For two years, my fiancé Aaron controlled my life with a sick, suffocating rule: if my phone battery dropped below fifty percent, all our plans would be immediately canceled. He claimed it was to cure my habit of procrastination. At my twenty-sixth birthday party, my battery showed forty-nine percent. With all my friends gathered and the candles on the cake already lit, Aaron coldly canceled our private room right in front of everyone. "Rules are rules, Audrey," he said, completely ignoring my burning humiliation. "Missing one birthday will finally teach you a lesson." On Thanksgiving, he was supposed to make his first formal visit to my parents. My mother had been cooking since dawn. Halfway there, Aaron's female best friend, Bella, sent a text: "My phone is dying. I'm alone at the airport and so scared." Aaron slammed on the brakes and immediately turned the car around. "My parents are still waiting at home," I reminded him. He just sped up and yelled, "Her phone is dying! What if she loses contact?" When we rushed into the airport terminal, I watched Bella throw herself into his arms. Aaron quickly pulled out his power bank, charging her phone with a tenderness he had never shown me. But as her screen lit up, I clearly saw the battery icon: ninety-eight percent. Aaron just smiled indulgently and tapped her nose. "Next time, don't scare me like this," he whispered softly. I looked down at my fully charged battery and dialed the billionaire tech CEO who had been quietly loving me for four entire years. "Are you still willing to marry me right now?" Chapter 1 Audrey POV: I took a taxi back from the airport alone. When I pushed open the front door, the dining table was carefully set with my mother's most treasured crystal goblets. The food had already been reheated for the second time. "Mom, don't wait anymore. He isn't coming," I said softly. Just as I sat down, the doorbell rang. Aaron and Bella stood on the porch. Bella was holding the expensive box of imported pastries my parents had specifically prepared as a gift for Aaron. "I'm so sorry, Audrey, I was starving on the way here," Bella said, opening the box to reveal that half the pastries were already gone. "I didn't know this was a gift for Aaron, so I just opened it and ate a few." Aaron frowned, took the box from her hands, and placed it casually on the side table. "It's just a few pastries, Audrey, it's not a big deal," Aaron said smoothly. "Today's delay was my fault, don't take your anger out on Bella." I looked at him, feeling it was utterly ridiculous. "It's Thanksgiving, and it was your first time formally meeting my parents." "Those are two different things," Aaron replied, his tone already laced with impatience. "Your phone was fully charged, and you could contact your family anytime. Bella thought she was going to lose contact with the world back then." "Her phone battery was clearly at ninety-eight percent, while my parents waited bitterly at home for hours!" I clenched my fists, my voice trembling uncontrollably with anger. "You are blowing things out of proportion again, Audrey," Aaron snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. "Your narrow-minded jealousy is suffocating. Bella wanted to make it up to you, and she even specifically offered to host a dinner for our friend group tomorrow night. Instead of being grateful, you are using this as an excuse to make an unreasonable scene!" Bella stepped half a pace forward, her large, watery eyes quickly filling with tears. "It's all my fault, Aaron..." Bella sobbed, tugging at Aaron's sleeve. "I shouldn't have come. I always mess things up for Audrey..." "You don't need to apologize to them, Bella," Aaron softened his tone, shielding her as they walked toward the car without even glancing at me again. "Some people just don't know how to appreciate anything, treating other people's kindness like dirt." He drove off into the distance without even saying a word of goodbye to my parents. The next evening, Bella really did book a private room at a high-end hotpot restaurant. The moment the soup base was brought to the table, I froze. The spicy red broth was entirely filled with shrimp and crab. "Aaron specifically told me to order this signature seafood broth!" Bella announced cheerfully, waving a ladle. "He said it's the most authentic soup base they have!" I put down my chopsticks. "I have a severe seafood allergy." Aaron, who was busy mixing a dipping sauce for Bella, didn't even lift an eyelid. "Can't you just rinse it in