Part 1The Kings Perfect Surrogate

Everyone in the Elite East Coast Circle knew the routine. Whenever the heiress, Veronica Sinclair, and the scion, Harrison King, broke up, they’d launch their toxic, co-dependent game of emotional torture: the Surrogate Game.

A fresh breakup meant finding an exact lookalike of the other, a grotesque ritual of mutual torment that they played with sickening relish.

My tragedy? My childhood friend, Finn O’Connell, was chosen by Veronica.

When they finally brought him back, he was barely alive.

He was a vegetable. Permanently and horrifically crippled.

His single mother’s hair turned white overnight.

That same night, they drank a fatal draught together, never waking to see the next day’s sun.

And just like that, I lost the only two people I had left in the world.

Standing before their shared grave marker, I wiped my tears dry.

"You played the Surrogate Game, using other people's lives as your twisted foreplay."

"This time," I whispered to the cold stone, "I'm the one taking a seat at the table."

Later, the Gold Coast Set would be turned upside down.

No one could have predicted that Harrison King would personally push Veronica Sinclair into hell, all for the sake of a surrogate.

* * *

"OMG, I'm absolutely obsessed with Harry King and Ronnie Sinclair. They break up and immediately find a lookalike for each other, it's basically their secret way of saying, 'I still love you!'"

"This isn't a breakup, it’s peak, high-level relationship kink. The rest of us can't even afford a therapist; they're playing the Surrogate Game on ultra-hard mode."

"Seriously, their love is so real, even the fake versions have to be exact copies of the other."

"..."

I scrolled through the cheerful online comments.

And I fell into a deep, cold silence.

No one ever asks what happens to the surrogates.

I looked down at the bank card in my hand.

It held a quarter-million dollars, no PIN needed.

It was the money Finn’s mother gave me just before she drank the poison.

I knew it was the price Finn had paid with his body and his future.

The whispered rumors said Harry King had personally brutalized him. Of course, those kinds of messages were scrubbed from the internet almost as soon as they appeared.

With a final lift of my chin at my reflection, I headed to Fairhaven.