“She’s selling herself.” My adoptive sister, Seraphina Hayes, publicly ripped open my clothes, revealing my body covered in hickeys. “I saw her with my own eyes, on her knees, serving men in a nightclub.” My adoptive brother, Julian Sterling, choked me, roaring, “You disgraceful slut!” Three days later, he personally escorted me into a correctional center. The moment the iron gate slammed shut, he pinched my chin and said, “Remember, even if you’re completely ruined, I’ll make you clean again.” A year later, Julian came to pick me up. With red-rimmed eyes, he opened his arms wide: “Cassie, come home with me.” I smiled and told him: “I’ve been doing great in there, I’ve learned so many rules!” Oh yes, especially the rules of “serving” men… Julian nodded with satisfaction, intending to pull me into his embrace. I took a step back. He immediately frowned: “Cassie, why are you avoiding me? Were you mistreated in there?” He forcefully pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly. “It’s okay now, it’s all over. I will take you home right away.” His scent felt foreign and disgusted me. Then, he stroked my back to comfort me, but through the thin uniform, his hand brushed against a scar. His hand suddenly froze on my back, his voice filled with shock and uncertainty. “What is this?” My body stiffened at his touch. I recalled the image of several female instructors pressing me onto the cold concrete floor, savagely whipping my back with a spiked cane. Their curses still echoed in my ears, “That’s what you get for being disobedient. That’s what you get for talking back. That’s what you get for refusing to sing the repentance song.” The raw, bloody pain seemed to seep out from the depths of that scar once more. I pulled myself out of that dark memory, and in his arms, I suddenly let out a soft laugh. “Julian, this is a ‘medal’ the instructors left me. Pretty, isn’t it?” Julian’s body completely stiffened. I could feel the muscles in the back of his neck instantly tense. “Besides, the instructors’ bodies were much better than yours. Their abs were hard, not soft like yours, Julian.” “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” He pushed me away abruptly, his eyes bloodshot, grabbing my shoulders and roaring. Faced with his roar, my shoulders involuntarily tensed. That was the conditioned reflex left from every time the bell rang before an electroshock at the correctional center. But after just a second, I immediately lifted my head and gave him a bright, yet eerie smile. That smile choked back all his ready anger, leaving only shock and disbelief in his eyes. He tried to use his old commanding tone to suppress me, to regain control. “What kind of nonsense are you spouting?” I blinked innocently, the smile fading from my face, my tone returning to its former obedience and meekness. “Wait for me, I’ll go pack my things first.” Finally, I carried a few worn-out clothes and got into the car with Julian. In the car, he began to warn me again: “When we get home, you need to be obedient, okay?” “Okay.” I agreed with my mouth, but in my heart, I thought, Axel always said, true rules are always made by oneself.
Back at the mansion, my adoptive sister, Seraphina, greeted me with feigned delight. She ran up to me intimately, linking her arm through mine, her eyes full of apparent concern. “Cassie, you’re finally back. I missed you so much.” Her act was flawless, as if she wasn’t the one who had cried to Julian about me “earning money by escorting men and ruining the family’s reputation.” She pulled out a gift box from behind her back and opened it in front of me. Inside was a black slip dress with barely any fabric and a bottle of champagne. She smiled, her voice sweet yet malicious: “Cassie, from now on, if you want to wear or drink something, just tell Julian directly. Please, don’t go to places like that to degrade yourself again.” Even more sickeningly, as she spoke, she actually reached out to unbutton the gray uniform I was wearing. She said with disgust, “Hurry and take off this filthy outfit, it looks dirty. Cassie, let me help you change into this new dress.” Her sharp nails deliberately grazed a shallow scar on my collarbone. Underneath that uniform, my body was covered in scars, some deep, some shallow. Just as Seraphina’s hand was about to touch the second button. I clamped down on her wrist, using a self-defense technique I’d learned in there, twisting it outwards. “Ah—.” Seraphina let out a piercing cry of pain, her face pale. She stared at me in shock, her eyes filled with the horror of “how dare you,” utterly unable to believe that the pushover she used to bully would possess such startling strength and reaction. I