I found him celebrating at our family villa, throwing a lavish party for his girlfriend, Kecia. He called me dramatic and ungrateful. When I finally fought back, he slapped me to the ground, admitting they'd been traveling the world while I begged for scraps.
My five years of hell had been their vacation. My life was nothing but a twisted game to teach me humility.
So I decided to teach him a final lesson in return. As I bled out in my filthy apartment, I made one last call.
"Ashton," I whispered, my voice fading. "Is the punishment over now?"
Chapter 1
Blaire Morin POV:
They say death is a release, and for me, it was the final, brutal end to a punishment I never deserved. I spent five years paying for a crime my brother didn't commit, paying for his "imprisonment" with every breath, every beat of my collapsing heart.
The retaliation never stopped.
They sent me dead rats in the mail, spray-painted "WHORE" on my apartment door, and made sure every gig-economy job I managed to claw my way into disappeared the moment I started.
The constant terror, the gnawing hunger, the sheer, crushing weight of loneliness-it hollowed me out until there was nothing left but a shell.
Three times, I tried to end it. Three times, I failed.
The last time, I swallowed every pill I could find, desperate for the silence.
Darkness was a soft blanket, wrapping around me, when a voice, sharp and familiar, sliced through the quiet.
It was Kecia, Ashton's girlfriend, her voice laced with panic. "He's going to find out, Ashton! He's going to know what we did!"
Then his voice, my brother's voice, cold and dismissive. "It was just a lesson, Kecia. She needed to learn."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Ashton. Not in jail. Not bankrupt. It was all a lie.
My suffering wasn't a consequence of his downfall; it was the downfall itself. A game. My life, a twisted game.
A lesson, he called it. A lesson that stripped me of everything, left me starving, broken, and wishing for death.
If he wanted a lesson, I would give him one he'd never forget. My life for his "lesson."
The pills were working. The darkness was calling. This time, I wouldn't fight it.
He had no right to play God with my life, to watch me drown and call it therapy.
"She had it coming," Kecia's voice hissed, a cruel satisfaction in her tone. "After what she did to me at dinner, she deserved worse."
They didn't just want me to learn. They wanted me to break. And I did.
The bitterness was a familiar taste, but now it was sharper, laced with the acid of betrayal.
How could he? My brother, Ashton. The one who promised to protect me. How could he do this?
My answer would be silent, but it would echo louder than any scream.
My death would be his ultimate lesson. The cost of his game.
"Don't worry, Ashton," Kecia cooed. "No one will ever know it was us. She's just a crazy girl who couldn't handle life."
Irony. I was supposed to be learning a lesson, and all I learned was how truly cruel the people you love can be.
Let my death be the final chapter, the devastating climax of their twisted narrative.