Part 1Seven Years of Saving Her

Seven years after waking inside a novel, I had confessed to Claire Monroe ninety-nine times and been rejected every time.

The moment I told the System I was giving up on my mission, Claire suddenly confessed to me instead.

I was about to say yes when I started hearing my family's thoughts.

[In our last life, this monster nearly got Ryan killed. Thank God we were all reborn. Once they're married, I'll cut off his arms and legs!]

[Why wasn't he the one who died instead of my Ryan?]

[If it weren't for Ryan, I would rather die than marry this bastard.]

A flood of vicious thoughts crashed over me, and the world started to spin.

The redemption I'd been so sure of was nothing but a joke.

* * *

"Aiden, are you so happy you've gone stupid? Say yes already!"

"From now on, your birthday can be your anniversary too!"

Mom and Dad stared at me with warm smiles.

But I didn't miss the hatred underneath them.

I took an instinctive step back.

"I... I need some time to think."

Claire Monroe gave me a puzzled look. Her voice was soft.

"Haven't you always wanted to be with me?"

The condition for remaining in this world was completing my mission with Claire.

That was why I had confessed to her ninety-nine times.

She had rejected me every single time.

Now that she was finally confessing to me, turning her down made no sense at all. It was completely out of character for the role I was supposed to be playing.

For a moment, I had no answer.

I glanced toward my parents.

Ryan had just returned from his evening classes at the community college. The second he walked in, Mom and Dad rushed over and fussed over him as if he might collapse at any moment.

Even Claire drifted toward him without realizing it.

[Ryan has always hated that his health kept him from having a normal education. Good thing we hired those thugs to stop Aiden from making it to his graduate admissions exam. Otherwise, who knows how badly he would've rubbed it in Ryan's face.]

Dad sighed and tried to persuade Ryan to hire a private tutor instead.

[Ryan keeps envying Aiden for being healthy. We can't keep lying to Ryan that Aiden is the one with kidney disease forever. Too bad their blood types don't match.]

Mom looked at Ryan with tears in her eyes.

My mind went blank.

My blood ran cold.

Then Claire suddenly glanced at me with open coldness, snapping me back to reality.

A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I clutched my head as memories I had buried for seven years came rushing back.

When I first entered this novel, I had just finished my own graduate admissions exam.

In the blink of an eye, I was in an unfamiliar world. Without thinking, I started toward the graduate exam hall in front of me.

Before I got there, a gang of drunk thugs dragged me into an alley.

They smashed my hands with clubs until the bones in my fingers snapped, and my own blood splattered across my face. The pain nearly knocked me out, but they kept jabbing me with a stun baton, over and over.

In just a few minutes, I lost control of my bladder four or five times. I lay there in the filth.

Then sirens wailed at the mouth of the alley. Mom and Dad, impeccably dressed, pulled me into their arms, their faces full of heartbreak.

Only then did I feel alive again.

"Aiden, we're sorry. We came too late."

When I woke up in the hospital, the System told me I had transmigrated into a novel as one of its villains.

It also told me my parents had already dealt with the men who attacked me.

They stayed beside my hospital bed for three straight days before finally leaving.

In my original world, I had grown up an orphan.

No one had ever protected me like that.

So I convinced myself that these people had given me the family love I had missed my entire life.

When the System asked whether I wanted to accept a mission to save Claire Monroe, I agreed without hesitation.

From that day on, I tried to please everyone around me.

I wanted to avoid the villain's original ending—turning against his family and eventually dying in a police shooting.

Not long after the attack, Mom and Dad told me the beating had damaged my kidneys.

They doted on me.

Even Ryan stayed beside me day after day.

I sank into the warmth of that false family until I stopped questioning it.

That was why, even after they started keeping me inside the house, I accepted it without resistance.

I thought I was making amends for the original Aidan Pettigrew's sins.

I thought I was saving this family from the person he had once become.

But this was the truth.

For seven years, I had been a puppet in their hands.

What gave them the right to use their memories of a previous life to force me into the same ending?

Anger rose inside me, only to die beneath the coldness in their eyes.

Claire's voice turned almost sugary.

"Aiden, have you decided?"

[Forget it. Once we're together, we'll have his kidney removed and give it to Ryan.]

[Ryan doesn't have much time left.]

I looked up sharply at Claire's beautiful face.

Her lips moved gently, shaping a lie that would kill me.

A crushing helplessness washed over me.

I laughed at myself.

"Okay. Let's be together."

[I knew this lovesick doormat would say yes. His next line is definitely going to be—]

"Claire, I love you more than anyone."

So what if I knew the truth now?

They had already written my ending for me.

And apparently, this was my fate.