Chapter 4

By that point I couldn't ignore it anymore.

Something was wrong.

It was like smelling smoke inside your house without being able to find the fire.

So I decided to investigate.

If they were lying to me, I wanted the whole truth. Even if it came wrapped in razor blades.

That night Sebastian slept over at my place because the next morning we were supposed to do the cake tasting for the wedding. A sentence that now sounds like a cruel joke from fate.

We stayed in the living room watching a movie. I was lying on his chest while the television lit up the room with flashes of blue and gold. He stroked my hair the way he always did.

How does someone lie so well while looking you in the eyes?

At some point he said he was going to the bathroom.

But he took a while.

Way too long.

And then I noticed his phone sitting on the couch.

My heart started pounding so hard it sounded like a second heartbeat inside the room. For a few seconds I just stared at it like it was a coiled snake waiting for the right moment to strike.

I should respect his privacy.

That's what a good fiancee would do.

But my intuition was practically screaming inside me.

So I picked up the phone.

The password?

My birthday.

I almost laughed at the bitter irony.

I started scrolling through messages quickly until I found an archived folder.

The name on it was:

"The Plan."

That's it.

Two simple words capable of destroying an entire life.

When I opened it, my world simply stopped.

The conversations were all right there.

Sebastian.

My stepmother.

My half-sister.

And even my father, partially involved.

Messages detailing everything.

He never really loved me.

The plan was to marry me, gain full access to my trust, and then find a way to seize the inheritance my mother left behind. Legal manipulation. Psychological pressure. Maybe even trying to make me look mentally unstable if I resisted.

But that still wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was in the photos.

Photos of him with my sister.

Kisses.

Intimate messages.

Conversations hidden for months.

While he was choosing wedding flowers with me, he was sleeping with her.

My stomach turned inside out.

It was like falling off a building in silence.

For a few seconds I thought I was going to throw up right there on the couch of my own house. My vision blurred and my hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone.

But something inside me shifted in that moment.

A switch flipped.

The shock froze my tears.

And instead of pain came a terrifying cold-bloodedness.

I took a deep breath.

I photographed everything.

Screenshots.

Messages.

Gallery images.

Documents.

Archived conversations.

I sent it all to myself carefully, erasing my tracks right after. I left every app exactly the way it was. Every conversation closed in the same place. Every notification untouched.

As if I'd never laid a finger on the phone.

Sebastian took so long because he decided to take a shower.

While the water ran upstairs, I sat on the dark couch staring at the blank television.

That night I didn't cry.

Which was strange.

I thought I'd fall apart, scream, break something. I thought my heart would explode inside my chest like glass hit by a bullet.

But no.

I just sat on the dark couch while the sound of the shower drifted down from upstairs like a countdown.

And then I made my decision.

The wedding would happen.

Sebastian would get exactly what he wanted.

A perfect wedding.

A lovesick bride.

Smiles in every photo.

Touching vows.

Expensive flowers.

Elegant music.

Everything flawless.

And a surprise waiting at the altar.

Inside, I was destroyed.

Hurt.

Devastated.

Because despite everything, I loved Sebastian.

I truly loved him.

Every embrace. Every late-night conversation. Every plan for the future. I really thought he was different from the rest of my family.

I thought he loved me too.

And maybe the worst pain wasn't discovering the betrayal.

Maybe it was realizing I'd been sincere in a game where everyone else was pretending.

As for my father...

That broke me in a different way.

Because even after all the years of neglect, the arguments, the coldness, and the injustice, there was still a childish part of me that believed in him.

The five-year-old girl was still waiting for her father to show up and protect her.

Ridiculous, right?

But children grow up.

And some discover that heroes also know how to sell monsters for the right price.

My stepmother didn't surprise me.

She never hid her venom. She always made it clear she hated me. I think looking at me was like looking at a living reminder that she'd never fill my mother's place.

And my half-sister...

Well.

She always wanted everything that was mine.

My clothes when we were teenagers.

My father's attention.

My place in the family.

My inheritance.

And now my fiance.

None of that was new.

What changed was that I finally saw them for who they really were.

The next morning, Sebastian showed up in the kitchen smiling like nothing had happened. He hugged me from behind while I was making coffee and kissed my neck slowly.

"Sleep well, babe?"

I almost admired his talent for acting.

I smiled back.

Sweet.

Calm.

Perfect.

"I did."

And in that moment I understood something dangerous:

People like them believe kindness is weakness.

That's why they'd never imagine that the cheerful, gentle, lovesick girl of the family would be capable of destroying every single one of them without raising her voice.

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