Family Stories นิยาย & เรื่องราว

Eight years ago, my cousin Wendy Cooper was involved in a drunk driving hit-and-run. Yet, my parents made sure all the evidence pointed toward me. The victim's family waited outside my school every day with gasoline, threatening to die with me. Because of that, the school took away my guaranteed admission to university. That day, my parents and brother all tried to persuade me. "Wendy's terrified. Just give her your spot to make her feel better." I refused, fought back, and even tried to talk them out of it. But the next day, they handed me over to the police themselves. Lance Stewart, my fiance and a powerful business tycoon, had orchestrated it all. As he was afraid I'd run or cause trouble, he personally pinned several charges on me and sent me to an isolated island prison. He left me with no way out. When my sentence began, he made me a promise. "Esme, just endure it for a few years. I'll get you out once Wendy graduates, and then we'll get married."

I was the top engineer at the National Deep-Sea Institute—and the only person in the world with real deep-sea rescue experience. When my younger brother's submarine went down and he called for help from 35,000 feet below, I hung up on him. Then, calm and unhurried, I went straight to the police station and turned myself in for leaking classified research data. A few minutes later, my father called, furious. "Your brother's life is hanging by a thread—where the hell are you?! I demand you to get to the site and save him right now, or you won't see a single penny of the family fortune!" I pulled the blanket over myself and said into the phone, perfectly composed, "Busy. Don't bother me—I'm trying to sleep."

In my previous lifetime, the entire medical world had acknowledged me as Godhand. But I was forced to become a scapegoat for my genius younger brother, Matthew Lachman, in a medical malpractice case, which resulted in me getting my medical license revoked and being sentenced to seven years in prison Before I was set to go to jail, my fiancee, Winona Green, personally severed my tendon in my dominant wrist just so she could force me to sign the papers. Since then, I was tormented and bullied relentlessly in jail. In the end, I died in my cold and dark cell out of depression. When I open my eyes again, I've returned to the day I'm set to go to jail as a wronged person. This time, I no longer remain depressed. I decide to continue living properly so that I can clear my name one day. In the prison, I use my amazing medical skills to save the inmates' lives and build my own connections. Since I've been on my best behavior, my sentence keeps getting reduced. That's how I get released from prison in advance. After my release, I hide my identity and open an auto repair shop on the streets. One day, my entire family barges into my shop. My mother kneels in a puddle of grease as she says pleadingly, "Jamie, Matthew is ill. You're the only one who can perform the high-precision surgery on him. Please save him!" Meanwhile, Winona clutches the engagement contract from before. With tears running down her cheeks, she promises me, "I will marry you right away as long as you can save Matthew's life!" I merely lift my hand, which is trembling so much that I can barely hold a wrench properly. A self-deprecating smile is plastered on my face this time. "Have you forgotten that you're the ones who have personally crippled my hand? Since you want me to perform that surgery so badly, does that mean you actually want Matthew dead instead?"

My husband, Don Damiano Caruso's adopted sister, Caterina Caruso, has gone missing when she's three months pregnant. The security footage shows that I'm the last person she's met before her disappearance. The family elders request me to provide them with clues of Caterina's whereabouts. Damiano's mother, Teresa Bellandi, even gets down on her knees to plead with me to help find the missing Caterina. Still, my only answer is silence. I initially thought that Damiano would get a divorce from me out of disappointment. But he still continues to love and dote on me, as though nothing has happened. When I first get pregnant, the R&D team that Damiano has invested an astronomical amount of money into has finally invented a device that can extract memories from human brains. Damiano lures me to the council hall of the Caruso family. There, he extracts my memories in front of the entire family. I keep begging him to change his mind by explaining that this device will hurt our unborn child. But Damiano merely replies icily, "Bianca, the medical team has already conducted a check-up on you. You're in top health this whole time. I can't believe you're capable of lying about your pregnancy just to hide the truth! "I will uncover the truth no matter what!" But once everyone digs up the truth from my memories, Damiano and the entire Caruso family go insane.

