Chapter 3

Isaac Somerville walked in wearing my suit at the engagement banquet. He stood sheepishly between Hannah and Mia with bloodshot eyes and said, "I've never gotten to wear anything this nice. I only wanted to try it on, Theo."

I looked at him coldly and said, "Take it off."

Isaac gripped the hem tightly as tears streamed down his face, making no move to take it off.

"You stole from me, yet you still have the nerve to play the victim, huh?" I laughed out of sheer exasperation. I then raised my hand and slapped Isaac hard across the face.

Mia instantly grabbed my wrist. "Have you lost your mind, Theo?"

Hannah glanced down at Isaac's red and swollen cheek, her tone hardening. "Apologize to Isaac right now, Theo."

Mia's expression hardened before she gave me a sudden, hard shove.

I slammed into the corner of the table, turning pale from the pain.

Mia didn't bother to help me up, though. She said coldly, "We might dote on you, but that doesn't mean you get to push people around, Theo."

I stood in the corner wearing a plain suit that evening, while Isaac wore my suit, with Hannah and Mia standing protectively on either side of him. He looked more like the heir of the family than I did.

It was the first time I had ever been put in my place by them. It was also then that I realized that their promise to protect me for the rest of my life meant nothing the moment Isaac shed a tear.

Isaac decided he liked my room, so I had to pack up and move to the guest room. He wanted my music studio, so they handed my piano over to him as well. He grew envious of the ruby ring, something Mom had put on my finger herself before she died, so he wept the entire night when I refused to hand it over to him.

Mia immediately took hold of my wrist the following day, snarling, "When did you become so selfish, Theo?"

Then, one of them pinned me in place while the other took the ring off my finger, causing the skin on my knuckle to scrape raw and blood to run along the back of my hand.

Isaac slipped the ring onto his finger, smiling sweetly. "You're not upset with me, are you, Theo?"

I was mad at him, but everybody acted like I was the one making a fuss over nothing.

Dad was still alive back then. He blew up at Hannah and Mia for the very first time. "You've been supported by the Webster family so that you can look after Theo, not to join forces with the housekeeper's son to go against him!"

Hannah lowered her gaze and remained silent.

Mia talked back to Dad for the very first time. "Isaac might be the housekeeper's son, but that doesn't mean you can use his background to humiliate him, Mr. Webster."

That was the exact day everything started falling apart for the Webster family. Dad's company lost its projects one after another, and his car suffered brake failure late at night. He was resuscitated for an entire day, but he still didn't make it.

I was still trembling from sobbing so much when Hannah suddenly approached me with an equity trust agreement. "You're in no condition to deal with this, so you should leave the Webster family's business to me, Theo."

I refused to sign the agreement, so Mia cornered me in the study. "Do you have to ruin the Webster family before you'll let this go? Hannah is just trying to help you. Why do you always see Isaac in the worst possible light?"

Isaac suddenly walked in with a scalding bowl of soup on the night they pressured me to sign the agreement. "You should have some, Theo."

I refused to have it.

Isaac suddenly tripped and fell all by himself, causing the scalding soup to splash onto the back of his hand, leaving a large, flushed burn.

Mia immediately spotted Isaac trembling while crying the moment she rushed over. "Theo didn't mean to do it, Mia. I was the one who didn't hold the bowl properly."

Mia grew furious the more Isaac defended me. She looked at me with disgust, as if I were someone cruel and vicious. "You make me sick, Theo!"

That day marked the very first time Mia had hit me.

I could feel my ear buzzing the moment the slap landed, but what hurt more than that was seeing Hannah standing by the door, doing nothing. She merely furrowed her brow and said, "Apologize to Isaac, Theo."

I did all of the apologizing from that day onward. I had to apologize when Isaac lost his watch, when he fell down the stairs, and even when he got sick. I was the one to blame for everything whenever he cried.

It wasn't until the day the Webster residence burned down that everything changed. Isaac wanted to see the studio Mom had left behind, and even though I had refused him, he still went in anyway.

I ran back inside to save the family portrait when the fire suddenly started in the studio, the smoke so thick that I couldn't even keep my eyes open.

I felt a piercing pain shoot through my right eye when the beam collapsed. I was in so much pain that I nearly passed out. I crawled out of the fire, and the first thing I saw was Hannah comforting Isaac and Mia removing her coat to wrap it around him.

Isaac had only suffered a minor burn on the back of his hand, yet they actually questioned me as if I had done something unforgivable. "Why did you lock the door, Theo? Do you hate Isaac so much that you wanted him dead?"

I covered my right eye, which was bleeding continuously. I couldn't even utter a single word at that point. That fire burned down the Webster residence, which also burned away the last bit of my innocence.