2-Who Are You, Stepbro!

Lavender:

“What is wrong with you?” my mother complained once we entered the house, and I closed the door like it was an emergency.

I was holding the cake in my hand that I had brought earlier, but the excitement of celebrating my birthday had faded now.

“Mom, you need to listen to me.” I couldn’t believe we made it to the house without me telling her about her new husband.

I had no clue she was getting married, and I would have been happier had it not been to someone who was a fricking boss’s father.

“What is it?” My mom rolled her eyes, putting her purse down. I looked around and saw the mess. There were boxes in every corner and disposable plates and cups lying around.

“You should not marry this man.” The minute I pointed at her bag, I watched darkness take over her eyes.

She looked angry right from the start.

“What did you say? Huh! You want me to live my life without a man? Do I not deserve happiness?” My mother’s tantrum wasn’t new. She would always lose it with me.

"I'm not saying that you don't deserve it. It's just that this man is not good for you." I wished I could tell her directly why I was making such a big claim. But I feared she would go tell her soon-to-be husband what I had been saying about him and his son, and I would get in trouble. My mother had every reason to hate me.

To hate my father, whose face she could see in mine.

So I understood why she wouldn't trust my words.

“Then who is good enough for me? Please tell me who would marry the woman who was a victim of rape and cannot have children because her unwanted daughter's birth left her infertile?" Those words from her made me step back and lower my head.

The reminder of what she had been through always hit hard.

Nineteen years ago, my father ruined her life by forcing himself on her.

And today, she hates me for it. Not just her—every single person around us hates me.

My father didn't only rape her, but also broke her marriage. When her husband found out she was pregnant with that man's child, he divorced her, left her with two daughters and ran away to avoid being reminded of the trauma. However, it traumatized my mother more. She was just a victim, who became my father's target on one night out with her friends. 

Our city was full of people who hated children born out of wedlock, and I was the worst case because I came from rape.

“He is a dangerous man—” the minute I watched her pick up her phone, I stopped talking.

“Let me ask him how dangerous he is—” That was what I was afraid of. She didn’t believe me and probably thought I was just not happy with her new relationship.

“Please! Don’t call him.” I reached out for her hand and grabbed it, but she angrily pulled away and put her phone down.

It was as if I knew we were headed down a steep path, but I had to remain silent. I had already gotten myself into a mess with the Boss once; I wouldn’t want him to hear about me ruining his father’s relationship with my mother. And from the looks of it, I don’t think my mother even knew about him—or did she?

"I brought a cake to celebrate my birthday with the most important person in my life." I quickly held up the cake to divert her attention.

As expected, she kept glaring at the cake in my hands, her face flustered. "You want me to celebrate the day your drunkard father raped me and left me with a child, making me the laughingstock of the city?"

Her words were full of deep hatred, her eyes filled with trauma.

"I just wanted us to not see this day as something my father did but as a reminder that I see you as my mother—and I love you—" I could go on and on trying to convince my mother that I cared for her, but nothing could soften her heart toward me.

"That's rich coming from someone who has never been through the same trauma as me. You’re so selfish to want to celebrate this day when you know how you were conceived in the first place," she hissed at me, tears brimming in her eyes.

"Maybe try going through the shame and torture I went through, and then I'll ask you if you’d want to celebrate the day or not," she continued bitterly, her voice filled with pain. She snatched the box out of my hands and threw it in the bin. 

“Mom! Tell Sabrina to give me the duct tape back!” Normani yelled while dashing past the room she shared with her twin sister. They were 23, but never saw me as their little stepsister. 

“Ugh, you!” Normani scoffed, her mood souring.

“Lavender, go help your sisters. They’ve been working since morning,” my mom dismissed me with a hand gesture. There was no way Sabrina and Normani had gotten any work done. They were older than me but never grew up mentally. They were messy, yet Mom loved them.

I wanted to be loved like them.

I was ready to do anything to earn my mother’s forgiveness and ease her pain.

Everyone in my life told me I owed my mother, and honestly, I did.

She could have aborted me, yet she gave me life—even when the difficult pregnancy left her with no hope of ever having more children. I truly owed her big time.

I was good at doing chores. My uncle would make me do them all the time, even sending me to clean his friends’ houses for money.

I was nothing more than a slave to everyone.

They hated the sight of me, and everyone called me "the bastard child."

“I am done,” I said as I walked out, thinking they would be happy about having less work. But instead, they didn't even acknowledge my help. I found them ready and beautifully dressed up.

My mother had a glow on her face. Her sad life was finally going to have a happy ending.

How could I break her heart and tell her what kind of man she was marrying?

But what if he told my mom about his son when we arrived? Maybe he would, and then they would be mature enough to make a decision. Hopefully, Mom would decide to break things off with him. Associating with such dangerous men was risky.

Soon, a car arrived to pick us up, and my sisters rushed out to take their seats. Guards came in to carry our bags and take them to the new place.

“This place is so big,” Sabrina whispered into Normani’s ear. The two were almost identical, except for their different eye colors. Sabrina had green eyes, just like our mother, while Normani had brown eyes like her father.

Their blonde hair had different shades—Sabrina's was a much lighter blonde, while Normani’s leaned toward a darker blonde.

They were tall and skinny.

I was the complete opposite of them, with my green eyes and long red hair.

My heart pounded in my chest. Being on the Boss’s property felt like walking straight into the devil’s den after trying to run away from him.

“This way,” one of the maids said, leading us to the living room where the devil was waiting.

The moment I stepped in and saw the Boss and his father sitting on the couch, I almost let out a yelp and hid behind my sisters.

Them being tall could only shield me for a moment.

“Son, meet your stepmother, Sumi, and thank her for the blood transfusion,” Mister Volkov had a deep and heavy voice, almost like he was grunting. But that didn’t take my attention away from what he had just said.

“You know, she went to the hospital to donate blood to your comatose girlfriend, then went back home to pack and come here. Where can one find a woman like that?”

As Volkov kept praising my mother, I began to feel the shock hit me.

That blood I had been donating was for a mafia boss’s girlfriend, and my mother took the credit for it?

“I thought the blood transfusion was for Grandma.” I didn’t realize what I was doing when I rushed forward to confront my mother, my voice panicked.

I guess somewhere along the line, even when I knew she hated me, I didn’t think she would lie to that extent—to give part of my body to someone without my knowledge.

But that’s when I exposed myself to the eyes of the Boss, who instantly recognized me.

His gray eyes narrowed as he looked at my face, his hand gently resting over where he had been shot.

I just knew at that moment that I had messed up.