Chapter 2
I stood in front of my dorm mirror, clutching the pregnancy test results like they might disappear if I held them tight enough. My reflection stared back—pale, hollow-eyed, desperate.
"Just tell him the truth," I whispered to myself. "He loves you. He'll understand."
Maybe there's a medical explanation. Maybe the test was wrong.
I'd been awake all night, my mind spinning in circles. Connor deserved to know. We'd figure this out together, like we always did.
The walk across campus felt eternal. Autumn wind cut through my jacket as students hurried past, heading to dinner. Normal people with normal problems. Not impossible pregnancies that defied everything I thought I knew about my own body.
The Kappa Alpha house loomed ahead—red brick, ivy-covered walls, the sound of male laughter drifting from open windows. Our second home for the past two years.
I climbed the familiar stairs to Connor's room, my heart hammering against my ribs. Light spilled from under his door, along with voices I recognized.
I raised my hand to knock, then froze.
"Guys, by my calculations, Madison should be showing positive results any day now."
Connor's voice. But cold. Clinical. Nothing like the warm tone he used with me.
Results? What results?
"Dude, fifty grand each says it's mine." Jake's cocky laugh made my stomach lurch. "That night at the Halloween party was perfect."
My knees nearly buckled. I pressed myself against the wall, straining to hear.
"Doesn't matter whose it is," Connor continued with casual cruelty. "Once she's pregnant, I get the ring on her finger and access to that twenty million trust fund."
The pregnancy test slipped from my numb fingers, fluttering to the floor like a dying bird.
Twenty million? They're talking about my inheritance like it's a fucking lottery ticket.
"You're brilliant, man," Brad's voice joined the chorus. "Getting her drunk and drugged at every party, then letting us all have a shot..."
Each syllable a knife to my heart.
Drugged. They've been drugging me.
Those missing hours. Those foggy mornings. The way Connor always appeared with coffee and concerned smiles...
"Ashley's been the perfect inside woman," Connor said, and my world tilted further off its axis. "Madison never suspects her own roommate."
Ashley? My Ashley?
"What did you promise Ashley again?" Mike asked.
"Just paid off her credit card debt. Twenty grand to drug her best friend—pretty cheap if you ask me."
I bit my fist to keep from screaming. Ashley's concerned questions. Her insistence on making my drinks at parties. Her worried looks when I'd wake up confused and disoriented.
She's been poisoning me. My best friend has been poisoning me.
"I still feel bad about this, Connor." Ashley's voice suddenly joined the conversation from inside the room. "She trusts me completely."
"Save the guilt trip," Connor snapped. "You're in too deep to back out now."
I stumbled backward, my entire body shaking with rage and betrayal. The hallway spun around me as I fled down the stairs, past startled fraternity brothers, out into the cold night air.
The parking lot was empty except for a few scattered cars. I collapsed onto a wooden bench under a flickering streetlight and finally let myself break.
"Five years..." I sobbed into my hands. "Five fucking years of lies! How could I be so blind?"
The pregnancy test results lay scattered on the ground where I'd dropped them. Evidence of their crimes against my body.
They drugged me. They raped me. They planned to steal my entire inheritance.
Rage exploded through my chest like a nuclear blast. I grabbed the test papers and tore them to shreds, screaming into the night.
"That bastard! They all planned this. They drugged me, they..."
But as the fury burned through me, something cold and calculating began to crystallize beneath it.
No. I won't let them win.
I stood slowly, feeling my spine straighten with newfound resolve.
I'm not some helpless victim. I'm Madison fucking Wells, and I've survived worse than this.
"I'll make them pay for every single lie," I said to the empty parking lot, my voice deadly calm.
Connor wants my trust fund? Let's see how that works out for him.
The dorm hallway was quiet when I returned, most students either at dinner or studying. I stood outside my door for a full minute, preparing my mask.
Ashley sat cross-legged on her bed with her laptop, looking like the picture of innocence. Pink pajamas. Hair in a messy bun. The same girl who'd held my hair back when I was sick, who'd listened to me cry about stupid boys, who'd been my best friend since freshman year.
Who'd been drugging me for money.
"Hey, where have you been?" she asked with that concerned smile I now recognized as pure performance. "I was worried when you didn't come back for dinner."
"Just went for a walk," I said, proud of how normal my voice sounded. "Needed some fresh air."
You lying bitch. How can you sit there and pretend to care?
"You've been acting strange lately," Ashley continued, tilting her head with fake sympathy. "Everything okay with Connor?"
I wanted to grab her by the throat. To scream about betrayal and trust and how twenty thousand dollars was apparently worth destroying someone's life.
Instead, I smiled.
"Everything's perfect," I said sweetly. "We're planning something special for next month."
Oh, we're planning something special all right. Just not what you think.
Ashley's eyes lit up with what I now knew was greed, not friendship. "Really? What kind of special?"
"You'll see," I said, settling onto my own bed. "It's going to be unforgettable."
As Ashley turned back to her laptop, probably texting Connor about our conversation, I stared at the ceiling and began to plan.
They want to play games with my life? With my body? With my trust fund?
I touched my stomach where the impossible pregnancy grew. Evidence of their crimes. But also, somehow, my advantage.