water before you eat?" "Don't make the kitchen change the entire pot over such a small thing and ruin everyone's appetite. Can you stop being so high-maintenance?" Saying that, he pulled a printed spreadsheet from his pocket and slapped it onto the center of the dining table for everyone to see. "Speaking of being high-maintenance," Aaron sneered, raising an eyebrow at his group of male friends. "Last week on Audrey's birthday, she actually managed to let her phone battery drain to forty-nine percent. Look at this monthly tracking log. She always treats my battery management rules like nothing." The whole table instantly erupted into a burst of mocking laughter and ridicule. "Aaron, you are way too detailed," one of his buddies said with a laugh. "Audrey definitely needs to be punished today." Bella smiled at me innocently. "Audrey, Aaron is so strict with you. But this is all for your own good!" Another person chimed in: "Then the punishment should be Audrey peeling a whole plate of crabs for Bella!" I gripped my chopsticks tightly, my voice icy: "I am not peeling them." Aaron looked up, his face instantly darkening. "It's just a meal, Audrey, do you really have to be this hysterical?" Everyone around the table was staring at me. They were all waiting for me to lower my head and compromise. Finally, I put on the plastic gloves and pulled that heavy plate of crabs in front of me. The crab shells were extremely sharp. When I forcefully pried one open, the razor-sharp edge sliced deep into my thumb. I gasped in pain, my hand jerking violently. Bright red blood instantly welled up, staining the white crab meat. I grabbed a paper napkin and pressed it hard against the wound, not making a single sound. Aaron didn't notice at all. He was completely focused on putting meatballs onto Bella's plate, gently asking her if she wanted some more sesame sauce. Suddenly, a tiny drop of hot oil splashed out of the pot. Bella let out a delicate "Ouch!" Aaron instantly sprang up from his chair, grabbed her hand, and dragged her toward the restroom in sheer panic. "Where did it burn you? Let me see!" he roared anxiously. I pulled two rough tissues from the tissue box, tightly wrapped my bleeding thumb, and applied hard pressure under the table to stop the bleeding. A young busboy clearing plates nearby noticed the wound on my hand, silently walked over, and pulled two clean band-aids from his apron pocket to hand to me. "Thank you," I whispered my thanks to this stranger. The meal dragged on until midnight, and we stood on the freezing, biting sidewalk outside the restaurant. A freezing rain began to patter down on the asphalt. Bella pouted and helplessly shook her phone. "Aaron, can you drive me home? My phone is dying, and I'm afraid I won't be able to get a cab." Aaron nodded immediately. Then he turned his head and looked at me. "Go back by yourself. Your house is close." I stared dead into his eyes. "My phone is dying too." "Then find a convenience store and buy a charger," Aaron said coldly, opening the passenger door for Bella. "I have warned you hundreds of times to always keep your battery charged when you go out. This is a punishment for your lack of planning. Maybe standing in the biting rain for twenty minutes will finally teach you a lesson." The moment the car door slammed shut, I finally understood completely. Those strict rules he set for me were only ever tools used to tame and control me. Walking halfway through the freezing rain, I opened the family tracking app on my phone and permanently turned off my location sharing. A second later, the phone's battery died, and the screen went completely black. I walked three blocks braving the biting rain, the bleeding thumb inside my coat pocket throbbing with waves of severe pain. I finally found a twenty-four-hour gas station, walked up to the counter, and begged the night shift clerk to let me use the landline. I dialed my mother's cell phone number. The phone was picked up after just one ring, but the voice coming from the receiver wasn't my mother's. Instead, it was an emergency medical paramedic from the emergency medical center. "Is this Audrey Mcleod?" the paramedic asked rapidly over the piercing, shrill siren of the ambulance in the background. "Your father just suffered an acute myocardial infarction at home. The situation is extremely critical, and we are transporting him to Saint Jude Memorial Hospital for emergency resuscitation under the highest critical code. You must get here immediately!"

