Finnegan Churchill grabs me by the hair and drags me to a staircase with 99 steps. He orders me to crawl my way up as an apology to his true love, Colette Brooke. At the same time, I'm supposed to pray for her.

He has no idea I'm the one who cared for him during the three years he was blind.

Last month, at the dinner event, Colette Brooke lost her balance and fell down the stairs.

There had only been the two of us present at that time. When Finnegan Churchill rushed over, Colette told him that I was the one who pushed her down.

After begging many specialists and surgeons for treatment, Colette could finally walk again. However, her dance career was ruined, and she could no longer fulfill her dream of being a professional dancer.

Of course, Finnegan immediately thought that I was the culprit who ruined her dreams. So, he rushed over to demand an explanation from me.

I lived in a run-down apartment in a very old residential building. Half of the building had been declared unsafe and demolished, so there weren't many people living here anymore.

I had only managed to find this place after asking around for ages.

Although the ceiling was leaky during rainy days, it was good enough for me because the monthly rent was just less than a hundred dollars.

At that moment, I was eating a stale bun that the bakery owner downstairs, Gordon Combe, left for me, thinking that I should look for a second job to help with my daily expenses.

"Winter Brooke, you've always been high-and-mighty in the past, but at least you'd admit what you'd done. What's the matter with you now? Why are you such a coward?"

I could hear Finnegan's low, dangerous voice coming from outside my door. It sounded like a huge impending thunderstorm to my ears. A short while later, my door was kicked open by a few men.

Finnegan entered my home with a few bodyguards. His leather shoes trod onto my cement floor as he walked in, dressed from head to toe in an expensive-looking suit and blazer.

He stood out like a sore thumb against my yellowed walls, dim lighting, and shaky overhead light that looked like it would snap in two very soon.

I winced, feeling sorry for my bank account. That front door of mine hadn't been of the best quality, but at the very least, it was still a layer of protection against the world outside.

I would have to cough up most of my savings to repair that door, which meant there was even less cash flow for me for the month.

I set my stale bun down and hurriedly got to my feet, wanting to grab the notebook that I'd always used to write in. However, Finnegan marched over toward me and grabbed me by my wrist, harshly yanking me back.

"Mmh…"

"Did I say you could leave?" Finnegan asked, nearing me with a dangerous look in his eyes.

My arm hurt, but I still kept signing to him that I was only going to get my notebook.

Finnegan scoffed. "Don't lie to me. I know you can speak."

Sure, I could speak, but my voice sounded terrible because it had been ruined when someone poured boiling water down my throat.

But judging from what he said, maybe he wanted to hear me speak?

"F-Finnie…" I croaked, suppressing the discomfort in my throat as I slowly and carefully tried to speak.

My voice cracked and sounded frightening.

Finnegan was stunned for a moment when he heard me. Then, a look of mock and disdain appeared in his eyes. "Disgusting."

I was shocked. Did he mean that he was disgusted by my voice or by the fact that I'd called him "Finnie"?

People always said that once someone hated another person, they would find every aspect of that person disgusting or revolting to the bone.

The hate in Finnegan's eyes didn't seem fake. Although I kept staring at them, keeping my hopes up that the look would disappear, the fact didn't change that he hated me.

Finnegan was in love with Colette, after all. Not me.

I looked away in disappointment. However, Finnegan got increasingly aggressive with me. He didn't look like he was about to let me off the hook.

"Bring her to the car."

Two bodyguards marched toward me, sending me into a panic at once. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Finnegan taking out a napkin from somewhere, wiping the hand he'd used to touch me on it, and throwing it onto the ground.

"Ah!"

I began to struggle. I was frightened, afraid that they would bring me to Colette.

Every time I tried to keep my distance from them, Colette would bring my name up again and again before him, framing me for all the things I never did so that Finnegan would keep getting more and more disappointed in me.

I struggled like a madwoman, lashing out at the bodyguards at every chance I got.

Since I struggled so much, and also because I was a female, the two bodyguards paused in their movements, looking like they were in a dilemma.

Finnegan just said coldly, "Don't go easy on her. She deserves to get hurt."

With that, the bodyguards no longer held back and immediately grabbed me by force. My arms were twisted behind my back, and it stung as soon as I tried to move.

"Ah, ah, ah!" I cried out in agony, trying to beg Finnegan for help, but he didn't care about me. Instead, he left the apartment and went into his car.

Finnegan now had bodyguards, a driver, and a luxury car to ferry him wherever he wanted. He was no longer the little boy with impaired vision who was abandoned by his family. He had ruled with a merciless hand to get to where he was today as the head of the Churchill family.

