Chapter 2The Truth After My Injection

Phoebe heard the voices in the living room and wheeled herself out of the bedroom.

“I saw the interview. Why is Sienna still involving herself with that teacher? She must think you all want to kill her, not understanding your good intentions.”

Carter stood up and placed the peeled grapes in her palm.

“If she hadn’t been targeting you all this time, we wouldn’t have sent her to prison.”

“Don’t worry, she’ll learn her lesson in there soon enough. She won’t bother you again.”

Rhys knelt down, gently wiping her fingers.

“This time, she’ll get the message. She’ll know who the real Westlake daughter is.”

Phoebe maintained her innocent, ethereal demeanor. “What if she still refuses to admit she was wrong when the execution date comes?”

Dean, whose million-dollar hands usually held a scalpel, stroked Phoebe’s hair.

“Sienna is terrified of pain. She won't last through this punishment without admitting it.”

His tone was absolute, but he had forgotten the severe kidney disease he developed the year he was accepted into medical school.

I donated one of my kidneys to him.

Back then, they clustered around me, just as they do Phoebe now, lavishing me with care.

“Sienna, we will spend our whole lives making you happy.”

I, too, thought my happiness would last forever.

Until the day they brought Phoebe home.

The Westlake parents had died in a car accident, and their only younger sister had been lost years earlier due to their negligence.

That same year, they found me, begging on the street, and adopted me.

I was grateful that the three Westlake brothers had given me a home, and I knew their affection was just a way to channel their guilt over losing their sister.

So, the day Phoebe was returned, I gave up my bedroom and moved into the storage room.

My brothers were consumed by the joy of finding their lost sister.

At the dinner table, I sat quietly in the corner, eating the food in my bowl.

I understood: all that love was stolen.

Now, it was time to give it back.

Carter, always the most reserved, looked over at me in the corner. “Phoebe has been gone for many years; we owe her a great deal. You are still our sister, but you must remember that she is the true Westlake daughter.”

I nodded.

Phoebe had been raised by a family in a rural area and suffered many hardships.

I showed her around the house and filled her closet with my brand-new dresses.

But the next afternoon, Phoebe burst into tears and threw my clothes out of her wardrobe.

“She put a pin in the dress! I was bleeding!”

Rhys heard the commotion and rushed in. Seeing the faint scratch on Phoebe’s neck, he immediately spun to face me.

“What happened?”

Phoebe’s tears fell harder. She threw herself into Rhys’s arms, sobbing. “I shouldn’t have come back. I’m just ruining your lives.”

“I didn’t put one there. Maybe it was mixed in by accident…”

Rhys cut me off sharply.

“Is it just because Carter said Phoebe is the true daughter that you would do something like this?”

Dean entered the room and immediately started disinfecting Phoebe’s scratch.

“Sienna, don’t let jealousy take hold. Our love was always meant to be hers.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

The truth felt irrelevant. What mattered was that they were all vying to prove Phoebe’s importance.

That night, I was locked out on the balcony for the entire night.

Phoebe seemed to sense her power and became more brazen with me.

Her backpack was ripped? I did it.

Her finger was cut? I caused it.

My brothers’ gazes became increasingly colder.

The same hands that had lifted me from the gutter were now pushing me into the abyss.

My mental state deteriorated. I was often dazed, even in class. I started to notice cuts appearing on my own wrists.

After school one day, I didn’t leave. I walked toward the school pond.

Just as I hesitated at the edge, Dr. Stern pulled me back from behind.

He saw right through me, but he simply handed me a cup of hot cocoa.

We talked about many things that day—dreams, interests.

The only thing we didn't touch on was my pain.

I confessed that I also loved psychology.

He smiled, said I had a gift for it, and suggested that if I wanted, I could apply to his university and become his actual student.

Before we parted, I couldn’t stop a single tear from falling.

Dr. Stern didn’t ask anything. He just slipped a business card into my pocket.

“If you have things you need to talk about, call me. I want to help.”

The next day, I found a note on my desk.

It was a message from him asking me to come to the counseling office after class.

But as soon as I stepped inside the room, a sharp pain in my neck made me lose consciousness.