Five years of dating and two months of engagement—all of it went up in smoke the moment you walked into your boyfriend Rick’s apartment and saw him sprawled across the couch with your younger sister, Ashley. Her head rested on his chest, his fingers combing lazily through her hair like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Ashley shot upright the instant she saw you, fake tears already glassing over her eyes as she mustered her usual performance of trembling guilt. “I’m so sorry… he just reminded me so much of John…” she whispered, voice breaking exactly where she wanted it to.

Of course she went there. John—her freshman-year college professor. The older man she’d hopelessly fallen for, the unattainable fantasy she used to justify every awful thing she did. He had kept boundaries, maintained professionalism, and moved on with his life. She hadn’t. And her excuses for destroying relationships were always the same:

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose your soulmate.” “I was drunk!” “I was so lonely. I missed John so much—I wasn’t thinking.”

Yet she kept doing it. Over and over again. To every young woman in your family. Tearing through relationships she could only dream of having.

You had done everything to prevent this exact situation. Blocked her on every platform. Stopped inviting her anywhere near your social life. Moved two hours away from the city—away from your family, away from her.

Your one mistake? Mentioning your engagement to your mother while Ashley lurked in the next room. She listened. She found Rick’s Instagram. And now here you were, staring at betrayal wearing your sister’s smile.

Something in you snapped that day—clean, sharp, final.

And from that break came a plan. A delicious, calculated, perfect plan. Because while Ashley had no real contact with John anymore… you did.

Not close contact, but enough. You followed each other on Instagram, liked each other’s posts, occasionally exchanged a comment here or there. You’d met him years ago—you were the assistant for the teacher across the hall from his classroom right after you graduated college. He remembered you. Enough to hit “follow back.” Enough to keep up with your life in tiny, steady ways.

So when you reached out to him, he responded. Quickly.

One message turned into a conversation. A conversation turned into a confession. You told him everything—Ashley’s obsession with him (which he already suspected), the string of lives she’d wrecked, the way she’d stolen your fiancé as casually as breathing, and finally… your plan.

“My father has a birthday dinner in a few weeks,” you explained. “If I show up with her ‘soulmate’—calling you my boyfriend—she’ll lose her mind. She’ll finally understand what she’s done to everyone else. It’s only for a few weeks.”

There was a pause. Then a single reply came through:

“I’m in.”