1 When the power cut out across the estate, I was burrowed beneath two layers of down, dead to the world. A maid’s sharp gasp down in the foyer was what finally dragged me out of it. With the heavy velvet blackout drapes drawn tight against the glass, the bedroom was steeped in an ink-thick gloom, rendering morning and midnight indistinguishable. Half-groggy, my lashes stuck together with sleep, I reached blindly toward the nightstand for my phone to check the hour. Halfway there, my wrist was caught. A broad, calloused palm closed over mine, fingers wrapping around my knuckles with deliberate weight. “Who’s—” A violent jolt of adrenaline shot through my spine. Every nerve screamed awake. I twisted, fighting to throw myself upward, but whoever it was anticipated the pivot. In one fluid, suffocating motion, an arm braced across my collarbone and pressed me flat against the mattress. A muffled sound tore from my throat as heat descended. A mouth—firm, desperate, burning—slammed against mine, crushing whatever air was left in my lungs. It was not a gentle trespass. It was suffocating and frantic, thick with the terrifying gravity of something held back for far too long. And then, as our breaths tangled in the dark, a scent caught in my throat: sandalwood, white cedar, and the clean, sharp ozone of the custom shower wash stocked exclusively in our private bathrooms. The brand every Harrington in this house used. My eyes strained wide against the darkness. What the hell? Inside my own bedroom, in the middle of a blackout, I was being pinned down and kissed senseless by one of my three older brothers. 2 The pressure deepened, reckless and starving. I thrashed against the pillows, turning my head violently from side to side to break the seal, but my strength was laughably outmatched. The weight pinning my shoulders felt like solid iron. I strained to pierce the veil of black, catching only the faint, broad outline of broad shoulders, the faint silhouette of a jaw. Nothing identifiable. No distinguishing feature to betray which one had lost his mind. Before the panic could completely swallow me, the dull rap of knuckles against wood split the silence from the hallway. Thomas, the head butler. “Miss Shannon? Are you awake? The estate lost power, and we just wanted to…” Footsteps shuffled out in the corridor. “Ah, young sir. We were concerned Miss Shannon might be disoriented in the dark. We brought an emergency lantern.” “Mmh—!” I tore a frantic, muffled cry through my teeth. Instantly, the suffocating grip vanished. The mattress shifted as the weight peeled away into thin air. There was a flurry of hurried, muffled footsteps—whether inside the suite or outside in the corridor, my buzzing ears couldn’t decipher. Freed, my chest heaved in ragged, violent gasps. I lay paralyzed on the sheets for ten, maybe fifteen seconds, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged bird. Then the brass handle turned, and the heavy bedroom door swung wide. A blinding halo of flashlight glare cut through the darkness, fracturing the shadows across the ceiling. Shaken to my core, I pushed myself up against the headboard, only to freeze. All three of my brothers were stepping across the threshold together. Three tall, impeccably composed silhouettes, their faces bathed in the cool light of their phone screens. Not a single tie skewed. Not a strand of hair out of place. Not a breath out of cadence. If my swollen lips weren’t still throbbing with the phantom burn of that kiss, I would have sworn I had imagined the whole terrifying episode. Mason, the eldest, stepped up to the edge of the bed first, his dark brows drawing together in quiet concern. “Shannon? You all right?” I dragged the back of my sleeve fiercely across my mouth, the metallic taste of adrenaline sharp on my tongue. With all of them staring down at me, the words died behind my teeth. No. I am very much not all right. I just wanted to know which of these three lunatics had crept into my room to ravish me in the dark. Ping! A synthetic chime rang out inside the marrow of my skull. Warning: Target psyche destabilized. Core narrative corrupted. New objective unlocked: Pacify the corrupted brother and restore storyline trajectory. 3 I wanted to curl into a ball and weep blood. This whole mess was a broken, high-society swapped-at-birth melodrama. Years ago, the System had yanked me into this reality, slotting me into the role of Shannon Harrington—the pampered, illegitimate placeholder daughter raised in golden luxury while the true blood-heir of the Harrington empire, Lauren, was abandoned to survive the grim, feral margins of the lower class. In the System’s original script, Lauren’s miserable childhood had permanently warped her soul. By the time the family found her, she had grown bitter, calculating, and relentlessly cruel. My primary mission had been simple: prevent the true heiress from turning into a monster. During my first playthrough, I had failed miserably. The System had dropped me into the timeline far too late. By the time Lauren was brought back to the Harrington manor, her resentments were already set like concrete. She bled the family dry with vicious spending, spiteful machinations, and eventually devolved into outright extortion and theft. To cover her spiraling crimes and pay off her debts, the Harringtons sold off their assets, liquidated their empire, and collapsed into ruin. The parents died of broken hearts