Price of a Cheap Soul

My phone slammed heavily into my raw, bleeding foot, but I couldn't feel the pain—my eyes were deadlocked on the viral post my best friend had just uploaded.

My billionaire CEO says he finally shook off that cheap trash who stalked him for five years. For the rest of his life, he's my exclusive, loyal hound.

In the photo, her fingers were tightly intertwined with a mysterious billionaire's. The entire internet was losing its mind over them.

Meanwhile, I stood shivering in the freezing wind outside City Hall, shifting my weight on my bleeding feet.

Just minutes ago, my broke, struggling dancer boyfriend had canceled our courthouse wedding for the ninetyninth time.

His excuse was the same tired garbage: an "unexpected emergency." The image blurred as my thumb trembled against the glass, zooming in on the photo.

On the ring finger of that mysterious billionaire the whole world worshipped, sat a cheap, plain silver band.

Right there on the metal, I could clearly see the initials I had painstakingly carved into it myself.

The penniless loser I had worked myself to the bone for, and the billionaire spoiling my best friend rotten, were the exact same man.

Chapter 1 "Boss, can you go any lower on this velvet?

I'm tapped out this month just trying to cover my boyfriend's rent!" "Cora, you're too pretty to be haggling over pennies every day," the shop owner sneered. "You won't even buy yourself a decent dress.

Careful, or some stray alley cat is going to snatch up that broke boyfriend of yours." I pressed my lips together, folding the fabric.

I forced a smile. "Just throw in a couple inches of scrap, and you can keep the change." A bitter scoff chased me as I walked away. "Broke as a joke and still trying to make haute couture qipaos." "Take a look in the mirror.

You don't deserve it. Probably stole the fabric." The old bat. It was her fabric that was fraying.

I gripped my tote bag tightly, spinning around to give her a piece of my mind, but a sudden laugh bubbled up in my throat. Forget it.

Today was my fourth trip to City Hall with Zane—no, technically, the ninetyninth time we had planned to go. I was in too good of a mood to care about her petty insults.

The next second, my phone lit up. "Cora, we've got a situation here… Some guys are tearing up the studio, and I have to handle it.

Can we do City Hall another day?" Zane's voice was rushed, drowned out by chaotic background noise.

He claimed his old rival dance crew was picking a fight and he had to kick them out. He told me to go straight home, that there was some breakfast he'd prepped in the fridge.

The call snapped dead amidst a loud crash. I stood outside the fabric district. The May breeze hit me, but it felt like swallowing a mouthful of crushed glass. Ninetynine times.

Since we met, this was the ninetyninth time he had stood me up over an "unexpected emergency." If it wasn't a brawl, it was a dance battle, or one of his bros getting into trouble.

He always had a reason. And every single time, I convinced myself: he was just trying to survive, he didn't mean it, he treated me well.

My phone buzzed against my palm. [ Your favorite creator @Piper has a new post! ] Piper. I tapped the notification. It was a selfie.

Barefaced, her eyes slightly red, she was leaning against a man's broad shoulder.

The background was the sweeping night skyline from a penthouse suite in Manhattan. [ My billionaire CEO says he finally shook off that cheap trash who stalked him for five years.

For the rest of his life, he's my exclusive, loyal hound. ] The comment section was exploding. [ OMG my favorite ship finally sailed! ] [ Zane is spoiling her so much, Piper deserves the absolute best! ] [ I heard that psycho woman clung to Zane for years… so glad he's finally free… ] I went to doubletap, but my thumb froze hovering over the screen.

Something sharp caught my eye. The hand the man had wrapped around Piper's shoulder—on the ring finger sat a silver band. A thin, plain circle.

On the inside, there should be two initials carved into the metal. "C" and "Z." When Zane proposed, I had drawn the design myself and paid a silversmith to hammer it out bit by bit.

He had told me there were thousands of roses in the world, but I was his only one. I had the Little Prince and his rose engraved on the inside.

They were the only pair in the entire world. I tapped the image. Zoomed in. Zoomed in again. Until I could clearly see the tiny "C" engraved on the inner band.

A sledgehammer smashed directly into my chest.

Flashbacks of the past five years ripped through my mind—starving myself to pay off his debts, staying up all night sketching designs until my eyes bled.

And all this time, he had been taking my blood money to elevate my best friend into a pampered princess. My grip failed. The phone slammed into my foot. It hurt.

But it was nothing compared to the sensation of my ribs cracking open from the inside.

By the time I snapped out of the ringing in my ears, my fingertip had already doubletapped the screen. Chapter 2 The next second, Piper's call came through. "Cora!

