Chapter 2My sister wants to take my place.

Faye snapped back to reality and spoke softly, “I’ve been feeling lightheaded lately. I was afraid I might drop the bowl.”

Adrian stared at her for a moment.

Faye swallowed hard. I saw the flash of panic in her eyes.

How ironic.

The night she stabbed me in the heart, she twisted the knife, just to make sure I didn’t survive.

Now, she was pretending to be weak.

Faye quickly changed her mind, “I’ll get it for you.”

Adrian looked away and walked into the dining room. “No need. If you’re unwell, you should rest.”

I froze for a moment. In two years of marriage, he’d never told me to rest. Now, after I’m dead, I hear it for the first time.

It’s odd, though. Despite my frail health when I first arrived at the Hawthorne mansion, I didn’t get sick much in the last year.

Two years of sharing a bed, and I finally mustered the courage to whisper his name in his ear.

I wanted him to go to the Dawson mansion and get me out of there.

Grandma Dawson had passed away, leaving me with no one to care for.

Though I was furious about how I died, living had also felt exhausting.

The freezer was cold—too cold for me. I’d always had poor circulation, and I just wanted a warm, sunny place to rest.

And when I overheard them talking about dismembering my body, I was terrified.

If I died in pieces, I’d rather have been drowned as a baby, at least then I would’ve been whole.

I’d rather be burned to ash and have my body intact in death.

Unfortunately, Adrian didn’t react. He just picked up the bowl and started eating. “I heard you’ve been going out a lot recently?”

Hearing him ask that, I brightened a little.

I knew no one in Harbor City aside from the Dawsons.

On my wedding day, my parents had told me that if I didn’t want Grandma Dawson to lose her medicine, I should do everything I could to please Adrian Hawthorne. As long as the Dawson family remained stable, the medication wouldn’t stop.

Once married off, I was told not to return.

So after moving into the Hawthorne mansion, aside from an occasional trip to the grocery store, I hardly ever left the house.

No wonder Adrian thought it strange.

Faye replied sweetly, “The weather’s been unpredictable lately. My parents got sick, so I went to visit them.”

Her mention of our parents reminded me of the night she tried to kill me.

I fought back with all I had.

But my mother, worried I’d hurt Faye, joined my father in holding me down.

In that moment, all the strength left my body, and I let the knife sink into my heart.

Adrian didn’t say much. “Better to go out than sit at home bored,” he commented indifferently.

I felt defeated.

Adrian, so cautious and suspicious by nature, hadn’t noticed anything strange.

And now he was saying things to Faye he’d never said to me.

On our wedding day, my parents had smiled apologetically at Adrian, telling him that I was to repay the Dawson family’s debts.

He could do whatever he wanted with me—I was at his mercy. The Dawsons wouldn’t complain.

Adrian hadn’t treated me as an outlet for his frustrations, but he was distant and cold.

After the soup, the two of them headed to the bedroom.

Faye sat expectantly on the bed, watching Adrian as he finished getting ready.

Just as he leaned down toward her, his phone rang.

He answered the call, quickly dressed, and left.

I wasn’t surprised—he was probably going to deal with some urgent business at the company.

Faye looked disappointed but smiled when he turned back.

“You’re wearing too much perfume. I liked it better before,” he commented before walking out the door.

Faye froze, then quickly lifted her arm to sniff herself, confused when she didn’t smell anything.