******On the way here, James had already imagined all the scenes… Glenn chained, broken, begging for mercy that would never come.He had pictured the countless ways he would torture Glenn and make him suffer… each one crueler than the last.He had planned to show him that his greatest sin wasn’t merely daring to lay a hand on the woman he desired… but daring to touch him, wound him, and humiliate him.He had planned to turn Glenn into the most wretched and most pitiful creature alive… and then make everyone Glenn had ever cared about share in his ruin.He had that thought once that was done, maybe he could breathe again, and maybe the nightmares would finally end.But now…Recalling all this, James’ teeth began to clatter against each other as though he was experiencing a bone-deep coldness, his body shaking harder… the tremors deepening until he looked like an overworked engine on the verge of exploding.And then rapidly, any trace of color left on his face drained away unti

******Inside a quiet, modest villa that was neatly arranged and appeared to be rarely used, a young teen of about fourteen to fifteen years old stood by the kitchen island, grinning like an idiot and clearly not ashamed of it. The boy’s tablet rested in his hands, but whatever was displayed on it might as well have been invisible.His gaze wasn’t on the screen… it was somewhere else… somewhere far away and lost in his excitement, brimming with the kind of giddy, helpless energy that only came when something extraordinary happened.He looked like someone whose long-time crush had just said yes to a date.This boy was none other than Ethan… the same one Glenn had met not long ago, whose unexpected appearance had prevented him from getting to Grace.“Hehehe… Big brother’s really back!” Ethan squeaked, his grin stretching wider, his voice breaking from the force of his excitement.He hugged the tablet in his hand tightly to his chest, his small shoulders shaking with silent laugh

******Ethan could still feel the exact moment and instant he had seen Glenn again.He hadn’t even seen his face before he recognized him.Instead, the first thing he had seen was his back… that unmistakable relaxed posture, the way Glenn’s shoulders resembled the kind of effortless indifference of someone who had seen too much and simply stopped caring.Even in his dreams, he would have recognized that back.The sight had hit him like a sudden jolt of electricity… so sharp and so intense that he had thought he was hallucinating again.He had blinked hard, half expecting the image to vanish like all the others had in his lonely mind. But it hadn’t.It had really been him… Glenn, the elder brother who had treated him better than even his own parents ever had.That moment had rewired something in him.The emptiness that had lived in his chest for five long years had shattered in an instant, and warmth had seeped through him again.It hadn’t just been happiness… it had been rel

******Ding! Ding!!The sharp sound of the door alarm suddenly cut through the quiet house, causing Ethan to freeze mid-step, his heart skipping a bit in his chest.“Huh?” His head jerked toward the door. “Who could that be?”He frowned, confusion clouding his expression.Checking the clock on the wall, his frown deepened. “Mom and Dad shouldn’t be home until ten… so who…?”It felt strange. No… unnatural.No one ever visited him, and the house was always his alone after school until his parents finally dragged themselves home long after dark.He had no friends and no neighbors who ever stopped by.“Could it be… a delivery?” he muttered to himself, glancing at the door again. But there he hadn’t ordered anything, and his parents hadn’t called to tell him any order was coming.Years of ingrained caution echoed in his head.Ever since he was a child, he had been warned never to open the door unless he knew exactly who was on the other side. And he had lived by that rule so lon

******Every thug turned sharply toward the man Ethan had just called, their faces twisting in surprise, and brows knitting, their earlier ruthlessness faltering into a dumbstruck expression.“Uncle Muscles, really?” one of them muttered, his brows knitting against each other as he glanced around in perplexity.“Did he just call him uncle?” “He sounded like they’re close.” “But who put uncle before a nickname?” “It sounded absurd, yet he spoke it with such innocent sincerity.”Murmurs spread through the group in an instant, shattering the heavy silence that had hung over the scene just moments before. But before they could completely relax and laugh, forgetting the presence of the two people among them…“What’s going on here?”James’s voice rang out, sounding deep, dangerous, and heavily laced with barely restrained ferocity. Then he turned his glare to the man Ethan had just called Uncle muscles, his glare sharp enough to cut through steel.“You trying to play tricks o