Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Ivy! What have you done?!"

Arthur's voice thundered through the silence of the mansion's upper floor, sharp and filled with blazing anger. The man strode toward Sarah, who was now sitting on the corridor floor while covering her face, which was wet with fake tears.

"Brother Arthur..." Sarah whimpered tremblingly, looking at Arthur with a gaze filled with feigned fear. "Sister Ivy... she slapped me..."

Sarah's left cheek now appeared visibly red, bearing a conspicuous mark from the slap. Seeing it, Arthur's jaw instantly tightened. The veins in his temples bulged as he struggled to contain the anger that had already reached its peak.

Jensen and Redy, who were following behind, immediately came upstairs as well. Jensen looked at Ivy with disgust and accusation in his eyes, while Redy quickly knelt down to embrace Sarah, who continued sobbing softly.

"Brother... hic... please don't be angry with Sister Ivy," Sarah whimpered in a deliberately trembling voice, hiding a victorious smirk behind Redy's shoulder. "It's my fault... I only intended to help tidy up Sister Ivy's belongings, but Sister Ivy misunderstood..."

"That's a lie!" Ivy exclaimed, her breathing ragged as her chest heaved while she struggled against an overwhelming wave of anger and disappointment. "She slapped her own cheek right in front of me! She only did it to cause trouble so that all of you would blame me!"

"Enough, Ivy!" Arthur shouted forcefully, glaring at her as though he wanted to swallow her alive. "How long are you going to keep lying and treating Sarah cruelly, huh?! Her cheek is clearly red from your handprint! Don't humiliate yourself by making such pathetic excuses!"

"Why do you never want to believe me?!" Ivy's voice trembled violently as tears once again streamed down her cheeks. "I never slapped her!"

Jensen stepped forward toward Ivy, adjusting his suit with a cynical gesture before speaking in a cold tone that pierced her heart. "Believe you? How could we believe a selfish girl who is constantly seeking attention? Listen, Ivy, Sarah never asked for this room to become hers. This decision was made after consideration by the three of us—Arthur, Redy, and me."

Jensen stared intently at Ivy, delivering the most devastating words that crushed the last remnants of the girl's pride.

"This master bedroom should indeed belong to Sarah because she is our actual biological sister," Jensen continued mercilessly. "And you? You're only an adopted child whom we've sheltered all these years as a replacement. It's time you realized your place and stopped whining like a little child."

Ivy slowly shook her head. Those words kept spinning around in her mind, striking her consciousness until she felt as though her entire world had truly collapsed. For fourteen years, she had believed that they were real brothers who loved her unconditionally. It turned out that her status was nothing more than a replacement for a shadow.

Amid her sobs, Sarah lifted her head from within Redy's embrace, hiding a cunning smile on her lips as she watched Ivy's defenses crumble completely before her three older brothers.

As the atmosphere grew increasingly suffocating, a white paper folder tucked among Ivy's scattered belongings suddenly slipped loose and fell directly in front of Sarah, who was still curled up in Redy's embrace.

Sarah stared at the folder lying open on the floor. At a glance, her eyes caught the words from a private clinic's laboratory results written on the top sheet. With a quick movement, the girl grabbed the paper before anyone else could pick it up.

Sarah narrowed her eyes as she read the doctor's diagnosis written across the paper. Her heart beat faster, not out of fear, but because a malicious idea suddenly flashed through her mind.

"Huh...?" Sarah deliberately hissed the word loudly enough to draw the attention of the three men around her. She stared at the paper with a feigned expression of shock before looking up at Ivy with a sickeningly pitying gaze. "So... you're sick with leukemia, Sister?"

Arthur, Jensen, and Redy immediately turned toward her. Arthur's brows furrowed deeply as he stared suspiciously at the folder in Sarah's hand.

"What's that, Sarah?" Arthur asked coldly.

Sarah bit her lower lip, pretending to hesitate before speaking. "This... this is a hospital examination report. It says that Sister Ivy is suffering from acute leukemia..." The girl then covered her mouth with her hand, staring at Ivy as though she could not believe it. "But... is this really true? Or perhaps you're only pretending to be sick like this just to get our attention again?"

The words flowed so smoothly, striking Ivy directly in the pit of her stomach.

Before Ivy could open her mouth to defend herself or snatch the paper back, Arthur moved swiftly. The man roughly snatched the laboratory report from Sarah's hand. Arthur's eyes scanned the contents of the paper sharply before shifting toward Ivy, a far darker flash of anger burning in his gaze than before.

To Arthur and his two younger brothers, the serious illness diagnosis sounded like yet another pathetic act Ivy had staged to reclaim the attention that had begun shifting toward Sarah.

Rip... srrrt!

Without mercy, Arthur tore the important medical record into several pieces before casually throwing the fragments onto the corridor floor at Ivy's feet.

"Don't think you can use a despicable trick like this to gain our sympathy or divert attention from what you did to Sarah!" Arthur shouted thunderously, his breathing ragged as he struggled to contain his anger.

Jensen also scoffed cynically, folding his arms across his chest as he looked down at Ivy's limp figure with contempt. "What a cheap trick. You used all kinds of excuses to throw tantrums before, and now you're even faking a diagnosis of a deadly disease? Absolutely disgusting."

Redy slowly shook his head, looking at Ivy with a disappointed gaze filled with false concern. "We really never thought you could stoop this low, Ivy."

Ivy stared in shock, her eyes fixed on the torn pieces of paper scattered across the floor, containing the genuine diagnosis of the disease that was eating away at her body. They did not believe her. Even when she was truly dying and standing on the brink of death, her own family considered it nothing more than a lie to seek attention. The tears that had already dried up once again welled in her eyes, streaming down her cheeks, which still stung from the slap earlier.

Arthur took a deep breath, trying to calm himself even though his jaw remained tense. He stared indifferently at Ivy, who had been shattered into pieces.

"Ivy, enough..." Arthur's voice softened slightly, yet it sounded even crueler to Ivy's ears because of the hypocrisy behind it. "We'll still consider you a part of this family... but please, don't make Sarah feel pressured anymore with your dramas."

"Enough!" Ivy screamed.