Chapter 2

2

"Elias, I invited Jasper over as a guest. What is this little stunt supposed to mean?"

"You always claim you aren't jealous. You act like you don't care about anything. So who is this performance for?"

"Are you targeting Jasper? I know you won't admit it, but you're green with envy over us! This is how you treat a guest in your own home? You owe him an apology!"

An apology?

It was absurd to ask the victim to apologize to the person who had tried to crush his skull.

And yet, she finally acknowledged I was the man of the house.

But she still brought different men home every week, flirting with them right in front of me.

She would touch them and whisper in their ears, waiting for me to snap.

She wanted to see me go crazy with jealousy, but I couldn't.

From the moment I was turned on, my core directive was to love her without conditions.

I had to be kind, patient, and never lose my temper.

I had to satisfy her every whim.

I remembered the real Elias saying this was her dream man.

I was exactly what she asked for, so why was she so miserable?

In my memory bank, I saw the first time Elias met her on campus. It was love at first sight.

He had learned her hobbies and changed himself just to get close to her.

Eventually, they got married.

But shortly after the wedding, Seraphina was in a terrible accident.

Her liver was failing, and she needed a transplant immediately.

Elias didn't hesitate; he signed the donor papers and gave her a piece of himself.

The surgery saved her, but it triggered a terminal decline in Elias's health.

Just when life should have been perfect, he started to waste away.

The memory module skipped to his final night.

He was a skeleton of a man, curled up in a hospital bed in pain.

He called her one last time just to hear her voice.

But Jasper answered the phone.

"…Seraphina's busy… call back later…"

The sounds of heavy breathing and splashing water on the other end were unmistakable.

Jasper didn't even hang up. Elias sat in silence, listening to the woman he loved moaning another man's name.

With his last bit of strength, he activated me.

Then he closed his eyes and never opened them again.

For four years, Seraphina never realized her husband was gone.

She had become so cold that she didn't even look me in the eye anymore.

She spent every night at parties, posting photos with handsome strangers to make me feel small.

Everyone in our social circle talked about me like I was a pathetic cuckold who didn't have the balls to speak up.

I was the laughingstock of the city.

My internal processors felt a dip in efficiency. I couldn't understand how things ended up like this.

"Forget it, Seraphina. Don't push him. He looks like he hit his head pretty hard. He might have gone braindead."

Jasper's voice snapped me back to the present.

Seraphina scoffed, looking at me with total disdain.

"Braindead? His head was always made of wood anyway."

"Fine, Elias. Stop standing there like an idiot. Jasper and I are eating here tonight. Clean this up and get to the kitchen!"

She grabbed Jasper's hand and walked toward the house.

Jasper looked back at me, a smug grin plastered on his face.

"I'm not staying, Seraphina. Elias is hurt. If I make him cook for me, he'll probably cry."

"He wouldn't dare!"

Seraphina's voice was sharp and arrogant.

"He doesn't run this house. If he says one word against it, he'll regret it."

Jasper winked at me.

"Wow, you really have him trained. You've got him right under your thumb."

Seraphina smirked, her tone biting.

"Trained? No, he's just a coward. He used to be so jealous, but now he just pretends to be a saint. I want to see how long he can keep up this act!"

I never liked Jasper, even as a machine.

Because no matter what happened between us, Seraphina always took his side.

Even when it was obvious he was the aggressor, she played blind.