She had a fist in Vivian's hair, slamming her head into the wall, again and again.

"A murderer like you should pay with her life!"

Blood ran down Vivian's forehead as she thrashed. "You dare do this to me? Aren't you afraid Benjamin will find out?"

Lindsay let go all at once and watched her crumple to the floor with cold eyes.

A force hit her from behind. Benjamin.

He threw Lindsay down hard, disgust written all over his face. "You killed Veronica, and now you want her sister dead too?"

"Lindsay, and here I thought you'd changed. I should have known you'd still make me sick."

He pulled Vivian tight against him, his voice urgent. "Vivian, are you all right?"

A dull pain spread through Lindsay's lower back, but she still laughed, brazen. "She killed my brother. So what if I hit her a few times?"

"You feel that sorry for her?"

Vivian clung to Benjamin's arm, shaking all over. "Benjamin, she smashed everything in the house, and she said I had to pay with my life for her brother..."

"This house is filthy now that she's lived in it." His thin lips parted, and what came out was cruel. "Her brother died by your hand. That's what they call getting what you deserve. You don't have to be afraid of her."

Above the center of the living room, the crystal chandelier began to swing hard.

Lindsay tried to get up, but her body wouldn't obey.

The next second, with a deafening crash, the chandelier broke loose and came down on her.

The pain tore from her spine through every inch of her, as if a thousand needles were driving into her flesh, until she couldn't breathe.

She lay sprawled on the floor, the last of her strength drained away, and all she could see was Benjamin holding Vivian, his eyes as tender as if he held some rare and precious thing.

When he looked at her, his gaze turned to ice, an ugly smile at the corner of his mouth. "Serves you right."

Vivian asked him, "Are you really just going to leave her? What if something actually happens to her?"

Benjamin's voice was cold. "Better if she dies."

Only after he carried Vivian out did Lindsay, with what was left of her, dial for an ambulance before she lost consciousness completely.

When Lindsay surfaced from the dark, she was already in a hospital.

What she hadn't expected was Vivian, standing there in her room.

There was a smile on her lips, and the smugness on her face she couldn't hide. "Lindsay, did you hear it just now? Benjamin said it'd be better if you died."

"I knew it. He's always loved me most. Back then I left a note written in blood, just to see exactly how much he loved me. I never imagined he'd torture you for three whole years for my sake. What a thrill."

"So I've decided to end his test and go back to him."

Lindsay's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would leap out of her chest. She forced the words out in disbelief. "There never was any twin sister. You're Veronica!"

"You staged all of it. Why?"

Back then, she had already told her father to call off the engagement.

If Vivian hadn't faked her death, she could have married Benjamin without trouble.

And Lindsay would never have had to suffer through those three years.

Vivian let out a snort of laughter. "To test whether his heart was really mine, of course. I'm not as pretty as you, and my family's nothing special. Who's to say he wouldn't fall for you over time?"

For one test, she had made Lindsay and Benjamin tear each other apart for three years.

Lindsay had always paid back every wrong. She rose, closed her hand around Vivian's throat, and walked her toward the window.

"Tell Benjamin the truth, or I'll throw you out right now!"

She would not be condemned for nothing!

Half of Vivian's body hung out the window, and terror set her shaking from head to toe, yet she couldn't get out a single word.

Benjamin walked in to exactly this scene. His pupils shrank, and his voice was thick with terror. "If Vivian dies, you'll pay with your life!"

Lindsay's grip tightened by degrees. She smiled as she spoke. "Her life is in my hands. You shouldn't be threatening me right now. You should be on your knees, begging me."

Benjamin didn't hesitate for a moment. He actually knelt, his eyes full of nothing but fear for Vivian. "Fine. I'm begging you. Just let Vivian go, and you can have my life..."

Lindsay had never imagined that Benjamin, always so cold and proud, would truly kneel for a woman.

A vicious irony washed through her, and she laughed until she could barely catch her breath. "Benjamin, you really are pathetic."

The words were barely out when Vivian, seizing the moment Lindsay loosened her grip, shoved her away hard.

On instinct Lindsay snatched up the scissors beside her and drove them into Vivian's belly. She turned her head toward Benjamin. "This is what they call getting what you deserve."

The next second Benjamin came at her in a fury and drove his foot into Lindsay's chest.

He held the wounded Vivian against him and screamed himself hoarse. "Doctor!"

"Vivian, you're going to be fine..."

A coppery sweetness rose in Lindsay's throat. She spat out a mouthful of blood and gave a cold laugh. "Benjamin, she isn't the little sister of your dead first love. She is Veronica Barnes. The suicide back then was a sham, staged by her to test how real your feelings were—"

That sham had cost her three whole years.