On my eighteenth birthday, my brother Seth brought back my twin sister. She had been snatched from me by kidnappers as a child. She claimed she had nothing, not a single thing to call her own. Seth gave her everything: my room, my dresses, and my awards. He even gave her my childhood fiancé, forcing him to break off our engagement and marry her in a wedding that would take the world by storm. I tried to resist, but Seth scolded me for being childish. "She's your blood sister, yet you complain about every little thing. If you can't learn to be kind, I can't call you my sister anymore." My sister, Serena, fell into the swimming pool later that day and nearly drowned. When she woke up, she cried to our brother, claiming I had pushed her. My brother, Seth, was furious. He sent me away to a remote mountain village. "If you can't learn to be kind, you'll spend the rest of your life here, atoning for your sins. "You can come back only when you kneel before Serena and apologize." Five years passed. Serena and my fiancé held a high-profile engagement ceremony. The entire city celebrated their grand love, certain they would have a happily ever after together. Then, Seth finally remembered me. "Sylvie, five years have passed. Have you learned kindness yet?" I nodded calmly with a blank expression on my face. "Seth, I will kneel before her and apologize." He smiled, praising me for finally being sensible. However, he did not know that I had received a critical medical notice. I had only five days left to live.

My brother Mitchell sided with his dream girl when she accused me of bullying her. Despite being the only family member I had left, he exploded in anger and sent me away to a boarding school for so-called reformation to learn how to become a meek and obedient little sister. In time, I became exactly what he wanted—a docile sibling who never fought back, never argued. But everything changed the day he saw my medical report. He lost his mind. "Nora, I'm begging you—forgive me and let me be your brother again!"

The doctor said I only had three days left to live. Acute liver failure. My only hope was an experimental clinical trial. It was extremely risky, but had the faintest sliver of a chance to survive. But my husband, David, gave the last available spot... to my adopted sister, Emma, also my daughter’s godmother. Her condition was still in its early stages. He said it was the "right decision," because she “deserved to live more.” I signed the papers to forgo treatment and took the high-dose painkillers prescribed by the doctor. The cost? My organs would shut down, and I would die. When I handed over the jewelry company I’d poured my heart into, along with all my designs, to Emma, my parents praised me, saying, “Now that’s what a good big sister should do.” When I agreed to divorce David so he could marry Emma, he said, “You’ve finally learned to be understanding.” When I told my daughter to call Emma ‘Mom,’ she clapped her hands and said, “Emma is such a gentle and kind mother!” When I gave all my assets to Emma, everyone in the family thought it was only natural. No one noticed anything was wrong with me. I’m just curious. Will they still be able to smile when they find out I'm dead?

The day I found out I was a match for my dad—stage four leukemia—I bailed. Mom tore the world apart looking for me, but yeah, she had to watch him go. After that, she drowned herself in research, built a name, even adopted this perfect little angel. We crossed paths again at some fancy leukemia conference she was hosting. I was on the demo table. She took one look and scoffed. "Charlotte Stein, not the time for your crap. Get up and go." The host blinked, stunned. "Dr. Cooper... you know this cadaver?" She actually laughed. "What, she paid you for this stunt?" The host turned ghost-white. "M-Miss Stein passed three days ago..."

Caked in mud, her eyes bloodshot, my mother grabbed me by the shoulders. "Elliot, the company's collapsed. I… I killed a competitor. It was an accident. There's no way out now. You're the only one who can come with me." I believed her. I swallowed my fear and followed her into the mountains, deeper and deeper until there was nothing left of the world I knew. To keep her alive, I searched for food, forcing down insects, drinking whatever murky water I could find. When a pack of wolves began circling our shelter, my first instinct was to step in front of her. "Mom, I'll lead them away. You go." I glanced back at her one last time…and made my choice. I would give up my life for hers. However, when I leapt from the cliff and my body shattered against the rocks below… I still saw her. She was inside a descending helicopter, calm and composed, lifting a glass of champagne. Celebrating. That was when it finally clicked. The desperate escape that had driven me to sacrifice myself… was nothing more than a carefully staged show. She had been acting the entire time. I…was the only one who had actually died.

When Joy Staton, my adoptive sister, fainted in the freezer on her birthday, William Staton, my brother, checked on the security footage in rage. The moment he saw that I was the one who took Joy into the freezer, he kicked me inside without hesitation. Before shutting the door, he stared at me in disgust. “You’ve been pushing your luck a lot these days, huh? If I’d been a second too late, Joy would’ve died!” I wanted to defend myself, but William refused to listen and slammed the door shut. I heard him talking to the bodyguards outside. “If she doesn’t apologize, don’t let her out!” But he did not know that Joy had set the freezer to –58 °F. I did not even have the strength to complain about the freezer being cold. William did not know that the sister he once loved dearly had stopped breathing in the freezer. He had killed his only blood relative left in the world.