Chapter 1My Stepbrothers Became Darkly Obsessed

My sister and I used to be drowning in our own toxicity, hell-bent on chasing men who didn't want us.

I was obsessed with the older one—a cold, ruthlessly disciplined, older corporate executive. My sister, meanwhile, was desperately in love with his younger brother—a frail, soft-spoken, wheelchair-bound boy with a shy smile.

After an entire year of throwing ourselves at them and getting absolutely nowhere, we reached a point of pathetic desperation. We actually planned to drug them. It was a reckless, absurd idea.

But right before we crossed that unforgivable line, a glitching stream of glowing text appeared out of thin air, hovering right in front of our eyes.

The floating words screamed at us. The text berated my sister and me for our twisted, obsessive minds, begging us to spare these two men. The comments insisted that they belonged to the "rightful heroine" of the story.

More terrifyingly, the floating text warned us of exactly what would happen if we went through with the drugging: our family would go bankrupt, our faces would be ruined, and we would be violently thrown out into the streets, left to rot.

Seeing those warnings felt like taking a bucket of ice water to the chest. My sister and I snapped out of our fever dream.

From that moment on, we stopped suffocating them. We stopped forcing our feelings down their throats. We decided to focus on ourselves, to pull our lives together, and to actually open our eyes to the other decent guys in the world.

Yet, the universe has a sick sense of humor.

The older brother—the man who had spent a year looking through me as if I were made of glass—suddenly cornered me in the hallway. Before I could process what was happening, he closed the distance and kissed me, hard.

His breathing was ragged. He practically shook as he demanded to know why I had just given up on him so easily. He asked, his voice dripping with a dark, bitter insecurity, if I suddenly thought he was too old, too boring for me.

The more he spoke, the more he lost control. The kiss turned desperate. Punishing.

Panicking, I managed to shove him back just enough to hit speed-dial for my sister.

When the call connected, I didn't hear her voice. I heard her muffled, terrified crying. And then, crackling through the receiver, came the voice of the younger brother.

The shy, gentle boy was gone. His voice was thick, dark, and sickly sweet.

"Be a good girl," he whispered through the phone. "Let's do that again."

A chill violently clawed its way down my spine.

* * *

It was right after my ninth failed confession to my older stepbrother, Devin.

I decided I was going to force his hand.

My twin sister, Serena, didn't approve at first.

"You can't force a flower to bloom," she told me, lounging on my bed. "Matters of the heart require patience. We have to play the long game. Slowly reel them in."

Exactly one week later, Serena experienced her tenth brutal rejection from the younger brother, Kieran.

She was devastated. She cried until her eyes were swollen shut.

"You can't force a flower to bloom," she sniffled, wiping mascara from her cheeks, "but at least you can rip off the petals."

"Exactly."

"If I can't have his heart, I'll take his body."

"Damn right!"

Serena initiated the raid; I immediately fell into formation. One look between us, and the plan was set.

Sunday was our mother's birthday gala. For the sake of convenience and showing off, it was hosted right here at our sprawling estate. Because it was the first birthday since our families had merged into one messy, wealthy blended household, our stepdad, Richard, had his two sons in attendance.

I had acquired the goods.

Serena stared at the five tiny green vials in the palm of my hand, her expression entirely skeptical.

"Are you absolutely sure this sketchy powder you bought off a dark-web pop-up ad for ten bucks actually works?"

I was brimming with misguided confidence. "The forums swore by it. It’s foolproof."

The party downstairs was a blur of designer dresses, clinking champagne flutes, and polite corporate laughter.

Devin, whom I hadn't seen in weeks, was dressed in a razor-sharp bespoke suit, looking like he owned the room. He stood near the grand piano, nursing a scotch and making small talk with the investors.

He caught sight of me.

His gaze lingered on me for less than three seconds before he abruptly looked away, his jaw tightening. He looked so painfully stiff and awkward that a stranger would have thought he was the one who had been rejected nine times.

Kieran, confined to his wheelchair, sat quietly in the shadowed corner of the sunken living room.

When Serena took a seat on the velvet sofa near him, he didn't even dare to lift his head.

They really were brothers. Their avoidance tactics were identical.

Serena had been wavering slightly, but seeing Kieran shrink away from her solidified her resolve.

"I'm going to find out if his body is as stubborn as his mouth," she muttered.

We divided the labor. Serena poured the drinks; I twisted the caps off the vials.

Right as I was tipping the powder over the rim of the crystal tumbler, a blinding white light flashed across my vision.

Neon text began scrolling through the empty air in front of me.

[God, I am so sick of these two desperately horny sisters. Begging the author to let our two male leads go.]

[The premise of this book is a love triangle where both brothers fall for the sunshine female lead! Even if these toxic twins drug them, it won't work.]

[This is so gross! Why can't they just be normal stepsiblings?!]

[In the original novel, these two evil stepsisters end up with the most gruesome fates just because they tried this stunt.]

[Help, stop digging your own graves! Just be background characters!]

[I eternally reject the 'harassment as romance' trope. Someone delete these side characters.]

[When is the real heroine showing up? I'm dying waiting.]

[Go ahead and drop the powder, girls. Enjoy your VIP package of bankruptcy, facial disfigurement, and getting thrown into the gutter.]

"Bankrupt?" I whispered.

"Disfigured?" Serena gasped.

Another flash of white light.

Suddenly, a vivid, horrifying montage played in my mind: Serena and I weeping, begging on our knees, being spat on, humiliated, stripped of everything, our faces scarred, our bank accounts drained to zero.

I love money more than life itself. Serena worships her own beauty. We slowly turned to look at each other, the color draining from our faces.

We spoke in unison.

"You saw that too?"

"..."