Chapter 1

The news came that our family's adopted daughter had been beaten to death by thugs. Every piece of evidence pointed straight to me.

My parents and brother were convinced that I was consumed by jealousy and had plotted her murder.

To find where her body was hidden, they strapped me to an operating table and forced me into a neural memory extraction.

Yet the memories flashing across the screen revealed nothing but her twisted, venomous soul.

Disbelief on my family's faces slowly turned to crushing guilt, their eyes filling with tears.

Meanwhile, destroyed by the lethal side effects of the machine, I lay dying on the freezing steel table.

1

My younger brother, Milo, shoved me down onto the operating table. He tied my wrists and ankles with heavy straps, pinning me completely.

"We're already here, and you still refuse to tell us where Gemma is?"

Dad glared at me, his face twisted in fury. He looked down at me like a judge sentencing a monster.

"I really don't know where she went..."

My voice broke into a pathetic sob.

A harsh slap landed across my face.

"Stop lying! You were the last person she saw before she vanished!"

Right then, Dad's phone buzzed with an incoming video.

On the screen, Gemma was tied up tightly in a dark corner. Tears stained her cheeks as she curled into a ball, looking helpless and terrified.

Seeing the camera, Gemma cried out in distress.

"Dad, Mom, I just wanted to take Cora out for dinner to make peace. I don't know how I ended up here!"

"These men are brutal. If saving me is too hard, please just let me go. After all, Cora is your real flesh and blood."

"Cora, please... take good care of Mom and Dad for me!"

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she delivered what looked like a heartbreaking final farewell.

Suddenly, several masked men stepped into the frame.

"Cut the crying, little girl. We're just following orders. You should have known better than to cross the real heiress!"

"Do it! The boss lady specifically told us to beat her to death!"

The men raised heavy wooden clubs and smashed them down onto Gemma's body.

Her piercing screams echoed through the speaker as she begged for mercy.

Finally, Gemma lay motionless on the concrete floor, her cries silenced forever.

"Dead already? Pathetic."

The lead thug kicked her limp body before the video cut out.

I had no idea what had happened to Gemma.

That afternoon, she had texted me, claiming she wanted to apologize over dinner.

But days earlier, Mom had warned me that my bad habits would corrupt Gemma, ordering me to stay far away from her.

So I never went.

Yet that video destroyed whatever sanity my family had left.