Chapter 1

I was Julian’s kept man for five years.

Purely in name.

What he loved was just my face, a mirror image of Leo’s.

On nights when his longing became unbearable, his fingers dug into my throat, his eyes blazing red as he snarled, “Kian, why wasn’t it *you* who died?!”

I stopped fighting, letting Julian steal my breath.

His broken, crumbling expression twisted grotesquely in my blurring vision.

In these five years, he’d had so many moments of losing control.

One second he’d almost kiss me raw.

The next, he’d want me dead.

To pay the price for my twin brother, Leo.

I indulged every ounce of disgust and hatred festering inside me, picking the words I knew would hurt him most. Each one a knife to his gut.

“Don’t pretend to be heartbroken! You never loved him when he was alive, did you?

Leo would have poured his damn heart out to you! And you just used him as a pawn in your game with my dad!

Go on, kill me! Then this face? You’ll only ever get to stare at it on a damn tombstone!”

…

After I’d spat my venom, I knew the beating was coming.

The worst was two years ago, on Leo’s death anniversary.

Julian wiped his lips, a streak of the red from where I’d bitten him, then yanked me to the floor. He grabbed the heavy brass floor lamp from beside the bed and swung it, without hesitation, smashing my knees twice.

I bit down, hard, to stifle my cries, but hot, involuntary tears streamed down my face.

“There, now you’re even more like Leo,” Julian said, pressing his foot into the hollow behind my knee and twisting his toe.

I shook like a leaf, my vision tunneling to black, my jaw finally unlocking as a choked, desperate moan escaped me.

Julian knelt, one hand gripping my chin, the other smoothing my bangs, slick with cold sweat. Then he pulled me into his arms.

He murmured, his voice thick with tears, “Leo, I miss you so much.”

I convulsed in his embrace.

Julian, I want you to…

Die!

But now, I was tired.

Exhausted, I let go of all my resentment and hatred.

Five years of torturing each other. If one of us had to die for it to end.

Then let it be me.

I let Julian’s face blur in my vision…

“Cough, cough—!”

Julian suddenly let go.

Air rushed back in, and I coughed violently, snot and tears streaming, pathetic as a clown again. Julian pulled away, standing by the bed, looking down at me as I curled into a ball.

His voice was low, hoarse, and cold: “Your life was saved by Leo. You’re not allowed to die.”

He was utterly insane.

He’d just been trying to kill me moments ago.

I nearly coughed my lungs out, finally breaking free from the agony of suffocation. I didn't care that my clothes were barely covering anything, just lay sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

My voice was steeped in despair: “Julian, it’s been five years. Haven’t you had enough? Leo, wherever he is, wouldn’t want this.”

In five years beside him, I’d never said anything that sounded remotely like comfort.

Any sane person would have heard that I was unilaterally surrendering, that I didn’t want to fight him anymore.

Yet the next second, Julian was back, looming over me.

His long, powerful legs forced their way between mine.

I felt a flicker of confusion.

All these years he’d kept me, Julian had only treated me as a substitute, as the enemy who’d caused Leo’s death.

He’d never bothered with the final step.

All his kisses, his touches, his bites, his rough handling—they were all just acts of pure rage.

This intimate posture, I truly didn’t understand it.

Had he come up with a new way to torment me?

I awkwardly tried to pull away.

He slammed a hand onto my shoulder.

“Kian, whether this game between us begins or ends, it’s not up to you.”

With that, he covered my mouth.

And then reached for my pants!

A jolt went through me, and I pushed him, hard: “What are you doing?!”

Desire flared in Julian’s eyes.

My mind, in a sudden, ill-timed twist, wondered: *Is this for Leo, or for me?*

Then Julian’s voice, full of savage cruelty.

His knee pressed against me: “Give up, Kian. This is your life now. You’re mine.”