You finally remembered your absolute bestie!" Her voice dripped with that sickeningly sweet tone. "My billionaire CEO and I finally made it official today!

Do you know I've been waiting for this exact moment for four whole years…" I opened my mouth, my throat feeling like it was stuffed with dry cotton. "Congratulations, Piper." "What's wrong?

You sound so down. Did Zane piss you off again?" She paused, her tone softening with fake sympathy. "Do you want me to have him…" "No," I cut her off. "Just allergies.

My throat's a bit scratchy." Piper didn't press further. She just kept rambling on and on about her precious billionaire, exactly like she always did.

She bragged about how one time she had low blood sugar, and he walked out in the middle of a board meeting, driving forty minutes just to handdeliver her a caramel macchiato.

She boasted about how she casually mentioned craving authentic French macarons, and the next day, he had a private jet fly them in directly from a twohour line at Pierre Hermé in Paris.

She went on about how when her dad got sick, he immediately contacted the top surgical team at Johns Hopkins, booked a private VIP suite, and didn't let her worry about a single cent. "Cora," she suddenly lowered her voice, feigning shyness. "Zane mentioned you guys were supposed to hit the courthouse today too?

We're going to be even closer now! I'll have my man book a Michelinstarred restaurant tonight." "The four of us should grab dinner to celebrate!" I told her not to bother.

She didn't catch the deadness in my voice and happily hung up. I stood frozen on the crowded sidewalk, my fingers digging so hard into that frayed fabric my knuckles turned white.

Suddenly, I didn't know where to go. The pedestrian light flashed green.

I had barely taken half a step when an ebike ripped around the corner, clipping my skirt and splashing a massive puddle of yesterday's grimy rainwater all over me. Head to toe.

My cheap white dress was now speckled with filthy gray mud.

Dirty water dripped from the ends of my hair. "Watch where you're walking, you blind idiot!" the woman on the back seat twisted around and shrieked at me.

I slowly lifted my head, locking eyes with her impatient, sneering face. Today was a total disaster. Called cheap over a few pennies. Screamed at for legally crossing the street.

Something inside me snapped. I was done taking it. "Watch where I'm walking?" I wiped a streak of muddy water off my cheek.

I stared dead at her, dropping my voice to a lethal whisper. "You blew through a red light, swerved onto the crosswalk, and you have the nerve to ask if I'm blind?" The woman froze for a second.

Her eyes dragged up and down my cheap dress, and she rolled her eyes with a shrill sneer. "Dressed like a literal beggar, but you've got some serious attitude!

A broke piece of trash like you deserves to get hit!" "English," I clipped back. "Is that clear enough for you?" The ebike sped off, the woman still spitting curses over her shoulder.

I stood there dripping wet in the middle of the street. And suddenly, I laughed. When the laugh died in my throat, I crouched down on the concrete and buried my face into my knees.

I didn't cry. I couldn't cry. It would ruin my makeup. When I got back to my tiny apartment, I didn't even bother changing out of the wet clothes.

I curled up on the lumpy sofa just like that. I opened Piper's social media and started scrolling down her timeline, post by post. We had known each other for twelve years.

Middle school lab partners, high school roommates, even placed in the same acting prep class. She had been gorgeous since we were kids.

Big bright eyes, perfect dimples, and a sweet, bubbly voice that made everyone adore her.

She used to swear she was going to be an Alist actress, stand under the Hollywood spotlights, make millions, and take me traveling around the world.

Her earliest posts barely had a few dozen likes.

Blurry pictures of cafeteria mac and cheese, the cheap pothos plant on our dorm windowsill, the two of us getting caught sneaking hot Cheetos during latenight study hall.

I scrolled through them, one by one. Chapter 3 Scrolling back to the summer of our junior year. Track and field day. She posted a photo dump with the caption: [ Champions today!

PS: Zane's breakdancing routine was absolute fire!! ] The third picture was our class's group shot after winning the relay race.

Zane stood right beside me, his arm draped over my shoulder, flashing a wild, carefree grin. But his eyes weren't looking at me.

They were locked onto Piper, who was goofing off at the edge of the frame. His gaze was soft, a subconscious, tender smile playing on his lips. I stared at that photo.

A long, long time. Long enough for the screen to go black and wake back up again under my touch. So that was it. He had been looking at her since the very beginning.

My fingernails dug crescent moons into my palms. It wasn't that I hadn't noticed. I had just desperately swallowed the truth. Senior year.

I scored top three in the state for the Juilliard dance auditions, and my SAT prep scores never dropped below the top twenty in my graduating class.

Everyone said Cora had it in the bag. NYU Tisch or Juilliard, take your pick. Then came the actual SATs.

