Chapter 4

Ethan announced he was going out of town for an "important project." Naturally, Chloe tagged along.

I knew exactly what that project was.

Either an illegal drag race, or a dirty weekend getaway with Chloe.

I didn't care.

He still called me every day at the same time, his voice dripping with that fake, mandatory warmth to prove he still "cared" about me.

Until one day, during a call, a loud, breathless female voice echoed in the background.

"Ethan, hurry up..."

It was Chloe.

Her voice was thick with temptation and impatience.

Ethan's tone instantly panicked. He snapped something at her, and the call was abruptly cut off.

*Beep— Beep—*

The dial tone buzzed in my ear.

I stared at my phone, expressionless. My heart didn't even skip a beat.

With him gone, the studio was finally quiet. I opened his laptop and smoothly typed in his password.

I opened the hidden folders he thought no one knew about: videos of his illegal street races, dangerous drifts, near-miss crashes.

And...

The original design files that I had poured my soul into, all saved under his name.

The progress bar for the file transfer crept forward, ticking down the seconds to my freedom.

With every file copied, I took one step closer to escaping this prison.

I also started digging into his "important project."

Every document, every scrap of data pointed to a specific, blurry date.

The "100th act."

What was he planning?

I uncovered records of the massive debts he owed to loan sharks for his racing habits. Though his old debts were supposedly settled, the contact numbers of those dangerous syndicates were still active on his phone logs.

Slowly, a plan began to take shape.

I would use his own madness to destroy him.