Chapter 1

My boyfriend, Julian, told me that once our paper got published in a top-tier journal, we would go public with our relationship.

For that promise, I practically lived in the lab day and night. For a whole year, I ran every single experiment, analyzed all the data, and wrote the entire manuscript. I did all the heavy lifting.

But when the final draft was submitted, my name was gone.

In its place was Chloe, a junior student who had joined our lab just two months ago.

"You were just helping out. It wasn't a substantial contribution," Julian said, his tone casual, as if he were talking about the weather.

At the lab group dinner, he held Chloe's hand and announced they were dating. Yet he couldn't even look me in the eye.

It turned out that my year of blood, sweat, and tears was nothing more than a bargaining chip for him to win over another girl.

Fine. Since you want to play dirty, I'm going to take back everything that belongs to me. Personally.

"Sera, I sent the final draft of the paper to your email. Take a look."

Julian stood at the lab door, holding a freshly bought iced Americano. He spoke in a tone so casual it made my blood run cold.

I looked up, moving my eyes away from the microscope.

"The final draft? We haven't even finished the last round of data validation. How is it already finalized?"

"It's good enough," he took a sip of his coffee. "Chloe urgently needs this paper to apply for a conference. We're out of time."

Chloe Evans.

That name had been popping up more and more over the last two months.

She was a first-year Master's student our advisor had recently taken in. She was pretty, soft-spoken, and always wore a sickeningly sweet perfume whenever she came to the lab.

"She's submitting it to a conference? I did the core experiments for this paper. I built the entire data model."

I stood up, staring at him. "What exactly did Chloe do?"

Julian's face tightened with impatience.

"Sera, you need to look at the bigger picture. Chloe just joined the lab and needs some achievements to get her foot in the door. You're already in your final year. You don't need this paper as much as she does."

"Why wouldn't I need it? From the research design to the experiments, from data collection to model validation—I spent an entire year on this. Tell me, what right does she have to put her name on it?"

He didn't answer. He just set his coffee on my desk, turned around, and walked out.

I stood there, my hands gripping my lab notebook so hard my knuckles turned white.

That night, I opened my laptop and checked my email.

There it was. The final draft.

On the very first page, in the author section:

My name was completely gone from the main authors.

First Author: Chloe Evans.

Second Author: Julian Carter.

My name only appeared at the very end, in the acknowledgments section, in tiny font: With assistance from Sera Miller for data collection.

"Assistance." I stared at the word for a long, long time.

A year ago, Julian came to me saying he wanted to do a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary project.

He said if we pulled it off, we could get published in a top-tier journal.

He said we would co-author it together.

He said once it got published, we would finally tell everyone we were dating.

And like a fool, I believed him.

I buried myself in the lab for a year, spending every single weekend running simulations.

Meanwhile, his only job was writing the literature review and adjusting the formatting. I did all the actual work.

And now, the results were out, and I was reduced to mere "assistance."

My phone buzzed. It was a Snapchat message from Julian.

"Sera, Chloe is confused about some data. Can you help her look over it tomorrow?"

I locked my screen and didn't reply.

Outside the window, the night was as black as ink.

The next morning, when I walked into the lab, Chloe was already sitting at my desk.

She was wearing a pastel yellow dress, her long hair draped over her shoulders, chewing on her pen while staring at my monitor.

Seeing me walk in, she immediately flashed a sweet, innocent smile.

"Sera! You're finally here!"

"You're in my seat," I said, standing right in front of her.