Chapter 2

I thought about everything that had happened in the past. I stayed awake in the darkness for the entire night.

I never thought that after something as absurd as becoming Quiana, I would still have to endure this kind of inhuman torture.

Early the next morning, someone kicked open the iron basement door from the outside.

“Come out and eat.”

Xander’s cold voice came from above me.

I held onto the wall and followed him to the dining room. My steps were unsteady.

My stomach cramped painfully from hunger. Out of habit, I walked toward the seat in the corner of the dining table.

A porcelain bowl with pink floral patterns sat there. It was my bowl. Moon’s bowl.

Thud!

Hugo suddenly kicked the back of my knee.

I was not prepared for it. My whole body fell heavily to the floor.

“Who gave you permission to touch her things?”

Hugo stared at me with wide eyes. The look in his eyes made me afraid.

Then, he raised his hand and pointed at the familiar corner of the room.

“Your bowl is over there.”

I looked in the direction he pointed, and my mind went completely blank.

Quiana’s delicate porcelain bowl with a gold rim was sitting there in plain sight on the floor.

It was placed right beside the food bowl of the family’s ragdoll, Blue.

The scene looked painfully familiar.

On the second day after Quiana came into this family, she threw a fit and insisted on getting a dog.

My brothers immediately agreed and planned to take her to the pet store to pick one out.

But she suddenly picked up a spiked dog collar and put it around my neck with a smile.

“Why bother them? Don’t you think Moon looks just like a dog if she wears this and barks a few times?”

Back then, she had pointed at the food bowl on the floor just like Hugo did.

My brothers had clearly allowed her to do it.

At this moment, as I looked at the porcelain bowl placed beside the cat’s food bowl, I could no longer hold back my tears.

“Hugo… why are you treating me like this?”

The words came out of my mouth before I even realized it.

Hugo’s body suddenly stiffened when he heard me. His expression went blank for a moment.

Slap!

A slap even harder than yesterday’s struck my face. The force knocked me to the floor.

“You think you’re worthy of saying my name?!” Hugo roared in anger. “What kind of worthless piece of trash are you? You think you deserve to call me that?”

He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me up from the floor.

“Since you love pretending to be pitiful so much, I’ll let you have your fill of it!”

He dragged me over to the bowl, grabbed the back of my head, and shoved my face into the boiling-hot porridge.

“Ahhh!”

My scream filled the entire dining room.

The boiling-hot porridge immediately covered both my face and mouth. The unbearable pain of my burned flesh almost made me pass out instantly.

I felt like I was about to suffocate. Driven by the instinct to survive, I desperately swung my arms around.

My nails dug into the person holding me down and left several deep scratches on his arm.

“Ow! You crazy woman!”

Hugo cried out in pain and suddenly let go.

I collapsed onto the floor. I covered my face, which had turned bright red from the heat, and curled up in agony.

“Hugo, you’re bleeding!”

Theo checked his injuries.

“Drag this crazy woman out!”

Theo turned around and shouted at the bodyguards nearby.

Two burly bodyguards grabbed my arms and dragged me outside the villa like I was nothing but a piece of trash.

It was the middle of winter, and heavy snow covered the ground.

They kicked my legs and forced me to fall into the freezing snow.

“Break her leg.”

Theo’s voice was cold. There was not a trace of emotion in it.

“Make her stay there until she dies!”

Xander walked toward me with a thick baseball bat in his hand. His face was expressionless.

He raised the bat high and aimed it at my right leg.

This was exactly what Quiana had done to me back then. I had struggled and scratched her.

That was why they had broken my leg without hesitation and forced me to stay out in the snow for an entire night.

As I watched the bat come down toward me, the fear from my past swallowed me whole.

“Xander, I’m Moon!”

I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed with all my strength.

“Don’t hit me! Please, don’t hit me!”