Chapter 357: My Falling? , The Unfuckwithable. This had me thinking about some uncomfortable shit. What would Mom say if she found out I was the reason a married woman was getting divorced? Would she sigh? Would she cry? Or would she just stare at me over her steaming mug of herbal "I told you so" blend and ask, "Peter, darling, couldn’t you have found a slightly less... explosive hobby? Like collecting rare stamps? Or juggling chainsaws?" Forget Isabella’s particular Christ-on-a-crutch situation – the real grenade I’d lobbed into the societal China shop was Amanda. Literally. Stolen a bride. From her actual engagement party. Like some fucked-up fairy tale where the dragon rides off with the princess before the "I Do’s," leaving the hapless prince holding a wilted bouquet and a lifetime of therapy bills. We didn’t just crash her upcoming wedding; we detonated it, scooped up the dazed, glittery debris. What the actual fuck was my life becoming? It felt less like a life and more like a reality TV script penned by Nietzsche after a bad batch of brownies. Extreme Makeover: Moral Edition – Tonight’s episode? Guy Obliterates Social Norms! Seemed like the only morals clinging to the wreckage of my psyche like stubborn survivors were two flimsy, suspiciously self-serving commandments: Thou Shalt Ensure Women’s Well-Being (mostly by not letting them marry dipshits like Amanda’s almost-husband), and Thou Shalt Provide Mind-Blowing Satisfaction (because hey, if you’re gonna burn down their carefully curated lives, the least you can do is give them a decent orgasm in the ashes). Divine responsibility, right? Like a career arsonist justifying spreading napalm because hey, the fire looks pretty and it clears the underbrush. My moral compass wasn’t just broken; it was spinning like a demented roulette wheel, landing on chaos every single fucking time. ...Nah. Screw that spiral. I slammed the mental brakes. That introspective noise? That was the sound of weakness. The whimpers of a conscience trying to stage a pathetic comeback tour. I wasn’t becoming some monster. I was just... excelling at my calling. Think of it less as destroying marriages and more as... efficient relationship triage. Cutting out the gangrenous limbs before they infected the whole patient? Yeah. That sounds medically ethical. As for Amanda? We didn’t steal her. We rescued her. From a lifetime of vanilla sex and beige suburbia. That wasn’t a crime; that was a public fucking service. Oscar-worthy performance, honestly. Accepting speech already drafted: "I’d like to thank my complete disregard for societal expectations." Of course I was still a good guy. Just... good at this particular brand of necessary chaos. Like a surgeon with a very specific, very bloody specialty. My scalpel? Wit. My operating theater? Luxury penthouses and stolen wedding receptions. My patient? The suffocating expectations draped over women like cheap chiffon. Yeah, collateral damage would happen to many men. Divorces would get filed. Ex-fiancés crying into their overpriced scotch. Ex-husbands suddenly remembering they loved their wives when faced with the prospect of them... not being there anymore? Pathetic. Predictable. Like watching a bad stock recover after you’ve already shorted it into oblivion. Not my problem. My problem, my calling, was the aftermath. Making sure the woman walked away smiling. Feeling powerful. Alive. Unfuckwithable. That wasn’t just satisfaction; it was liberation. And if liberating women required scattering a few sacred cows (and a few marriage licenses) across the whole world skyline? So be it. Good guy? Abso-fucking-lutely. Just good at being the antidote and the cosmos’s errand boy for liberating its beloved daughters. The chaotic counterpoint to all that stifling, polite, soul-crushing normalcy. They built their gilded cages. I just provided the bolt cutters... and maybe a little spontaneous combustion as a parting gift. My morals weren’t gone; they’d just evolved. Adapted to the battlefield. Survival of the fittest and the satisfied, babes. And these women? They weren’t just surviving under my watch. They were thriving. And yeah, that made me feel pretty fucking good about myself. Sue me. Or better yet... thank me later. Preferably over that vodka Anastasia was offering last time I was in Miami while she disguised calling me to her apartment. But the dust hadn’t even settled on Isabella’s crisis call when my brain was already cataloguing the massive avalanche of glorious chaos rolling in. Apparently, liberation isn’t a one-night stand – it’s a goddamn franchise. We’d just dropped Madison and Sofia off at their respective homes, leaving Amanda and Soo-Jin in the car with me as we pulled through Mom’s mansion gates. Amanda was still half-asleep against the window, probably dreaming about whatever the fuck runaway brides dream about. Soo-Jin sat quietly in the back, still processing the insanity of Isabella’s harem welcome call. "Your life is completely unhinged," Soo-Jin said softly, shaking her head. "Biology teacher calls crying, Madison sends lawyers, Sofia discovers her teacher’s in your... woman. This is not normal teenage behavior." "Normal is overrated, my love," I replied. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺 "Peter," ARIA chimed in through my watch, "Your philosophical spiraling about morality is giving me secondhand embarrassment. You spent fifteen minutes justifying stealing a bride like you’re writing a dissertation." "Shut up, ARIA." "Just saying, you’ve got actual problems to solve instead of pontificating about your cosmic calling. Speaking of which, your Miami relocation logistics are a nightmare. Celeste’s gallery lease, Sophia’s museum connections, plus the estate housing situation? You’re about to run a refugee camp for sexually liberated socialites." Amanda stirred, blinking awake. "Are we here yet?" I had a whola lot of things to settle now before whatever chaos was going on in mom’s house got to my mind. First item: Operation LA Homesteading. My Miami squad – Celeste with her gallery-size insecurities, Sophia and her museum-daddy angst – they wanted in. The rest? Playing coy, like virgins at a swinger’s convention. Not saying ’no,’ but not instantly flinging their panties at the Golden State border either. Fine. Let them simmer. Anticipation is the ultimate aperitif. Their reluctant ’maybes’ just made the eventual ’fuck yes, please I want to settle in with you now’ sweeter. LA wasn’t ready for this hurricane of high-maintenance chaos landing. But beyond that, the real missions were piling up. Sofia’s daddy problems and that walking, talking disappointment, Jack Fucking Morrison. Kid radiated ’future midlife crisis in a trust fund baby’ like bad cologne. I had to help her. Fixing Sofia? Maybe. Saving her from Patriarchal Tyranny? Probably a Tuesday.