Afton Family Deaths

On New Year's Eve, my older brother, Casper Shaw, attempted to expose me as a fraud and announced that Jenny Ford was the real heiress to the family. He pulled out a paternity test result and threw it in my face. "Open your eyes and take a look! Jenny is the Shaw family's real daughter. You're just a fake who has taken Jenny's place for so many years, yet you still have the nerve to sit here and eat New Year's Eve dinner with us!" Then, he pushed Jenny in front of us, revealing a face that looked exactly like my mom, Theresa. Everyone froze. I lunged for the report, but suddenly, a stream of floating comments rolled past above Jenny's head. [Is the female lead finally going back to her rich family and starting a sweet romance with her fake older brother?] [Not yet. Right now, they still think they're siblings. They only get together later, once the misunderstandings are cleared up.] [Am I the only one who feels bad for the female supporting character? She's the biggest victim in the whole book. She takes all the female lead's hatred that should have gone to her fake brother, and she gets treated as the fake heiress and sent to the Ford family to suffer on top of that.] I looked at Jenny's face and compared it to my own—we almost looked like twins. I checked our ID cards again, confirming that our dates of birth were exactly the same. "Seriously? Ever think that you might be the real impostor here who was switched at birth?"

My mother despised me because I was the unintended consequence of a one-night stand. She poured all her love and attention into her students, treating them as if they were her own flesh and blood. One day, when her favourite pupil confessed his feelings for me, she flew into a rage. She slapped me hard across the face and called me a whore. Years later, as Alzheimer's clouded her mind, she forgot I even existed, yet still remembered every single one of her precious students. The irony was that not one of them ever came to visit her in the nursing home. They all loathed her just as much as I did.

All the relatives knew I had a "backward cousin." For my birthday, she gave me a grocery-store pound cake. When I ran a marathon, she presented me with a pair of worn-out canvas sneakers. At my graduate school acceptance party, she even sent a funeral wreath of white lilies with a sash that read "In Sympathy," wishing me an early departure to the afterlife. In my previous life, I slapped her so hard she tumbled down the porch steps. My brother took her side and plotted revenge, falsely reporting to the university that I had cheated on my SATs. My admission was revoked. "You're so modern. You know how things work," he sneered. "Plenty of people take a gap year. Just apply again." My father also defended her, cutting off all my financial support. "You've had so much schooling. You're so educated," he said coldly. "Support yourself." Alone in a city eighteen hundred miles from home, I fought to survive. I called my brother and my father again and again—only to be blocked. I delivered food while renting a room and studying to reapply. At my lowest, my hands were raw and cracked from frostbite, scrambling for delivery shifts at four in the morning just to earn a small bonus. Worn down by the cold and exhaustion, I suffered cardiac arrest at twenty-three and collapsed in a snowdrift in that unfamiliar city. No one ever came to claim me. This time, I chose to let it go and accepted the wreath with a gracious smile. To fully integrate myself into this family. After all, what is a moment of pride compared to a lifetime's inheritance?

The day I dissolved the mate bond, I called my childhood friend to pick me up. I had a bank card with barely any balance left, my phone, and the same clothes I had worn the day I moved into this house. That was everything I owned after all those years living in the pack. My mate, Derek Anderson, called to say I had left a few things behind. "Forget it. Just throw them away." He seemed reluctant to give up. "Your son keeps saying he wants to see you." I dragged my suitcase behind me and walked away without looking back. "Tell him he'll have a new mom soon. The one he's always wanted." Like father, like son. They even fell for the same woman. In the past, I would have asked myself, 'Why won't they even look at me? I've given them so much.' Now, I felt nothing. If they didn't love me, then so be it. I would let them go and let myself go in the process too. My childhood best friend, Eric Keaton, helped me with my luggage and opened the door of his Maybach. I said one last thing to my mate. "I won't ever disturb you and your son again." After a long time, he found me. He grabbed my arm like a madman and stared at me in despair. "Leah Sullivan, why don't you care about us anymore?"

Everything changed on my twelfth birthday. The brakes failed, the tragic crash, and the death of our parents. My brother blamed it all on me. He ruled as the mafia boss, yet all he showed me was hatred. The only love he had left was for our younger sister. He never believed how sick I became. He accused me of faking my sickness to get attention. He would turn to our sister with a gentleness I never received, he promised to save her, and he promised she would never die on his watch. My heart ended up beating inside her chest even after I died. He finally saw what was left of my damaged body after I was gone. The truth my brother never bothered to face would shatter his world.