stepped back, flung her hand away, and created distance between us. It was then that Julian spoke, his voice carrying clear displeasure and favoritism. “Seraphina was only trying to help you, Cassie. Be good, go change your clothes now.” He paused, his gaze falling on my uniform, and added a sentence. “Don’t bring your dirt from outside into our home.” Those words, “your dirt,” pierced my heart. My mind immediately replayed the scene at the correctional center, where several female instructors held my head down, forcing me to scrub toilets full of filth and vomit with a toothbrush. They hosed down my body while laughing wildly. “Clean up. Wash all that depraved filth out of your bones.” That revealing slip dress, Julian’s cold words, instantly triggered my most humiliating memories. Flashes of being tied tightly to a chair because I refused to admit to those baseless “mistakes” crossed my mind. Icy electrodes clamped onto my temples, powerful currents coursing through my body, the agonizing pain making me almost bite through my molars, convulsing uncontrollably. And Julian’s assistant would appear at the visitation window every month. He would ask me the same question, expressionless: “Miss Sterling, have you admitted your wrongs? As soon as you do, Mr. Sterling will take you out immediately.” Just as I was punished with three days without food, my stomach cramping from hunger, cowering in a corner, almost fainting. A man in an instructor’s uniform, during his patrol, found a blind spot in the surveillance and tossed me a piece of bread from his pocket. His voice was cold, yet it was the only decent words I heard in that hell. “Eat it, don’t let anyone see.” “Cassie, why aren’t you happy? Don’t you like the dress I gave you?” Seeing my prolonged silence, Seraphina rubbed her reddened wrist and provocatively waved the dress at me, trying to irritate me. I didn’t break down or yell in anger as she expected. I simply, slowly, picked up that expensive bottle of champagne from beside the gift box she had offered. I forced a smile at her hypocritical face, then slowly raised it.
I didn’t splash the champagne on Seraphina. I bypassed her and walked over to Julian. Under Seraphina and Julian’s stunned gazes, I poured the champagne over his head. “Oh, Miss Cassie, what are you doing?” Mrs. Jenkins, the housekeeper, seeing this, was startled and rushed forward to stop me, her voice full of anxiety. “Cassie, don’t do this, talk it out with your brother…” Before she could finish, Julian, in a fit of rage, pushed her away. “Get out. You have no business speaking here,” he roared at Mrs. Jenkins. Mrs. Jenkins stumbled back a few steps, nearly falling to the ground. I stepped forward and steadied her firmly. “She watched us grow up. How dare you push her?” In my eyes, there was only coldness and detachment. The champagne dripped down his cheeks, wetting his shirt, making him look utterly disheveled. But I smiled and asked him, “Julian, do you like this smell too?” “It smells exactly like that rotten stench of ‘doing it for my own good’ you had a year ago when you sent me away.” Julian exploded in rage, grabbing my wrist. “Cassie. Are you out of your damn mind? Apologize to Seraphina now.” Seraphina also seized the opportunity, screaming and pouncing on me, raising her hand, ready to slap me. “Cassie, you lunatic! How dare you treat Julian like this?” I easily sidestepped her slap, grabbing her wrist in return. The force I used was so great that she cried out in pain. This was what Axel taught me. He said, when faced with any form of attack, your first reaction should be to subdue the opponent, not to cry and beg for mercy. Julian stared at me in shock, seemingly unable to believe I had such fighting skills. I flung Seraphina away, making her grimace in pain, then turned to him with a cold smirk. “Apologize? The first rule I learned in there was: anyone who makes my life hell, I’ll drag their name through the mud.” “Julian, isn’t that what you care about most?” After saying that, I didn’t spare them another glance and turned to walk toward the mansion’s front door. Julian came to his senses, roaring as he chased after me, grabbing my arm at the door. He furiously suppressed his anger. “Cassie, do you think you can survive walking out that door?” “I swear, with just one word, I can make sure you won’t even find a dishwashing job across the entire city.” His threat struck me as utterly laughable. My mind flashed back to the correctional center, fighting tooth and nail with two women much larger than me for half a piece of moldy bread, ending up with a bloodied head. A dishwashing job? That would be paradise to me. I forcefully shook off his hand, turned around, and facing his face distorted by rage, I deliberately ran my tongue suggestively over my chapped lips. “Family? Julian, the instructors also said that family doesn’t push you into hell with their own hands.” I winked at him, my smile both sweet and malicious. “He even said he’d be my family.” 