Chapter 1

The night I was told I was the underworld's fake heiress, my adoptive father handed me over to his business partner that very night.

"Aren't you afraid that little mute will get herself killed?"

"So what if she dies? She's so weak—anyone can see she's no daughter of mine!"

My adoptive father wanted to squeeze every last use out of me. But that same night, my sworn brother, Byron Henson, drenched the elder's house in blood.

He hacked off the man's limbs right in front of me.

Then he took me back to a hidden room and locked me away, his eyes red as he said no one else was allowed to touch me.

"You're finally mine alone, Claire."

From that day on, he taught me how to hold a gun and shoot. Three years later, he closed his hand over mine and made me shoot my adoptive father dead.

We were together day and night, each of us the other's one and only, and I fell in love with Byron Henson too!

But on our wedding day, my beloved pet was tortured to death, its blood soaking through my wedding dress.

The underworld's true heiress leveled a gun at me.

"Go to hell, you scourge! You stole everything that belonged to me!"

Without the slightest fear, I snatched the gun out of her hand.

And just as I pulled the trigger—

Byron Henson threw a dart that pierced my wrist, and the blood stung my eyes!

"Since when can't you tell right from wrong? The Henson family's affairs have nothing to do with her."

He said she was innocent.

Is she really innocent, brother?

1

"Kill her, Byron Henson! I'm the one who's your sister!"

The woman cowering in Byron Henson's arms lost all control of herself.

She said it was all because of me that the group had fallen apart, that their father had died so horribly!

"Brother, what kind of love potion did she feed you, to make you willingly carry the guilt of killing your own father for her?"

The man's brow knotted tight. He lowered his voice. "Does he even deserve to be called a father?"

Kevin Henson never saw me or Byron Henson as his children—only as blood bags to prolong his own life.

From childhood on, our bodies were riddled with needle marks, used for his longevity research.

Byron Henson he raised into an emotionless tool, beating and cursing us at the slightest provocation. To break Byron Henson, he even forced him to watch his own mother killed by a rival family.

"Go now. We'll let today go. But if there's a next time, I'll even—"

Before Byron Henson could finish, a signet ring suddenly appeared in Marcella Henson's hand.

It was the symbol of the one who called the shots at the very center of the Henson Group.

"Brother, I order you now—kill her!"

Marcella Henson's face was twisted, her eyes red with agitation, her whole body heaving for breath.

Why waste your breath on her.

I finished signing, then coldly raised the gun and aimed it at Marcella Henson's heart. Let her be the one buried with my Clement!

"Stop!" Byron Henson threw himself in front of her. "Have you forgotten what I taught you? You don't slaughter the innocent."

He said Marcella Henson was innocent—that the group no longer touched anything criminal, that under Marcella Henson's leadership it had cleaned itself up and turned onto the right path.

I couldn't kill her, he said, especially since the one who had hurt me back then was only Kevin Henson.

"You avenged yourself long ago, Claire. Let her go. After all, you really are the one who killed her father."

Heh.

You've gone soft, brother.

You were the one who said to pull the weeds out by the roots. You were the one who said a wrong must be repaid on the spot!

But this woman killed my kitten and ruined our wedding, and my brother didn't seem to intend to hold her to account.

He said if I wanted to kill Marcella Henson, I'd have to step over his corpse first.

"She's my only living blood relative..."

"And with the position she holds now, if she dies here, it'll send shockwaves through the coastal underworld circle. I won't be able to protect you."

My eyes met Byron Henson's, and the fierce ruthlessness that once ruled everything was long gone from them.

In its place was softness, with a trace of guilt. Did he regret it?

He was the one who had set me down this path of decisive killing. He was the one who had taught me, step by step, how to fire a gun.

He was the one who had gripped my hand and made me strike down my adoptive father without mercy.

But now?

Afraid I would lose control, Byron Henson actually lifted Marcella Henson into his arms himself and carried her away.

I watched that retreating figure, and inside I felt nothing at all.

By the time he came back to the wedding, he found the whole place in ruins.

I had burned the wedding dress and smashed the venue apart. As I left, a message came in from my assistant.

Byron Henson had taken her back to the old Henson estate, saying he was returning her to where she belonged.

Marcella Henson knelt crying in the rain, begging him to stay, her tone almost pleading.

"Brother, it's not too late to turn back. I can help you clear your name. Please, stop getting tangled up with her, all right?"

Byron Henson ignored her and only warned her never to do it again.

"If you dare hurt Claire even a little, I'll end you."

"I just don't want you living in the shadows. I want you to live openly, honestly, out in the sunlight—why..."

Byron Henson walked away without looking back, leaving her nothing but the sight of his unyielding back.