Chapter 1

My adoptive sister pushed me off a balcony just because I refused to hand over my inheritance and my fiancé. I was severely injured.

When I finally woke up, I found myself chained in a dark, damp cellar.

A drooling, limping man named Donald rushed at me, tearing at my clothes with a sickening grin.

Terrified, I gathered every ounce of strength to push him away. Instantly, an old woman standing nearby struck my head with a heavy wooden club.

"A bought-and-paid-for bride dares to fight back?" Mrs. Gable shrieked.

"If you’re so tough, why don’t you just drink this rat poison and die?!"

From that day on, my hands and feet were bound in heavy iron shackles. Despite the endless nights of brutal beatings and verbal abuse, I forced myself to endure. I learned from the other trapped women in this godforsaken backwoods town. I played the part of a submissive, broken wife to please my limping "husband" and his wretched mother.

For five long years, I bided my time. Finally, I found an opportunity to slip into their room and grab a burner phone.

But just as I was about to dial my brother’s number to beg for rescue...

I heard the supposedly brain-dead Donald speaking in a perfectly clear, cold voice just outside the door.

"Master Austin, the five-year mark has arrived."

"Do you want me to keep training the eldest heiress, or has she learned her lesson?"

Austin Gray. My twin brother. The very person I was about to beg for help.

1

My starved, sluggish brain couldn't process it at first. Then, Austin’s voice drifted through the wooden door.

"Keep her there a little longer."

"Chloe’s engagement party with Logan Miller is in three days."

"Mom and Dad will transfer her share of the trust fund to Chloe then."

"With the trust and the Miller alliance, Chloe will be secure."

"At least I won’t have to worry about Evelyn coming back to ruin her life."

Donald hesitated, his voice low. "But Master Austin, if the true heiress loses her inheritance and her fiancé, what will she do for the rest of her life?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally, Austin spoke with chilling indifference.

"As long as I’m alive, I’ll make sure she doesn't starve on the streets."

"After all, she is my biological sister."

The stark contrast of his words pierced my heart like an icicle.

I slid down the wall, curling into a ball on the dirty floor. Tears fell silently, but my stomach twisted with absolute disgust.

His biological sister?

I looked at my hands. Once delicate, they were now scarred, calloused, and withered like those of an eighty-year-old woman.

I remembered when I first returned to the Gray family, feeling so insecure about my rough hands. Austin had held them, looking into my eyes with warmth.

"You’ve suffered so much, Evelyn. Your big brother will make sure you get everything you deserve."

He showered me with diamonds, stood up for me in high society, and loudly scolded Chloe when she tried to sabotage me.

I actually believed he loved me. I believed he felt guilty that Chloe’s biological mother had swapped us at birth, leaving me to rot in poverty for twenty years.

But it was all a sick, twisted act. The moment I refused to give up my birthright, he had me kidnapped and sold to this living hell, leaving me to be treated like livestock for five years.

He even wanted the trust fund my parents set aside for me. He wanted to strip me of everything.

"Not starve on the streets"?

Even if I weren't the heiress of the Gray family, I had hands and a brain. I could feed myself. I didn't need his pitiful, patronizing crumbs.

Chloe’s mother ruined the first half of my life, and now my own twin brother had stolen the second.

But I am no one's puppet.

The suffocating pain in my chest slowly crystallized into cold, hard rage.

I gripped the phone tightly and dialed 91