Chapter 1

In the darkness, my throat felt incredibly tight. My limbs were completely numb.

The smell of gas was suffocating... If this went on, my parents and I would all die here.

I fumbled in the dark, trying to stand up and open the window, but my knees buckled, and I collapsed onto the cold floor.

Through the dim light, a pair of familiar, custom-made leather shoes appeared in front of me.

My brother had arrived. It was Austin.

"Austin... help me... please..."

I had no strength left. I reached out, trying to grab the hem of his pants, but he raised his foot and slammed it hard onto my fingers, grinding them into the floor.

Two years ago, my parents and I finally found Austin, who had been missing for eighteen years.

We gave him everything he wanted—money, power, status. We practically handed the family business to him on a silver platter.

We did everything to make up for the eighteen years we had lost.

But I never would have guessed that my own flesh and blood wanted nothing but my life.

"Does it hurt, Chloe?"

Austin turned the gas valve to the absolute maximum. He knelt down, staring at my face with a cold, sadistic sneer.

"When Lily died, she suffered a thousand times more than this!"

"Dying the exact same way as her is your only chance to beg for her forgiveness in hell!"

Who was Lily?

Oh. The daughter of the adoptive family who raised him.

Memories rushed back into my fading, oxygen-deprived brain. The excruciating pain of suffocation kept me from making a sound.

Lily... Lily...

Just for a toxic, calculating girl, you had the heart to murder your own biological sister!

As his footsteps faded into the distance, my breath stopped completely. I became nothing but a cold corpse.