Chapter 2 The First Person They'll Save

Jeremiah's words made me laugh. If Elsa did have an appendicitis attack, how could she recover so shortly and be drinking at a bar? But no matter how absurd her excuses were, Jeremiah would believe anything she said. I started remembering my past life. … One time after I made her madd, Elsa claimed to have chest pain and difficulty breathing. Jeremiah then locked me in the house and placed me under 24-hour surveillance, even forbidding me from attending my father's birthday. As memories of my past life flooded my mind, I clenched my teeth in hatred. Jeremiah had blatantly worn away the love I once had for him. But at the thought of his power… I had to admit that the current me was no match for him, and there was also Jack making things worse. I clenched my fist and vowed to stay away from Jeremiah in this life. I had to protect my parents and myself at all costs. Yet I couldn't suppress my surging anger and shot back at him, "Are you saying there was no one around you who could've helped? Did it have to be you?" I gave him a cold glare and mocked, "The paparazzi caught you carrying her last time, and this time, you got into a fight for her sake. What's next? Are they going to catch you two in bed?" "Jane Brown!" Jeremiah roared as he massaged his temples in frustration. "I don't want to fight with you, but weren't you the one who told me to take care of Elsa in the first place? And now, you're being paranoid and suspicious. What do you want exactly? Even if you don't trust me, can't you at least trust your sister who you grew up with?" I sneered at his words. My blind trust in Elsa was why I ended up in such a miserable state in my past life. Elsa majored in interior design, and her qualifications matched Cornell Group, a company built on construction. Before I was aware of her ambitions, I genuinely wanted to help her. She was the frail sister I had grown up with, after all. To build her career, I got her a job as a designer at Cornell Group through Jeremiah's connections. But instead of being grateful, she resented me and believed I was keeping her out of Brown Group on purpose just to stop her from vying for the Brown family assets. In truth, she had long harbored jealousy toward me. She hated that as daughters of the same family, I owned 10% of Brown Group's shares while she had none. She despised the fact that I had an outstanding fiancé like Jeremiah. She believed she was regarded as a maid despite being my sister, forced to obey my words. I only learned of these thoughts when we were trapped in a raging fire in my past life. She confessed everything to me word for word. I remembered feeling utterly absurd. How could someone I treated as family harbor such twisted thoughts? What maid would get treated the way she did? She lived with me, ate the same food as me, attended grand events, and mingled with the elite. I had always regarded her as my sister. Decisions about family shares and the company were my parents' decision to make, not mine. I had given her the best of everything, but she saw it all as charity. It seemed that not all kindness begot the same. Elsa was the one who set the fire. She invited me over to her newly purchased apartment for drinks. While I was drunk and out, that gave her the chance to set the fire, but she didn't leave. When I woke up coughing from the smoke, I saw her standing at the side smiling like a demon from the depths of hell. She listed my so-called "crimes" over the years, but all of it just sounded utterly ridiculous. I tried to escape, only to find the door locked from the outside. Elsa grabbed me and strangled my neck with a look of twisted glee on her face. "I've texted Jeremiah and Jack. One is your husband, and the other is your brother. Who do you think they'll save first?" I cursed her as a lunatic, but I wasn't able to break free from her grip.