Chapter 1

In this house, there was an unspoken rule: every time my adopted sister, Sloane, fed her gambling addiction at the casino, I was the one who had to take the punishment.

When Sloane racked up five thousand dollars in gambling debt, I was locked inside a sub-zero freezer overnight.

When Sloane stole and sold the family jewelry, my parents pinned my shoulders down while my husband ruined my face with a red-hot branding iron.

They claimed that only by seeing me suffer would Sloane feel guilty enough to finally quit gambling.

Until, in a desperate attempt to teach Sloane one final lesson, they hired someone to stage a fake mobster debt collection.

What they didn't know was that the prop gun bought off the black market was loaded with a real bullet.

And as the bullet ripped through my heart, my husband simply kicked my twitching body, laughing as he complimented how realistic my blood pack looked.

Warm blood clogged my windpipe. I lay paralyzed on the floor, my consciousness fading away.

This time, the chip wagered on Sloane's behalf was my life.

.....

"Ah—!" Sloane's piercing scream shattered the brief, dead silence.

She curled up in the corner, trembling with her arms wrapped around her head.

"Elara!" Sloane sobbed, yet she didn't dare take a single step toward me.

I struggled to look down, seeing the center of my chest already soaked in a blinding, dark red. The crimson stain was spreading fast, trailing down my body and dripping onto the concrete, pooling into a gruesome puddle of blood.

It hurt so much.

Every breath felt like my lungs were being shredded by a hundred barbed blades. I tried to raise my hand to cover the wound, but my fingers were completely devoid of strength, twitching uselessly against the floor.

"All right, enough with the acting."

A male voice, dripping with mockery, echoed.

My husband, Alistair, wore that cold, dismissive smile I knew all too well.

My parents, Robert and Martha, followed closely behind him.

Martha even raised hand to cover her nose in disgust.

"Ali... save me..." I tried desperately to call out, but all that spilled from my throat were thick, heavy mouthfuls of blood.

The blood meandered down the corner of my mouth, washing over the ugly burn scar on the side of my face—the permanent "rule" Alistair had branded onto me last month after Sloane sold our jewelry to gamble in Vegas.

Alistair walked over and nudged me with the toe of his shoe.

"I have to admit, Elara, you really went all out to help us teach Sloane a lesson this time."

Alistair let out a short laugh, turning toward the masked "collector." "This blood pack is pretty convincing, isn't it? Good acting. My assistant will wire the final payment to your account tomorrow."

The hired actor was clearly frozen in shock. He stared at the prop gun in his hand, then down at the ever-expanding pool of blood under me, his voice trembling. "No... sir, when I pulled the trigger just now, the recoil felt wrong... This gun..."

"That's enough!" Robert snapped, cutting the actor off. He marched over to Sloane, hoisted his cowering adopted daughter up from the floor, and forced her to look at me.

"Sloane, open your eyes and look closely!" Robert roared, pointing at my twitching, bloodied form. "This is where your gambling leads! If you don't quit now, the next time the mob comes knocking, your sister will be lying dead on the floor for real!"

Martha rushed forward, patting Sloane's back sympathetically, though her tone toward me was full of annoyance. "Really, Elara, that's enough playing around. Get up and change your clothes before you traumatize Sloane. You know how fragile her mental state is."

I forced my eyes wide as my vision began to blur.

I looked at my husband. I looked at my biological parents. They were all hovering over Sloane, blind to the fact that I was bleeding to death right in front of them.

"Save... me..." I pushed out with the very last ounce of my strength.

"I said enough, Elara. Are we still doing this?" Alistair yanked at his tie in profound irritation. "The show is over."

"Do you think playing dead gets you out of your responsibilities? You failed to supervise Sloane as her older sister, so this is what you get. I told you—every time she gambles, you pay the price. Today's little stunt was to make sure she finally learns her lesson. What, is this dying act supposed to be your way of protesting?"

"No... it's... it's real..." The blood rapidly displaced the air in my lungs. With every desperate attempt to speak, the wound in my chest surged with a heavier torrent of red.

"Just ignore her, Alistair." Martha sneered, pulling a still-weeping Sloane toward the door. "This girl has been jealous of Sloane since they were kids. She's just putting on this pathetic show to fish for sympathy. If she hadn't always insisted on being number one in everything—driving Sloane into a state of depression and low self-esteem—Sloane wouldn't have needed gambling to numb her pain! Even if she is suffering a bit for Sloane, it's her own damn fault! Let's go. She'll drag herself home once she realizes no one's watching."

When I finally returned to this house years after going missing, I saw their undeniable bias toward Sloane, and I tried with everything I had to become their pride and joy.

I thought that stack of straight-A report cards and the gleaming golden trophies I brought home would buy me just a single, charitable glance of their attention.

But in their eyes, those weren't the desperate pleas of a biological daughter yearning for love; they were calculated weapons I used to maliciously tear Sloane down.

For just a sliver of their affection, I silently endured three years of proxy punishments.

Even Alistair, the husband who once swore to protect me, comfortably stepped into the role of my executioner.

I was locked in a freezing vault until I caught pneumonia; my face was branded with a red-hot iron, marking me with shame; I was forced to swallow boiling tea...

I foolishly believed that if I was just obedient enough, if I just kept taking Sloane's punishments, one day they would finally see my devotion.

But I was wrong.

How pathetic, Elara, I thought to myself.

Robert let out a cold snort. "You've really disappointed me, Elara. We went to all this trouble to stage an intervention, and you're here throwing a childish tantrum."

Alistair stood up, unbothered.

"I'm giving you one hour. If I don't see you at home in exactly one hour, I'm cutting off your allowance, and you can figure out how to pay off Sloane's new debts yourself."

With that, he walked away without a second glance.

The hired actor finally seemed to realize the gravity of what he had done. Whimpering in terror, he dropped the gun and scrambled out of the warehouse.

With a soft click, the single swaying incandescent bulb hanging from the ceiling was cut off.

Absolute, suffocating darkness and a bone-chilling cold instantly swallowed me whole.