Chapter1

I was ten years old when my mother remarried and dragged me into the Black family.

My stepbrother, Cullen Black, constantly mocked me, calling me a parasite. Once, he shoved me down a flight of stairs. He stared down at me with cold indifference as I lay bleeding on the floor.

"Don't think that tagging along with your homewrecker mother makes you a Black," he spat. "I'll kick you out sooner or later."

He shredded my homework and scribbled on my dresses with markers just to humiliate me. No matter how much I tried to appease him, his malice never ceased.

That was, until his best friend, Nolan Gray, asked me out in college.

After that day, Cullen did the unthinkable—he stopped bullying me.

I saw Nolan as my salvation. On my birthday, I gave myself to him.

The very next day, my professor called me into the lab to verify some data. As I rounded the corner of the hallway, I heard a familiar voice. Nolan’s phone was on speaker, and Cullen’s voice echoed from the other end.

Cullen’s voice dripped with pure malice. "Did you get her first time on camera?"

Nolan chuckled, his tone entirely casual. "Of course. Uncensored and in high-definition. Honestly, if it weren't for getting back at her for you, I wouldn't have even touched that homewrecking slut."

I clamped a hand over my mouth, tears instantly spilling over my lashes.

The salvation I thought I had found was nothing but a calculated tool for Cullen’s revenge. But there was one thing they didn't know. I had already submitted my application to study abroad.

And I was never coming back.

Later that evening, I stood frozen outside a private booth at a downtown club. The door was left slightly ajar.

Inside, Cullen took a slow drag from his cigarette. "Ruin her reputation," he said. "Let's see if she still has the nerve to leech off my family after this."

"What if she can't take it and does something stupid?" Nolan asked.

Cullen shot him a sideways glance and laughed aloud. "So worried about her. Don't tell me you actually caught feelings after sleeping with her?"

Nolan denied it eagerly. "No way, she was just a toy." He added smoothly, "Besides, Vera is coming back anyway. I don't have time to waste on her."

I stood outside the door, my heart plunging into an icy abyss.

Vera Harris was the childhood friend they had both grown up with, and she was Nolan's first love.

I always knew Cullen hated me. He believed my mother’s appearance destroyed his family and caused his own mother to jump off a building, so he projected all that hatred onto me. After I got together with Nolan, Cullen still gave me the cold shoulder, but he had stopped actively tormenting me.

I had foolishly thought he was finally accepting me. I thought I was actually going to have a brother, and I looked forward to building a normal relationship with him. I never imagined the temporary peace was just a setup for a much crueler punishment.

He and Nolan had been thick as thieves since childhood. How could I have ever deluded myself into thinking Nolan actually liked me?

I had overestimated my own worth.

Swallowing the bitter lump in my throat, I turned and fled the club like a madwoman.

It was pouring rain outside. I was soaked to the bone in seconds. The moment I got home, I immediately texted my professor.

"Professor, I accept your offer to join the overseas project. Can we leave as soon as possible?"

He had been my advisor during an international competition and was a highly respected pioneer in the intelligent technology sector. Once, I had worked myself to the bone trying to achieve excellence, desperate to win my family's approval. But no one ever cared. Not my mother, and certainly not Cullen.

Because the project involved classified research, I would have been confined to the institute for three years without outside contact. That was why I had initially turned it down.

But those ties didn't matter anymore.

Perhaps it was the freezing rain, but I soon curled up into a shivering ball on my bed. When a nightmare finally jolted me awake, I realized my body was burning with a severe fever.

I was just about to get up and find some medication when my bedroom door was abruptly shoved open.

My mother stormed in and slammed her phone directly into my face. "Are you just completely shameless?"

The bright screen displayed naked photos and an explicit video of me, the audio blaring sharp and grating. Nolan had recorded all of it while I was black-out drunk.

My eyes lost their focus as a profound sense of desolation rose from the bottom of my heart. In just one night, they hadn't even hesitated to leak everything online.

Just two days ago, Nolan had solemnly sworn to me, "I'll take responsibility for you. As soon as we graduate, we'll get married."

He had plied me with alcohol, and under his relentless coaxing, I had finally caved. He had dragged me to the bed again and again, drowning us in primal desire. And I, like a naive fool, had believed he truly loved me.

Seeing my deadened silence, my mother relentlessly pressed on. "Say something! Who took these? If people see these photos and videos, your stepfather and I will never be able to show our faces in our social circles again!"

She had never cared about me. To her, her own status was all that mattered.

Yet, the moment I whispered Nolan's name, she went dead silent.

Her tone shifted entirely to blame. "How could you get involved with the Gray family's son? We can't afford to provoke someone like him..."

She backed away half a step. "Besides, you and Nolan were dating normally. Even if we had proof, we couldn't do anything to him. It's your own fault for not rejecting him."

I snapped my head up to stare at her, my eyes wide with sheer disbelief.

She avoided my gaze, her voice dropping lower. "Why do you think I fought so hard to marry into the Black family back then? After your grandmother passed away, I was a single woman trying to raise you. I couldn't survive. I know I wronged you, but what else could I do?"

She paused. For a fleeting second, her eyes reddened as if remembering something, but they quickly hardened into ice again.

"Those photos and videos have already been taken down," she said flatly. "Give it time. No one will remember."

Nolan came from immense power and wealth. The Black family wasn't going to cross him lightly.

As my bedroom door clicked shut, I caught a glimpse of Cullen standing at the top of the hallway stairs, smiling down at me. His eyes were brimming with cruel triumph. He looked as if he had predicted this exact outcome all along.

The truth didn't matter anymore.

A suffocating wave of helplessness surged up from within, swallowing me whole. I slumped down into the corner of the cold room, sobbing uncontrollably into the dark.