you have any concept—any concept at all—of what this does to my campaign if a single word of this leaks to the press?!"

"I didn't mean for it to happen—"

"I don't give a damn about what you meant!" Alexander snapped, the sound of his fist slamming hard onto a wooden desk echoing through the phone line. "I have spent eighteen months building a political campaign on the exact moral platform that you have spent the same eighteen months personally torching! I am out here telling voters that modern youth are degenerates who need traditional family discipline, and my own son is out here knocking up two women at the same time like a common street dog!"

"Dad, you have to help me buy them off!" Jack pleaded, tears slipping down his face. "Give me money! I can offer them cash settlements—"

"Listen to me very carefully, Jackson," Alexander commanded, his tone so cold it froze Jack's blood solid. "You will fix this. Quietly. I do not care how you do it. I do not care what promises you make. But if a single whisper of this touches my campaign—if my opponents get a hold of this story—I swear on my life, I will cut you off from every single cent of this family's money so fast your head will spin."

"Dad, no—"

"No more penthouse," Alexander listed coldly. "No more credit cards. No more luxury cars. No trust fund. I will disown you publicly, label you a rogue addict, and throw your broke ass onto the street. Do you understand me, Jackson? Fix it. Or you don't exist to me anymore."

The line went dead with a sharp click.

Jack sat on his bed, holding the silent phone to his ear, his whole body shaking with uncontrollable tremors.

Over the next three days, Jack tried to use the one tool that had never failed him a single time in his twenty-three years of life: money.

On Tuesday afternoon, he arranged to meet Adaline at a quiet coffee shop downtown.

He sat across from her in a dark wooden booth, his face pale, his eyes surrounded by dark purple circles from three nights of zero sleep. He didn't look at her face. He kept his eyes glued to the dark wood of the table as he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a folded personal check, and slid it across the surface toward her.

"This should cover everything," Jack said, his voice flat, exhausted, and businesslike. "The private clinic downtown. The procedure. Recovery. Everything. I'll even drive you there and wait in the parking lot if you want. We just... we forget this ever happened, Adaline. And I'll still take care of you financially after. I'm not trying to be a bad guy here. Just take the check."

Adaline looked down at the paper check resting near her ceramic mug. The number written on it was $50,000.

She looked back up at Jack's haggard face. Then, she smiled—a soft, sad, sweet, and utterly immovable smile.

She slowly slid the check right back across the table to his side.

"I don't want your money, Jack," Adaline said softly. "I want a wedding."

On Thursday evening, Jack tried the exact same strategy with Freya.

He met her in the secluded back corner of a dimly lit grocery store parking lot, standing near his sports car while the cool evening air whipped through his hair. His voice was low, raspy, and desperate in a way King Jack had never been forced to be with anyone in his entire life.

"I'll set you up, Freya," Jack pleaded, his hands trembling as he reached into his car and pulled out a signed legal agreement his dad's corrupt paralegal had secretly drafted for him. "A luxury condo downtown. A brand new SUV. A monthly allowance of ten grand for the next five years. You'll never have to worry about rent or money ever again, I swear to God! Just... please, Freya, we don't have to do the wedding thing! Just sign the non-disclosure and take the condo!"

Freya crossed her athletic arms over her chest, leaning back against her car door. She looked at him with an expression of perfect, patient, terrifying calm.

She didn't even touch the legal paper.

"I want a wedding, Jack," Freya said, her voice dropping into an icy register. "And I want it before I start showing. You have four days to set a date, or I call the local news station."

She got into her car, slammed the door, and drove away, leaving Jack standing alone in the dark, empty parking lot.

Jack drove back to his penthouse in absolute, deafening silence, both of his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned stark white.

When he finally unlocked his front door and stepped into the quiet entryway of his apartment, he didn't even make it to the couch.

His knees simply gave out.

Jack Gray collapsed right there on the cold, polished marble floor of his entryway. He dragged his knees up to his chest, leaned his back against the heavy front door, buried his face in his hands, and began to weep.

He cried like a terrified, helpless child. Loud, shuddering, pathetic sobs echoed off the tall quartz and glass walls of his multi-million-dollar kingdom.

Two weddings. Two women claiming to carry his children. A father ready to strip him of his wealth and erase him from existence with a single phone call. No money, no charm, no smooth fuckboy line was going to save him this time. For the first time in his entire gilded, untouchable life, Jack Gray had hit a brick wall. He was trapped, broken, and completely out of options.

And then, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

Jack flinched, wiping his tear-stained face with the back of his hand, and pulled the device out.

It was a text message from Adaline.

Adaline: Hey Jack... I've been thinking a lot about what you said at the coffee shop. I think I reacted too fast. I'm scared, and I realize a wedding might be a mistake for both of us right now.

Jack’s breath caught in his throat. He sat straight up on the cold floor, his eyes widening as he read the words over and over again.

Adaline: My mom has an old abandoned ranch out in the country—about forty minutes outside the city. Nobody goes out there. It's completely private. If you come meet me there tonight, just the two of us, we can talk about going to the clinic quietly. I think I'm ready to agree to the procedure.

A massive, overwhelming wave of pure, unfiltered euphoria washed over Jack’s battered chest.

"Yes..." Jack gasped out loud to the empty apartment, tears of relief flooding his eyes. "Yes! Oh my God, yes!"

It was a miracle. The universe had delivered his escape hatch. Adaline had broken down. She was going to take the check, get the abortion, and save his life. Once Adaline was taken care of, he could focus all his energy and money on handling Freya.

Jack scrambled up from the marble floor, wiping his eyes, a wild, breathless, ecstatic smile spreading across his face. He grabbed his car keys off the kitchen island, adjusting his Ralph Lauren polo shirt in the hallway mirror.

He felt like King Jack again. The Prince had survived.

He ran out of his penthouse, sprinted to the elevator, and drove his luxury sports car out of the parking garage, speeding down the highway toward the dark, isolated countryside.

He was happy. He was relieved.

And he was completely, wildly, perfectly blind to the brutal nightmare waiting for him in the dark.