Halfway through the essay section, a heavy, unnatural exhaustion dragged my eyelids down. The math section was even worse.

I couldn't even finish reading the last three word problems before I collapsed onto the desk, dead to the world. When the scores came out, I missed the cutoff by two points.

Two agonizing points. My guidance counselor told me to take a gap year, prep again, and reapply. With my foundation, I was guaranteed a spot next year.

My mother snatched my SAT prep books right out of my hands and ripped them to shreds. She shoved a finger hard into my face. "What's the point of studying?!

That fatbellied, newlyrich creep from the next town over is offering a hundred thousand dollars to buy you to pop out his sons." "You're marrying him tomorrow!" Zane showed up that exact night.

He stood on our rundown porch, staring through the rusted screen door, and slammed a heavy duffel bag down. "She's coming with me," he told my mother. "Here's your hundred grand." "Consider her debt paid." My mother licked her thumb and counted the stacks three times.

Bill by bill. The entire time, she never spared me a single glance. I followed Zane out of that hellhole town.

It was the first time in my life I felt like the universe had finally shown me mercy. The next five years were a blur.

He danced at underground clubs, took shady commercial gigs, and sometimes disappeared for offthebooks jobs I didn't recognize. I never dared to ask.

I was terrified the answer would always tie back to my hundredthousanddollar ransom. He treated me well. He really did.

Every time we fought, no matter whose fault it was, he was always the first to cave.

If I craved sweets at midnight, he would kickstart that rattling, busted motorcycle of his and cut across the entire city just to buy me a slice of warm cherry pie from that one latenight diner.

He hated sugar, but he drank sickly sweet taro bubble tea with me for five straight years, purely because I loved it. We just never made it to City Hall.

It wasn't that he didn't want to—something always came up. A flash flood, a street brawl, expired IDs, a buddy getting arrested… Ninetynine times. I never complained.

I was terrified of making him feel guilty. Terrified he'd feel like he owed me. But as it turned out, the only person carrying a debt this whole time… Was me.

I dragged my thumb down the screen, stopping at a post from September 15th, four years ago. It was Piper's soft launch.

I remembered her frantic text to me that exact same night. "He finally confessed! But he says he owes another girl way too much.

He has to pay her back completely before he can rightfully stand by my side. Cora, what should I do?" What had I replied back then?

My fingers had trembled with pure rage as I typed. I told her the guy was absolute trash.

How dare he mess with her when he still had some childhood sweetheart taking up space in his head. Wake up, Piper, he's not good enough for you!

She had called me right after, laughing softly through the phone, her voice thick with a nasally sweetness. "Cora, you're so naive. He told me he truly loves me.

He took a tenhour flight just to see me, waiting at the arrivals gate with a massive bouquet the second he landed." "That girl he liked before? He only thought he liked her.

It wasn't until he met me that he finally understood what real passion feels like." Chapter 4 The words died in my throat.

I actually felt a physical ache in my chest for her, pitying how painfully devoted she was. That was September 15th. The exact date of my twoyear anniversary with Zane.

He had flaked on me. He fed me a line about an emergency flight out of state, promising to make it up to me. I just told him to be safe.

When he finally walked through the door, he handed me a crushed, wilted bouquet of roses. He blamed the overhead bins on the plane. Looking back, that tenhour flight.

Those dead flowers. None of it was meant for me. His name was Zane. Wall Street called him the ruthless heir. The tabloids called him the elusive billionaire.

Piper called him her loyal hound. His corporate bio only had one line: Executive Vice President of the Vance Corporation. No headshot.

I pieced together his features from the cropped edges of Piper's uploads. The sharp jawline. The prominent Adam's apple. The distinct knuckles on his ring finger.

They perfectly overlapped with the silhouette of Zane pulling his shirt over his head every morning in my bedroom. The elusive billionaire. My deadbeat boyfriend.

The exact same man. A laugh scraped up my throat. The metallic taste of blood rushed to the back of my mouth. I swallowed it down hard.

I dug a stale pack of cigarettes out from the very back of my nightstand drawer. Zane hated when girls smoked. So did I.

But sometimes the pressure was suffocating—no, the pressure had been crushing my spine for five straight years. I had just been faking a smile through it.

The smoke scorched my lungs, forcing a jagged cough that squeezed tears from my eyes. I still couldn't smoke.

After crushing the third cigarette into the ashtray, I grabbed my phone. I dialed a number I had saved for months but never touched. "Beckett," I said.

