Chapter 1One Like to Pull the Plug

When I begged my multi-millionaire husband for enough money to buy groceries, the girl who had been living in our guest house—his childhood best friend—snapped a hideous photo of me crying. She posted it straight to his Instagram.

"The leech is begging for cash again. One like equals one hundred dollars for her allowance. How many likes do we think she’s worth?"

I lunged for the phone, desperate to delete it.

But my mother-in-law stepped in, grabbing my wrist with a manicured hand. "Leave it," she said with a cold smile. "I think it’s a brilliant idea."

My husband, Colin, chimed in, praising Melody for her "creative solution." Right then and there, he decreed that from that day forward, my living expenses would be strictly dictated by the number of likes that humiliating post received.

For the sake of my grandmother, who was lying in a hospital bed clinging to life, I swallowed the bitter bile in my throat. I didn't dare fight back.

Over the next three years, the likes dwindled. The joke grew old for his country club friends.

When my grandmother was eight thousand dollars short for a life-saving surgery, I begged everyone I knew. The post only garnered 70 likes.

When I finally got pregnant, my body was so severely malnourished that I needed prenatal supplements just to keep the baby viable. That post got exactly 2 likes.

My grandmother died because her heart couldn't wait for a check that never came.

And the child in my womb, starved of the very nutrients it needed to survive, quietly faded away into a pooling mess of blood on the bathroom floor.

It was on the day my heart finally turned to ash, the day I resolved to file for divorce, that Colin was in a horrific car crash.

Now, his broken body lay tethered to life-support in the ICU, but his spirit—his arrogant, insufferable soul—was floating near the ceiling, screaming at me.

[Get the doctors! Call the best neurologists in the country! Have them flown in!]

[If I wake up and find out you delayed this, I swear to God I won't give you a single dime!]

I didn't flinch. I just pulled out my phone with its cracked screen, snapped a photo of his mangled face wrapped in bandages, and posted it to my Instagram.

"Gathering likes. One like, and I pull the plug."

* * *

The moment the post went live, Colin’s ghost nearly resurrected himself out of sheer rage.

He floated down, thrashing and clawing at the air, muttering violently about how he was going to make me pay. But for all his spectral fury, the most he could manage was a faint breeze that shifted a single strand of my hair.

[Jocelyn, are you out of your goddamn mind?]

[Delete that post right now! Go tell the doctor you can see me! Make them fix this, or I swear I will—]

I clicked my screen off, looking right through his translucent form with a bitter smirk.

"Or what? You'll post a poll on Facebook to make sure my grocery budget is capped at two hundred bucks next month? You'll make sure I starve?" I tilted my head. "You've already done that to me, Colin. You've already done your worst. I’m not afraid of you anymore."

Colin’s ethereal face faltered. He knew exactly what that two-hundred-dollar limit had done. He knew it was the reason I miscarried. A flicker of genuine guilt crossed his features, but in true Colin fashion, his bruised ego quickly recovered.

[No one is going to like that post,] he sneered, crossing his arms. [No one is going to join your little psychotic break and become an accomplice to murder!]

I tapped my screen to check.

He wasn't wrong. The post had been up for fifteen minutes, and the little heart icon remained entirely empty. Zero likes.

It made sense, really. For three years, every time Colin posted a photo mocking me for money, I had spammed our mutual friends, begging them to throw a 'like' my way just so I could eat. I had exhausted them. Over time, they had all either muted or blocked me. And even the ones who hadn't wouldn't dare touch a post joking about murder.

I let out a soft, hollow sigh. What a shame.

Colin smirked, assuming I had admitted defeat. He started barking orders again, telling me to get off my ass and fetch the attending physician.

I didn't move. I just looked at him, my eyes tracing the terrified contour of his fading jawline.

"I know one person who will like it," I whispered. "Someone who wants you dead more than anyone else in the world."

Before Colin could even process the confusion on his face, I looked down at my screen. I tapped the little heart icon beneath my own post.

"One like."

Without giving him a second to react, I reached over to the wall and ripped the ventilator tube straight out of the socket.