Audrey POV: At two in the morning, I ran through the pouring rain all the way into the emergency room of Saint Jude Memorial Hospital. I was soaking wet, and my shoes were covered in mud. The plastic bench outside the trauma bay was freezing cold. My mother was slumped on it, her hands pressing against her knees, trembling violently and uncontrollably. "The doctor said his main artery is completely blocked, Audrey..." my mother sobbed, burying her face into my wet coat. "They just wheeled him into the catheterization lab for emergency resuscitation." I stayed by her side without leaving for a single step on that hard, freezing bench for six whole hours. At eight in the morning, the heavy double doors of the waiting room were pushed open. Aaron walked in leisurely, wearing an expensive cashmere sweater and holding a takeaway cup of boutique coffee. He didn't ask about my father's condition. He didn't ask why my clothes were still wet, nor did he ask why my mother was crying. He walked right up to me, and his very first sentence was: "Why is the location tracking turned off?" I looked up at him blankly with bloodshot eyes. "Aaron, my dad is inside having emergency heart surgery." "That is no excuse for you to break the rules and pull a vanishing act!" Aaron scolded coldly, pulling a charging cable from his bag and plugging my phone into the wall outlet. "Do you think having a family crisis excuses those bad habits of yours?" He forcefully rebooted my phone, opened the app store, skillfully entered his administrator password, and reinstalled that family tracking surveillance app. He tapped on the screen a few times, setting up an automated alarm--as long as my phone battery dropped below fifty percent, his phone would immediately receive an alert. When the page popped up, I clearly saw that in the shared notification list, besides him, there was actually Bella. I snatched my phone back, my voice trembling: "Why does she have permission too?" Aaron's tone was flat: "When I'm in a meeting and can't reach you, she can remind you to charge your phone." "You let an outsider track my real-time location?" I trembled all over, feeling a sickening wave of nausea churning in my stomach. "Bella is not an outsider, she is my closest friend," Aaron retorted self-righteously. Right at that moment, Bella walked out gracefully, holding a cheap, wilted bouquet from some gas station. "Audrey, how is your dad doing now?" Bella asked softly, tilting her head slightly with a fake and exaggerated look of sympathy. "I specifically bought flowers, but the nurses said plants aren't allowed in the ICU, so I'll just leave them on the floor for now." Looking at her, my chest felt so tight I could barely breathe. Bella placed the flowers on the floor and then looked timidly at Aaron. "Aaron, when I got home last night, I found that someone had tampered with my apartment door lock again," Bella's voice trembled as if she had suffered a massive scare. "I'm really afraid." Aaron's brows immediately furrowed, and without hesitation, he pulled a set of keys from his pocket. "Move into the new condo on Elm Street for now." I jerked my head up, staring at him in disbelief: "That is our future home!" Aaron looked at me, his voice very faint: "The house is sitting empty anyway, Bella is just staying temporarily." I clenched my fingers tightly: "More than half of the down payment for that condo was paid by my parents, that's their life savings!" His face instantly turned cold: "Audrey, we aren't even married yet, and you're already drawing such clear lines? When did you become so selfish?" Bella hurriedly waved her hands, and large teardrops immediately fell from her eyes. "Forget it, I won't stay there," Bella cried, shrinking back. "Audrey doesn't like me, I can't let you two fight because of me. I'll just go back to my own place, even if I run into danger it doesn't matter..." Aaron immediately strode forward and forcefully shoved the keys into Bella's palm. "Take them," Aaron glared at me and said sternly. "If something happens to a woman living alone out there, are you going to take responsibility?" When those keys fell into Bella's palm, a loud ringing filled my ears. She kept her head down, tears still hanging on her face, but I distinctly saw a mocking smile tug at the corner of her lips when she turned her back to Aaron. Just as I was about to speak, the emergency room doors were suddenly pushed open. A doctor in blue scrubs rushed out and pulled off his mask. "Who is the family of Walter Mcleod?" the doctor called out anxiously. My mother and I immediately rushed over. "The main artery is completely blocked, causing a severe ventricular rupture," the