After I Killed Myself, My Hater Brother Cried

Chapter 4

When I got home, Jerome and Shane were already at the dining table eating dinner.

He flicked a lazy glance my way, his voice totally flat and unreadable, "So you finally decided to come home, huh?"

"What right did you have to tell my manager to fire me?" I shot back with a completely blank face. I completely ignored his question and didn't play his game. "Five years. Five years of this. Haven't you humiliated me enough already?"

One of his thick dark eyebrows arched upward, he looked completely unbothered.

"How are you supposed to learn that home is the best place for you if you don't go through a little hardship first? Angel, do you even know what people are saying about you out there? I've been keeping all those nasty rumors from reaching you, and this is how you thank me?"

Shane set down her chopsticks, her voice dripping with fake concern and hidden malice, "Brother, she just doesn't understand how good you are to her. Look at her right now, she's obviously blaming you for everything!"

"Shut up!" I'd had more than enough. I lunged at her, hand flying up to slap that sneer right off her face.

But before my hand could connect, Jerome wrapped his fingers tight around my wrist and wrenched me back.

His face was as hard and cold as stone as he spoke, every word icy, "So now you're resorting to hitting people? I don't think you'll ever figure out what you did wrong, will you? Don't test me. I can make it so you can't even survive in Beverly, you know that?"

My heart seized up instantly, like a fist had squeezed it so hard it ached.

Make me unable to survive? Wasn't that exactly what he'd been doing to me all these years?

He'd destroyed my job over and over, crushed every last sliver of hope I managed to scrape together.

He'd left me worse off than a rat scurrying in a gutter, broken and battered, so ruined I couldn't even afford a goddamned urn when I die.

I was sick of it. I was completely sick of his constant threats!

Something inside me just snapped. I screamed, completely unraveling, "I never did anything wrong! Jerome, if you won't let me live a decent life, then I'll just kill myself, okay? Is that good enough for you? I'll go straight to hell, and you can't control me anymore, can you?"

My words set him off. A blue vein popped out and throbbed on his temple.

"Even if you die, you will always owe me!" he snarled. The second the words left his mouth, he shoved me.

It wasn't even that much force, but I lost my balance and toppled backward anyway.

My lower back slammed straight into the edge of the dining table. White-hot pain exploded through my body, draining all the color from my face and coating my whole body in cold sweat.

A flicker of regret crossed Jerome's face. He spun around and refused to look at me.

"Until you get Mom's belongings back, you don't even have the right to die!" With that, he stormed out of the room.

I was in so much agony I couldn’t even push myself up off the floor.

Shane stood towering over me, arms folded smugly across her chest. "Look at you now, Sister. So pathetic, aren’t you? How about this? If you get down on your knees and bang your forehead on the floor for me, I’ll tell you who that stupid old bracelet got sold to. How does that sound?”

I glared at her until my eyes felt like they'd split from rage, every fiber of my being screamed to tear her apart limb from limb. But even as I raged inside, I knew the bitter truth. I didn’t even have enough strength left to lift a hand against her.

Five years I’d scraped by in humiliation, and now, even on the brink of death, I couldn’t get a single scrap of dignity.

Jerome’s words still rang sharp and cold in my ears, "You don’t even have the right to die until you get Mom’s belongings back! Even if you die, you will always owe me!"

Fine, then.

Once I got the belongings back, I’d finally be allowed to die in peace, right?

I swiped the desperate tears burning down my face with a shaking hand, dropped to my knees at Shane’s feet, and banged my forehead against the hard floor three hard times.

"Please. Tell me where my mom’s relic is."

Before, every time Shane schemed against me, I’d always fought back tooth and nail.

But these last days, I hadn’t even bothered to fire back a single word.

All my lack of reaction must have killed the fun for her, because she suddenly lost interest in toying with me.

She just tossed a slip of paper straight at my feet. "That’s the address. But hey, Angel, you’d better hope you can actually get your hands on it, okay!"