My voice was chillingly flat, devoid of a single tremor. "Does your sister still need a bone marrow match?" The other end fell silent for a heartbeat. "Yes." "Then I'm adding one more condition to my price." "Name it." "Get me out of the country." Silence stretched over the line for two long seconds.

Then, a low, faint chuckle. "Done." When Zane finally walked through the door, the window was wide open, the smoke mostly gutted by the wind.

He grabbed a broom and swept the ash off the floor in silence. He stopped when his eyes hit the pile of crushed butts.

Then he walked over, snatched the cigarette burning dangerously close to my fingers, and snuffed it out. He didn't say a single word.

He just hauled me into his chest, resting his chin on the top of my head. A heavy sigh vibrated through his ribs.

My eyes stayed deadlocked on the flickering, pissyellow bulb on the ceiling. "Zane.

The kitchen light is flickering again." "Yeah." "You promised you'd change the bulb last week." "… It slipped my mind." The corner of my mouth twitched upward.

I didn't say another word. It hadn't slipped his mind. He had flown to LA three separate times this week. I had memorized Piper's timeline.

Tuesday, the billionaire walked her through Disneyland, kissing her under the fireworks.

Thursday, the billionaire bought out an exclusive rooftop restaurant in Manhattan, the city lights glittering behind them.

Yesterday, at her Hollywood wrap party, the billionaire walked in and presented her with nine hundred and ninetynine red roses in front of the entire cast and crew.

He was incredibly busy. He was always busy. Only, before today, I actually believed he was busy building a future for us.

But the truth was, it was never about us. "Still mad at me?" He pulled back just enough to look down at me, that practiced, effortless grin already spreading across his face. "Today was a massive emergency.

Some guys totally trashed my bro's studio." "You know how loyal I am.

I couldn't just stand by and watch him go bankrupt—" "I know," I cut him off, my tone utterly hollow. "You don't need to explain." He froze.

His eyes flickered, clearly thrown off by the deadness in my voice. Chapter 5 I tilted my head back to look at him. Five years. I had memorized every single inch of this face.

When he took a knife for me in that alleyway, blood soaking his white tee, laughing through his teeth that it didn't hurt.

When he ran a 104degree fever in our cramped apartment, deliriously mumbling my name in his sleep.

When he dragged himself home at 3 AM after a grueling shift, passing out at the kitchen table with my favorite latenight takeout still clutched in his hand.

I always believed someone could fake it for a little while, but never for five straight years.

But it turned out… He could. "Your dress is filthy," he murmured, his gaze dropping to the mud splatters on the hem. "Why didn't you change?" "Yeah.

Forgot." "Let me wash it for you." He reached out, his arm moving to naturally hook around my shoulder. I shifted my weight, dodging his touch entirely.

His hand froze in midair. "I'm exhausted today," I said flatly. "Let's just go to sleep." He slowly pulled his hand back, swallowing whatever question was on his tongue.

Once we were in bed, he shifted behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist just like he always did, his hot breath ghosting over the nape of my neck.

My eyes stayed wide open, locked on the sliver of yellow streetlight slicing through the curtains. I used to love sleeping like this.

It used to make me feel like he physically couldn't live without me. Now, the weight of his arm just made my lungs burn with the urge to suffocate.

When Piper showed up unannounced, Zane was out on the balcony taking my laundry off the drying rack.

She breezed through the front door, a plastic bag clinking with beer cans swinging from her hand, a sweet, bubbly smile plastered on her face.

Zane's brow instantly snapped into a hard frown. "Are you crazy? You know she's allergic to alcohol." "Bullshit," Piper rolled her eyes at him. "Cora drinks like a fish.

At our high school graduation party, she literally drank three guys under the table—" She abruptly bit her tongue. The air in the room flatlined. Zane's face darkened instantly.

He didn't say a word, just spun on his heel and stalked into the kitchen.

Piper watched him walk away before turning back to me, forcing out a bright laugh. "Your man is so insanely protective over you." I didn't reply. Piper loved money.

I had known that since the very first day we met. She always said she came from nothing—that she was even worse off than I was.

Her dad was drowning in gambling debts, her mom broke her back hunched over a sewing machine at a sweatshop, and her little brother needed tuition for a private school.

She used to tell me, Cora, one day I'm gonna make a mountain of cash, and I'll force everyone who ever looked down on me to shut their mouths.

I never saw anything wrong with that hustle. But there was one thing I just couldn't wrap my head around. Twelve years.

I skipped class with her, sat in hospital waiting rooms with her, locked myself in bathroom stalls to hide and cry with her.

When she got blackout drunk, I carried her on my back for three miles just to get her to our dorm.

