Chapter 1

Harper POV

The light cast a sliver of warm yellow across the door seam.

I stood in the deep shadow, fingers resting on the brass handle, hesitant to push.

The air inside the house had been suffocating since Father died.

"Joseph, I've settled it..."

I barely managed to push the front door open before my arm was wrenched away.

My body slammed against the leather sofa.

A dull pain shot through my back, knocking the air from my lungs.

When I opened my eyes, Joseph's face filled my vision.

"What did you talk about with Adrian?!" His jaw was rigid.

I rubbed my reddened wrist, my voice a sheath of ice.

"Do you honestly think there's another option?"

I wanted to tell him that the name on that contract was mine.

But looking at the desperate crimson in his eyes, I swallowed the words.

"Harper, Adrian is doing this purely to humiliate our family."

"And he can crush us effortlessly, can't he?"

Joseph buried his face in his hands, his voice raw and broken.

"No. I won't let Aria go..."

Aria, the daughter of my father's underboss, had been here only two months。

Already, she had eclipsed Joseph's affection for me.

He was my brother, the person I loved most in this world.

I didn't want him torn between us in the end, so I signed the contract, placing my name on the line.

Aria was sobbing, on the verge of hyperventilating.

"It's fine, Joseph. I have bad luck. No one has loved me since Father died."

Her voice cracked with manufactured despair.

"I'm just a fake Willis girl. I'm meant to be the one taking the fall for the true master."

I gave a cold laugh.

"Are you playing the victim? Your father—"

A heavy shove struck my shoulder.

"Shut up!"

My pupils contracted, and I was thrown backward, collapsing right into the nearly human-sized antique vase.

Joseph shouted, "Stop bullying Aria! Her father died for this family. You owe her—"

A deafening crash tore through the air mid-sentence.

The vase shattered into countless pieces.

I hit the ceramic fragments hard, the pain searing through every inch of my body in no time.

My breath trembled with every inhale.

Aria's father, Brad?

A life debt?

A bitter laugh stirred in my chest.

Brad had sent Joseph a message, claiming he was fighting Adrian to protect my father.

Yet Adrian had just told me that Brad betrayed Father, and that Adrian shot him dead.

And now, Joseph called him a hero.

Aria was an orphan. She was weak.

So Joseph, who cherished me for eighteen years, gave all his tenderness to her.

I gritted my teeth, pushing myself up off the floor.

If Joseph knew that I was the one who had to go and accompany Adrian...

Would he be kinder to me?

Aria approached me, her eyes still shimmering with carefully managed tears.

"Harper," she whispered, "I know you've never liked me…"

She crouched, picking up a shard of porcelain on the floor.

"I never wanted to fight you for Joseph's love. I only ever begged for a small corner to stay in your home…"

Her voice cracked with manufactured despair.

"I didn't realize even that caused you such distress."

Her voice was feather-light, barely a whisper.

Yet the shard was razor-sharp.

The icy edge dragged across my arm, and the pain plunged deep, sinking into me.

I frowned, my body flinching back.

But the porcelain shards beneath me snagged on my legs, leaving me trapped and unable to move.

Aria leaned in, her breath hot against my ear, her voice dropping to a register only I was meant to catch.

The veil of fragility had vanished.

In her eyes, hatred flashed, raw and undisguised.

"Bitch," she hissed, "you've been the golden girl all your life. You deserve to be his plaything."

Blood slipped down my arm, bright against the white shard.

And the pain, rather than crushing me, ignited a cold, hard inferno of fury.

I shoved her away with a sudden burst of strength.

Aria fell to the floor, screeching as she crumpled into herself.

Joseph rushed over.

"Harper! What did you do to her?!"

I sighed. The performance had begun.

Aria lifted her arm, displaying a faint, shallow scratch.

She buried her head into Joseph's chest, her sobs broken and ragged.

"Don't blame her," she gasped. "Harper just… she's always hated me. I understand…"

Joseph strode over and knelt in front of me, his finger gliding from my face to my neck.

Then it abruptly tightened.

Cold. Merciless.

My breath hitched and cut off.

"Harper, you've been spoiled for too long." His gaze was glacial. "You won't even spare someone as kind as Aria."

I tried to pull back, but his grip only tightened.

My throat burned; the air had been vacuumed out of the room.

His eyes were spitting fire, while my heart grew colder by the second.

Only when my vision blurred to white did his hand finally let go.

He scooped Aria into his arms, his gaze slicing over me like a blade.

"Harper, I'm deeply disappointed."

I lay amidst the shattered porcelain, blood staining my luxurious dress.

The man who once treated me like something precious walked away without a single backward glance.

Actually, I wanted to tell him—

Joseph, I'm disappointed too.