Chapter 1

After Don Victor Moretti betrayed me, my brother Adrian—whose intellect had never developed past that of a seven-year-old—became a madman no one dared cross.

A maid spoke one extra sentence to Victor, and Adrian sewed her mouth shut with a needle and thread while she slept.

A female assistant showed up in a short skirt to deliver documents to Victor, and Adrian released the guard dogs. They tore off one of her legs.

After every incident, he would curl into my arms like a frightened child.

"Don't worry, little sister. I won't let those bad women bully you."

I believed him.

Until Victor took an actress to a hotel, and Adrian coated the condoms with industrial-strength super glue.

The actress suffered severe chemical burns. After she filed a police report, Adrian was committed to a psychiatric facility.

I knelt outside her door for three days and three nights, begging through tears for her to spare my brother.

She finally relented.

"You want a letter of forgiveness? Fine."

"Divorce Don Moretti, and I'll sign it."

To save Adrian, I didn't hesitate.

But when I brought that letter back to the estate, I overheard Victor and Adrian talking on the other side of the study door.

"Adrian, you really are clever. If you hadn't played dumb and acted crazy, Nora probably would have refused to divorce me till the day she died."

My brother's eyes—those eyes that had always been vacant and clouded—were now terrifyingly clear.

"She's too stupid. All those women were actresses we paid. The only one you've actually been sleeping with is Lily."

"Now that the divorce is going through, you can bring Lily home. She's suffered enough as an illegitimate daughter. We can't let her child go through the same thing."

Lily was my father's illegitimate daughter. She was also the woman who had tormented me for eighteen years.

In that instant, I felt every drop of blood in my body turn to ice.

With trembling hands, I took out my phone and sent a message to the man who had waited for me for seven years.

"Tomorrow I'm getting divorced. Let's go register our marriage."

By the time Victor and Adrian emerged from the study, I had already signed the last page of the divorce agreement.

Adrian saw my signature, and his face went white. He lunged toward me.

"Nora, I'll be good. I promise I won't cause any more trouble."

"Don't get divorced. I don't want you to get divorced!"

I turned and looked at him.

We had depended on each other for ten years.

I never knew he was such a brilliant actor.

Brilliant enough to stage a car accident for Lily's sake and pretend to be mentally impaired for three years just to deceive me.

Brilliant enough that if I hadn't overheard that conversation, I truly would have softened. I would have given up everything for him all over again.

Victor stood in the study doorway with his arms crossed, looking down at me.

"If you don't want the divorce, that's fine too. Then your idiot brother can keep rotting in the psych ward."

"Even if you hold on to this marriage, my heart will never be yours."

His cruel smile faltered the moment it met my calm gaze.

I asked, "Don't the two of you feel even the slightest bit disgusted with yourselves?"

Victor frowned. "What?"

"I heard everything."

Both their faces changed at the same time.

They spoke almost in unison: "Nora Vale, you were eavesdropping on us?"

I laughed bitterly.

Before any explanation came an accusation.

"If I hadn't eavesdropped, would I have spent the rest of my life being kept in the dark? Treated like the real fool?"

My voice shook beyond my control.

"Why Lily, of all people? Why that bit—"

Slap.

A hand cracked across my face so hard my head snapped to the side.

I clutched my cheek, frozen in shock.

Adrian stared at his own hand, equally stunned.

Victor pressed his lips into a thin line and looked at me coldly.

"Nora, if you have ugly things to say, say them to me. Leave her out of it."

I clenched my fists, nails digging deep into my palms.

Looking at these two faces—faces I knew down to the bone—I suddenly remembered our childhood.

Lily's mother had pushed my mother down the stairs, causing a miscarriage and fatal hemorrhaging.

For years after that, they occupied the Vale household, and Lily bullied me relentlessly.

She would grab me by the hair, drag me into the bathroom, scrawl "whore" all over my face with a marker, and force me to kneel on the floor and drink dirty water from the toilet.

Every single time, Adrian and Victor came to my rescue.

Adrian would stand in front of me like a shield.

"Lily, touch her one more time and I'll destroy you."

Victor would warn her in that cold voice of his.

"Bully Nora again, and you won't survive the consequences."

Later, Adrian fought tooth and nail to reclaim the Vale household and threw Lily and her mother out.

He had promised me with his own mouth:

"From now on, no one will ever dare bully you again. You'll never have to see them."

I had always believed they hated Lily as much as I did.

I thought they ached for every injustice and cruelty I had suffered.

But it was all a lie.

Blood rushed to my head, and I raised my hand to slap him back with everything I had.

"So what if I cursed at her?"

"Adrian, she killed Mom! Do you even have a heart?"

The slap never landed.

Adrian seized my wrist in a vise grip, brow furrowed tight.

"That was Mom's own fate."

I stared at him in disbelief.

Victor let out a cold laugh.

"Since you already know, there's no point hiding it anymore."

"Bringing Lily home was my idea and Adrian's."

"She bullied you when you were kids—we knew about all of it. But she spent all those years as an illegitimate child. It wasn't fair to her. She needed an outlet."

He reached over and casually wiped the tears from my face.

"As for the accident three years ago, when Adrian pretended to be mentally impaired—that was mainly because Lily didn't want the baby in your belly to be born."