doctor spoke rapidly. "We have temporarily stabilized his vitals, but he must be urgently transported to the university cardiac center for an advanced bypass surgery within four hours. The specialized private out-of-network transport team requires a thirty thousand dollar upfront deposit before they will deploy the mobile ICU." "Thirty thousand dollars?" my mother gasped, swaying on her feet. "All our savings went into Audrey's down payment..." I abruptly turned around and grabbed Aaron's arm tightly with both hands. "Aaron, we still have fifty thousand dollars in our joint wedding fund account!" I pleaded desperately, my tears finally breaking through. "Your phone has the primary account authentication token. Please, immediately transfer thirty thousand dollars to the hospital billing desk. Without this transport, my dad will die!" Aaron, however, just looked down at his phone screen. A red warning popped up on his tracking dashboard. "Audrey Mcleod's device battery is currently at 48%." Aaron looked up, his face as cold as frost, completely devoid of any warmth. "Audrey, your phone battery is only at forty-eight percent." Aaron's tone was flat, without a single ripple of emotion. "I just warned you two minutes ago to always keep your battery fully charged. Not only are you making a chaotic, disgraceful scene in a public hospital, but you can't even follow the most basic rules." "My dad's heart is stopping, Aaron!" I screamed hysterically, shaking his arm desperately. "This is not a game! Transfer the money!" "Go to the outlet and charge your phone to one hundred percent, prove to me you can manage yourself," Aaron forcefully shook off my hands. "I will absolutely not use our joint assets for someone who can't even learn the most basic rules." He turned around indifferently and strode away from the surgical area. "Aaron!" I cried out desperately behind him, but he didn't even look back. He walked straight into the elevator, and the cold metal doors slid shut mercilessly in front of me. I stood in the billing lobby, my vision going dark in waves. I tremblingly pulled out my phone and plugged it into the outlet by the nurse's station, waiting for the banking app to load. A social media notification popped up; it was a new photo Bella Aguirre had just published three minutes ago. In the photo was the sunlit living room of my brand-new condo on Elm Street. Bella was sinking leisurely into my custom-ordered velvet sofa, holding a glass of white wine in her hand, with the panoramic city skyline that originally belonged to me right behind her. Aaron was tagged in the post, and his comment was prominently pinned right below her caption: "A safe haven for someone who truly deserves to be treated with tenderness. From now on, you never have to feel afraid again."

Audrey POV: The hospital finance office gave me an ultimatum: pay thirty thousand dollars by noon, or the mobile cardiac transport team would be reassigned to another critical patient. I stood by the payphone in the hospital lobby, dialing Aaron's cell phone over and over again. On the ninth try, he finally answered. "What do you want, Audrey?" he sighed. The background noise was filled with soft classical music and the crisp clinking of champagne glasses. "I told you I have important things to do today." "Aaron, the transport team is leaving in thirty minutes," I said, biting my lip hard to desperately hold back the burning sobs in my throat. "That fifty thousand dollars in our joint wedding fund... thirty-five thousand of it was deposited directly from my mother's pension! It is my family's money! Transfer the thirty thousand dollars right now!" "Bella's wealthy relatives are visiting from out of state today, constantly pressuring her into an unwanted marriage," Aaron answered coldly. "I agreed to play her fiancé this afternoon to accompany her and help her deal with the social pressure. We are getting ready to head to the Pinecrest Club right now." My mind went completely blank. "My father is dying, and you are playing house with another woman, pretending to be her fiancé?!" "It's just a harmless social performance to help a friend out of a tight spot, Audrey," Aaron said casually, completely unbothered. "Don't make it sound like a scandal. If you want that wedding fund, come straight to the club this afternoon, behave yourself, apologize to Bella for your rudeness this morning, and help us entertain her family. As long as you do all that, I will approve the transfer." "You are holding my father's life-saving money hostage to blackmail me with my own family's money?" My voice dropped to freezing point, every word dripping with blood. "I am not begging