Sloane’s POV

I would’ve died for Gunner Carnegie—the man I gave eight years of my life to. But for my half-sister, he’d kill me in just a second.

To Brandi, his name was a nightmare, not a fantasy. But to win her over, Gunner humbled himself to invest in my company and work there as Secretary Gunner Sutter.

He stayed by my side—but only to stay close enough to calm her fears… and make her fall for him.

“Sloane,” he warned me, “touch her once, and I’ll make sure you suffer ten times as much.”

And he meant it.

I slapped Brandi once. He hit me back hard right in front of all our employees.

I gave her script to someone else. He made my life hell.

I called her a bitch. He carved the word into my skin himself.

Brandi never had to lift a finger—everything I fought for, he handed to her on a silver platter.

Me? No matter how much I suffered, all I ever got was “You deserve that.”

So when Dwight Astor came to propose, I quickly said yes.

——

There was a loud crack, and the next thing I knew, the floor rushed up to meet me.

My ears were ringing so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else but my assistant, shouting, “Miss Sloane! Your face!”

I felt her hand grab me to help me sit up.

I couldn’t see it, but I felt the heat, the swelling, and the sting where something sharp had cut through my skin.

But nothing hurt more than the way my favorite punishment looked at me.

So cold.

I loved Gunner for eight years.

But the only woman he ever truly cared about from the start was that two-faced little sister of mine.

I’ve asked myself a thousand times. ‘What does she have that I don’t? What made him kneel for her, bleed for her?’

The day I found out, I swear… I actually wanted to kill her.

Five years ago, Gunner came to me. Premier Collective was falling apart then.

He offered to save it—but only if I agreed to his conditions.

“Stop being hard on Brandi, and give her back everything that belongs to her.”

I looked at him, and my heart ached.

The real power behind the Carnegies’ empire wasn’t that polished heir they paraded around.

It was Gunner—the third son, the one who ruled from the dark.

For my sister, he lowered himself. He stayed close to me, pretending to care, just to help her forget her fear of him.

Because everyone knew Gunner was a terrifying figure. Just the mention of his name would make people tremble. After all, his hands were stained with blood.

Once, he sent a marriage proposal to Brandi.

But the moment she heard that it was the third son’s proposal, my sister got so scared that she spiked a fever that night.

When Gunner found out, he felt guilty.

But he couldn’t just let her go.

He hid himself, working as my secretary, waiting for the day she’d fall for him.

“If that day came,” he promised, “I’d finally tell her who I really am.”

What he never saw was status, money, reputation, applause—that’s the kind of love my sister would kill for.

Me? Still, stupidly, blindly—I loved him.

Emotion overruled reason, and I agreed to his terms.

In recent years, I used all my connections, called in every favor, and built my sister up into one of the four biggest actresses in the industry.

Not long ago, she broke into my room and started rifling through my stuff.

I lost control. I slapped her.

She deserved it, but in front of everyone, Gunner hit me right back.

It was brutal—the kind of slap that made everyone around us flinch like they were the ones who got hit.

That’s the man I gave my heart to for free for years.

He didn’t ask why I did what I did. He didn't care what Brandi had done. He just slapped me straight away.

“Gunner,” I whispered. “Do you even have a heart?”

“I do,” he said. “And I gave it to Brandi.”

‘Hah. He might as well just stab mine then.’

I was trembling so hard that I could barely stand.

“I told you,” he said. “If you hurt her, you’ll never get away with it.”

Sloane’s POV

Watching Gunner walk away, I actually laughed.

I laughed so hard that tears spilled down my face—until the pain overtook me and everything went black.

That got me lying in the hospital for half a month.

And in all that time, the only person who came to visit me… was my assistant.

Not Gunner. Not a single member of my so-called family.

I looked at the scratch on my face in the mirror, and whatever love I still had for Gunner… chipped away just a little more.

The doctor said the scar could be removed with cosmetic treatment.

But I refused.

‘I want to see it. Every day. I want to remember what he did to me. Someday, I swear, I’ll let him go. Completely!’

“Miss Sloane, we should head out. I think I just saw Sir Gunner in the lobby.”

“Sure.”

Kaylee Norton, my assistant, gave me a strange look.

I guess she still hadn’t adjusted to how indifferent I sounded when we talked about him.

Everyone in the company knew—I was always chasing after him, throwing myself at a man who never once reached back.

I didn’t expect to run into him again so soon…

Especially not like this.

I was passing by another office after signing discharge papers, and I heard someone call his name.

“With all due respect, sir Gunner, are you out of your mind? You had her name tattooed there—of all places? Now, it’s inflamed! You seriously love that woman that much? I’m sorry, but you’re insane!”

And Gunner just smiled.

A warm, blissful, almost dreamy smile.

“You don’t get it,” he said. “All I think about is pinning her under me and making her cry for mercy. But I’m afraid I’ll scare her off. So to ease my longing, I had her name tattooed here—it makes me feel like she’s beneath me.”

Coming from a man like him—always cold, always in control—it didn’t sound vulgar.

It sounded… possessive. Addicted. Intimate.

And they hit me like a freight train. My knees buckled, and I had to take a step back.

My face looked probably as pale as a ghost.

Even my assistant could feel it—the way I started to shake.

I glanced inside the room. The doctor was treating him there—at the most private part of him.

He’d put Brandi’s name there. He didn’t care if it got infected.

‘How much do you have to love someone to do something like that?’

“Honestly, I don’t get what you see in her. Isn’t Miss Sloane better in every way?”

And just like that, Gunner’s face twisted in disgust.

