They were all… pictures of me.

In one, a teenager in a blue-and-white school uniform grinned proudly from a podium. That was me at fifteen, when I’d won the math competition.

I thought the photo had gone missing, but it turned out Leon had kept it here.

Another showed me at seven, riding on Leon’s shoulders to pick persimmons. There was one of me at twelve, when he had carried me home from the hospital after an IV drip.

He even kept the embarrassing shots of me passed out drunk on my eighteenth birthday.

I crouched down and picked up one photo of Leon himself, back when he was still an orphan.

In that moment, I was back to when he was thirteen. A pale, porcelain-faced boy sat quietly under the sycamore tree at the orphanage, lashes lowered, still as a painting.

He was wearing a washed-out T-shirt, yet he looked more like a storybook prince than any of the rich kids at my school in their polished clothes.

That day, Mom had ruffled my hair and asked, “Harry, which one do you want to choose as your brother?”

The day before, I had begged her nonstop to give me a big brother. So, the next day, she took me to the orphanage to pick one.

Later on, the boy under the tree became my brother.

I gave him his name, just as carefully as I used to name my teddy bear and toy soldiers.

When I tore up my homework, he rewrote it for me. After I broke the neighbor’s antique vase, the punishment landed on his palms instead of mine.

Leon became my shadow. Wherever I went, he followed.

Until the day I caused real trouble.

I had smashed some punk’s head into the ICU after he had harassed a girl outside school.

However, the revenge didn’t come for me, but for Leon.

When I found him, he was lying in a deserted alley, blood pooling into a winding stream beneath him.

It was my mess. So why was he the one paying the price?

I had clutched him and bawled, swearing I would study hard and that I’d never cause him trouble again.

Then, our parents died in the crash.

Before the funeral was even over, Mom and Dad’s former business partners were already ready to tear the company apart.

I still remember that night at the memorial. Rain mixed with tears, soaking Leon’s black suit.

He wrapped me in his jacket at twenty-one, holding me close. Instead of crying, I clung to him until his clothes were stained.

Without realizing it, I had bitten my lips raw.

Leon had pried open my mouth with steady fingers, dabbing the wounds with a cotton swab patiently.

Back then, he would pat my back and say, “Every year from now on, I will be here with you.”

However, somewhere along the way, we’d turned into two people who could barely stand each other.

The sound of an engine cutting off outside jolted me out of my memories. Panicked, I scrambled to gather the scattered photos and shoved them back into place.

The lock clicked.

“Harry, what are you looking through?” Leon’s voice came from behind me.

I spun around, slamming against the desk, my heart hammering in my chest.

He stood in the doorway, shadowed, his suit jacket slung casually over one arm. His gaze dropped to the bookshelf behind me, his eyes dark as pitch.

My whole body tensed. Sweat slid down my spine, soaking my shirt.

“Leon, why did you call me back?”

He didn’t answer. Step by step, he walked closer, each thud of his shoes against the carpet pounding against my nerves.

I swallowed hard, darting a glance at the folder I had just shoved back.

He couldn’t have noticed, right?

Leon stopped just half a step away from me. He raised his hand, his fingertips brushing my ear before pulling a business magazine from the shelf.

“Whew…” I let out a shaky breath, hearing the faint tremor in my chest.

“Bored enough to dig through files from seven years ago?” His voice was calm, but it made the back of my neck go cold.

My heart sank straight to the floor.

Suddenly, he bent down.

“Thud!” A thick file folder slammed onto the desk in front of me.

“Take it. Look through it.”

He unbuttoned his cuff, his tone leaving no room for argument. “But first, you owe me an explanation for tonight at the concert.”

I grabbed the file and stared right into Leon’s fathomless eyes. “It’s late, Leon. How about we talk tomorrow?”

His fingers slid across my ear again, then suddenly clamped around my chin, forcing my head up. “If you dare hang around that Tony kid again, I’ll break your legs.”

My heartbeat stalled.

So fierce.

Could Tony have been right?

I stared at Leon’s face close to mine, and a chilling image flashed through my mind.

An evil adopted son killing his foster parents, seizing their fortune, and locking up his younger brother in some twisted obsession.

Crap! How horrifying!

I could almost see Leon at Mom and Dad’s crash site, coldly wiping his fingerprints from the steering wheel.

Then, striding toward me with a ruler in hand, his lips curled, whispering, “Harry… you can’t escape…”

“Harry.”

His icy voice dragged me back to reality.

I blinked hard. At some point, Leon was already holding a dark wooden ruler in his hand.

“Get to the ancestral hall,” he said coldly.

My knees almost buckled.

The ancestral hall was the Maxwells’ most forbidden place. No one went there except during worship.

Confused and uneasy, I pushed open the old hardwood doors and stepped inside.

The hall was dim, lit only by a few flickering candles on the altar table.

“Kneel,” Leon’s voice came from behind me.

“Huh?”

Before I could react, he kicked the back of my leg, and I collapsed onto the prayer cushion.

“Crack!”

The ruler lashed across my backside without mercy.

“Ah!” Pain shot through me like electricity, making me suck in a sharp breath.

“Leon, are you crazy?!” I twisted around to glare at him through clenched teeth, anger flaring in my chest.

“Hm.” Leon loomed over me, eyes as sharp as knives.

His low and magnetic voice pressed down with crushing authority. “Tell me, Harry. What did you mean when you shouted at Tony to spray your face?”

I stiffened, jaw tight, refusing to answer.

The ruler cracked down again, the sting searing through me. Humiliation mixed with the pain.

He bent close. His long fingers dug into my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes.

At once, his presence crashed over me. It was cold and suffocating, like pine trees on a snow-capped mountain, sharp enough to make my back go rigid.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but his hand at my waist seemed to squeeze deliberately.

“Not talking?”

Pinned against the altar, his voice was low and oppressive. “So you do know what shame is.”

I looked up at him to find anger and disgust in his eyes.

I expected it. He always thought I was useless.

“You’re the one who doesn’t care about me! So what gives you the right to treat me like this?!” I shouted back, defiant.

“What gives you the right to hit me?!”

His grip loosened slightly, but his voice stayed cold. “Dad told me before he died to discipline you well.

“If you keep acting this recklessly, how are you supposed to inherit the Maxwells’ legacy?”

His words had barely fallen when the ruler landed again, cold as a winter wind.

The sting didn’t break me, though. Instead, it ignited the worst kind of rebellion in me.

I shoved Leon back, then yanked open the waistband of my pants.

The fabric slid down, exposing the sharp lines of my waist. My abs caught the candlelight, the V-line tapering into the dark edge of my underwear.

Leon’s breath hitched.

I saw his Adam’s apple bob hard, his pupils contract behind his glasses. His grip on the ruler tightened so much that the veins bulged in his hand.

“Leon.” I lifted my chin deliberately to taunt him. “If I strip down, you can hit me harder. Might even enjoy it more.”

I locked eyes with him. The air around us froze, pressing in from all sides until it felt like I couldn’t breathe.