was just momentarily confused, don’t blame
her…”
Before she finished, she winced. “My foot…
it’s twisted…”
Harrison looked at me like I was dirt.
“Incorrigible! What will it take for you to give
up these dirty thoughts!”
I shook my head desperately. “No, it wasn’t like that, I didn’t push her…”
Jenny’s warning glance stopped me. Remembering her threat, I fell silent. Harrison said nothing more, scooped up Jenny, and took her to the hospital.
I curled up, tears mixing with blood.
“Brother, I… I can’t love you anymore…”
Lin found me when the blood soaked through my shirt.
When I woke, Harrison sat by my bed, his
expression softened.
Join the bookshelf
<
“Does your head still hurt?” Harrison looked
at my emaciated figure, a pang in his heart.
I bit my lip. Compared to three years at Grace Academy, this pain was nothing.
“Brother, I want to go abroad,” I said softly. “Let me leave.”
He paused, then nodded. “Okay.”
I could finally escape them.
“Harrison! It’s bad!” Jenny rushed in, her face white.
“Something’s happened! There are videos of Talia online!”
3
Harrison jumped up. The images on his phone
made his pupils shrink.
The video showed me holding the silicone
doll, my face flushed.
Join the bookshelf
く
“Bang!” He smashed his phone against the
wall.
He strode towards me, grabbing my neck.
“Talia! Are you trying to kill yourself?! Did you post this?!”
Jenny quickly pulled him back. “Harrison! Stop!”
She turned to me, her eyes venomous. “Talia, how could you hurt your brother like this? Even if you love him, you can’t…he wouldn’t be with you because of this!”
“Don’t you care about your brother’s
reputation?!”
Harrison’s anger intensified.
He yanked my hand, my white glove falling,
revealing my hands.
The grotesque scars resembled centipedes
Join the bookshelf
r
cuts, burns, even bite marks.
He froze, his expression uncertain. “What
happened?”
Jenny chided me. “Talia! Where did you get those fake scars?! Stop this nonsense!”
“You’ve been studying at Grace Academy, learning calligraphy and painting. How could you be injured?”
Harrison’s gaze wavered, then darkened.
He yelled at his assistant. “Get all those videos off the internet!”
Back home, Harrison tossed me into my bedroom.
“Reflect,” he said coldly before slamming the
door. “Jenny and I are going out for a few days.”
I sat quietly, watching the sunset paint the
Join the bookshelf
く
room red.
The servants were gone. No one would bring
me food.
But hunger meant nothing to me. Starvation was commonplace at Grace Academy. I once licked a guard’s shoes for a moldy piece of bread, and… worse.
As darkness fell, the door was violently kicked open.
Five strangers stood there. The leader
grinned. “Someone paid us to ‘take care‘ of you.”
4
They stripped me, tying me up with rope. “Let’s go, guys. Let’s have a drink to get in the mood!” They laughed, leaving; loud music filled the living room.
Join the bookshelf
く
I strained, using my smartwatch to call
Harrison. It took a long time.
“What game are you playing?” his voice was
icy.
“Brother! Someone broke in! Save me!” I
cried.
Loud music blared in the background.
“Talia,” he gritted his teeth. “Can you be more
convincing?”
He hung up.
When the men returned, reeking of alcohol, I knew hell had arrived.
They were worse than those at the academy, ruthless thugs.
I gave up, letting them take their turn, then stuffing foul–smelling filth in my mouth. “Scream! Why aren’t you screaming?” They
Join the bookshelf
<
dragged my hair, slamming my head against
the wall.
My face was ashen; a single tear fell.
At dawn, they weren’t finished, stuffing me into a sack and taking me to a skyscraper’s roof.
“You still think your brother will save you?” The kidnapper turned on a livestream, the camera focusing on my swollen face. “Say goodbye to your brother.”
Harrison’s assistant burst into his office,
finding him massaging his temples.
“Mr. Hayes! Your sister…”
“Your sister’s been kidnapped!‘
Harrison felt a surge of irritation, thinking it
was another one of my tricks.
His gaze fell on the assistant’s phone. The
livantraam shaund ma donalina from the ranf
Join the bookshelf
L
livestream showed me dangling from the roof.
Harrison stood up abruptly!
“Goodbye, brother,” I said blankly into the
camera.
The kidnapper’s hand loosened.
My body fell like a broken bird, plummeting
from the twentieth floor.
“No!!!”
Harrison’s scream echoed through the building.
The copyright of this content belongs to “realnovel“.
5