When a sleazy club owner tried to trap her, I was the one who drank until I had alcohol poisoning and nearly flatlined in the ER just to buy her freedom.

Anyone in this world could have stabbed me in the back. Why did it have to be her? I was the ultimate punchline to their sick inside joke.

What the hell was I to them? "Cora?" She tilted her head, pressing an icy beer can flat against my cheek. "What's with the spacing out?

You not happy to see me?" The freezing condensation shocked me back to reality. I grabbed the can from her hand. "Of course I am." How could I not be?

She was the family I had handpicked for myself. And the exact same person who smiled while shoving me off a cliff. Piper threw back a lot of drinks that night.

She slouched deep into my cheap sofa, rambling endlessly about the old days. "Cora, do you still remember that pact we made in high school?" "… Yeah.

I remember." "We promised each other we were gonna marry brothers." She giggled, her eyes glassy with booze. "That way, we'd literally be family forever.

We could go shopping together all day, and then lay in the same bed at night talking trash about our motherinlaw." I stared right into her eyes. I didn't say a single word.

We did make that pact. The only catch was, the man she was marrying… was my boyfriend. Chapter 6 Piper yawned, resting her cheek heavily against my knee.

Her breathing slowly leveled out. I stared down at her. I had looked at this face for twelve years. Her long eyelashes rested against her skin like delicate butterfly wings.

I used to think I was the luckiest girl in the world to call her my best friend. I slowly reached out. My fingertips hovered right over the pulse point on her neck. Just one inch.

One more inch, and I could press down hard enough to make sure she never woke up again.

But I just grabbed the fleece blanket and pulled it over her shoulder. "Zane," I looked up. "Take her home." He walked out of the kitchen, shooting me a weird look. "Usually you…" "Today is her wedding day," I said smoothly. "It's not right for me to keep her here." He didn't move.

I let out a light laugh. "Zane, you know, that billionaire CEO she just married has the exact same name as you." His fingers twitched.

Just barely. "Zane Vance," I continued, keeping my tone perfectly light. "Down to the exact letter.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were some undercover billionaire playing a twisted game of pretending to be poor to test my loyalty." A stiff, tight smile cracked his face. "…Stop reading so many trashy romance novels." I nodded, shoving Piper's designer bag into his chest.

The front door clicked shut. The apartment was dead quiet. I sat back on the lumpy sofa, staring up at that flickering ceiling light. A laugh forced its way up my throat.

Putting on this sick act for five years… wasn't he exhausted? A phone buzzed. Zane's. The screen lit up. Locked. I picked it up. I typed in his birthday. Incorrect.

Piper's birthday. Incorrect. The day he met Piper. Still incorrect. I hammered in combination after combination. Nothing worked. I paused. My thumb hovered over the glass.

I punched in the date of our first official date. The lock icon popped open. I stared at the home screen. A sudden, pathetic heat stung the back of my eyes.

Before I could even process it, a notification banner dropped down. [ Zane's Prey Watch Group (Elite Trust Fund Club) ] [ Did our billionaire boy ditch the little charity case again today?

That's gotta be ninetynine times now, right? Hit that triple digits baby! LMAO ] [ Dead.

If Piper hadn't made that bet with him back in high school—promising she'd date him if he managed to bag the class nerd—nobody would have the patience to play house with that broke trash for five years. ] [ I heard the charity case actually thinks Zane is drowning in loan shark debt?

Hilarious. The sole heir of the Vance Corporation owing loan sharks? Who buys that crap? ] [ Piper just hated her guts back then.

Some pathetic nobody from the slums flexing her perfect SAT scores every week.

Piper literally just said, "Let's see how smug she acts on test day," and Zane immediately… ] I didn't finish reading. The black text warped, blurred, and overlapped on the screen.

I gripped the phone so hard the metal cut straight into my palm. It wasn't just Zane. Piper was never a poor girl struggling to survive.

She was the sole heiress to the biggest corporate empire in the city.

What an absolute honor for a piece of trash like me, having two untouchable billionaires play pretend in my tiny apartment for years.

And that heavy, unnatural exhaustion during my SATs. It wasn't test anxiety. It wasn't burning out. It was the water.

The open water bottle Zane had personally handed me right before I walked into the exam room. I dropped the phone on the coffee table.

A tremor started at my fingertips, crawling up my wrists and locking my arms. I slammed my hands onto the edge of the glass table, desperately forcing my shaking legs to stand.

The acid in my stomach churned. I stumbled into the bathroom, my fingers digging into the cold porcelain sink. I dryheaved. Nothing came up. Just massive, heavy drops of water.

Smashing against the rusted drain, one by one. Chapter 7