Chapter 3

3

I smirked coldly. Two lifetimes, and she was still pulling the same exact stunt.

Playing the naive country bumpkin who didn't know any better, while flaunting everything right in my face.

The second I showed any anger, she would play the tragic orphan whose father died saving our family.

I quickly used an AI generator to draft a detailed luxury travel itinerary:

"These spots are breathtaking. Make sure Dad takes you there."

After hitting send, I shut off my phone.

Felicity didn't text back.

She probably felt the frustration of throwing a punch right into a pillow of cotton.

Ever since tragedy struck Felicity's family, I had lived with that suffocating feeling every single day.

Years ago, my father and brother were inspecting a skyscraper construction site.

A falling debris incident nearly crushed them both to death.

It was Felicity's father, Uncle Arthur, who shielded them with his own body.

Unable to bear the devastating news, Felicity's mother suffered a severe postpartum hemorrhage and passed away in the hospital.

Losing both parents back-to-back shattered Felicity's mental health.

Guilt-ridden over destroying an entire family, my father took her in and paid for all her medical treatments.

Back then, she was two years older than me and was technically my older cousin.

It was my father who insisted that the older sister should take care of the younger one, forcing me to call her my little cousin instead.

Later, Felicity's condition worsened, leading to frequent manic episodes.

Whenever she lost her mind, she would scream and attack me like I was her sworn enemy.

The doctors claimed she could only recover if we were kept apart.

So, my father shipped me off to a boarding school in a remote rural town:

"School is school, no matter where you go! We all owe your cousin our lives!"

"If it weren't for her father, you'd be the orphan today! You can go keep vigil at Arthur's grave in the country."

I spent three years guarding that grave in the countryside before Felicity finally stabilized.

When my father finally sent someone to bring me home, I had become the only outsider in the house.

Garrett called her little sister. My father called her his precious baby.

To them, I was just "that girl."

Uncle Arthur's family had received millions in life insurance and compensation.

We had taken care of Felicity for thirteen long years.

Over the years, my father didn't care for my maternal grandparents' retirement.

Instead, he spoiled Uncle Arthur's parents rotten, pampering them in luxury.

He handed out high-paying executive jobs to every single relative from Felicity's mother's side.

Anyone with the slightest connection to Uncle Arthur could come to our house and leech off our wealth.

My father never complained, only repeating that he owed a life debt.

He even set aside two percent of company shares, waiting for Felicity to come of age so he could hand them over.

Yet back then, four people were walking side by side.

When a massive steel plate plummeted from above, Arthur couldn't have escaped it either.

Besides, my own mother was crushed under that same steel plate while shielding my brother with her life.

Why did everyone brush off my mother's death as mere motherly love and never speak of it again?

Why was Arthur worshiped for over a decade, rewarded with endless compensation and gratitude?

I felt zero guilt toward Arthur.

In fact, if Arthur hadn't illegally handed the subcontracting job to his incompetent buddy for kickbacks, the safety protocols wouldn't have been violated.

That steel plate might never have fallen in the first place!

This ridiculous debt of gratitude had forced me to bow my head to my cousin my entire life. It felt like swallowing a mouthful of poison.

I took the Devel Sixteen out for a high-speed spin on the highway and filled the tank on Garrett's credit card before I finally felt a bit of relief.

When I pulled up to the campus gates, my father was surprisingly waiting there. He handed me a stock transfer contract:

"Hazel, take a look at this."