“She’s not worthy,” he said flatly. “This place is reserved for Brandi only. There’s only one woman I’ve ever wanted—and that’s Brandi.”

That one sentence—so sharp, so brutal—cut deeper than anything he’d ever said to me before.

At that moment, I completely fell apart, utterly humiliated.

I couldn’t listen anymore—because I knew what would come next: more confessions of love, more worship for my sister.

Every word like a knife, every sentence a reminder that I was never enough.

“Miss Sloane,” Kaylee said gently, “Mrs. Heurich’s 80th birthday is coming up in a few days. You just got out of the hospital. Should I send your regrets?”

But it had been a while since anyone had seen me in public.

And there wasn’t time to order anything custom, so we went shopping instead.

“I’ll try all of these, please.”

“Right away, ma’am!”

But before I could step into the fitting room, the boutique manager rushed over—phone still in hand—and stopped the salesgirl.

“Sorry, ma’am. The Carnegies sole heir just bought everything in the boutique.

“All these dresses are to be sent to the Bloombergs’ place—for the youngest daughter. Hurry up and get them packed!”

I took a deep breath.

It took everything in me not to explode right there.

“Miss Sloane, I…”

I didn’t believe it at first.

I thought, ‘Fine—he bought out one boutique. What could he possibly do, buy out the whole street?’

It turned out… yes. Yes, he could.

Every boutique I entered. Every time I found something I liked. Every time I reached for my wallet—someone stopped me.

Every time, the same message.

“Send all of it to the Bloombergs’ place. It’s for the youngest daughter.”

I knew what Gunner was doing—he wanted to humiliate me.

This was payback after I gave Brandi’s script to another actress two days ago.

Sloane’s POV

He bought out the entire street—every boutique, every shoe store, every jewelry shop.

It didn’t matter what I wanted—clothes, heels, accessories. The second I stepped inside a boutique, he made a call, and everything—every last piece—was bought out.

“Miss Sloane, what’s the Carnegies’ heir trying to do?” Kaylee asked, frowning.

The so-called “Carnegies’ heir”?

What a joke. He wasn’t even using his real identity.

He was hiding behind the name of his nephew—“the sole heir”—because he was afraid that his own name would scare off my dear little sister.

And it worked.

Years ago, Brandi turned down the third son of the Carnegies couple.

But the moment “the Carnegies sole heir” started sending her gifts? She melted.

After all, the Carnegies sole heir’s reputation was far better than the third son’s.

The moment I stepped into the villa, I heard Brandi’s laughter echoing from the living room.

“Mom! Look at all this—clothes, shoes, jewelry! The Carnegies sole heir sent it all to me! What do you think it means?”

My stepmother looked like she’d won the lottery.

“Oh sweetie, you’re such a lucky girl! First the third son liked you, and now, the sole heir! Forget the third one—grab the sole heir while you can!”

Brandi definitely knew—she wouldn’t marry the third son even if it killed her. Rumor had it he was cruel, violent, and brutish.

And my stepmother even warned Brandi to stay far away from Gunner.

“Don’t get too close to him,” she said. “If the heir finds out, you’ll ruin your shot at marrying into that wealthy family.”

Now her entire mind was filled with the Carnegies sole heir. There was no room left for Gunner.

I couldn’t help it—I sneered. I wondered, ‘What would Gunner say if he saw how fast his dream wife dump him like this?’

The next day, I went back to the office.

Gunner was sitting behind his desk like he hadn’t just tried to humiliate me in front of the whole Los Angeles.

The memory made me feel cold all over my body.

“You really don’t know what kind of woman she is, do you?” I asked quietly. “You’re willing to do all this for her?”

“She’s kind. And you know I’m not. I already told you—every time you hurt her, I’ll make you pay for it ten times over.”

His words hit me, but I refused to flinch.

I met his eyes, steady and hollowed-out.

“Yeah, you said that,” I replied. “And you’ve certainly proven it.”

He paused for a moment, maybe caught off guard by my calmness.

But whatever he saw in my face, he brushed it aside like it meant nothing.

“Give that script back to Brandi,” he said. “Do that, and I’ll let this go.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll make sure you spend another two weeks in the hospital.”

I started shaking. I couldn’t stop. That pain—it haunted me every night, yet he talked about it so casually.

And then, the air around him changed. He looked at me like I was something disposable. Dangerous.

‘Like the smallest excuse will be enough to end me…’

I couldn’t help but think of everything I’d done for him and everything he did to me. ‘How come all I got in return was three words?’

“You deserve that.”

Just like that, he turned to leave.

“You love her that much?” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Do you even know what she took from me?”

For a moment, that stopped him from his tracks.

“You, Sloane, were born into a world where one word from you could ruin someone’s life. She’s gentle. She’s good. She never fought you, never stooped to your level. And if it hadn’t been for my plan five years ago to get close to her, you think I would’ve stayed anywhere near you?”

The moment he turned to leave, all the strength drained from my body and I collapsed to the floor with a loud bang.

Meanwhile, the news of the Carnegies sole heir’s kind gesture sent Brandi’s career soaring overnight.

After all, in Hollywood, being adored by a Carnegie was as good as a crown.

Brandi herself probably hadn’t expected she could catch the heir’s attention. I bet she was already dreaming of her place in his world as his wife.

And Gunner? He looked at her like her smile was so beautiful that even his heart—that cold, ruthless thing—softened for her.

At the Heurichs’ party, Gunner and Brandi both showed up.

Thanks to Gunner buying out every boutique in Los Angeles, I had nothing to wear.

In the end, I pulled out a dusty blue silk fitted dress from the back of my closet.