Ficorpio
Chapter 1
My brother was a psychopath.
Adrian suffered from manic episodes. To stop me from marrying my fiancé, he had even broken his own leg.
Later, my fiancé and my best friend conspired to murder me.
The two of them slept together at my funeral, already plotting how they would spend my inheritance.
But my brother, crippled in one leg, hunted them across half the world like a madman.
Drenched in blood, he carried their severed heads back to my body.
Then he took me into his arms, gently stroked my hair, and murmured beside me,
“Sweetheart, your brother was always here.”
Then I was given another life.
When my fiancé put his arm around me and told me to slip a powerful sedative into my brother’s water, I shoved the disgusting, smiling man away.
“What has my brother ever done wrong?”
“He just loves me too much.”
“Lily, when the time comes, put this in Adrian’s glass of water.”
“Your brother would never suspect you.”
“This stuff could knock out an elephant. Once he’s asleep, I’ll take you away tonight. All right?”
The man sitting across from me gave my wrist a gentle squeeze.
But my attention wasn’t on him.
I was staring past his shoulder.
The branches of the black locust tree swayed in the wind, casting restless shadows across the ground.
My brother stood outside our front door in a white shirt.
A kitchen knife hung from his hand.
His eyes were dark and brooding as he watched the two of us.
By the time I realized I truly had been reborn, my brother had already dragged me inside.
He held the kitchen knife in his left hand while his right searched along the wall beside the door. When he apparently couldn’t find any rope, he yanked off his necktie and bound my wrists with it.
“You are not seeing Evan Cross again.”
Evan Cross… my fiancé. The man who had just asked me to drug my brother with an anesthetic.
I let Adrian lower his head and adjust the knot around my wrists. He was actually padding the tie with cotton so it wouldn’t hurt me.
Even now, he was worried about causing me pain.
“Adrian.”
I caught hold of one of his fingers.
He froze.
In my last life, the mere thought of touching him had disgusted me. My sudden gesture left him bewildered for a second or two.
Then he twisted his hand free and clamped it over my mouth.
“Shut up.”
“If you dare plead for Evan again, I’ll kill him.”
“…”
This was how it had happened in my previous life. Adrian and I hadn’t broken apart all at once. The distance between us had grown slowly, one vicious wound at a time.
Chapter 2
I had loved Evan desperately. I hadn’t known that he’d already been sleeping with my best friend, Vanessa Vale, before he ever approached me. The two of them had conspired to murder me and collect the life insurance payout.
But I had been convinced Evan was the love of my life. I had clung to him with blind devotion.
Adrian had done everything he could to stop me. He’d warned me over and over that Evan wasn’t a good man.
Consumed by anger, I’d hurled the cruelest words I could think of at him.
“Adrian Hart, you’re a sick bastard. What kind of man locks up his own sister?”
“Do you know why everyone in the neighborhood avoids you? Because you’re a monster.”
“I hate you too. Why did you have to be my brother? I don’t want a brother like you anymore.”
I don’t want a brother like you anymore.
All I remembered was how colorless Adrian’s eyes had looked that day.
He had inherited his mother’s beauty, the kind that seemed carved into his bones. But there was always something fragile about him too, as if he were forever on the verge of falling apart.
Without showing any emotion, he had simply finished tying me up.
Then he’d said, “I made fish stew for dinner.”
It was my favorite.
By the time I surfaced from my memories, I was already tied to a chair.
My brother was in the kitchen, making dinner.
Adrian truly was an unstable, obsessive control freak.
But was that really his fault? He simply didn’t know how to love me.
I drifted off for a while. When Adrian came out of the kitchen, he stopped in front of me and looked down.
“What is it?” I tipped my face up and smiled at him.
“Why aren’t you fighting me?” His voice was low, touched by a weary rasp.
His voice hadn’t always sounded like that. He’d damaged it working long shifts and shouting himself hoarse, all so he could support me.
“You don’t have to tie me up,” I said softly. “I’ll never run away again.”
I would stay beside him and help heal whatever was broken inside him.
But Adrian only stared at me, his expression cold.
“So force didn’t work, and now you’re trying to sweet-talk me?”
Of course.
He still thought I wanted to escape.
What he didn’t realize was that he had never been able to resist me when I softened my voice with him.
He turned away with grim determination.
I cleared my throat, then made my voice just a little sweeter.
“It hurts.”
He froze.
Three seconds later, I was sitting in the chair completely free.
Adrian crouched in front of me, frantic, as if I’d lost a limb.
“Where does it hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He wanted to touch me, but he didn’t dare. Once, I had screamed at him not to put his hands on me.
Chapter 3
Ever since then, whenever I was angry, he had been terrified of defying me.
I ran my fingertips gently through his soft black hair.
He went still, staring at me with such naked shock that it might have been the first time I had ever touched him willingly.
Lowering my gaze, I traced the corner of his eye with my fingertips.
“Adrian, in this life…”
“This time, I’ll protect you.”
I’m serious.
Now that I’ve been given a second chance at life, neither Evan Cross nor my so-called best friend, Vanessa Vale, is going to get away with living happily ever after.
How dare those two bastards dirty my brother’s hands after I died?
……
“Lily, didn’t I tell you to drug your brother yesterday?”
Beside the corner store, Evan stood with his hands in his pockets, frowning at me.
In my previous life, I’d been so obsessed with Evan that it was as if he’d put some kind of spell on me. That was why he’d always treated me like a servant, barking orders and expecting instant obedience.
“If you don’t put your brother to sleep tonight, don’t expect me to take you and run.”
In my last life, I’d listened to him and forced the drug down my brother’s throat.
But maybe Adrian had a high tolerance for medication. He woke halfway through, struggling as he tried to chase after me.
He stumbled down the stairs and broke one of his legs.
Even now, I remembered his eyes that day—so red, unbearably red.
He was lying on the floor, yet he was still trying to keep me from leaving.
“Don’t go! Come back! They’re bad people!”
His voice was hoarse, every word clearly painful.
“Trust me, Lily.”
“Your brother would never lie to you. Not even on his deathbed.”
……
Your brother would never lie to you. Not even on his deathbed.
But back then, all I could think was that he was a controlling maniac who wanted to lock me in his room for the rest of my life.
……
Evan must have thought threatening to leave without me would make me panic. Instead, I didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
I looked at him and asked, “This drug won’t kill my brother, will it?”
At that moment, my dear best friend Vanessa happened to sit down beside me with a popsicle in her hand.
“Lily, it’s simple. Just watch the dosage. You only need to make your brother fall asleep.”
She took a lick of the popsicle and added, “Besides, he’s a piece of garbage. He deserves to die.”
He deserved to die.
Would someone who deserved to die chase the two people responsible for my murder to the ends of the earth after I was gone?
Would someone who deserved to die drag a crippled leg behind him just to avenge the sister who never listened to him and suspected him at every turn?
Did they really think I couldn’t tell whether my brother was a good person?
I lifted my head. I wanted nothing more than to tear the two of them apart right then and there.
But the time wasn’t right yet.
I stared at the packet of sedatives in my hand.
A plan had already begun to take shape in my mind.
“You went to see Evan again?”