His voice carried no warmth at all.

“You were throwing yourself at him like a bitch in heat last night. Enjoyed it, didn't you?”

My throat was raw, but I forced out the words.

“Dean, Miles put something in my drink. It was drugs.”

He scoffed, his eyes full of contempt.

“You think I'd believe that? I think you're just cheap to the bone.”

He tossed the rag aside, pulled a thick stack of bills from his wallet, and flung them in my face.

“You know why I'm marrying Gwendolen? Because she's ten thousand times cleaner than you.”

I got on my knees in silence and picked up the bills one by one.

This was the last installment for the house.

Dean's phone erupted with a frantic ringtone.

He answered, and the color drained from his face.

“What?”

He hung up. The look he gave me could have cut through steel.

“The hospital just called. Juliana's heart stopped for several minutes!”

He seized my arm and hauled me up, speeding toward the hospital the entire way.

“If anything happens to my sister, you're going in the ground with her!”

When we reached the ICU doors, Gwendolen rushed up and slapped me across the face.

“This is all because of you, you jinx!”

“Everyone near you gets destroyed. Why don't you just die!!”

Dean didn't stop her. He shot me one cold look, then walked into the room.

After the resuscitation was over, the doctor said Juliana's heart was beating again.

“Mr. Henson, the international specialist we mentioned before has recently made a breakthrough in his research. If we could bring him in for a consultation, there may still be hope for your sister.”

Dean's eyes lit up. “Even if there's a one-in-ten-thousand chance, I'm taking it.”

Over the next few days, he was on the phone nonstop, firing off emails around the clock.

My English was strong, so he kept me at his side to communicate back and forth with the specialist, a man named Professor Joe.

Gwendolen caught sight of us working together more than once. Each time, her expression soured.

One day, I was carrying coffee to the study, about to knock, when I heard Gwendolen's voice through the door.

She sounded bitter, resentful. “You destroyed her parents' company. You arranged the car accident that killed them. You've been tormenting her for three years already. What's the point of keeping her around?”

My feet nailed themselves to the floor.

Two seconds of silence from the study. Then Dean's voice. “For what my sister went through, every last person in the Pruitt family could die and it still wouldn't be enough.”

I stood by the door. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears.

He killed my parents.

Back then, everything had fallen apart so fast I never had time to question any of it.

I'd believed that staying by Dean's side, enduring his cruelty, would at least ease some of the guilt I carried over what happened to Juliana.

I never imagined his hatred for me and my parents ran this deep.

For three years I'd stayed in the Henson household and let him do whatever he wanted to me. For the house. For the guilt. For whatever pathetic scrap of feeling I still had for him that refused to die.

I'd given him everything.

And in the end, I'd been serving the man who murdered my parents.

I pressed my hand hard against my chest, forcing the scream back down my throat.

It hurt. God, it hurt.

The pain doubled me over.

I turned and ran out the front door, faster and faster.

The sky opened up without warning, and rain poured down.

I ran all the way to the cemetery on the outskirts of the city and collapsed to my knees before my parents' headstones.

“Dad, Mom! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”

“You died and no one ever told me the truth, and I've been waiting on the man who killed you.”

“Three years! I served him for three years. I thought I was atoning……”

“But it wasn't that. It was never an accident.”

“What do I do? I have no proof……I don't even know how to face him……”

The rain came down harder and harder. I knelt in the mud, my forehead pressed against the headstone, and cried for a long, long time.

It took a while before I could stand.

I was soaked through when I got back to the Henson residence. The moment I pushed the door open, I saw Dean and Gwendolen sitting in the living room.

Dean's expression was dark. “Where the hell were you?”

I lowered my eyes. “I went to get groceries.”

Gwendolen covered her mouth and laughed. “Then where are they? Rebecca, you don't even bother making your lies believable. What, were you out meeting some man?”

The bodyguard behind Dean spoke up. “Mr. Henson, Ms. Pruitt went to the cemetery.”

He pulled out his phone and showed a photo of me wiping the headstone.

Dean's face went rigid. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face.

“You lying bitch.”

My head snapped to the side, my cheek burning.

Then I turned back. For the first time, I looked him in the eye.

“I was cleaning my parents' headstone. Is that a crime?”

Dean let out a cold laugh.

“Your parents don't deserve a burial. When they were destroying my sister's life, did they ever stop to think that her life mattered too?”

My fists clenched. For the first time, I raised my voice.

“My parents never tried to hurt anyone! Juliana was my best friend. When she got hurt, I was devastated too. I felt guilty too! I've already given up everything I have……”

“Shut up!”

Dean kicked me in the knee.

I crashed to the floor. My vision went black.

Gwendolen's face lit up with satisfaction. She crouched down, reaching out as if to help me.

But the instant her fingers brushed my arm, her body lurched backward and she fell.

“Ah——”

Dean rushed over and caught her in his arms. “Gwen!”

Gwendolen's eyes brimmed with tears, her voice small and wounded.

“Dean……I was just trying to help her up, and she pushed me……”

Dean lifted his head. His gaze cut into me like a blade.

“You piece of trash! You ruined my sister, and now you're going after Gwen!”

He turned to his men.

“Break both her arms.”

Two of them grabbed my arms. A wet, snapping “crack”.

Both arms went limp, dangling at wrong angles. My mouth opened, but the pain was so blinding that no sound came out.

