My Patron Is the Fake Heir

The day my patron was exposed as an imposter, the true heir of the citys wealthiest family forced him into a basement where he tried to kill himself.

I had just stolen the sponsorship agreement wed signed years ago, planning to shred it and run.

Suddenly, a stream of text began to scroll before my eyes, like comments on a live feed.

Typical gold digger. Shes ditching him now, which is perfect. Makes room for our girl, the real heroine.

After she leaves him, shell find some psycho benefactor who tortures her to death. If only she knew that in six months, hell have staged the most epic comeback in history, surpassing the Blackwood dynasty to become the youngest self-made billionaire. He and the heroine will become a legendary power couple. Shed probably claw her way back from the grave out of sheer spite.

My hand trembled, and the agreement ripped in two.

There was no time to think. I burst into the bathroom and saw him, Alistair, with a fresh cut bleeding on his wrist. I threw myself forward, grabbing his arm, my tears flowing without a shred of dignity.

"Alistair, don't you die on me! Who's going to take care of me if you're gone? I was hoping we could renew our contract!"

His gaze, dark and hollow, drifted to the two pieces of the agreement on the floor. He spoke, his voice a ghost of its former self.

"Really?"

"You were only ever with me for the money," he said, his eyes scanning the damp, grimy basement as if he were a machine. "And now, you see what's become of me."

His lips, always so vibrant, were now bloodless. I pressed my hands over the gash on his wrist, but crimson still dripped onto the cracked concrete floor.

"I've been cast out of the Blackwood family. I'm hiding in this hellhole, a man who can't even support himself, let alone you. So just go. I won't blame you."

A cold dread prickled my skin, and I shivered. I'd been with Alistair for eight years. To the world, he was the suave, gentle heir. But I knew the truth. He was a viper coiled behind a mask of civility, and he never forgot a slight.

His words might have sounded like a release, but the hand hidden behind his back was clenched so tight his knuckles were white. I didn't know whether to believe the strange text floating in my vision, but my instincts, honed by years of surviving at his side, screamed at me to make a choice.

I couldn't leave. If I did, I wouldn't have to wait for some future psycho to kill me. Alistair would do it first, and hed do it slowly.

I lunged forward and crushed my mouth against his pale lips.

He seized control instantly, kissing me with a desperate hunger that left me breathless. When I finally pushed him away, gasping for air, I snatched the torn agreement from the floor. As he watched in stunned silence, I ripped it into tiny pieces.

I cupped his face in my hands, my voice earnest. "Alistair, I don't want to be your mistress anymore."

A flicker of murderous intent, the kind born from having nothing left to lose, flashed in his eyes.

The comments in my vision were just as scathing.

[Wow, I actually thought shed had a change of heart. Turns out shes just here to twist the knife. Just you wait. When her new patron is torturing her, shell be begging Alistair for help, and he wont even give her a second glance.]

[As soon as this parasite leaves, the heroine will burst in and save him. And thats when his epic revenge story begins. Get the popcorn ready!]

I ignored their vitriol, my voice dropping to a soft, trembling whisper. "I know this is probably the worst possible time to say this, but now that you have nothing, I feel like I can finally reach you. So, Alistair, will you be my boyfriend?"

His eyes widened slightly. But before he could answer, my vision went black. The last thing I saw was a single line of text materializing in the darkness.

[Changing your mind wont save you. Deviate from the script, and you're the one who suffers.]

A furious fire ignited in my soul. Follow the script? The script wanted me dead. Why the hell should I?

In the suffocating dark, a searing heat consumed me. I ran and ran, desperate to escape, until finally, my eyes flew open.

I shot upright, drenched in a cold sweat. I was in a hospital bed, a piercing pain radiating from my core.

A soft groan escaped my lips. A cool hand touched my forehead, and Alistairs voice, thick with fear, washed over me.

"Sasha? Are you feeling any better?"

The pain was a constant torment. After eight years of him catering to my every whim, never letting a single scratch mar my skin, I had grown soft. The agony was too much. I broke down, sobbing. "It hurts. It hurts so much."

He stood up, helpless, and rushed out to find a doctor. The man who returned with him shot me an irritated look.

"If you don't have the money for tests, you need to be discharged. Stop taking up a bed. What do you want me to do? No money, no treatment. Its that simple."

Alistairs voice was a low, furious growl. "Run the best tests you have. I have"

His words died in his throat. His proud posture, always so straight, seemed to crumple. He lowered his head, unable to meet my eyes.

