Chapter 3After the Cannon Fodder’s Suicide, They All Cried Regret

The moment they turned their backs, I had dragged myself to the window and hauled one leg over the sill. Only my swollen left leg remained inside.

Vincent lunged for me.

Just as his fingertips were about to brush the hem of my clothes, I let go and fell.

“AVA!”

Vincent’s scream was a raw, primal sound of terror. His heart stopped.

THUMP.

A heavy, muffled impact came from below, followed by Marcus’s shocked cry. “Miss Ashworth! You…”

Marcus was kneeling on the ground in an awkward, sprawling position, his arms trembling. I was in his arms. He had caught me, the force of the impact knocking us both to the ground.

Vincent practically fell down the stairs in his haste.

Marcus gently laid me on the grass, remaining on one knee beside me, his face a ghostly white. He was clearly shaken to his core by my sudden suicide attempt.

Seeing me safe in Marcus’s arms, Vincent’s heart, which had leaped into his throat, slowly settled back into his chest.

Dolores followed him down, panting. “Ava, if you hate me that much, I’ll leave. You don’t have to play with your life like this. It’s only the third floor, you wouldn’t have died, but you really scared Vincent.”

Her words instantly reignited Vincent’s anger.

“First the crash, then the kidnapping, and now this! Ava, I am so disappointed in you!” he seethed. “Marcus, take her back to the house. Lock her in her room. No one is to enter or leave without my permission. Have Dr. Ramsey treat her there.”

Back at the Ashworth estate, I was placed under house arrest. Medicine was forcibly injected into my veins, my wounds were dressed, and my leg was put in a cast. I couldn't even die. I was in a terrible mood.

“The necklace was found.”

Vincent stood by my bed, placing a jewelry box on the nightstand. “You grew up with everything you could ever want. Dolores was passed around foster homes, half-starved, without a decent piece of clothing to her name.”

“Now that she finally has a family, can’t you, as her older sister, be a little more generous? Is it so hard to let her have a few things?”

Seeing my silence, he thought his words were getting through and softened his tone. “In the crash, Dolores’s hand was badly scraped. Scars aren’t good for a girl. Let’s just call it even.”

A life-threatening injury versus a scraped hand. Even? I almost laughed.

If he had just checked the car’s dashcam, he would have seen Dolores deliberately showing me the necklace to provoke me, then grabbing my arm and causing me to lose control. But just like every other time, Vincent didn’t bother to look for the truth. He unconditionally trusted Dolores. I used to cry and fight with him, unable to understand.

Now, I understood perfectly. Under the influence of the “protagonist’s halo,” Vincent was suffering from a severe case of intelligence degradation. A CEO’s purpose, after all, is to serve the protagonist.

I didn’t even look at him. My mind was consumed with one thought: how to die faster.

Before coming to this world, I had a craving for a specific cake from a bakery across town. To surprise me, my parents drove through a storm to get it. A truck hit them. They died instantly. I tried to follow them by jumping into a lake.

As the water filled my lungs, the system found me.

[Complete the cannon fodder’s storyline, help the protagonist Dolores achieve her life’s counterattack, and you will earn a chance to reverse your parents’ accident.]

My memories were sealed. I forgot who I was, only that I was the heiress of the Ashworth family, coddled and adored. Until I was fifteen, when my parents brought Dolores home, saying she was a playmate for me. A year later, a plane crash took my parents, and I fell into a deep depression.

Crushed by grief and the immense pressure of running the family corporation, Vincent gradually transferred the patience and affection he once had for me to the more “sensible” Dolores. She had a talent for making him misunderstand me. I felt the love that was once exclusively mine slipping away. I screamed, I threw things, I did everything I could to make him believe me.

The only result was that he grew more and more tired of me.