and untreated illnesses; the brothers scattered into poverty, ruined and sick. Mission failed. System penalized. Total timeline reset. For the second run, the System dialed the clock all the way back to when I was ten years old. With thirteen solid years at my disposal, I had worked tirelessly from the shadows. I tracked Lauren through secondary school, funded anonymous scholarships, intervened before she fell into bad crowds, and ensured she was surrounded by decent mentors and books. I built a gentle, graceful, resilient young woman with an unblemished moral compass. This morning, our parents had driven out to the countryside estate to officially bring Lauren home. Once she stepped through these doors, she was supposed to meet the cold, magnetic billionaire male lead, fall in love, heal her past, and live happily ever after. My job was finished. I was supposed to be extracted, leaving a dormant, harmless background NPC to inhabit Shannon Harrington’s body for the remainder of the timeline. I had been packing my mental bags for home. Home. To my real life, my real bed, my quiet little apartment. So why the hell did one of the brothers suddenly lose his mind? What was wrong with this family? What could possibly drive him to snap on the literal day of victory?! Now, sitting alone on my unmade bed after they finally left, my hands were curled into white-knuckled fists. “And how am I supposed to know which one it was?” I snapped toward the empty air, glaring at the shadows in the corner. “It was pitch-black! System, you had eyes on the room. Who touched me?” A dead, hollow silence lingered in my cranium. Ten seconds passed. Then fifteen. Finally, the digitized drone replied: System overload. Diagnostics unavailable. I narrowed my eyes. “You didn’t see him either, did you?” Another agonizing pause. Host… my processing unit was temporarily fried. I… I can’t quite read the room right now. If my thoughts could be translated into physical sound, the System would have been deafened by profanity. If the System was blind, how was I supposed to pacify anyone? How was I supposed to reel back a narrative when I didn’t even know which pillar had cracked? I had spent thirteen years babysitting the sister, and now I had to psychoanalyze the brothers? What cosmic debt did I owe this family? Wait. Thomas. The butler had called out Young sir while knocking on the door. That meant whoever answered him had to be standing near the entrance. If one of them was caught outside, he was innocent. The one who kissed me was the one already inside the room. 4 “Ah… well, Miss Shannon,” Thomas murmured, his snow-white eyebrows knitting together in agonizing concentration. “I believe the first one to speak to me was Master Mason?” He paused, adjusting his gold-rimmed spectacles, looking profoundly troubled. “No, wait. It might have been Master Elliot. Or perhaps Master Chase? Truly, miss, the power was out, the hallway was dark, and they seemed to materialize at the landing almost simultaneously. Were they not together?” The old man offered an apologetic bow, his hands folded neatly over his waistcoat. “My apologies, Miss Shannon. My attention was quite scattered by the fuses. I truly cannot say with certainty.” I lifted a hand, waving him off with a defeated sigh. “It’s all right, Thomas. Don’t worry about it.” Dead end. I leaned back against the plush corridor wall, feeling a wave of exhaustion crash over me. At this point, maybe I should just let the System terminate my contract and turn me into cosmic dust. Sensing my absolute despair, the System apparently scraped together the remnants of its mechanical conscience and piped up: Host… perhaps you could bait them? Run a little test? 5 Actually, the System wasn’t entirely wrong. On paper, we were still siblings. The man who kissed me hadn’t dared to claim the act in the light; he had used the cover of a blackout to vent something dark and forbidden. If I went barging into their studies demanding a confession, it would blow up in my face, making coexistence unbearable. Worse, I had no idea why he had turned. Reckless confrontation would only sabotage whatever fragile control was left. I unlocked my phone, opened our messaging app, and drafted an identical message to all three of them: Shannon: You should have told me earlier. Vague enough to mean anything. Specific enough to rattle a guilty conscience. Let’s see which little psycho flinches. 6 The first ping came from Elliot, my second brother. At twenty-five, Elliot was an acclaimed textile and fashion designer—soft-spoken, refined, possessing that effortless, aristocratic grace that made people compare him to a moonlit painting. In any classic romance novel, he was the untouchable, gentle childhood confidant. Elliot: Did you hear something you weren’t supposed to, Shannon? Elliot: Care to share it with your second brother? I stared at the screen. Smooth, playful, completely unruffled. A faint, hollow prick of disappointment touched my chest. Of the three, Elliot had always been the most approachable, the one who remembered which tea I liked and brought me sketchbooks from Paris. If I had to navigate an unhinged suitor, I would have preferred his gentle temper. Then again, men who look like still water often run terrifyingly deep. Suspicion rating: 10%. 