The doctor scoffed. "You should probably get going. You don't have anything left to pawn for another night's stay."

Thats when I noticed it. The family signet ring he always wore on his little finger was gone. Ignoring the searing pain, I threw myself out of bed, grabbed his hand, and pulled him toward the exit, chattering nonstop to soothe him.

"Honestly, just being with you is like a painkiller, you know? It doesn't hurt nearly as much. You can't get rid of me, Alistair. You just can't."

A single, hot tear landed on our joined hands. His voice was a raw, broken whisper. "I won't."

A small smile touched my lips. And I wasn't even lying.

[He chose to take the side character to the hospital and missed his fated meeting with the heroine. The plot is completely derailed.]

[The systems punishment seems weaker, too. Thats probably why she can still walk. The original penalty for defying the script should have left her in a state worse than death.]

[You know, Im kinda shipping them. The fallen tycoon and his fiercely loyal canary. You dont see that every day.]

I hid the glint in my eyes, piecing together a path to survival from these fragmented clues.

So, if I defied the script, Id be punished. But if Alistair chose me, without hesitation, every single time, it could break the script's hold. The punishment might weaken, or maybe even disappear?

It all hinged on Alistair's love. I turned to look at the man who was once the untouchable prince of the city, now trailing behind me, holding my hand with such gentle care.

I smiled, my eyes crinkling. "Alistair, you're my boyfriend now. So you're going to work hard and get rich again so I can have my old life back, right?"

"I promise," he said, his voice firm, his words a vow.

[Is it just me, or did he go from being her sugar daddy to her lapdog?]

[Just wait until he starts working. The humiliation and degradation hes about to face thats when the heroine swoops in to save him from rock bottom. Their love story will ignite. Thats the most important plot point.]

[So they missed their first meeting. Big deal. It wont stop them from falling in love. The side piece should start looking for her next benefactor now, before it's too late.]

I didn't stop Alistair from going to work. The pain was a relentless beast, and sleep was my only escape.

He came back exhausted every day. His clothes, once impeccably clean, now had dust ground into the knees.

I knew from the comments what was happening. Hed gone to an old acquaintance from his circle, a man named Rick. Rick despised Alistair for being an imposter, but he couldn't deny his business genius. So he tormented him with petty cruelties.

The man who once oozed pride was on his knees, polishing another mans shoes.

He was hauling heavy water coolers up twenty-six flights of stairs, replacing the jug in every office.

He was standing in the breakroom for three hours, making coffee for the entire company.

Rick even made Alistair clean the toilets. I had smelled the acrid scent of disinfectant clinging to his skin.

But despite all that, the first thing I saw when he walked through the door each night was a smile.

Hed set down the groceries hed bought and immediately pull me into his arms.

"Feeling any better today?"

Id blink my eyes open, still groggy, and plant a loud kiss on his cheek. "Just having you hold me makes it all better."

"I'm starving. I want dinner."

Alistair, carrying the bag of groceries, moved to the small kitchen with practiced ease. I propped my head on my hand, enjoying the absolute meltdown happening in the comments.

[This is the man who used to take three showers if he got a whiff of cooking smoke on him. Now hes living in the kitchen just to cook for her.]

[All she has to do is give him one compliment and hes putty in her hands. And her whole youre my painkiller line? So cringe, I got goosebumps.]

I rolled over in bed. Oh, there's so much more than that.

After dinner, Alistair would wash my clothes by hand, clean our tiny apartment, and then give me a full-body massage. Only after I was sound asleep would he start on the work he'd brought home.

Whenever he was here, the slightest sound from me was treated like a national emergency.

Like right now. Wearing an apron, he knelt beside my bed. "Did rolling over hurt? Do you need me?"

I put on my sweetest voice. "I need my boyfriend to kiss me."

He chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to my lips, his hands, the same hands that had signed billion-dollar deals, began to gently massage my temples.

The throbbing ache inside me subsided a little. I closed my eyes, content, and directed him to my shoulders.

A shrill ringtone shattered the peace. Alistairs hands paused before he answered the call.

His brow furrowed, and he gave me an apologetic look. "Something came up at work, Sasha. I have to go out for a bit. You finish dinner, just leave the dishes on the table. I'll wash them when I get back."

I watched him go.

The comments exploded.

[Rick has been plotting this all along. This isnt about work. It's a setup. Hes going to break Alistairs pride, humiliate him, assault him. But thank god, the heroine is about to make her grand entrance and save the day! Ive been waiting for this scene. My ship is finally sailing!]

