Introduction

Ethan Miller' s brilliant mind offered him one dream: an elite NSA program at Stanford, a world away from his suffocating family life. But when he returned home, his mother, stepfather, and even his long-time girlfriend Sarah shockingly demanded he surrender his coveted college spot and every resource to his manipulative stepbrother, Kevin, who weaponized his fabricated illnesses.

Their betrayal quickly escalated; Gary's physical abuse, Sarah's public abandonment and her giving his precious grandmother's locket to Kevin, shattered any lingering hope. The ultimate humiliation came when Sarah, with his family' s terrifying approval, proposed a grotesque "commitment ceremony" with Kevin, expecting Ethan to offer his "blessing" as his final punishment.

How could his loving family and the girl he adored turn him into a sacrificial lamb for a calculating manipulator? Was his very existence merely a tool for Kevin' s twisted ascent, leading to nothing but endless despair? Ethan' s heart turned to a cold, empty void.

On the day he was meant to be publicly broken, Ethan silently chose a radical path: accepting a covert NSA program, effectively "dying" to his past, to forge a new life far beyond their reach.