Chapter 1

John's POV

The truth struck me so suddenly that my head spun. It felt as if something were lodged in my chest.

Lisseth Gabler gently wiped away my tears and said, "Actually, when you were injected with the sedative, we took the opportunity to press your fingerprint onto the settlement agreement.

"But the dosage was too high, and it left you infertile. We were so busy celebrating with Donny at the time that we forgot to check on you."

I still remembered.

When Mom was run over and killed by Donny Kaufman, I had run barefoot to the police station. But after they injected me with sedatives, my entire body felt like it was being gnawed at by ants, and I was forced to press my fingerprint onto a piece of paper.

But what no one told me was that the piece of paper would grant the murderer, Donny, three years of freedom.

My face turned cold, and my eyes became bloodshot. "Why are you only telling me now?"

Dad, who was driving, looked at me through the rearview mirror and sighed. "I was afraid you wouldn't be able to truly reflect on yourself in there. Now that you've learned to be obedient, you won't hurt Donny even if you know the truth."

Reflect on myself?

When I'd learned the truth back then, the only thing I had done was slap Donny across the face once, yet that had earned me three years of imprisonment.

The endless rounds of bitter pills made me vomit violently, and the electroshock therapy frequently left me unconscious. And all of that was just their punishment for that one slap.

A bitter laugh escaped me as I lunged at Dad, who was behind the wheel, like a madman. The car swerved violently.

Lisseth pinned me down forcefully in her arms. "Have you lost your mind, John Kaufman?"

"Yes, I've lost my mind," I roared wildly.

Mom's body had barely gone cold back then, yet Dad had already promised his mistress a lifetime together. Then, he joined forces with my wife, Lisseth, to allow the person who killed Mom to walk free.

I should have lost my mind a long time ago!

…

When we arrived home, they locked me in the basement.

Dad held up a photo of him and his mistress, Emma Flack, and ordered me to call her "Mom".

I spat on the floor. "Never."

Seeing the stubbornness in my eyes, he answered a phone call instead, looking resigned. Before he left, he warned, "Emma will treat you like her own son. You should learn to respect her."

Roaring in rage, I hurled the framed photo at the wall, shattering it into pieces. A flying shard cut a gash across Lisseth's face, and blood welled up.

She hadn't dodged. Instead, she just frowned in disgust.

"If you still treat Donny the same way you did before, I don't mind sending you back to the psychiatric hospital."

Seeing the mixture of blood and tears on my face, she finally crouched down to meet my eyes. "If you can let bygones be bygones and accept Donny and his mother, everything can go back to how it was. Whether you want to return to this family or not is up to you."

With that, she stood up and slammed the door shut behind her.

But there was something none of them knew.

When they signed my discharge papers, hidden among the documents were a divorce agreement and a severance agreement—one that would cut my ties with them.

This "family" that only loved the illegitimate son and the mistress? I didn't want it anymore.