Chapter 1
The night I got drunk, I somehow ended up in my stepbrother’s hotel room. One
reckless encounter and I ended up getting pregnant. As I tried to leave in the dark, Caleb Grant, my brother who had always hated me, grabbed my arm and made a promise I never expected to hear.
“No matter who you are, I’ll find you and take responsibility.” His words echoed in my mind over and over. I had secretly held feelings for him for years.
Eight long years of quiet affection.
So when I looked at the positive pregnancy test, I couldn’t help but hope that maybe, just maybe, this was it. Perhaps he would finally come for me.
But he never did.
Instead, I caught him rekindling things with his old flame, the same girl who used
to torment me at school.
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Full of scorn, he taunted me, “Nina, see? I told you, that clingy bitch still likes me. It’s fucking hilarious!” Caleb sneered, continuing, “Seeing her hanging around makes me sick. And yet she stubbornly clings to my family! Just like her dead two- faced bitch mom, so cheap!”
That was the final straw.
Without hesitation, I aborted the baby and booked the earliest flight out of the
country. I wasn’t going to stick around for any more of his cruelty.
But Caleb went completely mad when he realized I had left. Overnight, his hair turned white, and his bloodshot eyes haunted by sleepless nights, he began frantically looking for me everywhere.
At three in the morning, I stood at the address Caleb had mentioned in one of his desperate phone calls.
Sweat slicked my skin as I tightly gripped
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the pregnancy test results. I wasn’t sure how I’d even told him the news.
When the door finally swung open, he
stood at the entrance with that same cruel
smile.
“I knew you’d still come,” he said smugly, his eyes flickering with some twisted satisfaction.
I froze. “What do you mean?”
Before he could answer, a woman appeared behind him, draped in nothing but revealing lingerie. She moved to Caleb’s side, her arm casually wrapping around him.
“Nina, look,” Caleb’s voice dripped with mockery. “Didn’t I tell you? This bitch still likes me! She even wants to commit incest with me! It’s disgusting.”
She giggled. Her high–pitched, playful voice dominated the air as she ridiculed me, “Caleb, you’re so bad! You won again. But really, Lily’s been into you since high
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school, hasn’t she? Still obsessed, huh?
Shows up at your door in her pajamas, trying to seduce you!”
Caleb threw an arm around her and
sneered, “A woman like that? I wouldn’t take her even if she were free.”
The woman beside him… Nina Walker.
Just seeing her face sent chills down my spine.
It was her, the same woman who had bullied me throughout high school. She had led a group of girls who made it their mission to make my life miserable. My entire high school experience was filled with fear and isolation because of her.
And, it hit me.
This whole night had been nothing but a sick, twisted game.
Caleb and Nina had played me for a fool, and I had fallen into their trap. I was nothing more than the fool in their cruel
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Chapter 11
little act.
When I realized it, it was already three in the morning, and there were no taxis in the area. I had walked over an hour in my pajamas through the cold because of Caleb’s cruel words.
How could he do this to me?
Overwhelmed by emotion and exhaustion, a sharp pain shot through my lower abdomen, and I turned to leave. But before I could get far, Caleb smirked and shoved a black bag into my hands without any explanation.
“Since you were so eager to come, we can’t let you leave empty–handed,” he said, his tone ice–cold. “Open it.”
I stared blankly at the bag, too numb to process anything. Mechanically, I followed his instructions and opened it. Inside, a mass of slithering creatures writhed and squirmed.
“Ahh!!” I screamed.
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Startled, I stumbled backward, dropping the bag as hard as possible.
It hit the ground with a thud, and then… snakes.
Dozens of them, of all sizes, slithered out, flicking their tongues and staring me down with those cold, unblinking eyes.
Some even coiled into aggressive postures, ready to strike.
I collapsed on the floor, shaking and terrified.
Caleb stood over me, looking down with a smirk as if he had won some sick game. “You made a post accusing Nina of bullying you, didn’t you? Consider this a lesson. Next time, it won’t be as simple as just releasing a few snakes, Lily.”
Then, he crouched down, his eyes
narrowing. “And don’t be so petty. This
happened years ago.
holding on to it?”
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Mare
you still
Chapter 1
I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
He continued to berate me as he added, “Remember this. Nina’s about to debut as a big star. So whatever little ‘fights‘ you think you had with her before? Keep that buried deep inside. Got it?”
Little fights? That’s what he was calling it?
Years ago, Caleb had been the one taking me to see a psychologist for six years. He had even broken up with Nina, calling her “a heartless snake” for all the damage she had caused me.
But now that they were back together, suddenly the trauma she had caused me was just “little fights“?
I looked up at him, my heart pounding. So this was the real reason they had called me here tonight. Caleb wanted to threaten me and to make sure I wouldn’t get in the way of his precious Nina’s future.
