Chapter 1

1: 1

I woke up inside an ancient story, and when I opened my eyes I was in a brothel.

At first I had a spine. I refused to take clients, so they broke my ribs and starved me until my stomach bled.

Half a month later, the madam killed my personal maid right in front of me.

I ran a fever for three days. When it broke, I took off my own clothes.

After that I became the top girl of the brothel, eight clients a day.

Until one night, a patron was too rough, I hemorrhaged, and I fainted.

Half-conscious, I saw a car parked outside the door. A Bentley, a car that had no business being there.

My fiancé Jackson Gilbert's voice was calm.

"Sophia, since you've already seen it, I'll just say it plainly."

"You always bullied Meryl Pruitt, looked down on her for selling herself. But if it weren't for her, the Gilberts would have collapsed years ago."

"Now you're not clean either. You've lost any right to look down on her."

Something roared through my head, and I froze where I lay.

So the story I thought I'd fallen into had been a lie, start to finish.

1

When I woke, I was lying in a soft, white hospital bed.

The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant.

Jackson raised his hand as if to stroke my hair.

Almost on instinct I leaned into it, rubbing my head against his palm, like a dog begging for scraps.

He clearly flinched. Something like disgust surfaced in his eyes, and he sneered.

"Half a year on a film set and you really think you're some ancient courtesan?"

My body jerked with fear, and I stuck out my tongue and licked his fingers.

He snatched his hand back like he'd been burned, his voice turning irritated.

"You don't have to put on this act!"

"Sophia, you always bullied Meryl. You thought she was for sale, thought she was filthy."

"You're the one who forced me to this. Now you're filthy too, so what right do you have left to look down on her?"

He pulled out a stack of photos, me being intimate with different men, and threw them on the floor.

My throat tightened. I couldn't get out a single word.

Two more people came in through the door.

Meryl looked at me, wiping her tears.

"Sis, you've gotten so thin... Jackson said you went to a care facility. You've suffered so much."

My father stood beside her and picked up the thread.

"She does look steadier, not as showy as before. A little hardship builds character. That's a good thing."

I clenched the corner of the blanket and forced down the sting in my eyes.

Those unbearable scenes played back frame by frame in my head.

Six months ago, Jackson had taken Meryl by the hand and laid it out for me.

"Meryl's carrying my child. I'll still give you the whole wedding, but the marriage license goes to her."

I slapped both of them across the face right there.

"You two whores!"

As Meryl was leaving she yanked at me on purpose, then threw herself down the stairs, and the child in her belly was gone.

Not long after, I fell unconscious.

When I woke, I found myself inside an ancient-style building, and a crowd of people in period costume told me this was a brothel.

There were even lines of subtitles drifting across the sky, saying I had fallen into a book.

At first I didn't believe it. I thought it was a prank.

They broke my ribs, wrenched my hands and feet, starved me until I threw up blood.

The pain nearly drove me insane, and still I gritted my teeth and refused to take clients.

So they violated the maid who served me, right in front of me, until she died.

Terror sent my fever soaring, and the moment it broke, I took off my own clothes.

I knelt on the floor, crying so hard my whole body shook.

"I'll do what you want, just please stop killing people, please."

After that I became the top girl, eight clients a day.

They tortured me down to skin and bone, until I could barely speak above a whisper.

But I still fought to stay alive, telling myself that one day I would get back to my own world.

Half-conscious, I saw a car parked outside the door. A Bentley, a car that had no business being there at all.

I saw Jackson Gilbert.

And I saw that little maid who should have been long dead, sitting nearby, calmly eating fruit. Not dead at all.

So all of it was fake.

The brothel was fake. The story I'd fallen into was fake.

Everyone had followed Jackson's orders and put on a show for me.

The person I loved most had shoved me into hell with his own hands.

I pulled free of the memory, breathing in the disinfectant, and slipped back into a heavy, muddled sleep.

The next day at noon, Jackson brought over a meal.

"The doctor says you won't eat. Is this a performance for me?"

I bit down hard on my lip and turned my face away.

He set down the food container, his brows knitting.

"Listen to me. Back when my family went bankrupt, if it weren't for the money Meryl earned selling herself at that underground bar, I never would have gotten back on my feet."

"But you couldn't stand her, called her filthy, and pushed her down the stairs, killing my child."

I turned to look at Meryl by the bed, all timid on her face, and my stomach lurched with nausea.

"Jackson, when your family went bankrupt, it was clearly me who—"

Before I could finish, Meryl suddenly threw herself down at the foot of my bed and knelt.

She pulled two marriage licenses out of her pocket.

"Sis, I'm sorry, I just love Jackson too much. No matter how much you look down on me, you can hit me, curse me, I don't care. I won't give him up..."

My eyes didn't move at all, as if I hadn't heard a word she said.

Jackson pulled Meryl up.

"Enough. Why are you kneeling to her?"

He turned to me, his voice going cold.

"Sophia Pruitt, I'll hold the wedding for you. But if you cause a scene again, you can forget about getting anything."

Slowly I shrank down into the blanket and wrapped it tight around myself.

Jackson frowned, as if something felt off to him, but he took Meryl's hand and turned to leave anyway.