My parents adopted a kid, and I treated him like treasure. Then he started looking uncannily like my husband, Brian. And I caught him whispering "Mom" to my sister, Ruby. Yeah. Plot twist: Brian had been cheating on me the whole time. With Ruby. They played house behind my back, smiling for family pics—with my parents' blessing. When the truth blew up, Ruby had the audacity to beg me to step aside. My parents told me to get over it. And that kid I loved like my own? Told me I deserved to die. But here's the kicker—Brian wouldn't even sign the divorce. Dude broke down, said he still loved me, swore the kid was a mistake. So I smiled and said, "Cool. You've got seven days. Prove it, and I'll forgive you." He went full simp mode. Emptied his bank account, treated me like I was gold. Even kicked Ruby down and yelled at her to apologize. Everyone thought I'd cave. Then the cops called, asked him to ID a body—and Brian totally lost it. He never knew I'd been dead this whole time. The Reaper gave me one last week to say goodbye.

During my night shift, I refused to help my adopted sister administer fluids to her patient. After the wrong drug is given, I watch a seven-year-old boy die after he suffers an allergic reaction right before my eyes. In my previous life, the boy's family stormed the nurses' station after I'd just finished administering his IV medication. The next thing I knew, I was violently beaten up. "You poisoned my grandchild by giving him the wrong medicine!" But the fluid I introduced into his bloodstream was a simple glucose solution. It couldn't have led to such a disastrous outcome. When I was on the brink of passing out, someone called the police. I thought help had finally arrived, but I was sorely mistaken. The police officer—my brother—pinned me to the ground. "We found your prints on the drug vial. You're a murderer." Then, my childhood friend, a forensic pathologist, held up an autopsy report and accused me of the same crime. "The patient's time of death is around 5:00 am. That's the same time you administered drugs into his system." Unable to prove my innocence, I was ultimately beaten to death by the boy's enraged family members. My brother and my childhood friend had always loved me. Even on the brink of death, I couldn't understand why they would do this to me. Now, I open my eyes and find myself back on the night it all began.

After my mother shot down my pleas to cover my medical bills the 100th time, I clutched my bone cancer diagnosis papers and trudged to the crematorium. "Hi, I'd like to reserve a cremation slot ahead of time," I muttered to the clerk. Half an hour ticked by before my parents and adopted brother arrived in their car. My dad, a forensic pathologist, cracked me across the face. "You're pulling a fake-death stunt now, just to steal the spotlight from your brother?" My mom, a hospital director, snatched the papers from my hands and shredded them into confetti. "Faking records using my credentials and tying up hospital resources? You've crossed the line!" My brother cried, tugging at their sleeves. "It's all my fault. I'll skip the amusement park forever. I don't need a thing. Just quit riling up Mom and Dad." I spun around, my hand pressed against my throbbing chest, and begged the crematorium staff. "Please, when it's time, cremate me and scatter the ashes in the river. I've got no family left in this world."

A lethal neurotoxin had taken hold of my lungs. My time is running out. My mother, Sofia, was the most connected lawyer in Palermo, excelling in burying crimes and twisting the law. When my brother Vincent mowed me down and shattered my leg, she called in every favor to clear his record. My father, Tommaso, the most feared private doctor in Sicily, faked my medical files, branding me unstable and delusional, all to mold me into the obedient son they needed. Then there was Lina, only daughter of Don Vitali, my wife. She said, “We let him out for Vincent’s liver. What if he says no?” Dad’s voice went cold. “He has two choices: lie quietly on that operating table… or waste away in the sanatorium for what’s left of his life.” I pushed the parlor door open, steady and slow. My voice was flat. “I’ll do it.” Every one of them let out a breath they’d been holding, showering me with hollow words. They didn’t know there was no life left to threaten. I had twenty-four hours. By sunrise, I would be dead either way. Funny… now that I’m in the ground, why are they all crying?

Mom accidentally adds me into a group chat called "Happy Family". In the group chat, I saw Mom, Dad, and a stranger who's nicknamed "sweetheart". They are in the middle of organizing a birthday party for him. However, the thing is, tomorrow will be my birthday, which they have forgotten for the tenth time in a row. Mom says, "The venue must be dreamy. I want him to feel like an actual prince." Dad transfers a huge sum of money to "sweetheart". "Money is no problem! Just don't let Christopher find out about this. It'll screw things up for us!" I quietly take screenshots of everything, planning to find a chance to expose my parents' true colors and end everything with them once and for all. At that moment, my younger sister, who's always been great at her studies, sends me a screenshot via our private chat. It's a screenshot of the chat history between her and Mom. "Mom, have you made preparations for Christopher's surprise party yet? You promised me that this is the last time you'd lie to him!"