Right now all she wanted was to tear off Vivian's mask and clear her own name.

A knife had gone into Vivian's belly. Her face had drained white. "Benjamin, she just threatened me. She said if I didn't tell you this, she'd throw me off the fifth floor. She comes from money, she has power, I can't fight someone like her..."

"Is this how she drove my sister to her death too? I'm so scared..."

The doctor rushed in and started working on Vivian's wound.

Benjamin's face was frost. He picked the bloodied scissors up off the floor and signaled the others to leave.

He walked toward Lindsay, one step at a time, closed a hand around her throat, his voice low and dark. "To clean up your own reputation, there really isn't anything you won't do, is there."

"Veronica already died at your hands, and you still slander her. Now you want to kill her own sister too. Lindsay, why are you this vicious?"

He stared at her, eyes heavy, and then, for no reason, he smiled—a smile with a cold that cut to the bone. "Don't tell me it's because you're in love with me. Jealous enough to lose your mind?"

Lindsay's face flushed dark red. She clawed at the back of his hand, leaving bloody streaks, and forced out every word with the last of her strength. "I'd sooner love a stray dog off the street than ever love you!"

"Good. So would I."

Benjamin said it slowly, and the hand pinning her throat eased open.

Lindsay had barely drawn a breath when pain bloomed through her belly. She looked down, disbelieving.

Benjamin had driven the scissors into her abdomen with terrible force.

The pain swallowed every word she still meant to say.

"This one is what you owe Vivian."

He yanked the blade out and stabbed it hard into her chest. "And this one is what you owe Veronica."

He truly meant to take her life.

The violent pain wracked her whole body, yet she couldn't even cry out.

He dropped her on the floor like a broken rag doll. The blood was leaving her fast, her mind washing blank, and all she could manage was, "Benjamin..."

He didn't bother to spare her even a glance. His voice carried a cold that reached the bone. "You'd better die right here. Otherwise what's waiting for you is endless torment..."

With that, he turned and left without looking back.

Lindsay only felt cold, her whole body as if soaked in ice water.

She had never imagined she would truly die at the hands of the man she had loved for twelve years.

Her eyes lost their focus, her hands fell limp...

Maybe death was the only ending left for her.

When Lindsay woke out of the darkness, she found she hadn't died.

But she soon found she'd been locked up.

The nurses' chatter drifted to her ears. "Mr. Delgado says Miss Donaldson has a severe delusional disorder, that we need to increase her treatment..."

"A perfectly normal person—how does she just go mad like that? And she nearly killed Vivian. If Mr. Delgado hadn't been there, Miss Barnes really would have died at her hands."

"Vivian's a lucky one, though. Mr. Delgado fell for her at first sight. She gets hurt and he watches over her three days and three nights without sleeping..."

Lindsay got up, pounded on the door, and shouted, "I'm not crazy! Let me out!"

The doctor came quickly, restraint straps in his hands, his face calm. "Miss Donaldson, whether you're really mad or only pretending makes no difference to me. What matters is that Mr. Delgado gave an order: you're not to have it easy..."

"Either you behave, admit you slandered Miss Barnes, and apologize to her, or you take all of this."

So it was Benjamin after all.

She wasn't dead simply because Benjamin still didn't think she'd suffered enough.

A mocking smile touched the corner of Lindsay's mouth. "Tell Benjamin that Vivian is a liar, and he's a fool!"

"Even if I die right here, I will never apologize to her!"

She picked up a ballpoint pen and pressed it to her own throat, a look of release in her eyes.

The doctor let out a sigh. "Mr. Delgado warned us well in advance. To keep you from killing yourself, Miss Donaldson, nothing sharp is allowed in this room. That ballpoint pen has no refill in it. Even if you managed to puncture an artery, the worst that happens is you end up a vegetable."

"Is that what you want, Miss Donaldson? To be a vegetable?"

Lindsay went blank for a moment, then tossed the pen into the trash and turned to look at the sealed window. She gave a soft laugh. "He won't let me die, and he won't let me out. So if I never admit to it, what then? He keeps me locked in here for the rest of my life?"

The doctor called in two nurses. "Day one of treatment. Electroshock."

Lindsay's wrists and ankles were strapped down tight, and the electrodes were fixed to her temples.

When the doctor flipped the switch, the current tore through her whole body. The pain made her shake all over, like iron nails being driven into her marrow.

In front of her eyes she saw the face of Benjamin as a boy, the evening light on his face as he lifted his head and said, proud, "Lindsay Donaldson, you're my rival for life."

