Chapter 1

At my wedding reception, the woman who had stolen my childhood leaned close enough for only me to hear.

"Congratulations, Ivy. I tested your husband last night. And your wedding bed. Both were wonderful."

I slapped Scarlett Hart across the face.

My new husband, Damien, slapped me six times in front of our guests.

"Scarlett has given up everything for you," he shouted. "I'd rather marry a dog than a jealous, low-class woman like you!"

He ordered his guards to take me into the mountain wilderness and throw me into a pit filled with venomous snakes. He called it a lesson in humility.

After seven days, my three biological brothers arrived.

Alexander, the billionaire eldest brother, broke my leg. "Scarlett cried all night. I've already transferred everything in your name to her."

Blake, the famous actor, twisted my arm until it snapped. "You're not part of this family anymore. Scarlett is our only sister."

Connor, the renowned surgeon, was worse. "Scarlett needs a kidney. You owe her one."

He operated in the filthy pit. I lay shaking while he removed an organ to give to the adopted girl they loved more than me.

Then a mechanical voice rang inside my skull.

**[Congratulations, Host. All abuse scenes assigned to the doomed supporting character are complete.]**

**[Once this body dies, you will return to your original world and receive your $10 billion reward.]**

I stopped crying.

I'd been trapped inside this scripted world since I was six. For twenty years I'd endured the role written for me: the unwanted biological daughter, the girl everyone was allowed to hurt. All I wanted now was to go home.

Connor was stitching up my wound, muttering about how inconvenient I'd made the surgery.

The week before, Scarlett had gotten a paper cut. He'd brought in a specialist and insisted she be checked every few hours.

Now he was irritated by my bleeding.

"Stop pretending it hurts that badly," he said. "You've always been healthy. If you'd cooperated, we could have done this in a proper hospital."

I closed my eyes. "Then leave me here."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. I don't need anything from you."

For a moment his expression softened.

"We searched for you for years. Of course we care. Just apologize to Scarlett, promise to stop making her miserable, and I'll take you to the best hospital in the country."

I remembered being found three years earlier by the men who said they'd been searching for their little sister. I'd believed their tears. Then I saw Scarlett, the adopted daughter who had locked me in an orphanage closet years before and taken the place that should have been mine.

Even knowing what she'd done, my brothers had chosen her again and again.

"I'm done apologizing," I whispered.

Connor shook his head in disgust. "You're impossible."

I looked at the blood on his hands and felt nothing but relief. The nightmare was almost over.