[After tonight, that manipulative gold digger will be kicked to the curb. I am so tired of her cutesy, fake act.]

A jolt of energy shot through me. I forced myself up, ignoring the pain, and scrambled out the door after Alistair, determined to intercept his and the heroines fated romantic encounter.

Following the directions from the comments, I found the nightclub and slipped past a distracted bouncer.

The pounding music amplified the pain in my body. In the center of the main floor, a noisy crowd had formed a circle. I pushed my way through and saw him. Alistair, pinned to the floor.

Rick had his foot on Alistairs face, grinding his heel into his cheek.

The floor was littered with shattered glass, the shards digging into Alistair's skin. Blood and spilled liquor pooled around him, the metallic, sweet stench making my stomach turn.

"Still think you're some kind of prince?" Rick sneered. "You're a fake. A nobody. Thrown out on the street with nothing. If I wasn't feeding you, you'd be begging for scraps right now."

"All I asked was for you to do a little striptease for us. You had no problem getting on your knees to polish my shoes. Why the high-and-mighty act now?"

A vile smirk spread across Rick's face. He grabbed Alistairs chin, pinching his cheeks until they were red. Rick was notorious in their circle for being into men and women, but I never thought he'd set his sights on Alistair.

"You've had a tough time, haven't you? Just soften up a little. Be a good boy and play with me, and I can give you all the money and power you could ever want."

Alistair's chest heaved, his eyes burning with silent fury.

He spat a mouthful of blood onto Rick's face. The response was a vicious storm of kicks and punches.

Rick wiped his face, his expression twisting into a mask of rage. "Break his arms and legs! Strip him naked and hang him from the ceiling! Let's see how long he lasts with no food or water!"

A bouncer lifted a chair over his head and brought it down hard. Alistair let out a muffled grunt, swallowing the scream that rose in his throat.

My vision turned red. Forgetting everything about the plot, I grabbed a fruit knife from a nearby table and charged into the circle, swinging it wildly.

"Let us go! Or none of us are walking out of here alive!" My voice shook uncontrollably. Id never been this close to real danger.

My frenzied state made Rick stumble back a step. He squinted, and a slow, dawning smile spread across his face.

"Well, well, if it isn't Alistair's little pet canary, Sasha. Still sticking with him even though he's broke. What a loyal little whore."

His lecherous eyes darted between us. "I've had men, and I've had women. But I've never had a matching set before. Looks like I'm trying something new tonight."

"You can be my little plaything," he said to me. "I'll give you more than he ever could."

The words had barely left his mouth when Alistair, who had been lying limp on the floor, exploded. Veins bulged on his forehead as he snatched the knife from my hand and plunged it straight into Rick's eye.

"You dare touch her!"

But Rick had numbers on his side. Bouncers swarmed forward, pinning Alistair down and beating him mercilessly.

Rick writhed on the floor, screaming. "A doctor! Get me a goddamn doctor! And skin that bastard Alistair alive! I want him to beg for death!"

I tried to shield Alistair with my own body, but someone kicked me so hard I flew backward, crashing into a table and coughing up a mouthful of blood.

The fists landing on Alistair were brutal, each blow a sickening thud. But he seemed to feel nothing. His only focus was on me. When he saw the blood spill from my lips, he began to struggle with renewed ferocity.

His eyes were blazing red, staring straight at me. He mouthed two words: Run now.

[I knew this scene was coming, but its still brutal to watch. This incident leaves a permanent scar on him. Its only with the heroines love and support that hes able to heal.]

[No wonder Rick is the one who eventually tortures the side character to death. I wish I could jump through the screen and kill him myself.]

That sentence flashed in my mind. A wave of fury and defiance surged through me. Why should I die at the hands of scum like this? Why does he get to humiliate Alistair without consequence?

I grabbed a jagged piece of broken glass from the floor and scrambled toward the now-unprotected Rick. As he roared in agony, I drove the shard deep into his neck. Hot blood sprayed across my face and hair.

Suddenly, a clear, commanding female voice cut through the chaos. "Stop! Anyone who lays another hand on Alistair Blackwood will answer to me."

It was as if fireworks had exploded in my vision as the comments lit up in celebration.

[The hero and heroine have finally met! The plot is back on track!]

A wave of unimaginable pain washed over me, stealing the last of my strength. I collapsed to the floor. With my last ounce of will, I turned my head to look at Alistair.

And I saw it. A flicker of awe and astonishment in his eyes as he looked at his savior.