Chapter 2

Haven Bennett POV

Mother Inga: "Haven has always been so stubborn. I pulled her into the chat a while ago, and she hasn't said a word. She's probably just holing up in that cheap, broken-down rental right now, eagerly waiting for us to beg her to come home."

Father Colin let out a cold snort in his voice message.

Colin: "Then let her wait. A girl must be properly disciplined. After three years of hardship, the arrogance in her bones should have been ground away."

Claire: "Dad, Mom, please don't be too harsh on Haven. She suffered so much to pay back all that money. As long as she's willing to accept me as her sister, I don't need her to apologize at all."

I lay curled on the freezing concrete floor, convulsing in agony.

My lungs were undergoing rapid pulmonary fibrosis; every attempt to draw oxygen felt like inhaling razor blades.

Listening to my father's self-righteous tone, I felt nothing but utter absurdity.

Discipline?

My mind couldn't help but drift back through the past three years.

I remembered the blizzard last January, when my delivery bicycle broke down on an icy highway.

My fingers had frozen numb, the skin turning deathly pale and stiff.

I delivered the hot soup thirty minutes late, and the customer threw the boiling broth right in my face, leaving a patch of red, swollen blisters.

I remembered the week Colin sent a lawyer to my door to demand additional interest payments—I even went to sell my blood plasma twice.

I passed out on the sidewalk outside the clinic, waking up with my face buried in the dirty slush, the veins in my arm already bruised, black, and swollen.

And this was what they called "discipline."

The voice messages in the chat continued.

Claire's soft, timid voice chimed in again.

"Dad, Mom, my sister might still be mad at me. After all, she suffered so much these past three years."

"Actually, you shouldn't have made her pay back that $1.2 million. If anything, you can just deduct it from my allowance from now on."

Inga immediately replied, her tone aching with maternal affection.

"Claire, you are just too kindhearted. She lived off your blessings for eighteen years; what is this little bit of hardship?"

"Besides, if we didn't push her to the absolute edge, how would she ever learn to appreciate this family? How would she learn the value of family ties?"

"Don't worry. When she shows up tonight, Mom will hand the bank card with the refund to her in front of everyone, giving her a way out with her dignity intact. I guarantee she will cry tears of gratitude and apologize."

My consciousness was already beginning to slip.

My retinas were hemorrhaging, turning the world before my eyes into a blurry sea of blood-red.

So, in their eyes...

The massive hole I had filled with my own life and blood was nothing more than a "way out" they were graciously offering me.

I vomited violently, throwing up black mucus mixed with chunks of my own melted internal organs.

The excruciating pain was so intense I couldn't even roll over on the floor.

At that moment, Cooper Holland also sent a message to the group.

"Aunt Inga, I've already had my driver drop a dress off for her. It's an off-season Chanel piece. Haven shouldn't be so materialistic anymore; she'll be happy with an off-season dress."

"After the banquet tonight, I'll take her to the hospital for a full-body screening. Look at how pathetic and filthy she's been living—we need to make sure she didn't pick up any infectious diseases."

I bit down on my lower lip so hard my teeth pierced straight through the flesh.

Three years.

I had loved Cooper Holland for ten whole years.

From a young, naive girl with her first crush, to his official fiancée.

During these three years of hell, it wasn't that I hadn't begged him.

Once, a high fever triggered acute pneumonia, and I didn't even have enough money to buy basic fever medication.

I dragged my half-dead body to the lobby of his prestigious law firm, begging him to lend me fifty dollars.

He sat in the back of his Bentley, rolling the window down only halfway.

"Haven, can you stop using these cheap, disgusting pity tricks? Fifty dollars? Do you think I run a charity?"

Right in front of Claire, who was sitting next to him, he ordered the security guards to drag me away.

That night, I lay half-conscious in the snow for hours. Finally, a kindhearted street sweeper found me and dragged me to a free clinic.

I used to think he truly despised me.

Only now did I realize he was just playing along with the Bennett family, acting out a twisted script in their game of a "test."

Breathing was becoming impossibly difficult.

My lungs had completely lost their ability to exchange oxygen.

It felt exactly like someone had tied a thick plastic bag tightly over my head.

I struggled, reaching out a trembling, bloodstained hand, desperately trying to grab my phone.

I wanted to type to them. I wanted to tell them I wasn't going.

I was never going again.

But the moment my smooth, printless fingertips brushed against the cold glass screen...

My heart exploded into a violent, massive spasm.

Along with one final, brutal convulsion, my body slammed heavily onto the concrete floor.

My lifeless eyes remained wide open, staring fixedly at the group chat name on the screen: "Bennett Family Chat."

The world finally descended into absolute, deafening silence.