Chapter 1

"Why would you still keep a bastard like him around? If I were you, I would've thrown him out long ago! You guys have been generous enough to show me the truth. I'll do you a favor and kill this bastard for you!"

My new girlfriend, Marilyn Finch, lunged at me, grabbed me by the throat, and slammed me to the ground. I fought back with everything I had, but I was no match for her.

She was trained in mixed martial arts, while I had never learned how to fight.

"You'll go to jail, Marilyn!" I gritted out.

"I'm doing the world a favor by wiping out a scumbag like you!" she growled, stubbornly driving her knee hard into me.

A wave of excruciating pain shot through my body, and I lost what little strength I had left to fight back. My breathing grew weaker. I could almost feel death closing in around me.

Only then did Marilyn finally let go. Before leaving, she kicked me twice, hard. "You piece of trash. I'll kill you sooner or later!"

After she left, I had barely managed to get back on my feet when Dad kicked me across the ground. I didn't fight back when he beat me. There was no point.

He was the village chief. Whenever he raised a hand against someone, no one dared to stop him.

He pinned me to the ground and beat me for half an hour. By the time he was done, I had three broken ribs and two broken fingers.

I vividly remembered this had started when I was 20. That year, I brought home the woman I intended to marry to the chapel. Today, this was the tenth time it had happened.

Every ex who entered that chapel came back out and broke up with me. Some even tried to kill me, just like Marilyn had today.

Dad always told people that I was bad luck, that I had angered our ancestors and brought this punishment upon myself. To appease their wrath, he claimed he had to discipline me every time.

I didn't want to believe the chapel could have that kind of power, but after a decade of such repeated instances, I had no choice but to believe it.

The whole thing made me more curious about the chapel. I couldn't help but text a few close friends, asking if anything peculiar like this had happened in their hometowns.

"Nope. Everyone in our village goes into the chapel to pray."

"We hold events there all the time. I've never heard of anyone coming out with their personality completely changed, though."

"Alex, do you think your dad did something to the chapel? He never liked you in the first place, right? Why don't you go inside yourself and find out what's going on?"

I thought that was probably the best way to solve the problem, too. However, no matter how many times I begged Dad, he always said the chapel was only for future daughters-in-law. I had no right to go in.

If I asked too many questions, all I got in return was another beating.

Yet, Dad was never like this with my two adopted younger brothers, Bryce Baker and Claude Baker. For a while, I even wondered if I was his biological son.

I secretly got a DNA test done, but the results confirmed that I was his son. So, I suspected that he hated me because he hated my mother.

However, Mom had passed away years ago, and Dad had remained single ever since. No matter who tried to set him up with someone, he always turned them down.

"Your mother is the love of my life. I'll never marry anyone but her," he had said.

Everyone knew Dad as a devoted husband and an overly doting father. No one believed what I told them, least of all the part about him wanting to beat his own son to death.

With no other choice, I called my maternal grandmother.