Because of that one line, she had spent twelve years matching herself against him.

"Second round..."

Her face was bloodless, fine cold sweat beading at her brow. The searing pain ran through her veins like molten rock, every inch of her skin melting away with no escape.

This time Benjamin seemed to be standing in the center of a great hall, in a black formal suit, his face as heavy as a man at a funeral.

He said, "Lindsay Donaldson, between you and me there is only hatred, never love. Not until one of us is dead."

"Third round..."

The cold sweat slid down her forehead, her vision went black, and she sank fully into unconsciousness.

When she woke, the doctor's voice was flat. "Miss Donaldson, are you ready to apologize to Miss Barnes?"

Lindsay didn't even bother to open her eyes.

What waited for her was bucket after bucket of ice water.

The third time, she was locked in the pitch-black isolation room for seven days and seven nights.

On her fifteenth day in the psychiatric ward, Benjamin and Vivian finally appeared in front of her.

Benjamin looked at how thin and worn down the torture had left her, and something strange flickered deep in his eyes.

Vivian peeled an apple as she leaned in and murmured at Lindsay's ear. "Lindsay Donaldson, you really are a tough nut to crack. Keep refusing, and who knows. Maybe your brother's body turns up in a dump. Maybe the strays eat it."

She said it lightly, her eyes full of delight.

Lindsay's fists clenched, her voice so hoarse it was barely audible. "Miss Barnes, before, I smeared you on purpose. It was my fault."

Benjamin said nothing. He only watched her, his gaze dark and heavy.

This time, the doctor finally let her go.

The first thing Lindsay did after her release was bury her brother.

In the funeral home, his body was pale and cold, the old warmth gone from it for good.

She remembered before the surgery, how he had held her hand, his eyes full of hope for the life ahead. "Sis, once my operation's done, I'll get to be with you longer, right?"

She had smiled and pinched his cheek. "Right. I'll take you to see the ocean, chase the northern lights, do all the things you never could before."

She had never once imagined that a single surgery would put her and her brother in two different worlds.

Lindsay chose the plot for him herself, a place by the sea, under a lush green tree.

Before they lowered him in, she kissed his forehead one last time, tears sliding down her cheeks. "There's the ocean here. You'd like it..."

A sudden burst of fierce barking broke the quiet, and she turned on instinct.

Vivian stood there in a red dress, a tall hunting dog on a leash, humming happily to herself. "Three days with no food. Time to eat. Go on!"

At her command, the blood ran backward in Lindsay's veins. She lunged to shove the coffin shut on instinct, but she was too late.

The dog had already leapt into the coffin, its drool about to drip onto her brother's face.

Her eyes split with rage. She seized the collar around its neck and screamed, out of control, "Somebody! Help me!"

The cemetery staff who had been helping with the burial were already pinned down by the men Vivian had brought.

Vivian walked slowly up to her, smug. "That's the finest hunting dog I could find. Let go, unless you want to die..."

The collar cut bloody lines into Lindsay's palms, and the pull dragged her hard into the coffin.

In the space of a breath, the dog sank its teeth into her brother's arm.

She heard Vivian's grating laughter and the frantic pounding of her own heart. On instinct she yanked the hairpin from her hair and drove it into the dog.

The pain made it let go. It turned and fixed its eyes on her, a furious, unwilling snarl rising in its throat.

In a flash it lunged at her.

She drove the pin into its artery with brutal precision, once, twice, three times.

Even after it died with a whimper, she did not stop.

When Lindsay climbed up off the ground, her face was streaked with crimson blood, and she walked toward Vivian one step at a time.

Vivian clapped a hand over her mouth, the picture of grief and outrage. "Miss Donaldson, how could you be so cruel, killing my pet?"

She thought that with the bodyguards there, Lindsay wouldn't dare touch her.

Lindsay stopped and spoke to the bodyguards beside her. "You all just saw it. She wanted to destroy my brother's body. I always pay back what's owed to me, so I'm going to settle it with her. If you don't want me remembering you, you'd better act like you saw nothing. Otherwise..."

Maybe it was how monstrous she looked just then, maybe it was the words that frightened them, but the bodyguards truly did not move.

Vivian had no time to run before Lindsay grabbed her. Lindsay raised the sharp pin and drove it hard into her arm, a deranged smile spilling from her lips. "You can't get away."

Vivian screamed like a madwoman, real terror in her eyes. "You've lost your mind!"

Lindsay's smile only deepened. She gripped Vivian's face tight and dragged the pin across it, opening a deep bloody line. "Yes. I've lost my mind."

Her eyes were full of murder. She raised the pin and stabbed down, hard, straight at Vivian's heart.