7 The second reply came five minutes later from Mason. Twenty-seven, broad-shouldered, and impeccably tailored, Mason had stepped into the Harrington family’s private equity firm straight out of an Ivy League graduate program. He was the golden standard for every socialite in the state—commanding, strikingly handsome, and armed with a cold, corporate shrewdness that kept him three chess moves ahead of everyone in the room. Whenever I talked to Mason, I was plagued by the low-level dread that he was quietly calculating the liquidation value of my soul. Mason: Oh? Now that you know, how does it make you feel? I scowled at the screen. Classic Mason. Deflecting the question, throwing the weight back into my court, trying to fish for my hand. Suspicion rating: 30%. A man like Mason, accustomed to owning everything he touched, was prime real estate for a quiet, possessive breakdown. I typed back a calculated provocation: Shannon: Honestly? I thought you’d be better than that. Pretty average. 8 Average. Those two syllables were not an accident. Combined with that dismissive little punctuation, it was a tactical strike against a man’s ego. If Mason was the culprit, mocking the kiss that stole my breath would infuriate him. And if he wasn’t? I had an ironclad alibi. Our parents had quietly mentioned wanting to introduce me to a roster of respectable bachelors from the local country club circuit. If Mason pressed me, I could effortlessly pivot and claim I was talking about the mediocre pedigree of the suitors he had vetted for me. Attacking and retreating from the exact same hill. I really was a genius. 9 The final response arrived twenty minutes later from Chase, the youngest brother. A twenty-three-year-old professional touring motorcycle racer. Raw, taciturn, perpetually cloaked in worn leather jackets and tactical cargo pants, Chase carried an aloof, dangerous edge. He kept his phone buried in gear bags, rarely answered family calls, and operated on his own feral frequency. Chase: …You waiting for an invitation? If you have something to say, spit it out. The irritation practically burned through the glass screen. I leaned back on my pillows. Definitely not him. Chase didn’t have the patience for dark, brooding, theatrical hallway ambushes. He could barely tolerate being in the same room as the rest of us for more than twenty minutes. Still… you never knew with adrenaline junkies. Suspicion rating: 5%. 10 Which brought me straight back to square one. Three vague answers. No smoking gun. Where was my target? 11 “I don’t get it,” I muttered, pacing the Persian rug. “Why now? We’re wealthier than God, the house is peaceful, nobody’s dying. Why turn unhinged today?” None of them had ever crossed a boundary with me before. Affectionate, sure, in the detached, patrician way the Harringtons did things—but romantic? Possessive? Never. Host, since the bait didn’t work… why not just try handling all three? the System suggested innocently. We know it’s one of them. Cover all bases. I stopped mid-stride. “Are you out of your mind? Flirt with all three of my brothers on the off chance I hit the jackpot? Do I look like a tragic Victorian heroine to you?” Before the System could fire off another glitchy defense, my phone buzzed violently in my palm. Chase: Answer me. That aggressive, demanding tone again. My eyebrows twitched. Why was the racer suddenly so urgent? Annoyed, I mirrored my response to Mason and fired it straight back at Chase: Shannon: Don’t worry about it! Just felt pretty average, that’s all! 12 Fine. Maybe the System had a point. If I couldn’t isolate the wildfire, I’d just have to watch every tree in the forest. 13 The Harrington town car was scheduled to pull through the iron gates by late afternoon, bearing my adoptive parents and the long-lost biological daughter, Lauren. Needing to clear my head, I took a long shower. When I stepped out into my suite, wrapping a plush terrycloth robe tight around my frame and vigorously drying my damp hair with a towel, my phone buzzed with an update from my adoptive mother. Mother: We’re thirty minutes out, darling. Please ensure the staff has prepared the west suite. I tapped back a quick reply with one hand: Shannon: Got it! Drive safe, see you soon! I hit send, lowered the phone, and nearly jumped out of my skin. A man was leaning casually against the corner of my dressing table. My fingers slipped. The phone hit the hardwood floor with a dull clatter. “M-Mason?” I stammered, pulling the lapels of my robe tightly against my throat. “Don’t people knock in this house anymore?” Mason didn’t apologize. A faint, razor-thin smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he pushed off the mahogany wood, his long legs closing the distance between us with predatory stillness. “Knocking tends to ruin the element of surprise.” I shrank back, my shoulders hitching as my bare feet retreated two steps. “What are you talking about?” He stopped less than half an arm’s length away, towering over me, the clean, expensive scent of amber and wool washing over my senses. He dipped his chin, dark eyes fixing directly on my lips. “You called my performance ‘average’ over text, Shannon. I thought I’d come up here and let you reevaluate.” My stomach plummeted straight to hell. It was him?! Panic surged. I took another frantic step back, but my shoulder blades met the cold, unyielding plaster of the bedroom wall. Trapped. I opened my mouth to shout for the staff, but a low, rough baritone sliced across the threshold: “What the hell is going on in here?”
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