He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. Chapter 01

He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. Chapter 01

In this world, love can be traded.

The first time Dante Castellano took love from me, it was to buy his childhood friend, Serena Moretti, a pair of legs that could dance again.

The doctor said it would cost only one percent.

He held my hand and kept his voice gentle.

“You love me so much, Nina. You won’t even notice it’s gone.”

After that, Serena needed patience for rehab.

Then courage for the stage. Then confidence for competition.

Every time, Dante paid with my love.

By the ninety-ninth transaction, the terminal flashed a blood-red warning:

[After this transaction, remaining Affection: 1%.]

[Minimum threshold reached. Any further transaction will result in permanent zeroing.]

Dante hesitated for exactly one minute.

Then he pressed Confirm.

When the victory party ended, he carried Serena’s trophy home and found me packing.

He frowned and caught my wrist.

“What are you doing now?”

I looked down at his hand.

Then I turned to the Exchange staff waiting in the living room.

“Excuse me. Who is this gentleman?”

—

The room went silent.

Dante’s face darkened.

“Annalise. Is playing amnesiac supposed to be funny?”

He set the trophy on the table with a thud.

Serena’s name was engraved on the side. Confetti from the party still clung to the base.

The researcher spoke up.

“Because of excessive Affection trading, the emotional ties connected to you are almost completely severed.”

“Put simply, she remembers that she once loved you.”

“She just can’t understand why anymore.”

Dante stared for two seconds.

Then he laughed, cold and short.

“She’s loved me since she was eighteen. Twelve years.”

“Even at one percent, there’s no way she feels nothing.”

The researcher handed him the Consent Contract.

“Before the final transaction, the system issued an explicit warning.”

Serena’s final round had already begun by then.

He had been sitting in the front row, spending the last of my love to buy her composure on stage.

Dante crushed the contract in his fist.

“So what if it’s one percent? She fell for me once. She can do it again.”

He said it as if I were a flower cut down to the stem, certain to bloom again in spring.

I pulled my suitcase toward the door.

He blocked my path, his voice hard.

“You’re not going anywhere. You’re my wife.”

“Even without the feeling, we can start over.”

His phone lit up at that exact moment.

A voice message from Serena, soft and tearful.

“Dante, I fell on the steps. My leg hurts so much.”

“Can you come?”

He turned instinctively.

At the door, he seemed to remember I existed.

He looked back and gave an order.

“Put your things back. We’ll talk when I get home.”

The door slammed.

His “starting over” lasted less than five minutes.

The broker had told me my love for Dante was down to one percent.

And still, watching him leave for Serena without even a glance back, my heart clenched as if someone had closed a fist around it.

I dragged the suitcase over and opened the drawer where I kept my documents.

Inside lay a thick stack of Consent Contracts.

That year, Dante and Serena’s car had gone off the road in the rain, and afterward Serena’s legs were badly injured.

The doctor said that if one percent of my love was extracted, she could stand again.

Dante had held my hand, his eyes red.

“Just one percent.”

“After this, I will never take anything from you again.”

He sat beside my bed in the observation room all night.

When I woke, he kissed my forehead and swore he would never let me sacrifice for anyone again.

But it wasn’t long before he came back.

This time, he used my love to buy Serena the courage to perform, and the thick skin to survive the press.

Then, even her pre-competition nerves and the stiffness of her smile in interviews became reasons to take away what was left of my love.

Except for the first, not one transaction was ever medical.

At the beginning, Dante held me and explained for a long time.

Later, he skipped even the explanations.

He simply slid the request in front of me and said, offhand:

“It’s only one percent.”

I put my medication into the suitcase and thought about the observation period after each transaction, and how the side effects had grown worse every time.

The twelfth: I called Dante by the wrong name for three days straight.

The twenty-ninth: I forgot he was allergic to peanuts, and his mother publicly condemned me as unfit to be his wife.

The fifty-fourth: I couldn’t find my way home.

Dante accused me of sabotaging Serena’s performance on purpose and left me wandering outside all night.

After the eightieth: I couldn’t sleep, and my hands shook without warning.

I begged Dante to stop.

He pulled me into his arms and coaxed me with rare tenderness.

“Just this one more time.”

“When the competition’s over, I’ll take care of you.”

But after every “one more time,” there was always another.

At the bottom of each Consent Contract was a line for an emergency contact.

All ninety-nine times, Dante had written his own name.

The Exchange’s follow-up records showed that they had called him seventeen times.

He had answered twice.

Once he said he was in a meeting with the capos.

Once he said Serena was about to go on stage and told the staff not to bother him with trivial matters.

I put the stack of contracts back on the desk.

I didn’t take them.

Then I slipped off my wedding ring, stood, and said to the broker who was still in the room:

“I want a divorce. And I intend to sue Dante Castellano for violating me.”

“Can the Exchange provide the evidence?”