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BONUS

Chapter

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[LINA]

I never thought of myself as extreme like the rest of my family.

My mother was quiet, reserved even, but her silences could be crushing. She had a way of enforcing her will with a look or a few carefully chosen words that left no room for argument.

My father, on the other hand, was louder about his authority, his expectations weighing down on everyone like a heavy chain. He loved us, I knew that much, but his love felt like a prison at times.

Then there was Cole, my twin. I don’t even know where to begin with him. If our parents were storms, he was the hurricane they created.

He carried our father’s iron will and mother’s sharp cunning, all wrapped in a temper that flared like lightning when provoked. He could be naive in some ways, reckless in others, but that was Cole.

And me? I’d always thought of myself as the normal one. The calm in the chaos. Maybe that’s why I loved them all so dearly, even when they tested every ounce of patience I had.

But love isn’t always enough, and now, my family was crumbling, the pieces too shattered to put back together.

It started with Cole’s death.

I’d thought Dylan, my personal bodyguard, was my heartbreak—the unyielding wall I could never break through, no matter how deeply I cared for him.

But losing Cole . . . That was devastation. That was the beginning of the end.

I remember the day it happened like it was yesterday.

Cole had always been drawn to Eve, his fierce and fragile light. She was beautiful, yes, but more than that, she challenged him, understood him in a way most couldn’t.

But something had fractured the bond between them—a betrayal of the heart that neither dared to put into words. All I knew was that Eve, for reasons she kept locked away, had chosen to walk away. And Cole, despite his unyielding pride and the principles that defined him, went after her, determined to win her back against all odds.

Everything began to unravel from what seemed like a simple study session in the Ashford’s vacation house. When Eve began seeing someone new, Daniel Michael Foster, I knew it wasn’t love. It was avoidance. A way for her to keep Cole at a distance, to shield herself from the wounds he’d inflicted on her heart.

Cole respected her decision, but I saw how it killed him. Every time she smiled at Daniel, every whispered conversation, every fleeting touch—it chipped away at the brother I knew. The light in his eyes dimmed bit by bit, replaced by a hollowness that terrified me.

And then came that day.

Eve and Daniel had been out on a date when it happened. A kidnapping attempt. I don’t know who orchestrated it, but Cole and his team intercepted it just in time. Shots were fired, chaos erupted, and when the dust settled, my brother lay lifeless on the ground.

He had shielded Daniel from the bullets. He died protecting the man Eve had chosen over him, likely because he couldn’t bear the thought of her mourning Daniel.

It was his final act of love and redemption—a gesture that broke me more than anything else.

At the morgue, I stared at his lifeless body, my knees buckling under the weight of it all. I couldn’t cry; the grief was too heavy, too consuming. And then Eve arrived.

She was a wreck, sobbing uncontrollably as she threw herself over his corpse. Through her broken sobs, she confessed everything—that she had never loved Daniel, that she had only accepted his courtship to drive Cole away.

She still loved him, had always loved him, but she’d been too afraid to let him back into her life.

I don’t remember slapping her, but I must have, because my hand stung as she cradled her reddened cheek.

"If you loved him, why didn’t you tell him?!" I screamed, my voice cracking with rage and despair. "Why did you let it come to this? Why did my brother have to die for you to realize what you already knew?!"

She didn’t fight back. She didn’t defend herself. She just stood there, tears streaming down her face, whispering, "It’s all my fault."

Before I could react, she grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray and pressed it to her neck.

I froze as her trembling voice broke through the silence. "You’re right . . . It’s my fault. It’s always been my fault."

The blade glinted under the harsh fluorescent light as she pressed harder, drawing a thin line of crimson. Chaos erupted around me, but all I could do was heaved as the world went dark.

The months and years that followed were a blur of grief. My mother, frail and fragile from an accident years ago that had left her unable to bear more children, gave up entirely.

Cole and I had been her world, her reason for living, and with one of us gone, she refused to go on. She died in her sleep, her frail hand clutching a photograph of us.

My father followed soon after, succumbing to the weight of his loss. I wasn’t surprised. He’d loved her too much to endure a life without her.

And just like that, I was alone. Your next journey awaits at empire

I wanted to hate Eve, and for a time, I did. But how could I? I’d been there through the years she chased after Cole, through all the times he pushed her away, humiliated her, rejected her.

I couldn’t blame her one bit.

None of that mattered now.

One night, as I stared up at the stars, I made a wish. I wished with all my heart to change it, to rewrite the moment when everything fell apart. I would give anything—everything—for just one more chance to save them.

And then the world tilted. My heart raced, my vision blurred, and I collapsed to the ground, the poison coursing through my veins taking hold. My body was failing, and I welcomed the darkness.

But then I heard it.

Updated from freewёbnoνel.com.

Footsteps. Urgent, panicked. A voice—familiar, desperate—calling my name.

"Lina! Lina!"

It couldn’t be real. He wouldn’t come for me, not after all the times he’d rejected me.

But the warmth of his arms around me, the way his voice cracked as he held me close—it felt too real to be a dream.

And then I woke up.