Chapter 1
When I woke up, I found myself tied to a chair.
Being blind, I couldn’t see anything, but I could smell the damp, musty air around me.
I tried to move my limbs, and the chair creaked.
Then, I heard footsteps.
“Awake?”
It was a deep male voice, sounding young but dangerous.
I didn’t dare move or respond.
He didn’t bother with small talk. A hand gripped my neck, forcing my head up.
I tilted my head back but had no idea where he was, my gaze vacant.
After a moment, he asked, “Blind?”
I closed my eyes and let out a soft “Mm-hmm.”
His grip loosened, and after a pause, he said, “Blind or not, don’t expect any pity from me. I’m going to call your family now. You’d better do as I say, or I’ll kill you!”
I nodded obediently and said, “Okay.”
I don’t know what he did next, but I assume he took my phone, unlocked it with facial recognition, and called the top contact in my list.
After a brief dial tone, I heard my oldest brother’s voice.
He sounded casual and slightly annoyed: “Hello? What is it now?”
Kidnapper: “Is this Alexander James? I’ve got your sister. You have two days to get a million dollars, or I’ll kill her!”
Alexander was silent for two seconds, then scoffed: “Nice act. Tell her that it’s Rosalie’s birthday tonight. If she doesn’t come back, she shouldn’t bother coming back at all.”
Then he hung up.
The kidnapper seemed incredulous and asked me, “Who’s Rosalie?”
I was at a loss for words, unsure how to explain.
Rosalie James was the adopted daughter of the James family.
When I was very young, I was kidnapped by my family’s enemies and sold to human traffickers. My mother was devastated by the loss of her daughter and became mentally unstable.
To comfort her, my father adopted Rosalie from an orphanage and changed her birthday to match mine, convincing my mother that she was me.
Over time, everyone seemed to accept that she was me, the pampered little princess of the James family.
It wasn’t until my parents passed away that my father, on his deathbed, told my brothers to find me.
The day I returned home, my brothers surrounded me, calling me “Rosalie” over and over.
My birth name was Lily, and Rosalie’s name was given to her by my father, meaning that seeing her would remind him of me.
When Rosalie found out about this, she attempted suicide in a moment of despair.
After that, no one dared to call me “Rosalie” anymore.
My second brother gave me a new name, Lily James.
He said, “You’re so small and thin, let’s call you Lily. It’s pretty and easy to remember.”
What he didn’t know was that I was small because of malnutrition from a young age, and thin because I had rarely eaten a full meal.
During those years away from home, I was sold to human traffickers. They said I had a nice voice, so they blinded me and taught me to sing begging songs. I only got to eat when I earned money.
But my brothers didn’t care about any of this. They only cared about whether Rosalie would feel hurt.