4. The next morning, Julian surprisingly lowered his guard. He placed the latest model of a smartphone and a black card in front of me. His tone was still stiff, but carried a clumsy attempt to appease me: “Yesterday, I was too impulsive. Take these. Don’t ever let me lose track of you again.” He tried to use material possessions to erase the deep, bone-deep chasm he had carved with his own hands. Seeing me smile and obediently take the phone and black card, his expression relaxed slightly. He thought everything was water under the bridge. However, before the curve of his lips could fully form. The first thing I did after turning on the phone, right in front of him, was to type “Ironclad Boxing Club, West End” into the search bar. As the search results popped up, I silently memorized the address. Seraphina, in her pajamas, rushed downstairs crying, her hair disheveled, looking utterly pitiful. She threw herself beside Julian, pointing at me, her voice choked and full of grievance. “Julian. Cassie… she not only ruined the new dress I gave her with scissors, but she also stole the Patek Philippe watch I had in my drawer, the one I planned to give you for your birthday.” Julian’s recently softened face turned ashen again. Without a word, he stormed into my room. He frantically searched through my things, throwing all the clothes from the wardrobe onto the floor, making the bed a complete mess. When he found the watch under my pillow, he trembled with rage. He had seen that watch at an auction a few months ago and only casually mentioned he liked it. He looked at me with utter disappointment, the last warmth in his eyes completely extinguished. “Cassie, I thought you would at least change. I thought you were just misguided.” His voice was filled with anger. “Are you inherently so twisted? Do you enjoy being a thief?” “Enjoy stealing things from your own home?” I laughed. At that moment, the thread of kinship in my heart snapped completely. “Yes.” I looked at his face, flushed with anger, and nodded, still smiling. “Not only do I enjoy stealing things, but I also enjoy stealing people.” I watched his stunned expression, then pulled out an old burner phone from my pocket. I calmly pressed the play button. “Julian, want to see the evidence?” From the phone, Seraphina’s smug and malicious voice clearly played. It was late one night. She thought I was asleep and secretly called her friend to brag. “…Yeah, that idiot really got sent in… Julian doesn’t believe her at all, he only believes me…” “…I just want to ruin her reputation so she can never recover. Stealing things is nothing, next time I’ll put a man in her bed and record it. Let’s see how she can even face living in this world after that…” The recording finished. Seraphina’s face turned deathly pale, and she trembled all over. She pounced, hugging Julian’s legs, and began to frantically defend herself. “Julian. No, it’s not true. She forced me. Cassie forced me to say that.” She pointed at me, screaming hysterically: “She somehow got photos of your business gatherings, and she threatened me with those photos. She said if I didn’t record that message as she demanded, she would send all your photos to the media and ruin your reputation and the entire Sterling Group. Julian. I was just trying to protect you!” Hearing Seraphina’s convoluted explanation, Julian actually wavered. He looked at me, seemingly still hoping I could give him an explanation. I met his pathetic gaze, but my mind clearly flashed back to that afternoon a year ago. He sat in the chair, his cold, resolute profile as he personally signed his name on that “Consent Form for Behavioral Correction.” I smiled mockingly. That smile completely shattered the last trace of his unrealistic fantasy. Julian looked at the watch in his hand, then at Seraphina kneeling on the floor, and finally at me. His worldview, at that moment, utterly collapsed. I knelt on the marble floor before him. I bowed my head deeply to him. “Julian, the electroshocks, physical abuse, starvation, and humiliation of this past year – consider them my repayment for all the years the Sterling family raised me.” “From today on, our sibling bond is broken. From now on, we are strangers, dead to each other, with no further connection.” With that, I stood up from the floor and walked out the door without looking back.
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