you, Aaron. Transfer what belongs to me." "Then figure it out yourself." Aaron said, and mercilessly hung up the phone. I stood frozen in the lobby, looked at my mother who was slumped on the bench in despair, and made a decision. I dialed my personal bank, liquidated my entire individual retirement account even with the severe early penalty fee, maxed out three credit cards for cash advances, and used my old commuter car as collateral to take out a high-interest emergency medical bridge loan. By eleven-forty-five, I handed the cashier thirty thousand dollars in cashier's checks. The transport team secured my father into the mobile ICU unit and transferred him all the way to the university hospital under blaring emergency sirens. Once my father was safely wheeled into the university cardiac center's ICU and prepped for surgery, I left my mother in the care of the head nurse and took a cab to Elm Street. I needed to grab a few changes of clothes, and go to the master bedroom safe to get my birth certificate, passport, and the property documents for the condo to complete the loan procedures. Arriving at the front door of apartment 14B, I pressed my thumb against the smart biometric lock. A harsh red light flashed, and a mechanical synthetic voice announced: "Verification failed. Unrecognized user fingerprint." I punched in the master passcode we had been using for months. "Incorrect passcode. System locked for five minutes." The door suddenly swung open from the inside. Bella stood in the doorway. She was wearing the custom monogrammed bridal silk bathrobe that my mother had gifted me at my bridal shower. She held a delicate cup of black tea, looking me up and down with a lazy, mocking gaze. "Oh, Audrey," Bella said dismissively, leaning against the doorframe. "Aaron changed all the smart lock passcodes this morning. He said since I'm living here alone now, it would be so unsafe if random people could just open the door." "This is my house," I took a step forward. "Get out of my way. I am going into the master bedroom to get my legal documents." "You can't go in there," Bella said, a faint, mocking smirk hooking the corner of her lips as she casually picked up a thick leather binder from the entryway console and waved it around. "We're actually using your old wedding planning binder. Aaron gave me your handwritten guest list and seating chart. He said it would save us a lot of trouble by just copying the format for our engagement party this afternoon." I stared in shock at the binder in her hand. That was the notebook my mother and I had spent six whole months filling out stroke by stroke by hand. It contained my mother's neat cursive handwriting, detailing every single relative's dietary restrictions and seating preferences. Now, Aaron was simply handing over the wedding plans I had poured my heart and soul into, just to throw an engagement party for him and another woman! Behind Bella, Aaron walked out of the master bathroom. He was dressed in a custom navy blue tuxedo, casually adjusting his silver cufflinks. "What are you doing here acting crazy, Audrey?" Aaron asked, his brows immediately knitting into a deep frown when he saw my pale face and mud-stained clothes. "Didn't I tell you? If you want to talk, change into something decent and come find me at the club." "You let her wear my clothes, changed my locks, and gave her my wedding binder?!" I looked at the man I had loved for two years, my voice trembling uncontrollably. "That binder was just sitting in the drawer gathering dust," Aaron said self-righteously, without a single trace of guilt. "Your father is lying in the hospital right now, so our wedding is obviously postponed indefinitely. Bella's engagement party urgently needed a ready-made template. Why let a perfectly good planning book go to waste? What's wrong with letting her borrow it? When did you become so petty and mean?" He checked his gold watch and grabbed his car keys. "We have to head to the main ballroom. If you still want to get that medical transport fee, just be a good girl, sit at the spare table next to the kitchen, and keep your mouth shut tight. I'll consider transferring the money to you." I looked at Aaron, looked at Bella wearing my bridal robe, and looked at that notebook where my mother's and my hard work had been utterly ruined. I didn't say a single word. I turned around, walked back down the carpeted hallway, and pressed the elevator button. As the elevator doors slowly opened, I heard Aaron speaking arrogantly to Bella: "In less than an hour, she'll have to obediently rush to the club. She has no other way out. Sooner or later, she will have to crawl back begging and do exactly as I say."