Dean left with Gwendolen.

I writhed on the floor, cold sweat soaking through my clothes.

Shadows appeared in the doorway.

Miles Dickerson. The one who drugged me at the party.

He leaned against the doorframe, looking me up and down, the corner of his mouth curling.

“Hey, sweetheart. Last time we played that little game, the turn landed on me. You still owe me my prize.”

I stared at them, chest heaving. “What do you want?”

Miles grinned. “I won the game fair and square, and I never collected. Your Mr. Henson told me to come get my reward myself.”

I shook my head hard. “That's impossible, he wouldn't……”

The words died halfway out.

Something sharp twisted inside my chest.

Of course it was possible. Dean hated me enough to want me torn apart. He hadn't even blinked when he ordered my arms broken.

I shrank back. “This is the Henson residence. You can't do this here.”

Right then, my phone rang.

I used the last scrap of strength I had to nudge my wrist forward and push the phone against my ear.

It was Dean.

“Dean! Dean, I was wrong, I was wrong, I shouldn't have gone to my parents' graves, please let me go, don't let these men hurt me……”

His voice was flat with impatience. “Professor Joe is here. I don't have time for you right now.”

He paused. When he spoke again, his tone was colder. “Don't try anything stupid.”

My heart sank.

Gwendolen's laughter came through the phone. She lowered her voice.

“Rebecca, you've clung to Dean for three years with no title, no status. If I were you, I'd have had the sense to leave a long time ago. So? How do you like your little surprise?”

The line went dead.

I struggled toward the door. The men blocked my way.

Miles ran his hand across my face, stroking it back and forth.

Bile surged up my throat. “Don't touch me!”

He reached for my clothes. I gathered every last shred of strength I had and drove my foot between his legs.

Miles doubled over in pain.

The next second, he looked up. His eyes had gone vicious. He swung his leg and kicked me square in the stomach.

My body had never recovered from the miscarriage. That kick tore through my lower abdomen like something ripping me open from the inside, and cold sweat broke out instantly.

Every trace of color drained from my face. I collapsed to the floor.

Miles clamped his hand around my throat and pinned me down. “Ungrateful bitch. I tried to be nice.”

I stared at the ceiling, my vision swimming red.

No one was coming.

Hours later, the men strolled out like nothing had happened.

I lay on the floor. Inch by inch, I pressed my palms against the ground and dragged myself up.

Both arms were broken. I couldn't use them. It took me a long, long time just to pull my clothes back on.

I stood up and stared at the empty living room.

“Dean Henson, I hate you.”

I stumbled out the door.

The world was so big. Where was I supposed to go?

I walked. One step at a time, until I reached the sea.

The wind off the water cut through my clothes and burned against every wound.

I stood on the rocks, looking out at the ocean. Everything that had happened over the past few years flashed through my mind.

Dean holding my hand for the first time. His smile when he said he'd marry me after graduation. The surgical light above the operating table during my miscarriage. My parents' headstones. Miles's hand around my throat.

A voice kept echoing in my ears.

“Why don't you just die?”

“You and your parents all deserved to die.”

“Jump. Jump and it'll all be over.”

I looked down at the water beneath me. Black. I couldn't see a thing.

Everything I'd given these past years, every last piece of myself, had been wasted on the wrong person.

I closed my eyes.

……

Professor Joe had arrived early that morning with a world-class medical team and set up at the Henson family's private hospital.

“Mr. Henson, we've applied the new procedure. I called you here so you could witness the results firsthand.”

Dean stood at the bedside, eyes locked on the figure in the bed.

Juliana's fingers twitched.

Her eyelids trembled, then slowly opened.

Dean rushed to the bed. His voice shook. “Julie, you're awake!”

Juliana looked at him. Her lips moved, her voice faint and raw. “Brother……where's Rebecca?”

Dean frowned. “You just woke up after all these years. Why would you bring up that jinx?”

Juliana grabbed his sleeve. “Where is she?”

Dean's voice turned cold. “If those thugs hadn't mistaken you for her, you wouldn't have suffered all these years.”

“I already took care of her parents. And Rebecca herself? I've been making her life a living hell for three years.”

Juliana froze.

Her eyes went wide, and her voice rose sharply.

“You got it wrong! Those men didn't mistake me for her! I did it myself! I told them my name was Rebecca Pruitt!”

The expression on Dean's face turned to stone.

He stared at Juliana's mouth as if he couldn't comprehend what she was saying.

Juliana sobbed. “She's my best friend. Her mother did a good thing and saved someone's life. I couldn't let them get hurt. I told those men I was Rebecca. I said it myself!”

Dean shot to his feet. The chair crashed to the floor behind him.

Juliana seized his hand and held on. “I told them to take me! It was my idea! Dean, none of this was her fault. Not one single thing was her fault! What did you do to her? What did you do to her?!”

At that moment, the television mounted on the hospital wall cut to a breaking news bulletin.

“A young woman has been spotted near the Coastal Highway, preparing to jump into the ocean. Police are on the scene and a rescue operation is underway.”

Juliana's gaze snapped to the screen.

“Dean, that person……doesn't she look like Rebecca?”

Dean turned. His eyes locked on the screen.

The camera zoomed in.

The pale face turned toward the lens. It was Rebecca.

In the next instant, with every witness watching, the figure stepped off the rocks.

The ocean swallowed her whole.