I curled up in a corner of the car, hugging my own arms as I occasionally glanced out of the window. I realized that the scene outside was quite familiar to me.

Eventually, my hunches were right. This was the chapel in the caves that I'd often come to in the past to pray for Finnegan's speedy recovery.

I glanced at him. He was toying mindlessly with his buttons.

For those past three years, he hadn't stepped foot out of his room because he refused to. Therefore, his skin had been so pale he looked like a ghost. As of now, some color had returned to his cheeks and complexion, making his prominent facial features stand out. He looked healthier than ever.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, signing to him.

Finnegan understood my question. He just chuckled dryly and said, "You'll find out soon enough."

For some reason, I had a bad feeling in my stomach. Ever since Finnegan recovered from his disease, he'd always hated being in close proximity with me. But today, he had talked to me for quite a while and even let me ride in his car.

A short while later, the car slowed to a stop at the foot of the mountain. Since it was a workday, there weren't too many people or visitors around. Moreover, Finnegan had purposely given out orders to clear the area, so there was barely anyone there.

I shakily got down from the car and looked at the cave entrance on the top of the mountain. It was hard for me to imagine that I'd actually climbed all the way up there years ago to pray sincerely for Finnegan.

"Winter," he said, calling out to me.

I looked at him and saw him staring down at me.

"Get down on your knees and climb all the way up there. Beg for Colette's forgiveness."

I was stunned.

I thought I'd heard him wrongly as I stared at him in disbelief.

"I do not wish to repeat myself," Finnegan said impatiently.

I shook my head, my eyes wide and fearful as I took a step back. Climb up those steep steps on my knees? I had never kneeled before anyone other than at my parents' funerals after they'd passed away.

Also, Colette was just their foster daughter. She wasn't an elder in my family. Why should I kneel for her and beg for her forgiveness like that?

Most importantly, I had done nothing to her! She had tumbled down the stairs by herself!

The bodyguards started pulling me toward the stairs, and I tried to explain myself. "N-No. It wasn't me…"

Finnegan thought that I was just trying to make up excuses for myself. "Winter Brooke, you've always been a haughty bitch who bullied Colette because of your status! But I see that you still haven't learned your lesson even after your family went bankrupt! You're still as evil and heartless as ever!"

I shook my head harder as my eyes turned red. "Finnie…"

"Stop calling me that!" he thundered, his voice laced with disgust piercing through my heart like a sharp knife.

So, he had always thought of me as someone like that.

The Brooke family had been quite influential when I had been just a kid. As the eldest daughter, I behaved quite haughtily at home and looked down on Colette, who had looked frail and weak back then. As the "daughter" of the house, I often told her off for the tiniest things that she did wrong.

Eventually, people realized that I didn't like her, so the school bullies started taking advantage of the knowledge and cornering her. When I finally found out about it, Colette had already been pushed into the water and looked like a wet mess.

I immediately jumped into the water without a second thought. However, we had only been about seven or eight years old then, and neither of us knew how to swim. Instead of rescuing her, I needed rescuing myself. Very soon, I began to sink in the water as it went up to my neck and covered my nose.

Just as I thought I was about to drown, the two brothers from the Churchill family dived into the water to save us both.

Finnegan was the one who saved me. From that day onward, I would tag along behind him like a loyal puppy, referring to him as "Finnie".

This had continued all throughout my childhood and younger days. Time passed in the blink of an eye.

…

When Finnegan saw that I was being very uncooperative, not caring whether or not I got hurt in the tug of war and refusing to listen to orders, he told the bodyguards to step aside and spoke to me instead, saying, "I heard that you're surviving on stale bread from some bakery near your place."

I lowered my head in shame. Although everyone knew that my family was bankrupt and that I, Winter Brooke, had fallen from grace, I still felt deeply ashamed and embarrassed when confronted by Finnegan, my longtime crush.

He threatened me in the most casual tone ever, "Wanna bet that the bakery closes down forever from tomorrow onward?"

I immediately whipped my head up and stared into his piercing eyes. I knew then that he wasn't joking.

Gordon had had a young daughter who passed away in a car accident many years ago. He had felt sorry for me because I reminded him of his daughter, who would have been around my age by now if she hadn't passed away. That was why he had been looking out for me.

I owed him too much. And yet, he was going to get dragged through the mud because of me.

I tried to defend myself. "I… really… didn't… push… her…"

Speaking and expressing myself was the hardest thing for me to do now. I got so anxious that my eyes turned red.

Colette had fallen by herself! It was the truth. Why wouldn't he believe me?

Finnegan looked like he didn't want to waste another minute talking to me. He whipped out his phone and called his secretary.

Seeing this, I immediately rushed up to him, but the bodyguards quickly held me back.

"Don't call! Don't call!" I yelled, repeated those two words with every ounce of strength I had left in my body. My throat muscles constricted at the pressure and caused a piercing pain to shoot down my esophagus.

"I'll kneel…"

Under Finnegan's watchful eyes, I shuffled over to the first step and looked up at the flight of stairs carved into the stone, letting my mind wander. I was hesitating.

"Mom, Dad, I'm sorry," I thought. "I know you told me that I always had to repay everyone in full for the kindness they showed me. I have no way to repay Gordon for his kindness, but I cannot allow his hard work to go to ruins because of me."

The bakery that Gordon owned was just a very small family bakery run by himself. In the past, I had lived a luxurious life as Ms. Brooke and never bothered lowering myself to understand the pains of those who barely scraped by in society.

But now, I was just Winter Brooke, and I knew of all the pains and tribulations that they had to go through.

"Are you doing it or not? Stop wasting my time!"

Finnegan yelled at me when he saw that I still stood there like a dummy without moving. He was only in a rush because he was eager to go back to Colette. I was sure of it.

I turned to look at him. I knew that anxious feeling more than anything in the world.

After three years of studying in college, I gave up on my lecturer's offer to recommend me to an established laboratory for my internship because I wanted to get home as quickly as possible to be with Finnegan, who'd lost his eyesight.

At that time, I thought that nothing in the world compared to him holding my hand and smiling at me, saying, "You've studied hard, Winnie."

The sweeter the memories, the more bitter the present. Nobody would ever believe that the high-and-mighty Ms. Winter Brooke would actually fall in love with a neglected, abandoned child who was also the youngest of the lot.

It was equally as unbelievable that I would give up my studies for a blind person like him.

Finnegan believed it. However, he believed that Colette had been the one who accompanied him all along while pretending to be me. After all, only "Winter Brooke" could freely move about between houses and go wherever she wanted without being restricted.

Slowly, I got to my knees, my tears dripping down into the soil. There was only one thought left in my head, and that was, my love meant nothing to anyone, and neither did my dignity anymore.

They were worthless.

After what felt like forever, my knees felt as though they were on fire. The color of the jeans fabric at my knees had turned completely black from the dirt.

My head was in a whirl. I turned around to look at how far I'd gone, and realized that I had only managed to climb about 30 steps up.

I was quite familiar with this path as I'd walked on it countless times before and accurately counted every step I took. However, nobody told me that it would be so tiring for me to climb all the way up on only my knees.

It was mentally exhausting and excruciatingly painful, at least a hundred times more than I ever thought it would be.

Finnegan just stood to the side as he watched me coldly. I didn't know what I was thinking when I suddenly opened my mouth and asked him, "Can I… please… rest…"

"No," he answered mercilessly. "How are you ever going to atone for your sins if you're not sincere about this?"

Atone for my sins? So, when he told me to beg Colette for forgiveness, he'd meant that I should be atoning for my sins as well?

He really treated her like a god. He made her so important, like she was the center of his life.

I smiled bitterly. He was doing the same thing I used to do in the past.

I forced myself to toughen up and continued climbing the stairs on my knees. Maybe Finnegan thought that it was too easy for me—now, he even demanded that I crouched down and touched the ground with my forehead with each step I took, while repeating the words, "I was wrong".

I refused to say it because I didn't know what wrong I had committed.

Finnegan then grabbed me by the chin and forced me to look him in the eyes through my messy and unruly hair.

"You are in no position to negotiate anything with me."

He had hundreds of ways to continue trampling on my dignity until it completely disappeared, after all.

When I finally reached the 60th step, my knees and palms were bloodied, and I could feel a warm, sticky liquid oozing through my jeans. But other than that, I couldn't feel anything else anymore.

I gasped heavily. My lips were pale and my throat tasted like blood.

"I was wrong…"

I straightened up my back and hugged myself tightly. The cold sweat that dripped down my spine made me shiver uncontrollably.

I was wrong. I'd been wrong.

Had I known earlier that I would end up experiencing such pain and torment, I would have just ended my life back then. However, if I really were to go, who would end up having to pay off my family's debt? Mom and Dad would never be able to rest in peace in their graves, either.